Act VIII, Scene 2
(Aurobindo’s residence. Sarojini and Aurobindo.)SAROJINI: Sejda, oh that you were here to see how your countrymen, even of the lowest ranks, showed their heart’s love for you by coming to me, singly or in groups, to make their offerings to your defence fund. Their love flowed in tears and in sacrifice of their day’s earnings. The amounts were mostly poor, but immeasurably rich in their goodwill.
AUROBINDO: Saro, I was, no doubt, not here to see the touching sight. But I could somehow sense it from the impact of their love upon me. Look at the heaps of telegrams and letters on my release. I repeat to you the concluding lines of what I have written to the Editor of the Bengalee: “If it is the love of my country which led me into danger, it is also the love of my countrymen which has brought me safe through it.”
SAROJINI (taking the letter from her Sejda’s hand and reading aloud):
Sir,
Will you kindly allow me to express through your columns my deep sense of gratitude to all who have helped me in my hour of trial? Of the innumerable friends known and unknown, who have contributed each his mite to swell my defence, it is impossible for me now even to learn the names, and I must ask them to accept this public expression of my feeling in place of private gratitude. Since my acquittal, many telegrams and letters have reached me and the love which my countrymen have heaped upon me in return for the little I have been able to do for them amply repays any apparent trouble or misfortune my public activity may have brought upon me. I attribute my escape to no human agency, but first of all to the protection of the Mother of us all who has never been absent from me but always held me in Her arms and shielded me from grief and disaster, and secondarily to the prayers of thousands which have been going up to Her on my behalf ever since I was arrested. If it is the love of my country which led me into danger, it is also the love of my countrymen which has brought me safe through it.
AUROBINDO GHOSH
6, College Square, 14 May 1909"
