Meanwhile, evening was almost upon us and the wagon for my wives drove up. They came out, bringing the children with them, and were by this time quieted down to some extent. But a fresh howl arose at once when they perceived that I was not going with them—that, on the contrary, I had not the slightest intention of leaving the house. They threw themselves on their knees, seized my robe, and besought me, as the tears streamed down, to rescue myself with them: “Our lord, our protector, don’t forsake us, don’t cast thyself into the jaws of death!” I explained to them that, if I abandoned my post, our house would become a prey to flames and plundering hands, and my son would lose the chief part of his inheritance, while, on the other hand, there was still a possibility of rescuing it, if we held out bravely, as no one could say whether or not Angulimala would attack in great force.
“Ah, woe! woe!” they cried; “our lord and protector leaves us! And the horrible Angulimala will make away with him, and will wear our lord’s thumbs on his necklace! He will torture our husband to death in his fearful fury, and ours will be the fault. Because of our abusive speeches our lord must suffer, and evil, on that account, will it be with us in hell.”
I sought to comfort them as well as might be, and when they saw that I was not to be moved from my resolution they were obliged to make the best of it and get into the wagon. Scarcely, however, had they taken their places, when they began to hurl accusations at one another.
“It was thou who didst begin!”
“No! thou!—thou didst call my attention to him as he stood there beside the gatepost. Yes, that thou didst!—just there thou didst point thy finger at him.”
“And thou—thou didst spit at him—red spittle—I had up till that time chewed no betel—I never do that in the morning—”
“But thou didst call him a tramp, a lazy beggar—”
“And thou a bald-pated monk …”
And so it went on; but the creaking of the wheels, as the oxen now began to pull, drowned their voices.
XVII
To Homelessness
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
