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.
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[1] 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
- ↑ The Nationalist movement, which began more as an economic than a political one, having as its main object the encouragement of indigenous industries.—Tr.
