Page:Anandamath, The Abbey of Bliss - Chatterjee.djvu/25

Chapter I

On a certain day in the year 1176 B.S., the sun was shining hot in the village of Padachinha. The village was full of houses but you could find very few men there. There were rows of shops in the market, rows of huts in the fair, and mud houses in hundreds and brick buildings, high and low, here and there. But to-day not a sound was to be heard in any one of them. The shops were closed and the shop-keepers gone, no one knew where. It was the market-day of the village but no market was being held. It was the day for giving alms, but no beggars did turn up. The weaver had left his loom and was wailing on the floor of his house; the trader wept with his baby in arms unmindful of his trade; alms-givers had stopped their charity; adhyapaks had closed their schools; and children too, it would seem, did not venture to cry. There were no men in the streets, no bathers in the tanks, no householders in the houses, no birds in the trees, no cows in the pasture lands,—only plenty of jackals and dogs roamed about in the mortuary. One big house whose huge pillars could be seen from a distance shone in that wilderness of houses like the peak of a mountain. There was not much of 'shining' in it however; for its doors were shut and rooms unoccupied; it was devoid of sound and difficult even for the wind to get in. In the rooms within, it was dark