"Yes," say my sisters, "But neither you nor any one else, could sow the seeds of ideas in us, so that they would bear fruit, unless the soil were suited to them. We are going together whether it be to heaven or to hell." My beautiful faithful little souls; no, they have learned nothing from me, for I have always been their pupil. Oh, they have taught me much.
We are one in ideas and feelings, everything has combined to make us one. We have been together all our lives; though you can take away the long years that we lived together but outwardly and count only these last intimate years.
Souls that have dwelt together for only one moment in great sympathy, can never wholly forget one another. But we have dwelt together in complete harmony for years. The years have added to the bond ten-fold.
We see the same things, hear the same things, day after day, and talk over everything with one another. We take delight in the same things, read books, magazines and newspapers together—discuss what we have read, and exchange opinions and ideas. Our parents see our intimacy with pleasure and encourage in every way. They are so pleased with the three-in-one idea that they are sometimes unjust to those outside, for the triple bond must come before everything else.
Our protectors as you know may marry us to whomsoever they will. The only circumstances in which they may not compel our obedience, is when the candidate for our hand is of a rank inferior to our own. Parents may not compel their daughters to marry a man who is beneath them in station. That is our only weapon against their arbitrary will.
The prospective bridegroom has only to go with the father or other male relative to the Panghoeloe[2] or some one else of the kind, and the wedding is over. The girl may know nothing whatever about it at the time.
Mother knew a woman, who refused to marry. She said she had rather die than marry the man her parents had chosen for her. Heaven was merciful, three months before the date set for the wedding the cholera took her away. Had she lived, no one would have been disturbed in the least by her refusal. She would have been married out of hand despite her protests.
There is nothing new under the sun; long ago in old times there were rebellious daughters too. It has always been preached to us that it was our duty to belong blindly to our parents. At the same time it has happened that when a young woman, submissive to their decree, was married, and afterwards unhappy, they would make sport of her and say: "Foolish one, why then did you marry? When you were married, you were willing, you wished to follow your husband; you must not complain now."
When I received your letter, we were about to go to a wedding. It is not customary for young girls to go to weddings and sit among the wedding guests, but Mamma graciously gave us her consent. If the bride's mother, an old friend of ours, had not pressed us to honour her with our presence at the great feast, we would have gladly stayed away. Before we started from our house, we saw the retinue of the bridegroom going toward the mosque; there was a downpour of rain, and the carriage in which the bridegroom sat was closed, as were the other carriages which followed it. Gold-striped banners were streaming over the aloen-aloen.[3] It was a melancholy-looking train; we were depressed by it. Indeed, it made us think of a funeral procession.
When we came to the home of the bride, we found her sitting in front of the quade (canopy) waiting for the bridegroom. Father went with us, too.