Page:Karl Gjellerup - The Pilgrim Kamanita - 1911.djvu/149

 and does not return, And why not? Because the cause of the evil has been removed."

Now when the Master, after ending his parable, ceased speaking, Kamanita sat, reduced to silence and sorely disturbed, his body bent, his head sunk on his breast, his countenance suffused with colour, without a word, while the anguished sweat dropped from his forehead and trickled down from his armpits. For did he not feel himself compared by this venerable teacher to a foolish child and made equal with one? And as he was unable in spite of his utmost efforts to find an answer, he was near to weeping.

Finally, when able to command his voice, he asked in a subdued tone: "Hast thou, Reverend Sir, all this from the mouth of the Master, of the perfect Buddha himself?"

It happens seldom that the perfect smile. But at this question a smile did play around the Master's lips.

"No, brother, I cannot say I have.""

When the pilgrim Kamanita heard this answer, he joyfully raised his bent body and, with glistening eye and reanimated voice, burst forth—

"Wasn't I sure of it! Oh, I knew for certain that this couldn't be the very doctrine of the Master himself, but rather thine own tortuous interpretation of it—an interpretation based altogether on misunderstanding. Is it not said that the doctrine of the Buddha is bliss in the beginning, bliss in the middle, and bliss in the end? But how could one say that of a doctrine which does not promise eternal and blessed life, full of supremest joy? However, in a few weeks I shall sit at the feet of the Master and receive the doctrine of salvation from his own lips, as a child draws sweet nourishment from its mother's breast. And thou also wilt be there, and, truly taught, wilt alter thy mistaken and destructive conception. But, look, those strips of moonlight