“Prince, so it is. He who begins his life must end it. And thus. For death may at any moment seize us and carry us away into darkness.” Then Siddhartha sank down in the chariot, his soul warring with his body, catching at the leaning-board for support, hiding his face from the light of day as the dead man was borne on before him and wailing and lamentation filled the air. And into his clenched hands he murmured: “O terrible delusion of mortal men, who born in pain and utterly deluded are brought through grief and sickness and old age to this frightful end! Disperse the people. Turn back my chariot. The whole world is a lie. I have seen what I have seen.” So the people melted silently away in tears, as clouds disperse in rain. For seeing the Prince’s horror and amazement in learning the truth, for the first time they also sounded the deeps of their own misery, and life appeared to them a traitor, and in all the universe was no comfort. But Channa the charioteer, not daring to return because of the Maharaja’s strict command, drove onward to the Paradise, and the Prince crouching in the silks and gold with face hidden neither knew nor cared. So at last they came in among the green lawns and pleasant waters and deep-leaved trees, the last hope of the Maharaja, and slowly and painfully he dismounted. Suddenly about the chariot, running and fluttering like doves came the lovely ones provided for pleasure, beautiful as flowers in a Paradise of Gods, adorned with chains of pearls and other jewels. Beautiful were they, each one chosen as merchants choose a pearl to complete a queen’s necklace, for their eyes were long and languishing, half hidden in black lashes as stars in midnight, and their mouths pomegranate buds disclosing seeds of ivory, and down to the ankle rolled their lengths of perfumed hair. Most beautiful is the bosom of a woman, for in its gentle curves are all love, all tenderness expressed, and these displayed its loveliness—dear as rare jasmin flowers, precious as sweet food to the hungry, unveiled or veiled a little in transparency like the running of shallow water. And thus they surrounded him as he passed through the blossomed trees rapt in sorrowful meditation, pale with the terror of gazing for the first time on the face of Death. So they fluttered about him, the lovely ones, skilled in all subtleties of love, shedding enticements as the moon distils dews of camphor. One, seeing him sad, saddened her sweet face and looked at him with tears hanging on long lashes, as though she would say—“Dear Prince, I too have tasted grief. Do I not know?” And one, smiles chasing one another to cover in her merry eyes, promised forgetfulness, gladness in her arms, and some clinging together like sister roses on twined stems, seemed to defy severance even if love should call them, tempting him who watched them to essay that sweet sorrow.