Just as, when the flame is blown out, the light suddenly and completely disappears, so did Satish after his uncle’s death. He went out of our ken altogether.
We had never been able to fathom how deeply Satish loved his uncle. Jagamohan was alike father and friend to him,—and, it may be said, son as well; for the old man had been so regardless of himself, so unmindful of worldly concerns, that it used to be one of the chief cares of Satish to look after him and keep him safe from disaster. Thus had Satish received from and given to his uncle his all.
What the bleakness of his bereavement meant for Satish, it was impossible for us to conceive. He struggled against the agony of negation, refusing to believe that such absolute blankness could be true: that there could be emptiness so desolate as to be void even of Truth. If that which seemed one vast ‘No’ had not also its aspect of ‘Yes,’ would not the whole universe leak away through its yawning gap into nothingness?
For two years Satish wandered from place to place,—we had no touch with him. We threw ourselves with all the greater zeal into our self-
