"But in spite of public health and social reform, people still die. Even in Pala," he added ironically.

"Which is why the corollary of welfare has to be dhyana-all the yogas of living and dying, so that you can be aware, even in the final agony, of who in fact, and in spite of everything, you really are."

There was a sound of footsteps on the planking of the veranda, and a childish voice called, "Mother!" "Here I am, darling," Susila called back. The front door was flung open and Mary Sarojini came hur-rying into the room.

"Mother," she said breathlessly, "they want you to come at once. It's Granny Lakshmi. She's . . ." Catching sight for the first time of the figure in the hammock, she started and broke off. "Oh! I didn't know you were here."

Will waved his hand to her without speaking. She gave him a perfunctory smile, then turned back to her mother. "Granny Lakshmi suddenly got much worse," she said, "and Grandpa Robert is still up at the High Altitude Station, and they can't get through to him on the telephone." "Did you run all the way?" "Except where it's really too steep."

Susila put her arm round the child and kissed her, then very brisk and businesslike, rose to her feet. "It's Dugald's mother," she said.

"Is she . . . ?" He glanced at Mary Sarojini, then back at Susila. Was death taboo? Could one mention it before children? "You mean, is she dying?" He nodded. "We've been expecting it, of course," Susila went on. "But not today. Today she seemed a little better." She shook her head. "Well, I have to go and stand by-even if it is another world. And actually," she added, "it isn't quite so completely other as you think. I'm sorry we had to leave our business unfinished; but there'll be other opportunities. Meanwhile what do you want to do? You can stay here. Or I'll drop you at Dr. Robert's. Or you can come with me and Mary Sarojini."

"As a professional execution watcher?"

"Not as a professional execution watcher," she answered emphatically. "As a human being, as someone who needs to know how to live and then how to die. Needs it as urgently as we all do."

"Needs it," he said, "a lot more urgently than most. But shan't I be in the way?"

"If you can get out of your own way, you won't be in anyone else's."

She took his hand and helped him out of the hammock. Two minutes later they were driving past the lotus pool and the huge Buddha meditating under the cobra's hood, past the white bull, out through the main gate of the compound. The rain was over, in a green sky enormous clouds glowed like archangels. Low in the west the sun was shining with a brightness that seemed almost supernatural.

Soles occidere et redire possunt; nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux, nox est perpetua una dormienda. Da mi basin mille.

Sunsets and death; death and therefore kisses; kisses and consequently birth and then death for yet another generation of sunset watchers.

"What do you say to people who are dying?" he asked. "Do you tell them not to bother their heads about immortality and get on with the job?"

"If you like to put it that way-yes, that's precisely what we do. Going on being aware-it's the whole art of dying."

"And you teach the art?"

"I'd put it another way. We help them to go on practicing the art of living even while they're dying. Knowing who in fact one is, being conscious of the universal and impersonal life that lives itself through each of us-that's the art of living, and that's what one can help the dying to go on practicing. To the very end. Maybe beyond the end."

"Beyond?" he questioned. "But you said that was something that the dying aren't supposed to think about."

"They're not being asked to think about it. They're being helped, if there is such a thing, to experience it. If there is such a thing," she repeated, "if the universal life goes on, when the separate me-life is over."

"Do you personally think it does go on?"

Susila smiled. "What I personally think is beside the point. All that matters is what I may impersonally experience while I'm living, when I'm dying, maybe when I'm dead."

She swung the car into a parking space and turned off the engine. On foot they entered the village. Work was over for the day and the main street was so densely thronged that it was hard for them to pass.

"I'm going ahead by myself," Susila announced. Then to Mary Sarojini, "Be at the hospital in about an hour," she said. "Not before." She turned and, threading her way between the slowly promenading groups, was soon lost to view.

"You're in charge now," said Will, smiling down at the child by his side.

Mary Sarojini nodded gravely and took his hand. "Let's go and see what's happening in the square," she said.

"How old is your Granny Lakshmi?" Will asked as they started to make their way along the crowded street.

"I don't really know," Mary Sarojini answered. "She looksterribly old. But maybe that's because she's got cancer."

"Do you know what cancer is?" he asked.

Mary Sarojini knew perfectly well. "It's what happens when part of you forgets all about the rest of you and carries on the way people do when they're crazy-just goes on blowing itself up and blowing itself up as if there was nobody else in the whole world. Sometimes you can do something about it. But generally it just goes on blowing itself up until the person dies."

"And that's what has happened, I gather, to your Granny Lakshmi."

"And now she needs someone to help her die."

"Does your mother often help people die?"

The child nodded. "She's awfully good at it."

"Have you ever seen anyone die?"

"Of course," Mary Sarojini answered, evidently surprised that such a question should be asked. "Let me see." She made a mental calculation. "I've seen five people die. Six, if you count babies."

"I hadn't seen anyone die when I was your age."

"You hadn't?"

"Only a dog."

"Dogs die easier than people. They don't talk about it beforehand."

"How do you feel about. . . about people dying?"

"Well, it isn't nearly so bad as having babies. That's awful. Or at least it looks awful. But then you remind yourself that it doesn't hurt at all. They've turned off the pain."

"Believe it or not," said Will, "I've never seen a baby being born."

"Never?" Mary Sarojini was astonished. "Not even when you were at school?"

Will had a vision of his headmaster in full canonicals conducting three hundred black-coated boys on a tour of the Lying-in Hospital. "Not even at school," he said aloud.

"You never saw anybody dying, and you never saw anybody having a baby. How did you get to know things?"

"In the school I went to," he said, "we never got to know things, we only got to know words."

The child looked up at him, shook her head and, lifting a small brown hand, significantly tapped her forehead. "Crazy," she said. "Or were your teachers just stupid?"

Will laughed. "They were high-minded educators dedicated to mens sana in corpore sano and the maintenance of our sublime Western Tradition. But meanwhile tell me something. Weren't you ever frightened?"

"By people having babies?"

"No, by people dying. Didn't that scare you?"

"Well, yes-it did," she said after a moment of silence.

"So what did you do about it?"

"I did what they teach you to do-tried to find out which of me was frightened and why she was frightened."

"And which of you was it?"

"This one." Mary Sarojini pointed a forefinger into her open mouth. "The one that does all the talking. Little Miss Gibber- that's what Vijaya calls her. She's always talking about all the nasty things I remember, all the huge, wonderful, impossible things I imagine I can do. She's the one that gets frightened."