Such was the state of affairs in my home, when, one forenoon, I sat in a large room which lay on the shady side of the house, and was set apart for the transaction of all business matters. For that reason it overlooked the courtyard, an arrangement which enabled me to keep under my own eye everything relating to the administration of my affairs. Before me stood a trusted servant, who had during a number of years accompanied me on all my journeys, and to whom I was giving exact instructions with regard to the taking of a caravan to a somewhat distant spot, as well, of course, as to the best mode of disposing of his wares when he got there, the produce he had to bring back with him, the business connections he was to form, and other similar matters; for it was my intention to give him full charge of the expedition.
To be sure, my house was less home-like than ever, and one might suppose that I myself would have been glad to embrace every opportunity of roaming about in distant lands. But I was beginning to be somewhat self-indulgent and dainty, and shunned very distant journeys, not only because of the fatigues to be faced on the way, but, above all, on account of the sparing diet to be put up with, at all events when actually on the road. Yet even supposing the journey's end reached, with the possibility of making up for lost time and of having the best of everything, there were numerous disappointments to be reckoned with, and I, at least, was never able to dine abroad as I did at home.
As a result, I had begun to send out my caravans under trusty leaders while I remained behind in Ujjeni.
Well, as I was saying, I was in the midst of giving my caravan leader very minute and well-considered instructions, when from the courtyard we heard the quarrelsome voices of my two wives, both much louder than usual, and with a flow of language which sounded as though it would never end. Irritated by this tiresome interruption, I finally sprang up and, after having vainly looked out at the window, stepped into the courtyard.
There I saw both of my wives standing at the outer gate. But far from finding them wrangling with one another, as I had expected, I came upon them for the first time of one mind; they had discovered and pounced upon a common enemy and on him they now poured out the vials of their united wrath. This luckless beggar was a wandering ascetic, who stood there leaning against one of the pillars of the gate, and quietly letting this stream of abuse flow over him. The actual reason for their attack upon him I have never discovered; I imagine, however, that the mother instinct, which was very highly developed in both, scented in this self-denier, a traitor to the sacred cause of human propagation and a foe to their sex, and that they had just as instinctively fallen upon him as two mongooses upon a cobra.
"Out upon him, the bald-headed priest, the shameless ruffian! Just see how he stands there, with his bent shoulders and hang-dog look, breathing piety and, contemplation—the oily hypocrite, the smooth-faced windbag! It is the kitchen pot that he peers and gazes, sniffs and snuffles at—just like any old ass who, unyoked from his cart, runs to the rubbish-heap in the courtyard and peers and gazes and sniffs and snuffles.… Out upon him, the lazy, brazen-faced thief, the shameless beggar, the bald-pated monk!"
The object of these and similar expressions of maternal contempt, a pilgrim belonging to some ascetic school and a man of strikingly lofty stature, still stood leaning against the gate-post in an attitude of easy repose. His mantle, of the yellow colour of the kanikara flower, and not unlike thine own, fell in picturesque folds over his left shoulder to his feet, and gave the impression of covering a powerfully built body. The right arm, which hung limply down, was uncovered, and I could not help admiring the huge coil of muscles, which rather seemed to be the well-earned possession of a warrior than the idle inheritance of an ascetic; and even the clay alms-bowl appeared, in his nervous hand, to be as strange and incongruous as an iron bludgeon in that same hand would have seemed to be in its proper place. His head was bent, his gaze fixed on the ground, his mouth absolutely without expression, and he stood motionless there, as though some masterly artist had hewn the statue of a wandering ascetic in stone, had painted and clothed it, and as though I had thereupon caused it to be set up at my gate—it might be, as a symbol of my liberality.
This tranquillity of his, which I held to be meekness, but which my two wives regarded as contempt, naturally goaded the latter to ever greater efforts; and so they would probably have passed to actual violence, had I not come between, rebuked them for their evil tempers, and driven them into the house. Then I went up to the ascetic, bowed respectfully before him, and said—
"I trust, O most Reverend One, that thou wilt not take to heart what these two women, whose understanding is hardly of two fingers' breadth, may have said: I know it has been both uncalled for and unfitting. I trust that thou wilt not, on that account, strike this house with thine ascetic anger. I will, most Reverend Pilgrim, myself fill thine alms-bowl with the best the house has to offer—how fortunate that the bowl is yet empty! I will fill it so that it cannot contain another morsel and no neighbour shall, this day, earn merit by feeding thee. Thou art indeed not come to the wrong door, O most Reverend One; and I believe the food will be to thy taste, for it is even a proverbial saying in Ujjeni: "His table is like the merchant Kamanita's"; and I am he. I trust, therefore, O Reverend One, that thou wilt not be angry at what has taken place, and wilt not curse my house."
Whereupon the ascetic answered, and with no appearance of unfriendliness—
"How could I, in my position, be angry, O head of thy house, at such abuse, seeing that it is my duty to be even grateful for far coarser treatment? For, once, in the past, I betook myself, girt betimes, and supplied with mantle and alms-bowl, into a town to collect food from the charitable. But in that town, Mara, the Evil One, had just then stirred up the Brahmans and the householders against the Order of the Holy One. 'Away with your virtuous, noble-minded ascetics! Abuse them, insult, drive them away, pursue them.' And so it happened, O head of thy house, as I passed along the street, that, one moment, a stone flew at my head; the next, a broken dish struck me in the face, and a stick which followed half crushed my arm. But when, with head all cut, and covered with blood, with broken bowl and rent mantle, I returned to the Master, his words were: 'Have patience, ascetic, have patience! For the deed whose atonement would have cost thee many years of the torments of hell—that deed will be atoned for in thy lifetime.'"
At the first sound of his voice, there quivered through me from head to foot a flash of horror, and, with every additional word, an icy coldness penetrated deeper into the very recesses of my being. For that was, O brother, the voice of Angulimala, the robber—how could I doubt it? And when my convulsive glance fixed itself on his face, I recognised that also, although his beard formerly went almost up to his eyes and his hair grew down deep into his forehead, whereas he now stood bald and shaven before me. But too well did I recognise again the eyes under those bushy, coalescing eyebrows, although instead of, as in those days, darting only flashes of rage at me, they now, with deep dissimulation, looked kindness itself; and the sinewy fingers which encircled the alms-bowl—they were assuredly the same that had once clutched my throat like devilish talons.
"How should I indeed, O head of thy house," my gruesome guest went on, "how should I indeed grow angry at abuse? Has not the Master said, 'Even if, O ye disciples, your limbs and members should be cut off, by robbers and murderers, with a cross-cut saw, ye would not fulfil my commands, if ye should thereupon give place to rage.'"
When I, O brother, heard these words, with their diabolically concealed, yet to me so evident, threat, my legs shook under me, and to such a degree that I had to hold on to the wall in order not to fall down.
With the greatest difficulty I managed to pull myself together so far as to indicate to the robber-ascetic, more by gesture than by my few stammered words, that he was to have patience until I should procure him the food.
Then I hurried, as rapidly as my shaking legs would carry me, straight over the courtyard into the large kitchen, where just at that moment the midday meal for the whole household as well as for my own family was being prepared, and where from every pot and pan there came the sounds of roasting and boiling. Here I chose, with no less haste than care, the best and most savoury morsels. Armed with a golden ladle, and followed by a whole troop of servants bearing dishes, I dashed again into the courtyard, in order to wait upon, and, if possible, conciliate my fearful guest.
But Angulimala had disappeared.