_July_ 1891.
There is another boat at this landing-place, and on the shore in front of
it a crowd of village women. Some are evidently embarking on a journey and
the others seeing them off; infants, veils, and grey hairs are all mixed
up in the gathering.
One girl in particular attracts my attention. She must be about eleven or
twelve; but, buxom and sturdy, she might pass for fourteen or fifteen. She
has a winsome face--very dark, but very pretty. Her hair is cut short like
a boy's, which well becomes her simple, frank, and alert expression. She
has a child in her arms and is staring at me with unabashed curiosity, and
certainly no lack of straightforwardness or intelligence in her glance.
Her half-boyish, half-girlish manner is singularly attractive--a novel
blend of masculine nonchalance and feminine charm. I had no idea there
were such types among our village women in Bengal.
None of this family, apparently, is troubled with too much bashfulness.
One of them has unfastened her hair in the sun and is combing it out with
her fingers, while conversing about their domestic affairs at the top of
her voice with another, on board. I gather she has no other children
except a girl, a foolish creature who knows neither how to behave or talk,
nor even the difference between kin and stranger. I also learn that
Gopal's son-in-law has turned out a ne'er-do-well, and that his daughter
refuses to go to her husband.
When, at length, it was time to start, they escorted my short-haired
damsel, with plump shapely arms, her gold bangles and her guileless,
radiant face, into the boat. I could divine that she was returning from
her father's to her husband's home. They all stood there, following the
boat with their gaze as it cast off, one or two wiping their eyes with the
loose end of their _saris_. A little girl, with her hair tightly tied
into a knot, clung to the neck of an older woman and silently wept on her
shoulder. Perhaps she was losing a darling Didimani [1] who joined in her
doll games and also slapped her when she was naughty....
[Footnote 1: An elder sister is often called sister-jewel
(_Didimani_).]
The quiet floating away of a boat on the stream seems to add to the pathos
of a separation--it is so like death--the departing one lost to sight,
those left behind returning to their daily life, wiping their eyes. True,
the pang lasts but a while, and is perhaps already wearing off both in
those who have gone and those who remain,--pain being temporary, oblivion
permanent. But none the less it is not the forgetting, but the pain which
is true; and every now and then, in separation or in death, we realise how
terribly true.