CHAPTER IV
nikhil's story
iii
I was never self-conscious. But nowadays I often try to take an outside view,—to see myself as Bimal sees me. What a dismally solemn picture it makes, my habit of taking things too seriously!
Better, surely, to laugh away the world than flood it with tears. That is, in fact, how the world gets on. We relish our food and rest, only because we can dismiss, as so many empty shadows, the sorrows scattered everywhere, both in the home and in the outer world. If we took them as true, even for a moment, where would be our appetite, our sleep?
But I cannot dismiss myself as one of these shadows, and so the load of my sorrow lies eternally heavy on the heart of my world.
Why not stand out aloof in the highway of the universe, and feel yourself to be part of the all? In the midst of the immense, age-long concourse of humanity, what is Bimal to you? Your wife? What is a wife? A bubble of a name blown big with your own breath, so carefully guarded night and day, yet ready to burst at any pin-prick from outside.
My wife,—and so, forsooth, my very own! If she says: 'No, I am myself,'—am I to reply: 'How can that be? Are you not mine?'
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