Srikanta
have never been able to do so though I have attempted it several times. Unless I tell you to-day, my story will remain untold for ever. It is not merely a story about myself, it is about my husband as well. I cannot say how much I have sinned in this life, but I have no doubt that the sins of my past lives know no bounds. So, whenever I have attempted to tell my story I have thought that I ought not to add to my sins by speaking ill of my husband. He is now no more. Yet I do not think that speaking about him would be any less a sin. Still I cannot take leave of you unless I tell you the story of my sorrowful life.
'Srikanta, your poor Didi's name is Annada. I do not reveal my husband's name: you will understand why when you have read this letter to the end. My father was a rich man. He had no sons, only myself and one other daughter. My father married me to a poor man whom he kept at his house, and set out to educate and make a man of. He succeeded in educating him, but not in making a man of him. My elder sister had lost her husband and was living with us. My husband killed her and disappeared. You are too young to understand why he did this evil deed but you will understand some day. I cannot express what ignominy I suffered, what poignant shame. Still your Didi endured it all, though the pain, the fire of indignity, which my husband had kindled for me, has not yet abated after all these years. Seven years afterwards, I saw him again. He was playing to a snake before our house in the garb in which you have seen him. Nobody else could recognize him, but I did: he could not deceive my eyes. He said that he braved the danger of recognition for my sake alone. But that was a lie. Yet
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