Page:Karl Gjellerup - The Pilgrim Kamanita - 1911.djvu/109

 there were numerous disappointments to be reckoned with, and I, at least, was never able to dine abroad as I did at home.

As a result, I had begun to send out my caravans under trusty leaders while I remained behind in Ujjeni.

Well, as I was saying, I was in the midst of giving my caravan leader very minute and well-considered instructions, when from the courtyard we heard the quarrelsome voices of my two wives, both much louder than usual, and with a flow of language which sounded as though it would never end. Irritated by this tiresome interruption, I finally sprang up and, after having vainly looked out at the window, stepped into the courtyard.

There I saw both of my wives standing at the outer gate. But far from finding them wrangling with one another, as I had expected, I came upon them for the first time of one mind; they had discovered and pounced upon a common enemy and on him they now poured out the vials of their united wrath. This luckless beggar was a wandering ascetic, who stood there leaning against one of the pillars of the gate, and quietly letting this stream of abuse flow over him. The actual reason for their attack upon him I have never discovered; I imagine, however, that the mother instinct, which was very highly developed in both, scented in this self-denier, a traitor to the sacred cause of human propagation and a foe to their sex, and that they had just as instinctively fallen upon him as two mongooses upon a cobra.

"Out upon him, the bald-headed priest, the shameless ruffian! Just see how he stands there, with his bent shoulders and hang-dog look, breathing piety and, contemplation—the oily hypocrite, the smooth-faced windbag! It is the kitchen pot that he peers and gazes, sniffs and snuffles