The Home And The World By Rabindranath Tagore

The Home and the World Rabindranath Tagore [1861-1941] Translated [from Bengali to English]by Surendranath Tagore London: Macmillan, 1919[published in India, 1915, 1916] [Frontispiece: –see woman.jpg] Chapter One Bimala’s Story I MOTHER, today there comes back to mind the vermilion mark [1] at the parting of your hair, the sari [2] which you used to wear, with its wide red border, and those wonderful eyes of yours, full of depth and peace. They came at the start of my life’s journey, like the first streak of dawn, giving me golden provision to carry me on my way. The sky which gives light is blue, and my mother’s face was dark, but she had the radiance of holiness, and her beauty would put to shame all the vanity of the beautiful. Everyone says that I resemble my mother. In my childhood I used to resent this. It made me angry with my mirror. I thought that it was God’s unfairness which was wrapped round my limbs–that my dark features were not my due, but had come to me by some misunderstanding. All that remained for me to ask of my God in reparation was, that I might grow up to be a model of what woman should be, as one reads it in some epic poem. When the proposal came for my marriage, an astrologer was sent, who consulted my palm and said, “This girl has good signs. She will become an ideal wife.” And all the women who heard it said: “No wonder, for she resembles her mother.” I was married into a Rajah’s house. When I was a child, I was quite familiar with the description of the Prince of the fairy story. But my husband’s face was not of a kind that one’s imagination would place in fairyland. It was dark, even as mine was. The feeling of shrinking, which I had about my own lack of physical beauty, was lifted a little; at the same time a touch of regret was left lingering in my heart. But when the physical appearance evades the scrutiny of our senses and enters the sanctuary of our hearts, then it can forget itself. I know, from my childhood’s experience, how devotion is beauty itself, in its inner aspect. When my mother arranged the different fruits, carefully peeled by her own loving hands, on the white stone plate, and gently waved her fan to drive away the flies while my father sat down to his meals, her service would lose itself in a beauty which passed beyond outward forms. Even in my infancy I could feel its power. It transcended all debates, or doubts, or calculations: it was pure music. I distinctly remember after my marriage, when, early in the morning, I would cautiously and silently get up and take the dust [3] of my husband’s feet without waking him, how at such moments I could feel the vermilion mark upon my forehead shining out like the morning star. One day, he happened to awake, and smiled as he asked me: “What is that, Bimala? What are you doing?” I can never forget the shame of being detected by him. He might possibly have thought that I was trying to earn merit secretly. But no, no! That had nothing to do with merit. It was my woman’s heart, which must worship in order to love. My father-in-law’s house was old in dignity from the days of the Badshahs. Some of its manners were of the Moguls and Pathans, some of its customs of Manu and Parashar. But my husband was absolutely modern. He was the first of the house to go through a college course and take his M.A. degree. His elder brother had died young, of drink, and had left no children. My husband did not drink and was not given to dissipation. So foreign to the family was this abstinence, that to many it hardly seemed decent! Purity, they imagined, was only becoming in those on whom fortune had not smiled. It is the moon which has room for stains, not the stars. My husband’s parents had died long ago, and his old grandmother was mistress of the house. My husband was the apple of her eye, the jewel on her bosom. And so he never met with much difficulty in overstepping any of the ancient usages. When he brought in Miss Gilby, to teach me and be my companion, he stuck to his resolve in spite of the poison secreted by all the wagging tongues at home and outside. My husband had then just got through his B.A. examination and was reading for his M.A. degree; so he had to stay in Calcutta to attend college. He used to write to me almost every day, a few lines only, and simple words, but his bold, round handwriting would look up into my face, oh, so tenderly! I kept his letters in a sandalwood box and covered them every day with the flowers I gathered in the garden. At that time the Prince of the fairy tale had faded, like the moon in the morning light. I had the Prince of my real world enthroned in my heart. I was his queen. I had my seat by his side. But my real joy was, that my true place was at his feet. Since then, I have been educated, and introduced to the modern age in its own language, and therefore these words that I write seem to blush with shame in their prose setting. Except for my acquaintance with this modern standard of life, I should know, quite naturally, that just as my being born a woman was not in my own hands, so the element of devotion in woman’s love is not like a hackneyed passage quoted from a romantic poem to be piously written down in round hand in a school-girl’s copy-book. But my husband would not give me any opportunity for worship. That was his greatness. They are cowards who claim absolute devotion from their wives as their right; that is a humiliation for both. His love for me seemed to overflow my limits by its flood of wealth and service. But my necessity was more for giving than for receiving; for love is a vagabond, who can make his flowers bloom in the wayside dust, better than in the crystal jars kept in the drawing-room. My husband could not break completely with the old-time traditions which prevailed in our family. It was difficult, therefore, for us to meet at any hour of the day we pleased. [4] I knew exactly the time that he could come to me, and therefore our meeting had all the care of loving preparation. It was like the rhyming of a poem; it had to come through the path of the metre. After finishing the day’s work and taking my afternoon bath, I would do up my hair and renew my vermilion mark and put on my sari, carefully crinkled; and then, bringing back my body and mind from all distractions of household duties, I would dedicate it at this special hour, with special ceremonies, to one individual. That time, each day, with him was short; but it was infinite. My husband used to say, that man and wife are equal in love because of their equal claim on each other. I never argued the point with him, but my heart said that devotion never stands in the way of true equality; it only raises the level of the ground of meeting. Therefore the joy of the higher equality remains permanent; it never slides down to the vulgar level of triviality. My beloved, it was worthy of you that you never expected worship from me. But if you had accepted it, you would have done me a real service. You showed your love by decorating me, by educating me, by giving me what I asked for, and what I did not. I have seen what depth of love there was in your eyes when you gazed at me. I have known the secret sigh of pain you suppressed in your love for me. You loved my body as if it were a flower of paradise. You loved my whole nature as if it had been given you by some rare providence. Such lavish devotion made me proud to think that the wealth was all my own which drove you to my gate. But vanity such as this only checks the flow of free surrender in a woman’s love. When I sit on the queen’s throne and claim homage, then the claim only goes on magnifying itself; it is never satisfied. Can there be any real happiness for a woman in merely feeling that she has power over a man? To surrender one’s pride in devotion is woman’s only salvation. It comes back to me today how, in the days of our happiness, the fires of envy sprung up all around us. That was only natural, for had I not stepped into my good fortune by a mere chance, and without deserving it? But providence does not allow a run of luck to last for ever, unless its debt of honour be fully paid, day by day, through many a long day, and thus made secure. God may grant us gifts, but the merit of being able to take and hold them must be our own. Alas for the boons that slip through unworthy hands! My husband’s grandmother and mother were both renowned for their beauty. And my widowed sister-in-law was also of a beauty rarely to be seen. When, in turn, fate left them desolate, the grandmother vowed she would not insist on having beauty for her remaining grandson when he married. Only the auspicious marks with which I was endowed gained me an entry into this family– otherwise, I had no claim to be here. In this house of luxury, but few of its ladies had received their meed of respect. They had, however, got used to the ways of the family, and managed to keep their heads above water, buoyed up by their dignity as Ranis of an ancient house, in spite of their daily tears being drowned in the foam of wine, and by the tinkle of the “dancing girls” anklets. Was the credit due to me that my husband did not touch liquor, nor squander his manhood in the markets of woman’s flesh? What charm did I know to soothe the wild and wandering mind of men? It was my good luck, nothing else. For fate proved utterly callous to my sister-in-law. Her festivity died out, while yet the evening was early, leaving the light of her beauty shining in vain over empty halls–burning and burning, with no accompanying music! His sister-in-law affected a contempt for my husband’s modern notions. How absurd to keep the family ship, laden with all the weight of its time-honoured glory, sailing under the colours of his slip of a girl-wife alone! Often have I felt the lash of scorn. “A thief who had stolen a husband’s love!” “A sham hidden in the shamelessness of her new-fangled finery!” The many-coloured garments of modern fashion with which my husband loved to adorn me roused jealous wrath. “Is not she ashamed to make a show-window of herself–and with her looks, too!” My husband was aware of all this, but his gentleness knew no bounds. He used to implore me to forgive her. I remember I once told him: “Women’s minds are so petty, so crooked!” “Like the feet of Chinese women,” he replied. “Has not the pressure of society cramped them into pettiness and crookedness? They are but pawns of the fate which gambles with them. What responsibility have they of their own?” My sister-in-law never failed to get from my husband whatever she wanted. He did not stop to consider whether her requests were right or reasonable. But what exasperated me most was that she was not grateful for this. I had promised my husband that I would not talk back at her, but this set me raging all the more, inwardly. I used to feel that goodness has a limit, which, if passed, somehow seems to make men cowardly. Shall I tell the whole truth? I have often wished that my husband had the manliness to be a little less good. My sister-in-law, the Bara Rani, [5] was still young and had no pretensions to saintliness. Rather, her talk and jest and laugh inclined to be forward. The young maids with whom she surrounded herself were also impudent to a degree. But there was none to gainsay her–for was not this the custom of the house? It seemed to me that my good fortune in having a stainless husband was a special eyesore to her. He, however, felt more the sorrow of her lot than the defects of her character. ——

1. The mark of Hindu wifehood and the symbol of all the devotion that it implies.
2. The sari is the dress of the Hindu woman.
3. Taking the dust of the feet is a formal offering of reverence and is done by lightly touching the feet of the revered one and then one’s own head with the same hand. The wife does not ordinarily do this to the husband.
4. It would not be reckoned good form for the husband to be continually going into the zenana, except at particular hours for meals or rest.
5. Bara = Senior; Chota = Junior. In joint families of rank, though the widows remain entitled only to a life-interest in their husbands’ share, their rank remains to them according to seniority, and the titles “Senior” and “Junior” continue to distinguish the elder and younger branches, even though the junior branch be the one in power. II My husband was very eager to take me out of purdah. [6] One day I said to him: “What do I want with the outside world?” “The outside world may want you,” he replied. “If the outside world has got on so long without me, it may go on for some time longer. It need not pine to death for want of me.” “Let it perish, for all I care! That is not troubling me. I am thinking about myself.” “Oh, indeed. Tell me what about yourself?” My husband was silent, with a smile. I knew his way, and protested at once: “No, no, you are not going to run away from me like that! I want to have this out with you.” “Can one ever finish a subject with words?” “Do stop speaking in riddles. Tell me…” “What I want is, that I should have you, and you should have me, more fully in the outside world. That is where we are still in debt to each other.” “Is anything wanting, then, in the love we have here at home?” “Here you are wrapped up in me. You know neither what you have, nor what you want.” “I cannot bear to hear you talk like this.” “I would have you come into the heart of the outer world and meet reality. Merely going on with your household duties, living all your life in the world of household conventions and the drudgery of household tasks–you were not made for that! If we meet, and recognize each other, in the real world, then only will our love be true.” “If there be any drawback here to our full recognition of each other, then I have nothing to say. But as for myself, I feel no want.” “Well, even if the drawback is only on my side, why shouldn’t you help to remove it?” Such discussions repeatedly occurred. One day he said: “The greedy man who is fond of his fish stew has no compunction in cutting up the fish according to his need. But the man who loves the fish wants to enjoy it in the water; and if that is impossible he waits on the bank; and even if he comes back home without a sight of it he has the consolation of knowing that the fish is all right. Perfect gain is the best of all; but if that is impossible, then the next best gain is perfect losing.” I never liked the way my husband had of talking on this subject, but that is not the reason why I refused to leave the zenana. His grandmother was still alive. My husband had filled more than a hundred and twenty per cent of the house with the twentieth century, against her taste; but she had borne it uncomplaining. She would have borne it, likewise, if the daughter-in-law [7] of the Rajah’s house had left its seclusion. She was even prepared for this happening. But I did not consider it important enough to give her the pain of it. I have read in books that we are called “caged birds”. I cannot speak for others, but I had so much in this cage of mine that there was not room for it in the universe–at least that is what I then felt. The grandmother, in her old age, was very fond of me. At the bottom of her fondness was the thought that, with the conspiracy of favourable stars which attended me, I had been able to attract my husband’s love. Were not men naturally inclined to plunge downwards? None of the others, for all their beauty, had been able to prevent their husbands going headlong into the burning depths which consumed and destroyed them. She believed that I had been the means of extinguishing this fire, so deadly to the men of the family. So she kept me in the shelter of her bosom, and trembled if I was in the least bit unwell. His grandmother did not like the dresses and ornaments my husband brought from European shops to deck me with. But she reflected: “Men will have some absurd hobby or other, which is sure to be expensive. It is no use trying to check their extravagance; one is glad enough if they stop short of ruin. If my Nikhil had not been busy dressing up his wife there is no knowing whom else he might have spent his money on!” So whenever any new dress of mine arrived she used to send for my husband and make merry over it. Thus it came about that it was her taste which changed. The influence of the modern age fell so strongly upon her, that her evenings refused to pass if I did not tell her stories out of English books. After his grandmother’s death, my husband wanted me to go and live with him in Calcutta. But I could not bring myself to do that. Was not this our House, which she had kept under her sheltering care through all her trials and troubles? Would not a curse come upon me if I deserted it and went off to town? This was the thought that kept me back, as her empty seat reproachfully looked up at me. That noble lady had come into this house at the age of eight, and had died in her seventy-ninth year. She had not spent a happy life. Fate had hurled shaft after shaft at her breast, only to draw out more and more the imperishable spirit within. This great house was hallowed with her tears. What should I do in the dust of Calcutta, away from it? My husband’s idea was that this would be a good opportunity for leaving to my sister-in-law the consolation of ruling over the household, giving our life, at the same time, more room to branch out in Calcutta. That is just where my difficulty came in. She had worried my life out, she ill brooked my husband’s happiness, and for this she was to be rewarded! And what of the day when we should have to come back here? Should I then get back my seat at the head? “What do you want with that seat?” my husband would say. “Are there not more precious things in life?” Men never understand these things. They have their nests in the outside world; they little know the whole of what the household stands for. In these matters they ought to follow womanly guidance. Such were my thoughts at that time. I felt the real point was, that one ought to stand up for one’s rights. To go away, and leave everything in the hands of the enemy, would be nothing short of owning defeat. But why did not my husband compel me to go with him to Calcutta? I know the reason. He did not use his power, just because he had it. ——
6. The seclusion of the zenana, and all the customs peculiar to it, are designated by the general term “Purdah”, which means Screen.
7. The prestige of the daughter-in-law is of the first importance in a Hindu household of rank [Trans.]. III IF one had to fill in, little by little, the gap between day and night, it would take an eternity to do it. But the sun rises and the darkness is dispelled–a moment is sufficient to overcome an infinite distance. One day there came the new era of Swadeshi [8] in Bengal; but as to how it happened, we had no distinct vision. There was no gradual slope connecting the past with the present. For that reason, I imagine, the new epoch came in like a flood, breaking down the dykes and sweeping all our prudence and fear before it. We had no time even to think about, or understand, what had happened, or what was about to happen. My sight and my mind, my hopes and my desires, became red with the passion of this new age. Though, up to this time, the walls of the home–which was the ultimate world to my mind–remained unbroken, yet I stood looking over into the distance, and I heard a voice from the far horizon, whose meaning was not perfectly clear to me, but whose call went straight to my heart. From the time my husband had been a college student he had been trying to get the things required by our people produced in our own country. There are plenty of date trees in our district. He tried to invent an apparatus for extracting the juice and boiling it into sugar and treacle. I heard that it was a great success, only it extracted more money than juice. After a while he came to the conclusion that our attempts at reviving our industries were not succeeding for want of a bank of our own. He was, at the time, trying to teach me political economy. This alone would not have done much harm, but he also took it into his head to teach his countrymen ideas of thrift, so as to pave the way for a bank; and then he actually started a small bank. Its high rate of interest, which made the villagers flock so enthusiastically to put in their money, ended by swamping the bank altogether. The old officers of the estate felt troubled and frightened. There was jubilation in the enemy’s camp. Of all the family, only my husband’s grandmother remained unmoved. She would scold me, saying: “Why are you all plaguing him so? Is it the fate of the estate that is worrying you? How many times have I seen this estate in the hands of the court receiver! Are men like women? Men are born spendthrifts and only know how to waste. Look here, child, count yourself fortunate that your husband is not wasting himself as well!” My husband’s list of charities was a long one. He would assist to the bitter end of utter failure anyone who wanted to invent a new loom or rice-husking machine. But what annoyed me most was the way that Sandip Babu [9] used to fleece him on the pretext of Swadeshi work. Whenever he wanted to start a newspaper, or travel about preaching the Cause, or take a change of air by the advice of his doctor, my husband would unquestioningly supply him with the money. This was over and above the regular living allowance which Sandip Babu also received from him. The strangest part of it was that my husband and Sandip Babu did not agree in their opinions. As soon as the Swadeshi storm reached my blood, I said to my husband: “I must burn all my foreign clothes.” “Why burn them?” said he. “You need not wear them as long as you please.” “As long as I please! Not in this life …” “Very well, do not wear them for the rest of your life, then. But why this bonfire business?” “Would you thwart me in my resolve?” “What I want to say is this: Why not try to build up something? You should not waste even a tenth part of your energies in this destructive excitement.” “Such excitement will give us the energy to build.” “That is as much as to say, that you cannot light the house unless you set fire to it.” Then there came another trouble. When Miss Gilby first came to our house there was a great flutter, which afterwards calmed down when they got used to her. Now the whole thing was stirred up afresh. I had never bothered myself before as to whether Miss Gilby was European or Indian, but I began to do so now. I said to my husband: “We must get rid of Miss Gilby.” He kept silent. I talked to him wildly, and he went away sad at heart. After a fit of weeping, I felt in a more reasonable mood when we met at night. “I cannot,” my husband said, “look upon Miss Gilby through a mist of abstraction, just because she is English. Cannot you get over the barrier of her name after such a long acquaintance? Cannot you realize that she loves you?” I felt a little ashamed and replied with some sharpness: “Let her remain. I am not over anxious to send her away.” And Miss Gilby remained. But one day I was told that she had been insulted by a young fellow on her way to church. This was a boy whom we were supporting. My husband turned him out of the house. There was not a single soul, that day, who could forgive my husband for that act–not even I. This time Miss Gilby left of her own accord. She shed tears when she came to say good-bye, but my mood would not melt. To slander the poor boy so–and such a fine boy, too, who would forget his daily bath and food in his enthusiasm for Swadeshi. My husband escorted Miss Gilby to the railway station in his own carriage. I was sure he was going too far. When exaggerated accounts of the incident gave rise to a public scandal, which found its way to the newspapers, I felt he had been rightly served. I had often become anxious at my husband’s doings, but had never before been ashamed; yet now I had to blush for him! I did not know exactly, nor did I care, what wrong poor Noren might, or might not, have done to Miss Gilby, but the idea of sitting in judgement on such a matter at such a time! I should have refused to damp the spirit which prompted young Noren to defy the Englishwoman. I could not but look upon it as a sign of cowardice in my husband, that he should fail to understand this simple thing. And so I blushed for him. And yet it was not that my husband refused to support Swadeshi, or was in any way against the Cause. Only he had not been able whole-heartedly to accept the spirit of Bande Mataram. [10] “I am willing,” he said, “to serve my country; but my worship I reserve for Right which is far greater than my country. To worship my country as a god is to bring a curse upon it.” ——
8. The Nationalist movement, which began more as an economic than a political one, having as its main object the encouragement of indigenous industries [Trans.].
9. “Babu” is a term of respect, like “Father” or “Mister,” but has also meant in colonial days a person who understands some English. [on-line ed.]
10. Lit.: “Hail Mother”; the opening words of a song by Bankim Chatterjee, the famous Bengali novelist. The song has now become the national anthem, and Bande Mataram the national cry, since the days of the Swadeshi movement [Trans.]. Chapter Two Bimala’s Story IV THIS was the time when Sandip Babu with his followers came to our neighbourhood to preach Swadeshi. There is to be a big meeting in our temple pavilion. We women are sitting there, on one side, behind a screen. Triumphant shouts of Bande Mataram come nearer: and to them I am thrilling through and through. Suddenly a stream of barefooted youths in turbans, clad in ascetic ochre, rushes into the quadrangle, like a silt-reddened freshet into a dry river-bed at the first burst of the rains. The whole place is filled with an immense crowd, through which Sandip Babu is borne, seated in a big chair hoisted on the shoulders of ten or twelve of the youths. Bande Mataram! Bande Mataram! Bande Mataram! It seems as though the skies would be rent and scattered into a thousand fragments. I had seen Sandip Babu’s photograph before. There was something in his features which I did not quite like. Not that he was bad- looking–far from it: he had a splendidly handsome face. Yet, I know not why, it seemed to me, in spite of all its brilliance, that too much of base alloy had gone into its making. The light in his eyes somehow did not shine true. That was why I did not like it when my husband unquestioningly gave in to all his demands. I could bear the waste of money; but it vexed me to think that he was imposing on my husband, taking advantage of friendship. His bearing was not that of an ascetic, nor even of a person of moderate means, but foppish all over. Love of comfort seemed to … any number of such reflections come back to me today, but let them be. When, however, Sandip Babu began to speak that afternoon, and the hearts of the crowd swayed and surged to his words, as though they would break all bounds, I saw him wonderfully transformed. Especially when his features were suddenly lit up by a shaft of light from the slowly setting sun, as it sunk below the roof-line of the pavilion, he seemed to me to be marked out by the gods as their messenger to mortal men and women. From beginning to end of his speech, each one of his utterances was a stormy outburst. There was no limit to the confidence of his assurance. I do not know how it happened, but I found I had impatiently pushed away the screen from before me and had fixed my gaze upon him. Yet there was none in that crowd who paid any heed to my doings. Only once, I noticed, his eyes, like stars in fateful Orion, flashed full on my face. I was utterly unconscious of myself. I was no longer the lady of the Rajah’s house, but the sole representative of Bengal’s womanhood. And he was the champion of Bengal. As the sky had shed its light over him, so he must receive the consecration of a woman’s benediction … It seemed clear to me that, since he had caught sight of me, the fire in his words had flamed up more fiercely. Indra’s [11] steed refused to be reined in, and there came the roar of thunder and the flash of lightning. I said within myself that his language had caught fire from my eyes; for we women are not only the deities of the household fire, but the flame of the soul itself. I returned home that evening radiant with a new pride and joy. The storm within me had shifted my whole being from one centre to another. Like the Greek maidens of old, I fain would cut off my long, resplendent tresses to make a bowstring for my hero. Had my outward ornaments been connected with my inner feelings, then my necklet, my armlets, my bracelets, would all have burst their bonds and flung themselves over that assembly like a shower of meteors. Only some personal sacrifice, I felt, could help me to bear the tumult of my exaltation. When my husband came home later, I was trembling lest he should utter a sound out of tune with the triumphant paean which was still ringing in my ears, lest his fanaticism for truth should lead him to express disapproval of anything that had been said that afternoon. For then I should have openly defied and humiliated him. But he did not say a word … which I did not like either. He should have said: “Sandip has brought me to my senses. I now realize how mistaken I have been all this time.” I somehow felt that he was spitefully silent, that he obstinately refused to be enthusiastic. I asked how long Sandip Babu was going to be with us. “He is off to Rangpur early tomorrow morning,” said my husband. “Must it be tomorrow?” “Yes, he is already engaged to speak there.” I was silent for a while and then asked again: “Could he not possibly stay a day longer?” “That may hardly be possible, but why?” “I want to invite him to dinner and attend on him myself.” My husband was surprised. He had often entreated me to be present when he had particular friends to dinner, but I had never let myself be persuaded. He gazed at me curiously, in silence, with a look I did not quite understand. I was suddenly overcome with a sense of shame. “No, no,” I exclaimed, “that would never do!” “Why not!” said he. “I will ask him myself, and if it is at all possible he will surely stay on for tomorrow.” It turned out to be quite possible. I will tell the exact truth. That day I reproached my Creator because he had not made me surpassingly beautiful–not to steal any heart away, but because beauty is glory. In this great day the men of the country should realize its goddess in its womanhood. But, alas, the eyes of men fail to discern the goddess, if outward beauty be lacking. Would Sandip Babu find the Shakti of the Motherland manifest in me? Or would he simply take me to be an ordinary, domestic woman? That morning I scented my flowing hair and tied it in a loose knot, bound by a cunningly intertwined red silk ribbon. Dinner, you see, was to be served at midday, and there was no time to dry my hair after my bath and do it up plaited in the ordinary way. I put on a gold-bordered white sari, and my short-sleeve muslin jacket was also gold-bordered. I felt that there was a certain restraint about my costume and that nothing could well have been simpler. But my sister-in-law, who happened to be passing by, stopped dead before me, surveyed me from head to foot and with compressed lips smiled a meaning smile. When I asked her the reason, “I am admiring your get-up!” she said. “What is there so entertaining about it?” I enquired, considerably annoyed. “It’s superb,” she said. “I was only thinking that one of those low-necked English bodices would have made it perfect.” Not only her mouth and eyes, but her whole body seemed to ripple with suppressed laughter as she left the room. I was very, very angry, and wanted to change everything and put on my everyday clothes. But I cannot tell exactly why I could not carry out my impulse. Women are the ornaments of society– thus I reasoned with myself–and my husband would never like it, if I appeared before Sandip Babu unworthily clad. My idea had been to make my appearance after they had sat down to dinner. In the bustle of looking after the serving the first awkwardness would have passed off. But dinner was not ready in time, and it was getting late. Meanwhile my husband had sent for me to introduce the guest. I was feeling horribly shy about looking Sandip Babu in the face. However, I managed to recover myself enough to say: “I am so sorry dinner is getting late.” He boldly came and sat right beside me as he replied: “I get a dinner of some kind every day, but the Goddess of Plenty keeps behind the scenes. Now that the goddess herself has appeared, it matters little if the dinner lags behind.” He was just as emphatic in his manners as he was in his public speaking. He had no hesitation and seemed to be accustomed to occupy, unchallenged, his chosen seat. He claimed the right to intimacy so confidently, that the blame would seem to belong to those who should dispute it. I was in terror lest Sandip Babu should take me for a shrinking, old-fashioned bundle of inanity. But, for the life of me, I could not sparkle in repartees such as might charm or dazzle him. What could have possessed me, I angrily wondered, to appear before him in such an absurd way? I was about to retire when dinner was over, but Sandip Babu, as bold as ever, placed himself in my way. “You must not,” he said, “think me greedy. It was not the dinner that kept me staying on, it was your invitation. If you were to run away now, that would not be playing fair with your guest.” If he had not said these words with a careless ease, they would have been out of tune. But, after all, he was such a great friend of my husband that I was like his sister. While I was struggling to climb up this high wave of intimacy, my husband came to the rescue, saying: “Why not come back to us after you have taken your dinner?” “But you must give your word,” said Sandip Babu, “before we let you off.” “I will come,” said I, with a slight smile. “Let me tell you,” continued Sandip Babu, “why I cannot trust you. Nikhil has been married these nine years, and all this while you have eluded me. If you do this again for another nine years, we shall never meet again.” I took up the spirit of his remark as I dropped my voice to reply: “Why even then should we not meet?” “My horoscope tells me I am to die early. None of my forefathers have survived their thirtieth year. I am now twenty-seven.” He knew this would go home. This time there must have been a shade of concern in my low voice as I said: “The blessings of the whole country are sure to avert the evil influence of the stars.” “Then the blessings of the country must be voiced by its goddess. This is the reason for my anxiety that you should return, so that my talisman may begin to work from today.” Sandip Babu had such a way of taking things by storm that I got no opportunity of resenting what I never should have permitted in another. “So,” he concluded with a laugh, “I am going to hold this husband of yours as a hostage till you come back.” As I was coming away, he exclaimed: “May I trouble you for a trifle?” I started and turned round. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “It’s merely a glass of water. You might have noticed that I did not drink any water with my dinner. I take it a little later.” Upon this I had to make a show of interest and ask him the reason. He began to give the history of his dyspepsia. I was told how he had been a martyr to it for seven months, and how, after the usual course of nuisances, which included different allopathic and homoeopathic misadventures, he had obtained the most wonderful results by indigenous methods. “Do you know,” he added, with a smile, “God has built even my infirmities in such a manner that they yield only under the bombardment of Swadeshi pills.” My husband, at this, broke his silence. “You must confess,” said he, “that you have as immense an attraction for foreign medicine as the earth has for meteors. You have three shelves in your sitting-room full of…” Sandip Babu broke in: “Do you know what they are? They are the punitive police. They come, not because they are wanted, but because they are imposed on us by the rule of this modern age, exacting fines and-inflicting injuries.” My husband could not bear exaggerations, and I could see he disliked this. But all ornaments are exaggerations. They are not made by God, but by man. Once I remember in defence of some untruth of mine I said to my husband: “Only the trees and beasts and birds tell unmitigated truths, because these poor things have not the power to invent. In this men show their superiority to the lower creatures, and women beat even men. Neither is a profusion of ornament unbecoming for a woman, nor a profusion of untruth.” As I came out into the passage leading to the zenana I found my sister-in-law, standing near a window overlooking the reception rooms, peeping through the venetian shutter. “You here?” I asked in surprise. “Eavesdropping!” she replied. ——
11. The Jupiter Pluvius of Hindu mythology. 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. Nikhil’s Story 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. II I have known my master these thirty years. Neither calumny, nor disaster, nor death itself has any terrors for him. Nothing could have saved me, born as I was into the traditions of this family of ours, but that he has established his own life in the centre of mine, with its peace and truth and spiritual vision, thus making it possible for me to realize goodness in its truth. My master came to me that day and said: “Is it necessary to detain Sandip here any longer?” His nature was so sensitive to all omens of evil that he had at once understood. He was not easily moved, but that day he felt the dark shadow of trouble ahead. Do I not know how well he loves me? At tea-time I said to Sandip: “I have just had a letter from Rangpur. They are complaining that I am selfishly detaining you. When will you be going there?” Bimala was pouring out the tea. Her face fell at once. She threw just one enquiring glance at Sandip. “I have been thinking,” said Sandip, “that this wandering up and down means a tremendous waste of energy. I feel that if I could work from a centre I could achieve more permanent results.” With this he looked up at Bimala and asked: “Do you not think so too?” Bimala hesitated for a reply and then said: “Both ways seem good –to do the work from a centre, as well as by travelling about. That in which you find greater satisfaction is the way for you.” “Then let me speak out my mind,” said Sandip. “I have never yet found any one source of inspiration suffice me for good. That is why I have been constantly moving about, rousing enthusiasm in the people, from which in turn I draw my own store of energy. Today you have given me the message of my country. Such fire I have never beheld in any man. I shall be able to spread the fire of enthusiasm in my country by borrowing it from you. No, do not be ashamed. You are far above all modesty and diffidence. You are the Queen Bee of our hive, and we the workers shall rally around you. You shall be our centre, our inspiration.” Bimala flushed all over with bashful pride and her hand shook as she went on pouring out the tea. Another day my master came to me and said: “Why don’t you two go up to Darjeeling for a change? You are not looking well. Have you been getting enough sleep?” I asked Bimala in the evening whether she would care to have a trip to the Hills. I knew she had a great longing to see the Himalayas. But she refused … The country’s Cause, I suppose! I must not lose my faith: I shall wait. The passage from the narrow to the larger world is stormy. When she is familiar with this freedom, then I shall know where my place is. If I discover that I do not fit in with the arrangement of the outer world, then I shall not quarrel with my fate, but silently take my leave … Use force? But for what? Can force prevail against Truth? Sandip’s Story I The impotent man says: “That which has come to my share is mine.” And the weak man assents. But the lesson of the whole world is: “That is really mine which I can snatch away.” My country does not become mine simply because it is the country of my birth. It becomes mine on the day when I am able to win it by force. Every man has a natural right to possess, and therefore greed is natural. It is not in the wisdom of nature that we should be content to be deprived. What my mind covets, my surroundings must supply. This is the only true understanding between our inner and outer nature in this world. Let moral ideals remain merely for those poor anaemic creatures of starved desire whose grasp is weak. Those who can desire with all their soul and enjoy with all their heart, those who have no hesitation or scruple, it is they who are the anointed of Providence. Nature spreads out her riches and loveliest treasures for their benefit. They swim across streams, leap over walls, kick open doors, to help themselves to whatever is worth taking. In such a getting one can rejoice; such wresting as this gives value to the thing taken. Nature surrenders herself, but only to the robber. For she delights in this forceful desire, this forceful abduction. And so she does not put the garland of her acceptance round the lean, scraggy neck of the ascetic. The music of the wedding march is struck. The time of the wedding I must not let pass. My heart therefore is eager. For, who is the bridegroom? It is I. The bridegroom’s place belongs to him who, torch in hand, can come in time. The bridegroom in Nature’s wedding hall comes unexpected and uninvited. Ashamed? No, I am never ashamed! I ask for whatever I want, and I do not always wait to ask before I take it. Those who are deprived by their own diffidence dignify their privation by the name of modesty. The world into which we are born is the world of reality. When a man goes away from the market of real things with empty hands and empty stomach, merely filling his bag with big sounding words, I wonder why he ever came into this hard world at all. Did these men get their appointment from the epicures of the religious world, to play set tunes on sweet, pious texts in that pleasure garden where blossom airy nothings? I neither affect those tunes nor do I find any sustenance in those blossoms. What I desire, I desire positively, superlatively. I want to knead it with both my hands and both my feet; I want to smear it all over my body; I want to gorge myself with it to the full. The scrannel pipes of those who have worn themselves out by their moral fastings, till they have become flat and pale like starved vermin infesting a long-deserted bed, will never reach my ear. I would conceal nothing, because that would be cowardly. But if I cannot bring myself to conceal when concealment is needful, that also is cowardly. Because you have your greed, you build your walls. Because I have my greed, I break through them. You use your power: I use my craft. These are the realities of life. On these depend kingdoms and empires and all the great enterprises of men. As for those avatars who come down from their paradise to talk to us in some holy jargon–their words are not real. Therefore, in spite of all the applause they get, these sayings of theirs only find a place in the hiding corners of the weak. They are despised by those who are strong, the rulers of the world. Those who have had the courage to see this have won success, while those poor wretches who are dragged one way by nature and the other way by these ava tars, they set one foot in the boat of the real and the other in the boat of the unreal, and thus are in a pitiable plight, able neither to advance nor to keep their place. There are many men who seem to have been born only with an obsession to die. Possibly there is a beauty, like that of a sunset, in this lingering death in life which seems to fascinate them. Nikhil lives this kind of life, if life it may be called. Years ago, I had a great argument with him on this point. “It is true,” he said, “that you cannot get anything except by force. But then what is this force? And then also, what is this getting? The strength I believe in is the strength of renouncing.” “So you,” I exclaimed, “are infatuated with the glory of bankruptcy.” “Just as desperately as the chick is infatuated about the bankruptcy of its shell,” he replied. “The shell is real enough, yet it is given up in exchange for intangible light and air. A sorry exchange, I suppose you would call it?” When once Nikhil gets on to metaphor, there is no hope of making him see that he is merely dealing with words, not with realities. Well, well, let him be happy with his metaphors. We are the flesh-eaters of the world; we have teeth and nails; we pursue and grab and tear. We are not satisfied with chewing in the evening the cud of the grass we have eaten in the morning. Anyhow, we cannot allow your metaphor-mongers to bar the door to our sustenance. In that case we shall simply steal or rob, for we must live. People will say that I am starting some novel theory just because those who are moving in this world are in the habit of talking differently though they are really acting up to it all the time. Therefore they fail to understand, as I do, that this is the only working moral principle. In point of fact, I know that my idea is not an empty theory at all, for it has been proved in practical life. I have found that my way always wins over the hearts of women, who are creatures of this world of reality and do not roam about in cloud-land, as men do, in idea-filled balloons. Women find in my features, my manner, my gait, my speech, a masterful passion–not a passion dried thin with the heat of asceticism, not a passion with its face turned back at every step in doubt and debate, but a full-blooded passion. It roars and rolls on, like a flood, with the cry: “I want, I want, I want.” Women feel, in their own heart of hearts, that this indomitable passion is the lifeblood of the world, acknowledging no law but itself, and therefore victorious. For this reason they have so often abandoned themselves to be swept away on the flood-tide of my passion, recking naught as to whether it takes them to life or to death. This power which wins these women is the power of mighty men, the power which wins the world of reality. Those who imagine the greater desirability of another world merely shift their desires from the earth to the skies. It remains to be seen how high their gushing fountain will play, and for how long. But this much is certain: women were not created for these pale creatures–these lotus-eaters of idealism. “Affinity!” When it suited my need, I have often said that God has created special pairs of men and women, and that the union of such is the only legitimate union, higher than all unions made by law. The reason of it is, that though man wants to follow nature, he can find no pleasure in it unless he screens himself with some phrase–and that is why this world is so overflowing with lies. “Affinity!” Why should there be only one? There may be affinity with thousands. It was never in my agreement with nature that I should overlook all my innumerable affinities for the sake of only one. I have discovered many in my own life up to now, yet that has not closed the door to one more–and that one is clearly visible to my eyes. She has also discovered her own affinity to me. And then? Then, if I do not win I am a coward. Chapter Three Bimala’s Story VI I WONDER what could have happened to my feeling of shame. The fact is, I had no time to think about myself. My days and nights were passing in a whirl, like an eddy with myself in the centre. No gap was left for hesitation or delicacy to enter. One day my sister-in-law remarked to my husband: “Up to now the women of this house have been kept weeping. Here comes the men’s turn. “We must see that they do not miss it,” she continued, turning to me. “I see you are out for the fray, Chota [12] Rani! Hurl your shafts straight at their hearts.” Her keen eyes looked me up and down. Not one of the colours into which my toilet, my dress, my manners, my speech, had blossomed out had escaped her. I am ashamed to speak of it today, but I felt no shame then. Something within me was at work of which I was not even conscious. I used to overdress, it is true, but more like an automaton, with no particular design. No doubt I knew which effort of mine would prove specially pleasing to Sandip Babu, but that required no intuition, for he would discuss it openly before all of them. One day he said to my husband: “Do you know, Nikhil, when I first saw our Queen Bee, she was sitting there so demurely in her gold- bordered sari. Her eyes were gazing inquiringly into space, like stars which had lost their way, just as if she had been for ages standing on the edge of some darkness, looking out for something unknown. But when I saw her, I felt a quiver run through me. It seemed to me that the gold border of her sari was her own inner fire flaming out and twining round her. That is the flame we want, visible fire! Look here, Queen Bee, you really must do us the favour of dressing once more as a living flame.” So long I had been like a small river at the border of a village. My rhythm and my language were different from what they are now. But the tide came up from the sea, and my breast heaved; my banks gave way and the great drumbeats of the sea waves echoed in my mad current. I could not understand the meaning of that sound in my blood. Where was that former self of mine? Whence came foaming into me this surging flood of glory? Sandip’s hungry eyes burnt like the lamps of worship before my shrine. All his gaze proclaimed that I was a wonder in beauty and power; and the loudness of his praise, spoken and unspoken, drowned all other voices in my world. Had the Creator created me afresh, I wondered? Did he wish to make up now for neglecting me so long? I who before was plain had become suddenly beautiful. I who before had been of no account now felt in myself all the splendour of Bengal itself. For Sandip Babu was not a mere individual. In him was the confluence of millions of minds of the country. When he called me the Queen Bee of the hive, I was acclaimed with a chorus of praise by all our patriot workers. After that, the loud jests of my sister-in-law could not touch me any longer. My relations with all the world underwent a change. Sandip Babu made it clear how all the country was in need of me. I had no difficulty in believing this at the time, for I felt that I had the power to do everything. Divine strength had come to me. It was something which I had never felt before, which was beyond myself. I had no time to question it to find out what was its nature. It seemed to belong to me, and yet to transcend me. It comprehended the whole of Bengal. Sandip Babu would consult me about every little thing touching the Cause. At first I felt very awkward and would hang back, but that soon wore off. Whatever I suggested seemed to astonish him. He would go into raptures and say: “Men can only think. You women have a way of understanding without thinking. Woman was created out of God’s own fancy. Man, He had to hammer into shape.” Letters used to come to Sandip Babu from all parts of the country which were submitted to me for my opinion. Occasionally he disagreed with me. But I would not argue with him. Then after a day or two–as if a new light had suddenly dawned upon him–he would send for me and say: “It was my mistake. Your suggestion was the correct one.” He would often confess to me that wherever he had taken steps contrary to my advice he had gone wrong. Thus I gradually came to be convinced that behind whatever was taking place was Sandip Babu, and behind Sandip Babu was the plain common sense of a woman. The glory of a great responsibility filled my being. My husband had no place in our counsels. Sandip Babu treated him as a younger brother, of whom personally one may be very fond and yet have no use for his business advice. He would tenderly and smilingly talk about my husband’s childlike innocence, saying that his curious doctrine and perversities of mind had a flavour of humour which made them all the more lovable. It was seemingly this very affection for Nikhil which led Sandip Babu to forbear from troubling him with the burden of the country. Nature has many anodynes in her pharmacy, which she secretly administers when vital relations are being insidiously severed, so that none may know of the operation, till at last one awakes to know what a great rent has been made. When the knife was busy with my life’s most intimate tie, my mind was so clouded with fumes of intoxicating gas that I was not in the least aware of what a cruel thing was happening. Possibly this is woman’s nature. When her passion is roused she loses her sensibility for all that is outside it. When, like the river, we women keep to our banks, we give nourishment with all that we have: when we overflow them we destroy with all that we are. ——
12. Bimala. the younger brother’s wife, was the Chota or Junior Rani. Sandip’s Story II I can see that something has gone wrong. I got an inkling of it the other day. Ever since my arrival, Nikhil’s sitting-room had become a thing amphibious–half women’s apartment, half men’s: Bimala had access to it from the zenana, it was not barred to me from the outer side. If we had only gone slow, and made use of our privileges with some restraint, we might not have fallen foul of other people. But we went ahead so vehemently that we could not think of the consequences. Whenever Bee comes into Nikhil’s room, I somehow get to know of it from mine. There are the tinkle of bangles and other little sounds; the door is perhaps shut with a shade of unnecessary vehemence; the bookcase is a trifle stiff and creaks if jerked open. When I enter I find Bee, with her back to the door, ever so busy selecting a book from the shelves. And as I offer to assist her in this difficult task she starts and protests; and then we naturally get on to other topics. The other day, on an inauspicious [13] Thursday afternoon, I sallied forth from my room at the call of these same sounds. There was a man on guard in the passage. I walked on without so much as glancing at him, but as I approached the door he put himself in my way saying: “Not that way, sir.” “Not that way! Why?” “The Rani Mother is there.” “Oh, very well. Tell your Rani Mother that Sandip Babu wants to see her.” “That cannot be, sir. It is against orders.” I felt highly indignant. “I order you!” I said in a raised voice. “Go and announce me.” The fellow was somewhat taken aback at my attitude. In the meantime I had neared the door. I was on the point of reaching it, when he followed after me and took me by the arm saying: “No, sir, you must not.” What! To be touched by a flunkey! I snatched away my arm and gave the man a sounding blow. At this moment Bee came out of the room to find the man about to insult me. I shall never forget the picture of her wrath! That Bee is beautiful is a discovery of my own. Most of our people would see nothing in her. Her tall, slim figure these boors would call “lanky”. But it is just this lithesomeness of hers that I admire–like an up-leaping fountain of life, coming direct out of the depths of the Creator’s heart. Her complexion is dark, but it is the lustrous darkness of a sword-blade, keen and scintillating. “Nanku!” she commanded, as she stood in the doorway, pointing with her finger, “leave us.” “Do not be angry with him,” said I. “If it is against orders, it is I who should retire.” Bee’s voice was still trembling as she replied: “You must not go. Come in.” It was not a request, but again a command! I followed her in, and taking a chair fanned myself with a fan which was on the table. Bee scribbled something with a pencil on a sheet of paper and, summoning a servant, handed it to him saying: “Take this to the Maharaja.” “Forgive me,” I resumed. “I was unable to control myself, and hit that man of yours. “You served him right,” said Bee. “But it was not the poor fellow’s fault, after all. He was only obeying his orders.” Here Nikhil came in, and as he did so I left my seat with a rapid movement and went and stood near the window with my back to the room. “Nanku, the guard, has insulted Sandip Babu,” said Bee to Nikhil. Nikhil seemed to be so genuinely surprised that I had to turn round and stare at him. Even an outrageously good man fails in keeping up his pride of truthfulness before his wife–if she be the proper kind of woman. “He insolently stood in the way when Sandip Babu was coming in here,” continued Bee. “He said he had orders …” “Whose orders?” asked Nikhil. “How am I to know?” exclaimed Bee impatiently, her eyes brimming over with mortification. Nikhil sent for the man and questioned him. “It was not my fault,” Nanku repeated sullenly. “I had my orders.” “Who gave you the order?” “The Bara Rani Mother.” We were all silent for a while. After the man had left, Bee said: “Nanku must go!” Nikhil remained silent. I could see that his sense of justice would not allow this. There was no end to his qualms. But this time he was up against a tough problem. Bee was not the woman to take things lying down. She would have to get even with her sister-in-law by punishing this fellow. And as Nikhil remained silent, her eyes flashed fire. She knew not how to pour her scorn upon her husband’s feebleness of spirit. Nikhil left the room after a while without another word. The next day Nanku was not to be seen. On inquiry, I learnt that he had been sent off to some other part of the estates, and that his wages had not suffered by such transfer. I could catch glimpses of the ravages of the storm raging over this, behind the scenes. All I can say is, that Nikhil is a curious creature, quite out of the common. The upshot was, that after this Bee began to send for me to the sitting-room, for a chat, without any contrivance, or pretence of its being an accident. Thus from bare suggestion we came to broad hint: the implied came to be expressed. The daughter-in- law of a princely house lives in a starry region so remote from the ordinary outsider that there is not even a regular road for his approach. What a triumphal progress of Truth was this which, gradually but persistently, thrust aside veil after veil of obscuring custom, till at length Nature herself was laid bare. Truth? Of course it was the truth! The attraction of man and woman for each other is fundamental. The whole world of matter, from the speck of dust upwards, is ranged on its side. And yet men would keep it hidden away out of sight, behind a tissue of words; and with home-made sanctions and prohibitions make of it a domestic utensil. Why, it’s as absurd as melting down the solar system to make a watch-chain for one’s son-in-law! [14] When, in spite of all, reality awakes at the call of what is but naked truth, what a gnashing of teeth and beating of breasts is there! But can one carry on a quarrel with a storm? It never takes the trouble to reply, it only gives a shaking. I am enjoying the sight of this truth, as it gradually reveals itself. These tremblings of steps, these turnings of the face, are sweet to me: and sweet are the deceptions which deceive not only others, but also Bee herself. When Reality has to meet the unreal, deception is its principal weapon; for its enemies always try to shame Reality by calling it gross, and so it needs must hide itself, or else put on some disguise. The circumstances are such that it dare not frankly avow: “Yes, I am gross, because I am true. I am flesh. I am passion. I am hunger, unashamed and cruel.” All is now clear to me. The curtain flaps, and through it I can see the preparations for the catastrophe. The little red ribbon, which peeps through the luxuriant masses of her hair, with its flush of secret longing, it is the lolling tongue of the red storm cloud. I feel the warmth of each turn of her sari, each suggestion of her raiment, of which even the wearer may not be fully conscious. Bee was not conscious, because she was ashamed of the reality; to which men have given a bad name, calling it Satan; and so it has to steal into the garden of paradise in the guise of a snake, and whisper secrets into the ears of man’s chosen consort and make her rebellious; then farewell to all ease; and after that comes death! My poor little Queen Bee is living in a dream. She knows not which way she is treading. It would not be safe to awaken her before the time. It is best for me to pretend to be equally unconscious. The other day, at dinner, she was gazing at me in a curious sort of way, little realizing what such glances mean! As my eyes met hers, she turned away with a flush. “You are surprised at my appetite,” I remarked. “I can hide everything, except that I am greedy! Anyhow, why trouble to blush for me, since I am shameless?” This only made her colour more furiously, as she stammered: “No, no, I was only…” “I know,” I interrupted. “Women have a weakness for greedy men; for it is this greed of ours which gives them the upper hand. The indulgence which I have always received at their hands has made me all the more shameless. I do not mind your watching the good things disappear, not one bit. I mean to enjoy every one of them.” The other day I was reading an English book in which sex-problems were treated in an audaciously realistic manner. I had left it lying in the sitting-room. As I went there the next afternoon, for something or other, I found Bee seated with this book in her hand. When she heard my footsteps she hurriedly put it down and placed another book over it–a volume of Mrs Hemans’s poems. “I have never been able to make out,” I began, “why women are so shy about being caught reading poetry. We men–lawyers, mechanics, or what not–may well feel ashamed. If we must read poetry, it should be at dead of night, within closed doors. But you women are so akin to poesy. The Creator Himself is a lyric poet, and Jayadeva [15] must have practised the divine art seated at His feet.” Bee made no reply, but only blushed uncomfortably. She made as if she would leave the room. Whereupon I protested: “No, no, pray read on. I will just take a book I left here, and run away.” With which I took up my book from the table. “Lucky you did not think of glancing over its pages,” I continued, “or you would have wanted to chastise me.” “Indeed! Why?” asked Bee. “Because it is not poetry,” said I. “Only blunt things, bluntly put, without any finicking niceness. I wish Nikhil would read it.” Bee frowned a little as she murmured: “What makes you wish that?” “He is a man, you see, one of us. My only quarrel with him is that he delights in a misty vision of this world. Have you not observed how this trait of his makes him look on Swadeshi as if it was some poem of which the metre must be kept correct at every step? We, with the clubs of our prose, are the iconoclasts of metre.” “What has your book to do with Swadeshi?” “You would know if you only read it. Nikhil wants to go by made- up maxims, in Swadeshi as in everything else; so he knocks up against human nature at every turn, and then falls to abusing it. He never will realize that human nature was created long before phrases were, and will survive them too.” Bee was silent for a while and then gravely said: “Is it not a part of human nature to try and rise superior to itself?” I smiled inwardly. “These are not your words”, I thought to myself. “You have learnt them from Nikhil. You are a healthy human being. Your flesh and blood have responded to the call of reality. You are burning in every vein with life-fire–do I not know it? How long should they keep you cool with the wet towel of moral precepts?” “The weak are in the majority,” I said aloud. “They are continually poisoning the ears of men by repeating these shibboleths. Nature has denied them strength–it is thus that they try to enfeeble others.” “We women are weak,” replied Bimala. “So I suppose we must join in the conspiracy of the weak.” “Women weak!” I exclaimed with a laugh. “Men belaud you as delicate and fragile, so as to delude you into thinking yourselves weak. But it is you women who are strong. Men make a great outward show of their so-called freedom, but those who know their inner minds are aware of their bondage. They have manufactured scriptures with their own hands to bind themselves; with their very idealism they have made golden fetters of women to wind round their body and mind. If men had not that extraordinary faculty of entangling themselves in meshes of their own contriving, nothing could have kept them bound. But as for you women, you have desired to conceive reality with body and soul. You have given birth to reality. You have suckled reality at your breasts.” Bee was well read for a woman, and would not easily give in to my arguments. “If that were true,” she objected, “men would not have found women attractive.” “Women realize the danger,” I replied. “They know that men love delusions, so they give them full measure by borrowing their own phrases. They know that man, the drunkard, values intoxication more than food, and so they try to pass themselves off as an intoxicant. As a matter of fact, but for the sake of man, woman has no need for any make-believe.” “Why, then, are you troubling to destroy the illusion?” “For freedom. I want the country to be free. I want human relations to be free.” ——
13. According to the Hindu calendar [Trans.].
14. The son-in-law is the pet of a Hindu household.
15. A Vaishnava poet (Sanskrit) whose lyrics of the adoration of the Divinity serve as well to express all shades of human passion [Trans.]. III I was aware that it is unsafe suddenly to awake a sleep-walker. But I am so impetuous by nature, a halting gait does not suit me. I knew I was overbold that day. I knew that the first shock of such ideas is apt to be almost intolerable. But with women it is always audacity that wins. Just as we were getting on nicely, who should walk in but Nikhil’s old tutor Chandranath Babu. The world would have been not half a bad place to live in but for these schoolmasters, who make one want to quit in disgust. The Nikhil type wants to keep the world always a school. This incarnation of a school turned up that afternoon at the psychological moment. We all remain schoolboys in some corner of our hearts, and I, even I, felt somewhat pulled up. As for poor Bee, she at once took her place solemnly, like the topmost girl of the class on the front bench. All of a sudden she seemed to remember that she had to face her examination. Some people are so like eternal pointsmen lying in wait by the line, to shunt one’s train of thought from one rail to another. Chandranath Babu had no sooner come in than he cast about for some excuse to retire, mumbling: “I beg your pardon, I…” Before he could finish, Bee went up to him and made a profound obeisance, saying: “Pray do not leave us, sir. Will you not take a seat?” She looked like a drowning person clutching at him for support–the little coward! But possibly I was mistaken. It is quite likely that there was a touch of womanly wile in it. She wanted, perhaps, to raise her value in my eyes. She might have been pointedly saying to me: “Please don’t imagine for a moment that I am entirely overcome by you. My respect for Chandranath Babu is even greater.” Well, indulge in your respect by all means! Schoolmasters thrive on it. But not being one of them, I have no use for that empty compliment. Chandranath Babu began to talk about Swadeshi. I thought I would let him go on with his monologues. There is nothing like letting an old man talk himself out. It makes him feel that he is winding up the world, forgetting all the while how far away the real world is from his wagging tongue. But even my worst enemy would not accuse me of patience. And when Chandranath Babu went on to say: “If we expect to gather fruit where we have sown no seed, then we …” I had to interrupt him. “Who wants fruit?” I cried. “We go by the Author of the Gita who says that we are concerned only with the doing, not with the fruit of our deeds.” “What is it then that you do want?” asked Chandranath Babu. “Thorns!” I exclaimed, “which cost nothing to plant.” “Thorns do not obstruct others only,” he replied. “They have a way of hurting one’s own feet.” “That is all right for a copy-book,” I retorted. “But the real thing is that we have this burning at heart. Now we have only to cultivate thorns for other’s soles; afterwards when they hurt us we shall find leisure to repent. But why be frightened even of that? When at last we have to die it will be time enough to get cold. While we are on fire let us seethe and boil.” Chandranath Babu smiled. “Seethe by all means,” he said, “but do not mistake it for work, or heroism. Nations which have got on in the world have done so by action, not by ebullition. Those who have always lain in dread of work, when with a start they awake to their sorry plight, they look to short-cuts and scamping for their deliverance.” I was girding up my loins to deliver a crushing reply, when Nikhil came back. Chandranath Babu rose, and looking towards Bee, said: “Let me go now, my little mother, I have some work to attend to.” As he left, I showed Nikhil the book in my hand. “I was telling Queen Bee about this book,” I said. Ninety-nine per cent of people have to be deluded with lies, but it is easier to delude this perpetual pupil of the schoolmaster with the truth. He is best cheated openly. So, in playing with him, the simplest course was to lay my cards on the table. Nikhil read the title on the cover, but said nothing. “These writers,” I continued, “are busy with their brooms, sweeping away the dust of epithets with which men have covered up this world of ours. So, as I was saying, I wish you would read it.” “I have read it,” said Nikhil. “Well, what do you say?” “It is all very well for those who really care to think, but poison for those who shirk thought.” “What do you mean?” “Those who preach ‘Equal Rights of Property’ should not be thieves. For, if they are, they would be preaching lies. When passion is in the ascendant, this kind of book is not rightly understood.” “Passion,” I replied, “is the street lamp which guides us. To call it untrue is as hopeless as to expect to see better by plucking out our natural eyes.” Nikhil was visibly growing excited. “I accept the truth of passion,” he said, “only when I recognize the truth of restraint. By pressing what we want to see right into our eyes we only injure them: we do not see. So does the violence of passion, which would leave no space between the mind and its object, defeat its purpose.”