spirits, and conspicuous with my gold-worked cap, all the English people
I came across in the train made much of me.

When I arrived it was not merely a home-coming from travel, it was also
a return from my exile in the servants' quarters to my proper place in
the inner apartments. Whenever the inner household assembled in my
mother's room I now occupied a seat of honour. And she who was then the
youngest bride of our house lavished on me a wealth of affection and
regard.

In infancy the loving care of woman is to be had without the asking,
and, being as much a necessity as light and air, is as simply accepted
without any conscious response; rather does the growing child often
display an eagerness to free itself from the encircling web of woman's
solicitude. But the unfortunate creature who is deprived of this in its
proper season is beggared indeed. This had been my plight. So after
being brought up in the servants' quarters when I suddenly came in for a
profusion of womanly affection, I could hardly remain unconscious of it.

In the days when the inner apartments were as yet far away from me, they
were the elysium of my imagination. The zenana, which from an outside
view is a place of confinement, for me was the abode of all freedom.
Neither school nor Pandit were there; nor, it seemed to me, did anybody
have to do what they did not want to. Its secluded leisure had something
mysterious about it; one played about, or did as one liked and had not
to render an account of one's doings. Specially so with my youngest
sister, to whom, though she attended Nilkamal Pandit's class with us, it
seemed to make no difference in his behaviour whether she did her
lessons well or ill. Then again, while, by ten o'clock, we had to hurry
through our breakfast and be ready for school, she, with her queue
dangling behind, walked unconcernedly away, withinwards, tantalising us
to distraction.

And when the new bride, adorned with her necklace of gold, came into our
house, the mystery of the inner apartments deepened. She, who came from
outside and yet became one of us, who was unknown and yet our own,
attracted me strangely--with her I burned to make friends. But if by
much contriving I managed to draw near, my youngest sister would hustle
me off with: "What d'you boys want here--get away outside." The insult
added to the disappointment cut me to the quick. Through the glass doors
of their cabinets one could catch glimpses of all mann