The time for lighting lamps had come. A chill was settling in. The earth had draped itself in a blue sheet.

Dhaniya went inside and brought out the brazier. Everyone began to warm themselves. In the straw-lit glow, Chabili, Rangili, the fallen woman Nohri, sat before them like a blessing. At this moment, how much kindness shone in her eyes, how much modesty on her cheeks, how much noble inspiration on her lips!

After some idle conversation, Nohri stood up and, saying, “It’s getting late now. Come tomorrow and collect the money, Mahto,” she started for home.

“Let me walk you home,” Hori offered.

“No, no, you stay. I’ll go by myself.”

“My heart wishes to carry you on my shoulders,” he said.

Nokheram’s chaupal was at the other end of the village, and the path outside was clear. Both set out along that way. Now, all around, there was silence.

Nohri said, “You should talk some sense into Rawat. Why does he always quarrel with everyone? If we have to live among these people, shouldn’t we live so that a few become our own? But he fights with everyone, argues with everyone. When you can’t keep me in purdah, when I have to work for others, how can it be that I neither laugh nor speak with anyone, nor anyone looks at me or smiles? All that is only possible in purdah. Tell me, if someone looks at me or stares, what am I to do? I can’t gouge out his eyes. Besides, a hundred things are accomplished through friendliness. Behave according to the times. Once, an elephant swayed in your courtyard—what use is that to you now? Now you’re a laborer for three rupees. We used to have a buffalo at home, but now I’m a laboring woman. But he understands nothing. Sometimes he thinks of living with the children, sometimes of going to live in Lucknow. He’s made my life miserable.”

Hori tried to appease her. “This is pure foolishness on Bhola’s part. He’s grown old; he should understand by now. I’ll talk to him.”

“Then come in the morning, I’ll give you the money.”

“Shouldn’t we write something down...?”

“I know you won’t swallow my money.”

Her house arrived. She went inside. Hori returned home.

:27:

When Gobar came to the city, he found that another vendor had taken the spot where he used to set up his cart, and the customers had now forgotten him. The house, too, now felt like a cage. Jhuniya would sit alone inside and weep. The boy was used to playing all day in the courtyard or at the door. Here, there was no place for him to play. Where could he go? There was barely a yard-wide path at the entrance. Foul smells drifted in. In the heat, there was nowhere to sit or lie outside. The boy would not leave his mother for even a moment. And when there was nothing to play with, what else could he