Page:Tales of Bengal (Sita and Santa Chattopadhyay).djvu/68

Tales of Bengal Animesh and business! "May I not hear what the business was?" I asked.

"I am thinking of writing a book about the re-marriage of Hindu widows, in a simple style. The language and style of Vidyasagar is too stiff for the common people, and they all avoid reading his book."

I had to sit up. I should not have been more astonished had my torn quilt suddenly turned into an airship and flown away with me. At my evident bewilderment Animesh exuded self-satisfaction through every pore of his flabby body. After sitting silent for a minute or two, he said: "All right, we shall talk about it this evening. Now I am off to Maniktollah, I have some business in that quarter."

He went. As soon as his steps had died away, I jumped up and taking hold of his torn canvass bag I emptied it on my bed. I could have opened a cheapjack's stall with the things that fell out in a shower from that bag. There were books, papers, manuscripts, soiled linen, combs, brushes and I know not what else. I pushed aside the clothing and began to hunt amongst the papers. After long and arduous search I found what I sought, and put back his things in the bag. Then I returned to my interrupted sleep. I know that according to copy-book maxims, I did wrong in investigating the contents of his bag, but I am afraid the sense of sin did not prevent me at the moment from having a good sound sleep.

Animesh had changed. He was always busy. He came in and went out at his pleasure and I ceased to be of the least importance to him; one could have thought I had never copied out his poems, never listened to his songs nor even discovered for him a hundred ways of reducing his excessive fat. Though I had never written a book about the re-marriage of Hindu widows, still this much I knew, that authors do not generally choose gilt-edged and Rh