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--pa.s.sive 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-G.o.d. 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 G.o.d?
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 pa.s.sed. 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 quant.i.ty, 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 a.s.sembled 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 tw.a.n.g 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 G.o.d 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 p.r.o.ne 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 G.o.ds 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?