Page:The Home and the World.djvu/194

IX After I had stolen into my room like a thief, it felt like my own room no longer. All the most precious rights which I had over it vanished at the touch of my theft. I began to mutter to myself, as though telling mantrams: Bande Mataram, Bande Mataram, my Country, my golden Country, all this gold is for you, for none else!

But in the night the mind is weak. I came back into the bedroom where my husband was asleep, closing my eyes as I passed through, and went off to the open terrace beyond, on which I lay prone, clasping to my breast the end of the sari tied over the gold. And each one of the rolls gave me a shock of pain.

The silent night stood there with forefinger upraised. I could not think of my house as separate from my country: I had robbed my house, I had robbed my country. For this sin my house had ceased to be mine, my country also was estranged from me. Had I died begging for my country, even unsuccessfully, that would have been worship, acceptable to the gods. But theft is never worship,—how then can I offer this gold? Ah me! I am doomed to death myself, must I desecrate my country with my impious touch?

The way to put the money back is closed to me. I have not the strength to return to the room, take again that key, open once more that safe,—I should swoon on the threshold of my husband's door. The only road left now is the road in front. Neither