Page:Broken Ties and Other Stories.pdf/37



last words of Jagamohan, the atheist, to his nephew, Satish, were: ‘If you have a fancy for funeral ceremony, don’t waste it on your uncle,—reserve it for your father.’

This is how he came by his death.

When the plague first broke out in Calcutta, the poor citizens were less afraid of the epidemic than of the preventive staff who wore its badge. Satish’s father, Harimohan, was sure that their Mussulman neighbours, the untouchable leather-dealers, would be the first to catch it, and thereupon defile him and his kith and kin by dragging them along into a common end. Before he fled from his house, Harimohan went over to offer refuge to his elder brother, saying: ‘I have taken a house on the river at Kalna, if you’ 32