V
When I returned, Sandip Babu was tenderly apologetic. "I am
afraid we have spoilt your appetite," he said.
I felt greatly ashamed. Indeed, I had been too indecently quick
over my dinner. With a little calculation, it would become quite
evident that my non-eating had surpassed the eating. But I had
no idea that anyone could have been deliberately calculating.
I suppose Sandip Babu detected my feeling of shame, which only
augmented it. "I was sure," he said, "that you had the impulse
of the wild deer to run away, but it is a great boon that you
took the trouble to keep your promise with me."
I could not think of any suitable reply and so I sat down,
blushing and uncomfortable, at one end of the sofa. The vision
that I had of myself, as the __Shakti__ of Womanhood,
incarnate, crowning Sandip Babu simply with my presence, majestic
and unashamed, failed me altogether.
Sandip Babu deliberately started a discussion with my husband.
He knew that his keen wit flashed to the best effect in an
argument. I have often since observed, that he never lost an
opportunity for a passage at arms whenever I happened to be
present.
He was familiar with my husband's views on the cult of __Bande
Mataram__, and began in a provoking way: "So you do not allow
that there is room for an appeal to the imagination in patriotic
work?"
"It has its place, Sandip, I admit, but I do not believe in
giving it the whole place. I would know my country in its frank
reality, and for this I am both afraid and ashamed to make use of
hypnotic texts of patriotism."
"What you call hypnotic texts I call truth. I truly believe my
country to be my God. I worship Humanity. God manifests Himself
both in man and in his country."
"If that is what you really believe, there should be no
difference for you between man and man, and so between country
and country."
"Quite true. But my powers are limited, so my worship of
Humanity is continued in the worship of my country."
"I have nothing against your worship as such, but how is it you
propose to conduct your worship of God by hating other countries
in which He is equally manifest?"
"Hate is also an adjunct of worship. Arjuna won Mahadeva's
favour by wrestling with him. God will be with us in the end, if
we are prepared to give Him battle."
"If that be so, then those who are serving and those who are
harming the country are both His devotees. Why, then, trouble to
preach patriotism?"
"In the case of one's own country, it is different. There the
heart clearly demands worship."
"If you push the same argument further you can say that since God
is manifested in us, our __self__ has to be worshipped before
all else; because our natural instinct claims it."
"Look here, Nikhil, this is all merely dry logic. Can't you
recognize that there is such a thing as feeling?"
"I tell you the truth, Sandip," my husband replied. "It is my
feelings that are outraged, whenever you try to pass off
injustice as a duty, and unrighteousness as a moral ideal. The
fact, that I am incapable of stealing, is not due to my
possessing logical faculties, but to my having some feeling of
respect for myself and love for ideals."
I was raging inwardly. At last I could keep silent no longer.
"Is not the history of every country," I cried, "whether England,
France, Germany, or Russia, the history of stealing for the sake
of one's own country?"
"They have to answer for these thefts; they are doing so even
now; their history is not yet ended."
"At any rate," interposed Sandip Babu, "why should we not follow
suit? Let us first fill our country's coffers with stolen goods
and then take centuries, like these other countries, to answer
for them, if we must. But, I ask you, where do you find this
'answering' in history?"
"When Rome was answering for her sin no one knew it. All that
time, there was apparently no limit to her prosperity. But do
you not see one thing: how these political bags of theirs are
bursting with lies and treacheries, breaking their backs under
their weight?"
Never before had I had any opportunity of being present at a
discussion between my husband and his men friends. Whenever he
argued with me I could feel his reluctance to push me into a
corner. This arose out of the very love he bore me. Today for
the first time I saw his fencer's skill in debate.
Nevertheless, my heart refused to accept my husband's position.
I was struggling to find some answer, but it would not come.
When the word "righteousness" comes into an argument, it sounds
ugly to say that a thing can be too good to be useful.
All of a sudden Sandip Babu turned to me with the question: "What
do __you__ say to this?"
"I do not care about fine distinctions," I broke out. "I will
tell you broadly what I feel. I am only human. I am covetous.
I would have good things for my country. If I am obliged, I
would snatch them and filch them. I have anger. I would be
angry for my country's sake. If necessary, I would smite and
slay to avenge her insults. I have my desire to be fascinated,
and fascination must be supplied to me in bodily shape by my
country. She must have some visible symbol casting its spell
upon my mind. I would make my country a Person, and call her
Mother, Goddess, Durga--for whom I would redden the earth with
sacrificial offerings. I am human, not divine."
Sandip Babu leapt to his feet with uplifted arms and shouted
"Hurrah!"--The next moment he corrected himself and cried:
"__Bande Mataram__."
A shadow of pain passed over the face of my husband. He said to
me in a very gentle voice: "Neither am I divine: I am human. And
therefore I dare not permit the evil which is in me to be
exaggerated into an image of my country--never, never!"
Sandip Babu cried out: "See, Nikhil, how in the heart of a woman
Truth takes flesh and blood. Woman knows how to be cruel: her
virulence is like a blind storm. It is beautifully fearful. In
man it is ugly, because it harbours in its centre the gnawing
worms of reason and thought. I tell you, Nikhil, it is our women
who will save the country. This is not the time for nice
scruples. We must be unswervingly, unreasoningly brutal. We
must sin. We must give our women red sandal paste with which to
anoint and enthrone our sin. Don't you remember what the poet
says:
/*
Come, Sin, O beautiful Sin,
Let thy stinging red kisses pour down fiery red wine into our
blood.
Sound the trumpet of imperious evil
And cross our forehead with the wreath of exulting lawlessness,
O Deity of Desecration,
Smear our breasts with the blackest mud of disrepute,
unashamed.
*/
Down with that righteousness, which cannot smilingly bring rack
and ruin."
When Sandip Babu, standing with his head high, insulted at a
moment's impulse all that men have cherished as their highest, in
all countries and in all times, a shiver went right through my
body.
But, with a stamp of his foot, he continued his declamation: "I
can see that you are that beautiful spirit of fire, which burns
the home to ashes and lights up the larger world with its flame.
Give to us the indomitable courage to go to the bottom of Ruin
itself. Impart grace to all that is baneful."
It was not clear to whom Sandip Babu addressed his last appeal.
It might have been She whom he worshipped with his __Bande
Mataram__. It might have been the Womanhood of his country.
Or it might have been its representative, the woman before him.
He would have gone further in the same strain, but my husband
suddenly rose from his seat and touched him lightly on the
shoulder saying: "Sandip, Chandranath Babu is here."
I started and turned round, to find an aged gentleman at the
door, calm and dignified, in doubt as to whether he should come
in or retire. His face was touched with a gentle light like that
of the setting sun.
My husband came up to me and whispered: "This is my master, of
whom I have so often told you. Make your obeisance to him."
I bent reverently and took the dust of his feet. He gave me his
blessing saying: "May God protect you always, my little mother."
I was sorely in need of such a blessing at that moment.