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    The Home and the World
    The Home and the World
    The Home and the World
    Ebook240 pages4 hours

    The Home and the World

    By Rabindranath Tagore

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Discover the literary masterpiece The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore. Set in early 20th-century India, this profound novel delves into the complexities of love, nationalism, and the clash between tradition and modernity. With eloquent prose and compelling characters, Tagore invites readers to question societal norms and explore the depths of human emotion. A captivating addition to any bookshelf, providing a gateway to the mesmerizing world of Indian literature.


    Set in early 20th-century India
    Captivating storytelling
    Explores themes of love, nationalism, and the clash between tradition and modernity
    Thought-provoking and eloquently written
    Contains well-developed and compelling characters
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherFingerprint Publishing
    Release dateSep 17, 2023
    ISBN9789358562422
    The Home and the World
    Author

    Rabindranath Tagore

    Rabindranath Tagore was born in May 1861. He was a Bengali poet, Brahmo Samaj philosopher, visual artist, playwright, novelist, and composer whose works reshaped Bengali literature and music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He became Asia's first Nobel laureate when he won the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature. His works included numerous novels, short-stories, collection of songs, dance-drama, political and personal essays. Some prominent examples are Gitanjali (Song Offerings) , Gora (Fair-Faced), and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World). He died on 7th August 1941.

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    Reviews for The Home and the World

    3.5/5

    83 ratings5 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Thank you Mint Editions for bringing back this book in a slim affordable format. It was first published in 1916. Rabindranath Tagore was a Nobel Prize winning author and this book is highly readable with appropriate footnotes. One feels desperately for all the characters but it is like a Shakespearian tragedy. Their lives are doomed as their actions or inactions propel them into history. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the beginnings of the Indian Nationalist movement.
    • 5/5
      In early twentieth century India, a man and wife are more fully revealed to one another when they find themselves on opposite sides of a political divide. Where the husband Nikhil is intransigent towards the first burgeoning of India's independence movement, Bimala is swept up by the fine speeches of its lead proponent and aligns herself with the cause. It is not until words must translate into actions that her choice is truly put to the test. There is an excellent Wikipedia entry for this novel that is worth reading afterwards, uncovering its many themes and providing more historical context.

      The novel's first half is thin on action, long on politically-laced dialogue and overloaded with metaphor. I like that sort of thing, so for me this was still was a great read when another reader might understandably find it dry. Tagore clearly had a lock on diametrically opposed perspectives, demonstrating a deep understanding of their relative positions and self-justifications. Marital strife isn't front and centre, but adds a secondary layer as events unfold.

      Mint Editions has included simple explanations for a number of terms I would have otherwise required some help with, and not just definitions but also explanations as well for cultural practices which the author assumes his readers are familiar with. This made the reading much easier and more enjoyable for me. Some are marked as translator notes, and the credits identify the author's nephew Surendranath Tagore as translator to English from the original Bengali.
    • 4/5
      "This is exactly how such curious anomalies happen nowadays in our country. We must have our religion and also our nationalism... The result is that both of them suffer." So muses Sandip, one of the three main characters in this passionate revolutionary and personal drama of a novel.

      The story is told on behalf of Nikhil, his wife of 9 years Bimala, and Sandip, a revolutionary staying at their mansion. The chapters on behalf of the three of them, telling the story from their own point of view, interchange throughout the book. The year is 1916, Bengal, India, during the developing Swadeshi (nationalist ) movement.

      There is a sharp controversy between "used-to-be" friends, Nikhil and Sandip, as to which direction the country should go and by which means. Nikhil is a philosophical type and has strong moral values, while Sandip is a reckless revolutionary, with the "the-end-justifies-the-means" ideas. Bimala starts as an epitome of a devotional Hindu wife (constantly and sincerely "taking dust off her husband's feet", idolizing him..), but then evolving into a follower of Sandip who manipulates her in different ways, which she, thankfully, realizes by the end of the story.

      In my understanding, Tagore was still struggling with searching for a solution to India's problems of that era. The novel is full of metaphoric speeches and pathos, while also poignantly describing the inner struggle of the main characters. It evokes turmoil and disquiet, not any distinct and rational answers.
    • 2/5
      Prior to Gandhi's international fame after World War I, Rabindranath Tagore was the most famous writer in Bengali society and the most well known Indian writer in the world. For his achievements in poetry Tagore received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. His novel, "The Home and the World" was published in 1916. The novel received acclaim because of Tagore's fame as a Nobel Prize winner and a critic of British imperial rule, the religious divide between Hindu and Muslim, the caste system in India, and the potential dangers of violent nationalism.

      One approaches this novel in a similar way today, because of whom Tagore is. It is a tendentious novel. The principal characters represent the debate within Tagore himself, and illustrate competing ideas. Nikhil is an aristocratic landowner opposed to nationalism, who strives for modernist, scientific knowledge, but who can fail to appreciate the pressure on traditional society by forces of change. His friend Sandip challenges Nikhil's non-violent approach and urges a rise in Indian nationalism to overthrow British rule in any way possible. Then there is Bimala, Nikhil's young wife, who reprrsents the feminine principle of India, torn between respect for husband, family,traditional roles and attraction to desires outside of traditonal roles in Indian society.

      To be an effective tendentious novel the characters must be more than the moralizing positions of the author. These characters are flat and one-dimensional. As a tract it is illustrative of Tagore's beliefs and his ability to represent opposing positions. As a work of fiction it is dull and uninspiring. To better appreciate these dichotomies in a novel turn to Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children" or Arundhati Roy's "The God of Small Things".
    • 5/5
      Tagore’s story is set in Bengal at the early part of the 20th century when the Swadeshi (self-sufficiency) movement was taking root, which had as its aim that people would use only domestic goods. At the center of the novel is Bimala, a young woman who is happily married to an intelligent and enlightened landowner named Nikhil. When she’s exposed to a rousing revolutionary speech by Sandip, she’s not only drawn to the passion of his cause, but to Sandip himself, thus setting up a love triangle.

      In cases of a people being oppressed, there is often a variety of viewpoints as to how to react, ranging from the gradual progressives to those who would use “any means necessary”. Tagore places the two men at opposite ends of this spectrum, and while both ironically want the same thing, an independent, strong India, Nikhil wants to follow the law and exercise restraint, believing that something far greater is lost if one steals or is unjust, while Sandip is not above lying, violence, and other treachery, believing himself to be serving a higher cause, and believing that all other strong nations have had leaders who have done similar in the past.

      As to Swadeshi itself, Nikhil believes that the root cause to India’s dependence on foreign goods is its own demand, its own desire, which cannot forcibly changed, and any attempts to do so will not only be futile, but disproportionately harm the poor. Sandip believes that the root cause is essentially the supply itself, and that it must be suppressed with an iron hand.

      The book’s main level is thus political, where Nikhil stands for conservatism, cool intellect, idealism, kindness, and holding steadfastly to one’s core principles. Sandip represents radical revolution, passion, the compromises one must make in the “real world”, including being cruel if necessary, and the ends justifying the means, because “this is war”, as he puts it. Bimala, who is torn between them, saying at one point that “this moment in our history seems to have dropped into our hand like a jewel from the crown of some drunken god”, represents Bengal itself.

      While it’s easy to idealize Nikhil and demonize Sandip, and it’s clear that this is where Tagore’s sympathies lie, both men recognize their own weaknesses. Nikhil sees himself as a passionless, uninspiring lump of coal, and Sandip’s guilt gnaws away at him despite the vitriol of his words. Tagore also lets both men “present their argument” by assuming the point of view of each, as well as Bimala, in interleaving chapters throughout the book. To me, the characters are part of Tagore’s inner dialogue and conflict within himself, and I’m impressed by how in his work and in his life he tried to recognize all of these “voices”, and find a middle path. Nevertheless, he was criticized for being conservative in his viewpoint, and for flaws in the style of his prose on top of it.

      I disagree with the former, but there is at least a little valid criticism with the latter: Tagore is essentially using the book as a vehicle for a debate, which can make it seem too plodding. On the other hand, as Anita Desai says in her excellent introduction, while it’s a “dramatic tale, yet not so particularly dramatic in the telling”, he writes as a Victorian, so this is a product of the time, and there are many touching, very human moments throughout the book.

      And this is where the book works on the next level down: “at home”, the love triangle between the characters. Nikhil does not demand that Sandip leave his home, even though he knows something is going on, because he wants Bimala to choose freely. Nikhil is thus very forward thinking, adoring his wife but wanting her to be free … though if someone is so dispassionate it can come across as disinterest. Sandip here is raw emotion, and deludes Bimala along the way in his desire to just take her, and passionately. That has its appeal too, and she is torn.

      Add in the minor characters, the chiding sister-in-law who has a long and close relationship with Nikhil (mirroring Tagore’s own beloved sister-in-law, who sadly committed suicide), as well as the young man who Sandip wants to use as a pawn and Bimala wants to keep pure, whatever her sins may be, and I found this to be a very appealing story. There was real tension in the tragedy that was unfolding for Bimala and for India after things been set in motion, and I think rather than being on the wrong side of history, Tagore correctly got his head around the issues with both perspectives, and foresaw the violence that was to come to India later in the century.

      Quotes:
      On desire, this is Sandip:
      “When a man goes away from the market of real things with empty hands and empty stomach, merely filling his bag with big sounding words, I wonder why he ever came into this hard world at all. … What I desire, I desire positively, superlatively. I want to knead it with both my hands and both my feet; I want to smear it all over my body; I want to gorge myself with it to the full.”

      And:
      “Come, Sin, O beautiful Sin,
      Let thy stinging red kisses pour down fiery red wine into our blood.
      Sound the trumpet of imperious evil
      And cross our forehead with the wreath of exulting lawlessness,
      O Deity of Desecration,
      Smear our breasts with the blackest mud of disrepute, unashamed.”

      On being desired, Bimala:
      “Sandip’s hungry eyes burnt like the lamps of worship before my shrine. All his gaze proclaimed that I was a wonder in beauty and power; and the loudness of his praise, spoken and unspoken, drowned all other voices in my world. Had the Creator created me afresh, I wondered? Did he wish to make up now for neglecting me so long? I who before was plain had become suddenly beautiful.”

      “Nevertheless this flesh-and-blood lute of mine, fashioned with my feeling and fancy, found in him a master-player. What though I shrank from his touch, and even came to loathe the lute itself; its music was conjured up all the same.”

      “The way of retreat is absolutely closed for both of us. We shall despoil each other: get to hate each other; but never more be free.”

      “I can no longer enter my bedroom. The bedstead seems to thrust out a forbidding hand, the iron safe frowns at me. I want to get away from this continual insult to myself which is rankling within me. I want to keep running to Sandipto hear him sing my praises. There is just this one little altar of worship which has kept its head above the all-pervading depths of my dishonor, and so I want to cleave to it night and day; for on whichever side I step away from it, there is only emptiness.
      Praise, praise, I want unceasing praise. I cannot live if my wine-cup be left empty for a single moment. So, as the very price of my life, I want Sandip of all the world, today.”

      On love, Bimala:
      “His love for me seemed to overflow my limits by its flood of wealth and service. But my necessity was more for giving than for receiving; for love is a vagabond, who can make his flowers bloom in the wayside dust, better than in the crystal jars kept in the drawing-room.”

      And:
      “My beloved, it was worthy of you that you never expected worship from me. But if you had accepted it, you would have done me a real service. You showed your love by decorating me, by educating me, by giving me what I asked for, and what I did not. I have seen what depth of love there was in your eyes when you gazed at me. I have known the secret sigh of pain you suppressed in your love for me. You loved my body as if it were a flower of paradise. You loved my whole nature as if it had been given you by some rare providence.”

      On nationalism, Nikhil:
      “’I am willing,’ he said, ‘to serve my country; but my worship I reserve for Right which is far greater than my country. To worship my country as a god is to bring a curse upon it.’”

      And:
      “…those who cannot love men just because they are men – who needs must shout and deify their country in order to keep up their excitement – these love excitement more than their country. … So long as we are impervious to truth and have to be moved by some hypnotic stimulus, we must know that we lack the capacity for self-government. Whatever may be our condition, we shall either need some imaginary ghost or some actual medicine-man to terrorize over us.”

      On the old, Sandip:
      “Chandranath Babu began to talk about Swadeshi. I thought I would let him go one with his monologues. There is nothing like letting an old man talk himself out. It makes him feel that he is winding up the world, forgetting all the while how far away the real world is from his wagging tongue.”

    Book preview

    The Home and the World - Rabindranath Tagore

    Chapter One

    Bimala’s Story

    I

    Mother, today there comes back to mind the vermilion mark at the parting of your hair, the sari which you used to wear, with its wide red border, and those wonderful eyes of yours, full of depth and peace. They came at the start of my life’s journey, like the first streak of dawn, giving me golden provision to carry me on my way.

    The sky which gives light is blue, and my mother’s face was dark, but she had the radiance of holiness, and her beauty would put to shame all the vanity of the beautiful.

    Everyone says that I resemble my mother. In my childhood I used to resent this. It made me angry with my mirror. I thought that it was God’s unfairness which was wrapped round my limbs—that my dark features were not my due, but had come to me by some misunderstanding. All that remained for me to ask of my God in reparation was, that I might grow up to be a model of what woman should be, as one reads it in some epic poem.

    When the proposal came for my marriage, an astrologer was sent, who consulted my palm and said, This girl has good signs. She will become an ideal wife.

    And all the women who heard it said: No wonder, for she resembles her mother.

    I was married into a Rajah’s house. When I was a child, I was quite familiar with the description of the Prince of the fairy story. But my husband’s face was not of a kind that one’s imagination would place in fairyland. It was dark, even as mine was. The feeling of shrinking, which I had about my own lack of physical beauty, was lifted a little; at the same time a touch of regret was left lingering in my heart.

    But when the physical appearance evades the scrutiny of our senses and enters the sanctuary of our hearts, then it can forget itself. I know, from my childhood’s experience, how devotion is beauty itself, in its inner aspect. When my mother arranged the different fruits, carefully peeled by her own loving hands, on the white stone plate, and gently waved her fan to drive away the flies while my father sat down to his meals, her service would lose itself in a beauty which passed beyond outward forms. Even in my infancy I could feel its power. It transcended all debates, or doubts, or calculations: it was pure music.

    I distinctly remember after my marriage, when, early in the morning, I would cautiously and silently get up and take the dust of my husband’s feet without waking him, how at such moments I could feel the vermilion mark upon my forehead shining out like the morning star.

    One day, he happened to awake, and smiled as he asked me: "What is that, Bimala? What are you doing?"

    I can never forget the shame of being detected by him. He might possibly have thought that I was trying to earn merit secretly. But no, no! That had nothing to do with merit. It was my woman’s heart, which must worship in order to love.

    My father-in-law’s house was old in dignity from the days of the Badshahs. Some of its manners were of the Moguls and Pathans, some of its customs of Manu and Parashar. But my husband was absolutely modern. He was the first of the house to go through a college course and take his M.A. degree. His elder brother had died young, of drink, and had left no children. My husband did not drink and was not given to dissipation. So foreign to the family was this abstinence, that to many it hardly seemed decent! Purity, they imagined, was only becoming in those on whom fortune had not smiled. It is the moon which has room for stains, not the stars.

    My husband’s parents had died long ago, and his old grandmother was mistress of the house. My husband was the apple of her eye, the jewel on her bosom. And so he never met with much difficulty in overstepping any of the ancient usages. When he brought in Miss Gilby, to teach me and be my companion, he stuck to his resolve in spite of the poison secreted by all the wagging tongues at home and outside.

    My husband had then just got through his B.A. examination and was reading for his M.A. degree; so he had to stay in Calcutta to attend college. He used to write to me almost every day, a few lines only, and simple words, but his bold, round handwriting would look up into my face, oh, so tenderly! I kept his letters in a sandalwood box and covered them every day with the flowers I gathered in the garden.

    At that time the Prince of the fairy tale had faded, like the moon in the morning light. I had the Prince of my real world enthroned in my heart. I was his queen. I had my seat by his side. But my real joy was, that my true place was at his feet.

    Since then, I have been educated, and introduced to the modern age in its own language, and therefore these words that I write seem to blush with shame in their prose setting. Except for my acquaintance with this modern standard of life, I should know, quite naturally, that just as my being born a woman was not in my own hands, so the element of devotion in woman’s love is not like a hackneyed passage quoted from a romantic poem to be piously written down in round hand in a school-girl’s copy-book.

    But my husband would not give me any opportunity for worship. That was his greatness. They are cowards who claim absolute devotion from their wives as their right; that is a humiliation for both.

    His love for me seemed to overflow my limits by its flood of wealth and service. But my necessity was more for giving than for receiving; for love is a vagabond, who can make his flowers bloom in the wayside dust, better than in the crystal jars kept in the drawing-room.

    My husband could not break completely with the old-time traditions which prevailed in our family. It was difficult, therefore, for us to meet at any hour of the day we pleased. I knew exactly the time that he could come to me, and therefore our meeting had all the care of loving preparation. It was like the rhyming of a poem; it had to come through the path of the metre.

    After finishing the day’s work and taking my afternoon bath, I would do up my hair and renew my vermilion mark and put on my sari, carefully crinkled; and then, bringing back my body and mind from all distractions of household duties, I would dedicate it at this special hour, with special ceremonies, to one individual. That time, each day, with him was short; but it was infinite.

    My husband used to say, that man and wife are equal in love because of their equal claim on each other. I never argued the point with him, but my heart said that devotion never stands in the way of true equality; it only raises the level of the ground of meeting. Therefore the joy of the higher equality remains permanent; it never slides down to the vulgar level of triviality.

    My beloved, it was worthy of you that you never expected worship from me. But if you had accepted it, you would have done me a real service. You showed your love by decorating me, by educating me, by giving me what I asked for, and what I did not. I have seen what depth of love there was in your eyes when you gazed at me. I have known the secret sigh of pain you suppressed in your love for me. You loved my body as if it were a flower of paradise. You loved my whole nature as if it had been given you by some rare providence.

    Such lavish devotion made me proud to think that the wealth was all my own which drove you to my gate. But vanity such as this only checks the flow of free surrender in a woman’s love. When I sit on the queen’s throne and claim homage, then the claim only goes on magnifying itself; it is never satisfied. Can there be any real happiness for a woman in merely feeling that she has power over a man? To surrender one’s pride in devotion is woman’s only salvation.

    It comes back to me today how, in the days of our happiness, the fires of envy sprung up all around us. That was only natural, for had I not stepped into my good fortune by a mere chance, and without deserving it? But providence does not allow a run of luck to last for ever, unless its debt of honour be fully paid, day by day, through many a long day, and thus made secure. God may grant us gifts, but the merit of being able to take and hold them must be our own. Alas for the boons that slip through unworthy hands!

    My husband’s grandmother and mother were both renowned for their beauty. And my widowed sister-in-law was also of a beauty rarely to be seen. When, in turn, fate left them desolate, the grandmother vowed she would not insist on having beauty for her remaining grandson when he married. Only the auspicious marks with which I was endowed gained me an entry into this family—otherwise, I had no claim to be here.

    In this house of luxury, but few of its ladies had received their meed of respect. They had, however, got used to the ways of the family, and managed to keep their heads above water, buoyed up by their dignity as Ranis of an ancient house, in spite of their daily tears being drowned in the foam of wine, and by the tinkle of the dancing girls anklets. Was the credit due to me that my husband did not touch liquor, nor squander his manhood in the markets of woman’s flesh? What charm did I know to soothe the wild and wandering mind of men? It was my good luck, nothing else. For fate proved utterly callous to my sister-in-law. Her festivity died out, while yet the evening was early, leaving the light of her beauty shining in vain over empty halls—burning and burning, with no accompanying music!

    His sister-in-law affected a contempt for my husband’s modern notions. How absurd to keep the family ship, laden with all the weight of its time-honoured glory, sailing under the colours of his slip of a girl-wife alone! Often have I felt the lash of scorn. A thief who had stolen a husband’s love! A sham hidden in the shamelessness of her new-fangled finery! The many-coloured garments of modern fashion with which my husband loved to adorn me roused jealous wrath. Is not she ashamed to make a show-window of herself—and with her looks, too!

    My husband was aware of all this, but his gentleness knew no bounds. He used to implore me to forgive her.

    I remember I once told him: Women’s minds are so petty, so crooked! Like the feet of Chinese women, he replied. Has not the pressure of society cramped them into pettiness and crookedness? They are but pawns of the fate which gambles with them. What responsibility have they of their own?

    My sister-in-law never failed to get from my husband whatever she wanted. He did not stop to consider whether her requests were right or reasonable. But what exasperated me most was that she was not grateful for this. I had promised my husband that I would not talk back at her, but this set me raging all the more, inwardly. I used to feel that goodness has a limit, which, if passed, somehow seems to make men cowardly. Shall I tell the whole truth? I have often wished that my husband had the manliness to be a little less good.

    My sister-in-law, the Bara Rani, was still young and had no pretensions to saintliness. Rather, her talk and jest and laugh inclined to be forward. The young maids with whom she surrounded herself were also impudent to a degree. But there was none to gainsay her—for was not this the custom of the house? It seemed to me that my good fortune in having a stainless husband was a special eyesore to her. He, however, felt more the sorrow of her lot than the defects of her character.

    II

    My husband was very eager to take me out of purdah.

    One day I said to him: What do I want with the outside world?

    The outside world may want you, he replied.

    If the outside world has got on so long without me, it may go on for some time longer. It need not pine to death for want of me.

    Let it perish, for all I care! That is not troubling me. I am thinking about myself.

    Oh, indeed. Tell me what about yourself?

    My husband was silent, with a smile.

    I knew his way, and protested at once: No, no, you are not going to run away from me like that! I want to have this out with you.

    Can one ever finish a subject with words?

    Do stop speaking in riddles. Tell me . . .

    What I want is, that I should have you, and you should have me, more fully in the outside world. That is where we are still in debt to each other.

    Is anything wanting, then, in the love we have here at home?

    Here you are wrapped up in me. You know neither what you have, nor what you want.

    I cannot bear to hear you talk like this.

    I would have you come into the heart of the outer world and meet reality. Merely going on with your household duties, living all your life in the world of household conventions and the drudgery of household tasks—you were not made for that! If we meet, and recognize each other, in the real world, then only will our love be true.

    If there be any drawback here to our full recognition of each other, then I have nothing to say. But as for myself, I feel no want.

    Well, even if the drawback is only on my side, why shouldn’t you help to remove it?

    Such discussions repeatedly occurred. One day he said: The greedy man who is fond of his fish stew has no compunction in cutting up the fish according to his need. But the man who loves the fish wants to enjoy it in the water; and if that is impossible he waits on the bank; and even if he comes back home without a sight of it he has the consolation of knowing that the fish is all right. Perfect gain is the best of all; but if that is impossible, then the next best gain is perfect losing.

    I never liked the way my husband had of talking on this subject, but that is not the reason why I refused to leave the zenana. His grandmother was still alive. My husband had filled more than a hundred and twenty per cent of the house with the twentieth century, against her taste; but she had borne it uncomplaining. She would have borne it, likewise, if the daughter-in-law of the Rajah’s house had left its seclusion. She was even prepared for this happening. But I did not consider it important enough to give her the pain of it. I have read in books that we are called caged birds. I cannot speak for others, but I had so much in this cage of mine that there was not room for it in the universe—at least that is what I then felt.

    The grandmother, in her old age, was very fond of me. At the bottom of her fondness was the thought that, with the conspiracy of favourable stars which attended me, I had been able to attract my husband’s love. Were not men naturally inclined to plunge downwards? None of the others, for all their beauty, had been able to prevent their husbands going headlong into the burning depths which consumed and destroyed them. She believed that I had been the means of extinguishing this fire, so deadly to the men of the family. So she kept me in the shelter of her bosom, and trembled if I was in the least bit unwell.

    His grandmother did not like the dresses and ornaments my husband brought from European shops to deck me with. But she reflected: Men will have some absurd hobby or other, which is sure to be expensive. It is no use trying to check their extravagance; one is glad enough if they stop short of ruin. If my Nikhil had not been busy dressing up his wife there is no knowing whom else he might have spent his money on! So whenever any new dress of mine arrived she used to send for my husband and make merry over it.

    Thus it came about that it was her taste which changed. The influence of the modern age fell so strongly upon her, that her evenings refused to pass if I did not tell her stories out of English books.

    After his grandmother’s death, my husband wanted me to go and live with him in Calcutta. But I could not bring myself to do that. Was not this our House, which she had kept under her sheltering care through all her trials and troubles? Would not a curse come upon me if I deserted it and went off to town? This was the thought that kept me back, as her empty seat reproachfully looked up at me. That noble lady had come into this house at the age of eight, and had died in her seventy-ninth year. She had not spent a happy life. Fate had hurled shaft after shaft at her breast, only to draw out more and more the imperishable spirit within. This great house was hallowed with her tears. What should I do in the dust of Calcutta, away from it?

    My husband’s idea was that this would be a good opportunity for leaving to my sister-in-law the consolation of ruling over the household, giving our life, at the same time, more room to branch out in Calcutta. That is just where my difficulty came in. She had worried my life out, she ill brooked my husband’s happiness, and for this she was to be rewarded! And what of the day when we should have to come back here? Should I then get back my seat at the head?

    What do you want with that seat? my husband would say. Are there not more precious things in life?

    Men never understand these things. They have their nests in the outside world; they little know the whole of what the household stands for. In these matters they ought to follow womanly guidance. Such were my thoughts at that time.

    I felt the real point was, that one ought to stand up for one’s rights. To go away, and leave everything in the hands of the enemy, would be nothing short of owning defeat.

    But why did not my husband compel me to go with him to Calcutta? I know the reason. He did not use his power, just because he had it.

    III

    If one had to fill in, little by little, the gap between day and night, it would take an eternity to do it. But the sun rises and the darkness is dispelled—a moment is sufficient to overcome an infinite distance.

    One day there came the new era of Swadeshi in Bengal; but as to how it happened, we had no distinct vision. There was no gradual slope connecting the past with the present. For that reason, I imagine, the new epoch came in like a flood, breaking down the dykes and sweeping all our prudence and fear before it. We had

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