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That he was greatly relieved, I could see. He called in an English doctor that very day. I do not know what talk they had together, but I gathered that the Sahib had spoken very sharply to my husband.

He remained silent for some time after the doctor had gone. I took his hands in mine, and said: “What an ill-mannered brute that was! Why didn’t you call in an Indian doctor? That would have been much better. Do you think that man knows better than you do about my eyes?”

My husband was very silent for a moment, and then said with a broken voice: “Kumo, your eyes must be operated on.”

I pretended to be vexed with him for concealing the fact from me so long.

“Here you have known this all the time,” said I, “and yet you have said nothing about it! Do you think I am such a baby as to be afraid of an operation?”

At that be regained his good spirits: “There are very few men,” said he, “who are heroic enough to look forward to an operation without shrinking.”

I laughed at him: “Yes, that is so. Men are heroic only before their wives!”

He looked at me gravely, and said: “You are perfectly right. We men are dreadfully vain.”

I laughed away his seriousness: “Are you sure you can beat us women even in vanity? “

When Dada came, I took him aside: “Dada, that treatment your doctor recommended would have done me a world of good; only unfortunately. I mistook the mixture for the lotion. And since the day I made the mistake, my eyes have grown steadily worse; and now an operation is needed.”

Dada said to me: “You were under your husband’s treatment, and that is why I gave up coming to visit you.”

“No,” I answered. “In reality, I was secretly treating myself in accordance with your doctor’s directions.”

Oh! what lies we women have to tell! When we are mothers, we tell lies to pacify our children; and when we are wives, we tell lies to pacify the fathers of our children. We are never free from this necessity.

My deception had the effect of bringing about a better feeling between my husband and Dada. Dada blamed himself for asking me to keep a secret from my husband: and my husband regretted that he had not taken my brother’s advice at the first.

At last, with the consent of both, an English doctor came, and operated on my left eye. That eye, however, was too weak to bear the strain; and the last flickering glimmer of light went out. Then the other eye gradually lost itself in darkness.

One day my husband came to my bedside. “I cannot brazen it out before you any longer,” said he, “Kumo, it is I who have ruined your eyes.”

I felt that his voice was choking with tears, and so I took up his right hand in both of mine and said: “Why! you did exactly what was right. You have dealt only with that which was your very own. Just imagine, if some strange doctor had come and taken away my eyesight. What consolation should I have had then? But now I can feel that all has happened for the best; and my great comfort is to know that it is at your hands I have lost my eyes. When Ramchandra found one lotus too few with which to worship God, he offered both his eyes in place of the lotus. And I hate dedicated my eyes to my God. From now, whenever you see something that is a joy to you, then you must describe it to me; and I will feed upon your words as a sacred gift left over from your vision.”

I do not mean, of course, that I said all this there and then, for it is impossible to speak these things an the spur of the moment. But I used to think over words like these for days and days together. And when I was very depressed, or if at any time the light of my devotion became dim, and I pitied my evil fate, then I made my mind utter these sentences, one by one, as a child repeats a story that is told. And so I could breathe once more the serener air of peace and love.