20th March, 1935.
London A snake came to my water-trough to drink water from there. I came down the steps with my pitcher. He was dragging his yellow-brown soft belly over the edge of the stone trough. Someone was before me at the water-trough, therefore, I decided to wait. He was conscious of my presence as he was drinking and looked at me vaguely as cattle do.
The encounter with the snake aroused the dual response in me. It was conflict between my civilized social education and natural human instincts. The voice of my education told that the yellow brown snake was poisonous and must be killed. But I must confess that I liked him. He was like a guest who had come silently to seek my hospitality. Was it my cowardice that I dared not kill him? He drank enough. Then he put his head into that dreadful hole and prepared to go. I felt a sort of horror, a sort of protest. I couldn’t bear his withdrawing into that horrid black hole. I couldn’t control myself. I picked up a clumsy log and threw it at him. It didn’t hit him. He moved violently in undignified haste and disappeared soon.
And immediately, I regretted it. I thought how worthless, vulgar and mean my act was. I despised myself and my accursed human education. He must be crowned again. And I realised that I had something to expiate. It was my pettiness.