I
MOTHER, today there comes back to mind the vermilion mark [1] at
the parting of your hair, the __sari__ [2] which you used to
wear, with its wide red border, and those wonderful eyes of
yours, full of depth and peace. They came at the start of my
life's journey, like the first streak of dawn, giving me golden
provision to carry me on my way.
The sky which gives light is blue, and my mother's face was dark,
but she had the radiance of holiness, and her beauty would put to
shame all the vanity of the beautiful.
Everyone says that I resemble my mother. In my childhood I used
to resent this. It made me angry with my mirror. I thought that
it was God's unfairness which was wrapped round my limbs--that my
dark features were not my due, but had come to me by some
misunderstanding. All that remained for me to ask of my God in
reparation was, that I might grow up to be a model of what woman
should be, as one reads it in some epic poem.
When the proposal came for my marriage, an astrologer was sent,
who consulted my palm and said, "This girl has good signs. She
will become an ideal wife."
And all the women who heard it said: "No wonder, for she
resembles her mother."
I was married into a Rajah's house. When I was a child, I was
quite familiar with the description of the Prince of the fairy
story. But my husband's face was not of a kind that one's
imagination would place in fairyland. It was dark, even as mine
was. The feeling of shrinking, which I had about my own lack of
physical beauty, was lifted a little; at the same time a touch of
regret was left lingering in my heart.
But when the physical appearance evades the scrutiny of our
senses and enters the sanctuary of our hearts, then it can forget
itself. I know, from my childhood's experience, how devotion is
beauty itself, in its inner aspect. When my mother arranged the
different fruits, carefully peeled by her own loving hands, on
the white stone plate, and gently waved her fan to drive away the
flies while my father sat down to his meals, her service would
lose itself in a beauty which passed beyond outward forms. Even
in my infancy I could feel its power. It transcended all
debates, or doubts, or calculations: it was pure music.
I distinctly remember after my marriage, when, early in the
morning, I would cautiously and silently get up and take the dust
[3] of my husband's feet without waking him, how at such moments
I could feel the vermilion mark upon my forehead shining out like
the morning star.
One day, he happened to awake, and smiled as he asked me: "What
is that, Bimala? What __are__ you doing?"
I can never forget the shame of being detected by him. He might
possibly have thought that I was trying to earn merit secretly.
But no, no! That had nothing to do with merit. It was my
woman's heart, which must worship in order to love.
My father-in-law's house was old in dignity from the days of the
__Badshahs__. Some of its manners were of the Moguls and
Pathans, some of its customs of Manu and Parashar. But my
husband was absolutely modern. He was the first of the house to
go through a college course and take his M.A. degree. His elder
brother had died young, of drink, and had left no children. My
husband did not drink and was not given to dissipation. So
foreign to the family was this abstinence, that to many it hardly
seemed decent! Purity, they imagined, was only becoming in those
on whom fortune had not smiled. It is the moon which has room
for stains, not the stars.
My husband's parents had died long ago, and his old grandmother
was mistress of the house. My husband was the apple of her eye,
the jewel on her bosom. And so he never met with much difficulty
in overstepping any of the ancient usages. When he brought in
Miss Gilby, to teach me and be my companion, he stuck to his
resolve in spite of the poison secreted by all the wagging
tongues at home and outside.
My husband had then just got through his B.A. examination and
was reading for his M.A. degree; so he had to stay in Calcutta
to attend college. He used to write to me almost every day, a
few lines only, and simple words, but his bold, round handwriting
would look up into my face, oh, so tenderly! I kept his letters
in a sandalwood box and covered them every day with the flowers I
gathered in the garden.
At that time the Prince of the fairy tale had faded, like the
moon in the morning light. I had the Prince of my real world
enthroned in my heart. I was his queen. I had my seat by his
side. But my real joy was, that my true place was at his feet.
Since then, I have been educated, and introduced to the modern
age in its own language, and therefore these words that I write
seem to blush with shame in their prose setting. Except for my
acquaintance with this modern standard of life, I should know,
quite naturally, that just as my being born a woman was not in my
own hands, so the element of devotion in woman's love is not like
a hackneyed passage quoted from a romantic poem to be piously
written down in round hand in a school-girl's copy-book.
But my husband would not give me any opportunity for worship.
That was his greatness. They are cowards who claim absolute
devotion from their wives as their right; that is a humiliation
for both.
His love for me seemed to overflow my limits by its flood of
wealth and service. But my necessity was more for giving than
for receiving; for love is a vagabond, who can make his flowers
bloom in the wayside dust, better than in the crystal jars kept
in the drawing-room.
My husband could not break completely with the old-time
traditions which prevailed in our family. It was difficult,
therefore, for us to meet at any hour of the day we pleased. [4]
I knew exactly the time that he could come to me, and therefore
our meeting had all the care of loving preparation. It was like
the rhyming of a poem; it had to come through the path of the
metre.
After finishing the day's work and taking my afternoon bath, I
would do up my hair and renew my vermilion mark and put on my
__sari__, carefully crinkled; and then, bringing back my body
and mind from all distractions of household duties, I would
dedicate it at this special hour, with special ceremonies, to one
individual. That time, each day, with him was short; but it was
infinite.
My husband used to say, that man and wife are equal in love
because of their equal claim on each other. I never argued the
point with him, but my heart said that devotion never stands in
the way of true equality; it only raises the level of the ground
of meeting. Therefore the joy of the higher equality remains
permanent; it never slides down to the vulgar level of triviality.
My beloved, it was worthy of you that you never expected worship
from me. But if you had accepted it, you would have done me a
real service. You showed your love by decorating me, by
educating me, by giving me what I asked for, and what I did not.
I have seen what depth of love there was in your eyes when you
gazed at me. I have known the secret sigh of pain you suppressed
in your love for me. You loved my body as if it were a flower of
paradise. You loved my whole nature as if it had been given you
by some rare providence.
Such lavish devotion made me proud to think that the wealth was
all my own which drove you to my gate. But vanity such as this
only checks the flow of free surrender in a woman's love. When I
sit on the queen's throne and claim homage, then the claim only
goes on magnifying itself; it is never satisfied. Can there be
any real happiness for a woman in merely feeling that she has
power over a man? To surrender one's pride in devotion is
woman's only salvation.
It comes back to me today how, in the days of our happiness, the
fires of envy sprung up all around us. That was only natural,
for had I not stepped into my good fortune by a mere chance, and
without deserving it? But providence does not allow a run of
luck to last for ever, unless its debt of honour be fully paid,
day by day, through many a long day, and thus made secure. God
may grant us gifts, but the merit of being able to take and hold
them must be our own. Alas for the boons that slip through
unworthy hands!
My husband's grandmother and mother were both renowned for their
beauty. And my widowed sister-in-law was also of a beauty rarely
to be seen. When, in turn, fate left them desolate, the
grandmother vowed she would not insist on having beauty for her
remaining grandson when he married. Only the auspicious marks
with which I was endowed gained me an entry into this family--
otherwise, I had no claim to be here.
In this house of luxury, but few of its ladies had received their
meed of respect. They had, however, got used to the ways of the
family, and managed to keep their heads above water, buoyed up by
their dignity as __Ranis__ of an ancient house, in spite of
their daily tears being drowned in the foam of wine, and by the
tinkle of the "dancing girls" anklets. Was the credit due to me
that my husband did not touch liquor, nor squander his manhood in
the markets of woman's flesh? What charm did I know to soothe
the wild and wandering mind of men? It was my good luck, nothing
else. For fate proved utterly callous to my sister-in-law. Her
festivity died out, while yet the evening was early, leaving the
light of her beauty shining in vain over empty halls--burning and
burning, with no accompanying music!
His sister-in-law affected a contempt for my husband's modern
notions. How absurd to keep the family ship, laden with all the
weight of its time-honoured glory, sailing under the colours of
his slip of a girl-wife alone! Often have I felt the lash of
scorn. "A thief who had stolen a husband's love!" "A sham
hidden in the shamelessness of her new-fangled finery!" The
many-coloured garments of modern fashion with which my husband
loved to adorn me roused jealous wrath. "Is not she ashamed to
make a show-window of herself--and with her looks, too!"
My husband was aware of all this, but his gentleness knew no
bounds. He used to implore me to forgive her.
I remember I once told him: "Women's minds are so petty, so
crooked!" "Like the feet of Chinese women," he replied. "Has
not the pressure of society cramped them into pettiness and
crookedness? They are but pawns of the fate which gambles with
them. What responsibility have they of their own?"
My sister-in-law never failed to get from my husband whatever she
wanted. He did not stop to consider whether her requests were
right or reasonable. But what exasperated me most was that she
was not grateful for this. I had promised my husband that I
would not talk back at her, but this set me raging all the more,
inwardly. I used to feel that goodness has a limit, which, if
passed, somehow seems to make men cowardly. Shall I tell the
whole truth? I have often wished that my husband had the
manliness to be a little less good.
My sister-in-law, the Bara Rani, [5] was still young and had no
pretensions to saintliness. Rather, her talk and jest and laugh
inclined to be forward. The young maids with whom she surrounded
herself were also impudent to a degree. But there was none to
gainsay her--for was not this the custom of the house? It seemed
to me that my good fortune in having a stainless husband was a
special eyesore to her. He, however, felt more the sorrow of her
lot than the defects of her character.
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1. The mark of Hindu wifehood and the symbol of all the devotion
that it implies.