Chapter 17

Word spread through the village that the Rai Sahib had summoned the panches and given them a thorough scolding, and had wrung out of their bellies every rupee they had collected. He had even been about to send these men to jail, but they had clasped his hands and feet, had spat and licked it up, and only then did he let them off. Dhaniya's heart grew cool. She went about the village shaming the panches — if men will not hear the cry of the poor, God hears it at least. People had thought they would take a fine off these wretches and enjoy themselves eating their fritters. God had dealt them such a slap that the fritters tumbled out of their mouths. Each had to pay back twice what he took. Now lick up my house if you can.

But without bullocks, how was the land to be tilled? Sowing had begun in the villages. If a peasant's bullocks die in the month of Kartik, both his arms are as good as cut off. Hori's arms had been cut off. In everyone else's fields the ploughs were moving. Seed was being scattered. Here and there snatches of song could be heard. Hori's fields lay desolate, like the house of some orphaned and helpless widow. Puniya had a pair of bullocks, Sobha too had a pair, but how could they spare time from the sowing of their own fields to do Hori's sowing? Hori wandered about all day, here and there, aimless. He would go and sit in this man's field, get that man's seed sown for him. In this way he managed to scrape together a little grain. Dhaniya, Rupa, Sona — all of them stayed busy with other people's sowing. As long as the sowing lasted, bread for the belly kept coming, and there was no special hardship. There was mental anguish, certainly, but they got enough to eat. Every night a small quarrel would break out between husband and wife.

So it went until the month of Kartik passed, and even wage-work became hard to find in the village. Now everything hung on the sugarcane standing in the fields.

It was night. The cold was biting. There was nothing to eat in Hori's house that day. During the day they had managed a little roasted pea, but at this hour there was no prospect of lighting the hearth, and Rupa was distraught with hunger, sitting before the brazier at the door, crying. When there is not a single grain in the house, what is one to ask for, what is one to say!

When she could no longer bear the hunger, she went to Puniya's house on the pretext of asking for fire. Puniya was cooking millet bread and a side dish of bathua greens. The smell made Rupa's mouth water.

Puniya asked, "Hasn't your hearth been lit yet, girl?"

Rupa said humbly, "There was nothing in the house today — how could the fire be lit?"

"Then what have you come to ask for fire for?"

"Father wants to smoke his tobacco."

Puniya tossed her a glowing cow-dung cake, but Rupa did not pick up the fire. Going closer, she said, "Your bread smells lovely, Aunty! I like millet bread very much."

Puniya smiled and asked, "Will you eat some?"

"Mother will scold."

"And who's going to go tell your mother?"

Rupa ate her fill of bread, then with her mouth still soiled ran back home.

Hori was sitting downhearted when Pandit Datadin came up and called out to him. Hori's heart began to pound. Was some new calamity on its way? He came and touched the Pandit's feet and set a stool for him before the brazier.

Datadin said, as he sat down, in a tone of favour, "So your fields have lain fallow this time, Hori! You said nothing to anyone in the village — else how would Bhola have dared to lead the bullocks away from your door? The corpse would have fallen right there. I tell you, Hori, with my sacred thread in my hand, I laid no fine on you. Dhaniya defames me for nothing. This is all the contrivance of Lala Pateshwari and Jhinguri Singh. I only sat in the panchayat because people pressed me to. Those men were for laying a still heavier penalty. It was I who, by argument and persuasion, got it reduced — but now they all sit weeping with their heads in their hands. They had thought theirs was the rule here. They did not know the village had another king. So now, what arrangement are you making for the sowing of your fields?"

Hori said in a piteous voice, "What can I tell you, Maharaj — they will lie fallow."

"Lie fallow? That would be a great calamity."

"If this is God's will, then what power have I?"

"How can your fields lie fallow while I look on? Tomorrow I'll have your sowing done. There's still some moisture in the fields. The crop will come ten days later, that's all — nothing else. Yours and mine — half and half, in partnership. There's no loss in it for you, nor for me. As I sat thinking today, it grieved my heart to see ploughed and tilled fields lying fallow."

Hori fell to thinking. All through the four rainy months he had put manure on these fields, had ploughed them, and now, only for the sowing, he must give up half the crop. And on top of that, what an obligation the man was making of it — but better this than the fields lying fallow. He'll get nothing else; at least the rent will come out of it. No — if there's no clearing of dues this time, eviction is already at the door.

He accepted the proposal.

Pleased, Datadin said, "Then come, let me weigh out the seed now, so there's no fuss in the morning. You've eaten your meal, I take it?"

Ashamed, Hori told the tale of how no hearth had been lit in his house that day.

Datadin said with the air of a sweet reproach, "Why! No hearth was lit in your house and you didn't even tell me. I'm not your enemy, am I? It's just this kind of thing that vexes me about you. Good man, what is there to feel shame or modesty about! We're all one. So you're a Shudra and I'm a Brahmin — what of that? We're all of one household. Times don't go the same for everyone. Who knows, tomorrow some trouble may fall on me, and if I don't tell you my sorrow, whom shall I tell? Well, what's happened has happened. Come — along with the seed, I'll weigh out a maund or two of grain for you to eat as well."

Within half an hour Hori came back with a basketful of barley on his head, and the household grindstone began to turn. Dhaniya wept and ground the barley with Sona. For what sin was God dealing her this punishment!

From the next day the sowing began. Hori's whole family threw itself into the work as though everything were their own. After several days the irrigation too was done in the same way. Datadin had got labour for nothing. Now and then his son Matadin too began to come into the house. He was a young man, very pleasure-loving and sweet of tongue. Whatever Datadin snatched and grabbed, Matadin spent on bhang and ganja. He had taken up with a chamar woman, which was why he had not yet married. She lived apart, but though the whole village knew this secret, none could say anything. Our religion is our food. Let the food stay pure, and then no harm can touch our religion. Bread, turned into a shield, guards us from irreligion.

Now that the farming was in partnership, Matadin began to find chances to talk with Jhuniya. He would come at moments when there was no one in the house but Jhuniya — on one pretext or another. Jhuniya was not beautiful, but she was young, and better-looking than his chamar mistress. She had lived in the city for some time, knew how to dress and carry herself, how to speak, and she was modest too, which is a woman's greatest charm. Matadin would sometimes take up her child in his lap and fondle it. Jhuniya would be overjoyed.

One day he said to Jhuniya, "What did you see in Gobar, that you came away with him, Jhuna?"

Jhuniya said shyly, "Fate dragged me along, Maharaj — what else can I say?"

Matadin said with a sorrowful air, "He's a faithless man. To leave a goddess of fortune like you and go wandering about heaven knows where! He has a fickle nature — that's why I have a suspicion that he's got entangled somewhere else. Men like that ought to be shot. It is a man's duty, when he takes a woman by the arm, to keep faith with her. What is this — to ruin one person's life and then go peering into another's house?"

The young woman began to weep. Matadin, glancing this way and that, took her hand and began to console her. "Why do you care about him, Jhuna? He's gone — let him go. What do you lack? Money, jewels, clothes — take whatever you want from me."

Jhuniya gently drew her hand away and, stepping back, said, "It's all your kindness, Maharaj! As for me, I've been left nowhere. I lost my own home, and I've lost this place too. I got neither wealth nor God. I didn't know the ways of the world. I listened to his sweet talk and got caught in the net."

Matadin began to run Gobar down. "He's a sheer good-for-nothing — neither of the house nor the bathing-ghat. Whenever you looked, he was quarrelling with his parents. Let him get a paisa anywhere and he'd gamble it away on the spot; his very life was bound up in charas and ganja. Roaming about with rogues, teasing other men's wives and daughters — that was all his work. The Inspector Sahib was about to charge him with rowdyism; we made a great deal of fawning before he let him off. He used to steal grain from other people's fields and threshing-floors. Several times I myself caught him at it, but, thinking he was of the village, I let him go."

Sona came out and said, "Bhabhi, Mother says, take the grain out and spread it in the sun, or else a lot of bran will come off. It's as if the Pandit had poured water into the granary."

Matadin offered his own explanation. "It seems there was no rainy season at your house. In the four wet months even firewood gets damp — grain is only grain."

So saying he went out. Sona had come and spoiled his game.

Sona asked Jhuniya, "What had Matadin come for?"

Jhuniya said with a frown, "He was asking for a rope. I told him there was no rope here."

"That's all a pretext. He's a very wicked man."

"He seems a very good man to me. What's wicked about him?"

"You don't know — he keeps the chamar woman Silia."

"And that makes him a wicked man?"

"And what else makes a man called wicked?"

"Your brother brought me too. Is he a wicked man as well?"

Sona gave no answer to this, but said, "If he comes to my house again, I'll drive him off."

"And what if you were married to him?"

Sona blushed. "Bhabhi, you're abusing me now."

"Why, what's there to abuse in this?"

"If he spoke to me, I'd singe his face."

"Then are you to be married to some god? Who else in the village is so handsome, so dashing a young man?"

"Then you go off with him — you're a thousand times better than Silia."

"Why should I go off? I came away with one man, good or bad."

"Then I too will go off with whomever I'm married to, good or bad."

"And what if you're married to some old man?"

Sona laughed. "I'll cook soft, soft breads for him, I'll pound and sift his medicines, I'll lift him up holding his hand, and when he dies I'll cover my face and weep."

"And what if it's to some young man?"

"Then never mind your head, that's all!"

"Well, tell me — do you like an old man or a young one?"

"Whoever loves you, he is the young one; whoever doesn't, he is the old one."

"Heaven grant you're married to some old man — then let me see how you love him. Then you'll be praying — let this wretch die somehow, so I can go and set up with some young man."

"As for me, I'd feel pity for that old man."

That year a sugar mill had opened in the area. Its agents and brokers went from village to village buying the peasants' standing cane. It was the very mill that Mr Khanna had opened. One day its agent came to this village too. When the peasants haggled over the price, it became clear that there was no profit in making jaggery. When you got the same price even after crushing the cane in your own house, why take on the labour of crushing? The whole village got ready to sell its standing cane. Even if they got somewhat less, it didn't matter — at least they'd get it at once. One man had to buy a bullock, another had to clear his arrears, another wanted to free his neck from the mahajan's grip. Hori had to buy a pair of bullocks. This time the cane yield was not good, so there was the fear too that the harvest would not be worthwhile. And when mill sugar came at the price of jaggery, who would buy jaggery at all? Everyone took an advance. Hori had hoped for at least a hundred rupees. With that an ordinary pair would be had, but what was he to do about the mahajans! Datadin, Mangaru, Dulari, Jhinguri Singh — they were all devouring his soul. If he began paying the mahajans, a hundred rupees would not even cover the interest. No device came to mind by which the cane money might come into his hand without anyone learning of it. Once the bullocks were home, what could anyone do? When the cart is loaded, the whole village will see it, and whatever money he gets at the weighing — everyone will know of it. It was likely that Mangaru and Datadin would stay right at his side. Money in his hand here, and there they would seize him by the throat.

In the evening Girdhar asked, "When will your cane go, Hori Kaka?"

Hori gave him a dodge. "Nothing is fixed yet, brother — when will yours go?"

Girdhar gave a dodge in return. "Nothing is fixed with me yet either, Kaka!"

Others too gave such evasive answers; no one trusted anyone. They were all debtors to Jhinguri Singh, and everyone's wish was that the money should not fall into Jhinguri Singh's hands, or he would swallow the whole of it. And then, when the next day the tenant went to ask for his money again, there would be a fresh document, a fresh present, a fresh writing. The next day Sobha came and said, "Brother, do something so that Jhinguri Singh gets cholera. Let him fall in such a way that he never rises again."

Hori smiled and said, "Why — hasn't he wives and children?"

"Are we to think of his wives and children, or of our own? He keeps two wives in comfort, while here not one even gets dry bread. He'll take the whole sum. He won't let a single paisa be brought home."

"My state is even worse, brother. If the money slips out of my hand, I'll be ruined. Without a pair of bullocks the work won't go on."

"It'll take two or three days yet to cart the cane. As soon as all the cane is delivered, we'll tell the foreman, 'Brother, take something, but weigh the cane quickly — pay the money later.' And we'll tell Jhinguri, 'We haven't got the money yet.'"

Hori thought it over and said, "Jhinguri Singh is many times sharper than you and me, Sobha! He'll go and meet the clerk and take the money from him directly. We'll be left gaping. The Khanna Babu whose mill it is — that same Khanna Babu has a money-lending firm too. They are one and the same."

Sobha said in despair, "I wonder whether our necks will ever be free of these mahajans or not."

Hori said, "In this life there's no hope of it, brother! We don't want a kingdom, we don't want pleasures and luxuries — only to wear coarse cloth and eat coarse food and live with our dignity. Even that is not to be had."

Sobha said cunningly, "I tell you, Dada, I'll dupe the whole lot of them this time. I'll give the foreman something or other and win him round to keep us running and running for the money. How long will Jhinguri keep running?"

Hori laughed and said, "None of this will come of anything, brother! The safety lies in clasping Jhinguri Singh's hands and feet. We are caught in the net. The more you flap, the tighter you'll be bound."

"You talk like an old man, Dada. To sit caught in the dock is cowardice. Let the noose tighten further, never mind — but to free the neck, force must be used. This is all that will happen: Jhinguri will have the house and the door auctioned off. Let him auction them! I myself wish that no one would lend us money, that we should be left to starve, to be kicked, that not a paisa would be given on credit — but if the moneyed men give no credit, where will they get their interest from? One man files a suit against us, and another lends us money at slightly lower interest and so traps us in his net. I'll go for the money only on the day Jhinguri has gone off somewhere."

Hori's mind too was shaken. "Yes, that's right."

"We'll have the cane weighed. We'll bring the money watching for the right moment."

"That's it, that's it — make that move."

The next day at dawn several men of the village began cutting cane. Hori too reached his field with a billhook. Sobha came from his side to help him. Puniya, Jhuniya, Koniya, Sona — all reached the field. One cut cane, one stripped it, one bound it into bundles. When the mahajans saw the cane being cut, mice ran about in their bellies. From one direction Dulari hurried up, from another Mangaru Sah, from a third Matadin and Pateshwari and Jhinguri's footmen. Dulari, with thick silver bangles on her wrists and ankles, gold pendants in her ears, kohl in her eyes — old age painted and dressed up as youth — came and said, "First pay me my money, then I'll let the cane be cut. The more I forbear, the more lion-like you become. For two years you haven't paid a cowrie of interest. Fifty rupees of my interest alone are owing."

Hori said cringingly, "Bhabhi, let the cane be cut. When the money for it comes, I'll give you as much as I can. I'm not running off and leaving the village, nor has death come for me so soon. Cane standing in the field won't give you money, will it?"

Dulari snatched the billhook from his hand and said, "Your intentions have grown so foul — that's just why you never prosper."

It was five years ago now that Hori had taken thirty rupees from Dulari. In three years it had become a hundred, and then the stamped paper was written. In two years fifty rupees of interest had piled onto it.

Hori said, "Sahuain, I have never had foul intentions, and if God wills, I'll pay back every pie. Yes, these days I am in straits — say what you like."

The Sahuain had hardly gone when Mangaru Sah arrived. A dark complexion, a paunch hanging below his waist, two big front teeth jutting out as though to bite, a cap on his head, a wrapper round his neck — his age not yet above fifty, but he walked with the support of a stick. He had taken rheumatism. He had a cough too. Leaning on his stick, he stood and gave Hori a scolding. "First give me my money, Hori, then cut the cane. I lent the money on loan, it wasn't charity. Three whole years have gone by, no interest, no profit — but don't think you'll swallow my money. I'll recover it even from your corpse."

Sobha was a jester. He said, "Then why fret, Sahji? Recover it from his corpse. Else, a year or two before or after, you'll both reach heaven. Settle your account there before God."

Mangaru called Sobha all sorts of bad names — defaulter, dishonest, and so on. "When it's time to take, you wag your tail; when the turn comes to give, you growl. I'll have your house sold off, I'll have your cattle auctioned."

Sobha goaded him again. "Well, on your honour, tell me, Sah, how much money did you lend, that has now become three hundred rupees?"

"When you don't pay the interest year after year, it grows of itself."

"How much money did you lend at first? Only fifty."

"And how long ago — see that too."

"Five or six years ago, would it be?"

"A full ten years gone, and the eleventh is running."

"Lending fifty rupees, you take three hundred — aren't you the least bit ashamed?"

"Ashamed of what? It's money I've lent, not charity I'm begging for."

Hori sent these people off too with imploring and beseeching. Datadin had farmed in partnership with Hori. He would give the seed and take half the crop. To pick a quarrel with him at this moment was against policy. Jhinguri Singh had already settled everything with the mill manager beforehand. His footmen, having the cane loaded onto carts, were bringing it to the boats. The river was half a mile from the village. A single cart could make seven or eight trips in a day. And one boat in a single crossing could load the burden of fifty carts. In this way it came cheaper. By arranging this convenience, Jhinguri Singh had laid the whole region under an obligation.

As soon as the weighing began, Jhinguri Singh took his seat at the mill gate. He had each man's cane weighed, took the price-slip, recovered the money from the cashier, and, after deducting his own dues, handed over the rest to the tenant. However much the tenant might weep and cry out, he heeded none of them. Such was the master's order. What power had he!

Hori got a hundred and twenty rupees! Out of these Jhinguri Singh, having cut his own money with interest in full, handed over some twenty-five rupees to Hori.

Hori looked indifferently at the money and said, "What shall I do with this, Thakur? Take this too. I'll get plenty of wage-work."

Jhinguri flung the twenty-five rupees on the ground and said, "Take them or throw them away — as you please. On your account I have eaten the master's reproaches, and even now the Rai Sahib sits on my head telling me to pay up the fine money. Out of pity for your poverty I'm giving you this much; otherwise I wouldn't give a cowrie. If the Rai Sahib presses hard, I'll have to pay even more out of my own pocket."

Hori slowly picked up the money and was stepping out when Nokheram hailed him. Hori went and laid the twenty-five rupees on his palm, and without saying anything fled quickly away. His head was spinning.

Sobha had got just as much money. When he came out, Pateshwari surrounded him.

Sobha burst out. "I have no money. Do whatever you have to do."

Pateshwari grew hot. "Have you sold the cane or not?"

"Yes, I've sold it."

"Wasn't that your promise — that you'd pay after selling the cane?"

"Yes, it was."

"Then why don't you pay? And have you paid everyone else or not?"

"Yes, I've paid them."

"Then why don't you pay me?"

"Whatever's left with me now is for my children."

Pateshwari said angrily, "You'll pay the money, Sobha, with folded hands, and this very day. Yes, swagger as much as you please right now. One report and you'll go for six months — full six months, not a day more, not a day less. This gambling you do every day — one report and it'll all be wrung out of you. I am not the servant of a zamindar or a mahajan — I am the servant of the Sarkar Bahadur, whose rule spans the whole world, and who is the master of both your mahajan and your zamindar."

Pateshwari Lal walked on ahead. Sobha and Hori went some distance in silence, as though this rebuke had stunned them senseless. Then Hori said, "Sobha, give him the money. Reckon that the cane caught fire. That's how I too have reconciled my mind."

Sobha said in a wounded voice, "Yes, I'll give it, Dada! If I don't, where will I go?"

From the opposite direction Girdhar came swaying along, having drunk toddy. Seeing the two of them he said, "Jhinguriya took the whole lot, Hori Kaka! He didn't leave even a paisa for parched grain! The murderer! I wept, I grovelled, but no pity came to that sinner."

Sobha said, "You've drunk toddy, and on top of that you say he left you not a paisa."

Girdhar showed his belly. "Evening came; if even a drop of water has gone down my throat, it's the same as cow's flesh. I'd kept a four-anna bit pressed in my mouth. I drank toddy with it. I thought, I've sweated and slaved a whole year — let me at least drink toddy for one day. But truly I tell you, there's no intoxication. What intoxication will there be in one anna's worth? Yes, I'm swaying so people will think I've drunk well. It's a fine thing, Kaka, the dues are cleared. I borrowed twenty, paid one hundred and sixty — is there any limit!"

When Hori reached home, Rupa ran with water, Sona brought a filled pipe, Dhaniya brought parched grain and salt and set them down, and all of them gazed at him with hope-filled eyes. Jhuniya too had come and stood on the threshold. Hori sat downcast. How was he to wash his face and hands, how was he to eat the parched grain? He was as ashamed and grief-stricken as if he had come from committing a murder.

Dhaniya asked, "How much did the weighing come to?"

"I got a hundred and twenty, but it was all looted there. Not a cowrie was left."

Dhaniya was scorched from head to foot. Such agitation rose in her heart that she could have clawed her own face. She said, "Why did God create a dolt like you? If I met Him somewhere, I'd ask Him. My whole life has turned bitter being with you, and God doesn't even grant death so my soul might be free of this snare. You picked up all the money and gave it to your brothers-in-law. Now what other income is there, from which a pair of bullocks will come? Will you yoke me to the plough, or yoke yourself? I tell you, you've grown old, and you still haven't even the sense to keep back at least the money for a pair of bullocks! Nobody would have snatched it from your hand. This cold of Paus, and not a rag on anyone's body. Go, take everyone and drown them in the river. Better to die all at once than to die sobbing day after day. How long will we burrow into straw and pass the night, and even if we burrow into straw, we can't live by eating straw. If you wish, eat grass yourself — we can't eat grass."

As she said this, she suddenly smiled. By now it had begun to dawn on her that when the mahajan sits upon your head, and you have the money in hand, and the mahajan knows you have the money, how can a tenant save his own life!

Hori, his head bowed, was bewailing his fate. He did not see Dhaniya's smile. He said, "There will be wage-work. We'll earn by labour and eat." Dhaniya asked, "Where in this village is there wage-work? And with what face will you do wage-work? Don't they call you a mahato — a man of standing!"

Hori took a few pulls at the pipe and said, "Doing wage-work is no sin. If a labourer prospers, he becomes a peasant. If a peasant comes to ruin, he becomes a labourer. If doing wage-work were not written in our fate, why would all this calamity come? Why would the cow die? Why would the son turn out a good-for-nothing?"

Dhaniya, glancing at her daughter-in-law and daughters, said, "Why are you all standing about crowding here? Go and see to your own work. There are others who, when they come from the market or fair, bring some two-paisa thing for their children. Here he'll be greedily wondering how to keep from breaking a rupee — lest there be one rupee less. That's just why there's no blessing in their earnings. Those who spend, get more. Why should money come to those who can't enjoy it? To bury in the ground?"

Hori said with a burst of laughter, "Where is that buried treasure?"

"Wherever it's kept, there it will be. The pity is that, even knowing this, you kill yourselves for money! If you had brought some four-paisa thing and placed it in the children's hands, it wouldn't have gone to waste. If you had told Jhinguri, 'Give me one rupee, else I won't give you a paisa, go take it in court,' he'd certainly have given it."

Hori was abashed. If, in his exasperation, he had not handed over the twenty-five rupees to Nokheram, what could Nokhe have done? At the most he would have taken two or three annas' interest on the arrears, but now the blunder was made.

Jhuniya went inside and said to Sona, "I feel great pity for Dada. The poor man came home tired out from the whole day's work, and Mother began cursing him. The mahajan was throttling him — what could the poor man do!"

"Then where will the bullocks come from?"

"The mahajan wants his own money. What does he care about the sorrows of your household?"

"If Mother had been there, she'd have given the mahajan a taste of it. The wretch would have been left only weeping."

Jhuniya said in jest, "As if there were any lack of money here — you just speak a word or two with a smile to the mahajan, and see whether he doesn't let off the whole sum. I tell you truly, all of Dada's sorrow and poverty would be gone."

Sona pressed her mouth shut with both hands and said, "Now just keep quiet, or else I tell you — if I go now and lay bare to Mother the whole truth about Matadin, you'll be weeping."

Jhuniya asked, "What will you tell Mother? Is there even anything to tell? When he comes into the house on some pretext, what am I to say — get out? He doesn't take anything from me, after all; he gives something of his own instead. Apart from sweet talk, he can get nothing from Jhuniya! And I know how to sell my sweet words at a dear price too. I'm not such a green fool that I'd be taken in by anyone's wheedling. Yes, when I come to know that your brother has set up someone else there, then I'll not vouch for what I do. Then no bond of anyone's will hold me. For now I still believe that he is mine, and that it's on my account that he has to wander from lane to lane stubbing his toes. To laugh and chatter is one thing, but I will not betray him. He who has become two from one is no longer anyone's."

Sobha came and called Hori, and putting Pateshwari's money into his hand said, "Brother, you go and give Lala this money. I don't know what came over me at that moment."

Hori had just got up with the money when the sound of a conch reached his ears. At that end of the village lived a Thakur named Dhyan Singh. He was a soldier in the army and had come home some days ago on leave after ten years. Baghdad, Aden, Singapore, Burma — he had wandered all those places. Now he was bent on marrying. So he wanted to keep the Brahmins pleased by performing worship and recitation.

Hori said, "It seems all seven chapters are finished. The arati is being performed."

Sobha said, "Yes, it seems so — come, let's take part in the arati."

Hori said with a worried air, "You go; I'll come in a little while."

The day Dhyan Singh had arrived, he had sent a seer's weight of sweets as a gift to every house. Whenever he met Hori on the road he would ask after his welfare. To go to his recitation and give nothing at the arati would be a matter of disgrace.

The arati tray would be in his own hand. How could Hori take the arati empty-handed before him? Far better, then, that he should not go to the recitation at all. Among so many people, how would Dhyan Singh remember that Hori had not come? No one sits there with a register, noting who has come and who has not. He went and lay down on the cot.

But his heart kept wringing within him. He had not a single paisa! Not one copper paisa. He was fully aware of the merit and sanctity of the arati. It was only a matter of social custom. The arati of the Thakurji he could take by offering only the gift of his devotion — but how was he to break the bounds of propriety, how was he to become low in everyone's eyes!

Suddenly he sat up. Why should he be a slave to propriety? Why give up the merit of the arati for the sake of propriety? People would laugh — let them laugh. He didn't care. Let God keep him from evil deeds, and he wanted nothing else.

He set off towards the Thakur's house.