'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 sort of 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 the foolish human heart!