"I fully believe it," said the Manager, "but surely you know who has
taken it."
Haralal looked on the ground and remained silent.
"Somebody," said the Manager, "must have taken it away with your
connivance."
"Nobody," replied Haralal, "could take it away with my knowledge without
taking first my life."
"Look here, Haralal," said the Manager, "I trusted you completely. I
took no security. I employed you in a post of great responsibility.
Every one in the office was against me for doing so. The three thousand
rupees is a small matter, but the shame of all this to me is a great
matter. I will do one thing. I will give you the whole day to bring back
this money. If you do so, I shall say nothing about it and I will keep
you on in your post."
It was now eleven o'clock. Haralal with bent head went out of the
office. The clerks began to discuss the affair with exultation.
"What can I _do_? What can I _do_?" Haralal repeated to himself, as he
walked along like one dazed, the sun's heat pouring down upon him. At
last his mind ceased to think at all about what could be done, but the
mechanical walk went on without ceasing.
This city of Calcutta, which offered its shelter to thousands and
thousands of men had become like a steel trap. He could see no way out.
The whole body of people were conspiring to surround and hold him
captive--this most insignificant of men, whom no one knew. Nobody had
any special grudge against him, yet everybody was his enemy. The crowd
passed by, brushing against him: the clerks of the offices were eating
their lunch on the road side from their plates made of leaves: a tired
wayfarer on the Maidan, under the shade of a tree, was lying with one
hand beneath his head and one leg upraised over the other: The
up-country women, crowded into hackney carriages, were wending their way
to the temple: a chuprassie came up with a letter and asked him the
address on the envelope,--so the afternoon went by.
Then came the time when the offices were all about to close. Carriages
started off in all directions, carrying people back to their homes. The
clerks, packed tightly on the seats of the trams, looked at the theatre
advertisements as they returned to their lodgings. From to-day, Haralal
had neither his work in the office, nor release from work in the
evening. He had no need to hurry to catch the tram to take him to his
home. All the busy occupations of the city--the buildings--the horses
and carriages--the incessant traffic--seemed, now at one time, to swell
into dreadful reality, and at another time, to subside into the shadowy
unreal.
Haralal had taken neither food, nor rest, nor shelter all that day.
The street lamps were lighted from one road to another and it seemed to
him that a watchful darkness, like some demon, was keeping its eyes wide
open to guard every movement of its victim. Haralal did not even have
the energy to enquire how late it was. The veins on his forehead
throbbed, and he felt as if his head would burst. Through the paroxysms
of pain, which alternated with the apathy of dejection, only one thought
came again and again to his mind; among the innumerable multitudes in
that vast city, only one name found its way through his dry
throat,--"Mother!"
He said to himself, "At the deep of night, when no one is awake to
capture me--me, who am the least of all men,--I will silently creep to
my mother's arms and fall asleep, and may I never wake again!"
Haralal's one trouble was lest some police officer should molest him in
the presence of his mother, and this kept him back from going home. When
it became impossible for him at last to bear the weight of his own body,
he hailed a carriage. The driver asked him where he wanted to go. He
said: "Nowhere, I want to drive across the Maidan to get the fresh air."
The man at first did not believe him and was about to drive on, when
Haralal put a rupee into his hand as an advance payment. Thereupon the
driver crossed, and then re-crossed, the Maidan from one side to the
other, traversing the different roads.
Haralal laid his throbbing head on the side of the open window of the
carriage and closed his eyes. Slowly all the pain abated. His body
became cool. A deep and intense peace filled his heart and a supreme
deliverance seemed to embrace him on every side. It was _not_ true,--the
day's despair which threatened him with its grip of utter helplessness.
It was _not_ true, it was false. He knew now that it was only an empty
fear of the mind. Deliverance was in the infinite sky and there was no
end to peace. No king or emperor in the world had the power to keep
captive this nonentity, this Haralal. In the sky, surrounding his
emancipated heart on every side, he felt the presence of his mother,
that one poor woman. She seemed to grow and grow till she filled the
infinity of darkness. All the roads and buildings and shops of Calcutta
gradually became enveloped by her. In her presence vanished all the
aching pains and thoughts and consciousness of Haralal. It burst,--that
bubble filled with the hot vapour of pain. And now there was neither
darkness nor light, but only one tense fulness.
The Cathedral clock struck one. The driver called out impatiently:
"Babu, my horse can't go on any longer. Where do you want to go?"
There came no answer.
The driver came down and shook Haralal and asked him again where he
wanted to go.
There came no answer.
And the answer was never received from Haralal, where he wanted to go.