Page:Karl Gjellerup - The Pilgrim Kamanita - 1911.djvu/99

 seasoned food, sleeping on the floor, and keeping the hearth-fire alight, I had, according to the ordinance, to preserve the strictest chastity, was, of all others, the least irksome to me.

An unloved wife, O brother, does not make home dear, nor its four walls attractive, so I betook myself on journeys almost more willingly than before, and in the intervals concerned myself solely with business matters. And as I—to give the truth its due—did not in thesethis [sic] deal too scrupulously, but without much hesitation took what was to my own advantage on every occasion, my riches increased to such an extent that, after a few years, I found myself near to the goal of my ambition, and was one of the richest citizens of my native town.

With that happy state of things came the desire, as master of a house and father of a family—my wife had in the meantime borne me two daughters—to taste the sweets of my riches very fully, and in especial to make a display of them before my fellow-citizens. To that end I purchased a large tract of land in the suburbs, and laid out a magnificent pleasure-garden, in the midst of which I built a spacious mansion, with halls whose ceilings were borne aloft on marble pillars. This property was reckoned among the marvels of Ujjeni, and even the king came, to see it.

Within these fair domains I now gave fabulous garden festivals and the most luxurious of banquets. I had begun to devote myself more and more to the pleasures of the table. The most luscious viands which were by any Possibility, each in his season, to be had for money, had to appear on my table even at ordinary meals. At that time I was not, as thou dost now see me, lean and wasted by lone