THE BANKS OF JUMUNA
Zira, clad in a ragged, brown dress, sat beneath a clump of bamboo
growing by the stream that ran past Gângya’s house, and cleaned the
copper cooking-pots. For three years Zira had been called widow. When
you are young and fortunate, beloved and happy, three years is not a
great space of time. When you are young but unfortunate, abused and
wretched, it may be long indeed. Zira was young in years, but quite old
in misery.
Her head showed shaven, the ragged shawl that covered it being pushed
back since none was by saving the monkeys in the banyan tree and the
lizards on the rock wall. She was thin, for she was never given enough
to eat and steadily overworked. Upon her arms were black bruises, for
her mother-in-law was subject to hot rages and yesterday had shaken Zira
until her teeth chattered in her head, and the blood stood still under
the griping fingers. Across her shoulders ran a weal from the stick with
which she had been struck because she had broken an earthern lamp. Zira
looked, and was, forlorn, ill-treated, poorly lodged and fed, abused,
struck with tongue and hand, a menial and pariah, a widow in the house
of her husband’s parents.
Zira scoured, dully, a huge red copper pan. There were many vessels to
be cleaned, for Gângya was a rich man as riches went in the village by
the Jumuna. The earth swam in heat; it was so hot that even the monkeys
were quiet, and the lizards themselves might seem less active. Zira,
drawing a sigh, put her head on her arms and her arms on her knees. She
must have a little rest, no matter what the consequences! A change to
looking on pleasurable things from things so sadly unpleasurable becomes
now and then a necessity, even to the old in woe. Zira must have a
little colour and fragrance and music, and went to the only place where
she knew she might get them, and that was down the steps into Memory.
The ache might seem worse after being there, but let it seem!
Madhava’s caste and her caste had been _Vaisya_, merchants, husbandmen.
As a child and a girl she was not without teaching. Her own mother
strictly taught her many things, though not, of course, the high things
in which the priest instructed her father and elder brother. But she
knew, sitting by the stream, with her head in her arms, that she had
been born many times and would be born many times again. But she was not
one of those strong ones who could stray at will in Memory. She could go
down the steps a little way, but then there arose, as it were, mist and
a roaring in the ears. She had imagination, had it, indeed, in bulk, but
it did not occur to her particularly to connect imagination and her own
history--not yet did that occur. She made pictures with which to lighten
unhappiness, but often the pictures were bitter, and gave her no
entertainment.... But now, down in Memory, she was re-living small
happinesses of childhood and girlhood--toys and adornments and days and
moods and happenings--and then again, again, for the ten thousandth time
again, her marriage to Madhava.
Her marriage to Madhava. Ah!... Ah! She sat under the bamboo, under the
teak tree, and forgot the pots and pans, the bruises upon her arms and
how sore were her shoulders--how dull and slow-beating and sore was her
heart!... Village lights--village lights, and the gongs in the
temple--lights carried in procession, and flowers and flowers; spices
and cakes and fruits burned in sacrificial fires.... How she, Zira, was
dressed by her mother and sisters and the neighbours, and how she met
Madhava and they walked hand in hand.... All the rites--oblation to Agni
and prayers for long life, kind kindred, many children, right
wealth--all the rites, and the marriage pledge,
“_That heart of thine shall be mine, and this heart
of mine shall be thine._”
How bright was that day--and the village shouting and laughing--and all
so friendly, even the children friendly--children that now stoned her
and cried “Widow, widow! Madhava must have died because of you!”
Oh, the marriage, how sweet it was, and the feasting and the
well-wishing--and now all the sweetness long gone by, long, long gone
by.... That was the trouble with going down into Memory--the swords were
so sharp beside the flowers!
Zira raised her head and looked at two darting lizards beside her, then
at a painted butterfly upon a red flower, then up into the boughs of the
tree. A monkey there threw down a sizable twig. It struck upon the wall
and sent the lizards into crannies. “Tree-folk, you do not suffer like
me!” said Zira.
“Boom!--Boom!” went the temple gong, some sacrifice being toward. Zira
threw herself upon the ground and wept.
Blurred and aching pictures still came through. The days after the
wedding danced by--then Madhava, ill, pale, and shaking, then red with
fever, bright-eyed, talking, talking, talking!--Madhava lying upon the
great bed and Zira and his mother and sisters nursing him--the priest
coming, gazing, speaking--and the hot still days with the rains
beginning--and the nights velvet black with the clouds gathering--and
all the verses of the sacred writings that they said ... but Madhava
only burned the more with fever and cried the more wildly--and the
mother and sisters said to Zira, “Unhappy one! Do not all people know
that if the husband dies it is the wife who slays him!”
Zira dug her fingers into the earth. Memory now was not fair and warm
and dear, no indeed it was not! but it held her--it held her--away down
the stair! It poured over her again, it made her feel the hot days with
the rains beginning, the nights velvet black without a star. It made her
hear again the dogs that howled by night, the sounds that went
stealthily through the village, the jungle murmur that the winds brought
over the fields, over the village wall. She heard again, mind-brought,
the cry of a tiger a-roam. Memory made her hear and see and touch
Madhava, talking, talking, talking, and hard to hold in bed, and the
nursing women so tired and thirsty for sleep.... It brought her to a
grey day with warm, large raindrops falling slowly--it brought her to a
black, black night, and Madhava lying at last quiet, seeming to
sleep.... Madhava lay so still, seeming as though he dreamed and were
happy. Itura, his mother, and Jadéh, his sister, stole away to get a
little sleep. Zira stayed, heavy-eyed, beside the bed. What happened
then? She sat upon the floor, her head drooped against the foot of the
bed; she did not mean to shut her eyes, or, if she shut them, meant at
once to open.... Zira drew a moaning sigh, lying upon the earth beneath
the bamboo by the stream near Gângya’s house, three years and more from
that night. What happened? Some demon entered surely to entice! but if
she had not slept the demon might not have won in. So it was Zira’s
fault--Zira’s fault--Zira’s fault--set to guard her lord, her husband,
and sleeping, sleeping--Zira’s fault--Zira’s fault. The fever came back
to Madhava. He opened his eyes, he sat up in bed, he looked around--and
there was only the faithless wife sleeping. Madhava put his feet out of
the bed; he stood up--and all the little bells and flower faces were
calling! Madhava went out of the room and down the passage and out of
the house door--all in the soft and black and muffled night. Zira, in
the shadow of the teak tree, took up a handful of earth and strewed it
over her sunken head. O woe, woe! death for Madhava, and for Zira such
long woe, such long atonement, such long woe.... Down in Memory, she
followed Madhava. Out of the house, into the village street, and the
night so black and wordless with the rain at hand and all householders
within doors, sleeping with their families. The street, the wall, the
gate made for keeping out all jungle beasts, but not formed so that a
man might not pass from within, knowing the opening’s trick--Madhava
went out of the gate, and Zira who had not waked and followed that
night, waked and followed now.... The beaten path across the black
fields, and the hilly ground, and the little ravines, and in front the
jungle growing higher, growing blacker, growing higher, growing blacker,
growing nearer.... The jungle sounds growing louder.... Madhava the sick
man, fevered and talking to himself, and walking the jungle path where
no one went at night, before him the pool with the cane and the fallen
trees, and the bank where the jungle came to drink.... Madhava, talking
to himself, going to the jungle, and there, by the pool, red-eyed, and
waiting, the tiger whose voice for a week the village had heard.... Zira
stumbled up the stair from Memory, covering her eyes with her hands.
“My lord is gone, my head is shorn!”--
breathed Zira under the bamboo.
“Mine is death in life,
The evil one!”
She took the greatest copper pot, set it between her knees, and with the
rag that she held rubbed it clean. It blazed in the sun, it hurt her
eyes. A quarrel sprang up between the monkeys in the teak tree. They
chattered and screeched at one another, they showered twigs and leaves.
Zira, drawing her hand around and around the copper vessel, saw with
each circle some one of the hours that followed Itura’s return to the
room, and the missing of Madhava. Around--the tracking him from the
house--around--the rousing of the village, the finding without the wall
his naked footprints--around--the following at dawn upon the jungle
path--around---the coming to the pool, the track of the tiger there, the
end of all signs and of all hoping--around, around--the beginning of the
unhappy life of Zira, a woman wedded, whose husband was dead!
The monkeys in the tree sulked after quarrelling. The lizards ran again
over the wall, the water went past in sheets of diamonds, the brown
earth swam in heat, boom! boom! sounded the temple gong. Zira gathered
together all the pots and pans, clean now until they must be cleaned
again. She weighted herself with them, her thin shoulders bending under
the load. She drew the ragged veil over her head, and getting
stumblingly to her feet because of her burden, faced Gângya’s house that
was all her home. “What stupid and wicked lives were mine before I came
here--before I came here?” asked Zira, and went on to the house and her
midday piece of sessamum-cake.
Three years.... And all that time Madhava walked the earth as Madhava,
though not by the banks of Jumuna. He walked in a forest back from
Ganges, a forest standing from old time, a resort from old time of holy
men. Madhava gathered firewood, dry branches from beneath the trees,
dead and broken scrub. He carried the fuel to the hut of such a man.
When that was done, he shouldered an earthern jar and went for water to
a spring two bow-shots away. When the water was brought, he made cakes
of millet flour and baked them upon a heated stone. When they were baked
he ranged them upon a board; and when this was done he went out under
the trees, looking for Narayana, the holy man. He found him seated,
entranced, under a sandal-wood tree. Madhava, stepping backward,
returned to the hut and seating himself by the fire which burned without
doors, waited for the seer to retake the body and bring it to the hut
for food. Madhava was the holy man’s one pupil, his _chela_.
Madhava looked through the grey and green and purple arches of the
forest. He looked at one spot, and he said over thrice verses that he
had been taught, and strove to still the waves of the mind that ran here
and there in twenty different channels. Madhava always found it very
hard to still the mind, though the holy man told him the method time
and again.... This day, somehow, the waves sank of their own accord.
Madhava, sitting there in the forest back of Ganges, beside the jar of
water and the millet cakes, with the blue wood smoke rising in a
feather, very quietly and suddenly remembered how he had happened to
enter the forest. He had not remembered it before.... He had come to the
forest from long travelling to and fro in a land of towns and temples
and villages and roads with people always upon them. There he was the
servant of a horse-trader, and people thought him out of his head, and
the children gathered around him in the villages, and he told them
stories of the animals in the forest, and especially of one great tiger.
The horse-trader treated him very cruelly. He suffered. In the
night-time he wept for wretchedness. Then one day, going upon the road
that touched this forest, his master the horse-trader began to beat him
mercilessly. Madhava felt something terrible rise within him. He took an
iron bar and killed the horse-trader, and then he ran into the
forest--ran and ran and ran, until he caught his foot in the root of a
tree and fell, striking his head.... Madhava, sitting by the sage’s hut
and fire, drew a long breath. It was clear how he came into the forest.
The holy man lying under the sandal-wood tree came back to his body and
brought it to the hut and the evening meal. The blue feather of smoke
went up, the shadows stretched at immense length, the insect folk made
their even song. The seer sat down and took from Madhava’s hands a cup
of water and a millet cake.
“Master,” said Madhava, “I have remembered how I came into the forest.”
“It was written that that would come to pass.”
“I was with my master, a horse-trader, who treated me cruelly. One day
he beat and cursed me. Something terrible rose within me and I took an
iron bar and killed him. Then I ran into the forest and ran and ran
until I caught my foot in a root and fell upon my head--”
“That was a year ago,” said Narayana. “I found you lying without sense.
I carried you here and nursed you well. But you could not remember until
now how you came into the forest.”
“That was how I came,” said Madhava.
“It is well that that veil has been taken away. Now will you learn with
greater strength.”
“Can a man learn truth who is servant to horse-traders, and a murderer?”
“The soul does not know poverty, does not murder, is not man nor woman,
Brahmin nor Sudra.”
Madhava stayed in the forest, brought firewood and water, and was taught
by Narayana. Another year went by. There came a day when Madhava sat
beneath a tree, pondering the universe. Suddenly he remembered how he
came into the great river plain, and to be the servant of the
horse-trader.... Again he drew himself from a pool of water, at the edge
of the jungle. It was black night, with large, warm raindrops falling;
there was a great beast coming out of the brush--a tiger surely. Madhava
had gone to meet it--surely he was drunken or in a fever! The beast knew
that there was something strange--turning aside, he had gone padding
away. Madhava went on, walking very surely through the jungle. He went
fast, with great strides, went through the night and into the day.
Madhava, seated beneath the tree, remembered that going, remembered
lying down and sleeping, rising and going on again--and then days and
nights of sleeping and wandering, eating fruits and nuts, struggling
with, outwitting, or companioning jungle inhabitants, being as a wild
man. He remembered, after many days of this, striking out of the jungle
into a cultivated country. He remembered a road and travellers along
it.... Men came by with horses--a man stood and talked to him.... That
was the horse-trader.
Madhava told Narayana that evening. “I have remembered how I came into
this country, and to be the servant of the horse-trader.”
“One day,” said Narayana, “you will remember all that is beyond north
and south and east and west.”
“I seem to have been a man ill or mad or drunken.”
“That was one of thy little selves. The soul is not ill nor mad nor
drunken.”
Madhava stayed in the forest, brought firewood and water, and was taught
by Narayana. Another year went by.
Five years.... The village upon the Jumuna had bound into the great
sheaf of village tales the story of the bridegroom who fell ill and
strayed from his house in the black night, and by the pool at the edge
of the jungle was taken by the great old tiger. It was put upon the
legend shelf, for telling by old to young, for no one knew how long. It
was become simply a story among stories. Wet season, dry season, seed
time and harvest, the village went about its usual business.... Zira
looked and felt an old woman. When she was regarded at all it was as a
drudge who was justly paying. Women were not widowed unless they had
sinned..... Gângya and Itura, their sons and daughters, ill-treated her
because it was Retribution, and as the Eternal Order of Things would
have it. But now, long since, grief for Madhava had lost edge. No
longer, as at first, did they load Zira with accusations, gross terms of
blame. No longer did they make daily reference to her evil nature. They
only put upon her heavy drudgery, abstinence from much food or sleep and
from all pleasure. Bowed and silent, Zira worked her fingers to the
bone.
Five years.... Zira washed clothes in the stream near the teak tree.
Upon the opposite bank a child was playing with sticks and stones. It
was a little child and sweet. It laughed to itself, building a hut to
shelter a stone. Zira sat back upon her heels and watched the child.
Something yearned within her, yearned and yearned, then mounted.
The child looked across to the woman for applause. “Pretty! Pretty!”
called Zira. She had with her a cluster of fruit. She tossed this across
to the child who caught it and laughed and danced about. “Something
else! something else!” cried the child. Zira had a piece of bread that
with the fruit was to have made her dinner. She threw this across also.
The child caught it and ran away, looking back and laughing.
Zira, washing clothes with eyes that dazzled for weariness, with an
aching and hungry body, felt within her being, away from the ache and
glare, away from Gângya’s house, away from Zira washing clothes, the
rise of something from level to level, power and faculty changing
form....
In the forest, Madhava brought to Narayana’s hut firewood and water. He
built the dawn fire, laying the sticks and the tinder, striking the
flint and steel. All over the world was a mist, with a moist smell of
earth and leaves. The mist began to part, showing ragged depths.
Madhava stood up from the flame he had kindled. It crackled and sang,
it made his garment shine, and his outstretched arm. Madhava remembered
that he was Madhava, the son of Gângya, the husband of Zira. He
remembered his childhood, his youth and manhood, in the village by the
Jumuna. All that came back to him as though it were yesterday. Before
him formed the face of Zira....
Narayana sat in contemplation under the sandal-wood. When the spirit
returned, said Madhava to him, “Master, I fully remember this life. I am
Madhava, son of Gângya, who lives in a village by the Jumuna. I was the
bridegroom of Zira, but hardly were we married before I fell ill. In
fever, I must have wandered from home. It all comes back to me.... Many
to whom I am debtor think that I am dead. I must return to them.”
“Ropes unbroken,” said Narayana, “will bind and draw as is their nature
to. You may not miss out your years as a householder. Go then, son, but
put in a safe treasure room what you have learned.”
“I do not go,” said Madhava, “until comes one to take my place.”
In three months’ time there came a youth to take Madhava’s place. On the
other side of the forest had lived a holy man who now laid down the
body. The student who served him came, as the sage had directed, to
attach himself to Narayana. “Now go!” said Narayana to Madhava. “As long
as the ropes are there, answer to their drawing. But remember that there
is a fire that you must feed with yourself.”
“I mean to remember,” said Madhava.
Madhava cut himself a staff and took a bottle for water, and said
farewell to Narayana and to the chela from the other side of the
forest, and became a traveller. As he went through the land he worked
for food, and now he slept under some friendly roof, and now he slept by
the roadside.
He had been given three years of clean living and of wisdom words, and
that is enough to set the stalk to dreaming of flowers and fruit....
Nearly six years! Zira, drawing water from the stream, set down the jar,
straightened her aching back, and shaded her eyes with her hand. There
was a man standing under the teak tree. He seemed travel-worn, but a
well-looking man for all that.
Zira made to lift the jar to her shoulder and go away. The man spoke.
“Are the people friendly in this village?”
“That is as it is looked at,” said Zira. “To many they are friendly.”
The man came nearer. “Whose house is that among the trees?”
“Gângya’s.”
“Are Gângya and Itura living, and their sons and daughters?”
“You have been in the village before?--Gângya and Itura are living, and
their daughters and all their sons save one.”
“Which one is that?”
“Madhava.”
“I remember him.--How did he die and when?”
“He had a fever. In the night time he rose from his bed and left the
house and the village. He walked upon the jungle path--into the
jungle--to the jungle pool. It was night, and there was a tiger
hunting.... Madhava died nearly six years ago.”
“Madhava!--I heard that he was to be married.”
“He was married.”
“They said the woman was beautiful. Her name was Zira.”
“Yes. Zira.”
“Is she living?”
“Yes, she is living.”
“She was very beautiful.... All these years she has been named a widow.”
“All these years she has been widow,” said Zira. “She may live yet many
years.”
“A widow has a miserable life,” said the man. “Is she yet beautiful?”
“No.”
“Ah,” said the man. Zira gazed at him, then again she turned to lift the
water jar, then let it be. She went nearer to the man. She gazed again.
“Who are you?”
“Whom am I like?”
“You are like Madhava.”
Zira’s voice came only from her lips. She loosed the fastening of her
shawl that covered her head and shadowed her face. It fell. She stood
against the rock wall. “I am Zira. Are you Madhava?”
Madhava buried his face in his arms. “The tiger should not have fled
from me that night, nor I have wandered on--”
“You are Madhava ... Madhava!”
Her voice deepened, then rose in a loud and bitter cry, “Madhava!”
Madhava dropped his hands from his face. He rose and came to her. They
stood by the running water. “Thou art not fair as thou wert.... Or art
thou fairer?... We have suffered--we have learned.... When all is said,
thou art deep in me!”
“When all is said, thou art deep in me!”
“It was broken--the beautiful tree! But now it grows again.”
“It grows again!”
From Gângya’s house came a calling. “Zira--Zira!” Zira turned, and
Madhava with her. Hand in hand they went to Gângya’s house.