Vinayaka
Where will you go, Ama? The tree on which you built your impious nest is hewn down. Where will you take shelter?
Ama
I have my son.
Vinayaka
Leave him! Cast never a fond look back on the result of a sin expiated with blood! Think where to go.
Ama
Death’s open gates are wider than a father’s love!
Vinayaka
Death indeed swallows sins as the sea swallows the mud of rivers. But you are to die neither to-night nor here. Seek some solitary shrine of holy Shiva far from shamed kindred and all neighbours; bathe three times a day in sacred Ganges, and, while reciting God’s name, listen to the last bell of evening worship, that Death may look tenderly upon you, as a father on his sleeping child whose eyes are still wet with tears. Let him gently carry you into his own great silence, as the Ganges carries a fallen flower on its stream, washing every stain away to render it, a fit offering, to the sea.