Chapter 12 Summary

Bobby enters a small, dark room hung in tattered black netting. On the small table sits a copy of his book. It reminds him of the Riverview Park fun house and hiding under his porch. After a while a tall figure shuffles in. Its eyes show great suffering. Seeing the symptoms of leprosy, Bobby gasps and cannot take his eyes off this horrible apparition. After talking about one another's work, with Bobby declaring that the Kali poem is memorable but terrible, Das, who insists that it must be published, talks about how he gradually grows sick at the time of his father's funeral. He ignores the symptoms for too long while trying Gandhi's ineffective natural cures, refuses both to enter a leprosarium and to leave his beloved India to seek modern treatments. He jumps from the middle of the Howrah Bridge into the...