I
One day I had the faith to believe that I should be able to bear
whatever came from my God. I never had the trial. Now I think
it has come.
I used to test my strength of mind by imagining all kinds of evil
which might happen to me--poverty, imprisonment, dishonour,
death--even Bimala's. And when I said to myself that I should be
able to receive these with firmness, I am sure I did not
exaggerate. Only I could never even imagine one thing, and today
it is that of which I am thinking, and wondering whether I can
really bear it. There is a thorn somewhere pricking in my heart,
constantly giving me pain while I am about my daily work. It
seems to persist even when I am asleep. The very moment I wake
up in the morning, I find that the bloom has gone from the face
of the sky. What is it? What has happened?
My mind has become so sensitive, that even my past life, which
came to me in the disguise of happiness, seems to wring my very
heart with its falsehood; and the shame and sorrow which are
coming close to me are losing their cover of privacy, all the
more because they try to veil their faces. My heart has become
all eyes. The things that should not be seen, the things I do
not want to see--these I must see.
The day has come at last when my ill-starred life has to reveal
its destitution in a long-drawn series of exposures. This
penury, all unexpected, has taken its seat in the heart where
plenitude seemed to reign. The fees which I paid to delusion for
just nine years of my youth have now to be returned with interest
to Truth till the end of my days.
What is the use of straining to keep up my pride? What harm if I
confess that I have something lacking in me? Possibly it is that
unreasoning forcefulness which women love to find in men. But is
strength mere display of muscularity? Must strength have no
scruples in treading the weak underfoot?
But why all these arguments? Worthiness cannot be earned merely
by disputing about it. And I am unworthy, unworthy, unworthy.
What if I am unworthy? The true value of love is this, that it
can ever bless the unworthy with its own prodigality. For the
worthy there are many rewards on God's earth, but God has
specially reserved love for the unworthy.
Up till now Bimala was my home-made Bimala, the product of the
confined space and the daily routine of small duties. Did the
love which I received from her, I asked myself, come from the
deep spring of her heart, or was it merely like the daily
provision of pipe water pumped up by the municipal steam-engine
of society?
I longed to find Bimala blossoming fully in all her truth and
power. But the thing I forgot to calculate was, that one must
give up all claims based on conventional rights, if one would
find a person freely revealed in truth.
Why did I fail to think of this? Was it because of the husband's
pride of possession over his wife? No. It was because I placed
the fullest trust upon love. I was vain enough to think that I
had the power in me to bear the sight of truth in its awful
nakedness. It was tempting Providence, but still I clung to my
proud determination to come out victorious in the trial.
Bimala had failed to understand me in one thing. She could not
fully realize that I held as weakness all imposition of force.
Only the weak dare not be just. They shirk their responsibility
of fairness and try quickly to get at results through the short-
cuts of injustice. Bimala has no patience with patience. She
loves to find in men the turbulent, the angry, the unjust. Her
respect must have its element of fear.
I had hoped that when Bimala found herself free in the outer
world she would be rescued from her infatuation for tyranny. But
now I feel sure that this infatuation is deep down in her nature.
Her love is for the boisterous. From the tip of her tongue to
the pit of her stomach she must tingle with red pepper in order
to enjoy the simple fare of life. But my determination was,
never to do my duty with frantic impetuosity, helped on by the
fiery liquor of excitement. I know Bimala finds it difficult to
respect me for this, taking my scruples for feebleness--and she
is quite angry with me because I am not running amuck crying
__Bande Mataram__.
For the matter of that, I have become unpopular with all my
countrymen because I have not joined them in their carousals.
They are certain that either I have a longing for some title, or
else that I am afraid of the police. The police on their side
suspect me of harbouring some hidden design and protesting too
much in my mildness.
What I really feel is this, that those who cannot find food for
their enthusiasm in a knowledge of their country as it actually
is, or those who cannot love men just because they are men--who
needs must shout and deify their country in order to keep up
their excitement--these love excitement more than their country.
To try to give our infatuation a higher place than Truth is a
sign of inherent slavishness. Where our minds are free we find
ourselves lost. Our moribund vitality must have for its rider
either some fantasy, or someone in authority, or a sanction from
the pundits, in order to make it move. So long as we are
impervious to truth and have to be moved by some hypnotic
stimulus, we must know that we lack the capacity for self-
government. Whatever may be our condition, we shall either need
some imaginary ghost or some actual medicine-man to terrorize
over us.
The other day when Sandip accused me of lack of imagination,
saying that this prevented me from realizing my country in a
visible image, Bimala agreed with him. I did not say anything in
my defence, because to win in argument does not lead to
happiness. Her difference of opinion is not due to any
inequality of intelligence, but rather to dissimilarity of
nature.
They accuse me of being unimaginative--that is, according to
them, I may have oil in my lamp, but no flame. Now this is
exactly the accusation which I bring against them. I would say
to them: "You are dark, even as the flints are. You must come to
violent conflicts and make a noise in order to produce your
sparks. But their disconnected flashes merely assist your pride,
and not your clear vision."
I have been noticing for some time that there is a gross cupidity
about Sandip. His fleshly feelings make him harbour delusions
about his religion and impel him into a tyrannical attitude in
his patriotism. His intellect is keen, but his nature is coarse,
and so he glorifies his selfish lusts under high-sounding names.
The cheap consolations of hatred are as urgently necessary for
him as the satisfaction of his appetites. Bimala has often
warned me, in the old days, of his hankering after money. I
understood this, but I could not bring myself to haggle with
Sandip. I felt ashamed even to own to myself that he was trying
to take advantage of me.
It will, however, be difficult to explain to Bimala today that
Sandip's love of country is but a different phase of his covetous
self-love. Bimala's hero-worship of Sandip makes me hesitate all
the more to talk to her about him, lest some touch of jealousy
may lead me unwittingly into exaggeration. It may be that the
pain at my heart is already making me see a distorted picture of
Sandip. And yet it is better perhaps to speak out than to keep
my feelings gnawing within me.