Did the
love which I received from her, I asked myself, come from the
deep spring of her heart, or was it merely like the daily
provision of pipe water pumped up by the municipal steam-engine
of society?
I longed to find Bimala blossoming fully in all her truth and
power. But the thing I forgot to calculate was, that one must
give up all claims based on conventional rights, if one would
find a person freely revealed in truth.
Why did I fail to think of this? Was it because of the husband's
pride of possession over his wife? No. It was because I placed
the fullest trust upon love. I was vain enough to think that I
had the power in me to bear the sight of truth in its awful
nakedness. It was tempting Providence, but still I clung to my
proud determination to come out victorious in the trial.
Bimala had failed to understand me in one thing. She could not
fully realize that I held as weakness all imposition of force.
Only the weak dare not be just. They shirk their responsibility
of fairness and try quickly to get at results through the short-
cuts of injustice. Bimala has no patience with patience.
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