They persisted, however, in
taking her with them, and keeping her carefully concealed from every eye
for four whole years; when at length they restored her to me.
This little accident made me lose the Samaradanam, for which I had been
preparing by a fast of three days; and it was a great mortification to
me to be excluded from it, as I understood it was a most splendid
entertainment. Another Samaradanam was announced to be held ten days
afterwards, at which I expected to make up for my loss. But I was
received with the hisses of six hundred Brahmans, who seized my person,
and insisted on my giving up the accomplice of my wife, that he might be
prosecuted and punished, according to the severe rules of the caste.
I solemnly attested her innocence, and told the real cause of the
shaving of her hair; when a universal burst of surprise took place,
every one exclaiming, how monstrous it was that a married woman should
be so degraded, without having committed the crime of infidelity.
"Either this man," said they, "must be a liar, or he is the greatest
fool on the face of the earth!" Such, I daresay, gentlemen, you will
think me, and I am sure you will consider my folly [looking with great
disdain on the first speaker] as being far superior to that of the
render of body-clothing.
The court agreed that the speaker had put in a very strong case; but
justice required that the other two should also be heard.
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