For long periods his brain went numb with the pressure of thought refused. Gradually his behavior took on an aspect of guilt; and he slunk among his fellows like one who had committed far worse than a Dukata offence. He fell off, wofully, in his work, in his comprehension of the Dharma. He went through his meditations dull-eyed, palpably unthinking; and the masters of the novices began to comment on his behavior. Finally, he got into the habit of torturing himself, daily, after the last meditation was over, by waiting till every one had left the hall, and then getting out the manuscript of the Mahavagga and reading his death-sentence over again, to make sure of every keenest pang that lay in it, every drop of poison hidden in its innocent characters. And after he had seen it, and found that it was real, that he had not been under the influence of some baleful misapprehension, he would steal silently to his cell, and wear the night away in woman’s tears or fierce rages of rebellion that left him, at dawn, a bundle of trembling nerves. The load that he carried became nearly unendurable. It was lightened by only one thing: when, occasionally dragging his mind from himself, he looked around him at his high superiors, the doubly ordained. These, in their dignity, their approachment to Arahatship, gave cause for highest wonder at and admiration of their freedom from all worldly concern. He envied, indeed, the lowest of the novices. But it seemed to him that, if he could only receive the Upasampada ordination, he might, in some way, cheat both himself and his god into believing in his fitness for the honors of the holy life. Poor Oman! It had been infinitely easier for him had he known to how little serenity those envied men had actually attained! In the strangeness and isolation of his lot, it was not given him to understand that there is never a creature that must not bear its burden and suffer under it, believing it a little heavier, a little less adaptable, than that of any one else.