With a gasp of astonishment Kamanita now noticed that a white figure, throned not far from him on her lotus flower, suddenly seemed to grow upward. The mantle, with its piled-up mass of folds and corners, unrolled itself till it flowed down in straight lines from the shoulders to the golden border. And even this now no longer touched the petals of the flower—the figure swept untrammelled away over the pond, up the bank, and disappeared between the trees and shrubbery.
"How glorious that must be," thought Kamanita. "But that is, I imagine, a very difficult accomplishment, although it looks as if it were nothing. I wonder whether I shall ever be able to learn it."
"Thou art able now, if thou dost but desire it," answered his neighbour in blue to whom the last question was addressed.
Instantly Kamanita had the feeling that something was lifting his body upward. He was already floating away across the pond towards the bank, and soon he was in the midst of the greenery. Whithersoever his glance was directed, thither did he wend his flight as soon as the wish was formed, and quickly or slowly as he desired. He now saw other lotus ponds equally splendid with the one he had just left. He wandered on through charming groves where birds in bright colours sprang from branch to branch,
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