CHAPTER III
bimala's story
vi
I wonder what could have happened to my feeling of shame. The fact is, I had no time to think about myself. My days and nights were passing in a whirl, like an eddy with myself in the centre. No gap was left for hesitation or delicacy to enter.
One day my sister-in-law remarked to my husband: 'Up to now the women of this house have been kept weeping. Here comes the men's turn.
'We must see that they do not miss it,' she continued, turning to me. 'I see you are out for the fray, Chota[1] Rani! Hurl your shafts straight at their hearts.'
Her keen eyes looked me up and down. Not one of the colours into which my toilet, my dress, my manners, my speech, had blossomed out had escaped her. I am ashamed to speak of it to-day, but I felt no shame then. Something within me was at work of which I was not even conscious. I used to overdress, it is true, but more like an automaton, with no particular design. No doubt I knew which effort of mine would prove specially pleasing to Sandip Babu, but that required no intuition, for he would discuss it openly before all of them.
One day he said to my husband: 'Do you know,
- ↑ Bimala, the younger brother's wife, was the Chota or Junior Rani.
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