Calcutta
30 April 1893
That’s why I was able to keep lying on the terrace till ten at night yesterday.
A Caturda moon* had risen in the sky—there was a wonderful breeze—there was no one else on the terrace. I was lying there on my own and thinking about my entire life. This second-floor terrace, this moonlight, this south wind is mixed up in my life’s memories in so many ways. The leaves of the śisu trees in the south garden were making a shivering sound, and I was trying to bring my childhood feelings to mind with my eyes half shut. Old memories are like wine—the longer they stay stored in your heart, the sweeter their colour and taste and intoxication. These bottles of our memories should be kept cooled for our old age ‘in deep delved earth’—to be tasted then a drop at a time on moonlit nights on the terrace—I’m sure we’d like that. When we’re young we aren’t satisfied with only imagination and memory; because then our blood is strong, our bodies energetic—we want to engage in some sort of work. But in old age, when we are naturally unable to work and the excessive energy of our youth is not bearing down upon us, then perhaps only memories are enough—our past memories then fall upon our calm minds like moonlight upon still waters with such clarity that they are difficult to distinguish from present affairs.