“And poor old King Death was not clever enough to understand this, and thought that you meant him to take the boy away. It was only stupidity. Forgive him.”
And Shiva said: “It shall be as you ask.”
“Then give the message,” said Goddess Parvati.
And, “Let the old tired leaves fall from the trees,” said Shiva the god, and turned to other business.
But his messengers were so full of gladness that good King Death might return to the Earth once more, riding on his grey-black buffalo—for that was the meaning of Shiva’s message—that they were drunk with joy, and said the words wrongly.
“Let the old leaves, and the middle-aged leaves, and the little baby leaves fall from the trees,” was what they said, when they flew back to the Earth on the wings of the morning.
And that is why to this day, old and young, boys and babies, all alike, ride, when the great god wills, upon the grey-black buffalo, as it makes its slow-moving way to the quiet Kingdom of Death.
But Kamil, the perfect boy, lived in the world that he loved, and was always and always just thirteen years old, and no more.
And, “It was well,” said the man, his father, “that I left the Son-puzzle to you, O Mother of Kamil.”