What a hitherto unknown stillness enveloped me now, O brother, as, after stationing my people, each man at his post, I again entered the house! That I didn't hear the voices of my wives—it wasn't that alone, but that I had heard their voices going out at the gate, away into the distance—that there was no possibility of suddenly hearing out of any corner these scolding voices grow gradually shriller till they finally united or rather became disunited in one discordant brawl-duct—it was that which lent to my house an air of unspeakably salutary quiet, which I could hardly as yet bring myself to believe in.
As I stood there, my palace, surrounded by its beautifully laid-out parks, seemed to me more splendid than ever before, and I trembled at the thought that all this magnificence was to be utterly destroyed within a few hours by the infamous hands of robbers. Fear for my own life troubled me, far less, than the cruel conviction that these well-cared-for avenues of trees would be laid waste, these artistically hewn marble pillars hurled down, and that all this, the building up of which had cost me so much thought and such tedious effort, whose completion had filled me with so much joy, would be a heap of ruins when the sun rose again. For only too well did I know the traces left by Angulimala.
There was, however, no more for me now to do but wait, and it yet wanted several hours of midnight.
I had for years been living in a ceaseless round of business and pleasure—never a moment had I had in which to come to myself; and as I sat there with nothing to do, alone in a room opening into the pillared hall on the one side and into the garden on the other, in the midst of all the deathlike stillness of the palace, I lived through the first hours, in a sense, since my earliest youth, which entirely belonged to me. My suddenly unfettered thoughts began to focus themselves for the first time on myself. My whole life passed in review before me; and looking upon it as a stranger might have done, I could find no pleasure whatever in the sight.
These reflections I interrupted a couple of times to make a round through house, courtyard, and garden, and so to assure myself that my men were on the watch. As I stepped out for the third or fourth time from between the pillars, my eye, trained on many a caravan journey, at once told me from the position of the stars and constellations that it lacked but half an hour of midnight. I hastily went the rounds again, and exhorted my people to be keenly on the alert. I myself felt the blood hammering in every vein, and my throat seemed to contract from the anxiety and strain. Going back to my room, I sat down as before. But no thoughts would come; I felt a heavy pressure on my breast, and soon it seemed to me as though I should suffocate.
I sprang up and went out between the pillars to inhale the cool night air. As I did so, my cheek was softly fanned by what seemed to be a passing wave of air, and immediately thereafter the hoot of an owl sounded in the stillness. At the same moment a strong odour of the blossoms of the night lotus was wafted towards me from the garden ponds. I had raised my eyes in order again to calculate the hour from the stars, when lo! I beheld athwart the deep blue expanse of the heavens, between the black tree-tops, the softly glowing radiance of the Milky Way.
"The heavenly Gunga," I murmured involuntarily, and in a moment it was as if the pressure on my breast were loosening, were rising in a warm wave within me, to pour out presently in a stream of hot tears from my eyes. It is true I had, a few hours earlier, when my whole life passed in review before me, thought of Vasitthi and the brief season of my love—but then only as of something distant and strange that seemed to be no more than a foolish dream. Now, however, I no longer thought of it all—I lived it again; I was all at once the self of the past and the self of the present, and with genuine horror did I become aware of all the difference. At that time I possessed nothing except myself and my love; and these—were they not inseparable? Now—oh what did I not possess now! Wives and children, elephants, horses, cattle, draught oxen, servants and slaves, richly filled warehouses, gold and jewels, a pleasure park and a palace the possession of which my fellow-citizens envied me—but I—where was I? As in some blighted fruit, the kernel was dried up—had disappeared—and everything had turned to empty shell!…
Like one awaking, I looked around me.
The extensive and beautifully timbered park lifting its dark tree-tops against the night sky, sown with myriads of stars and threaded by the Milky Way, and the proud hall where the alabaster lamps glowed between the pillars—these suddenly appeared to me in quite a new light. Hostile and threatening, they surrounded me like magnificently glistening vampires which had already drained almost the whole of my heart's blood and were now gaping greedily for the enjoyment of the last drops, after which there would remain but the withered corpse of an abortive human life.
A distant and undefinable noise—murmurs or footsteps as it seemed to me—caused me to start up. Unsheathing my sword, I sprang down a couple of steps and then stood still to listen. The robbers!—but no! Everything was silent, everything remained silent. Far and wide, nothing moved. It was only one of those unfathomable sounds which belong to the stillness of night, one of those which so often by the watch-fires of the caravans had caused me to spring to my feet. Without, there was nothing! But what was that within me? That was no longer terror which made the blood beat in my temples; nor yet was it the courage of despair; no, it was exultant jubilation.
"Welcome, ye robbers! Come hither, Angulimala! Lay waste, reduce to ashes. These are my deadliest enemies whom ye destroy—that which would crush me, ye take away! Here, here to me. Imbrue your swords in my blood. It is my bitterest enemy ye pierce, this body devoted to sensuality, given over to gluttony! It is my saddest possession, this life which ye deprive me of. Welcome robbers! good friends! old comrades!"
It could not be long now; midnight was past, and with what joy did I look forward to the combat! Angulimala would seek me; I wished to see whether he would be able this time also to strike my sword out of my hand. Oh! how sweet that would be, to die, after I had pierced him to the heart—him, to whom alone all my misfortune was due.
"It cannot be long now,"—how often may I have repeated that comfort to myself, as hour passed hour, that night!
Now—at last! No, it was a rustling of the tree-tops, and died away in the distance, to rise again as before. It sounded as though a great shaggy animal had shaken itself. Again and again it was repeated, and once there sounded the shrill cry of some bird.
Were not these signs of approaching day?
Fear made me cold. Was it possible that I was to be disappointed? Yes, I trembled now at the thought that, after all, the robbers might not come. How close, within my reach, the end had appeared to be—a short, exciting fight, and then death, scarcely felt. Nothing seemed to me so hopeless now as the wretched prospect of being found here in the morning, in the old surroundings, my old self again, and again bound to the old life. Was that really to happen? Were they not coming, my deliverers? It must assuredly be high time—but I didn't even dare to look. Yet how was that possible? Was I, after all, the victim of some illusion when I recognised Angulimala in that ascetic? Again and again did I ask myself the question, but that I could not believe. And yet if it were he, he would be sure to come—without a purpose, he would certainly not have appeared at my house in his very clever disguise, only to disappear at once again as though the earth had swallowed him. For I had caused inquiries to be made, and knew that he had begged for alms nowhere else.
The drowsy crowing of a young cock in the courtyard near woke me out of my brooding. The constellation that I sought I was scarcely able now to find, several of its stars having already sunk beneath the tree-tops. All the other groups, with the exception of those that stood highest in the heavens, had lost their clear twinkling. There was no longer room for doubt; the grey dawn was already heralding its coming, and an attack on the part of Angulimala was absolutely out of the question.
But of all the strange things I had this night experienced, the strangest came now.
The recognition of my immunity was not accompanied by any feeling of disappointment, still less, however, of any relief because of the disappearance of all danger. But a new thought had suddenly arisen and possessed me utterly—
"For what do I then really need those robbers?"
I had longed for their torches and pitch garlands to come and free me from the burden of this magnificent property. There are men, however, who, of their own free will, divest themselves of their possessions and lay hold of the pilgrim's staff. As a bird, whithersoever he flies, flies furnished with his wings only, and is with these content, so also is it with the pilgrim who is content with the robe that covers his body, with the bread of charity which prolongs his life. And I have heard them say in praise of that life: "A prison, a slut's corner is domestic life; the free air of heaven is the portion of the pilgrim."
I called upon the swords of the robbers to kill this body. But if this body crumbles into dust, a new one is formed; and out from the old life goes forth a new one as its fruit. What type of life would go forth from mine? It is true, Vasitthi and I solemnly swore by yonder heavenly Gunga whose silver waves feed the lotus ponds of the Western Paradise that we would meet in those Fields of the Blest—and with that vow there was formed, as she said, for each of us there in the crystal waters of the sacred sea, a life bud—a bud that would grow by every pure thought, every good deed, but at which everything evil and unworthy in our lives would gnaw like a worm. Ah! long since must mine have been gnawed away. I have looked back over my life; it has grown unworthy. Unworthiness would go forth from it. What should I have gained by such an exchange?
But there are, as we know, men who, ere they leave this life, destroy every possibility of re-birth on earth, and who win the steadfast certainty of eternal bliss. And these are the very men who, forsaking everything, adopt the pilgrim's life.
What, then, can the burning torches of the robbers, what their swords, do for me?
And I, who had at first trembled anxiously because of the robbers and had afterwards longed impatiently for them as my one hope—I now neither feared them nor hoped for anything from them. Freed alike from fear and hope, I felt a great calm. In this peace I assuredly experienced a foretaste of the joy which is theirs who have reached the pilgrim's goal; for, as I stood over against the robbers, so those pilgrims surely stand over against all the powers of this world; neither do they fear such, nor do they hope for anything from them, but abide in peace.
And I, who, twenty-four hours earlier, feared to start out on a short journey on account of the hardships and the meagre fare of the caravan life—I now decided without fear or vacillation to journey shelterless and on foot to the end of my days, content to "take things as they come."
Without once going back into the house, I went straight away to a shed lying between the garden and courtyard, where all kinds of tools were kept. There I took an ox-goad and cut off the tip of it in order to use it as a staff; and a gourd-bottle, such as the gardeners and field-workers carry, I hung over my shoulder.
At the well in the courtyard I filled the gourd.
Upon which, the house-steward approached me.
"Angulimala and his robbers will not come now, O Master! will they?"
"No, Kolita, they will not come now."
"But how, O Master—dost thou go abroad already?"
"Even so, Kolita, I go abroad, and of that very matter I desired to speak with thee. For I go the way now, that men call the way of the noblest birds of passage. From this way, however, Kolita, there is, for one who perseveres in it, no return—no return to this world after death, how much less to this house during life. But the house I give into thy care, for thou hast been faithful unto death. Administer house and fortune until my son attains to manhood. Give my love to my father and my wives, and—farewell!"
After I had thus spoken and freed my hand from the good Kolita, who covered it with kisses and tears, I walked towards the gate, and at sight of the gate-post, against which the figure of the ascetic had leaned, I thought: "If its likeness to Angulimala was but a vision, then have I read the vision aright!"
Quickly, and without looking back, I went through the suburb with its gardens; and before me there lay, stretched out in the first grey shimmer of the dawn, as if it went on and ever on to all eternity, the desolate far-reaching country road.
Thus, O Reverend One, did I adopt the life of the homeless.