No, then why should I not accept this gift? Certainly, I have fallen from my ideals, but even so—if Rai Sahib has acted deceitfully, then I too shall resort to cunning. One does not have to persuade his soul much to rob the one who robs the poor.

:17:

Word spread through the village that Rai Sahib had summoned the panchayat and scolded them severely, and all the money they had collected was taken back from them. He was even about to send them to jail, but they pleaded and begged, even stooping to lick their own spit, only then did he let them go. Dhaniya’s heart was soothed; she went about the village, shaming the panchayat members—“Men may not hear the cries of the poor, but God does.” People had thought they would feast on sweets with the fines they had extorted. But God struck them such a blow that the sweets flew out of their mouths. Each one had to cough up double. “Now, let’s see you take my house,” she taunted.

But how can one farm without oxen? The rumor spread through the village. If a farmer’s oxen die in the month of Kartik, it is as if both his hands have been cut off. Hori’s hands had been cut off. In all the other fields, ploughs were turning the soil, seeds were being sown, and sometimes the strains of songs could be heard. Hori’s fields lay desolate, like the home of a helpless widow. Puniya had a cow, Shobha had a cow, but where did they have the time to help sow Hori’s fields, busy as they were with their own? Hori wandered here and there all day, sometimes sitting in one man’s field, sometimes helping another with his sowing. In this way, he managed to get a little grain. Dhaniya, Rupa, and Sona all worked in other people’s fields. As long as the sowing lasted, they had food to eat, and did not suffer much. There was certainly mental anguish, but at least they had enough to eat. Every night, there would be a little quarrel between husband and wife. So Kartik passed, and even finding work in the village became difficult. Now, all their hopes rested on the sugarcane standing in the fields.

It was night. The cold was bitter. There was nothing to eat in Hori’s house today. In the day, they had managed to get a little roasted gram, but now there was no way to light the stove, and Rupa, tormented by hunger, sat crying by the fire at the door. When there is not a single grain of food in the house, what can one ask for, what can one say?

When hunger became unbearable, she went to Puniya’s house on the pretext of asking for fire. Puniya was cooking millet bread and wild greens. The aroma made Rupa’s mouth water.

Puniya asked, “What, your fire hasn’t been lit yet, girl?”

Rupa replied humbly, “There was nothing in the house