If you are afraid
of causing suffering, go in for love-making, you will never do
for this work!"
The second problem I solved by deciding to allow no compromise
with foreign articles, in any circumstance whatever. In the good
old days, when these gaily coloured foreign shawls were unknown,
our peasantry used to manage well enough with plain cotton
quilts--they must learn to do so again. They may not look as
gorgeous, but this is not the time to think of looks.
Most of the boatmen had been won over to refuse to carry foreign
goods, but the chief of them, Mirjan, was still insubordinate.
"Could you not get his boat sunk?" I asked our manager here.
"Nothing easier, sir," he replied. "But what if afterwards I am
held responsible?"
"Why be so clumsy as to leave any loophole for responsibility?
However, if there must be any, my shoulders will be there to bear
it."
Mirjan's boat was tied near the landing-place after its freight
had been taken over to the market-place. There was no one on it,
for the manager had arranged for some entertainment to which all
had been invited. After dusk the boat, loaded with rubbish, was
holed and set adrift.
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