Chapter 15

Malti from the outside is a butterfly, from within a honeybee. In her life there is not laughter and laughter alone — who can live merely by eating jaggery? And even if one did, it would not be a happy life. She laughs because she gets paid even for this. Her chirping and sparkling is not because she takes chirping itself for life, or because she has so magnified her own self in her eyes that whatever she does, she does for herself alone. No — she chirps and makes merry because by it the burden of her duty is somewhat lightened. Her father was among those strange creatures who, with the help of the tongue alone, made and unmade the affairs of lakhs. To get the estates of great landlords and grandees sold, to get them loans, or to settle their cases in collusion with the officers — that was his trade. In other words, he was a broker. People of this class are very gifted. Any work from which there is hope of getting something, they will take it up, and somehow or other they will see it through too. He arranged some raja's marriage with some princess and pocketed ten or twenty thousand in it. These same brokers, when they do small deals, are called touts, and we despise them. Doing great works, that same tout goes hunting with rajas and drinks tea at the tables of governors. Mr Kaul was one of those fortunate men. He had nothing but daughters — three of them. His idea was to send all three to England and bring them to the summit of education. Like many other great men, he too held the notion that, getting education in England, a man becomes something quite other. Perhaps there is some power in the climate there to sharpen the intellect — but this wish of his was fulfilled by no more than a third. Malti was still in England when paralysis struck him and rendered him useless. Now, with great difficulty, with the support of two men, he sat up and lay down. His tongue had stopped altogether. And when the tongue itself had stopped, the income too stopped. Whatever there had been, was the tongue's earning. To save and lay something by was not his habit. The income was irregular, and the expenditure was irregular, and so for several years past they had been in great straits. The whole responsibility fell upon Malti. On Malti's four or five hundred rupees, how could that indulgence and that grand style be carried on! Yes, this much was managed — the two daughters' education went on, and life was passed in the manner of respectable folk. Malti ran about from morning till a quarter of the night gone. She wished her father to live a temperate life, but her father had got such a craving for liquor and meat that in no way would it leave his throat. When nothing was got from anywhere, he would write a promissory note at his own bungalow for some moneylender and take a thousand or two thousand. The moneylender was an old friend of his, who, on his account, had earned lakhs in money-lending, and out of consideration said nothing. Twenty-five thousand of his were already owed, and whenever he wished, he could have a distraint carried out, but he kept up the honour of friendship. The shamelessness that comes into self-servers was in Kaul too. Let there be demands for payment — he had no care. Malti kept fretting over his extravagance, but her mother, who was a veritable goddess and who, even in this age, reckoned the service of the husband to be the chief end of a woman's life, kept counselling her, and so domestic warfare was prevented.

Evening had come. There was still heat in the air. A haze hung over the sky. Malti and her two sisters were sitting on the grass before the bungalow. For want of water the lawn-grass there had burned up and the bare earth beneath had come through.

Malti asked, "Does the gardener not give any water at all?"

The middle sister, Saroj, said, "He lies sleeping all the time, the pig. When you tell him, he begins to come up with twenty excuses."

Saroj was studying for her B.A. — thin, tall, sallow, dry, bitter. Nothing anyone said pleased her. She was always finding fault. The doctors' advice was that she should do no hard work and should live in the hills, but the family's circumstances were not such that she could be sent to the hills.

The youngest, Varda, had a grudge against Saroj because the whole household carried Saroj about on its hands; she wished the illness in which there was so much relish would come to her instead. She was a fair-skinned, proud, healthy, restless-eyed girl, on whose face there was a glimmer of brilliance. Apart from Saroj, she had sympathy for all the world. To oppose whatever Saroj said was her nature. She said, "All day long Dada-ji keeps sending him off to the market — where does he find leisure? He gets no respite even to die — of course he will lie sleeping."

Saroj scolded her. "When does Dada-ji send him to the market, you liar!"

"He sends him every day, every day. Why, only today he was sent. Shall I call him and have it asked of him?"

"Will you have it asked — shall I call him?"

Malti was alarmed. If the two of them came to grips, they would make it impossible to sit there. Changing the subject, she said, "Well, never mind, let it be. Today Doctor Mehta gave a lecture at your place, Saroj?"

Saroj wrinkled her nose and said, "Yes, he did, but no one liked it. He began to pronounce — in the world the sphere of women is altogether separate from that of men. For women to come into the sphere of men is the disgrace of this age. All the girls began to clap and whistle. The poor man, ashamed, sat down. He seems a rather strange sort of man. He went so far as to say that love is merely the imagination of poets. In real life there is no trace of it anywhere. Lady Hukku made fine fun of him."

Malti made a thrust. "Lady Hukku? She too has the courage to say something on this subject! You ought to have heard the Doctor Sahib's lecture from beginning to end. In his heart, what must he have taken the girls for?"

"Who had the patience to hear the whole lecture? It was as if he kept sprinkling salt on a wound."

"Then why was he invited at all? After all, he has no enmity with women. He only preaches what he takes to be the truth. He is not among those who, to please women, say what they wish to hear, and besides, who yet knows whether the path on which women wish to walk is itself the truth? It is quite possible that, going further on, we shall have to change our notion."

She set forth the life-ideals of the women of France, Germany, and Italy and said, "Soon there is to be a lecture by Mehta on behalf of the Women's League."

Saroj felt curiosity.

"But you yourself say that the rights of women and men ought to be equal."

"I say so even now, but what the other side says — that too ought to be heard. It is possible we ourselves are in the wrong."

This League was a new institution of the city, and had been opened through Malti's efforts. All the educated ladies of the city had joined it. Mehta's first lecture had caused a great stir among the women, and the League had resolved that he should be given a thoroughly crushing reply. The burden had been laid upon Malti herself. For several days Malti went on hunting up arguments and proofs in support of her side. Several other ladies too were writing their lectures. That day, when Mehta arrived at the League's hall in the evening, it seemed the hall would burst. He felt proud. So much enthusiasm to hear his lecture! And that enthusiasm was not only on the faces and in the eyes. Today all the ladies were laden with gold and silk, as though they had come to some wedding procession. To defeat Mehta, full strength had been brought into play, and who can say that glitter is not a part of strength? Malti, for this day, had brought out a sari of new fashion, had had jumpers of new cut made, and was elaborately decked out with paint and powder and flowers, as though her marriage were taking place. Such a gala the Women's League had never seen before. Doctor Mehta was alone, and yet the hearts of the ladies were trembling. One spark of truth can reduce a whole mountain of falsehood to ashes.

In the very last row Mirza and Khanna and the editor too were seated. Rai Sahib came after the lecture had begun and stood at the back.

Mirza said, "Come, you too — how long will you keep standing?"

Rai Sahib said, "No, brother, here I will begin to suffocate."

"Then I shall stand. You sit."

Rai Sahib pressed his shoulders. "No ceremony, keep sitting. When I grow tired, I will have you up and sit down. So, Miss Malti has become the chairwoman. Khanna Sahib, get some prize given."

Khanna, putting on a doleful face, said, "Now all eyes are on Mr Mehta. I am out of the running."

Mr Mehta's lecture began —

"Ladies, when I address you in this fashion, nothing strikes you as wrong. You consider this honour to be your right, but have you ever heard a lady treat men with the term 'god'? If you call a man a god, he will think you are mocking him. You have, for giving in charity, pity, reverence, sacrifice. What has the man for giving? He is not a giver, he is a taker. For the sake of authority he commits violence, makes war, makes strife..."

There was applause. Rai Sahib said, "What a fine way he has found of pleasing the women."

The editor of Bijli felt offended. "Nothing new. I have expressed this idea any number of times."

Mehta went on. "And so, when I see that our progressive-minded ladies, dissatisfied with that life of pity and reverence and sacrifice, are running toward a life of war and strife and violence and thinking that this is the heaven of happiness, then I cannot congratulate them."

Mrs Khanna looked at Malti with proud eyes. Malti lowered her neck.

Khurshed said, "There now. Mehta is a bold man. He speaks the true thing, and to one's face."

The editor of Bijli wrinkled his nose. "Those days are over, when ladies fell for these tricks. Keep grabbing up their rights and keep saying — you are a goddess, you are Lakshmi, you are a mother."

Mehta went on. "To see woman in the form of man, engaged in the work of man, gives me pain in the very way that it pains me to see man in the form of woman, doing the work of woman. I am sure you do not count such men worthy of your trust and love, and I assure you that such a woman too cannot become worthy of a man's love and reverence."

The joy of his heart flashed up on Khanna's face.

Rai Sahib teased, "You are very pleased, Khanna-ji!"

Khanna said, "If I could get Malti, I would ask. There now."

Mehta went on. "I consider the position of woman, in the evolution of creatures, superior to the position of man, in the very way that I consider love and sacrifice and reverence superior to violence and war and strife. If our ladies wish to come from the divine temple of creation and nurture into the demonic field of violence and strife, no good of society will come of it. On this matter I am firm. Man, in his vanity, has given greater importance to his demonic fame. Snatching away his brother's right and shedding his blood, he began to think he had won some great victory. The infants whom the goddesses created and nursed with their own blood, he, by making them the prey of bombs and machine-guns and thousands of tanks, considers himself a conqueror. And when our own mothers, marking his brow with the saffron tilak and clothing him in the armour of their blessings, send him into the field of violence, it is no wonder that man took destruction itself to be the thing for the world's welfare, and his violent tendency went on increasing day by day, and today we are seeing that this demonism, grown furious, goes on trampling the whole world, crushing creatures, burning green and growing crops, and turning flourishing settlements into wastelands. Ladies, I ask you — will you, by lending your cooperation to this demonic play, by descending into this field of war, do good to the world? I beg of you — let the destroyers do their work, you go on fulfilling your own dharma."

Khanna said, "Malti's neck does not even lift."

Rai Sahib endorsed these ideas. "What Mehta says is indeed the truth."

The editor of Bijli was put out. "But he has not said anything at all. The opponents of the women's movement always take refuge in just such rambling stuff. I do not accept it at all that the world has advanced through sacrifice and love. The world has advanced through manly valour, through prowess, through the strength of intellect, through energy."

Khurshed said, "Now, will you let him be heard, or will you go on singing your own tune?"

Mehta's lecture continued — "Ladies, I am not among those who say that men and women have equal powers, equal tendencies, and that there is no difference between them. A more terrible falsehood I cannot conceive of. This is the falsehood which seeks to cover the experience garnered over age upon age, in the very way that a piece of cloud covers the sun. I warn you not to be caught in this snare. Woman is as superior to man as light is to darkness. For a human being, forgiveness and sacrifice and non-violence are the highest ideals of life. Woman has already attained this ideal. Man, taking the support of religion and spirituality and the sages, has for centuries been straining to reach that goal, but has not been able to succeed. I say — all his spirituality and yoga on one side, and the sacrifice of women on the other."

There was applause. The hall shook. Rai Sahib said, overcome, "Mehta says exactly what is in his heart."

Onkarnath made a comment. "But the things are all old, rotten."

"An old thing too, if it is said with strength of soul, becomes new."

"In him who, every month, scrapes up a thousand rupees and squanders it in luxury, there can be no such thing as strength of soul. These are merely ways of pleasing women and men of old-fashioned views."

Khanna looked toward Malti. "Why is she swelling so? She ought to be ashamed."

Khurshed incited Khanna. "Now you too deliver a speech, Khanna, else Mehta will uproot you and fling you down. Half the field he has already won."

Khanna said sheepishly, "Do not speak of me. I have caught and let go any number of such birds."

Rai Sahib, winking at Khurshed, said, "Nowadays you go and come about the ladies' society. Tell me truly, how much subscription did you give?"

Embarrassment came over Khanna. "I do not give subscriptions to such societies, which, getting up a sham of art, spread immorality."

Mehta's lecture continued —

"Man says — all the philosophers and scientists and inventors there have been, they were all men. All the great saints there have been, they were all men. All the warriors, all the masters of statecraft, the great navigators — all of them were men. But these crowds of great ones, gathering together, what did they accomplish? The saints and the founders of religions, apart from making rivers of blood flow in the world and kindling the fire of enmity, what did they do? The warriors, apart from cutting off the necks of their brothers, what memorial did they leave behind? The mark of the statesmen now remains only the ruins of vanished empires, and the inventors, apart from making man the slave of the machine, what problem did they solve? In this culture fashioned by men, where is peace? Where is cooperation?"

Onkarnath rose to leave. "Hearing great big talk from the mouths of voluptuaries, my body burns to ashes."

Khurshed caught his hand and seated him. "You too, Editor-ji, have remained an utter blockhead. Come now, this is the world — whoever has whatever comes into his head, blabs it. Some people listen and clap their hands; come, the tale is over. Numberless such Mehtas will come and go, and the world will keep moving at its own pace. What is there to get upset about?"

"I cannot bear to hear falsehood."

Rai Sahib egged him on further. "Hearing the talk of saints from the mouth of a wanton, whose heart would not burn!"

Onkarnath sat down again. Mehta's lecture continued —

"I ask you — seeing the hawk hunt little birds, would it become the swan to leave the blissful peace of Lake Manasarovar and begin hunting little birds? And if it did become a hunter, would you congratulate it? The swan does not have so sharp a beak, nor such sharp talons, nor such sharp eyes, nor such sharp wings, nor such a sharp thirst for blood. To amass those weapons would take it ages, and even then it is doubtful whether it could become a hawk or not — but become a hawk or not, it would no longer be a swan — that swan which pecks up pearls."

Khurshed commented, "These are arguments of the sort poets make. The female hawk too hunts in the very way the male hawk does."

Onkarnath was delighted. "And on that you set up as a philosopher — on the strength of just this kind of reasoning."

Khanna let out the gas of his heart. "Not a philosopher — a philosopher's tail. A philosopher is one who..."

Onkarnath completed the sentence. "Who does not budge a barleycorn's breadth from the truth."

Khanna did not relish this completion of the riddle. "I know nothing of truth and the rest. I call him a philosopher who is a true philosopher!"

Khurshed gave his applause. "How truly you have described a philosopher. Bravo, subhanallah! A philosopher is one who is a philosopher. Why, of course!"

Mehta went on. "I do not say that ladies have no need of learning. They have — and more than men. I do not say that ladies have no need of power. They have — and more than men, but not that learning and not that power by which man has made the world a field of violence. If you too take up that very learning and that very power, the world will become a desert. Your learning and your authority lie not in violence and destruction, but in creation and nurture. Do you suppose mankind will be redeemed by votes, or by plying the tongue and the pen in offices and courts? For these counterfeit, unnatural, destructive rights, do you wish to give up the rights which Nature has given you?"

Saroj had until now restrained herself out of respect for her elder sister. Now she could hold back no longer. She hissed, "We want votes, equal to men."

And several other young women raised the cry — "Vote! Vote!"

Onkarnath rose and said in a loud voice, "May the turbans of the enemies of womankind be brought low."

Malti, striking the table with her hand, said, "Be quiet — those who wish to say something for or against will be given full opportunity."

Mehta said, "The vote is the snare of illusion of the new age, it is a mirage, a stain, a deception. Caught in its whirl, you will be neither of this side nor of that. Who says your sphere is narrow and that in it you find no scope for expression? We are all first human beings, and after that something else. Our life is our home. There our creation takes place, there our nurture takes place, there all the business of life takes place. If that sphere is limited, then which is the unlimited sphere? Is it that strife where there is organized plunder? The factory in which man and his fate are shaped, leaving it, you wish to go into those factories where man is ground down, where his blood is drawn out?"

Mirza interrupted, "It is the tyranny of men that has bred this spirit of revolt in them."

Mehta said, "No doubt men have done injustice, but this is not the answer to it. Wipe out the injustice — but not by effacing yourselves."

Malti said, "Women want rights for this reason — to make good use of them and to stop men from making bad use of them."

Mehta answered, "The greatest rights in the world are got through service and sacrifice, and those are already yours. Before those rights, the vote is nothing. I am sorry that our sisters are taking up the ideal of the West, where woman has lost her position and, fallen from being a mistress, has become an object of pleasure. The woman of the West wishes to be free, for this very reason — that she may take more and more pleasure. The ideal of our mothers has never been pleasure. They have always, by the right of service alone, conducted the household. From the West, take the things that are good. In culture there has always been give and take, but blind imitation is only a sign of mental weakness! The woman of the West today does not wish to remain mistress of the house. The refined craving for enjoyment has made her unruly. Her modesty and her dignity, which were her greatest treasure, she is sacrificing on the altar of restlessness and amusement. When I see the educated girls of that country displaying their beauty, or their full rounded arms, or their nakedness, pity for them comes over me. Their cravings have so subjugated them that they cannot guard even their own modesty. What further degradation can there be for woman than this?"

Rai Sahib clapped. The hall resounded with applause, as though strings of crackers were going off.

Mirza Sahib said to the editor, "You will have no answer to this either?"

The editor said with a disgusted heart, "In the whole speech this is the one thing he has said truly."

"Then you too have become a devotee of Mehta!"

"No, sir, our people become devotees of no one. I will find out the answer to this — you will see it in Bijli."

"This means you do not search for the truth, you only wish to fight for your own side."

Rai Sahib took him to task. "And on this you pride yourself on your love of truth?"

The editor remained unmoved. "A lawyer's task is to look to the interest of his client, not to determine truth or falsehood."

"Then say plainly that you are the women's lawyer?"

"I am the lawyer of all those people who are weak, helpless, oppressed."

"You are a great brazen-face, my friend!"

Mehta-ji was saying — "And this is a conspiracy of men. To draw the ladies down from their high peak and make them equal to themselves — a conspiracy of those men who are cowards, who have not the capacity to bear the responsibility of married life, who, in the waves of unbridled love-sport, like bulls, wish to thrust their snouts into others' green and growing fields and gratify their base cravings. In the West their conspiracy has succeeded, and the ladies have become butterflies. I am ashamed to say it, but in this land of India, this land of sacrifice and penance, the same wind has begun to blow. Especially upon our educated sisters that spell is mounting very swiftly. Abandoning the ideal of the housewife, they are taking the colour of butterflies."

Saroj said in agitation, "We do not ask men for advice. If they are free regarding their own affairs, then women too are free regarding theirs. Young women now do not wish to make marriage a profession. They will marry only on the basis of love."

There was loud applause, especially in the front rows, where the ladies were.

Mehta replied, "What you call love is a deception, the form of inflamed craving, in the very way that renunciation is only the refined form of begging. That love, if it is little in married life, is altogether absent in free indulgence. True joy, true peace, lie only in the vow of service. That is the source of authority, that is the well-spring of power. Service is the cement which can hold a couple bound in affection and companionship all their lives, on which even great shocks have no effect. Where service is lacking, there is divorce, there is desertion, there is mistrust. And the responsibility lies more upon you, because you are the helmswoman of the boat of a man's life. If you wish, you can carry the boat through storms and tempests to the shore. And if you are careless, the boat will sink, and with it you too will sink."

The lecture ended. The subject was contentious, and several ladies asked permission to reply, but it had grown very late. So Malti, thanking Mehta, dissolved the assembly. Yes, this notice was given — that next Sunday several ladies would express their views on this same subject.

Rai Sahib congratulated Mehta. "You said the things of my own mind, Mr Mehta. I agree with your every single word."

Malti laughed. "Why would you not congratulate him — thief and thief are cousins, after all — but why is all the preaching here heaped upon the heads of the poor women alone? Why is the burden of upholding the ideal and the dignity and the sacrifice — all of it — flung upon their heads alone?"

Mehta said, "Because they understand the matter."

Khanna, looking at Malti with his great large eyes, as though trying to understand the thought in her mind, said, "These ideas of the Doctor Sahib seem to me about a hundred years behind the times."

Malti asked bitterly, "Which ideas?"

"This very service and duty and so forth."

"So these ideas seem to you a hundred years behind the times. Then be so kind as to tell us your fresh ideas. How can a couple stay happy — have you any fresh prescription for it?"

Khanna grew sheepish. He had spoken to please Malti, and she had bristled up. He said, "This prescription Mehta Sahib must know."

"The Doctor Sahib has told it, and in your opinion it is a hundred years old; then you ought to tell the new prescription. You are not aware that in the world there are many such things which can never become old at all. Such problems always keep arising in society, and always will keep arising."

Mrs Khanna had gone off into the veranda. Mehta went to her and, saluting her, asked, "What is your opinion of my lecture?"

Mrs Khanna, lowering her eyes, said, "It was good, very good — but you are still unmarried, and that is why women are goddesses, superior, helmswomen. Get married, and then I will ask — now what are women? And you will have to marry, because you have already called those men cowards who shy away from marriage."

Mehta laughed. "It is for that very thing that I am preparing the ground."

"Miss Malti would be a good match too."

"The condition is only that for some days she should sit at your feet and learn from you the dharma of woman."

"The same talk of selfish men! Have you learned the duty of a man?"

"I am thinking from whom to learn it."

"Mr Khanna can teach you very well."

Mehta burst out laughing. "No, the duty of man too I will learn only from you."

"Very good, learn it from me alone. The first thing is this — forget that woman is superior and that the whole responsibility is on her, and that man is superior and on him is the whole burden of the household. Service and self-restraint and duty — all of it man can create in her. If these things are lacking in him, then they will be lacking in the woman too. This revolt that is among women today, its cause is man's having become void of these qualities."

Mirza Sahib came and lifted Mehta into his arms and said, "Congratulations!"

Mehta looked at him with questioning eyes. "You liked my speech?"

"The speech, well, it was what it was, but it was a great success. You have brought the fairy down into the glass. Praise your fortune — she who has till today let no one come near her is reciting your creed."

Mrs Khanna said under her breath, "When the intoxication settles, then tell me."

Mehta said with disgust, "What woman would care for a bookworm like me, Devi-ji! I am a thorough idealist."

Mrs Khanna, seeing her husband going toward the car, went off in that direction. Mirza too went out. Mehta picked up his stick from the platform and was about to go out when Malti came and caught his hand and said with imploring eyes, "You cannot go just yet. Come, let me introduce you to Papa, and dine there today."

Mehta put his hand to his ear and said, "No, excuse me. There Saroj will eat my life. I am very afraid of these girls."

"No, no, I take the responsibility — let her so much as open her mouth."

"Very well, you go on, I will come in a little while."

"No, sir, this will not do. My car has been driven off by Saroj. You will of course come to see me home."

The two of them got into Mehta's car. The car set off.

After a moment Mehta asked, "I have heard that Khanna Sahib beats his wife. Since then I have come to loathe the sight of his face. A man so heartless I do not count a man. And on top of that you set up as a great well-wisher of womankind. Have you never reasoned with him?"

Malti said, troubled, "A clap is always made with two palms — you keep forgetting this."

"I cannot even conceive of any reason why a man should beat his wife."

"However foul-mouthed the wife may be?"

"Yes, however much so."

"Then you are a new kind of man."

"If a man is ill-natured, then in your opinion that man ought to have a shower of hunters rained upon him, eh?"

"As forgiving as a woman can be, a man cannot. You yourself accepted this very thing today."

"Then this is the reward of woman's forgiveness! I think you, by encouraging Khanna, give him still more rope. The respect he gives you, the devotion he has for you — on the strength of that you could very easily set him straight, but you, by excusing him, become yourself a partner in that crime."

Malti said in agitation, "You have raised this subject just now for nothing. I do not wish to speak ill of anyone, but you have not yet recognized Govindi Devi. Seeing her artless, calm bearing, you have concluded that she is a goddess. I do not wish to give her so lofty a place. If I were to relate how much she has tried to defame me, what blows she has struck at me, you would be astounded, and then you would have to admit that with such a woman this very treatment ought to be meted out."

"After all, there must be some cause for her bearing you such ill-will?"

"Ask her the cause. How do I know what is in anyone's heart?"

"Even without asking her, it can be guessed, and it is this — if any man dared to come between me and my wife, I would shoot him, and if I could not kill him, then I would shoot myself in the breast. In the same way, if I wished to bring some woman between myself and my wife, then my wife too has the right to do whatever she wishes. On this matter I can come to no compromise. This is an unscientific frame of mind which we have got from our savage forefathers, and nowadays some people will call it uncivilized and unsocial behaviour, but I have not yet been able to conquer that frame of mind, nor do I wish to. On this matter I do not care for the law. In my house, my law holds."

Malti asked sharply, "But how did you guess that I, in your words, wish to come between Khanna and Govindi? By making such a guess you are insulting me. I do not reckon Khanna even worth the toe of my shoe."

Mehta said in a voice full of disbelief, "You are not saying this from your heart, Miss Malti! Do you take the whole world for fools? If the thing everyone is understanding, Mrs Khanna too understands, then I cannot blame her."

Malti said, bristling, "The world takes pleasure in defaming others. That is its nature. How am I to change its nature? But this is a baseless stain. Yes, I am not so ungracious as to spurn Khanna when he comes near me. My very work is such that I have to welcome and entertain everyone. If anyone draws some other meaning from it, then he... he..."

Malti's voice grew choked, and turning her face away she wiped the tears with her handkerchief. Then after a minute she said, "Along with the others, you too... me... me... I grieve over this... I had not expected such a thing of you."

Then perhaps she felt regret over her own weakness. Growing fierce, she said, "You have no right to cast aspersions on me. If you too are among those men who cannot keep from pointing a finger the moment they see a man and woman together, then point it freely. I do not care a grain's worth. If some woman keeps coming to you again and again on one pretext or another, considers you her god, takes your counsel in every matter, spreads her eyes beneath your feet, is ready to leap into the fire at your slightest hint — then I can say with conviction, you will not slight her. If you can spurn her, then you are not a man. However many arguments and proofs you may bring against it and lay before me, still I will not accept it. I say — slighting is far off, the question of spurning does not even arise, you will wash that woman's feet and drink the water, and before many days have passed she will be the mistress of your heart. I beg of you with folded hands — never take Khanna's name before me."

Mehta said, as though warming his hands at this flame, "The condition is only this — that I not see Khanna with you."

"I cannot commit the murder of humanity. If he comes, I will not drive him away."

"Tell him to behave like a gentleman with his wife."

"I do not consider it proper to interfere in anyone's private affairs. Nor have I the right to it!"

"Then you cannot stop anyone's tongue."

Malti's bungalow had come. The car stopped. Malti got down and went off without shaking hands. She even forgot that she had given Mehta an invitation to dinner. She wants to go into solitude and weep her fill. Govindi has struck blows before too, but the blow she struck today is very deep, very wide, and very piercing.