A Tragedy (Contd.)
- The day arrives. Gandhi and his friend sneak off to eat meat. The goat meat makes Gandhi sick. That night, he dreams of a live goat bleating inside him, and he feels full of remorse.
- But, he continues to eat with the friend and lies to his family about it. The lying gets to him, though, so he stops eating meat and never takes it up again for the rest of his life.
- The friend also takes Gandhi to a brothel. But, our autobiography-ing hero is too nervous to sleep with the sex worker. He says going at all, though, counts as a moral failing.
- Finally, the friend stokes Gandhi's jealousy about his wife.
- Gandhi's suspicions about her are not rooted out until later in life, he says, when he comes to understand ahimsa, which literally means non-violence.
- As an adult, when he thinks back to his days with this friend, he deplores his devotion to him.