i_, came another _mahal_; this was old,
ill-built, the rooms low, small, and dirty. Here was a whole city-full
of female relations, mother's sister and mother's cousin, father's
sister and cousin; mother's widowed sister, mother's married sister;
father's sister's son's wife, mother's sister's son's daughter. All
these female relatives cawing day and night like a set of crows in a
banian tree; at every moment screams, laughter, quarrelling, bad
reasoning, gossip, reproach, the scuffling of boys, the crying of
girls. "Bring water!" "Give the clothes!" "Cook the rice!" "The child
does not eat!" "Where is the milk?" etc., is heard as an ocean of
confused sounds. Next to it, behind the _Thakur bari_, was the
cook-house. Here a woman, having placed the rice-pot on the fire,
gathering up her feet, sits gossiping with her neighbour on the
details of her son's marriage. Another, endeavouring to light a fire
with green wood, her eyes smarting with the smoke, is abusing the
_gomashta_ (factor), and producing abundant proof that he has
supplied this wet wood to pocket part of the price. Another beauty,
throwing fish into the hot oil, closes her eyes and twists her ten
fingers, making a grimace, for oil leaping forth has burnt her skin.
One having bathed her long hair, plentifully besmeared with oil,
braiding it in a curve on the temples and fastening it in a knot on
the top of her head, stirs the pulse cooking in an earthen pot, like
Krishna prodding the cows with a stick. Here Bami, Kaymi, Gopal's
mother, Nipal's mother, are shredding with a big knife vegetable
pumpkins, brinjals, the sound of the cutting steel mingling with abuse
of the neighbours, of the masters, of everybody: that Golapi has
become a widow very young; that Chandi's husband is a great drunkard;
that Koylash's husband has secured a fine appointment as writer to the
_Darogah_; that there could not be in the world such a flying journey
as that of Gopal, nor such a wicked child as Parvati's; how the
English must be of the race of _Ravan_ (the ten-headed king of
Ceylon); how _Bhagirati_ had brought _Ganga_; how Sham Biswas was the
lover of the daughter of the Bhattacharjyas; with many other
subjects. A dark, stout-bodied woman, placing a large _bonti_ (a
fish-cutter) on a heap of ashes in the court, is cutting fish; the
kites, frightened at her gigantic size and her quick-handedness,
keeping away, yet now and again darting forward to peck at the fish.
Here a white-h