CHAPTER II.
ACQUAINTANCE.
The young man was the first to betray his curiosity. Addressing the dame, "I presume, madam," said he, "you belong to the zenānā of some respectable person. I should scruple to ask for your name and lineage, but you may not have the same objection that I have to make myself known. May I therefore take the liberty to enquire who you are?"
"No, sir," replied the woman, "that can not be. When do women first make themselves known?"
"What does precedence in acquaintance signify?" rejoined the young man.
"And how, I pray, is a woman to make herself known—she who is not allowed to bear her caste addition? How can she, whose virtue consists in living shut up from the world, disclose herself? When God forbade woman to utter her husbands name, didn't He thereby deprive her of the power of discovering herself?"[1]
The young man returned no answer to these words; in fact, he was otherwise engaged. By degrees removing part of her veil, the youthful lady had been gazing at him steadfastly from behind
- ↑ The woman, with the native simplicity which characterizes her sex, makes her own world, the measure of womankind in general, with a confidence which such simplicity alone inspires. With what charming naiveté she alludes to the Hindu female seclusion, &c. as facts obtaining with all women, irrespective of creed or color.
