QUOTE : 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.