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Andre replied that he meant that she was religious, and had vowed a sort of feudal service to God and His bonzes. "But how does that affect you?" "I don't want to share my wife with any one." "What! You are jealous even of your wife's ideas? Why, you're more selfish even than the Commandant!" "It's all very well for you to talk: would you take a woman who did not love music?" "I have done so."
Then the priests got out the iron soup-pot, five feet in diameter, and kindling a fire made a huge mess of soup and served it to Benkei. The lusty monk sipped bowl after bowl of the steaming nourishment until the pot was empty. "Now," said he, "you may sound the bell." Five or six of the young bonzes mounted the platform and seized the rope that held the heavy log suspended from the roof.
Years ago, before the Burmese had overrun Siam, and while Ayuthia was its capital, so famous for its pagodas and palaces, Yu Chan became head of the bonzes or priests of the royal monastery.
The bonzes instilled doctrine, not only by sermons, books and the emblems and furniture of the temples, but they also taught dogma and ethics by the flower-ponds and plots, by the artificial landscape, and by outdoor symbolism of all kinds.
At the sounding of the first watch, all the cells were locked. The members of the various families took up their positions before the doors. The bonzes shut themselves into their own apartments. When Mei-chieh found herself alone, she put her little box of vermilion near the pillow, turned up the lamp, undressed herself, and lay upon the bed.
But it must be borne in mind that the people of that district had a greater faith in sorcerers than in doctors, and could not distinguish the true from the false. Consequently they continued to send their wives to the temple. As a matter of course these bonzes, whose outward behavior was so laudable and correct, were wholly and unreservedly gluttons within, both for luxury and debauch.
Then, concealing his true design, the Governor said: "I have learned of the great reputation of this Holy Retreat, and I intend to ask the Emperor to grant you a tablet of honor inscribed with the names and particulars of all the bonzes of the district."
It grieved him plaguily, he said, to see the nuptial couch defrauded of its dearest pledges: and to reflect upon so many agreeable females with rich jointures, a prey to the vilest bonzes, who hide their flambeau under a bushel in an uncongenial cloister or lose their womanly bloom in the embraces of some unaccountable muskin when they might multiply the inlets of happiness, sacrificing the inestimable jewel of their sex when a hundred pretty fellows were at hand to caress, this, he assured them, made his heart weep.
That after these services, the tablet should be moved into the Garden of Concentrated Fragrance, and that in the presence of the tablet, fifteen additional eminent bonzes and fifteen renowned Taoist Priests should confront the altar and perform meritorious deeds every seven days.
It is also considered to be an emblem of sanctity, and the bonzes, or priests, always keep their heads clean-shaved. Even children intended for the priesthood, as well as certain religious societies of both sexes, are similarly distinguished. Odder-looking creatures than these bald-headed specimens of humanity can hardly be imagined.
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