"Assuredly we are as old as the world," said Kamanita. "But up to this time we have wandered on, never resting, and death when he has come has always projected us into a new life. Now, however, we have reached a place where there is no more passing away, where eternal joy is our lot."
At the time when he spoke thus, they were just returning from the Coral Tree to their pond. He was about to let himself down on his lotus flower when it suddenly struck him that its red colour seemed to have lost something of its freshness and gloss. Yes, as he now remained floating over it in the air and looked attentively down, he saw with dismay that the petals of the corona had become brown at the edges, as if they were burnt, and that their tips were losing vitality and curling up.
Vasitthi's white lotus did not look any better; she also had remained floating over hers, evidently arrested by the same phenomenon.
He turned his eyes upon his blue neighbour whose lotus showed just the same change, and Kamanita noticed that neither did his face beam as joyously as on that day when he, Kamanita, first greeted him; his features were not so animated as formerly, his bearing not so open. Yes, even in his countenance, Kamanita read the same dismay that had moved himself and Vasitthi.
And it was the same, as a matter of fact, everywhere
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