Page:Karl Gjellerup - The Pilgrim Kamanita - 1911.djvu/133

 himself? And if the highest Brahma is pure and perfect happiness, how does it happen that the world he has created is imperfect and is afflicted with suffering?'

"And when I gave myself up to such thoughts, I reached no satisfactory solution. On the contrary, new doubts constantly arose, and I did not seem to have neared, by so much as a single step, the goal for whose sake noble-minded sons abandon home for ever and voluntarily become homeless."

"Yes, pilgrim, it is as if one were to pursue the horizon: 'O that I might but reach to-day or to-morrow the line that bounds my vision?' In the same way does the goal escape him who gives himself to such questions."

Kamanita nodded thoughtfully, and then went on—

"Then it one day happened, when the shadows of the trees had already begun to lengthen, that I came upon a hermitage in a forest glade, and there I saw young men in white robes, several of whom milked cows, while others split wood and yet others washed pails at the spring. On a mat in front of the hall sat an aged Brahman, from whom these young people evidently learned the songs and sentences. He greeted me with friendliness, and although it would take, as he said, scarcely an hour to reach the next village, he begged me to share their meal and to spend the night with them. I did so gratefully enough, and before I had laid myself down to sleep I had heard many a good and impressive utterance.

"On the following day, when I was about to go on my way, the Brahman addressed me with: 'Who is thy Master, O pilgrim, and in whose name hast thou gone forth?' And I answered, as I have answered thee.

"Upon which the Brahman said: 'How wilt thou, O pilgrim, reach that high goal, if thou dost wander alone