Dijen was silent, but glared at me suspiciously. After we had escorted our guru to his hermitage, my friend and I proceeded toward Serampore College. Dijen halted in the street, indignation streaming from his every pore.
“So! Master sent me a message! Yet you concealed it! I demand an explanation!”
“Can I help it if your mental mirror oscillates with such restlessness that you cannot register our guru’s instructions?” I retorted.
The anger vanished from Dijen’s face. “I see what you mean,” he said ruefully. “But please explain how you could know about the child with the jug.”
By the time I had finished the story of Master’s phenomenal appearance at the boardinghouse that morning, my friend and I had reached Serampore College.
“The account I have just heard of our guru’s powers,” Dijen said, “makes me feel that any university in the world is only a kindergarten.”
[19-1:] The Bengali “Good-by”; literally, it is a hopeful paradox: “Then I come.”
[19-2:] The characteristic sound of dematerialization of bodily atoms.