I confess that I found considerable comfort in bringing help to my
friend. Like a hen brooding on a duck's egg, I lavished all the warmth
of my pent-up passion on Nabin's effusions. So vigorously did I revise
and improve his crude productions, that the larger part of each poem
became my own.
Then Nabin would say in surprise: 'That is just what I wanted to say,
but could not. How on earth do you manage to get hold of all these
fine sentiments?'
Poet-like, I would reply: 'They come from my imagination; for, as you
know, truth is silent, and it is imagination only which waxes
eloquent. Reality represses the flow of feeling like a rock;
imagination cuts out a path for itself.'
And the poor puzzled Nabin would say: 'Y-e-s, I see, yes, of course';
and then after some thought would murmur again: 'Yes, yes, you are
right!'
As I have already said, in my own love there was a feeling of
reverential delicacy which prevented me from putting it into words.
But with Nabin as a screen, there was nothing to hinder the flow
of my pen; and a true warmth of feeling gushed out into these
vicarious poems.
Nabin in his lucid moments would say: 'But these are yours! Let me
publish them over your name.'
'Nonsense!' I would reply. 'They are yours, my dear fellow; I have
only added a touch or two here and there.'
And Nabin gradually came to believe it.
I will not deny that, with a feeling akin to that of the astronomer
gazing into the starry heavens, I did sometimes turn my eyes towards
the window of the house next door. It is also true that now and again
my furtive glances would be rewarded with a vision. And the least
glimpse of the pure light of that countenance would at once still
and clarify all that was turbulent and unworthy in my emotions.
But one day I was startled. Could I believe my eyes? It was a hot
summer afternoon. One of the fierce and fitful nor'-westers was
threatening. Black clouds were massed in the north-west corner of the
sky; and against the strange and fearful light of that background
my fair neighbour stood, gazing out into empty space. And what a
world of forlorn longing did I discover in the far-away look of
those lustrous black eyes! Was there then, perchance, still some
living volcano within the serene radiance of that moon of mine?
Alas! that look of limitless yearning, which was winging its way
through the clouds like an eager bird, surely sought--not heaven--but
the nest of some human heart!
At the sight of the unutterable passion of that look I could hardly
contain myself. I was no longer satisfied with correcting crude poems.
My whole being longed to express itself in some worthy action. At last
I thought I would devote myself to making widow-remarriage popular in
my country. I was prepared not only to speak and write on the subject,
but also to spend money on its cause.
Nabin began to argue with me. 'Permanent widowhood,' said he, 'has
in it a sense of immense purity and peace; a calm beauty like that of
the silent places of the dead shimmering in the wan light of the
eleventh moon.[47] Would not the mere possibility of remarriage destroy
its divine beauty?'
[47] The eleventh day of the moon is a day of fasting and penance.
Now this sort of sentimentality always makes me furious. In time of
famine, if a well-fed man speaks scornfully of food, and advises a
starving man at point of death to glut his hunger on the fragrance
of flowers and the song of birds, what are we to think of him? I
said with some heat: 'Look here, Nabin, to the artist a ruin may be a
beautiful object; but houses are built not only for the contemplation
of artists, but that people may live therein; so they have to be
kept in repair in spite of artistic susceptibilities. It is all very
well for you to idealise widowhood from your safe distance, but you
should remember that within widowhood there is a sensitive human
heart, throbbing with pain and desire.'
I had an impression that the conversion of Nabin would be a difficult
matter, so perhaps I was more impassioned than I need have been. I was
somewhat surprised to find at the conclusion of my little speech that
Nabin after a single thoughtful sigh completely agreed with me. The
even more convincing peroration which I felt I might have delivered
was not needed!
After about a week Nabin came to me, and said that if I would help him
he was prepared to lead the way by marrying a widow himself.
I was overjoyed. I embraced him effusively, and promised him any money
that might be required for the purpose. Then Nabin told me his story.
I learned that Nabin's loved one was not an imaginary being. It
appeared that Nabin, too, had for some time adored a widow from a
distance, but had not spoken of his feelings to any living soul.
Then the magazines in which Nabin's poems, or rather _my_ poems,
used to appear had reached the fair one's hands; and the poems had
not been ineffective.
Not that Nabin had deliberately intended, as he was careful to explain,
to conduct love-making in that way. In fact, said he, he had no
idea that the widow knew how to read. He used to post the magazine,
without disclosing the sender's name, addressed to the widow's
brother. It was only a sort of fancy of his, a concession to his
hopeless passion. It was flinging garlands before a deity; it is not
the worshipper's affair whether the god knows or not, whether he
accepts or ignores the offering.
And Nabin particularly wanted me to understand that he had no
definite end in view when on diverse pretexts he sought and made the
acquaintance of the widow's brother. Any near relation of the loved
one needs must have a special interest for the lover.
Then followed a long story about how an illness of the brother at last
brought them together. The presence of the poet himself naturally led
to much discussion of the poems; nor was the discussion necessarily
restricted to the subject out of which it arose.
After his recent defeat in argument at my hands, Nabin had mustered
up courage to propose marriage to the widow. At first he could not
gain her consent. But when he had made full use of my eloquent words,
supplemented by a tear or two of his own, the fair one capitulated
unconditionally. Some money was now wanted by her guardian to make
arrangements.
'Take it at once,' said I.
'But,' Nabin went on, 'you know it will be some months before I can
appease my father sufficiently for him to continue my allowance. How
are we to live in the meantime?' I wrote out the necessary cheque
without a word, and then I said: 'Now tell me who she is. You need
not look on me as a possible rival, for I swear I will not write poems
to her; and even if I do I will not send them to her brother, but to
you!'
'Don't be absurd,' said Nabin; 'I have not kept back her name
because I feared your rivalry! The fact is, she was very much perturbed
at taking this unusual step, and had asked me not to talk about the
matter to my friends. But it no longer matters, now that everything
has been satisfactorily settled. She lives at No. 19, the house next to
yours.'
If my heart had been an iron boiler it would have burst. 'So she has
no objection to remarriage?' I simply asked.
'Not at the present moment,' replied Nabin with a smile.
'And was it the poems alone which wrought the magic change?'
'Well, my poems were not so bad, you know,' said Nabin, 'were they?'