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. The
ducks had been killed by the jackals, the peacocks had flown into the
woods; the cows had become emaciated, and no longer gave milk.
Nagendra's dogs had no spirit left in them, they neither played nor
barked; they were never let loose; some had died, some had gone mad,
some had escaped. The horses were diseased, or had become ill from
want of work; the stables were littered with stubble, grass, and
feathers. The horses were sometimes fed, sometimes neglected.
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