Those who do not know how to desire for themselves, must
live in accordance with, or die by virtue of, the desires of such
as these. Sandip Babu contrasted them--Kundu and Chakravarti--
with you, Maharaja. You, he said, for all your good intentions,
will never succeed in planting __Swadeshi__ within your
territory."
"It is my desire," I said, "to plant something greater than
__Swadeshi__. I am not after dead logs but living trees--and
these will take time to grow."
"I am afraid, sir," sneered the history student, "that you will
get neither log nor tree. Sandip Babu rightly teaches that in
order to get, you must snatch. This is taking all of us some
time to learn, because it runs counter to what we were taught at
school. I have seen with my own eyes that when a rent-collector
of Harish Kundu's found one of the tenants with nothing which
could be sold up to pay his rent, he was made to sell his young
wife! Buyers were not wanting, and the __zamindar's__ demand
was satisfied. I tell you, sir, the sight of that man's distress
prevented my getting sleep for nights together! But, feel it as
I did, this much I realized, that the man who knows how to get
the money he is out for, even by selling up his debtor's wife, is
a better man than I am.
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