The well metalled road
to Benares was a mass of slush. But one traveller was to be seen, his
dress was that of a _Brahmachari_ (an ascetic): yellow garments, a
bead chaplet on his neck, the mark on the forehead, the bald crown
surrounded by only a few white hairs, a palm leaf umbrella in one
hand, in the other a brass drinking-vessel. Thus the _Brahmachari_
travelled in the soaking rain through the dark day, followed by a
night as black as though the earth were full of ink. He could not
distinguish between road and no road; nevertheless he continued his
way, for he had renounced the world, he was a _Brahmachari_. To those
who have given up worldly pleasures, light and darkness, a good and a
bad road, are all one. It was now far on in the night; now and then it
lightened; the darkness itself was preferable, was less frightful than
those flashes of light.
"Friend!"
Plodding along in the darkness the _Brahmachari_ heard suddenly in the
pathway some such sound, followed by a long sigh. The sound was
muffled, nevertheless it seemed to come from a human throat, from some
one in pain. The _Brahmachari_ stood waiting, the lightning flashed
brightly; he saw something lying at the side of the road--was it a
human being? Still he waited; the next flash convinced him that his
conjecture was correct.
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