The result: all righteousness
yours, all privations theirs!"
"And may we venture to ask, further, what your share of the
privation has been?" pursued a science student.
"You want to know, do you?" replied my master. "It is Nikhil
himself who has to buy up that Indian mill yarn; he has had to
start a weaving school to get it woven; and to judge by his past
brilliant business exploits, by the time his cotton fabrics leave
the loom their cost will be that of cloth-of-gold; so they will
only find a use, perhaps, as curtains for his drawing-room, even
though their flimsiness may fail to screen him. When you get
tired of your vow, you will laugh the loudest at their artistic
effect. And if their workmanship is ever truly appreciated at
all, it will be by foreigners."
I have known my master all my life, but have never seen him so
agitated. I could see that the pain had been silently
accumulating in his heart for some time, because of his
surpassing love for me, and that his habitual self-possession had
become secretly undermined to the breaking point.
"You are our elders," said the medical student.
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