and these stretched the great desert, where the snow rolled like billows, and until that snow melted we dared not attempt its passage. So we sat in the monastery, and schooled our hearts to patience.
Still even to these frozen wilds of Central Asia spring comes at last. One evening the air felt warm, and that night there were only a few degrees of frost. The next the clouds banked up, and in the morning not snow was falling from them, but rain, and we found the old monks preparing their instruments of husbandry, as they said that the season of sowing was at hand. For three days it rained, while the snows melted before our eyes. On the fourth torrents of water were rushing down the mountain and the desert was once more brown and bare, though not for long, for within another week it was carpeted with flowers. Then we knew that the time had come to start.
But whither go you? Whither go you?
asked the old abbot in dismay. Are you not happy here? Do you not make great strides along the Path, as may be known by your pious conversation? Is not everything that we have your own? Oh! why would you leave us?
We are wanderers,
we answered, and when we see mountains in front of us we must cross them.
Kou-en looked at us shrewdly, then asked—
What do you seek beyond the mountains? And, my brethren, what merit is gathered by hiding the truth from an old man, for such concealments are separated from falsehoods but by the length of a single barleycorn. Tell me, that at least my prayers may accompany you.
Holy abbot,
I said, awhile ago yonder in the library you made a certain confession to us.
Oh! remind me not of it,
he said, holding up his hands. Why do you wish to torment me?
Far be the thought from us, most kind friend and virtuous man,
I answered. But, as it chances, your story is very much our own, and we think that we have experience of this same priestess.
