Rumour became busy on every side. The police were continually in
and out. The servants of the house were in a great flurry.
Khema, my maid, came up to me and said: "Oh, Rani Mother! for
goodness" sake put away my gold necklace and armlets in your iron
safe." To whom was I to explain that the Rani herself had been
weaving all this network of trouble, and had got caught in it,
too? I had to play the benign protector and take charge of
Khema's ornaments and Thako's savings. The milk-woman, in her
turn, brought along and kept in my room a box in which were a
Benares __sari__ and some other of her valued possessions. "I
got these at your wedding," she told me.
When, tomorrow, my iron safe will be opened in the presence of
these--Khema, Thako, the milk-woman and all the rest ... Let me
not think of it! Let me rather try to think what it will be like
when this third day of Magh comes round again after a year has
passed. Will all the wounds of my home life then be still as
fresh as ever? ...
Amulya writes that he will come later in the evening. I cannot
remain alone with my thoughts, doing nothing. So I sit down
again to make cakes for him. I have finished making quite a
quantity, but still I must go on. Who will eat them? I shall
distribute them amongst the servants. I must do so this very
night. Tonight is my limit. Tomorrow will not be in my hands.
I went on untiringly, frying cake after cake. Every now and then
it seemed to me that there was some noise in the direction of my
rooms, upstairs. Could it be that my husband had missed the key
of the safe, and the Bara Rani had assembled all the servants to
help him to hunt for it? No, I must not pay heed to these
sounds. Let me shut the door.
I rose to do so, when Thako came panting in: "Rani Mother, oh,
Rani Mother!"
"Oh get away!" I snapped out, cutting her short. "Don't come
bothering me."
"The Bara Rani Mother wants you," she went on. "Her nephew has
brought such a wonderful machine from Calcutta. It talks like a
man. Do come and hear it!"
I did not know whether to laugh or to cry. So, of all things, a
gramophone needs must come on the scene at such a time, repeating
at every winding the nasal twang of its theatrical songs! What a
fearsome thing results when a machine apes a man.
The shades of evening began to fall. I knew that Amulya would
not delay to announce himself--yet I could not wait. I summone
d a servant and said: "Go and tell Amulya Babu to come straight
in here." The man came back after a while to say that Amulya was
not in--he had not come back since he had gone.
"Gone!" The last word struck my ears like a wail in the
gathering darkness. Amulya gone! Had he then come like a streak
of light from the setting sun, only to be gone for ever? All
kinds of possible and impossible dangers flitted through my mind.
It was I who had sent him to his death. What if he was fearless?
That only showed his own greatness of heart. But after this how
was Ito go on living all by myself?
I had no memento of Amulya save that pistol--his reverence-
offering. It seemed to me that this was a sign given by
Providence. This guilt which had contaminated my life at its
very root--my God in the form of a child had left with me the
means of wiping it away, and then vanished. Oh the loving gift--
the saving grave that lay hidden within it!
I opened my box and took out the pistol, lifting it reverently to
my forehead. At that moment the gongs clanged out from the
temple attached to our house. I prostrated myself in salutation.
In the evening I feasted the whole household with my cakes. "You
have managed a wonderful birthday feast--and all by yourself
too!" exclaimed my sister-in-law. "But you must leave something
for us to do." With this she turned on her gramophone and let
loose the shrill treble of the Calcutta actresses all over the
place. It seemed like a stable full of neighing fillies.
It got quite late before the feasting was over. I had a sudden
longing to end my birthday celebration by taking the dust of my
husband's feet. I went up to the bedroom and found him fast
asleep. He had had such a worrying, trying day. I raised the
edge of the mosquito curtain very very gently, and laid my head
near his feet. My hair must have touched him, for he moved his
legs in his sleep and pushed my head away.
I then went out and sat in the west verandah. A silk-cotton
tree, which had shed all its leaves, stood there in the distance,
like a skeleton. Behind it the crescent moon was setting. All
of a sudden I had the feeling that the very stars in the sky were
afraid of me--that the whole of the night world was looking
askance at me. Why? Because I was alone.
There is nothing so strange in creation as the man who is alone.
Even he whose near ones have all died, one by one, is not alone--
companionship comes for him from behind the screen of death. But
he, whose kin are there, yet no longer near, who has dropped out
of all the varied companionship of a full home--the starry
universe itself seems to bristle to look on him in his darkness.
Where I am, I am not. I am far away from those who are around
me. I live and move upon a world-wide chasm of separation,
unstable as the dew-drop upon the lotus leaf.
Why do not men change wholly when they change? When I look into
my heart, I find everything that was there, still there--only
they are topsy-turvy. Things that were well-ordered have become
jumbled up. The gems that were strung into a necklace are now
rolling in the dust. And so my heart is breaking.
I feel I want to die. Yet in my heart everything still lives--
nor even in death can I see the end of it all: rather, in death
there seems to be ever so much more of repining. What is to be
ended must be ended in this life--there is no other way out.
Oh forgive me just once, only this time, Lord! All that you gave
into my hands as the wealth of my life, I have made into my
burden. I can neither bear it longer, nor give it up. O Lord,
sound once again those flute strains which you played for me,
long ago, standing at the rosy edge of my morning sky--and let
all my complexities become simple and easy. Nothing save the
music of your flute can make whole that which has been broken,
and pure that which has been sullied. Create my home anew with
your music. No other way can I see.
I threw myself prone on the ground and sobbed aloud. It was for
mercy that I prayed--some little mercy from somewhere, some
shelter, some sign of forgiveness, some hope that might bring
about the end. "Lord," I vowed to myself, "I will lie here,
waiting and waiting, touching neither food nor drink, so long as
your blessing does not reach me."
I heard the sound of footsteps. Who says that the gods do not
show themselves to mortal men? I did not raise my face to look
up, lest the sight of it should break the spell. Come, oh come,
come and let your feet touch my head. Come, Lord, and set your
foot upon my throbbing heart, and at that moment let me die.
He came and sat near my head. Who? My husband! At the first
touch of his presence I felt that I should swoon. And then the
pain at my heart burst its way out in an overwhelming flood of
tears, tearing through all my obstructing veins and nerves. I
strained his feet to my bosom--oh, why could not their impress
remain there for ever?
He tenderly stroked my head. I received his blessing. Now I
shall be able to take up the penalty of public humiliation which
will be mine tomorrow, and offer it, in all sincerity, at the
feet of my God.
But what keeps crushing my heart is the thought that the festive
flutes which were played at my wedding, nine years ago, welcoming
me to this house, will never sound for me again in this life.
What rigour of penance is there which can serve to bring me once
more, as a bride adorned for her husband, to my place upon that
same bridal seat? How many years, how many ages, aeons, must
pass before I can find my way back to that day of nine years ago?
God can create new things, but has even He the power to create
afresh that which has been destroyed?