But I cannot dismiss myself as one of these shadows, and so the
load of my sorrow lies eternally heavy on the heart of my world.

Why not stand out aloof in the highway of the universe, and feel
yourself to be part of the all? In the midst of the immense,
age-long concourse of humanity, what is Bimal to you? Your wife?
What is a wife? A bubble of a name blown big with your own
breath, so carefully guarded night and day, yet ready to burst at
any pin-prick from outside.

My wife--and so, forsooth, my very own! If she says: "No, I am
myself"--am I to reply: "How can that be? Are you not mine?"

"My wife"--Does that amount to an argument, much less the truth?
Can one imprison a whole personality within that name?

My wife!--Have I not cherished in this little world all that is
purest and sweetest in my life, never for a moment letting it
down from my bosom to the dust? What incense of worship, what
music of passion, what flowers of my spring and of my autumn,
have I not offered up at its shrine? If, like a toy paper-boat,
she be swept along into the muddy waters of the gutter--would I
not also... ?

There it is again, my incorrigible solemnity! Why "muddy"? What
"gutter" names, called in a fit of jealousy, do not change the
facts of the world. If Bimal is not mine, she is not; and no
fuming, or fretting, or arguing will serve to prove that she is.
If my heart is breaking--let it break! That will not make the