Excerpt

Lily’s impressions of India were months of jolting and bumping, stops in the dead of night while the tent was pitched, rains, strong smells, oppressive heats—months and months of it, Ma on Pa, Pa on the wheel and she 3 on top, waving flags.

Yellow faces on the benches, red flowers and, somewhere, on a river-bank, two eyes glittering in the dark: a tiger, somebody said!

And every night the artistes, carrying lanterns, walked in file between the circus and the hotel, with the ladies in the center and Lily clinging to Ma’s skirt.