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, their melodious song blending with the soft rustling of the tree-tops. He floated over flower-strewn valleys where graceful antelopes disported themselves without fearing him in the least, and finally let himself down on the gentle slope of a hill. Between the trunks of trees and flowering shrubs he saw the corner of a pond where the water sparkled round large lotus blossoms, several of whose flower-thrones bore blissful figures, while several others, even of the perfectly opened ones, were empty.
It was plainly a moment of general enjoyment. As on a warm summer evening the fire-flies circle hither and thither under the trees and round about the shrubbery, in noiseless, luminous movement, so here these blest forms swayed singly and in pairs, in large groups or chains, through the groves and around the rocks. At the same time it was possible to see from their glances and gestures that they were conversing animatedly with one another, and one divined the invisible threads of the discourse which was being carried on between the noiseless passers-by.
In a state of sweet and dreamy shyness, Kamanita enjoyed this charming spectacle till, gradually, there grew up in him a desire to converse with these happy ones.
Immediately he was surrounded by a whole company who greeted him kindly as the newly-arrived, the just-awakened one.
Kamanita wondered much, and inquired how it was that the news of his coming had already been spread abroad all over Sukhavati.
"Oh! when a lotus opens itself, all the other lotus flowers in the ponds of Paradise are moved, and every being is conscious that another has somewhere among us awakened to bliss."
"But how could ye know that just I happened to be the newcomer?"
The figures floating around him smiled charmingly.
"Thou are not yet fully awake. Thou dost look at us as though thou sawest dream-figures and wert afraid that they might suddenly disappear, and that rude reality might again surround thee."
Kamanita shook his head.
"I don't quite understand. What are dream-figures?"
"Ye forget," said one white-robed figure, "that he has assuredly not yet been to the Coral Tree."
"No, I have not yet been there. But I have already heard of it. My neighbour in the pond mentioned it; the tree is said to be such a wondrous one. What is there about it?"
But they all smiled mysteriously, looking at one another, and shaking their heads.
"I would like so much to go there at once. Will no one show me the way?"'
"Thou wilt find the way thyself when the time has come."
Kamanita drew his hand over his forehead.
"There is yet another wonderful thing here of which he spoke.… Yes, the heavenly Gunga … by it our pond is fed. Is that so with yours also?"
The white-robed figure pointed to the clear little river that wound round about the foot of the hill and so, by easy turnings, onward to the pond.
"That is our source of supply. Countless such arteries intersect these fields, and that which thou hast seen is a similar one even if somewhat larger. But the heavenly Gunga itself surrounds the whole of Sukhavati"
"Hast thou seen it also?"
The white-robed one shook her head.
"Is it not possible to go there, then?"
"Oh, it is possible," they all answered, "but no one of us has been there. Besides, why should we go? It cannot be more beautiful anywhere than here. Several of the others, to be sure, have been there, but they have never flown thither again."
"Why not?"
His white-robed visitor pointed towards the pond—
"Dost thou see the red figure there, almost at the other bank? He was there once, though it is long, long ago. Shall we ask him whether he has flown again since then to the shores of the Gunga?"
"Never again," at once came the answer from him of the red robe.
"And why not?"'
"Fly thither thyself and bring back the answer."
"Shall we? Together with thee I may venture to do it."
"I should like to go—but not now."
Forth from a neighbouring grove there floated a train of happy figures, wound a chain about the meadow shrubbery, and, while they extended the chain, the figure at the end, a light blue one, seized the hand of the white robe. She stretched out her other hand invitingly to Kamanita.
He thanked her smilingly, but gently shook his head.
"I would prefer to be a spectator still."
"Yes, better rest and awake. For the present, farewell." And gently led away by the light blue, she floated thence in the airy roundelay.
The others also, with a kind and cheerful greeting, moved away, that he might have quiet in which to collect himself.