I found that he was the schoolmaster of the place. From beneath an enormous bald
head, his two eyes shone out from their sockets with an unnatural brightness in a face
that was thin with hunger and illness.
The boatmen, having finished their evening prayer, turned their attention to their
cooking. As the last light of the day faded, the dark and empty house stood silent and
ghostly above the deserted ghat.
The schoolmaster said: "Nearly ten years ago, when I came to this place, Bhusan Saha
used to live in this house. He was the heir to the large property and business of his
uncle Durga Saha, who was childless.
"But he was modern. He had been educated, and not only spoke faultless English, but
actually entered sahibs' offices with his shoes on. In addition to that he grew a beard;
thus he had not the least chance of bettering himself so far as the sahibs were
concerned. You had only to look at him to see that he was a modernised Bengali.
"In his own home, too, he had another drawback. His wife was beautiful. With his
college education on the one hand, and on the other his beautiful wife, what chance
was there of his preserving our good old traditions in his home? In fact, when he was ill,
he actually called in the assistant surgeon. And his style of food, dress, and his wife's
jewels were all on the same extravagant scale.
"Sir, you are certainly a married man, so that it is hardly necessary to tell you that the
ordinary female is fond of sour green mangoes, hot chillies, and a stern husband. A
man need not necessarily be ugly or poor to be cheated of his wife's love; but he is sure
to lose it if he is too gentle.
"If you ask me why this is so, I have much to say on this subject, for I have thought a
good deal about it. A deer chooses a hardwood tree on which to sharpen its horns, and
would get no pleasure in rubbing its horns against the soft stem of a plantain tree. From
the very moment that man and woman became separate sexes, woman has been
exercising all her faculties in trying by various devices to fascinate and bring man under
her control. The wife of a man who is, of his own accord, submissive is altogether out of
employment. All those weapons which she has inherited from her grandmothers of
untold centuries are useless in her hands: the force of her tears, the fire of her anger,
and the snare of her glances lie idle.
"Under the spell of modern civilisation man has lost the God-given power of his barbaric
nature, and this has loosened the conjugal ties. The unfortunate Bhusan had been
turned out of the machine of modern civilisation an absolutely faultless man. He was
therefore neither successful in business nor in his own home.
"Mani was Bhusan's wife. She used to get her caresses without asking, her Dacca
muslin saris without tears, and her bangles without being able to pride herself on a
victory. In this way her woman's nature became atrophied, and with it her love for her
husband. She simply accepted things without giving anything in return. Her harmless
and foolish husband used to imagine that to give is the way to get. The fact was just the
contrary