And the courtier crept silently away under green shades, treading lightly on turf and blossoms, thanking destiny that he was not as Siddhartha but could lift the brimming cup and drain it to the dregs, savouring every sparkle. And in his heart he mocked him, laughing at his weakness—he whose name is now remembered only because one day he spread out his folly before the Perfect One!
But the Prince, bending his great brows upon life and death, sat beneath the jambu tree, feet folded, hands laid upon his knees in perfect immobility. And he thought:
“Hollow compliance and a protesting heart! Is this life? Is there a better? Great are the concerns of life and death. So great, so awful that the poor race of mankind struggles only to forget for a brief moment what it can never comprehend. For all about us are seen injustices that were a King to commit his miserable people would rise and hurl him from his bloody throne. And we are told of the priests that the Gods have committed these crimes and yet are worthy of worship and honour. No—rather is it the propitiation of fiends who will torture us if they have not the servility of our praises while we die for their pleasure. And the good suffer and the evil flourish, and to the rich man is given more riches and to the poor more toil even exceeding their strength. Now indeed all that was hidden from me bursts upon my mind as when a flash of lightning tears the dark, and things I put aside for want of comprehension shriek aloud in my ears. Why am I clothed in jewels, why is my father generous and good, and my wife the fairest and most loving of women, when at this moment were my eyes opened they would behold men dying for bread that the least of my jewels would buy, with none to tend or pity them. And what are my deserts more than theirs? And why are some evil and some good as it were by nature? O cruel Gods who, lapt in far-off pleasures, care nothing for our agonies, and let fall your good things on the wicked and evil things on the good—yourselves perhaps the sport of chance, if indeed you are at all!”
And these thoughts and many like them, black and miserable, stormed about him in the wreckage of the world.
And at long last he aroused himself and the Paradise was empty of all but a broad moonlight that lay in glories of light and shadow on trees and waters and there was deep silence. For the women, ashamed and terrified, had slipt noiselessly away and so back to the city, and far off down a long glade his chariot and wearied horses stood waiting in marble patience, and Channa sat beside them his head bowed upon his raised knees like an embodied grief.
Very slowly the horses paced through the city, and that also was empty of all but moonlight, for not a living soul went or came in the quiet, and the pacing of the horses echoed loudly down the empty ways.
And not a word was spoken as they went, but when they reached the House of the Garden, a woman ran out to meet them veiled like a ghost in the moonlight, and cried aloud.
“O happy Prince, and happiest,—the Gods are good to this glad House and to you, for on the bosom of the Princess lies your first-born son.”
And at these words a strange trembling seized him, so that for a moment he hid his face in his hands. Then pale in the moonlight he said these words:
“A fetter, a fetter is set upon me, therefore call the child Rahula, a Fetter.”