II
My husband was very eager to take me out of __purdah__. [6]
One day I said to him: "What do I want with the outside world?"
"The outside world may want you," he replied.
"If the outside world has got on so long without me, it may go on
for some time longer. It need not pine to death for want of me."
"Let it perish, for all I care! That is not troubling me. I am
thinking about myself."
"Oh, indeed. Tell me what about yourself?"
My husband was silent, with a smile.
I knew his way, and protested at once: "No, no, you are not going
to run away from me like that! I want to have this out with
you."
"Can one ever finish a subject with words?"
"Do stop speaking in riddles. Tell me..."
"What I want is, that I should have you, and you should have me,
more fully in the outside world. That is where we are still in
debt to each other."
"Is anything wanting, then, in the love we have here at home?"
"Here you are wrapped up in me. You know neither what you have,
nor what you want."
"I cannot bear to hear you talk like this."
"I would have you come into the heart of the outer world and meet
reality.
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