'How could she? She never knew me before. I used to see her every day and she might or might not have seen me. How can I be sure?'

'But you have spoken a word or two to her and you used to say she gave you a piece of coconut and so on; isn't that so?'

Ravi suddenly thrust out his chest and said, defying the whole world: 'I said so, did I? I don't care. What do I care what she or anyone says or thinks? It is enough for me. She is there. Let her not notice me at all. It is enough if I have a glimpse of her now and then. Mr Editor, you must help me. I will not do these accounts any more. I can't. I hate those ledgers. I want to work in the studio now in the art department. Please speak to Sampath. Otherwise, I don't want this job at all. I will throw up everything and sit at the studio gate. That will be enough for me.' He sat down, fatigued by his peroration. He added: 'If you are not going to speak to Sampath, I will.' He held the sketch in his hand. Srinivas gently tried to take it back. But the other would not let it go; he gazed on it solemnly, pointed at a spot and said: 'You know how long ago I drew this? But you see that high light where I have put it. Go and look at her in the studio; that is her peculiarity. A human face is not a matter of mere planes and lines. It is a thing of light and shade, and that is where an individual appears. Otherwise, do you think one personality is different from another through the mere shape of nose and eyes? An individual personality is ' He was struggling to express his theories as clearly as he felt in his mind. He concluded with: 'It is all no joke. High lights and shadows have more to do with us than anything else.'

Srinivas undertook a trip to the studio in order to meet Sampath, who seemed to be too busy nowadays to visit his office downstairs regularly. 'Mr Sampath comes only at three,' they told him. Srinivas sat down in a chair in the reception hall and waited. Girls clad in faded saris, with flowers in their hair, trying to look bright, accompanied by elderly chaperons; men, wearing hair down their napes and trying to look artistic; artists with samples of their work; story-writers with manuscripts; clerks, waiting for a chance; coolies, who hoped to be absorbed in the works section, all sorts of people seemed to be attracted to this place. De Mello had framed strict rules for admission which were so rigorous that the studio joke was that the reception hall ought to be renamed rejection hall. But hope in the human breast is not so easily quenched. And so people hung about here, without minding the weariness, trying to ingratiate themselves with the clerk and vaguely thinking that they might somehow catch the eye of the big bosses as they passed that way in their cars. The reception hall marked the boundary between two classes aspirants and experts. But from what he had seen of those inside, Srinivas felt that there was essentially no difference between the two: the only difference was that those on the right side of the reception hall had got in a little earlier, that was all, and now they tried to make a community of themselves, and those here were the untouchables!

The afternoon wore on. The reception clerk scrutinized a leather-bound ledger, entreated a few people who went in to sign their names clearly and fully, threw a word of greeting at a passing technician, and after all this task was over, opened a crime novel and read it, lifting his eye every tenth line to see if there was anyone at the iron gate at the end of the drive.

The hooting of a car was heard, and he put away his book and said: 'That's Mr Sampath.' And now there swung into the gate the old Chevrolet with Sampath at the wheel and his cousin by his side. The clerk looked very gratified and said: 'Didn't I say he would be here at three o'clock? Shall I stop and tell him?' 'No, let him go in, I will follow.' The car went up the drive and disappeared round a bend. Srinivas got up, and the others looked at him with envy and admiration. They reminded him of the alms-takers huddled at a temple entrance, a painting he had seen years ago, or was it a European painting of mendicants at the entrance to a cathedral? He could not recollect it. He went on.

He went to the rehearsal hall. Sampath said on seeing him: 'Ah, the very person I wished to meet now. I'm putting my cousin through line rehearsals and she has difficulty in following some of the interpretations.' She was dazzling today, clad in a fluffy sari of rainbow colours, with flowers in her hair to match. Srinivas thought: 'Surely God does not create a person like this in order to drive people mad.' She smiled at him, and he felt pleased. 'Oh, God, don't spare the use of your third eye,' he mentally prayed. She had a fine voice as she asked: 'How do you want Parvathi to say these lines?' She quoted from a scene where Parvathi is talking to her maids and confesses her love for Shiva. She says: 'How shall I get at him?' and Shanti now wanted to know: 'How do you want me to say it? Shall I ask it like a question or a cry of despair?' It seemed a nice point, and Srinivas felt pleased that she was paying so much attention to her rle. She spoke naturally and easily, without a trace of flirting or striving for effect. Srinivas said: 'It is more or less a desperate cry, and that dialogue line has to lead to that song in Kapi Raga. Do you follow?' She turned to Sampath triumphantly and said: 'Now, what do you say? We've got it straight from the author!' She said: 'All day Sampath has been trying to rehearse me in these lines, saying that they are to be asked like a question. I have been protesting against it, and we did not progress beyond ten lines today. And he wagered ten rupees, you know!' Sampath took out his purse and laid a ten-rupee note in her hand. 'Here you are, sweet lady. Now that this question is settled, let us go ahead. Don't make it an excuse for stopping.' She picked up the ten-rupee note, folded it and put it in her handbag made of a cobra hood. Srinivas observed on it the spectacle-like mark; a shiver ran through his frame unconsciously. He felt it incongruous that she should be carrying on her arm so grim an object. He asked: 'Where did you get that? Is it a real cobra hood?'

'Isn't it?' she asked. 'I had gone to a jungle in Malabar once on a holiday, and this thing ...' She struggled to hide something and ended abruptly: 'Yes, it was a king cobra. It was shot at once, and then a bag was made of it.' She trailed off, and Srinivas did not like to pursue the matter.

Later, when she went away for some costume rehearsals, Sampath said: 'My cousin married a forest officer, and they had to separate, you know, and all kinds of things, and then she became a widow. She feels somewhat uncomfortable when she thinks of all that, you know.'

'Well, I didn't intend to hurt her or anything. But I was struck by her bag because it seemed such a symbolic appendage for a beautiful woman and for us men to see and learn.'

'Yes, yes, quite right,' Sampath said. He was more keen on continuing his narrative. 'They were in a forest camp. The cobra cornered her in her room, as she lay in a camp cot in their forest lodge and it came over the doorway, hissing and swaying its hood. She thought that her last hour had arrived, but her husband shot it through a window.' Srinivas decided to turn the topic from the cobra. People might come in, and he might lose all chance of talking to Sampath alone for the rest of the day. So he at once said: 'I came here to talk to you about Ravi.'

'Oh! Yes, I wanted to speak to you, too. It seems he has not been coming to the office for three or four days now. What is he doing?'

Srinivas said: 'He is prepared to work in the art section. Why don't you take him in? We ought to do everything in our power to give him the chance, if it will make him draw pictures. It is our responsibility.'

In his habitual deference to Srinivas's opinions, Sampath did not contradict him. 'If I were free as I was before, I would do it before you finished the sentence. But there are difficulties. I'm now in a place which has become an institution.'

'Look here. Are you going to take him in or not? That's what I want to know.'

'I will ask Somu. I don't wish to appear to be doing things over his head. After all, he is very important.'

Of late, after the old landlord's death, Srinivas noted a new tone of hushed respect in Sampath's voice whenever he referred to Somu.

'All right, talk to him and tell me. I will wait.'

'Now? Oh, no, Mr Editor! Please give me a little time. I don't know what he is doing now.' Srinivas looked resolute. 'Don't tell me that you can't see him when you like. Surely you shouldn't tell me that.' There was in his tone a note of authority which Sampath could not disobey.

'Well, my editor's wishes before anything else that's the sign of a faithful printer, isn't it?' he said and went downstairs. When he was gone his cousin came up. 'I've finished the costume business,' she said. 'Where is he?'

'I've sent him down on some business.' This seemed to Srinivas a golden chance to get her to talk. But he dismissed the thought instantly as unworthy. He wanted at best to ask her: 'I heard you were at the office yesterday,' but he suppressed that idea also. He knew it would not be a very sincere question. He would ask it only with a view to getting her to talk about Ravi. But even that seemed to him utterly unworthy. He hated the idea of being diplomatic with so beautiful a creature. So he merely asked: 'Do you like the part you are going to play?'

'Really?' she said. 'I have got to do what is given to me, and I wish to do my best. That's why I get into such a lot of trouble with Sampath over the interpretations. I like to give the most correct one. But we've so little voice in these matters: we shall have to do blindly what the director orders.' During her costume trials she seemed to have disarranged her hair and sari ever so slightly and that gave her a touch of mellowness. 'What a pleasure to watch her features!' Srinivas thought. 'No wonder it has played such havoc with Ravi's life.' She didn't pursue the conversation further, but went to a corner and sat there quietly, looking at the sky through the window.

Sampath returned. He looked fixedly at his cousin for a second. She remained looking out of the window. He beckoned to Srinivas to go out with him for a moment and told him, when they were on the terrace: 'I've managed it.'

'Thanks very much,' said Srinivas. 'You will see what wonderful pictures he will draw now ...'

'Well, I hope so, sir. But I hope he will not create complexities here,' he said, glancing in the direction of his cousin.

Ravi's new chief was the director of art and publicity, a large man in a green sporting shirt and shorts, who went about the studio with a pencil stuck behind his ear. He had an ostentatious establishment, a half-glass door, a servant in uniform, and a clerk at the other end of the room. He sat at a glass-topped table on which were focused blinding lights; huge albums and trial-sheets were all over the place. He wore rimless glasses with a dark tassel hanging down. He called this the control room; it was in the heart of the arts and publicity block, and all around him spread a number of rooms in which artists worked, some at their tables and some with their canvases and sheets of paper spread out on the floor.

Sampath walked in two days later, almost leading Ravi by the hand into the hall. 'Well, Director of art and publicity, here I've brought you the best possible artist to help you.' The director looked him benignly up and down and asked: 'Where were you trained?' Ravi was struggling to find an answer when Sampath intervened and said: 'Wouldn't you like to make a guess? See his work and then tell me.'

'Very well,' said the director and rang the bell. His servant appeared. 'Three cups of coffee,' he called out. Ravi muttered an apology. 'No, it's my custom to drink a cup with my assistants at least on the first day,' said the director. After coffee he ceremoniously held out his large palm and said: 'Your room is over there, I will send you instructions.' He pressed a bell again. A boy entered. 'Show him room four.' Ravi followed him out without a word. His docility pleased Sampath. He said: 'Director, he is a good boy.... If I may give you a little advice ...'

Yes?' began the director, all attention. Sampath wondered for a moment how he could finish the sentence, and then rose to go. 'Oh, nothing, you know how best to handle your boys.' He went out and completed the sentence at Srinivas's office in Kabir Lane: 'If you don't think it strange of me, I'd like to suggest that you give some advice to Ravi '

'Yes, what about?' Srinivas asked, looking up.

'Well ' Sampath drawled, and Srinivas saw that he was awkward and could not say what he had in his mind. This was probably a very rare sight Sampath unable to speak freely. 'I mean, Editor, I have transferred Ravi as you desired: I want you to do me a little favour in return, that is well, I suppose, I must say it out. You know Shanti is there. I wish he would keep out of her way as far as possible.'

'He may have to see her in the course of his work.'

'Oh, that doesn't matter at all. That is a different situation. I'm not referring to that, but don't let him '

'Pursue her or talk to her, isn't that what you wish to say?' asked Srinivas with a twinkle in his eye. Sampath merely smiled, and Srinivas said: 'Well, I don't think he will do anything of the kind, but I will caution him, all the same. Let us hope for the best. In any case, she is a different person. Isn't that so?'

Sampath made a gesture of despair. 'Well, who can say how an artist looks at things? I've always been rather bewildered by Ravi's ways.'

Srinivas waited for Ravi to come home that night. Srinivas heard him arrive in the studio van and then went over and called softly: 'Ravi!' Ravi came out. 'If you are not too tired, let us go out for a short stroll.' 'Very well,' he said. A little sister clung to his arm and tried to go out with him. But he gently sent her back with a promise: 'I will buy you chocolates tomorrow; go in and sleep, darling ' As they went through the silent Anderson Lane with people sleeping on pyols, talking or snoring, Srinivas wondered how he was to convey the message from Sampath. But he viewed it as a duty. He simply let Ravi follow him in silence for a while. 'How do you like your work?' he asked.

'It is quite good,' Ravi said. 'They leave me alone, and I leave the others alone. I just do what I'm instructed to do. At ten o'clock the van is ready to take me back home, and I come back here. I'm doing a portrait. Come and see it some time, when you are in the studio.'

'I'm very happy to hear it,' said Srinivas. 'What is the subject?'

'My only subject,' Ravi said. 'I've only one subject on this earth, and I'm quite satisfied if I have to do it...'

'You are not asking for a sitting, are you?' Srinivas asked. In the darkness Srinivas could see Ravi shaking with laughter. 'Sitting? Who wants a sitting? It's all here,' he said, pointing at his forehead, 'and that is enough. I'm doing a large portrait, all in oils that's a work I'm not paid for, but I'm snatching at it whenever I'm able to find a little time. I'm experimenting with some vegetable colours also, some new colouring matter. My subject must have a tint of the early dawn for her cheeks, the light of the stars for her eyes, the tint of the summer rain-cloud for her tresses, the colour of ivory for her forehead, and so on and on. I find that the usual synthetic stuff available in tubes is too heavy for my job...'

Srinivas was somewhat taken aback by this frenzy. At the same time he was happy that a picture was coming. He could hardly imagine what it would turn out to be. He felt it would probably convulse the world as a masterpiece, the greatest portrait of the century to thrill human eyes all over the world. At this moment he felt that any risk they were taking in keeping Ravi there was well worth it. Any sacrifice should be faced now for the sake of this masterpiece. It struck him as a very silly, futile procedure to caution Ravi. A man who followed his instincts so much could not be given a detailed agenda of behaviour. He decided at the moment not to convey to him Sampath's warning. They had now reached Market Road. It was deserted, with a few late shops throwing their lights on the road, and municipal road lights flickering here and there. The sky was full of stars, a cool breeze was blowing. And it appeared to Srinivas a very lovely night indeed. He felt a tremendous gratitude to Ravi for what he was doing or going to do.

Srinivas bade him good-night without saying a word of what Sampath had commissioned him to say. But he decided to take the first opportunity to tell Sampath, since he hated the idea of keeping him under any misapprehension about it. The chance occurred four days later, when Sampath came to his room, ostensibly to discuss some point in the story, but really to ask about Ravi. His discussion of the story did not last even five minutes. He mentioned a few vague objections about the conclusion of some sequence, and ended by agreeing with every word Srinivas said. He then passed direct to the subject of Ravi. 'You will not mind my coming back to the subject, Editor,' he said. 'Which subject?' asked Srinivas, bristling up. 'I'm very sorry to worry you so much about it,' Sampath said pleadingly. And at once Srinivas's heart melted. He felt a pity for Sampath and his clumsy fears. He looked at him. He had parted his hair in the middle and seemed to be taking a lot of care of his personal appearance. There were a few creases under his eyes. Clearly he was going through a period of anxiety at home, in the studio, about Ravi and about all kinds of things. His personality seemed to be gradually losing its lustre. Srinivas wished that Sampath would once again come to him, not in the silk shirt and muslin dhoti and lace-edged upper-cloth which he was flaunting now, but in a faded tweed coat with the scarf flung around his neck, and his fingers stained with the treadle grease. He looked at the other's fingers now. The nails were neatly pared and pointed, his fingers were like a surgeon's, and one or two nails seemed to be touched with the garish horrible red of a nail polish. Srinivas was alarmed to note it and asked: 'What's that red on your finger?' Sampath looked at his finger with a rather scared expression and, trying to cover it up, said in an awkward jumble of words: 'Oh, that cousin of mine; she must have played some joke on me when I was not noticing. She has all kinds of stuff on her table,' he tried to add in a careless way. He flushed and looked so uncomfortable that Srinivas dropped the subject, and went on to talk of what was most in the other's mind: 'I know you want to tell me about Ravi well, go on.'

'Have you spoken to him about what I said?' Sampath asked.

'I'm not going to,' replied Srinivas, with as little emphasis as possible. 'Things will be all right; don't worry.'

'Listen to my difficulties, please. He is a little conspicuous nowadays. I see him almost every day at the gate; he hangs about the costume section at odd hours.'

'Does it mean that he is not doing his work properly?'

'Oh, no, it wouldn't be fair to say such a thing, but he is a little noticeable here and there.'

'What is wrong with that?' asked Srinivas.

Sampath took time to answer, because there seemed to be an element of challenge in this question. He said: 'There is a studio rule that people should not be seen unnecessarily moving about except where they have business.'

'I guarantee you that he won't go where he has no business,' Srinivas said, and his reply seemed to overwhelm the other for a moment. He remained silent for a little before he said: 'You see, there is this trouble. Even my cousin has noticed it. She said she is oppressed with a feeling of being shadowed all the time. She even remarked: "Who is that boy? I find him staring at me wherever I go. The way he looks at me, I feel as if my nose were on my cheek or something like that."'

'Let her not worry, but just look into a mirror and satisfy herself.'

'But you see it affects her work if she feels that she is being stared at all the time.'

'Sampath, she cannot know she is being stared at unless she also does it the cure is in her hands. I find her a good girl; tell her not to get ideas into her head, and don't put any there yourself.'

When he next paid a visit to the studio Srinivas went over to meet Ravi. He was not in his seat in room number four. He found him coming out of the works department with an abstracted air. He didn't seem to notice anything around him now. 'I've been to see you,' Srinivas said. He seemed to come back to himself with a start. 'Oh, Editor, I'm sorry I didn't notice you here.'

'I thought I might see your new picture.'

'Oh, that!' He seemed hesitant. 'Let me get on with it a little more. I don't like anyone to see it now.' They were in the little park. 'I am free for about half an hour. Care to sit down for a moment?' he asked. Srinivas followed him. They sat under a bower. De Mello had engaged a garden supervisor who was filling up the place with arcades and bowers and lawns wherever he could grow anything. Ravi sat down and said: 'Something must be done about this gardening department. It is getting on my nerves. This horrible convolvulus creeper everywhere. That garden supervisor is an idiot; he has trained convolvulus up every drainpipe. His gardening sense is that of a forest tribesman.'

'It looks quite pretty,' Srinivas said, looking about him.

'But don't you see how inartistic the whole thing is? There is no arrangement, there is no scheme, no economy. What can we achieve without these?' He looked so deeply moved that Srinivas accepted his statement and theories without a murmur. And Ravi went on: 'Our art director is the departmental head of this gardening section, and he ought to sack the supervisor. But how can we blame him? He is not an artist. You must see the frightful composition he has devised for Parvathi both her ornaments and settings. He probably wants her to look like a like a like a ' He could not find anything to compare her with, and he abandoned the sentence. He said: 'He is an awful idiot. But I take my orders from him, and obey him implicitly. Let him give me the worst, the most hideous composition, and I execute it gladly without a murmur: I'm paid for that. But let them stop there!' He raised his voice as if warning the whole world. He waggled his fingers as he said: 'Let them stop there. Let them not come near my own portrait: that's my own. I do it in the way I want to do it. No one shall dictate to me what I should do. If I didn't have that compensation I would go mad.' Srinivas found that his mood of calm contentment of a few nights ago during the walk had altered; some dark, irresponsible mood seemed to be coming over him. But Srinivas didn't bother about it. 'It's all in the artist's makeup,' he told himself. Srinivas felt that it was none of his business to pass any comment at the moment. He listened in silence. Ravi said: 'My portrait is come to a blind end, do you know? I'm not able to go on with it: that's why I don't wish to show you anything of it now. I'll tell you what has happened. My director called me up a couple of days ago and told me not to go about the studio unless I'd any definite business anywhere. I felt like hitting him with my fist and asking "Why not?" But I bowed my head and said "Yes, sir", and I have tried to keep myself in confinement. What's the result? I see so little of her now. I can't get even a glimpse of her. How can I work? Even at the gate, while she comes in, the car has side curtains put up. Do you know where I'm coming from now? From the works department, where I have no business at the moment. But there, if I stand on a block of wood a gilded throne pedestal of some setting really I can see the courtyard of the costume section which she crosses. That's helped me to clear a point or two, and I shall be able to add something to her portrait today.' A clock struck four, and he sprang up, saying: 'I must leave you now, Editor, there is a publicity conference in the directors' room.' And he sped away.

On the first of the following month Srinivas was wondering to whom he should pay the rent. He had not long to wonder, for a stranger turned up at 6.30 a.m. and woke him. Srinivas opened the front door and saw a middle-aged man, wearing a close alpaca coat and a turban. He remembered seeing the same turban and coat somewhere else and then suddenly saw as in a flash that he had seen his old landlord wear it on the day he was present at the inauguration of their film. Srinivas concluded there was some connexion between this visitor and the old man. He had a pinched face and sharp nose and wore a pair of glasses. 'I'm Raghuram, the eldest son-in-law of your landlord. I've come for the rent.' Srinivas took him in and seated him on a mat, though he was still sleepy. He wondered for a moment if he might send the man away, asking him to return later, while snatching a further instalment of sleep. But his nature would not perpetrate such a piece of rudeness. He sat the man on a mat, and in about fifteen minutes returned to him ready for the meeting.

The stranger said: 'My name is ... and I'm the eldest son-in-law of your late landlord. My father-in-law has assigned this property to my wife, and I shall be glad to have the rent.'

'How is it I have never seen you before?' asked Srinivas.

'You see, my father-in-law was a peculiar man, and we thought it best to leave him alone: he must always go his own way. We'd asked him to come and stop with us, but he did what he pleased.'

'He used to tell me about you all, but he said he had a daughter in Karachi.'

'That is the next sister to my wife. I came early because I didn't know when else to find you.' He looked about uncertainly, eagerly awaiting the coming of the cash. Srinivas did not know how to decide. He went in and consulted his wife as she was scrubbing a brass vessel in the backyard. 'The old man's son-in-law is here; he will be our landlord now. He has come for rent. Shall I give it him?'

'Certainly,' she said, not liking to be interrupted in this job she liked so much. She would give her consent to anything at such a moment. 'Ask him when he is going to give us an independent tap.' Srinivas returned, opened an almirah, took out a tiny wooden box, and out of it six five-rupee notes. He put it into his hand. 'Do you want a receipt?' he asked. He pulled out a receipt book, filled it up and gave it to Srinivas. Srinivas said: 'You have to give us an independent water-tap.' 'Haven't you got one? Surely, surely of course I must give you one, and' he surveyed the walls and the ceiling 'yes, we must do everything that's convenient for our tenants.'

During the day, as he sat working in the office, another visitor came a younger person of about thirty-five. 'You are Mr Srinivas?' he asked timidly, panting with the effort to climb the staircase. He was a man of slight build, wearing a khadar jiba, and his neck stood out like a giraffe's. Srinivas directed him to a chair. He sat twisting his button and said: 'I'm a teacher in the corporation high school. I'm your late landlord's son-in-law. My wife has become the owner of this property. I've come for the rent.'

Srinivas showed him the receipt. The visitor was greatly confused on seeing it. 'What does he mean by coming and snatching away the rent in this way?' He got up abruptly and said: 'I can't understand these tricks! My daughter was his favourite, and he set apart all his property for her, if it was going to be for anyone.'

Your daughter is the one studying in the school?'

He was greatly pleased to hear it. 'Oh, you know about it, then!' He went back to the chair. He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial pitch and asked: 'I say, you will help me, won't you?'

'In what way?'

He rolled his eyes significantly and reduced his speech to a whisper as he said: 'My daughter was his one favourite in life. He mentioned an amount he had set apart for her marriage. Has he ever mentioned it to you?' He waited with bated breath for Srinivas's reply, who was debating within himself whether to speak to him about it or not. Srinivas said finally: 'Yes, he mentioned it once or twice,' unable to practise any duplicity in the matter. The visitor became jumpy on hearing it. His eyes bulged with eager anticipation.

'Where did he keep this amount?' he asked.

'That I can't say,' replied Srinivas. 'I don't know anything about it.'

The other became desperate and pleaded: 'Don't let me down, sir, please help me.'

Srinivas looked sympathetic. 'How can I say anything about it? He mentioned the matter once or twice I really don't know anything more.'

'I hear that he has all his money in the Post Office Savings Bank. Is it true?' Srinivas had once again to shake his head. He could not help adding: 'It is difficult to get any money, even of living people, out of the Post Office Savings Bank!'

'Oh, what shall I do about my daughter's marriage?' the visitor asked sullenly. He looked so concerned and unhappy that Srinivas felt obliged to say: 'If he had lived a little longer, I am sure he would have done everything for your daughter. He was so fond of her.'

'Just my luck,' the other said, and beat his brow. 'Why should he have held up his arrangements?' He complained against sudden death, as if it were a part of the old man's cunning, and looked completely disgusted with the old man's act of dying. He got up and said: 'I will look into it. Till then, please don't pay the rent to anyone else.' He took a step or two, then returned and said: 'He used to confide in Mr Sampath. Do you think he will be any use and tell us something?'

'Well, you can try him. He will probably be downstairs. You can see him as you go.'

Towards evening yet another person came: a tall man, who introduced himself as the eldest son of the old man.

'I know my father wrote a will. Do you know anything about it?'

'Sorry, no ...'

The man looked pleased. 'That's right. He wrote only one will and that is with me. If anyone else starts any stunt about any codicils I shall know how to deal with them. It's a pity you have paid the rent for this month. After this don't pay it to anyone else till you hear from me.' Yet another called on him next morning, demanding the rent and a hidden will, and Srinivas began to wonder if he would ever be able to do anything else than answer these people for the rest of his life. 'I hear,' said this latest visitor, 'that he has put everything in the Car Street Post Office Savings Bank. How are we to get at it? He has left no instructions about it.' All this seemed to Srinivas a futile involvement in life. 'Where were all these people before this? Where have they sprung from?' he wondered.

He decided to get clear of their company and its problems, and started looking for a house. But Malgudi being what it was, he could not get another. He forgot that if such a thing were possible he would not have become a tenant of the old man at all, and so he wasted a complete week in searching for a house. His wife had meanwhile become so enthusiastic about it and looked forward to a change with such eagerness that every evening when he came home her first question at the door was: 'What about the house?'

'Doesn't seem to be much use; tomorrow I must try Grove Street and Vinayak Street. And after that ' She became crestfallen. Mentally she had accommodated herself in a better house already, and now it seemed to her impossible to live in this house any more. She found everything intolerable: the walls were dirty and not straight, plaster was crumbling and threatening to fall into all the cooked food; the rafters were sooty and dark, the floor was full of cracks and harboured vermin and deadly insects, and, above all, there was a single tap to draw water from. Srinivas listened to her troubles and felt helpless. His son added to the trouble by cataloguing some of his own experiences: 'Do you know, when I was bathing, a tile fell off the roof on my head? There is a pit in the backyard into which I saw a scorpion go,' and so on. They had both made up their minds to quit. The relations of the old man also drove him to the same decision. But no house was available. What could anyone do? He confided his trouble to Sampath. 'We shall manage it easily,' Sampath said, very happy to be set any new task.

The final version of the will which the old man was supposed to have made proved to be a blessing for the moment. When one of the relatives came next, Sampath neither accepted nor denied knowledge of the matter, and very soon had all of them running after him. 'We shall have to convene a lost-will conference,' he said. He was nearly in his old form, and Srinivas was delighted to notice it. Through his finery and tidiness an old light came back to his eyes.

He got the half-dozen relatives sitting around Srinivas's table on a Saturday afternoon. They threw poisoned looks at each other; not one of them seemed to be on speaking terms with the others. Sampath said unexpectedly in a voice full of solemnity: 'We are all gathered today to honour the memory of a noble master.' They could not easily dispute the statement. 'I have had the special honour of being in his confidence. I've had the privilege of learning the secrets of truth. Even in mundane matters, I think, I was one of the few to whom he opened his heart...' Here they looked at each other darkly. 'I must acknowledge my indebtedness to our Srinivas, our editor, for introducing me to the old gentleman.' They once again looked at each other darkly. He added vaguely: 'Let us now pull together his relations and sons and friends and do something to cherish the memory of this great soul; that we can do by treating each other liberally and charitably.' Srinivas was amazed at Sampath's eloquence. Presently he came down to practical facts. 'He has left us his houses, his money in the post office, and all the rest that may be his. No doubt, if he had had the slightest inkling of what was coming, he might have made some arrangements for the distribution of his worldly goods. But this I doubt, for after all, for such a saintly man, worldly goods were only an impediment in life and nothing more. He used to quote an old verse: "When I become a handful of ash what do I care who takes my purse,

Who counts my coins and who locks the door of my safe,

When my bones lie bleaching, what matter if the door of my house is left unlocked?"

'However, this is a digression. Now it is up to us to decide what we should do. Here is Srinivas and my other friend Ravi in a portion of the house in Anderson Lane, among the tenants I have most in mind. Now the position is that our editor does not know to whom he should pay the rent.' A babble arose. Sampath silenced them with a gesture and said: 'It's certainly going to someone or everyone; that I don't dispute. It will certainly be decided very soon, but till then, where is he to pay the monthly rent, since he is a man who does not like to keep back a just due?'

'That question is settled,' said several voices. Sampath made an impatient gesture and then said without any apparent meaning: 'Yes, as far as everyone of us is concerned. But where is a tenant to pay in his rent till the question is established beyond a shadow of doubt? My proposal is that till this is established my friends will pay their monthly rents into a Savings Bank account to be specially opened.' There were fierce murmurs on hearing this, and Sampath declared: 'This is the reason why my friend wants to move to another house. He says "How can I live in a house over which people fight?"' And he paused to watch the effect of this threat on the gathering. They looked bewildered. They need not have been. But somehow, since the remark was delivered as a threat, they were half frightened by it. 'You cannot afford to lose an old, valued tenant,' Sampath added, driving the threat home.

'No, no, we do not want to disturb him,' they all said and looked at each other sourly. 'What we want to know is, where is the will?' asked a voice. 'I thought we had come here about that. Do you know anything about it?' Now all eyes were fixed on Sampath. He replied simply: 'In a delicate matter like this, how can I say anything? I have heard him mention so many things.'

You need not tell us anything of other things. But, surely, you could tell us about the will,' they cried. Sampath said decisively: 'No. I will not speak of it for two months. By that time whatever there is to be known will be known. Of that I'm certain.'

'Here is the copy of the will, registered by my father. Please examine this, Mr Sampath,' said the eldest son. The others became feverish. Sampath bent over and read out its contents ceremoniously: 'I do hereby bequeath ... and I hold that there is no further will.'