It was in Bareilly on a midnight. As I slept beside Father on the
piazza of our bungalow, I was awakened by a peculiar flutter of
the mosquito netting over the bed. The flimsy curtains parted and
I saw the beloved form of my mother.
"Awaken your father!" Her voice was only a whisper. "Take the first
available train, at four o'clock this morning. Rush to Calcutta if
you would see me!" The wraithlike figure vanished.
"Father, Father! Mother is dying!" The terror in my tone aroused
him instantly. I sobbed out the fatal tidings.
"Never mind that hallucination of yours." Father gave his characteristic
negation to a new situation. "Your mother is in excellent health.
If we get any bad news, we shall leave tomorrow."
"You shall never forgive yourself for not starting now!" Anguish
caused me to add bitterly, "Nor shall I ever forgive you!"
The melancholy morning came with explicit words: "Mother dangerously
ill; marriage postponed; come at once."
Father and I left distractedly. One of my uncles met us en route
at a transfer point. A train thundered toward us, looming with
telescopic increase. From my inner tumult, an abrupt determination
arose to hurl myself on the railroad tracks. Already bereft, I
felt, of my mother, I could not endure a world suddenly barren to
the bone. I loved Mother as my dearest friend on earth. Her solacing
black eyes had been my surest refuge in the trifling tragedies of
childhood.
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