"Where are you going, Dada?"
"I am going home."
"When will you come back?"
"I am not coming back."
Ratan asked no other question. The postmaster, of his own accord, went
on to tell her that his application for a transfer had been rejected, so
he had resigned his post and was going home.
For a long time neither of them spoke another word. The lamp went on
dimly burning, and from a leak in one corner of the thatch water dripped
steadily into an earthen vessel on the floor beneath it.
After a while Ratan rose, and went off to the kitchen to prepare the
meal; but she was not so quick about it as on other days. Many new
things to think of had entered her little brain. When the postmaster had
finished his supper, the girl suddenly asked him: "Dada, will you take
me to your home?"
The postmaster laughed. "What an idea!" said he; but he did not think it
necessary to explain to the girl wherein lay the absurdity.
That whole night, in her waking and in her dreams, the postmaster's
laughing reply haunted her--"What an idea!"
On getting up in the morning, the postmaster found his bath ready. He
had stuck to his Calcutta habit of bathing in water drawn and kept in
pitchers, instead of taking a plunge in the river as was the custom of
the village. For some reason or other, the girl could not ask him about
the time of his departure, so she had fetched the water from the river
long before sunrise, that it should be ready as early as he might want
it. After the bath came a call for Ratan. She entered noiselessly, and
looked silently into her master's face for orders. The master said: "You
need not be anxious about my going away, Ratan; I shall tell my
successor to look after you." These words were kindly meant, no doubt:
but inscrutable are the ways of a woman's heart!
Ratan had borne many a scolding from her master without complaint, but
these kind words she could not bear. She burst out weeping, and said:
"No, no, you need not tell anybody anything at all about me; I don't
want to stay on here."
The postmaster was dumbfounded. He had never seen Ratan like this
before.
The new incumbent duly arrived, and the postmaster, having given over
charge, prepared to depart. Just before starting he called Ratan and
said: "Here is something for you; I hope it will keep you for some
little time." He brought out from his pocket the whole of his month's
salary, retaining only a trifle for his travelling expenses. Then Ratan
fell at his feet and cried: "Oh, Dada, I pray you, don't give me
anything, don't in any way trouble about me," and then she ran away out
of sight.
The postmaster heaved a sigh, took up his carpet bag, put his umbrella
over his shoulder, and, accompanied by a man carrying his many-coloured
tin trunk, he slowly made for the boat.
When he got in and the boat was under way, and the rain-swollen river,
like a stream of tears welling up from the earth, swirled and sobbed at
her bows, then he felt a pain at heart; the grief-stricken face of a
village girl seemed to represent for him the great unspoken pervading
grief of Mother Earth herself. At one time he had an impulse to go back,
and bring away along with him that lonesome waif, forsaken of the world.
But the wind had just filled the sails, the boat had got well into the
middle of the turbulent current, and already the village was left
behind, and its outlying burning-ground came in sight.
So the traveller, borne on the breast of the swift-flowing river,
consoled himself with philosophical reflections on the numberless
meetings and partings going on in the world--on death, the great
parting, from which none returns.
But Ratan had no philosophy. She was wandering about the post office in
a flood of tears. It may be that she had still a lurking hope in some
corner of her heart that her Dada would return, and that is why she
could not tear herself away. Alas for our foolish human nature! Its fond
mistakes are persistent. The dictates of reason take a long time to
assert their own sway. The surest proofs meanwhile are disbelieved.
False hope is clung to with all one's might and main, till a day comes
when it has sucked the heart dry and it forcibly breaks through its
bonds and departs. After that comes the misery of awakening, and then
once again the longing to get back into the maze of the same mistakes.