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bearer? You are my darling," and she left that mendicant, while he was asleep, and went off with that merchant. And in the morning the mendicant woke up, and reflected, " There is no love in women, and no courtesy free from fickleness, for, after lulling me into security, the wicked woman has gone off, and robbed me too. However, I ought perhaps to consider myself lucky, that I have not been killed like Ghata." After these reflections, the mendicant returned to his own country.
Story of Devadatta a wife.:— And the princess, travelling on with the merchant, reached his country. And when Dhanadeva arrived there, he said to himself; " Why should I rashly introduce this unchaste woman into my house? So, as it was evening, 'he went into the house of an old woman in that place, with the princess. And at night he asked that old woman, who did not recognize him, "Mother, do you know any tidings about the family of Dhanadeva?" When the old woman heard that, she said, " What tidings is there except that his wife is always ready to take a new lover. For a basket, covered with leather, is let down every night from the window here, and whoever enters it, is drawn up into the house, and is dismissed in the same way at the end of the night. And the woman is always stupefied with drink, so that she is absolutely void of discernment. And this state of hers has become well, known in the whole city. And though her husband has been long away, he has not yet returned."
When Dhanadeva heard this speech of the old woman's, he went out that moment on some pretext, and repaired to his own house, being full of inward grief and uncertainty! And seeing a basket let down by the female servants with ropes, he entered it, and they pulled up him into the house And his wife, who was stupefied with drink, embraced him most affectionately, without knowing who he was. But he was quite cast down at seeing her degradation. And thereupon she fell into a drunken sleep. And at the end of the night, the female servants let him down again quickly from the window, in the basket suspended with ropes. And the merchant reflected in his grief, " Enough of the folly of being a family man, for women in a house are a snare ! It is always this story with them, so a life in the forest is much to be preferred." Having formed this resolve, Dhanadeva abandoned the princess into the bargain, and set out for a distant forest. And on the way he met, and struck up a friendship with, a young Bráhman, named Rudrasoma, who had Lately returned from a long absence abroad. When he told him his story, the Bráhman became anxious about his own wife ; and so he arrived in the company of that merchant at his own village in the evening.
Story of the wife of the Bráhman Rudrasoma.:— And when he arrived there, he saw a cowherd, on the bank of the
