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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, [5] 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