"The doctor says it's very bad for biliousness."
"The doctor's a fool!"
"But I'm sure that rice agrees with me better than your luchis. They are too indigestible."
"I've never seen the least sign of indigestion in you. You have been accustomed to them all your life!"
Bhavani Charan was ready enough to make sacrifices, but there his passage was barred. Butter might rise in price, but the number of his luchis never diminished. Milk was quite enough for him at his midday meal, but curds also had to be supplied because that was the family tradition. Rashmani could not have borne seeing him sit down to his meal, if curds were not supplied. Therefore all his attempts to make a breach in his daily provisions, through which the fanning foreign woman might enter, were an utter failure.
Then Bhavani paid a visit to Bagala for no reason whatever, and after a great deal of round about talk asked concerning the foreign doll. Of course his straightened circumstances had long been known to Bagala, yet it was a perfect misery to Bhavani to have to hesitate to buy this doll for his son owing to want of ready money. Swallowing his pride, he brought out from under his arm an expensive old Kashmir [shawl], and said in a [husky] voice: "My circumstances are bad just at present and I haven't got much cash. So I have determined to mortgage this shawl and buy that doll for Kalipada."
If the object offered had been less expensive than this Kashmir shawl, Bagala would at once have closed the [bargain]. But knowing that it would not be possible for him to take possession of this shawl in face of the village opinion, and still more in face of Rashmani's watchfulness, he refused to accept it; and Bhavani had to go back home disappointed with the Kashmir shawl hidden under his arm.
Kalipada asked every day for that foreign fanning toy, and Bhavani smiled every day and said,—"Wait, a bit, my boy, till the seventh day of the moon comes round." But every new day it became more and more difficult to keep up that smile.
On the fourth day of the moon Bhavani made a sudden inroad upon his wife and said:
"I've noticed that there's something wrong with Kalipada,—something the matter with his health."