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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.
------
6. The seclusion of the zenana, and all the customs peculiar to it, are
designated by the general term "Purdah", which means Screen.
7. The prestige of the daughter-in-law is of the first importance in a
Hindu household of rank [Trans.].

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__ [8] 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 no time even to
think about, or understand, what had happened, or what was about to
happen.

My sight and my mind, my hopes and my desires, became red with the
passion of this new age. Though, up to this time, the walls of the
home--which was the ultimate world to my mind--remained unbroken,
yet I stood looking over into the distance, and I heard a voice from the
far horizon, whose meaning was not perfectly clear to me, but whose
call went straight to my heart.
From the time my husband had been a college student he had been
trying to get the things required by our people produced in our own
country. There are plenty of date trees in our district. He tried to invent
an apparatus for extracting the juice and boiling it into sugar and treacle.