I went there to play--it was the place not play, which drew me. Why
this was so, is difficult to tell. Perhaps its being a deserted bit of
waste land lying in an out-of-the-way corner gave it its charm for me.
It was entirely outside the living quarters and bore no stamp of
usefulness; moreover it was as unadorned as it was useless, for no one
had ever planted anything there; it was doubtless for these reasons that
this desert spot offered no resistance to the free play of the boy's
imagination. Whenever I got any loop-hole to evade the vigilance of my
warders and could contrive to reach the _golabari_ I felt I had a
holiday indeed.

There was yet another place in our house which I have even yet not
succeeded in finding out. A little girl playmate of my own age called
this the "King's palace."[6] "I have just been there," she would
sometimes tell me. But somehow the propitious moment never turned up
when she could take me along with her. That was a wonderful place, and
its playthings were as wonderful as the games that were played there. It
seemed to me it must be somewhere very near--perhaps in the first or
second storey; the only thing was one never seemed to be able to get
there. How often have I asked my companion, "Only tell me, is it really
inside the house or outside?" And she would always reply, "No, no, it's
in this very house." I would sit and wonder: "Where then can it be?
Don't I know all the rooms of the house?" Who the king might be I never
cared to inquire; where his palace is still remains undiscovered; this
much was clear--the king's palace was within our house.

Looking back on childhood's days the thing that recurs most often is the
mystery which used to fill both life and world. Something undreamt of
was lurking everywhere and the uppermost question every day was: when,
Oh! when would we come across it? It was as if nature held something in
her closed hands and was smilingly asking us: "What d'you think I have?"
What was impossible for her to have was the thing we had no idea of.

Well do I remember the custard apple seed which I had planted and kept
in a corner of the south verandah, and used to water every day. The
thought that the seed might possibly grow into a tree kept me in a great
state of fluttering wonder. Custard apple seeds still have the habit of
sprouting, but no longer to the accompaniment of that feeling of wonder.
The fault is not in the custard apple but in the mind. We had once
s