"The outside world may want you," he replied.
"If the outside world has got on so long without me, it may go on
for some time longer. It need not pine to death for want of me."
"Let it perish, for all I care! That is not troubling me. I am
thinking about myself."
"Oh, indeed. Tell me what about yourself?"
My husband was silent, with a smile.
I knew his way, and protested at once: "No, no, you are not going
to run away from me like that! I want to have this out with
you."
"Can one ever finish a subject with words?"
"Do stop speaking in riddles. Tell me..."
"What I want is, that I should have you, and you should have me,
more fully in the outside world. That is where we are still in
debt to each other."
"Is anything wanting, then, in the love we have here at home?"
"Here you are wrapped up in me. You know neither what you have,
nor what you want."
"I cannot bear to hear you talk like this."
"I would have you come into the heart of the outer world and meet
reality. Merely going on with your household duties, living all
your life in the world of household conventions and the drudgery
of household tasks--you were not made for that! If we meet, and
recognize each other, in the real world, then only will our love
be true."
"If there be any drawback here to our full recognition of each
other, then I have nothing to say. But as for myself, I feel no
want."
"Well, even if the drawback is only on my side, why shouldn't you
help to remove it?"
Such discussions repeatedly occurred. One day he said: "The
greedy man who is fond of his fish stew has no compunction in
cutting up the fish according to his need. But the man who loves
the fish wants to enjoy it in the water; and if that is
impossible he waits on the bank; and even if he comes back home
without a sight of it he has the consolation of knowing that the
fish is all right. Perfect gain is the best of all; but if that
is impossible, then the next best gain is perfect losing."
I never liked the way my husband had of talking on this subject,
but that is not the reason why I refused to leave the zenana.
His grandmother was still alive. My husband had filled more than
a hundred and twenty per cent of the house with the twentieth
century, against her taste; but she had borne it uncomplaining.
She would have borne it, likewise, if the daughter-in-law [7] of
the Rajah's house had left its seclusion. She was even prepared
for this happening. But I did not consider it important enough
to give her the pain of it. I have read in books that we are
called "caged birds". I cannot speak for others, but I had so
much in this cage of mine that there was not room for it in the
universe--at least that is what I then felt.
The grandmother, in her old age, was very fond of me. At the
bottom of her fondness was the thought that, with the conspiracy
of favourable stars which attended me, I had been able to attract
my husband's love. Were not men naturally inclined to plunge
downwards? None of the others, for all their beauty, had been
able to prevent their husbands going headlong into the burning
depths which consumed and destroyed them. She believed that I
had been the means of extinguishing this fire, so deadly to the
men of the family. So she kept me in the shelter of her bosom,
and trembled if I was in the least bit unwell.
His grandmother did not like the dresses and ornaments my husband
brought from European shops to deck me with. But she reflected:
"Men will have some absurd hobby or other, which is sure to be
expensive. It is no use trying to check their extravagance; one
is glad enough if they stop short of ruin. If my Nikhil had not
been busy dressing up his wife there is no knowing whom else he
might have spent his money on!" So whenever any new dress of
mine arrived she used to send for my husband and make merry over
it.
Thus it came about that it was her taste which changed. The
influence of the modern age fell so strongly upon her, that her
evenings refused to pass if I did not tell her stories out of
English books.
After his grandmother's death, my husband wanted me to go and
live with him in Calcutta. But I could not bring myself to do
that. Was not this our House, which she had kept under her
sheltering care through all her trials and troubles? Would not a
curse come upon me if I deserted it and went off to town? This
was the thought that kept me back, as her empty seat
reproachfully looked up at me. That noble lady had come into
this house at the age of eight, and had died in her seventy-ninth
year. She had not spent a happy life. Fate had hurled shaft
after shaft at her breast, only to draw out more and more the
imperishable spirit within. This great house was hallowed with
her tears. What should I do in the dust of Calcutta, away from
it?
My husband's idea was that this would be a good opportunity for
leaving to my sister-in-law the consolation of ruling over the
household, giving our life, at the same time, more room to branch
out in Calcutta. That is just where my difficulty came in. She
had worried my life out, she ill brooked my husband's happiness,
and for this she was to be rewarded! And what of the day when we
should have to come back here? Should I then get back my seat at
the head?
"What do you want with that seat?" my husband would say. "Are
there not more precious things in life?"
Men never understand these things. They have their nests in the
outside world; they little know the whole of what the household
stands for. In these matters they ought to follow womanly
guidance. Such were my thoughts at that time.
I felt the real point was, that one ought to stand up for one's
rights. To go away, and leave everything in the hands of the
enemy, would be nothing short of owning defeat.
But why did not my husband compel me to go with him to Calcutta?
I know the reason. He did not use his power, just because he had
it.
------
6. The seclusion of the zenana, and all the customs peculiar to
it, are designated by the general term "Purdah", which means
Screen.
7. The prestige of the daughter-in-law is of the first importance
in a Hindu household of rank [Trans.].