"Where have you kept it, then?" asked my sister-in-law.
"I have spent it."
"Just listen to her! Whatever did you spend all that money on?"
Bimal made no reply. I asked her nothing further. The Bara Rani
seemed about to make some further remark to Bimala, but checked
herself. "Well, that is all right, anyway," she said at length,
as she looked towards me. "Just what I used to do with my
husband's loose cash. I knew it was no use leaving it with him--
his hundred and one hangers-on would be sure to get hold of it.
You are much the same, dear! What a number of ways you men know
of getting through money. We can only save it from you by
stealing it ourselves! Come along now. Off with you to bed."
The Bara Rani led me to my room, but I hardly knew where I was
going. She sat by my bed after I was stretched on it, and smiled
at Bimal as she said: "Give me one of your pans, Chotie darling--
what? You have none! You have become a regular mem-sahib. Then
send for some from my room."
"But have you had your dinner yet?" I anxiously enquired.
"Oh long ago," she replied--clearly a fib.
She kept on chattering away there at my bedside, on all manner of
things. The maid came and told Bimal that her dinner had been
served and was getting cold, but she gave no sign of having heard
it. "Not had your dinner yet? What nonsense! It's fearfully
late." With this the Bara Rani took Bimal away with her.
I could divine that there was some connection between the taking
out of this six thousand and the robbing of the other. But I
have no curiosity to learn the nature of it. I shall never ask.
Providence leaves our life moulded in the rough--its object being
that we ourselves should put the finishing touches, shaping it
into its final form to our taste. There has always been the
hankering within me to express some great idea in the process of
giving shape to my life on the lines suggested by the Creator.
In this endeavour I have spent all my days. How severely I have
curbed my desires, repressed myself at every step, only the
Searcher of the Heart knows.
But the difficulty is, that one's life is not solely one's own.
He who would create it must do so with the help of his
surroundings, or he will fail. So it was my constant dream to
draw Bimal to join me in this work of creating myself. I loved
her with all my soul; on the strength of that, I could not but
succeed in winning her to my purpose--that was my firm belief.
Then I discovered that those who could simply and naturally draw
their environment into the process of their self-creation
belonged to one species of the genus "man",--and I to another. I
had received the vital spark, but could not impart it. Those to
whom I have surrendered my all have taken my all, but not myself
with it.
My trial is hard indeed. Just when I want a helpmate most, I am
thrown back on myself alone. Nevertheless, I record my vow that
even in this trial I shall win through. Alone, then, shall I
tread my thorny path to the end of this life's journey ...
I have begun to suspect that there has all along been a vein of
tyranny in me. There was a despotism in my desire to mould my
relations with Bimala in a hard, clear-cut, perfect form. But
man's life was not meant to be cast in a mould. And if we try to
shape the good, as so much mere material, it takes a terrible
revenge by losing its life.
I did not realize all this while that it must have been this
unconscious tyranny of mine which made us gradually drift apart.
Bimala's life, not finding its true level by reason of my
pressure from above, has had to find an outlet by undermining its
banks at the bottom. She has had to steal this six thousand
rupees because she could not be open with me, because she felt
that, in certain things, I despotically differed from her.
Men, such as I, possessed with one idea, are indeed at one with
those who can manage to agree with us; but those who do not, can
only get on with us by cheating us. It is our unyielding
obstinacy, which drives even the simplest to tortuous ways. In
trying to manufacture a helpmate, we spoil a wife.
Could I not go back to the beginning? Then, indeed, I should
follow the path of the simple. I should not try to fetter my
life's companion with my ideas, but play the joyous pipes of my
love and say: "Do you love me? Then may you grow true to
yourself in the light of your love. Let my suggestions be
suppressed, let God's design, which is in you, triumph, and my
ideas retire abashed."
But can even Nature's nursing heal the open wound, into which our
accumulated differences have broken out? The covering veil,
beneath the privacy of which Nature's silent forces alone can
work, has been torn asunder. Wounds must be bandaged--can we not
bandage our wound with our love, so that the day may come when
its scar will no longer be visible? It is not too late? So much
time has been lost in misunderstanding; it has taken right up to
now to come to an understanding; how much more time will it take
for the correcting? What if the wound does eventually heal?--can
the devastation it has wrought ever be made good?
There was a slight sound near the door. As I turned over I saw
Bimala's retreating figure through the open doorway. She must
have been waiting by the door, hesitating whether to come in or
not, and at last have decided to go back. I jumped up and
bounded to the door, calling: "Bimal."
She stopped on her way. She had her back to me. I went and took
her by the hand and led her into our room. She threw herself
face downwards on a pillow, and sobbed and sobbed. I said
nothing, but held her hand as I sat by her head.
When her storm of grief had abated she sat up. I tried to draw
her to my breast, but she pushed my arms away and knelt at my
feet, touching them repeatedly with her head, in obeisance. I
hastily drew my feet back, but she clasped them in her arms,
saying in a choking voice: "No, no, no, you must not take away
your feet. Let me do my worship."
I kept still. Who was I to stop her? Was I the god of her
worship that I should have any qualms?