delicacies were in readiness. An appetizing aroma filled the air.
Nothing else offering, what else could be swallowed except pride
over yesterday's achievement of a fast?

"Lord hasten the train!" The Heavenly Provider, I thought, was hardly
included in the interdiction with which Dyananda had silenced me.
Divine Attention was elsewhere, however; the plodding clock covered
the hours. Darkness was descending as our leader entered the door.
My greeting was one of unfeigned joy.

"Dyanandaji will bathe and meditate before we can serve food."
Jitendra approached me again as a bird of ill omen.

I was in near-collapse. My young stomach, new to deprivation,
protested with gnawing vigor. Pictures I had seen of famine victims
passed wraithlike before me.

"The next Benares death from starvation is due at once in this
hermitage," I thought. Impending doom averted at nine o'clock.
Ambrosial summons! In memory that meal is vivid as one of life's
perfect hours.

Intense absorption yet permitted me to observe that Dyananda ate
absent-mindedly. He was apparently above my gross pleasures.

"Swamiji, weren't you hungry?" Happily surfeited, I was alone with
the leader in his study.

"O yes! I have spent the last four days without food or drink.
I never eat on trains, filled with the heterogenous vibrations of