Nasuh se confía a Fahmida

Waking from the dream, Nasuh was filled with bitter regret for the idle life he and his family had led. He vowed to make amends for the past, told his wife Fahmida the whole story of his dream, and made her his helper in reforming the family.

The tale his father told struck such terror into the son that he started up. He woke, and there was the same hall again and the same paraphernalia of the sickroom. His wife was sitting beside him, slowly waving a fan. Seeing her husband's eyes open, she felt life come back into her. From the moment her husband had fallen ill she had been so frightened that, as they say, you could have cut her and found no blood.

Nasuh, who had lain down after taking the doctor's medicine at eight in the morning, slept on and on and came to himself only at about two. Since the doctor had said, "If he sleeps, know that the patient is saved," his sleeping had comforted everyone somewhat. But when it went on very long the women began to worry again: "Who knows what medicine that wretched doctor has given him? Two watches have passed and he hasn't so much as turned over. God knows how he feels inside, and what has come over his heart. How will he ever come round? We'll see what happens."

When Nasuh woke, his wife asked: "How do you feel? What a fine sleep you've had: all that weeping and wailing in the house, and you knew nothing of it. Speak, say something, so the people upstairs can be at ease. Not one of the children has had a grain in his mouth, I swear. Young and old, all of them have eaten nothing since yesterday. The girls' eyes are swollen with crying. The boys are wandering about distracted and anxious."

His wife said all kinds of comforting things, but the whole of the dream was before Nasuh's eyes. He made no answer at all. His wife supposed that, being ill, he did not feel like talking. But that fear was lifted from everyone's heart. Congratulations began to be exchanged, and the whole household kept an Id without a Ramazan. Though it was late, people were hungry. They sent to the bazaar for halwa and puris, and everyone ate and drank a little. And while they were eating, someone brought up the idea that when the patient took his bath of recovery, a night of singing should be held with great pomp, and a feast to celebrate his getting well.

These people were planning their feast and their night of singing, and Nasuh was twisting and turning in the thought of his dream. His heart was convinced that this dream was certainly no product of his own fancy or imagination. Beyond doubt it came from God. A dream, did I say? It was a true vision, a revelation from on high. He had listened to his father's statement so attentively that he had it by heart, word for word. All the charges laid against his father, when he thought about them, he found in himself. Indeed, when he compared his father's state with his own, there was no comparison. That departed man had been strict in prayer and fasting, devoted to his litanies and devotions, honest in his dealings, upright in business, careful in people's eyes, abstinent, God-fearing, religious. And here, even prayer came by fits and starts. The two Id prayers, certainly, because there is no festival of the Muslims greater than Id, no fair grander. These are the only two days in the year for showing off one's finery. One is strutting in his splendid new clothes. Another goes pricking his horse to make it prance, deliberately cleaving through the crowd. Another swells with pride at his servants' shouts of "Make way! Make way!" Another, riding in a hired or borrowed tonga, says to the driver: "Chaudhri, what a rotten tonga you keep! If there's a cushion it's dirty, if there's a cover it's torn and old. No bells round the bullocks' necks, no jingles on the wheels. Well, it's nearly time at the Idgah. At least do this much: keep level with that ekka going on ahead. Man, you've even forgotten how to earn a tip!"

On Friday, if his clothes were nicely clean and the sun was not too fierce, the day free of cloud and wind, and he felt like meeting his friends, he went to the Jama Masjid; otherwise he made do with the neighbourhood mosque, or told himself that the conditions for the Friday prayer are disputed. The five daily prayers he never thought even desirable, let alone obligatory or required. The dawn, the noon and the night prayers he never said in his life, for they fell exactly at sleeping times. That left the afternoon prayer: but between taking the air, strolling in the bazaar, buying and selling, meeting friends, if he had laid aside all the needs of the world he might have said that one prayer. For the sunset prayer the excuse was plain: shortness of time. By the time he got back from his rounds, the red of the twilight had faded. And that was the state of the worship that should be called reward without trouble and recompense without toil. As for any worship with the least hardship in it, such as fasting or the alms-tax, he would think out some lawful dodge to excuse himself from it as far as he could. The month of Rajab came, and for fear of the fasts a strange kind of poisoning set in. The easiest prescription was to start visiting some physician. These people have devised such complications for this life of a few days that in their eyes there is no one healthy on the face of the earth. Go to visit them or call on them, and instead of a pan they hand you a prescription. And once you have taken medicine, a disease has taken hold of you. By the time Ramazan came round, his constitution was in real need of a purge, and thanks to the hakim sahib he escaped the fasts.

Avoiding the alms-tax was no great matter either. Why let a full year pass over property above the minimum, so that the alms-tax must be paid? When he saw the year was nearly complete, he made the property over to his wife by word of mouth. Where did the ghee go? Into the khichri. When the time came for the tax to fall due on his wife, he had it made over to his own name again. And by this exchange of hands he set aside God's command. He kept his wealth in such forms that it escaped the alms-tax. He bought shops in plenty, built houses, and let them to tenants, so the property grew in name and he grew in name, and the alms-tax was nowhere. In short, as far as Nasuh examined himself, he found himself without a share in religion, without a portion of faith, far from salvation and near to destruction and ruin. Any good deed he looked at was either not in his record at all, or, if it was, one deed had hundreds of breaches and thousands of corruptions in it. Even the two or four prayers were not free of sloth, half-heartedness and show. The fasts he had happened to keep now and then in the cold weather, in order to join in the meals at sunset and before dawn, had the flaw of display and pretence in any case; and with complaining of the hardship, the good deed was lost and the sin was certain. If he ever gave some hungry, naked man something that was of no use to him, he spoiled it by reminding him a hundred times of the favour, thinking he had bought the poor beggar for life. In short, there was not one good deed done purely for God's sake for which, in fairness, a reward could be hoped or a recompense expected.

These thoughts so affected Nasuh's heart that he wept uncontrollably and said: "O God! Can there be anyone more worthless, wicked, vile and wayward than I, who have spent my whole life disobeying You? If only I had never been born, or, being born, had had no power to sin! If only some hard calamity had fallen on me that gave me no time even to scratch my head! The lightning did not strike me. The sky did not fall on me. No snake bit me. I had cholera and, shameless as I am, I got up again. Curse me if ever again in my life I go near sin! Shame on my life if I set my hand to wrongdoing again!" Having made this vow firm in his heart, he thought again of the life he had wasted, and said in his heart: "For the whole life I have squandered in this ruinous state I can make no amends at all; and it is great injustice that I should do wrong and not be punished, sin and not suffer for it."

Nasuh's remorse for his sins at that moment was so great that he counted death a slight punishment. The whole household was rejoicing at his recovery, and he was sorry he had not died. He was unable to get up because of his illness, but lay with his face pressed into the pillow, saying: "O God! I deserve to be thrown into Hell. But since in Your grace You have kept me in the world a few more days, grant me such grace that I live in righteousness and in obedience and submission to You, and that my life may be a pattern of a godly life."

When he had finished reckoning with his own soul, Nasuh thought of his family. He looked, and his wife and children were all of a piece: absorbed in the world, ignorant of religion. Then this second blow fell on Nasuh's heart: "Alas! I was ruined myself, and I have waylaid all these servants of God as well. Were my own evil deeds not enough, that I gathered up the burden of all of them? God made me master and head of this house and entrusted all these souls to me, and, alas, I have squandered God's deposit and been so grievously negligent in keeping God's trust. All these people obeyed my orders and followed my wishes. By my bad example I led them all astray. Had I kept them in check, why should they have gone wrong; and having gone wrong, the generations that come from them will go wrong too. In short, I have sown the seed of evil in the world. Those who are God's good servants leave behind them good works that endure and a good name in the world. I was so ill-starred that if I leave anything behind it is evil. As long as my line lasts, evil will grow and spread. When these people stand before God to answer, and say, 'Nobody ever showed us the right way,' what answer shall I give?" At this thought Nasuh wept aloud once more. His second vow was this: that he would reform every member of his family. And then he prayed to God: "O Lord of the worlds! Help me in this purpose. Make easy whatever difficulty arises. Give force to my words and firmness to my resolve."

Nasuh had not stumbled so lightly as to forget it. Once warned, he did not find reforming himself hard; but reforming his family was a very difficult task. He knew well that religion and godliness were entirely new words to his family, to which the ears of none, young or old, were accustomed. He understood very well that the whole household would be on one side and he on the other. Who would hear the parrot's voice in the drum-house? And how was he, a lone gram-seed playing the hero, to break the mountain of sin? So he began to consider whom to make his helper, whom to choose as his counsellor. At last it came into his mind that for reforming the family there was no better means than his wife. And it was surely God's will that the family should prosper somewhat, for Nasuh had taught his wife to read and write. When Nasuh was newly married, the education of women was just beginning to be talked of. Nasuh had read with interest all the new books brought out for women. His heart was convinced that there were many benefits, religious and worldly, in teaching women to read and write. So he read some interesting passages from some of the books aloud to her. Everyone likes a good thing. His wife too agreed that reading was very useful for women. There was no trouble of children yet. She began to learn from her husband, and in four or five months she could read and write Urdu. Since then she had kept it up in a small way.

At this moment Nasuh counted it a great blessing that his wife could read, and thought: "By God's grace my wife lives up to her name, Fahmida, the Understanding One. To make her understand will not be very hard. The children who are young can be reformed too. The great difficulty is with the older ones." A daughter and a son had already been married. He reflected that both were masters of their own houses, and he had no authority over either. "And a grown son, a grown daughter: I cannot beat them, I cannot scold them. Mere persuasion, and at that age too, is teaching old parrots to talk. After all, won't they say: 'If we are bad and irreligious, it was you who brought us up so. And now that our habits are fixed and our ways have become our nature, you teach us to give them up and blame us for nothing'?" As he thought this, tears fell from Nasuh's eyes, and he thought that the reform of these two was impossible. What grieved him most was that, by God's grace, both had children of their own. "Just as my wickedness has worked into my children, will not their wickedness pass into theirs?" But still Nasuh made a firm resolve: "God willing, I shall try as far as I can. Either they will come to the right path, or I shall give them up while I live. Whoever is not God's is not mine, to begin with." About his second son and second daughter too Nasuh was not quite easy. He knew there would be difficulty with them as well. But his resolve was firm, and no difficulty could stop him. He was so restless and impatient that he wanted to grow mustard on his palm.

His body had not yet the strength to sit up and lie down properly when he said to his wife, "Have a little water heated so I can bathe."

The wife: "What madness is this! At least let a little strength come back into your hands and feet. What auspicious hour for bathing will be missed? When, God willing, you are up and about, you can go to the bath-house and bathe properly."

The husband: "I want to pray. During my illness there has been every kind of uncleanness. My heart will not accept beginning the prayer in this state."

The wife: "Did you vow some voluntary prayers for getting well?"

When his wife showed such surprise at hearing of prayer, Nasuh felt as if pitchers of cold water had been poured over him, and he said to himself: "God, God! Such a distance between me and prayer that my wife is amazed to hear of it!
Woe is me, and woe to my end!
Unbelief would be ashamed of my Islam."
And, drawing a cold sigh, he said to his wife, "If I had been a man to say voluntary prayers, I should not have seen such days."

The wife: "No vow, no offering; then why the hurry? The prayer isn't running away. When you're properly well again you can say as many prayers as you like."

Nasuh was no longer the Nasuh who could hear his wife speak of prayer so slightingly and not take offence. He was angry; but then he thought to himself that his wife was not to blame. When the husband is irreligious, the wife's ideas are bound to be like this. "The whole fault is mine, and my irreligion alone has ruined the whole house." Thinking it unwise to argue with his wife just then, he said only, "Alas! How far my worthless company has led you astray, that you count a duty laid down by God a trifling thing."

In short, in spite of his wife's protests, Nasuh bathed, changed his clothes and prayed. This was Nasuh's first prayer that could be called worship. He stood with folded hands as respectfully as a murderer stands before some mighty king. His eyes were fixed to the ground. The awe of royalty lay on him so heavily that he neither moved nor stirred, but stood motionless and senseless like an idol. Humility and lowliness showed in his face. He stood as he was commanded, but kept stooping and sinking down. In short, such movements came from him that anyone watching could not help feeling pity.

For a week or ten days the weakness of illness remained; then, by God's grace, Nasuh became strong and healthy as before. But after the illness most of his habits had changed. He was lost in thought all the time. He had entirely given up idle chatter, unmannerly laughter and joining in pointless talk. But with this, gentleness, courtesy, a broad kindness and humility had come into him too. Before his illness his temper had been such that the household treated him as a terror. The moment he set foot inside the door, everyone, young and old, was overawed. If by mistake something had been left out of place and he found it, down came a calamity on everyone. Food is a matter of guesswork, after all; but let there be a little too much salt or too little, and that day, you may be sure, the house went hungry. How many cups were martyred! How many plates had their blood shed! The whole neighbourhood would hear that the dinner had been spoiled today. The children got a scolding at every word, a snarl at every turn. And now you could beat a drum on Nasuh's head and he would take no notice. Indeed, Fahmida would scold the children when she saw them misbehaving: "What wayward children! Look at the state your father is in, and you go and make a din right in his ear. Not the least fear! Mark my words, it'll all come out at once."

At first, seeing these ways of Nasuh's, the household were very uneasy. They knew he had risen from his sickbed, and thought he must certainly have grown more touchy than before. "He's in such a terrible temper that he speaks to no one. We'll see on whom this arrow falls, whose turn it is for trouble." But Nasuh had taken such a purge that it had left no heat at all in his blood. People rise from sickness peevish and bad-tempered, and Nasuh had risen gentle and forbearing, soft-hearted and humble. In everyday affairs he had become such that whatever was set before him he ate with relish, whatever was given him he wore gladly. No argument, no dispute, no noise, no uproar. As Nasuh's habits changed, people's treatment of him changed too. Now they showed him respect. Those who had feared and disliked him now showed him affection and love. In a few days the house was free of clamour and clear of quarrels.

At first the household had been surprised to see Nasuh taking care over prayer and so on. But then, without a word said, it began of itself to have a sort of effect on the others. And Nasuh was waiting just for this, that people should grow somewhat familiar with and used to this strange way, before he began his arrangements. Among Nasuh's other changed habits was this, that he had come to love solitude. All day long he sat alone in the upper room. If anyone came unasked, it was not that he would not talk to them; but as far as possible he kept away from company. Some thought perhaps he had taken to sleeping more. Someone supposed he had not yet the strength to go up and down stairs. But Fahmida often had occasion to go up. Sometimes she saw him praying, sometimes sitting silent. At last one day she asked: "Don't you feel low, sitting alone and silent? Come down for a while sometimes and cheer yourself with the children's chatter. I don't get a moment free from the work of the house."

Nasuh: "I was going to complain to you that ever since I got up from my illness you haven't even asked me what happened, or how it happened. Don't you see any change in my habits?"

Fahmida: "The difference of night and day, of earth and sky. And I swear by your head, the question came to my lips many times, but seeing your manner I hadn't the courage to ask."

Nasuh: "What manner?"

Fahmida: "Don't take it amiss. Your temper has always been sharp. Everyone is always afraid of you as it is. When you got up from your illness, everyone feared it would be bitter gourd on a neem tree: a terrible temper to begin with, and now, after an illness, who knows? Then we saw you, and you paid no attention to anyone. We thought you must certainly be out of humour and out of sorts. Then who would dare? Who would have the courage to ask or inquire?"

Nasuh: "Well, madam, did you ever warn me about my bad temper?"

Fahmida: "Never mind warning you, I never had the nerve even to speak to you."

Nasuh: "But in these days I haven't been angry with anyone."

Fahmida: "The whole house is amazed at it."

Nasuh: "What do people make the reason, then?"

Fahmida: "People say that you saw people dying in great numbers in the epidemic. There were three deaths in our own house. You fell ill yourself and came back from God's door. Fear has settled in your heart. Your eldest son reckons that the medicine the doctor gave you to stop the purging has sent heat to your brain. Anyway, everyone thinks you ought to have treatment."

Nasuh: "It is neither heat nor a disordered brain. Fear, yes."

Fahmida: "A man, and you were so frightened? After all, we were all in that same calamity."

Nasuh: "You were not in that calamity at all."

Fahmida: "You mean I didn't have the cholera. But your having the cholera was harder for me than my own death would have been."

Nasuh: "No, it isn't a question of having cholera. Though the illness looked severe, I tell you that from beginning to end my senses were all sound. I heard and understood everything you said. At the start of the illness you decided it was cholera from overeating; then in the morning the hakim sahib came, and you described my condition to him. Then the doctor came and gave me medicine. I know all of it. When on the doctor's advice you laid me in the separate hall, a drowsiness came over me and I saw myself in another world."

After this Nasuh told his wife the whole story of the dream, word for word. Women's hearts have more softness and tenderness than men's, and that is why religious teaching takes effect quickly among women. When Fahmida heard her husband's dream, such fear came over her that she nearly fainted.

Though Nasuh, in his solitude, grieved over his sins and wept two or four times every day, and even when he did not weep outwardly his heart was weeping inside all the time, now, finding the support of his wife's sympathy and companionship, he wept until he choked. Fahmida was already terrified. Her husband's weeping was the push she needed. She too broke into sobs. Then husband and wife both wept so, remembering their own sins, that it was like the rains of Sawan and Bhadon. It was a strange sight too: a husband and wife weeping, each remembering their own sins. At last Nasuh pulled himself together and said to his wife: "If anything in the world is worth weeping for, in my view it is sin and disobedience to God, and nothing else. For no misfortune, no calamity, is greater than sin. To weep over worldly losses is to ruin your eyes for nothing; but to weep over sin is, as it were, to wash away the stain of guilt. Weeping atones for wrongdoing. Weeping is the sinner's best apology. Weeping is the proof of mercy and the surety of forgiveness. But we must also order our future lives. That remorse alone is genuine whose effect appears in what we do afterwards. That repentance alone is firm in which a man does exactly what he resolves or says."

Fahmida: "But we have spent so many years in this ruin; what hope is there now of salvation and forgiveness? I think our disease is past cure."

Nasuh: "To despair of God's mercy is itself unbelief. He is free of all need, the Forgiving, the Merciful. He has no need of our worship. If all the men on earth disobeyed Him, His eternal and everlasting kingdom would not be changed by a hair's breadth; and likewise, if the whole world became angelic and all men worshipped day and night, His greatness and majesty would not increase by so much as a mustard seed. If God had wanted only to be worshipped and adored, He could have created angels in place of disobedient, sinful, rebellious, refractory man. So these things that have been made obligatory and binding on us are for our own reform, our own good. And there is no doubt that in it all there is mercy beyond measure and forbearance beyond bounds. Commit a hundred thousand sins; the moment you humble yourself and plead, the moment you come with entreaty and supplication, then nothing more. That Lord is not a tyrant, not harsh, not vindictive. But what is He? He is very jealous. He will not bear in the least that anyone should be made a partner in His divinity."

Fahmida: "However great His pardon and forgiveness, is there no end to our own sins? Everyone knows what love parents have for their children. But look: what Kalim gets up to has soured both your heart and mine in the end. How much can one bear! How long can one shut one's eyes!"

Nasuh: "It is a great mistake to judge God's holiness and perfect attributes by man's imperfect, incomplete habits. All the love that all the parents in the world have for their children is a mere whiff of that boundless kindness and unconditional grace and compassion which the gracious Lord shows His servants in every state. Sin and disobedience are in the very clay of man. If He looked at His servants' sins, every living soul would deserve to be killed and beheaded. How should the world ever be peopled? But, God, God! What forgiveness! Sins go on being committed, and the ration of daily bread fixed from the royal storehouse is never stopped, never even missed for a day. Air ready to breathe, water there to drink, night to rest, day to work, a house to live in; the same moon, the same sun, the same sky, the same earth, the same rains, the same fruits and plants; all the limbs, hands and feet, eyes and ears, each ready at its service, without weariness, without sloth, without fatigue. So when God does not fail to do good in return for such sins and such disobedience, it seems quite unthinkable of His praiseworthy Being that one should beg pardon at His court and He not forgive, repent and He not accept."

At that very moment husband and wife both stretched out their hands in prayer and, imploring humbly, asked forgiveness for their own sins and each other's. After this Fahmida began to talk with a kind of joy and calm. But Nasuh's dejection remained as before. Then Fahmida asked, "If it is certain that sins are forgiven through repentance, and we promise that in future we will not do such things again, why are you sad?"

Nasuh: "Faith is the name of fear and hope together. That repentance is accepted is not our right. If God Most High accepts it, it is His kindness; and if He does not, we have no ground for complaint or grievance. And what reliance can be placed on a promise for the future? Man is a creature of weak make. Heedlessness is his clay and disobedience his nature. Only if God grants the grace of good can a promise be kept and a pledge fulfilled; otherwise, what can man do?
What use is it to fret about more or less?
What are we, that any work should be done by us?
Whatever has happened has happened by Your grace;
Whatever will happen will happen by Your grace.
And there is another reason for my dejection, about which my heart can find no peace at all."

Fahmida: "What is that?"

Nasuh: "It is this: I was ruined, certainly; but how I have destroyed these children! Following my example, they too have gone to the bad. You see that young and old, they are all dyed in one colour. Has any of them the least touch of religion? Has any the least inclination towards godliness? And where should inclination come from? There is no talk of religion and faith in the house, so that one might learn from watching others; nor anyone to tell and explain, to teach the difference between good and bad. Indeed, the truth is that I helped them in every way towards their ruin and corruption. Alas, I have sown thorns in their path. I went on being their enemy while thinking I wanted their good. When I think about it, I myself am the founder and teacher of all their bad habits of play. To amuse them I bought them toys and kites. To please them I took them with me to the bazaar. Giving them money again and again, I gave them a taste for bazaar sweets. I taught them to keep animals and birds; I showed them fairs and shows; I got them into the habit of dressing smartly and fashionably. I myself was a great example of vice incarnate before their eyes. Whatever they do, they did not bring from their mother's womb. They learned it from me; they copied me. I was by no means worthy of the blessing of being made the father of children. I was in no way deserving of the favour of being given the headship of a large family. It was my ill fortune, and their bad luck, that their upbringing was entrusted to me.

"Alas! Why were they not orphaned before they reached the age of understanding? Why was my baneful shadow not lifted from over their heads while they were still at the breast, so that someone else could have taken charge of their upbringing, who would have done that service far better than I? It is a scandal that these should be called the children of gentlefolk and have the habits of riffraff. Now the very sight of them is poison to me. Looks and character, outside and inside, each worse than the last, each more depraved. Look at one good-for-nothing: he is always twisted up stiff, like dough made of urad flour. Now he is admiring his chest, now eyeing his arms. A son of Adam, and he goes about like a young fantail pigeon. He swaggers so that his neck is pressed back into his nape. His clothes are so tight they look sewn on to his body. The fastenings of his angarkha are across his chest. The legs of his pyjamas are gathered in folds up to his knees. He wears a cap the size of an oil lamp's saucer that keeps falling off of its own accord. The second wretch gets up in the morning, lets out his pigeons and climbs on to the roof to make his forefathers' name a byword. Then till nearly noon there is romping and rampaging on the roof. Dragged and bundled off, he goes to school. From the afternoon on it is the roof again, and kites. Evening comes and the chessboard is spread. On Sunday, when there's a holiday from school, he has his quails fighting. The third, the little rascal: if the big one's a fine fellow, the little one's a marvel. The neighbourhood complains, the neighbours are at their wits' end. He hit this one, he teased that one. On every side there is a cry for help.

"In short, they are such unruly children, uncouth, vagabond, ill-mannered, shameless, without honour, without skills, bad-tempered, foul-mouthed, ill-bred, that for some days now, watching them, I have seen red. Not one of their ways, not one of their movements, the way they sit or rise, is like that of decent people. They don't scruple to swear at people. They don't hesitate to talk filth. Oaths are their stock phrase. No check on the tongue, no bridle on the mouth. Their very gait is so strangely swaggering that their bad breeding shows in the way they walk. As for the girls, I grant that they may not have the faults the boys have. But at the same time I am certain that none of them leads a religious life either. I mostly find them busy with their dolls, or, if some ceremony is coming up in the family, I see them fussing over clothes. If the boys swear a great deal, the girls curse a great deal. If the boys are reckless in taking oaths, the girls are just as bold. In short, boys or girls, in my view they are both alike. Seeing them all in this ruinous state, I swallow the poison and keep silent. But then, when I look again, they are not to blame at all. If there is a fault, it is mine and yours. How can we scold and reproach them for their faults, when we never even stopped them?"

Fahmida: "You were someone who came and went outside. In this the fault is wholly mine. At first children are more attached to their mothers, and they take on their mothers' ways. Indeed, whenever you gave them advice or scolded them for something, I took their side against you. I spoiled them all, and the blame for it lies entirely on my neck."

Nasuh: "No doubt you too made no effort to reform them. But I was the father, after all. Their nurture was your part, and their reform and refinement was mine."

Fahmida: "Yes, I nourished their bodies and ruined and destroyed their souls. It was my foolish love that spoiled their habits. It was my senseless petting and pampering that corrupted their tempers and made their natures uncontrollable."

Nasuh: "But if I had been ready and eager in my work, it would not have been possible for me to speak and them not to listen, for me to want and them not to do. After all, I had authority over them. I had every kind of power over them, and not only over them but over you and the whole house."

Fahmida: "Even so, perhaps not a tenth of the evils that were plain to me were ever revealed to you. My reason was veiled, I let it be. I saw and still played blind. Even now there are faults of theirs that I know and you don't. Look, take the girls: apart from playing with dolls and fussing over clothes, you know nothing at all about them. I know what faults there are in their tempers, what twists in their habits."

Nasuh: "Then what is to be done, after all?"

Fahmida: "To my mind, reforming these children is now beyond our power."

Nasuh: "Certainly, if it is not impossible, there is no doubt that it is extremely difficult."

Fahmida: "You may call it difficult. It is possible to put a patch on the sky, but not possible to reform them. The world may turn upside down, but they will not come right. Don't you see that Kalim is ready with a hundred answers to every word? And why blame Kalim alone? The bigger they are, the harder; the smaller, the falser."

Nasuh: "Then are we to leave them in this error, to grow worse? Are we to leave them free to ruin themselves to their hearts' content?"

Fahmida: "Teaching old parrots, bending seasoned wood: if you can do it, then in God's name go ahead. God forbid that I should stand in your way or hinder you. But I won't take up the impossible. 'Ayaz, know your own worth.' I know myself what weight I carry in my sons' eyes, and how much respect and regard my daughters show me. I am their mother in name, certainly, but helpless as things are. None of them is under my control."

Nasuh: "But you said yourself that reforming the children was your duty, and that as long as the tie of mother and child remains, that duty lies on your neck. One day, very early in the morning, I wanted to take one of the children, I don't remember which, outside to show him to the hakim. You got up then to wash his face. I was in a hurry, and you kept saying, 'Wait a little; let me wash his face and change his shirt. If you take him like this, what will the hakim sahib say? What a slattern of a wife, to keep her children so dirty!' No doubt what you said then was sensible. But when these children of yours go before God with dirty souls and unclean hearts, won't you be the slattern then? There this helplessness, this excuse of being unable, will not be heard at all. Besides, how can your love allow you to see your children caught in calamity and do nothing to get them out of it? For that calamity has been on them a long time, and it is through you and me. Do we not give medicine to one who has long been ill? Do we not treat an old ulcer? To reform their children is the duty of parents. If through negligence and folly we have not done that duty till now, must we go on in the sin of neglecting it in future as well?"

Fahmida: "I don't deny it, I'm not shirking it. Nor do I say that reforming the children was not, or is not now, our duty. But I have utterly despaired of their reform. And I know that every effort at reforming and refining, correcting and teaching them is pointless: the striving in vain, the contriving useless, the labour wasted. Has cold iron ever been softened by beating?"

Nasuh: "Aha! But all that is required of us is to try; to bring about the result, to produce the effect, is not our work. That is in God's power, and who knows but God may bless our purpose and give force to our efforts, and they may come right. Then wouldn't you be glad? Between failing in an effort and making no effort at all there is all the difference of earth and sky. Even if the outcome of both is the same, having tried is a ground of acquittal for us."

Fahmida: "This can't be settled between you and me, because my position is one thing and yours another. First, the children are in awe of you. They're still afraid of you. And with me they are all so insolent that the daughters, well, they treat me like a girlfriend, and the sons don't even know what manner of creature I am or what I'm babbling. Second, you don't know your children's state well, and I know them to the very fibre."

Nasuh: "That is all true. But what you are saying comes to this, that reforming them now is a very difficult task."

Fahmida: "There you go again, twisting my words. I never said 'difficult' with my own mouth. From the start I've been saying 'impossible' and 'out of the question'."

Nasuh: "It's a great pity that I've been talking with you so long and you don't understand. Well, madam, why is it impossible and out of the question?"

Fahmida: "If you tell me to, I'll agree for your sake. But since you ask my opinion, I certainly do think it impossible and out of the question. And the reason is that their habits, growing fixed, have become their nature. Sons grown up, daughters grown up. We can't beat them. We can't scold them. We can't force them. Then how are we to break them of habits they have been used to for so long?"

Nasuh: "So what you mean is that you can think of no remedy that will work, and those you can think of don't seem likely to work."

Fahmida: "That's the same thing."

Nasuh: "I don't deny either that ordinary remedies are now quite useless. When the humour is stubborn, the purge must be a very strong one. What was once done with a word will now not be done even with shoes and kicks."

Fahmida: "But if you treat the children with that kind of harshness, the whole world will cry shame on you, and harshness will make twice the obstinacy and hatred in the children's hearts."

Nasuh: "If I understand that I am doing a duty laid on me, then, God willing, I shall not care in the least what the world says. People are free to think what they like and say what they like. But harshness is in my view an unsuitable remedy, and I understand very well that the older boys cannot bear harshness at all, and that if I treat them roughly and severely the effect will be quite the opposite. And since I myself have been the cause of their ruin, it is I who deserve harshness, not they."

Fahmida: "Well then, you won't be harsh, and gentleness gets nothing done. It was gentleness that brought them to this. So it comes back to the same thing: nothing is going to happen; it's a headache for nothing."

Nasuh: "I shall act on this verse:
Severity and gentleness together are best,
Like the surgeon who both lances and lays on salve.
Gentleness where gentleness is called for, and severity where severity is right. And my heart bears witness that, God willing, I shall succeed in my purpose. They are human children, after all. They have the sense to understand. When I tell them something for their own good, how long can they fail to understand? And as for severity, I shall use it only to this extent: I shall make it quite plain to them that whoever does not do as I say, I am not his, nor is he mine, in sorrow or in comfort. That is what I shall say, and, God willing, that is what I shall do. But without your help this purpose cannot be achieved."

Fahmida: "I am ready to help with heart and soul. I know that whatever you say and do is for their good. And if, when it is for my own children's good, I fall short, then what sort of mother am I? A witch, rather."

Nasuh: "If you are with me, I am strengthened in every way. I know that the children run to you for support and shelter at every turn. You are my wife, but in the affairs of the household every decision of mine goes to you on appeal. I don't blame you, because I am more to blame than you. But whichever of the children you petted most has come off worst. However hard I tried, not for any religious matter but only for ordinary reading and writing, until you backed me up I could get nowhere."

Fahmida: "But things are not like that any more. As long as they were small they thought of me as their mother, and I listened to their complaints and took their side. Now each of them is king of his own heart. With the boys I have no connection left at all. For weeks I don't even get a chance to talk to them. I go on calling and calling, and they don't even turn their heads to look. The girls, where can they go now, and to whom? They sit at home and play. I am busy with the work of the house. But still, as far as I can help you in your good purpose, you'll see, God willing I shall leave nothing undone that is in my power."

Nasuh: "Well, you'll at least manage the little ones?"

Fahmida: "What's so hard about setting them right? They're a nose of wax: turn it whichever way you like and it turns. Indeed, perhaps one won't even need to say anything to them. It's the way of children that, as the grown-ups

[Pages 310 and 311 of the book are missing from this copy.]