11


At the sleepy village the noon was still like a sunny midnight when my
holidays came to their end.

My little girl of four had followed me all the morning from room to room,
watching my preparations in grave silence, till, wearied, she sat by the
doorpost strangely quiet, murmuring to herself, "Father must not go!"

This was the meal hour, when sleep daily overcame her, but her mother had
forgotten her and the child was too unhappy to complain.

At last, when I stretched out my arms to her to say farewell, she never
moved, but sadly looking at me said, "Father, you must not go!"

And it amused me to tears to think how this little child dared to fight the
giant world of necessity with no other resource than those few words,
"Father, you must not go!"

12


Take your holiday, my boy; there are the blue sky and the bare field, the
barn and the ruined temple under the ancient tamarind.

My holiday must be taken through yours, finding light in the dance of your
eyes, music in your noisy shouts.

To you autumn brings the true holiday freedom: to me it brings the
impossibility of work; for lo! you burst into my room.

Yes, my holiday is an endless freedom for love to disturb me.

13


In the evening my little daughter heard a call from her companions below
the window.

She timidly went down the dark stairs holding a lamp in her hand, shielding
it behind her veil.

I was sitting on my terrace in the star-lit night of March, when at a
sudden cry I ran to see.

Her lamp had gone out in the dark spiral staircase. I asked, "Child, why
did you cry?"

From below she answered in distress, "Father, I have lost myself!"

When I came back to the terrace under the star-lit night of March, I looked
at the sky, and it seemed that a child was walking there treasuring many
lamps behind her veils.

If their light went out, she would suddenly stop and a cry would sound from
sky to sky, "Father, I have lost myself!"

14


The evening stood bewildered among street lamps, its gold tarnished by the
city dust.

A woman, gaudily decked and painted, leant over the rail of her balcony, a
living fire waiting for its moths.

Suddenly an eddy was formed in the road round a street-boy crushed under
the wheels of a carriage, and the woman on the balcony fell to the floor
screaming in agony, stricken with the grief of the great white-robed Mother
who sits in the world's inner shrine.

15


I remember the scene on the barren heath--a girl sat alone on the grass
before the gipsy camp, braiding her hair in the afternoon shade.

Her little dog jumped and barked at her busy hands, as though her
employment had no importance.

In vain did she rebuke it, calling it "a pest," saying she was tired of its
perpetual silliness.

She struck it on the nose with her reproving forefinger, which only seemed
to delight it the more.

She looked menacingly grave for a few moments, to warn it of impending
doom; and then, letting her hair fall, quickly snatched it up in her arms,
laughed, and pressed it to her heart.

16


He is tall and lean, withered to the bone with long repeated fever, like a
dead tree unable to draw a single drop of sap from anywhere.

In despairing patience, his mother carries him like a child into the sun,
where he sits by the roadside in the shortening shadows of each forenoon.

The world passes by--a woman to fetch water, a herd-boy with cattle to
pasture, a laden cart to the distant market--and the mother hopes that some
least stir of life may touch the awful torpor of her dying son.

17


If the ragged villager, trudging home from the market, could suddenly be
lifted to the crest of a distant age, men would stop in their work and
shout and run to him in delight.

For they would no longer whittle down the man into the peasant, but find
him full of the mystery and spirit of his age.

Even his poverty and pain would grow great, released from the shallow
insult of the present, and the paltry things in his basket would acquire
pathetic dignity.

18


With the morning he came out to walk a road shaded by a file of deodars,
that coiled the hill round like importunate love.

He held the first letter from his newly wedded wife in their village home,
begging him to come to her, and come soon.

The touch of an absent hand haunted him as he walked, and the air seemed to
take up the cry of the letter: "Love, my love, my sky is brimming with
tears!"

He asked himself in wonder, "How do I deserve this?"

The sun suddenly appeared over the rim of the blue hills, and four girls
from a foreign shore came with swift strides, talking loud and followed by
a barking dog.

The two elder turned away to conceal their amusement at something strange
in his insignificance, and the younger ones pushed each other, laughed
aloud, and ran off in exuberant mirth.

He stopped and his head sank. Then he suddenly felt his letter, opened and
read it again.

19


The day came for the image from the temple to be drawn round the holy town
in its chariot.

The Queen said to the King, "Let us go and attend the festival."

Only one man out of the whole household did not join in the pilgrimage. His
work was to collect stalks of spear-grass to make brooms for the King's
house.

The chief of the servants said in pity to him, "You may come with us."

He bowed his head, saying, "It cannot be."


The man dwelt by the road along which the King's followers had to pass. And
when the Minister's elephant reached this spot, he called to him and said,
"Come with us and see the God ride in his chariot!"

"I dare not seek God after the King's fashion," said the man.

"How should you ever have such luck again as to see the God in his
chariot?" asked the Minister.

"When God himself comes to my door," answered the man.

The Minister laughed loud and said, "Fool! 'When God comes to your door!'
yet a King must travel to see him!"

"Who except God visits the poor?" said the man.

20


Days were drawing out as the winter ended, and, in the sun, my dog played
in his wild way with the pet deer.

The crowd going to the market gathered by the fence, and laughed to see the
love of these playmates struggle with languages so dissimilar.


The spring was in the air, and the young leaves fluttered like flames. A
gleam danced in the deer's dark eyes when she started, bent her neck at the
movement of her own shadow, or raised her ears to listen to some whisper in
the wind.

The message comes floating with the errant breeze, with the rustle and
glimmer abroad in the April sky. It sings of the first ache of youth in the
world, when the first flower broke from the bud, and love went forth
seeking that which it knew not, leaving all it had known.


And one afternoon, when among the _amlak_ trees the shadow grew grave and
sweet with the furtive caress of light, the deer set off to run like a
meteor in love with death.

It grew dark, and lamps were lighted in the house; the stars came out and
night was upon the fields, but the deer never came back.

My dog ran up to me whining, questioning me with his piteous eyes which
seemed to say, "I do not understand!"

But who does ever understand?