But there was no sign of the trail. He went backward and forward, then back again and forward again. He moved about in a circle, but he could not find the trail. Exhausted by the effort, he wondered: “Why did I have to leave the trail? Then again, why did I have to enter the forest in the first place? If I had stayed on in that village I’d be enjoying a comfortable sleep now. Anyway, a trail can’t just disappear. And besides, I haven’t really gone very far into the forest yet. At most a couple of furlongs. I’m still near the edge. Even if I can’t get back to the trail, I can easily walk between the trees and get out of the forest.”
His shoes had become very heavy. He found a dry branch and scraped the mud from the soles. Then he thought of scraping the mud off of his bundle and his clothes, but he soon gave up the idea thinking that they were splattered all over and he wouldn’t know where to begin. He decided to leave them as they were. He leaned against the bundle to rest a while and soon fell asleep. Only God knows how long he slept. He woke up only when he heard a pack of jackals raising hell nearby with their prolonged howls. “Jackals!” an inadvertent smile appeared on his face. “Oh, well, what else would there be in the forest besides jackals!” Moonlight had spread over the treetops and a soft, cool light was filtering through the leaves. He felt a wonderful sense of surprise, joy and contentment. In the midst of his agitation he had entirely forgotten that there was going to be a moon that night. Just then his eyes fell on the trail a short distance in front of him, flashing like a long, winding thin speckled snake. “I’ll be darned,” he exclaimed. “I must have crossed it scores of times. Can’t imagine why I couldn’t recognize it even though it’s what I’ve been wandering around in search of. How is it that my feet have forgotten its touch and lost the memory of it?”
He picked up the bundle, slung it over his shoulder and started off for the village he had left behind. “I’ll go back and catch some sleep there. Tomorrow at sunup, I’ll leave for my village. The man in the shawl, the one who was insisting that I spend the night at his place, must be fast asleep by now. How could I knock at each and every door asking about a man I’d run into at the edge of the village at twilight? Lord knows how many people here, cloaked in similar shawls, had wandered to the edge of the village? I don’t even remember his face. How could I? It was half-covered and it was in the dark; it looked about as distinct as a plain, flat slate. Besides, how could a person possibly go knocking on countless doors anyway? All right, I’ll go to the mosque and stay there. But wouldn’t the muezzin have already locked the door and gone for the night? He wouldn’t be back to open it again until before the dawn prayer. What good will it do then? As it is, my clothes are damp; it’s getting colder by the minute; and I also haven’t eaten since morning. My stomach seems to be on fire from hunger. My needs are many, who’ll attend to them at the mosque? Suppose nobody opens the door to me, what then? The village dogs will keep harassing me all night long. So shall I try to go back to my own village? No, no, the residents of this village couldn’t possibly be so heartless as to deny refuge to a wayfarer for just one night. Then again, if the man who did allow me to stay at his place murdered me during the night for the five hundred rupees I’ve collected with such hardship, and quietly buried me there, no one would ever find out, and I’d have lost not just my money but also my life. So that was the cause of my hesitation earlier! It took this long to find out the real reason hiding deep in my heart.”
Once again he turned his face in the direction of his village, fixed his bundle securely on his shoulder and hurried off along the speckled trail. Soon he reached the place where they had cut down all of the trees. It was an open semi-circular patch standing alongside the trail on his right. The lustrous moon was shining above his left shoulder. The branches of the trees standing in a row on his left hung listlessly like loose, limp arms, while the drab, helpless-looking butcher’s blocks were visible scattered all over the empty patch. A luminous mist suffused the dark sky, and the many stars that had been trying to outshine each other earlier had now disappeared in this effulgent haze. Only a few stars could be spotted here and there, shining dimly. The forest had started again on either side of him. He had walked a little ways when he saw a dark massive dome on his right standing apart from the others in distinguished aloofness, all bathed in moonlight. “So this is where you are!” Seeing the banyan, he turned his face away, spat in disgust and continued on. A vague and inarticulate thought which had been swimming around in his brain for some time suddenly became clear and planted itself before him. “Where am I running to in such a hurry? What am I going to get there? If I had already reached there what would have happened? And what would happen if I did reach there right this minute? And what will happen if I don’t get there at all? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. It’s like my search for the banyan. If I’d found it when I was looking for it so desperately, what, exactly, would the discovery have given me? And what has it given me now when I’ve found it quite by accident? Just the opportunity to express a little of my contempt for it. That’s all. Had I found it when I was looking for it, I’d have shown it a little love instead. That’s all. I might have even touched it on its rough bark. So what of it? It wouldn’t have done much good, anyway. The banyan’s true substance would still have eluded me. I wouldn’t have been able to touch that.”
