seated in a comfortable chair in the sun. A wise
Teacher sat beside him. Below them, in a field, many children frolicked
and played games, some wore light flowing robes that stopped a little
above the knee, the rest wore nothing at all.
36 The Teacher beside him spoke. "Are the ones that are undressed
embarrassed about the ones that are dressed?"
37 "No," answered Gray Boar.
38 "Are the ones that are dressed embarrassed about the ones who are
undressed?" continued The Teacher.
39 "They do not seem to be," answered Gray Boar. "They seem to be
children, innocent to the ways of men and women."
40 "Do you understand," the Teacher inquired, "that even when a man has
known a woman, and a woman has known a man they can still feel innocent
before others?"
41 "No, Lord," admitted Gray Boar, "I do not. Once I had known a woman
I could never again look upon another woman without shame. I suppose
there are men that might be able to, but I am not one of them."
42 "That you are honest in your statement," praised the Teacher,
"pleases me, but you must understand that there are many men not like
you. They can look on a woman, even an undressed woman, and be without
shame, or even want to know her. Oh, they may have faint wishes, but
they control that which is inside them and their manhood would not
drop."
43 "For me, Lord," continued Gray Boar, "this is a hard thing to
believe. I have always thought that all men were the same. That we all
desired women equally. That we all burned with the same fire."
44 "This is not so, my son," comforted the Teacher, "Some men burn at
the slightest provocation, other men are hard to warm at all, but this
is not to say that there is anything wrong with either one, it is simply