Page:Nil Durpan.djvu/59



Podi.  It is the degenerate Amin who is ruining the country. Is it through my own choice that I am levelling the axe at my feet, by giving the young women to the Saheb? Oh to think of the club which Rai (Ray Churn), lifted against me that day! If it were not for Sadhuda, the day would have proved my last. Ah, it bursts my heart when I see the face of Khetromany. Have I no feeling of compassion, because I have made a paramour my companion? Whenever she sees me still, she comes to me, calling me Aunt, Aunt! Can the mother, with a firm heart, give such a golden deer into the grasp of the tiger? The younger Saheb is never satiated even with two of us—Kali, the daughter of a rude tribe and me. How detestable is this, that for the sake of money I have given up my caste and my religion; and also am obliged to touch the bed of a Buno (rude tribe). That libertine, the elder Saheb, has made it a practice to beat me whenever he finds me, and has also said, he will cut off my nose and ears; that vile man is come to an old age, can keep women in confinement, and can kick them on their buttocks, but never runs after women. Let me go to the blackmouthed Amin and tell him that shall not be effected by me. Have I any power to go out in the town? Whenever the nasty fellows of the neighbourhood see me, they follow me as the Phinge (a kind of bird) does the crow. (Aside, a song) Whenever I sit down to reap the rice in the field. Her eyes immediately come before my sight.

Cowherd.  Saheb, have not insects attacked thine Indigo twigs?