felt no shame then. Something within me was at work of which I
was not even conscious. I used to overdress, it is true, but
more like an automaton, with no particular design. No doubt I
knew which effort of mine would prove specially pleasing to
Sandip Babu, but that required no intuition, for he would discuss
it openly before all of them.

One day he said to my husband: "Do you know, Nikhil, when I first
saw our Queen Bee, she was sitting there so demurely in her gold-
bordered __sari__. Her eyes were gazing inquiringly into
space, like stars which had lost their way, just as if she had
been for ages standing on the edge of some darkness, looking out
for something unknown. But when I saw her, I felt a quiver run
through me. It seemed to me that the gold border of her
__sari__ was her own inner fire flaming out and twining round
her. That is the flame we want, visible fire! Look here, Queen
Bee, you really must do us the favour of dressing once more as a
living flame."

So long I had been like a small river at the border of a village.
My rhythm and my language were different from what they are now.
But the tide came up from the sea, and my breast heaved; my banks
gave way and the great drumbeats of the sea waves echoed in my
mad current. I could not understand the meaning of that sound in
my blood. Where was that former self of mine? Whence came
foaming into me this surging flood of glory? Sandip's hungry
eyes burnt like the lamps of worship before my shrine. All his
gaze proclaimed that I was a wonder in beauty and power; and the
loudness of his praise, spoken and unspoken, drowned all other
voices in my world. Had the Creator created me afresh, I