Her clothes were clotted in the mud; strange thoughts and walking by
night had given her the aspect of a madwoman; truly, her apparition was
such that folk might have been afraid of her, and children might have
stoned her or run away. Luckily, the first to catch sight of her was a
traveller. He came up, and said: "Mother, you look a respectable woman.
Wherever are you going, alone and in this guise?"
Kadambini, unable to collect her thoughts, stared at him in silence.
She could not think that she was still in touch with the world, that
she looked like a respectable woman, that a traveller was asking her
questions.
Again the min said: "Come, mother, I will see you home. Tell me where
you live."
Kadambini thought. To return to her father-in-law's house would be
absurd, and she had no father's house. Then she remembered the friend of
her childhood. She had not seen Jogmaya since the days of her youth,
but from time to time they had exchanged letters. Occasionally there had
been quarrels between them, as was only right, since Kadambini wished to
make it dear that her love for Jogmaya was unbounded, while her friend
complained that Kadambini did not return a love equal to her own. They
were both sure that, if they once met, they would be inseparable.
Kadambini said to the traveller: "I will go to Sripati's house at
Nisindapur."
As he was going to Calcutta, Nisindapur, though not near, was on his
way. So he took Kadambini to Sripati s house, and the friends met
again. At first they did not recognise one another, but gradually each
recognised the features of the other's childhood.
"What luck!" said Jogmaya. "I never dreamt that I should see you again.
But how hate you come here, sister? Your father-in-law's folk surely
didn't let you go!"
Kadambini remained silent, and at last said: "Sister, do not ask about
my father-in-law. Give me a corner, and treat me as a servant: I will do
your work."
"What?" cried Jogmaya. "Keep you like a servant! Why, you are my closest
friend, you are my--" and so on and so on.
Just then Sripati came in. Kadambini stared at him for some time, and
then went out very slowly. She kept her head uncovered, and showed not
the slightest modesty or respect. Jogmaya, fearing that Sripati would
be prejudiced against her friend, began an elaborate explanation. But
Sripati, who readily agreed to anything Jogmaya said, cut short her
story, and left his wife uneasy in her mind.
Kadambini had come, but she was not at one with her friend: death was
between them. She could feel no intimacy for others so long as her
existence perplexed her and consciousness remained. Kadambini would look
at Jogmaya, and brood. She would think: "She has her husband and her
work, she lives in a world far away from mine. She shares affection and
duty with the people of the world; I am an empty shadow. She is among
the living; I am in eternity."
Jogmaya also was uneasy, but could not explain why. Women do not love
mystery, because, though uncertainty may be transmuted into poetry, into
heroism, into scholarship, it cannot be turned to account in household
work. So, when a woman cannot understand a thing, she either destroys
and forgets it, or she shapes it anew for her own use; if she fails to
deal with it in one of these ways, she loses her temper with it. The
greater Kadambini's abstraction became, the more impatient was Jogmaya
with her, wondering what trouble weighed upon her mind.
Then a new danger arose. Kadambini was afraid of herself; yet she could
not flee from herself. Those who fear ghosts fear those who are behind
them; wherever they cannot see there is fear. But Kadambini's chief
terror lay in herself, for she dreaded nothing external. At the dead of
night, when alone in her room, she screamed; in the evening, when she
saw her shadow in the lamp-light, her whole body shook. Watching her
fearfulness, the rest of the house fell into a sort of terror. The
servants and Jogmaya herself began to see ghosts.
One midnight, Kadambini came out from her bedroom weeping, and wailed at
Jogmaya's door: "Sister, sister, let me lie at your feet! Do not put me
by myself!"
Jogmaya's anger was no less than her fear. She would have liked to drive
Kadambini from the house that very second. The good-natured Sripati,
after much effort, succeeded in quieting their guest, and put her in the
next room.
Next day Sripati was unexpectedly summoned to his wife's apartments.
She began to upbraid him: "You, do you call yourself a man? A woman runs
away from her father-in-law, and enters your house; a month passes,
and you haven't hinted that she should go away, nor have I heard the
slightest protest from you. I should cake it as a favour if you would
explain yourself. You men are all alike."
Men, as a race, have a natural partiality for womankind in general,
foe which women themselves hold them accountable. Although Sripati
was prepared to touch Jogmaya's body, and swear that his kind feeling
towards the helpless but beautiful Kadambini was no whit greater than it
should be, he could not prove it by his behaviour. He thought that her
father-in-law's people must have treated this forlorn widow abominably,
if she could bear it no longer, and was driven to take refuge with
him. As she had neither father nor mother, how could he desert her? So
saying, he let the matter drop, far he had no mind to distress Kadambini
by asking her unpleasant questions.
His wife, then, tried other means of her sluggish lord, until at last
he saw that for the sake of peace he must send word to Kadambini's
father-in-law. The result of a letter, he thought, might not be
satisfactory; so he resolved to go to Ranihat, and act on what he
learnt.
So Sripati went, and Jogmaya on her part said to Kadambini "Friend, it
hardly seems proper for you to stop here any longer. What will people
say?"
Kadambini stared solemnly at Jogmaya, and said: "What have I to do with
people?"
Jogmaya was astounded. Then she said sharply: "If you have nothing to
do with people, we have. How can we explain the detention of a woman
belonging to another house?"