So, when a woman cannot understand a thing, she either destroys
and forgets it, or she shapes it anew for her own use; if
she fails to deal with it in one of these ways, she loses her temper
with it. The greater Kadambini's abstraction became, the more impatient
was Jogmaya with her, wondering what trouble weighed upon her mind.
Then a new danger arose. Kadambini was afraid of herself; yet she could
not flee from herself. Those who fear ghosts fear those who are behind
them; wherever they cannot see there is fear. But Kadambini's chief
terror lay in herself, for she dreaded nothing external. At the dead of
night, when alone in her room, she screamed; in the evening, when she
saw her shadow in the lamp-light, her whole body shook. Watching her
fearfulness, the rest of the house fell into a sort of terror. The
servants and Jogmaya herself began to see ghosts.
One midnight, Kadambini came out from her bedroom weeping, and wailed at
Jogmaya's door: "Sister, sister, let me lie at your feet! Do not put me
by myself!"
Jogmaya's anger was no less than her fear.
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