Page:Chandrashekhar (1905).djvu/27

Rh "A white man appeared. Sister-in-law Sundari was on dry land and she ran away leaving me behind. I was in water; It could not get out through fear, and stood immersed up to my throat. When the man had gone away I got out and came.”

“Don’t come again," said Chandrashekhar in a fit of abstraction, and again bent his mind on the commentary of Shankar.

It was gone far into the night. Chandrashekhar was yet engaged in settling questions of real knowledge, illusion, archetype of sound, necessity and other similar matters. Placing her husband’s plate of rice and curry near him as usual, Shaibalini ﬁnished her meal and lay down on a bed in a corner of the room and was soon fast asleep.

In this matter she had her husband’s permission. Chandrashekhar used to carry his studies deep into the night and he was not in the habit of retiring after ﬁnishing his evening meal early.

Suddenly the deep hooting of an owl from a neigh-bouring housetop was heard. Then Chandrashekhar became aware that night had far advanced and tied up his manuscripts. Keeping them in their wonted place he stood up to stretch his limbs. Through the open casement his eyes fell on Nature smiling in the rays of the moon. The pencilled moonbeams clustering through the window had fallen on the sleeping beauty of Shaibalini’s face. Chandrashekhar saw with rapture in his heart, that in his house (likened to a tank) the lotus had bloomed in the light of the moon. He stood and stood, and with pleasure-dilated eyes drank in the irreproachable beauty of her countenance. Under the deep DM,C  2