"I was advising Brother Nikhil to seek your protection," she
continued banteringly. "Call off your minions, Robber Queen! We
will offer sacrifices to your __Bande Mataram__ if you will
but save us. What doings there are these days!--but for the
Lord's sake, spare our house at least from burglary."
I hastened into my room without reply. I had put my foot on
quicksand, and could not now withdraw it. Struggling would only
send me down deeper.
If only the time would arrive when I could hand over the money to
Sandip! I could bear it no longer, its weight was breaking
through my very ribs.
It was still early when I got word that Sandip was awaiting me.
Today I had no thought of adornment. Wrapped as I was in my
shawl, I went off to the outer apartments. As I entered the
sitting-room I saw Sandip and Amulya there, together. All my
dignity, all my honour, seemed to run tingling through my body
from head to foot and vanish into the ground. I should have to
lay bare a woman's uttermost shame in sight of this boy! Could
they have been discussing my deed in their meeting place? Had
any vestige of a veil of decency been left for me?
We women shall never understand men. When they are bent on
making a road for some achievement, they think nothing of
breaking the heart of the world into pieces to pave it for the
progress of their chariot. When they are mad with the
intoxication of creating, they rejoice in destroying the creation
of the Creator. This heart-breaking shame of mine will not
attract even a glance from their eyes. They have no feeling for
life itself--all their eagerness is for their object. What am I
to them but a meadow flower in the path of a torrent in flood?
What good will this extinction of me be to Sandip? Only five
thousand rupees? Was not I good for something more than only
five thousand rupees? Yes, indeed! Did I not learn that from
Sandip himself, and was I not able in the light of this knowledge
to despise all else in my world? I was the giver of light, of
life, of __Shakti__, of immortality--in that belief, in that
joy, I had burst all my bounds and come into the open. Had
anyone then fulfilled for me that joy, I should have lived in my
death. I should have lost nothing in the loss of my all.
Do they want to tell me now that all this was false? The psalm
of my praise which was sung so devotedly, did it bring me down
from my heaven, not to make heaven of earth, but only to level
heaven itself with the dust?