now, would spend the night sitting up and complain of being bitten all night; the other would retort, "Your bed was shaken yesterday and the day before too: who can satisfy all such a woman's needs?" To set the old woman's son against her, she would scatter phlegm and mucus and grey hairs here and there, and when he asked who was making the whole house so dirty, she would say, "Your mother does it; but if she is told not to do so, she makes an outcry: I can't stay in the same house with such an old witch: you must decide whether she stays or I." He hearkened to her and said, "Wife, you are yet young and can get a living wherever you go: but my mother is weak and I am her stay: go and depart to your own kin." When she heard this, she was afraid and thought, "He cannot break with his mother who is so very dear to him: but if I go to my old home, I shall have a miserable life of separation: I will conciliate my mother-in-law and tend her as of old": [424] and thenceforth she did so. One day that lay brother went to Jetavana to hear the law: saluting the Master he stood on one side. The Master asked him if he were not careless of his old duties, if he were dutiful in tending his mother. He answered, "Yes, Lord: my mother brought me a maid to wife against my will, she did such and such unseemly things," telling him all, "but the woman could not make me break with my mother, and now she tends her with all respect." The Master heard the story and said, "This time you would not do her bidding: but formerly you cast out your mother at her bidding and owing to me took her back again to your house and tended her": and at the man's request he told the tale of old.