“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 treetops 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 treetops, 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 treetops. 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
