The Injured Man The endeavour to transform the pining lover into a renouncer has begun. You can see it all, and yet you cry foolishly! Having forsaken riches as illusion, what is it you now seek to grasp? You can see it all, and yet you cry foolishly! Chandandas and his men abandoned Sarasvatichandra and the bania on the grassy knoll. Sarasvatichandra was bleeding from his hand and still unconscious. But not a hair on the cunning bania’s body was harmed. The bania was a resident of Ratnanagari. His name was Aarthdas. He belonged to a family of petty grocers but he had made some money from speculation. He was hooked to it and had amassed about forty, fifty thousand rupees. His fortune turned; he lost his all and incurred debts. He tried his luck in Bombay, but failed. He chanced his hand at different things in different places, but to no avail. During his few days of prosperity, he married a dark-complexioned woman called Dhankaur. His family had a low social standing and hence had to pay about eight thousand rupees to Dhankaur’s father as the bride price for the marriage. Dhankaur had amassed about eight thousand rupees by sheer duplicity. She had lied, stolen and demanded money from her husband, and did not let him lay a finger on the money. And today, Dhankaur was lost along with all the ornaments on her body. As Sarasvatichandra lay unconscious and bleeding, Aarthdas mourned his misfortune. When he married Dhankaur she was seven or eight years of age, and eleven when she came to live with him. She was sly, lied easily and was greedy. Aarthdas was a good match for her. The man wouldn’t part with a pie, while she would want to steal two pies from him. He would scold her, but secretly he felt pleased. The rand is clever, he thought. She is cunning enough even to fool me! Let her steal and hide all she wants. When the creditors come and take it all, what she has amassed will stay. But Dhankaur proved to be so covetous that she wouldn’t part with a pie even if her husband were about to die. Aarthdas tried all his tricks, but in vain. He accepted defeat but felt satisfied. The rand is a tough nut to crack, he thought; she is the perfect match for me. Dhankaur was a consummate miser. She was a terror in the house. She could even make her mother-in-law weep; she would not allow the husband’s sister to cross the threshold of her house; she would mock the elder sister-in-law and get the younger one to do all the household chores. She would bark like a rabid bitch at her brother-in-law and then go and weep copious tears before her husband. Thus she ruled over the house. Dhankaur had one quality, however—she was not debauched. Her tendency to lie had created a genuine possibility that she would become debauched. But Aarthdas had given her