Page:Karl Gjellerup - The Pilgrim Kamanita - 1911.djvu/280

 which stood in the midst of a little forest meadow—the true original of that "mighty tree far removed from all clamour" of which it is said that human beings may sit under it and think.

That I now did, beginning earnestly upon my sentence. When, towards evening, I returned to the common hall I brought with me, as the result of my day's work, a feeling of dissatisfaction with myself, and a dim foreboding of what this sentence might really come to mean. But when, on the following evening, at the close of my period of contemplation, I returned to my cell, I already knew exactly what the Master had in mind when he gave me the motto.

I had certainly believed I was on the straight path to perfect peace, and that I had left my love with all its passionate emotions far behind me. That incomparable master of the human heart, however, had, beyond question, seen that my love was not by any means overcome—that, on the contrary, overawed by the mighty influence of the new life, it had but withdrawn to the innermost recesses of my heart, there to bide its time. And his desire, in directing my attention to it, was that I should induce it to come forth from its lurking-place and so overcome it. And it certainly did come forth, and with such power that I found myself at once in the midst of severe, indeed of distracting, conflicts of soul, and became aware that mine would be no easy victory.

The astonishing information that my loved one had not been killed, and in all probability yet breathed the air of this earth with me, was, it is true, now more than half a year old. But when, owing to the apparition on the terrace, that knowledge rose so suddenly within me, it was at once, as it seemed, inundated by the stormy waves