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Chapter Eleven
Bimala's Story
XX
WITH Amulya's departure my heart sank within me. On what
perilous adventure had I sent this only son of his mother? O
God, why need my expiation have such pomp and circumstance?
Could I not be allowed to suffer alone without inviting all this
multitude to share my punishment? Oh, let not this innocent
child fall victim to Your wrath.
I called him back--"Amulya!"
My voice sounded so feebly, it failed to reach him.
I went up to the door and called again: "Amulya!"
He had gone.
"Who is there?"
"Rani Mother!"
"Go and tell Amulya Babu that I want him."
What exactly happened I could not make out--the man, perhaps, was
not familiar with Amulya's name--but he returned almost at once
followed by Sandip.
"The very moment you sent me away," he said as he came in, "I had
a presentiment that you would call me back. The attraction of
the same moon causes both ebb and flow. I was so sure of being
sent for, that I was actually waiting out in the passage. As
soon as I caught sight of your man, coming from your room, I
said: 'Yes, yes, I am coming, I am coming at once!'--before he
could utter a word. That up-country lout was surprised, I can
tell you! He stared at me, open-mouthed, as if he thought I knew
magic.
"All the fights in the world, Queen Bee," Sandip rambled on, "are
really fights between hypnotic forces. Spell cast against spell
--noiseless weapons which reach even invisible targets. At last I
have met in you my match. Your quiver is full, I know, you
artful warrior Queen! You are the only one in the world who has
been able to turn Sandip out and call Sandip back, at your sweet
will. Well, your quarry is at your feet. What will you do with
him now? Will you give him the coup de grace, or keep him in
your cage? Let me warn you beforehand, Queen, you will find the
beast as difficult to kill outright as to keep in bondage.
Anyway, why lose time in trying your magic weapons?"
Sandip must have felt the shadow of approaching defeat, and this
made him try to gain time by chattering away without waiting for
a reply. I believe he knew that I had sent the messenger for
Amulya, whose name the man must have mentioned. In spite of that
he had deliberately played this trick. He was now trying to
avoid giving me any opening to tell him that it was Amulya I
wanted, not him. But his stratagem was futile, for I could see
his weakness through it. I must not yield up a pin's point of
the ground I had gained.
"Sandip Babu," I said, "I wonder how you can go on making these
endless speeches, without a stop. Do you get them up by heart,
beforehand?"
Sandip's face flushed instantly.
"I have heard," I continued, "that our professional reciters keep
a book full of all kinds of ready-made discourses, which can be
fitted into any subject. Have you also a book?"
Sandip ground out his reply through his teeth. "God has given
you women a plentiful supply of coquetry to start with, and on
the top of that you have the milliner and the jeweller to help
you; but do not think we men are so helpless ..."
"You had better go back and look up your book, Sandip Babu. You
are getting your words all wrong. That's just the trouble with
trying to repeat things by rote."
"You!" shouted Sandip, losing all control over himself. "You to
insult me thus! What is there left of you that I do not know to
the very bottom? What ..." He became speechless.
Sandip, the wielder of magic spells, is reduced to utter
powerlessness, whenever his spell refuses to work. From a king
he fell to the level of a boor. Oh, the joy of witnessing his
weakness! The harsher he became in his rudeness, the more did
this joy well up within me. His snaky coils, with which he used
to snare me, are exhausted--I am free. I am saved, saved. Be
rude to me, insult me, for that shows you in your truth; but
spare me your songs of praise, which were false.
My husband came in at this juncture. Sandip had not the
elasticity to recover himself in a moment, as he used to do
before. My husband looked at him for a while in surprise. Had
this happened some days ago I should have felt ashamed. But
today I was pleased--whatever my husband might think. I wanted
to have it out to the finish with my weakening adversary.
Finding us both silent and constrained, my husband hesitated a
little, and then took a chair. "Sandip," he said, "I have been
looking for you, and was told you were here."
"I am here," said Sandip with some emphasis. "Queen Bee sent for
me early this morning. And I, the humble worker of the hive,
left all else to attend her summons."
"I am going to Calcutta tomorrow. You will come with me.
"And why, pray? Do you take me for one of your retinue?"
"Oh, very well, take it that you are going to Calcutta, and that
I am your follower."
"I have no business there."
"All the more reason for going. You have too much business
here."
"I don't propose to stir."
"Then I propose to shift you."
"Forcibly?"
"Forcibly."
"Very well, then, I will make a move. But the world is not
divided between Calcutta and your estates. There are other
places on the map."
"From the way you have been going on, one would hardly have
thought that there was any other place in the world except my
estates."
Sandip stood up. "It does happen at times," he said, "that a
man's whole world is reduced to a single spot. I have realized
my universe in this sitting-room of yours, that is why I have
been a fixture here."
Then he turned to me. "None but you, Queen Bee," he said, "will
understand my words--perhaps not even you. I salute you. With
worship in my heart I leave you. My watchword has changed since
you have come across my vision. It is no longer __Bande
Mataram__ (Hail Mother), but Hail Beloved, Hail Enchantress.
The mother protects, the mistress leads to destruction--but sweet
is that destruction. You have made the anklet sounds of the
dance of death tinkle in my heart. You have changed for me, your
devotee, the picture I had of this Bengal of ours--'the soft
breeze-cooled land of pure water and sweet fruit.' [27] You have
no pity, my beloved. You have come to me with your poison cup
and I shall drain it, either to die in agony or live triumphing
over death.
"Yes," he continued. "The mother's day is past. O love, my
love, you have made as naught for me the truth and right and
heaven itself. All duties have become as shadows: all rules and
restraints have snapped their bonds. O love, my love, I could
set fire to all the world outside this land on which you have set
your dainty feet, and dance in mad revel over the ashes ...
These are mild men. These are good men. They would do good to
all--as if this all were a reality! No, no! There is no reality
in the world save this one real love of mine. I do you
reverence. My devotion to you has made me cruel; my worship of
you has lighted the raging flame of destruction within me. I am
not righteous. I have no beliefs, I only believe in her whom,
above all else in the world, I have been able to realize."
Wonderful! It was wonderful, indeed. Only a minute ago I had
despised this man with all my heart. But what I had thought to
be dead ashes now glowed with living fire. The fire in him is
true, that is beyond doubt. Oh why has God made man such a mixed
creature? Was it only to show his supernatural sleight of hand?
Only a few minutes ago I had thought that Sandip, whom I had once
taken to be a hero, was only the stage hero of melodrama. But
that is not so, not so. Even behind the trappings of the
theatre, a true hero may sometimes be lurking.
There is much in Sandip that is coarse, that is sensuous, that is
false, much that is overlaid with layer after layer of fleshly
covering. Yet--yet it is best to confess that there is a great
deal in the depths of him which we do not, cannot understand--
much in ourselves too. A wonderful thing is man. What great
mysterious purpose he is working out only the Terrible One [28]
knows--meanwhile we groan under the brunt of it. Shiva is the
Lord of Chaos. He is all Joy. He will destroy our bonds.
I cannot but feel, again and again, that there are two persons in
me. One recoils from Sandip in his terrible aspect of Chaos--the
other feels that very vision to be sweetly alluring. The sinking
ship drags down all who are swimming round it. Sandip is just
such a force of destruction. His immense attraction gets hold of
one before fear can come to the rescue, and then, in the
twinkling of an eye, one is drawn away, irresistibly, from all
light, all good, all freedom of the sky, all air that can be
breathed--from lifelong accumulations, from everyday cares--right
to the bottom of dissolution.
From some realm of calamity has Sandip come as its messenger; and
as he stalks the land, muttering unholy incantations, to him
flock all the boys and youths. The mother, seated in the lotus-
heart of the Country, is wailing her heart out; for they have
broken open her store-room, there to hold their drunken revelry.
Her vintage of the draught for the immortals they would pour out
on the dust; her time-honoured vessels they would smash to
pieces. True, I feel with her; but, at the same time, I cannot
help being infected with their excitement.
Truth itself has sent us this temptation to test our trustiness
in upholding its commandments. Intoxication masquerades in
heavenly garb, and dances before the pilgrims saying: "Fools you
are that pursue the fruitless path of renunciation. Its way is
long, its time passing slow. So the Wielder of the Thunderbolt
has sent me to you. Behold, I the beautiful, the passionate, I
will accept you--in my embrace you shall find fulfilment."
After a pause Sandip addressed me again: "Goddess, the time has
come for me to leave you. It is well. The work of your nearness
has been done. By lingering longer it would only become undone
again, little by little. All is lost, if in our greed we try to
cheapen that which is the greatest thing on earth. That which is
eternal within the moment only becomes shallow if spread out in
time. We were about to spoil our infinite moment, when it was
your uplifted thunderbolt which came to the rescue. You
intervened to save the purity of your own worship--and in so
doing you also saved your worshipper. In my leave-taking today
your worship stands out the biggest thing. Goddess, I, also, set
you free today. My earthen temple could hold you no longer--
every moment it was on the point of breaking apart. Today I
depart to worship your larger image in a larger temple. I can
gain you more truly only at a distance from yourself. Here I had
only your favour, there I shall be vouchsafed your boon."
My jewel-casket was lying on the table. I held it up aloft as I
said: "I charge you to convey these my jewels to the object of my
worship--to whom I have dedicated them through you."
My husband remained silent. Sandip left the room.
------
27. Quotation from the National song--__Bande Mataram__.
28. Rudra, the Terrible, a name of Shiva. [Trans.].
XXI
I had just sat down to make some cakes for Amulya when the Bara
Rani came upon the scene. "Oh dear," she exclaimed, "has it come
to this that you must make cakes for your own birthday?"
"Is there no one else for whom I could be making them?" I asked.
"But this is not the day when you should think of feasting
others. It is for us to feast you. I was just thinking of
making something up [29] when I heard the staggering news which
completely upset me. A gang of five or six hundred men, they
say, has raided one of our treasuries and made off with six
thousand rupees. Our house will be looted next, they expect."
I felt greatly relieved. So it was our own money after all. I
wanted to send for Amulya at once and tell him that he need only
hand over those notes to my husband and leave the explanations to
me.
"You are a wonderful creature!" my sister-in-law broke out, at
the change in my countenance. "Have you then really no such
thing as fear?"
"I cannot believe it," I said. "Why should they loot our house?"
"Not believe it, indeed! Who could have believed that they would
attack our treasury, either?"
I made no reply, but bent over my cakes, putting in the cocoa-nut
stuffing.
"Well, I'm off," said the Bara Rani after a prolonged stare at
me. "I must see Brother Nikhil and get something done about
sending off my money to Calcutta, before it's too late."
She was no sooner gone than I left the cakes to take care of
themselves and rushed to my dressing-room, shutting myself
inside. My husband's tunic with the keys in its pocket was still
hanging there--so forgetful was he. I took the key of the iron
safe off the ring and kept it by me, hidden in the folds of my
dress.
Then there came a knocking at the door. "I am dressing," I
called out. I could hear the Bara Rani saying: "Only a minute
ago I saw her making cakes and now she is busy dressing up. What
next, I wonder! One of their __Bande Mataram__ meetings is
on, I suppose. I say, Robber Queen," she called out to me, "are
you taking stock of your loot?"
When they went away I hardly know what made me open the safe.
Perhaps there was a lurking hope that it might all be a dream.
What if, on pulling out the inside drawer, I should find the
rolls of gold there, just as before? ... Alas, everything was
empty as the trust which had been betrayed.
I had to go through the farce of dressing. I had to do my hair
up all over again, quite unnecessarily. When I came out my
sister-in-law railed at me: "How many times are you going to
dress today?"
"My birthday!" I said.
"Oh, any pretext seems good enough," she went on. "Many vain
people have I seen in my day, but you beat them all hollow."
I was about to summon a servant to send after Amulya, when one of
the men came up with a little note, which he handed to me. It
was from Amulya. "Sister," he wrote, "you invited me this
afternoon, but I thought I should not wait. Let me first execute
your bidding and then come for my __prasad__. I may be a
little late."
To whom could he be going to return that money? into what fresh
entanglement was the poor boy rushing? O miserable woman, you
can only send him off like an arrow, but not recall him if you
miss your aim.
I should have declared at once that I was at the bottom of this
robbery. But women live on the trust of their surroundings--this
is their whole world. If once it is out that this trust has been
secretly betrayed, their place in their world is lost. They have
then to stand upon the fragments of the thing they have broken,
and its jagged edges keep on wounding them at every turn. To sin
is easy enough, but to make up for it is above all difficult for
a woman.
For some time past all easy approaches for communion with my
husband have been closed to me. How then could I burst on him
with this stupendous news? He was very late in coming for his
meal today--nearly two o'clock. He was absent-minded and hardly
touched any food. I had lost even the right to press him to take
a little more. I had to avert my face to wipe away my tears.
I wanted so badly to say to him: "Do come into our room and rest
awhile; you look so tired." I had just cleared my throat with a
little cough, when a servant hurried in to say that the Police
Inspector had brought Panchu up to the palace. My husband, with
the shadow on his face deepened, left his meal unfinished and
went out.
A little later the Bara Rani appeared. "Why did you not send me
word when Brother Nikhil came in?" she complained. "As he was
late I thought I might as well finish my bath in the meantime.
However did he manage to get through his meal so soon?"
"Why, did you want him for anything?"
"What is this about both of you going off to Calcutta tomorrow?
All I can say is, I am not going to be left here alone. I should
get startled out of my life at every sound, with all these
dacoits about. Is it quite settled about your going tomorrow?"
"Yes," said I, though I had only just now heard it; and though,
moreover, I was not at all sure that before tomorrow our history
might not take such a turn as to make it all one whether we went
or stayed. After that, what our home, our life would be like,
was utterly beyond my ken--it seemed so misty and phantom-like.
In a very few hours now my unseen fate would become visible. Was
there no one who could keep on postponing the flight of these
hours, from day to day, and so make them long enough for me to
set things right, so far as lay in my power? The time during
which the seed lies underground is long--so long indeed that one
forgets that there is any danger of its sprouting. But once its
shoot shows up above the surface, it grows and grows so fast,
there is no time to cover it up, neither with skirt, nor body,
nor even life itself.
I will try to think of it no more, but sit quiet--passive and
callous--let the crash come when it may. By the day after
tomorrow all will be over--publicity, laughter, bewailing,
questions, explanations--everything.
But I cannot forget the face of Amulya--beautiful, radiant with
devotion. He did not wait, despairing, for the blow of fate to
fall, but rushed into the thick of danger. In my misery I do him
reverence. He is my boy-god. Under the pretext of his
playfulness he took from me the weight of my burden. He would
save me by taking the punishment meant for me on his own head.
But how am Ito bear this terrible mercy of my God?
Oh, my child, my child, I do you reverence. Little brother mine,
I do you reverence. Pure are you, beautiful are you, I do you
reverence. May you come to my arms, in the next birth, as my own
child--that is my prayer.
------
29. Any dainties to be offered ceremonially should be made by the
lady of the house herself. [Trans.].
XXII
Rumour became busy on every side. The police were continually in
and out. The servants of the house were in a great flurry.
Khema, my maid, came up to me and said: "Oh, Rani Mother! for
goodness" sake put away my gold necklace and armlets in your iron
safe." To whom was I to explain that the Rani herself had been
weaving all this network of trouble, and had got caught in it,
too? I had to play the benign protector and take charge of
Khema's ornaments and Thako's savings. The milk-woman, in her
turn, brought along and kept in my room a box in which were a
Benares __sari__ and some other of her valued possessions. "I
got these at your wedding," she told me.
When, tomorrow, my iron safe will be opened in the presence of
these--Khema, Thako, the milk-woman and all the rest ... Let me
not think of it! Let me rather try to think what it will be like
when this third day of Magh comes round again after a year has
passed. Will all the wounds of my home life then be still as
fresh as ever? ...
Amulya writes that he will come later in the evening. I cannot
remain alone with my thoughts, doing nothing. So I sit down
again to make cakes for him. I have finished making quite a
quantity, but still I must go on. Who will eat them? I shall
distribute them amongst the servants. I must do so this very
night. Tonight is my limit. Tomorrow will not be in my hands.
I went on untiringly, frying cake after cake. Every now and then
it seemed to me that there was some noise in the direction of my
rooms, upstairs. Could it be that my husband had missed the key
of the safe, and the Bara Rani had assembled all the servants to
help him to hunt for it? No, I must not pay heed to these
sounds. Let me shut the door.
I rose to do so, when Thako came panting in: "Rani Mother, oh,
Rani Mother!"
"Oh get away!" I snapped out, cutting her short. "Don't come
bothering me."
"The Bara Rani Mother wants you," she went on. "Her nephew has
brought such a wonderful machine from Calcutta. It talks like a
man. Do come and hear it!"
I did not know whether to laugh or to cry. So, of all things, a
gramophone needs must come on the scene at such a time, repeating
at every winding the nasal twang of its theatrical songs! What a
fearsome thing results when a machine apes a man.
The shades of evening began to fall. I knew that Amulya would
not delay to announce himself--yet I could not wait. I summone
d a servant and said: "Go and tell Amulya Babu to come straight
in here." The man came back after a while to say that Amulya was
not in--he had not come back since he had gone.
"Gone!" The last word struck my ears like a wail in the
gathering darkness. Amulya gone! Had he then come like a streak
of light from the setting sun, only to be gone for ever? All
kinds of possible and impossible dangers flitted through my mind.
It was I who had sent him to his death. What if he was fearless?
That only showed his own greatness of heart. But after this how
was Ito go on living all by myself?
I had no memento of Amulya save that pistol--his reverence-
offering. It seemed to me that this was a sign given by
Providence. This guilt which had contaminated my life at its
very root--my God in the form of a child had left with me the
means of wiping it away, and then vanished. Oh the loving gift--
the saving grave that lay hidden within it!
I opened my box and took out the pistol, lifting it reverently to
my forehead. At that moment the gongs clanged out from the
temple attached to our house. I prostrated myself in salutation.
In the evening I feasted the whole household with my cakes. "You
have managed a wonderful birthday feast--and all by yourself
too!" exclaimed my sister-in-law. "But you must leave something
for us to do." With this she turned on her gramophone and let
loose the shrill treble of the Calcutta actresses all over the
place. It seemed like a stable full of neighing fillies.
It got quite late before the feasting was over. I had a sudden
longing to end my birthday celebration by taking the dust of my
husband's feet. I went up to the bedroom and found him fast
asleep. He had had such a worrying, trying day. I raised the
edge of the mosquito curtain very very gently, and laid my head
near his feet. My hair must have touched him, for he moved his
legs in his sleep and pushed my head away.
I then went out and sat in the west verandah. A silk-cotton
tree, which had shed all its leaves, stood there in the distance,
like a skeleton. Behind it the crescent moon was setting. All
of a sudden I had the feeling that the very stars in the sky were
afraid of me--that the whole of the night world was looking
askance at me. Why? Because I was alone.
There is nothing so strange in creation as the man who is alone.
Even he whose near ones have all died, one by one, is not alone--
companionship comes for him from behind the screen of death. But
he, whose kin are there, yet no longer near, who has dropped out
of all the varied companionship of a full home--the starry
universe itself seems to bristle to look on him in his darkness.
Where I am, I am not. I am far away from those who are around
me. I live and move upon a world-wide chasm of separation,
unstable as the dew-drop upon the lotus leaf.
Why do not men change wholly when they change? When I look into
my heart, I find everything that was there, still there--only
they are topsy-turvy. Things that were well-ordered have become
jumbled up. The gems that were strung into a necklace are now
rolling in the dust. And so my heart is breaking.
I feel I want to die. Yet in my heart everything still lives--
nor even in death can I see the end of it all: rather, in death
there seems to be ever so much more of repining. What is to be
ended must be ended in this life--there is no other way out.
Oh forgive me just once, only this time, Lord! All that you gave
into my hands as the wealth of my life, I have made into my
burden. I can neither bear it longer, nor give it up. O Lord,
sound once again those flute strains which you played for me,
long ago, standing at the rosy edge of my morning sky--and let
all my complexities become simple and easy. Nothing save the
music of your flute can make whole that which has been broken,
and pure that which has been sullied. Create my home anew with
your music. No other way can I see.
I threw myself prone on the ground and sobbed aloud. It was for
mercy that I prayed--some little mercy from somewhere, some
shelter, some sign of forgiveness, some hope that might bring
about the end. "Lord," I vowed to myself, "I will lie here,
waiting and waiting, touching neither food nor drink, so long as
your blessing does not reach me."
I heard the sound of footsteps. Who says that the gods do not
show themselves to mortal men? I did not raise my face to look
up, lest the sight of it should break the spell. Come, oh come,
come and let your feet touch my head. Come, Lord, and set your
foot upon my throbbing heart, and at that moment let me die.
He came and sat near my head. Who? My husband! At the first
touch of his presence I felt that I should swoon. And then the
pain at my heart burst its way out in an overwhelming flood of
tears, tearing through all my obstructing veins and nerves. I
strained his feet to my bosom--oh, why could not their impress
remain there for ever?
He tenderly stroked my head. I received his blessing. Now I
shall be able to take up the penalty of public humiliation which
will be mine tomorrow, and offer it, in all sincerity, at the
feet of my God.
But what keeps crushing my heart is the thought that the festive
flutes which were played at my wedding, nine years ago, welcoming
me to this house, will never sound for me again in this life.
What rigour of penance is there which can serve to bring me once
more, as a bride adorned for her husband, to my place upon that
same bridal seat? How many years, how many ages, aeons, must
pass before I can find my way back to that day of nine years ago?
God can create new things, but has even He the power to create
afresh that which has been destroyed?
Content of Chapter Eleven [Rabindranath Tagore's novel: The Home and the World]
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