109
" Everything means something to you; dying flowers, The different times of year. The new clothes you wear at the end of Ramadan. A prince’s trust. The way that water flows, Too impetuous to pause, breaking over Stones, rushing towards distant objects, Places you can’t see but which you also flow Outward to. Today you slept long. When you woke your old blood stirred. This too meant something. The girl who woke you Touched your brow. She called you Lord. You smiled, Put up a trembling hand. But she had gone, As seasons go, as a night-flower closes in the day, As a hawk flies into the sun or as the cheetah runs; as The deer pauses, sun-dappled in long grass, But does not stay. Fleeting moments: these are held a long time in the eye, The blind eye of the ageing poet, So that even you, Gaffur, can imagine In this darkening landscape The bowman lovingly choosing his arrow, The hawk outpacing the cheetah, (The fountain splashing lazily in the courtyard), The girl running with the deer. "
― Paul Scott , A Division of the Spoils
113
" They say poor old Miss Crane went round the bend. Lili went to see her once while I was still at the MacGregor. Perhaps twice. I don’t remember. We didn’t talk about it much. Miss Crane had taken all the pictures down from her walls or something, although she wasn’t going anywhere. Later she committed suttee. You saw the report of it in the Times of India, I think. We both saw it. Neither of us mentioned it. Perhaps Lili wrote to you and told you more about it. Of course it’s wrong to say “committed” suttee. Suttee, or sati (is that the right way to spell it?), is a sort of state of wifely grace, isn’t it? So you don’t commit it. You enter into it. If you’re a good Hindu widow you become suttee. Should I become it, Auntie? Is Hari dead? I suppose you could say we’re hermits enough here to rank as sannyasis anyway. But no. I’ve not done with the world yet. I’ve still got at least one duty to perform. And I knew I had a duty to perform for Connie White. After I’d stopped laughing I said, “Well, then, what are you curious about?” You can’t not pay for a joke. You’ve got to cough up the price put on it. "
― Paul Scott , The Jewel in the Crown