CHAPTER XXXIV.
A DARK HOUSE: A DARK LIFE.
In the absence of Nagendra and Surja Mukhi from their spacious home, all was darkness therein.

The clerks sat in the office, and Kunda Nandini dwelt in the inner apartments with the poor relations.

But how can stars dispel the darkness of a moonless night?
In the corners hung spiders' webs; in the rooms stood dust in heaps; pigeons built their nests in the cornices and sparrows in the beams.
Heaps of withered leaves lay rotting in the garden; weeds grew over the tanks; the flower-beds were hidden by jungle.

There were jackals in the court-yard, and rats in the granary; mould and fungus were everywhere to be seen; musk-rats and centipedes swarmed in the rooms; bats flew about night and day.

Nearly all Surja Mukhi's pet birds had been eaten by cats; their soiled feathers lay scattered around.