Page:Anandamath, The Abbey of Bliss - Chatterjee.djvu/90

68 " Do you know/' said Jivananda in feigned anger, " how manv men I've killed ?" Nimi grew very much offended. "A great thing that to brag of, to be sure I" said She. " You'll desert your wife and kill people and you think I will fear you. Never think of that, for, mind you, we are children of the same parents. If killing is a great thing you may as well kill me and brag of it." Jivananda smiled and said : " Go and fetch her, — the wretch. But mind, if you speak to me like this again, I may spare you but I'll cut the hairs off the head of the rogue of your husband and with whey on his shaven knoll make him ride a donkey with tail foremost"* Nimi said in an undertone, " I wouldn't be half sorry for it," and went away smiling. She then entered a cottage close by, in which a woman with shaggy hairs was spinning on a wheel with a tattered rag on. Nimi went and said " Bow, quick, quick." 11 Well, what's it, why are you in such a hurry ? Thy husband has beaten thee and I am to oil thy sores ; is it?," said the'Bow smiling. " Very much near the mark/' said Nimi, " have you got oil in the room ?" would have been hopeless. The brother-in-law is a licensed joker and a butt of jokes himself in Bengali Society. Shaving of one's head, bathing in whey, and making one ride a donkey specially with the tail foremost is regarded as a great indignity, "and people were usually put to such punishments by tyrants of yore. The threat of this indignity is a common joke in Bengal.
 * I have translated the joke literally as to rerder it in any other way