Page:Karl Gjellerup - The Pilgrim Kamanita - 1911.djvu/167

 The white-robed one shook her head.

"Is it not possible to go there, then?"

"Oh, it is possible," they all answered, "but no one of us has been there. Besides, why should we go? It cannot be more beautiful anywhere than here. Several of the others, to be sure, have been there, but they have never flown thither again."

"Why not?"

His white-robed visitor pointed towards the pond—

"Dost thou see the red figure there, almost at the other bank? He was there once, though it is long, long ago. Shall we ask him whether he has flown again since then to the shores of the Gunga?"

"Never again," at once came the answer from him of the red robe.

"And why not?"'

"Fly thither thyself and bring back the answer."

"Shall we? Together with thee I may venture to do it."

"I should like to go—but not now."

Forth from a neighbouring grove there floated a train of happy figures, wound a chain about the meadow shrubbery, and, while they extended the chain, the figure at the end, a light blue one, seized the hand of the white robe. She stretched out her other hand invitingly to Kamanita.

He thanked her smilingly, but gently shook his head.

"I would prefer to be a spectator still."

"Yes, better rest and awake. For the present, farewell." And gently led away by the light blue, she floated thence in the airy roundelay.

The others also, with a kind and cheerful greeting, moved away, that he might have quiet in which to collect himself.