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 crosscut 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.
XVI
Ready for Action
Half-swooning, I sat down upon a bench. My brain, however, began to work again at once. Angulimala had been there, of that there could be no doubt; and the reason for his coming was only too clear to me. How many tales had I not heard of his implacability and greed for vengeance! Moreover, I had had the misfortune to slay his best friend, and, from my residence with the robbers, I well knew that friendship among them does not count for less than among highly respectable citizens—indeed, if anything, for much more. At the time when I was his
