Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/255

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GANDHI'S SECOND JAIL EXPERIENCES
165

that I tendered to them was the only advice that I could under the circumstances. In anticipation of future happiness, it was absolutely necessary that we should undergo the hardest trials and sufferings in the first instance, and that there was no reason to be grieved at the letter. This was simply a fit of fainting, but even if it was a case of death, how could I offer any other advice than what I had already done? It at once occurred to me that it was more honourable for anybody to die suffering in that manner, than to continue living a life of perpetual enslavement.

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At one time one of the warders came to me, and asked me to provide him with two of his men to clean the water-closets. I thought that I could do nothing batter than clean them myself and so I offered him my services. I have no particular dislike to that kind of work. On the contrary, I am of opinion that we ought to get ourselves accustomed to it.

I was given a bed in a ward, where there were principally Kaffir patients. Here I passed the whole night in great misery and terror. I did not know then that I was to be taken the next day to another cell that was occupied by Indian prisoners. Fretting that I would be kept incarcerated with such men, I got very nervous and terror-stricken. And yet I tried my best to reconcile myself to the idea that it was my duty to undergo the sufferings that may befall me. I read from the "Bhagawad-Gita," that I had with me, certain verses suited to the occasion, and, on pondering over them, was soon reconciled to the situation. The chief reason why I got nervous was that in the same room, there were a