When the brain is quick its owner may suffer more from the very variety
and complexity it gives to grief; but the grief for all that is less
absorbing. Durga was so lost in hers that she scarcely noticed Parbutti
coming in after a time to see about the supper. There was no call on
her for help this evening, no blame because the fires were slack and
nothing ready. To tell truth, even Parbutti did not care to drive the
stunned look from Durga's face, lest it should be replaced by seven
devils; so she was left alone. Yet even so, something made her start,
and for a second her hand moved as if she were about to thrust it out
in a gesture of dismay; then it sank back listlessly. The impulse had
come and gone--the housewifely impulse of warning to the younger woman
that tamarind pulp which had been kept for days in a copper vessel was
not likely to be a wholesome ingredient in a man's supper. After all,
what did it matter to her? Surely Parbutti should know such things
without being told them; if not, what right had she to be house-mother,
ousting those who did? A curiously petty spite against her simmered up
in Durga-dei's mind, and like the bubbles on boiling water served for a
time to break up the surface of her hot anger against Gopal. What! was
she to save Parbutti from the consequences of her own ignorance and
negligence? There was no more than that in Durga's mind as she watched
the cooking; no more than that, and a dumb conviction that somehow the
future must be changed, utterly changed. It could not be as the past
had been; so much was certain. Yet as she sat, thinking not at all,
something must have been juggling with her brain, for Parbutti's first
words, when an hour or so afterwards she came bustling back into the
outer court, found their reply ready on Durga's lips.
"He is not well," she fussed. "Durga! thou art more learned in simples
than most. What shall I give to stay the burning in his throat and keep
the sickness from him? God send it be not the great sickness; but 'tis
in the city they say." The widow stood up mechanically, and her right
hand sought once more the crevices of the wall against which she was
leaning.
"I know not. Give him tamarind water an thou likest. 'Tis not my work,
but thine."
Revenge had sprung full-fledged from her slow brain in familiar face
and welcome form. And it would not be her doing, but Parbutti's! A sort
of sensual delight in the idea surged through her, making her add--as
if to, give an edge to the sword of fate--"yet if the sickness be about
'twere well to have more skill than mine. I would not have it said I
killed him!"
Once more the spite against the woman overbore all other feelings for
the time. That, and a dull recognition of the fact that if Gopal died
he would be beyond the reach of them all--that it would benefit no one;
save that in good sooth the child would be fatherless instead of--and
then, suddenly, those black eyes of hers blazed up fiercely. Yes! that
was the only possible end; as well now, when opportunity offered a
beginning, as later.
"Ay! give him tamarind water--'tis best for such as he."
Not a shadow of regret came to her as she watched Parbutti follow her
advice. It was as if since all time this thing had been ordained, as if
aught else were beyond her control. The curious calm with which the
Oriental regards death, even for himself, does not count for nothing in
such situations as this. We of the West, who reckon the measure of
guilt without it, judge harshly, even while we judge equitably.
Durga-dei did not think out the question at all. Chance gave her quick
opportunity, and she took it. Yet as the night wore on, bringing a
succession of gossiping neighbours, she became restless, asking herself
if the native doctor, summoned from the _sahib-logue's_ hospital beyond
the walls, to satisfy that curious streak of education in the sick
man's mind, said sooth in declaring it to be a case of cholera? or
whether the wise woman sent by _Mai_ Radha was right in hinting at the
evil eye? Was it, briefly, God's judgment, or man's? The uncertainty
oppressed her.
So the dawn breaking over that unseen, unknown world beyond the house
of the coppersmith found three haggard faces within it. Found the same
thought in each heart: was it to be death, or death in life for one, or
for all? yet each awaited the answer with a strange indifference.
"Yes! 'tis the great sickness; he grows blue and cold already," said
the neighbours in frank wisdom as they looked in. The air was cooler
then with the sudden freshness which seems to come with the sun's first
rays; a thin blue smoke began to rise over the awakening city; the
sparrows sat preening themselves on the tops of the walls; the loose
slippers of the visitors, as they shuffled over the empty courtyards,
had whispering, gossiping tongues of their own, which seemed to echo
the ominous cackle of the wearers as they left those three faces to
their task of waiting. One turned passively to the brightening sky from
the low string bed; the other two bent on the ground as passively. A
vessel full of tamarind water stood by the sick man, but he had
scarcely touched it. Perhaps after all it was the great sickness. Durga
scarcely knew whether she were glad or sorry at the thought.
So the sun climbed up until, with one clear distinct
"_tam-burr-urr-ur-r_," the daily clamour of the shop began. Maybe the
master would not die, maybe he would; either way work must be done, and
no one had said the workers nay--as yet.
"Gopal is still alive," commented the neighbours cheerfully as they
listened; "they will stop, likely, when they hear the death wail, and
'tis as well for him to end as he began with the ring of the metal in
his ears."
The water-clock from the stairs where Gopal used to sit chimed noon.
The heavens were as brass. A perfect blaze of light beat down on the
courtyard and those three faces. But one of them waited no longer,
though it still gazed passively into the pale sky from the ground where
it lay. And Parbutti, the new-made widow, glared in terrified hatred at
the face of that other widow who stood looking down at the dead man.
Then suddenly the death wail rose loud and clear in a woman's voice.
"_Naked he came, naked has gone. This empty dwelling-place belongs
neither to you nor to me_."
The clangour ceased, ending in a faint vibration like a dying breath.
"Listen!" said the policeman watching the waterclock; "there is death
in the coppersmith's house. I heard he was ill of the sickness. God
save him--he hath no son."