eaps;
pigeons built their nests in the cornices and sparrows in the beams.
Heaps of withered leaves lay rotting in the garden; weeds grew over
the tanks; the flower-beds were hidden by jungle. There were jackals
in the court-yard, and rats in the granary; mould and fungus were
everywhere to be seen; musk-rats and centipedes swarmed in the rooms;
bats flew about night and day. Nearly all Surja Mukhi's pet birds had
been eaten by cats; their soiled feathers lay scattered around. The
ducks had been killed by the jackals, the peacocks had flown into the
woods; the cows had become emaciated, and no longer gave milk.
Nagendra's dogs had no spirit left in them, they neither played nor
barked; they were never let loose; some had died, some had gone mad,
some had escaped. The horses were diseased, or had become ill from
want of work; the stables were littered with stubble, grass, and
feathers. The horses were sometimes fed, sometimes neglected. The
grooms were never to be found in the stables. The cornice of the house
was broken in places, as were the sashes, the shutters, and the
railings. The matting was soaked with rain; there was dust on the
painted walls. Over the bookcases were the dwellings of insects;
straws from the sparrows' nests on the glass of the chandeliers. In
the house there was no mistress, and without a mistress paradise
itself would be a ruin.

As in an untended garden overgrown with grass a single rose or lily
will bloom, so in this house Kunda Nandini lived alone. Wherever a few
joined in a meal Kunda partook of it. If any one addressed her as
house-mistress, Kunda thought, "They are mocking me." If the _Dewan_
sent to ask her about anything her heart beat with fear. There was a
reason for this. As Nagendra did not write to Kunda, she had been
accustomed to send to the _Dewan_ for the letters received by him. She
did not return the letters, and she lived in fear that the _Dewan_
would claim them; and in fact the man no longer sent them to her, but
only suffered her to read them as he held them in his hand.

The suffering felt by Surja Mukhi was endured in equal measure by
Kunda Nandini. Surja Mukhi loved her husband; did not Kunda love him?
In that little heart there was inexhaustible love, and because it
could find no expression, like obstructed breathing it wounded her
heart. From childhood, before her first marriage, Kunda had loved
Nagendra; she had told no one, no one knew it. She had had no desire