The other Brahmans were enraged with Chellaya and Chittampalam and, after abusing them and calling them pariahs, they cast them out for ever from the Brahman caste and refused to eat or drink with them or to talk to them; and they took an oath that their children's children should never marry with the grandsons and granddaughters of Chellaya and Chittampalam. But if people of other castes talked to them of the matter, they denied all knowledge of it and swore that no Brahman had ever caught fish or carried earth on his head. Chittampalam was not much concerned at the anger of the Brahmans, for he had saved the hire of a well-digger and he had never taken pleasure in the conversation of other Brahmans and, besides, he shortly after died. Chellaya, being a small fat man and of a more pleasant and therefore more sensitive nature, felt his sin and the disapproval of his friends deeply. For some days he gave up his fishing, but they were weary days to him and he gained nothing, for the Brahmans still refused to talk to him. All day long in the temple and in his compound he sat and thought of his evenings when he waded in the blue waters of the lagoon, and of the little islands resting like plumes of smoke or feathers upon the sky, and of the line of pink flamingoes like thin posts at regular intervals set to mark a channel, and of the silver gleam of darting fish. In the evening, when he knew the fishermen were taking out their nets, his longing became intolerable: he dared not go down to the lagoon for he knew that his desire would master him. So for five nights he sat in his compound, and, as the saying is, his fat went off in desire. On the sixth night he could stand it no longer; once more he polluted his caste by catching fish. After this Chellaya no longer tried to struggle against himself but continued to fish until at the age of fifty he died. Then, as time went on, the people who had known Chellaya and Chittampalam died too, and the story of how each had polluted his caste began to be forgotten. Only it was known in Yalpanam that no Brahman could marry into those two families, because there was something wrong with their caste. Some said that Chellaya had carried earth on his head and that Chittampalam had caught fish; in any case the descendants of Chellaya and Chittampalam had to go to distant villages to find Brahman wives and husbands for their sons and daughters. Chellaya's hut and Chittampalam's hut still stand where they stood under the cocoanut trees by the side of the lagoon, and in one lives Chellaya, the great-great-great-grandson of Chellaya who caught fish, and in the other Chittampalam, the great-great-great-grandson of Chittampalam who carried earth on his head. Chittampalam has a very beautiful daughter and Chellaya has one son unmarried. Now this son saw Chittampalam's daughter by accident through the fence of the compound, and he went to his father and said: