Page:Karl Gjellerup - The Pilgrim Kamanita - 1911.djvu/263

 feeling; with feeling, came thought; with thought, the speech for its utterance.

And he spoke.

"Vasitthi, dost thou also see it? What is happening to the hundred-thousandfold Brahma?"

After a hundred thousand years, Vasitthi answered—

"What is happening to the hundred-thousandfold Brahma is that his brightness is diminishing."

"It seems so to me also," said Kamanita, after the passage of a like period of time. "True, that can be but a passing phenomenon. And yet I must confess that I am astonished at the possibility of any change whatever in the hundred-thousandfold Brahma."

After a considerable time—after several millions of years—Kamanita spoke again—

"I do not know that I am not perhaps dazzled by the light. Dost thou, Vasitthi, notice that the brightness of the hundred-thousandfold Brahma is again increasing?"

After five hundred thousand years, Vasitthi answered—

"The brightness of the hundred-thousandfold Brahma does not increase, but steadily decreases."

As a piece of iron that, taken white-hot from the smithy fire, very soon after becomes red-hot, so the brightness of the hundred-thousandfold Brahma had now taken on a red shimmer.

"I wonder what that may signify," said Kamanita.

"That signifies, my friend, that the brightness of the hundred-thousandfold Brahma is in process of being extinguished."

"Impossible, Vasitthi, impossible! What would then become of all the brightness and the splendour of this whole Brahma-world?"