Page:Karl Gjellerup - The Pilgrim Kamanita - 1911.djvu/93

 to such an extent be the source of good fortune that the man of worldly mind cannot easily decide whether he most owes his prosperity to his good or to his bad qualities.

I refer particularly to that familiarity with the wenches of the lower classes to which allusion has already been made, and which became of the greatest service to me. My father's house was broken into, and jewels, which had been for the most part entrusted to him for valuation, were stolen, to an amount, too, which it was practically impossible to make good. I was beside myself, for absolute ruin stared us in the face. In vain did I make use of all the knowledge I had gained in the forest. From the fashion in which the subterranean passage was constructed, I could easily tell to what class of thief the deed was to be ascribed. But even this most useful hint proved useless to the police, who, to be sure, do not, in Ujjeni, occupy the high position taken by the institution of the courtesans,—a circumstance not without suggestion of some inner relationship between the two bodies. On one occasion, in a very learned lecture on the love affairs of the various classes, I heard with my own ears the following sentence: "The gallantries of the police officer have to take place during his nightly round of inspection, and with the courtesans of the city. By order." Which, taken in connection with Vajaçravas' remarks upon "the service rendered by the city courtesans in hoodwinking the police," gave me, in those days of anxious waiting, much food for thought.

Now, however, in this strangest of all worlds of ours, things seem to be so arranged that the left hand must make good what the right has done amiss. And that is what happened here. For that flourishing blossom