In the room next to the one in which we boys used to sleep, there hung
a human skeleton. In the night it would rattle in the breeze which
played about its bones. In the day these bones were rattled by us.
We were taking lessons in osteology from a student in the Campbell
Medical School, for our guardians were determined to make us masters
of all the sciences. How far they succeeded we need not tell those
who know us; and it is better hidden from those who do not.
Many years have passed since then. In the meantime the skeleton has
vanished from the room, and the science of osteology from our brains,
leaving no trace behind.
The other day, our house was crowded with guests, and I had to pass
the night in the same old room. In these now unfamiliar surroundings,
sleep refused to come, and, as I tossed from side to side, I heard all
the hours of the night chimed, one after another, by the church clock
near by. At length the lamp in the corner of the room, after some
minutes of choking and spluttering, went out altogether. One or two
bereavements had recently happened in the family, so the going out
of the lamp naturally led me to thoughts of death. In the great arena
of nature, I thought, the light of a lamp losing itself in eternal
darkness, and the going out of the light of our little human lives,
by day or by night, were much the same thing.
My train of thought recalled to my mind the skeleton. While I was
trying to imagine what the body which had clothed it could have
been like, it suddenly seemed to me that something was walking
round and round my bed, groping along the walls of the room. I could
hear its rapid breathing. It seemed as if it was searching for
something which it could not find, and pacing round the room with
ever-hastier steps. I felt quite sure that this was a mere fancy of
my sleepless, excited brain; and that the throbbing of the veins in
my temples was really the sound which seemed like running footsteps.
Nevertheless, a cold shiver ran all over me. To help to get rid of
this hallucination, I called out aloud: 'Who is there?' The footsteps
seemed to stop at my bedside, and the reply came: 'It is I. I have
come to look for that skeleton of mine.'
It seemed absurd to show any fear before the creature of my own
imagination; so, clutching my pillow a little more tightly, I said
in a casual sort of way: 'A nice business for this time of night! Of
what use will that skeleton be to you now?'
The reply seemed to come almost from my mosquito-curtain itself.
'What a question! In that skeleton were the bones that encircled
my heart; the youthful charm of my six-and-twenty years bloomed about
it. Should I not desire to see it once more?'
'Of course,' said I, 'a perfectly reasonable desire. Well, go on
with your search, while I try to get a little sleep.'
Said the voice: 'But I fancy you are lonely. All right; I'll sit down
a while, and we will have a little chat. Years ago I used to sit by men
and talk to them. But during the last thirty-five years I have only
moaned in the wind in the burning-places of the dead. I would talk
once more with a man as in the old times.'
I felt that some one sat down just near my curtain. Resigning myself to
the situation, I replied with as much cordiality as I could summon:
'That will be very nice indeed. Let us talk of something cheerful.'
'The funniest thing I can think of is my own life-story. Let me tell
you that.'
The church clock chimed the hour of two.
'When I was in the land of the living, and young, I feared one thing
like death itself, and that was my husband. My feelings can be likened
only to those of a fish caught with a hook. For it was as if a stranger
had snatched me away with the sharpest of hooks from the peaceful
calm of my childhood's home--and from him I had no means of escape.
My husband died two months after my marriage, and my friends and
relations moaned pathetically on my behalf. My husband's father, after
scrutinising my face with great care, said to my mother-in-law: "Do
you not see, she has the evil eye?"--Well, are you listening? I hope
you are enjoying the story?'
'Very much indeed!' said I. 'The beginning is extremely humorous.'
'Let me proceed then. I came back to my father's house in great glee.
People tried to conceal it from me, but I knew well that I was endowed
with a rare and radiant beauty. What is your opinion?'
'Very likely,' I murmured. 'But you must remember that I never saw
you.'
'What! Not seen me? What about that skeleton of mine? Ha! ha! ha!
Never mind. I was only joking. How can I ever make you believe
that those two cavernous hollows contained the brightest of dark,
languishing eyes? And that the smile which was revealed by those ruby
lips had no resemblance whatever to the grinning teeth which you used
to see? The mere attempt to convey to you some idea of the grace,
the charm, the soft, firm, dimpled curves, which in the fulness of
youth were growing and blossoming over those dry old bones makes me
smile; it also makes me angry. The most eminent doctors of my time
could not have dreamed of the bones of that body of mine as materials
for teaching osteology. Do you know, one young doctor that I knew of,
actually compared me to a golden _champak_ blossom. It meant that to
him the rest of humankind was fit only to illustrate the science
of physiology, that I was a flower of beauty. Does any one think of
the skeleton of a _champak_ flower?
'When I walked, I felt that, like a diamond scattering splendour,
my every movement set waves of beauty radiating on every side. I used
to spend hours gazing on my hands--hands which could gracefully have
reined the liveliest of male creatures.
'But that stark and staring old skeleton of mine has borne
false-witness to you against me, while I was unable to refute the
shameless libel. That is why of all men I hate you most! I feel I
would like once for all to banish sleep from your eyes with a
vision of that warm rosy loveliness of mine, to sweep out with it
all the wretched osteological stuff of which your brain is full.'
'I could have sworn by your body,' cried I, 'if you had it still,
that no vestige of osteology has remained in my head, and that the only
thing that it is now full of is a radiant vision of perfect loveliness,
glowing against the black background of night. I cannot say more than
that.'
'I had no girl-companions,' went on the voice. 'My only brother
had made up his mind not to marry. In the zenana I was alone. Alone I
used to sit in the garden under the shade of the trees, and dream
that the whole world was in love with me; that the stars with sleepless
gaze were drinking in my beauty; that the wind was languishing in
sighs as on some pretext or other it brushed past me; and that the
lawn on which my feet rested, had it been conscious, would have lost
consciousness again at their touch. It seemed to me that all the young
men in the world were as blades of grass at my feet; and my heart, I
know not why, used to grow sad.
'When my brother's friend, Shekhar, had passed out of the Medical
College, he became our family doctor. I had already often seen him from
behind a curtain. My brother was a strange man, and did not care to
look on the world with open eyes. It was not empty enough for his
taste; so he gradually moved away from it, until he was quite lost in
an obscure corner. Shekhar was his one friend, so he was the only
young man I could ever get to see. And when I held my evening court in
my garden, then the host of imaginary young men whom I had at my feet
were each one a Shekhar.--Are you listening? What are you thinking of?'