XIV

“Because we loved thee. It is only the fever of the blow. I myself am still sick and shaken.”

“No! It was because I was upon the Way⁠—tuned as are si-nen to the purpose of the Law. I departed from that ordinance. The tune was broken: followed the punishment. In my own Hills, on the edge of my own country, in the very place of my evil desire, comes the buffet⁠—here!” (He touched his brow.) “As a novice is beaten when he misplaces the cups, so am I beaten, who was Abbot of Such-zen. No word, look you, but a blow, chela .”

“But the Sahibs did not know thee, Holy One?”

“We were well matched. Ignorance and Lust met Ignorance and Lust upon the road, and they begat Anger. The blow was a sign to me, who am no better than a strayed yak, that my place is not here. Who can read the Cause of an act is halfway to Freedom! ‘Back to the path,’ says the Blow. ‘The Hills are not for thee. Thou canst not choose Freedom and go in bondage to the delight of life.’ ”

“Would we had never met that cursed Russian!”

“Our Lord Himself cannot make the Wheel swing backward. And for my merit that I had acquired I gain yet another sign.” He put his hand in his bosom, and drew forth the Wheel of Life. “Look! I considered this after I had meditated. There remains untorn by the idolater no more than the breadth of my fingernail.”

“I see.”