Once, I believed that whatever God would give me, I would be able to accept. Until now, that faith had not been tested. Perhaps the time has come.

When I examined my mind in solitude, I imagined many sorrows. Sometimes I thought of poverty, sometimes of prison, sometimes of dishonor, sometimes of death. Even, at times, I tried to imagine Bimala’s death. Whenever I said that I would bow and accept all these upon my head, I do not think I was lying.

Only one thing—I could never even imagine in my mind. Today, I have sat the whole day pondering that very thing. Will I be able to bear this too?

Somewhere deep within, a thorn is lodged. I go about my work, but the pain does not cease. Perhaps, even when I sleep, that ache gnaws at my ribs. As soon as I awake in the morning, I find the radiance of daylight has withered away. What is this? What has happened? What is this darkness? Through which crack has this shadow come to fall upon my full, bright moon?

Suddenly, my mind’s faculty of perception has grown so terrifyingly acute that the sorrow which, in the past, had hidden itself deep within my heart under the guise of happiness, now tears at my very nerves, exposing all its falsehoods. And the shame, the grief, that has gathered around me—however desperately it tries to draw its veil tighter before my heart, the more its covering slips away.

My entire heart is filled with vision—things not meant to be seen, things I do not wish to see, yet I sit and watch them all.

All these years I had sat, a beggar, within the hollow of prosperity, and that truth, which I had managed to forget for so long, now suddenly, day after day, moment after moment, word after word, glance after glance, comes forth, bit by bit, revealing the misfortune of my deceived life. Why has this day come?

For these nine years of youth, I have paid rent to illusion; now, until the last moment of my life, truth will demand its dues, with interest, down to the last coin. The one whose means of repayment are utterly exhausted must bear the heaviest burden of debt. Yet, even so, may I be able to say with all my might: O Truth, victory be yours.

Yesterday, my cousin Munu’s husband, Gopal, came to seek help for his daughter’s marriage. He looked at the furnishings of my house and thought to himself that there was no one in the world as fortunate as I. I said, “Gopal,

Tell Munu that tomorrow I will go to eat at her place.” Munu has turned the poor little house into heaven with the nectar of her heart. Today, my entire being longs to taste, just once, the food prepared by that blessed hand. The very wants and lacks of her home have become her ornaments. Let me go and see her today—