_Bishu_
Why, what has she done?
_Gôkul_
She does nothing, that’s the rub. I don’t understand the way she goes
on.
_Chandrá_
To see her flaunting her prettiness all over the place makes me sick.
_Gôkul_
We can trust features that are plain enough to understand.
_Bishu_
I know the atmosphere of this place breeds contempt for beauty. There
must be beauty even in hell; but nobody there can understand it,
that’s their cruellest punishment.
_Chandrá_
Maybe we are fools, but even our Governor here can’t stand her--d’you
know that?
_Bishu_
Take care, Chandrá, lest you catch the infection of our Governor’s
eyes--then perhaps yours too will redden at the sight of us. What say
you, Phágulal?
_Phágulal_
To tell you the truth, brother, when I see Nandini, I feel ashamed to
think of myself. I can’t utter a word when she’s there.
_Gôkul_
The day will come when you’ll know her to your cost,--perhaps too
late.
[_Goes._
_Phágulal_
Bishu, your friend Chandrá wants to know why we drink.
_Bishu_
God in his mercy has everywhere provided a liberal allowance of
drink. We men with our arms supply the output of our muscles, you
women with yours supply the wine of embraces. In this world there is
hunger to force us to work; but there’s also the green of the woods,
the gold of the sunshine, to make us drunk with their holiday-call.
_Chandrá_
You call these things _drink_?
_Bishu_
Yes, drinks of life, an endless stream of intoxication. Take my case.
I come to this place; I am set to work burgling the underworld; for
me nature’s own ration of spirits is stopped; so my inner man craves
the artificial wine of the market place.
(_Sings_)
_My life, your sap has run dry,
Fill then the cup with the wine of death,
That flushes all emptiness with its laughter._
_Chandrá_
Come, brother, let us fly from here.
_Bishu_
To that boundless tavern, underneath the blue canopy? Alas, the road
is closed, and we seek consolation in the stolen wine of the prison
house. No open sky, no leisure for us; so we have distilled the
essence of all the song and laughter, all the sunlight of the twelve
hours’ day into one draught of liquid fire.
(_Sings_)
_Thy sun is hidden amid a mass of murky cloud.
Thy day has smudged itself black in dusty toil.
Then let the dark night descend
the last comrade of drunken oblivion.
Let it cover thy tired eyes with the mist
that will help thee desperately to lose thyself._
_Chandrá_
Well, well, Bishu, you men have gone to the dogs in Yaksha Town, if
you like, but we women haven’t changed at all.
_Bishu_
Haven’t you? Your flowers have faded, and you are all slavering for
gold.
_Chandrá_
No, never!
_Bishu_
I say, yes. That Phágulal toils for hours over and above the
twelve,--why? For a reason unknown to him, unknown even to you. But
_I_ know. It’s your dream of gold that lashes him on to work, more
severely than the foreman’s whip.
_Chandrá_
Very well. Then why don’t we fly from here, and go back home?
_Bishu_
Your Governor has closed the way as well as the will to return. If
you go there to-day you will fly back here to-morrow, like a caged
bird to its cage, hankering for its drugged food.
_Phágulal_
I say, Bishu, once upon a time you came very near spoiling your
eyesight poring over books; how is it they made you ply the spade
along with the rest of us stupid boors?
_Chandrá_
All this time we’ve been here, we haven’t got from Bishu the answer
to this particular question.
_Phágulal_
Yet we all know it.
_Bishu_
Well, out with it then!
_Phágulal_
They employed you to spy on us.
_Bishu_
If you knew that, how is it you let me off alive?
_Phágulal_
But, we knew also, that game was not in your line.
_Chandrá_
How is it you couldn’t stick to such a comfortable job, brother?
_Bishu_
Comfortable job? To stick to a living being like a carbuncle on his
back?