He kept silent.
I talked to him wildly, and he went away sad at heart.
After a fit of weeping, I felt in a more reasonable
mood when we met at night. “I cannot,”
my husband said, “look upon Miss Gilby through
a mist of abstraction, just because she is English.
Cannot you get over the barrier of her name after such
a long acquaintance? Cannot you realize that
she loves you?”
I felt a little ashamed and replied with some sharpness:
“Let her remain. I am not over anxious
to send her away.” And Miss Gilby remained.
But one day I was told that she had been insulted
by a young fellow on her way to church. This
was a boy whom we were supporting. My husband
turned him out of the house. There was not a
single soul, that day, who could forgive my husband
for that act—not even I. This time Miss
Gilby left of her own accord. She shed tears
when she came to say good-bye, but my mood would not
melt. To slander the poor boy so—and
such a fine boy, too, who would forget his daily bath
and food in his enthusiasm for __Swadeshi__.
My husband escorted Miss Gilby to the railway station
in his own carriage. I was sure he was going
too far. When exaggerated accounts of the incident
gave rise to a public scandal, which found its way
to the newspapers, I felt he had been rightly served.
I had often become anxious at my husband’s doings,
but had never before been ashamed; yet now I had to
blush for him! I did not know exactly, nor did
I care, what wrong poor Noren might, or might not,
have done to Miss Gilby, but the idea of sitting in
judgement on such a matter at such a time! I
should have refused to damp the spirit which prompted
young Noren to defy the Englishwoman. I could
not but look upon it as a sign of cowardice in my
husband, that he should fail to understand this simple
thing. And so I blushed for him.
And yet it was not that my husband refused to support
__Swadeshi__, or was in any way against the Cause.
Only he had not been able whole-heartedly to accept
the spirit of __Bande Mataram__. [10]
“I am willing,” he said, “to serve
my country; but my worship I reserve for Right which
is far greater than my country. To worship my
country as a god is to bring a curse upon it.”
------
8. The Nationalist movement, which began more
as an economic than a political one, having as its
main object the encouragement of indigenous industries
[Trans.].
9. “Babu” is a term of respect, like
“Father” or “Mister,” but
has also meant in colonial days a person who understands
some English. [on-line ed.]
10. Lit.: “Hail Mother”; the
opening words of a song by Bankim Chatterjee, the
famous Bengali novelist. The song has now become
the national anthem, and __Bande Mataram__ the national
cry, since the days of the __Swadeshi__ movement [Trans.].
