Page:Karl Gjellerup - The Pilgrim Kamanita - 1911.djvu/275



I now become a sister of the Order, and betook myself early in the morning of each day with my alms-bowl to Kosambi, where I went from house to house till the bowl was full—although Satagira would only too willingly have spared me this round of begging.

One day I took my stand at the door of his palace, because the oldest nuns had advised me to subject myself to this trial also. At that moment Satagira appeared just in the gateway, avoided me, however, with a startled glance, and sorrowfully covered his face. Immediately thereafter the house-steward came out weeping to me, and begged that he might be allowed to send me everything I needed daily. But I answered him that it behoved me to obey the rule of the Order.

When I had returned from this errand and had eaten what had been given to me, with which, then, the wretched question of food was settled for the whole day, I was instructed by one of the older nuns, and in the evening I listened, in the assembly, to the words of the Master, or perhaps to those of one of the great disciples, like Sariputta or Ananda. After this was over, however, it often happened that one sister sought the company of another. "Delightful, sister, is the Sinsapa wood; glorious the clear moonlit night; the trees are in full blossom; divine odours, one seems to feel, are being wafted hither and 265