Page:Broken Ties and Other Stories.pdf/17

 Harimohan tried his best to extricate him from his uncle’s sphere of influence. But when once the noose is fixed round the neck, it only grows tighter by pulling at it. Harimohan became more and more annoyed at his brother, the more Satish proved recalcitrant. If this atheism of his son and elder brother had been merely a matter of private opinion, Harimohan could have tolerated it. He was quite ready to pass off dishes of fowl as ‘kid curry’. But matters had now become so desperate that even lies became powerless to whitewash the culprits. What brought things to a head was this:

The positive side of Jagamohan’s atheistic creed consisted in doing good to others. He felt a special pride in it, because doing good, for an atheist, was a matter of unmitigated loss. It had no allurements of merit and no deterrents of punishment in the hereafter. If he was asked what concern he had in bringing about ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number,’ he used to answer that his best incentive was that he could expect nothing in return. He would say to Satish:

‘Baba, we are atheists. And therefore the very