A white fog was still clinging to the tops of the trees. I saw the
Devotee walking through the blurred dawn, like a mist-wraith of the
morning twilight. She was singing her chant to God, and sounding her
cymbals.
The thick haze lifted at last; and the sun, like the kindly grandsire of
the village, took his seat amid all the work that was going on in home
and field.
When I had just settled down at my writing-table, to appease the hungry
appetite of my editor in Calcutta, there came a sound of footsteps on
the stair, and the Devotee, humming a tune to herself, entered, and
bowed before me. I lifted my head from my papers.
She said to me: "My God, yesterday I took as sacred food what was left
over from your meal."
I was startled, and asked her how she could do that.
"Oh," she said, "I waited at your door in the evening, while you were at
dinner, and took some food from your plate when it was carried out."
This was a surprise to me, for every one in the village knew that I had
been to Europe, and had eaten with Europeans. I was a vegetarian, no
doubt, but the sanctity of my cook would not bear investigation, and the
orthodox regarded my food as polluted.
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