'Wait a bit. Hear the whole story first. One day, in the rains, I
was feverish. The doctor came to see me. That was our first meeting.
I was reclining opposite the window, so that the blush of the evening
sky might temper the pallor of my complexion. When the doctor, coming
in, looked up into my face, I put myself into his place, and gazed
at myself in imagination. I saw in the glorious evening light that
delicate wan face laid like a drooping flower against the soft white
pillow, with the unrestrained curls playing over the forehead, and the
bashfully lowered eyelids casting a pathetic shade over the whole
countenance.
'The doctor, in a tone bashfully low, asked my brother: "Might I feel
her pulse?"
'I put out a tired, well-rounded wrist from beneath the coverlet.
"Ah!" thought I, as I looked on it, "if only there had been a
sapphire bracelet."[5] I have never before seen a doctor so awkward
about feeling a patient's pulse. His fingers trembled as they felt
my wrist. He measured the heat of my fever, I gauged the pulse of
his heart.--Don't you believe me?'
[5] Widows are supposed to dress in white only, without ornaments or
jewellery.
'Very easily,' said I; 'the human heart-beat tells its tale.'
'After I had been taken ill and restored to health several times,
I found that the number of the courtiers who attended my imaginary
evening reception began to dwindle till they were reduced to only one!
And at last in my little world there remained only one doctor and one
patient.
'In these evenings I used to dress myself[6] secretly in a
canary-coloured _sari_; twine about the braided knot into which I did
my hair a garland of white jasmine blossoms; and with a little
mirror in my hand betake myself to my usual seat under the trees.
[6] See note on p. 38.
'Well! Are you perhaps thinking that the sight of one's own beauty
would soon grow wearisome? Ah no! for I did not see myself with my own
eyes. I was then one and also two. I used to see myself as though I
were the doctor; I gazed, I was charmed, I fell madly in love. But,
in spite of all the caresses I lavished on myself, a sigh would wander
about my heart, moaning like the evening breeze.
'Anyhow, from that time I was never alone. When I walked I watched
with downcast eyes the play of my dainty little toes on the earth,
and wondered what the doctor would have felt had he been there to
see. At mid-day the sky would be filled with the glare of the sun,
without a sound, save now and then the distant cry of a passing kite.
Outside our garden-walls the hawker would pass with his musical
cry of "Bangles for sale, crystal bangles." And I, spreading a
snow-white sheet on the lawn, would lie on it with my head on my arm.
With studied carelessness the other arm would rest lightly on the soft
sheet, and I would imagine to myself that some one had caught sight of
the wonderful pose of my hand, that some one had clasped it in both of
his and imprinted a kiss on its rosy palm, and was slowly walking
away.--What if I ended the story here? How would it do?'
'Not half a bad ending,' I replied thoughtfully. 'It would no doubt
remain a little incomplete, but I could easily spend the rest of the
night putting in the finishing touches.'
'But that would make the story too serious. Where would the laugh come
in? Where would be the skeleton with its grinning teeth?
'So let me go on. As soon as the doctor had got a little practice, he
took a room on the ground-floor of our house for a consulting-chamber.
I used then sometimes to ask him jokingly about medicines and
poisons, and how much of this drug or that would kill a man. The
subject was congenial and he would wax eloquent. These talks
familiarised me with the idea of death; and so love and death were
the only two things that filled my little world. My story is now
nearly ended--there is not much left.'
'Not much of the night is left either,' I muttered.
'After a time I noticed that the doctor had grown strangely
absent-minded, and it seemed as if he were ashamed of something
which he was trying to keep from me. One day he came in, somewhat
smartly dressed, and borrowed my brother's carriage for the evening.
'My curiosity became too much for me, and I went up to my brother for
information. After some talk beside the point, I at last asked him:
"By the way, Dada,[7] where is the doctor going this evening in your
carriage?"
[7] Elder brother.
'My brother briefly replied: "To his death."
'"Oh, do tell me," I importuned. "Where is he really going?"
'"To be married," he said, a little more explicitly.
'"Oh, indeed!" said I, as I laughed long and loudly.
'I gradually learnt that the bride was an heiress, who would bring the
doctor a large sum of money. But why did he insult me by hiding all
this from me? Had I ever begged and prayed him not to marry, because it
would break my heart? Men are not to be trusted. I have known only
one man in all my life, and in a moment I made this discovery.
'When the doctor came in after his work and was ready to start, I said
to him, rippling with laughter the while: "Well, doctor, so you are
to be married to-night?"
'My gaiety not only made the doctor lose countenance; it thoroughly
irritated him.
'"How is it," I went on, "that there is no illumination, no band of
music?"
'With a sigh he replied: "Is marriage then such a joyful occasion?"
'I burst out into renewed laughter. "No, no," said I, "this will
never do. Who ever heard of a wedding without lights and music?"
'I bothered my brother about it so much that he at once ordered all the
trappings of a gay wedding.
'All the time I kept on gaily talking of the bride, of what would
happen, of what I would do when the bride came home. "And, doctor," I
asked, "will you still go on feeling pulses?" Ha! ha! ha! Though
the inner workings of people's, especially men's, minds are not
visible, still I can take my oath that these words were piercing the
doctor's bosom like deadly darts.
'The marriage was to be celebrated late at night. Before starting,
the doctor and my brother were having a glass of wine together on the
terrace, as was their daily habit. The moon had just risen.
'I went up smiling, and said: "Have you forgotten your wedding,
doctor? It is time to start."
'I must here tell you one little thing. I had meanwhile gone down
to the dispensary and got a little powder, which at a convenient
opportunity I had dropped unobserved into the doctor's glass.
'The doctor, draining his glass at a gulp, in a voice thick with
emotion, and with a look that pierced me to the heart, said: "Then I
must go."
'The music struck up. I went into my room and dressed myself in my
bridal-robes of silk and gold. I took out my jewellery and ornaments
from the safe and put them all on; I put the red mark of wifehood
on the parting in my hair. And then under the tree in the garden I
prepared my bed.
'It was a beautiful night. The gentle south wind was kissing away
the weariness of the world. The scent of jasmine and _bela_ filled the
garden with rejoicing.
'When the sound of the music began to grow fainter and fainter; the
light of the moon to get dimmer and dimmer; the world with its lifelong
associations of home and kin to fade away from my perceptions like
some illusion;--then I closed my eyes, and smiled.
'I fancied that when people came and found me they would see that
smile of mine lingering on my lips like a trace of rose-coloured wine,
that when I thus slowly entered my eternal bridal-chamber I should
carry with me this smile, illuminating my face. But alas for the
bridal-chamber! Alas for the bridal-robes of silk and gold! When I
woke at the sound of a rattling within me, I found three urchins
learning osteology from my skeleton. Where in my bosom my joys and
griefs used to throb, and the petals of youth to open one by one, there
the master with his pointer was busy naming my bones. And as to that
last smile, which I had so carefully rehearsed, did you see any sign of
that?
'Well, well, how did you like the story?'
'It has been delightful,' said I.
At this point the first crow began to caw. 'Are you there?' I asked.
There was no reply.
The morning light entered the room.