 Chapter number 7 of The Home in the World by Rabindranath Tagore. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Sandeep story part 8. We are men. We are kings. You must have attribute. Ever since we have come upon the earth, we have been plundering her. And the more we claimed, the more she submitted. From primal days, we have been plucking fruits, cutting down trees, digging up the soil, killing beasts, birds and fish. From the bottom of the sea, from underneath the ground, from the very jaws of death, it has all been grabbing and grabbing and grabbing. No strong box in nature's stone room has been respected or left unrefilled. The one delight of this earth is to fulfil the claims of those who are men. She has been made fertile and beautiful and complete through her endless sacrifices to them. But for this, she would be lost in the wilderness. Not knowing herself, the doors of her heart shut, her diamonds and pearls never seeing the light. Likewise, by sheer force of our claims, we men have opened up all the latent possibilities of women. In the process of surrendering themselves to us, they have ever gained their true greatness. Because they had to bring all the diamonds of their happiness and pearls of their sorrows into our royal treasury. They have found their true wealth. So for men to accept is truly to give, for women to give is truly to gain. The demand I have just made from Bimla, however, is indeed a large one. At first I felt scruples. For is it not the habit of man's mind to be in purposeless conflict with itself? I thought. I had imposed too hard a task. My first impulse was to call her back and tell her I would rather not make her life wretched by dragging her into all these troubles. I forgot for the moment that it was the mission of a man to be aggressive, to make women's existence fruitful by stirring up disquiet in the depth of her passivity. To make the whole world blessed by churning up the immeasurable abyss of suffering. This is why man's hands are so strong, his grip so firm. Bimla had been longing with all her heart that I, Sandeep, should demand of her some great sacrifice, should call her to her death. How else could she be happy? Had she not waited all these very years only for an opportunity to weep out her heart, so satiated was she with matriny of her placid happiness? And therefore at very sight of me her heart's horizon darkened with the rain clouds of her impending days of anguish. If I pity her and save her from her sorrows, what then was the purpose of my being born a man? The real reason of my combs is that my demand happens to be for money. That savers of beggary for money is man's, not woman's. That is why I had to make it a big figure. A thousand or two would have the air of petty theft. Fifty thousand has all the expanse of romancing brindigage. Ah, but riches should really have been mine. So many of my desires have had to halt, again and again on the road to accomplish meant simply for want of money. This does not become me. Had my fate been merely unjust, it could be forgiven. But it's bad taste unpardonable. It is not simply by a hardship that a man like me should be at his wit's end to pay his house rent, or should have to carefully count out the coins for an intermediate-class railway ticket. It is vulgar. It is equally clear that Nickel's paternal estates are a superfluity to him. For him it would not have been at all unbecoming to be a poor. How would have cheerly pulled in the trouble harness of indigent mediocrity with that precious master of his? I should love to have, just for once, the chance to fling about fifty thousand rupees in the service of my country and to the satisfaction of myself. I am an abab born, and it is a great dream of mine to give rid of these disguise of poverty. Though it be for all day alone, and to see myself in my true character. I have grave misgivings, however, as to Bimla ever getting that fifty thousand rupees within her reach, and it will probably be only a thousand or two which will actually come to hand. Be it so, the wise man is content with a half a loaf or any fraction for that matter, rather than no bread. I must return to these personal reflections of mine later. News comes that I am wanted at once. Something has gone wrong. It seems that the police have got a clue to the man who sang Smirjan's port for us. They gave us an old offender. They are on his trail, but should be to practice the hand to be caught blabbing. However, one never knows. Nikhil's back is up, and his manager may not be able to have things his way. If I get into trouble, sir, said the manager when I saw him. I shall have to drag you in. Where in the nose with which you can catch me? I have a letter of yours and several of Amulia Babus. I could not see the lettermark urgent to which I had been hurried into writing a reply was wanted urgently for this purpose only. I am getting to learn quite a number of things. The point now is that the police must be bribed and hush money paid to Smirjan for his boat. It is also becoming evident that much of the cost of this patriotic venture of ours will find its way as profit into the pockets of Nikhil's manager. However, I must shut my eyes to that for the present. Or is he not shouting Bandewatram as lusty as I am? This kind of work has always to be carried on with leaky vessels which let as much through as they fetch in. We all have a hidden fund of moral judgment stored away within us. And so I was about to wax indigent with the manager and enter in my diary a tirade against the unreliability of our countrymen. But if there be a God, I must acknowledge with gratitude to him that he has given me a clear seeing mind which allows nothing inside or outside it to remain awake. I may delude others but never myself. So I was unable to continue angry. Whatever is true is neither good nor bad but simply true and that is science. A lake is only the remnant of water which has not been sucked into the ground. Only the cult of Bandewatram as indeed at the bottom of all mundane affairs. There is a religion of slime whose absorbing powers must be reckoned with. The manager will take what he wants. I also have my own wants. These lesser wants form a part of wants of the great cause. The horse must be fed and the wheels must be oiled if the best progress is to be made. The long and short of it is that money we must have and that soon. We must take whatever comes the radius for we cannot afford to wait. I know that the immediate often swallows up the ultimate. That the 5000 rupees of today may nip up in the bud of 50,000 rupees of tomorrow but I must accept the penalty. Have I not often tweeted nintil that they who walk in the paths of restraint have never known what sacrifice is. It is greedy folk who have to sacrifice our greed at every step. Not the cardinal sense of man desires for men who are men but delusion which is only for cowards hampers them because delusions keep them warped into the past and the future. But it is the very dues for confounding their footsteps in the present. Those who are always straining their ears for the call of the remote to the neglect of the call of the imminent are like sakuntala absorbed in the memories of a lover. The guest comes unheeded and the curse descends depriving them of the very object of their desire. The other day I pressed Bimla's hand and that touch still stirs her mind. As it vibrates in mine, its thrill must not be deemed by repetition for then what is now music will descend to mere argument. This is at present no room in our mind for those questions. Why? So I must not deprive Bimla. Who is one of those creatures for whom illusion is necessary or for full supply of it? As for me, I have so much else to do that. I shall have to be content for the present with the form of wine cup of passion. O man of desire, curb your greed and practice your hand on the harp of illusion till you can bring out all the delicate nuances of suggestions. This is not the time to drain the cup of the treks. Our work precedes a pace, but though we have shouted ourselves hoarse, proclaiming the mazulams to be the brethren, we have come to realize that we shall never be able to bring them wholly round to our side. So they must be suppressed altogether. I made to understand that we are the masters. They are now showing their teeth, but one day they shall dance like tame bears to the tune we play. If the idea of a united India is a true one, objects nickel. Musulmans are a necessary part of it. Quite so, said I, but we must know their place and keep them there, otherwise they will constantly be giving trouble. So you want to make trouble to prevent trouble? What then is your plan? There is one, only well-known way of avoiding quarrels, said Nickel meaningly. I know that like tales written by good people, Nickel's discourse always ends in a morale. The strange part of it is that with all his familiarity with moral prospects, he still believes in them. He is an incorrigible schoolboy. His only merit is his sincerity. The mischief with people like him is that they will not admit the final litty even of death, but keep their eyes as always fixed or on thereafter. I have long been nursing a plan which, if only I could carry it out, would set fire to the whole country. True patriotism will never be roused in our country unless they can visualize the mother land. We must make a goddess of her. My colleagues saw the point at once. Let us divide an appropriate image, they exclaimed. It will not do if we devise it. Admonish them. We must get one of the current images, accepted as representing the country. The worship of the people must flow towards it along the deep, cut grooves of custom. But Nickel's need must argue even about this. We must not seek the help of illusions, he said to me some time ago, but what we believe to be true cause. Illusions are necessary for lesser minds, I said, and to this class, the greater portion of the world belongs. That is why divinities are set up in every country to keep up the illusions of the people from men are only too well aware of their weakness. No, he replied. God is necessary to clear away our illusions. The divinities which keep them alive are false gods. What of that? This need be, even false gods must be invoked rather than let the work suffer. Unfortunately for us, our illusions are alive enough, but we do not know how to make them serve our purpose. Look at the Brahmins. In spite of treating them as demigods and untiringly taking the dust of their feet, they are a force going to waste. There will always be a large class of people giving to groveling who can never be made to do anything unless they are bespattered with the dust of somebody's feet. Be it on their heads or on their backs. What a pity if after keeping Brahmins saved up in an armory for all these ages, keen and serviceable, they cannot be utilized to urge on this rabble in the time of our need. But it is impossible to drive out all this into Nikhil's head. He has such a prejudice in favor of truth as though there exists such an objective reality. How often have I tried to explain to him that where truth truly exists, there it is indeed the truth. This was understood in our country in the old days and so they had the courage to declare that for those of little understanding on truth is the truth. For them who can truly believe their country to be a goddess, her image will do duty for the truth. With our nature and our traditions, we are unable to realize our country as she is. But we cannot easily bring ourselves to believe in our image. Those who want to do real work must not ignore this fact. Nikhil only got excited because you have lost the power of walking in the path of truth's attainment, he cried. You keep waiting for some miraculous boom to drop from the skies. This is where when our service to our country has fallen centuries into arrears, all you can think of is. To make it an image and stretch out your hands in expectation of gratidious favors. We want to perform the impossible, I said. So our country needs must be made into a god. You mean you have no heart for possible tasks? replied Nikhil. Whatever is already there is to be left undisturbed. That there must be a supernatural result. Look here Nikhil, I said at length. Thoroughly exasperated, these things you have been saying are good enough as moral lessons. These ideas have served their purpose as milk for babies at one stage of man's evolution. But will no longer do now that man has cut his teeth. Do we not see before our eyes how things of which we never ever dreamt of sowing the seed are sprouting up on every side by what power? That of the deity in our country who is becoming manifest. It is for the genius of the age to give that deity its image. Genius does not argue, it creates. I only give form to what the nature imagines. I will spread it abroad that the goddess has vouchsafed me a dream. I will tell the Brahmins that they have been appointed her priests. And that their downfall has been due to their dereliction of duty in not seeing to the proper performance of a worship. Do you say I shall be uttering lies? No, I say I. It is the truth, nay more. The truth which the country has so long been waiting to learn from my lips. If only I could get the opportunity to deliver my message. You would see the stupendous result. What I am afraid of, said Nikhil, is that my lifetime is limited. And the result you speak of is not the final result. It will have if after effects, which may not be immediately apparent. I only seek the result, said I, which belong to today. The result I seek, answered Nikhil, belongs to all time. Nikhil may have had a share of Bengal's greatest gift, imagination, but he has allowed it to be overshadowed and nearly killed by an exotic consciousness. Just look at the worship of Durga which Bengal has carried to such heights. That is one of our greatest achievements. I can swear that Durga is a political goddess and was very conceived as the image of Shakti, of patriotism in the days when Bengal was praying to be delivered for Muslim domination. What other province of India has succeeded in giving such wonderful visual expression to the idea of its guests? Nothing betrayed Nikhil's loss of the divine gift of imagination more conclusively than his reply to me. During the Muslim domination, he said, the Maratha and the Sikh had asked for fruit from the arms which they themselves took up. The Bengali contented himself with placing weapons in the hands of his goddess and muttering incantations to her. And as this country did not really happen to be a goddess, the only fruit he got was a loop of the hands of the goats and buffaloes of the sacrifices. The day that we seek the good of the country along the path of righteousness. He who is greater than our country will grant us true fruitation. The unfortunate part of it is that Nikhil's words sound so fine when put down on paper. My words however are not meant to be scrubbed on paper but to be scored into the heart of the country. The pundit recorded his treatise on agriculture in printer's ink but the cultivator at the point of his plough impresses his indover dape in the soil. When I next saw Bimla, I pitched my key high without further ado. Have we been able, as I began, to believe with all our heart in the God for whose worship we have been born all these millions of years until he actually made himself visible to us? How often have I told you, I continued, that had I not seen you, I never would have known all my country as one. I know not yet whether you rightly understand me. The gods are invisible only in their heaven. On earth they show themselves to mortal men. Bimla looked at me in a strange kind of way as she gravely replied, Indeed I understand you Sandeep. This was the first time she called me plain Sandeep. Krishna, I continued, whom Arjun ordinarily knew only as the driver of his chariot, had also his universal aspect of which too, Arjuna had a vision one day, and that day he saw the truth. I have seen your universal aspect in my country, the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, and the chains of gold that wind round and round your neck, in the woodland fringes of the distance banks of dark waters of the river. I have seen your collarium darkened eyelashes, the changeful sheen of your sari moves for me in the prey of light, and shade amongst the swaying shoots of the green corn, and the blazing summer heat which makes the whole sky like gasping like a red-tongue lion in the desert is nothing but your cruel radiance. Since the goddess has out-saved her present to her watery in such wonderful guise, it is for me to proclaim her workshop throughout our land, and then shall the country gain new life. Your image make we in temple after temple, but this our life people have not yet fully realized. So I would call on them in your name, and offer for their worship an image for which none shall be able to withhold belief, O give me this boon, this power. Bimla's eyelids dropped, and she became rigid in her seat like a figure of stone. Had I continued, she would have gone off into trance. When I ceased speaking, she opened wide her eyes, and murmured with fixed gaze. As though she still dazed, O traveler in the path of destruction, who is there that can stay our progress? Do I not see that none shall stand in the way of your desires? King shall lay their crowns at your feet. The wealthy shall hasten to throw upon their treasure for your acceptance. Those who have nothing else shall beg to be allowed to offer their lives. O my king, my god, what you have seen in me, I know not, but I have seen the immensity of your grandeur in my heart. Who am I? What am I? In this presence, ah, the awful power of devastation, never shall I truly live till it kills me utterly. I can bear it no longer, my heart is breaking. Bimla slid down from her seat, and fell at my feet, which she clasped, and then she sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. This is hypnotism, the charm which can subdue the world. No materials, no weapons, but just the delusion of irrestible suggestion. Who says truth shall triumph? Delusion shall win in the end. The Bengali understood this, when he conceived the image of the ten-handed goddess, astride her lion, and spread her worship in the land. Bengal must now create a new image to enchant and conquer the world. Pandey Matram, I gently lifted Bimla back to into her chair, and lest reaction should set in. I began again without losing time, queen, the divine mother has laid on me the duty of establishing her worship in the land. But alas, I am poor. Bimla was still flushed, her eyes clouded, her accents thick as she replied, You poor, is not all that each one has yours? What are my caskets full of jewellery for? Drag away from me all my gold and gems for your worship, I have new use for them. Once before Bimla had offered up her ornaments, I am not usually in the habit of drawing lines, but I felt I had to draw the line there. I know why I feel this hesitation. It is for the man to give ornaments to women, to take them from her wounds his maliness. But I must forget myself. Am I taking them? They are for the divine mother, to be poured in worship at her feet. Oh! But it must be a grand ceremony of worship, such as the country has never beheld before. It must be a landmark in our history. It shall be my supreme legacy to the nation. Ignorant men worship gods, I, Sandeep, shall create them. But all this is a far cry. What about the urgent immediate? At least three thousand is an indispensably necessary. Five thousand would do roundly and nice. But how on earth am I to mention money after the high flight we have just taken? And yet time is precious. I crushed all hesitation under foot, as I jumped up and made my plunge. Queen, your purse is empty, our work about to stop. Bimla winced. I could see she was thinking of that impossible fifty thousand rupees. Not alone, she must have been carrying within her bosom, struggling under it perhaps through sleepless nights. What else had she, with which to express her loving worship, debarred from offering her heart at my feet, she hankers to make this sum of money. So hopelessly large for her, the bearer of her impresent feelings. The thought of what she must have gone through gives me twinge of pain, for she is now only mine. The wrench of plucking up the plant by the roots is over. It is now only careful tending and nurture that is needed. Queen said I, that fifty thousand rupees is not particularly wanted just now. I calculate that for the present five thousand or even three thousand were served. The relief made her hard rebound. I shall fetch your five thousand. She said in tones which seemed like an outburst of song. The song which Radhika of the Vaishnava lyrics sang, For my lover will I bind in my hair. The flower which has no equal in the three worlds. It is the same truth and the tune. The same song, five thousand will I bring. That flower will I bind in my hair. The narrow restraint of the flute brings out this quality of song. I must not allow the presions of too much greed to flatten out the need for them. Is a fear music will give place to the questions, why? What is the use of so much? How am I to get it? Not a word of which all rhyme with that Radhika sang. So as I was saying, Illusion alone is real. It is like flute itself, while truth is but its empty hollow. Nikhil has of late got a taste of that pure emptiness. One can see it in his face, which paints even me. And it was Nikhil's boast that he wanted the truth, while mine was that I would never let go illusion from my gasp. Each has been suited to his taste, so why complain? To keep Bimla's heart in the rarefied air of idealism, I cut short all further discussions over the five thousand rupees. I reverted to the demon destroying orders and a worship. When was the ceremony to be held and where? It is a great annual fair at Rumari, within Nikhil's states, where hundreds of thousands of pilgrims assemble. That would be a grand place to inaugurate the worship of our Goddess. Bimla waxed intensely enthusiastic. This was not the burning of foreign cloth or the people's granaries, so even Nikhil could have no objection. So thought she, but I smiled inwardly. How little those two persons who have together day and night for nine holiers know of each other. They know something, perhaps of their home life. But when it comes to outside concerns, they are entirely at sea. They had cherished the belief that the harmony of the home with which the outside was perfect. Today they realize to their coast that it is too late to repair the neglect of ears and seek to harmonize them now. What does it matter? Let those who have made the mistake learn their error by knocking against the world. By need I bother about their plight. For the present, I find it very simple to keep Bimla soaring much longer, like a captive balloon in region's ethereal. I had better get quite through with the matter in the hand. When Bimla rose to depart and had near the door, I remarked in my most casual manner. So about the money, Bimla halted and faced back as he said, on the expiry of this month, when our personal allowances become due, that, I am afraid, would be too late. When do you want it then? Tomorrow? Tomorrow you shall have it. End of chapter number 7. Chapter 8 of The Home and the World. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in a public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore. Translated by Surindranath Tagore. Recorded by Vali. Chapter 8. Nickhills Story. Biographs and letters against me have begun to come out in the local papers. Cartoons and lampoons are to follow, I am told. Jets of wit and humour are being splashed about. And the lies thus scattered are convulsing the whole country. They know that the monopoly of mud throwing is theirs, and the innocent Pasabhai cannot escape unsoiled. They are saying that the residents in my estates, from the highest to the lowest, are in favour of Swadeshi, but the day not declare themselves for fear of me. The few who have been brave enough to defy me have felt the full rigor of my persecution. I am in secret league with the police and in private communication with the magistrate, and these frantic efforts of mine to add a foreign title of my earning to the one I have inherited will not it is a bind going vain. On the other hand, the papers are full of praise for those devoted sons of the motherland, the Kundu and the Chakravartisamindars. If only, say they, the country had a few more of such staunch patriots, the mills of Manchester would have had to sound their own dirge to the tune of Bandi Mataram. Then comes a letter in blood red ink, giving a list of the traitorous Zamindars whose treasuries have been burnt down because of their failing to support the cause. Holy fire, it goes on to say, has been aroused to its sacred function of purifying the country. Other agencies are also at work to see that those who are not true sons of the motherland do cease to encumber her lap. The signature is an obvious, non-deplume. I could see that this was the doing of our local students, so I sent for some of them and sheered them the letter. The BA student gravely informed me that they also had heard that a band of desperate patriots had been formed who would stick at nothing in order to clear away all obstacles to the success of Swadeshi. If, said I, even one of our countrymen succumbs to these overbearing desperadoes, that will indeed be a defeat for the country. We failed to follow you, Maharaja, said the history student. Our country, I try to explain, has been brought to death's door through sheer fear from fear of the gods down to the fear of the police. And if you set up in the name of freedom the fear of some other bogie, whatever it may be called, if you would raise your victorious standard on the coverdice of the country by means of downright oppression, then no true lover of the country can bow to your decision. Is there any country, sir, pursued the history student, where submission to government is not due to fear? The freedom that exists in any country, I replied, may be measured by the extent of this reign of fear, where its threat is confined to those who would hurt or plunder, where the government may claim to have freed man from the violence of man. But if fear is to regulate how people are to dress, where they shall trade, or what they must eat, then is man's freedom of will utterly ignored and manhood destroyed at the root. Is not such coercion of the individual will seen in other countries, too, continued the history student? Who denies it, I exclaim, but in every country man has destroyed himself to the extent that he has permitted slavery to flourish. Does it not rather show, interposed a master of arts, that trading in slavery is inherent in man, a fundamental fact of his nature? Sande Babu made the whole thing clear, said a graduate. He gave us the example of Harish Kundo, your neighbouring zamindar. From his estate, you cannot ferret out a single ounce of foreign salt. Why? Because he has always ruled with an iron hand. In the case of those who are slaves by nature, the lack of a strong master is the greatest of all calamities. Why, sir, chimed in an undergraduate? Have you not heard of the obstreperous tenant of Chakraborty, the other zamindar, close by? How the law was set on him till he was reduced to utter destitution? When at last he was left with nothing to eat, he started out to sell his wife's silver ornaments, but no one dared buy them. Then Chakraborty's manager offered him five rupees for the lot. They were worth over thirty, but he had to accept or starve. After taking over the bundle from him, the manager coolly said that those five rupees would be credited towards his rent. We felt like having nothing more to do with Chakraborty or his manager after that. But Sandeep Babu told us that if we threw over all the life people, we should have only dead bodies from the burning grounds to carry on the work whip. These life men he pointed out know what they want and how to get it. They are born rulers. Those who do not know how to desire for themselves must live in accordance with or die by virtue of the desires of such as these. Sandeep Babu contrasted them, Kundu and Chakraborty, with you, Maharaja. You, he said, for all your good intentions will never succeed in planting Swadeshi within your territory. It is my desire, I said, to plant something greater than Swadeshi. I'm not after dead logs, but living trees, and these will take time to grow. I'm afraid, sir, sneered the history student, that you will get neither log nor tree. Sandeep Babu rightly teaches that in order to get, you must snatch. This is taking all of us some time to learn, because it runs counter to what we were taught at school. I have seen with my own eyes that when a rent collector of Harish Kundus found one of the tenants with nothing which could be sold up to pay his rent, he was made to sell his young wife. Buyers were not wanting, and the Zamin Dar's demand was satisfied. I tell you, sir, the sight of that man's distress prevented my getting sleep for nights together. But feel it as I did, this much I realized, that the man who knows how to get the money he is out for, even by selling up his debtor's wife, is a better man than I am. I confess it's beyond me, I'm a weakling, my eyes fill with tears. If anybody can save our country, it is these Kundus and these Chakravartis and their officials. I was shocked beyond words. If what you say be true, I cry. I clearly see that it must be the one interval of my life to save the country from these same Kundus and Chakravartis and officials. A slavery that has entered into our very bones is breaking out at this opportunity as ghastly tyranny. You have been so used to submit to domination through fear you have come to believe that to make others submit is a kind of religion. My fight shall be against this weakness, this atrocious cruelty. These things which are so simple to ordinary folk get so twisted in the minds of our BS and MAs, the only purpose of whose historical quibbles seem to be to torture the truth. I'm worried over Panchu's sham aunt. It will be difficult to disprove her, for though witnesses of a real event may be few or even wanting innumerable proofs of a thing that has not happened can always be marshaled. The object of this move is evidently to get the sale of Panchu's holding to me set aside. Being unable to find any other way out of it, I was thinking of allowing Panchu to hold a permanent tenor in my estate and building him a cottage on it, but my master would not have it. I should not give in to these nefarious tactics so easily. He objected and offered to attend to the matter himself. You, sir, I cried considerably surprised. Yes, I, he repeated. I could not see at all clearly what my master could do to counteract these legal machinations. That evening, at the time he usually came to me, he did not turn up. On my making inquiries, his servant said he had left home with a few things packed in a small trunk and some bedding, saying he would be back in a few days. I thought he might have sailed forth to hunt for witnesses in Panchu's uncle's village. In that case, however, I was sure that his would be a hopeless quest. During the day, I forget myself and my work. As the late autumn afternoon wears on, the colors of the sky become turbid and so do the feelings of my mind. There are many in this world whose minds dwell in brick-built houses. They can afford to ignore the thing called outside. But my mind lives under the trees in the open, directly receives upon itself the misages borne by the free winds, and responds from the bottom of its heart to all the musical cadences of light and darkness. While the day is bright and the world in the pursuit of its numberless tasks crowd around, then it seems as if my life wants nothing else. Much when the colors of the sky fade away and the blinds are drawn down over the windows of heaven, then my heart tells me that evening falls just for the purpose of shutting out the world to mark the time when the darkness must be filled with the one. This is the end to which earth, sky and water conspire, and I cannot harden myself against accepting its meaning. So when the gloaming deepens around the world like the gaze of the dark eyes of the beloved, then my whole being tells me that work alone cannot be the truth of life. That work is not the be-all and end-all of man. For man is not simply a self, even though the serfdom be of the true and the good. Last, Nikhil, have you forever parted company with that self of yours, who used to be set free under the starlight to plunge into the infinite depths of the night's darkness after the day's work was done? How terribly alone is he? Who misses companionship in the midst of the multitudinousness of life? The other day when the afternoon had reached the meeting point of day and night, I had no work, nor the mindful work, nor was my master there to keep me company. With my empty drifting heart longing to anchor onto something, I'd raised my steps towards the inner gardens. I was very fond of chrysanthemums and had rows of them, of all varieties, banked up in pots against one of the garden worlds. When they were in flower, it looked like a wave of green breaking into iridescent foam. It was sometimes since I had been to this part of the grounds, and I was beguiled into a cheerful expectancy at the thought of meeting my chrysanthemums after a long separation. As I went in, the full moon had just peeped over the wall, her slanting rays leaving its foot in deep shadow. It seemed as if she had come a tiptoe from behind and clasped the darkness over the eyes, smiling mischievously. When I came near the bank of chrysanthemums, I saw a figure stretched on the grass in front. My heart gave a sudden thud. The figure also sat up with a start at my footsteps. What was to be done next? I was wondering whether it would do to beat a precipitate retreat. Vimala also was doubtless casting about for some way of escape, but it was as awkward to go as to stay. Before I could make up my mind, Vimala rose, pulled the end of her sari over her head and walked off towards the inner apartments. This brief pause had been enough to make real to me the cruel load of Vimala's misery. The pliant of my own life vanished from me in a moment. I called out, Vimala? She started and stayed her steps, but did not turn back. I went round and stood before her. Her face was in the shade, the moonlight fell on mine. Her eyes were downcast, her hands clenched. Vimala said, I, why should I seek to keep you fast in this closed cage of mine? Do I not know that thus you cannot but find untrue? She stood still, without rising her eyes or uttering a word. I know I continued, that if I insist on keeping you shackled, my whole life will be reduced to nothing but an iron chain. What pleasure can that be to me? She was still silent, so I concluded, I tell you truly, Vimala, you are free. Whatever I may or may not have been to you, I refuse to be your fitters, with which I came away towards doubt apartments. No, no, it was not a generous impulse, nor indifference. I had simply come to understand that never would I be free until I could set free. To try to keep Vimala as a garland around my neck would have meant keeping a weight hanging over my heart. Have I not been praying with all my strength, that if happiness may not be mine, let it go? If griff needs must be my lot, let it come, but let me not be kept in bondage. To clutch a hold of that which is untrue, as though it were true, is only to throttle oneself. May I be saved from such self-destruction? When I entered my room, I found my master waiting there. My agitated feelings were still heaving within me. Freedom, sir, I began unceremoniously without greeting or inquiry. Freedom is the biggest thing for man, nothing can be compared to it, nothing at all. Surprised at my outburst, my master looked up at me in silence. One can understand nothing from books I went on. We read in the scriptures that our desires are bonds, fettering us as well as others, but such bonds by themselves are so empty. It is only when we get to the point of letting the bird out of its cage that we can realize how free the bird has set us. Whatever we cage shackles us with desire whose bonds are stronger than those of iron chains. I tell you, sir, this is just what the world has failed to understand. They all seek to reform something outside themselves, but reform is wanted only in one's desires, nowhere else, nowhere else. We think, he said, that we are our own masters when we get in our hands the object of our desire, but we are really our own masters only when we are able to cast out our desires from our minds. When we put all this into words, sir, I went on. It sounds like some bald-headed injunction, but when we realize even a little of it, we find it to be Amrita, which the gods have drunk and become immortal. We cannot say beauty till we let go or hold of it. It was Buttha who conquered the world, but Alexander, this is untrue when stated in dry prose. Oh, when shall we be able to sing it? When shall all these most intimate truths of the universe overflow the pages of printed books and leap out in a sacred stream like the Ganges from the Gangotri. I was suddenly reminded of my master's absence during the last few days, and of my ignorance as to its reason. I felt somewhat foolish as I asked him. And where have you been all this while, sir? Staying with Panchu, he replied. Indeed, I exclaimed. Have you been there all these days? Yes, I wanted to come to an understanding with the woman who calls herself his aunt. She could hardly be induced to believe that there could be such an odd character among the gentle folk as the one who sought their hospitality. When she found I really meant to stay on, she began to feel rather ashamed of herself. Mother said, I, you are not going to get rid of me even if you abuse me. And as long as I stay, Panchu stays also. For you see, do you not, that I cannot stand by and see this motherless little ones sent out into the streets? She listened to my talks in this stream for a couple of days without saying yes or no. This morning I found her tying up her bundles. We are going back to Brindaban, she said. Let us have our expenses for the journey. I knew she was not going to Brindaban, and also that the cost of her journey would be substantial. So I have come to you. The required cost shall be paid, I said. The old woman is not a bad sort, my master went on musingly. Panchu was not sure of her cast, and would not let her touch the water jar or anything at all of his. So they were continually bickering. When she found I had no objection to her touch, she looked after me devotedly. She's a splendid cook, but all remnants of Panchu's respect for me vanished. To the last, he had thought that I was at least a simple sort of person. But here I was, risking my cast without a quorum to win over the old woman for my purpose. Had I tried to steal a march on her by tutoring a witness for the trial, that would have been a different matter. Tactics must be met by tactics. But stratagem at the expense of orthodoxy is more than he can tolerate. Anyhow, I must stay on a few days at Panchu's even after the woman leaves. Vaharish Kundu may be up to any kind of devilry. He has been telling his satellites that he was content to have furnished Panchu with an aunt, but I have gone the length of supplying him with a father. He would like to see now how many fathers of his can save him. We may or may not be able to save him, I said, but if we should perish in the attempt to save the country from the thousand-and-one snares of religion, custom and selfishness, which these people are busy spreading, we shall at least die happy. Vimala's Story Who could have thought that so much would happen in this one life? I feel as if I have passed through a whole series of births. Time has been flying so fast, I did not feel it move at all, till the shock came the other day. I knew there would be words between us when I made up my mind to ask my husband to banish foreign goods from our market, but it was my firm belief that I had no need to meet argument by argument, for there was magic in the very air about me. Had not so tremendous a man as Sandeep fallen helplessly at my feet, like a wave of the mighty sea breaking on the shore, had I called him? No, it was the summons of that magic spell of mine, and Amulia, poor dear boy, when he first came to me, how the current of his life flashed with color, like the river at dawn. Truly have I realized how a goddess feels when she looks upon the radiant face of her devotee. With the confidence begotten of these proofs of my power, I was ready to meet my husband like a lightning-charged cloud. But what was it that happened? There were in all these nine years have I seen such a faraway, distraught look in his eyes, like the desert sky, with no merciful moisture of its own, no color reflected, even from what it looked upon. I should have been so relieved if his anger had flashed out, but I could find nothing in him which I could touch. I felt as unreal as a dream, a dream which would leave only the blackness of night when it was over. In the old days I used to be jealous of my sister-in-law for her beauty. Then I used to feel that Providence had given me no power of my own, that my whole strength lay in the love which my husband had bestowed on me. Now that I had drained to the dregs the cup of power and could not do without its intoxication, I suddenly found it dashed to pieces at my feet, leaving me nothing to live for. How feverishly I had sat to do my hair that day. Oh shame, shame on me, daughter shame of it. My sister-in-law, when passing by, had exclaimed, Aha Chhotarani, your hair seems ready to jump off. Don't let it carry your head with it. And then the other day in the garden, how easy my husband found it to tell me that he set me free. But can freedom, empty freedom, be given and taken so easily as all that? It is like setting a fish free in the sky. For how can I move or live outside the atmosphere of loving care which has always sustained me? When I came to my room today, I saw only furniture, only the bedstead, only the looking glass, only the clothes rack, not the all-pervading heart which used to be there overall. Instead of it, there was freedom, only freedom, more emptiness. A dried up watercourse with all its rocks and pebbles laid there, no feeling, only furniture. When I had arrived at a state of utter bewilderment, wondering whether anything true was left in my life and whereabouts it could be, I happened to meet Sandeep again. Then life struck against life and the sparks flew in the same old way. Here was truth, impetus truth which rushed in and overflowed all bounds. Truth which was a thousand times truer than the Bararani with her maid, Thaco and her silly songs, and all the rest of them who talked and laughed and wondered about. 50,000 Sandeep had demanded. What is 50,000? cried my intoxicated heart. You shall have it. How to get it? Where to get it? were minor points not worth troubling over. Look at me. Had I not risen all in one moment from nothingness to a height above everything? So shall all things come at my back and call. I shall get it, get it, get it. There cannot be any doubt. Thus had I come away from Sandeep the other day, then as I looked about me, where was it? the tree of plenty. Why does this outer world insult the heart so? And yet, get it, I must. How I do not care. For Sandeep there cannot be. Sandeep taints only the weak. I, with my Shakti, am beyond its reach. Only a commoner can be a thief. The king conquers and takes his rightful spoil. I must find out where the treasury is, who takes the money in, who guards it. I spent half the night standing in the outer veranda, clearing at the rope office buildings. But how to get that 50,000 rupees out of the clutches of those iron bars? If, by some mantra, I could have made all those guards fall dead in their places, I would not have hesitated. So pitiless did I feel. But while a whole gang of robbers seemed dancing a war dance within the whirling brain of its Rani, the great house of the Rajas slept in peace. The gong of the watch sounded hour after hour, and the sky overhead placidly looked on. At last I sent for Amulia. Money as wanted for the cause, I told him. Can you not get it out of the treasury? Why not? said he, with his chest thrown out. Alas, had I not said why not to Sandeep just in the same way? The poor lad's confidence could rouse no hopes in my mind. How will you do it? I asked. The wild plans he began to unfold would hardly bear repetition outside the pages of a pennied redfoam. No, Amulia, I said severely. You must not be childish. Very well then, he said. Let me bribe those washmen. Where is the money to come from? I can loot the bazaar he burst out without blenching. Leave all that alone. I have my ornaments. They will serve. But, said Amulia, it strikes me that the cashier cannot be bribed. Never mind, there is another and simpler way. Why is that? Why won't you hear it? It's quite simple. Still I should like to know. Amulia, fumbled in the pocket of his tunic and pulled out. First a small edition of the Gita, which he placed on the table. And then a little pistol, which he sheared me. But said nothing further. Horror. It did not take him a moment to make up his mind to kill a good old cashier. To look at his frank open face one would not have thought him capable of hurting a fly. But how different were the words which came from his mouth? It was clear that the cashier's place in the world meant nothing real to him. It was a mere vacancy, lifeless, feelingless, with only stocked phrases from the Gita, who kills the body, kills not. What ever do you mean, Amulia? I exclaimed at length. Don't you know that the dear old man has got a wife and children and that is? Where are we to find men who have no wives and children? He interrupted. Look here, Maharani, the thing we call pity is at bottom only pity for ourselves. We cannot bear to wound our own tender instincts and so we do not strike at all. Pity indeed, the height of cowardice. To hear some deep phrases in the mouth of this mere boy staggered me. So delightfully, lovably immature was he, of that age when the good may still be believed in as good, of that age when one really lives and grows. The mother in me awoke. For myself there was no longer good or bad, only death, beautiful alluring death. But to hear this stripling calmly talk of murdering an inoffensive old man, as the right thing to do made me shudder all over. The more clearly I saw that there was no sin in his heart, the more horrible appeared to me the sin of his words. I seemed to see the sin of the parents visited on the innocent child. The sight of his great big eyes shining with faith and enthusiasm touched me to the quick. He was going in his fascination straight to the jaws of the python, from which once in there was no return. How was he to be saved? Why does not my country become for once a real mother? Clasp him to her bosom and cry out. Oh my child, my child, what profits it that you should save me, if so it be that I should fail to save you? I know, I know that all power on earth waxes great and the compact with Satan. But the mother is there, alone though she be, to contend and stand against this devil's progress. The mother cares not from your success, however great, she wants to give life to save life. My very soul today stretches out its hands in yearning to save this child. A while ago I suggested robbery to him, whatever I may now say against it will be put down to a woman's weakness. They only love our weakness when it rags the world in its toils. You need do nothing at all Amulia, I will see to the money, I told him finally. When he had almost reached the door, I called him back. Amulia said I am your elder sister. Today is not the brother's day according to the calendar, but all the days in the year are really brother's days. My blessing be with you, may God keep you always. These unexpected words from my lips took Amulia by surprise. He stood, stuck still for a time. Then, coming to himself, he prostrated himself at my feet in acceptance of the relationship and did me reverence. When he rose, his eyes were full of tears. Oh little brother of mine, I am fast going to my den. Let me take all your sin away with me. May your taint from me ever tarnish your innocence. I said to him, let your offering of reverence be that pistol. What do you want with that sister? I will practice death. Right sister, our women also must know how to die to deal death, with which Amulia handed me the pistol. The radiance of his youthful countenance seemed to tinge my life with the touch of a new dawn. I put away the pistol within my clothes. May this reverence offering be the last resource in my extremity. The door to the mother's chamber in my woman's heart once opened, I thought it would always remain open. But this pathway to the supreme good was closed when the mistress took the place of the mother and locked it again. The very next day I saw Sandeep and Madness, naked in rampant, danced upon my heart. What was this? Was this then my truer self? Never. I had never before known this shameless, this cruel one within me. The snake-chammer had come pretending to draw his snake from within the fold of my garment. But it was never there, it was his all the time. Some demon had gained possession of me. And what I am doing today is the play of his activity. It has nothing to do with me. This demon in the guise of God had come with his ruddy torch to call me that day saying, I am your country, I am your Sandeep, I am more to you than anything else of yours, Bande Mataram. And with folded hands I had responded, You are my religion, you are my heaven, whatever else is mine, shall be swept away before my love for you, Bande Mataram. Five thousand, is it? Five thousand it shall be. You want it tomorrow? Tomorrow you shall have it. In this desperate orgy, that gift of five thousand shall be as the form of wine. And then for the righteous revel. The immovable world shall sway under our feet. Fire shall flash from our eyes. A storm shall roar in our ears. What is or is not in front shall become equally dim. And then, with tottering footsteps, we shall plunge to our death. In a moment, all fire will be extinguished. All ashes will be scattered, and nothing will remain behind. End of chapter 8 LibriVox.org The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore translated by Surinranath Tagore Chapter 9 Vimalast Story Card 15 For a time I was utterly at loss to think of any way of getting that money. Then the other day, in the life of intense excitement, suddenly the whole picture stood out clear before me. Every year, my husband makes a reverent offering of six thousand rupees to my sister-in-law at the time of the Gurga Puja. Every year, it is deposited in her account at the bank in Takatong. This year, the offering was made as usual, but it has not yet been sent to the bank. Being kept meanwhile in an iron safe in a corner of the little dressing room attached to our bedroom. Every year, my husband takes the money to the bank itself. This year, he has not yet had an opportunity of going to come. How could I fail to see the hand of Providence in this? The money has been held up because the country wants it. Who could have the power to take it away from her to the bank? And how can I have the power to refuse to take the money? The Goddess reveling in instruction, holds out her blood cup crying, give me drink, I'm thirsty. I'll give her my own heart's blood with that five thousand rupees. Mother, the loser of that money will scarcely feel the loss. But me, you would utterly ruin. Many a time in the old days have I inwardly called the senior Rani a thief, for I charged her with weedling money out of my trusting husband. After her husband's death, she often used to make away with things belonging to the estate for her own use. This I used to point out to my husband, but he remained silent. I would get angry and say, if you feel generous, make gifts by all means, but by a love yourself to be robbed. Providence must have smiled then. At these complaints of mine, for tonight, I am on the way to rob my husband's safe of my sister-in-law's money. My husband's custom was to let his keys remain in his pocket, when he took off his clothes for the night, leaving them in the dressing room. I picked out the key of the safe and opened it. The slight sound it made seemed to wake the whole world. A sudden chill turned my hands and feet icy cold, and I shivered all over. There was a drawer inside the safe. On opening this, I found the money, not in currency note, but in gold rolled up in paper. I had no time to count out what I wanted. There were twenty rolls, all of which I took, and tied up in a corner of my saree. What a weight it was. The burden of the theft crushed my heart to the dust. Perhaps notes would have made it seem less like thieving, but this was all gold. After I had stolen into my room like a thief, it felt like my own room no longer. All the most precious rites, which I had over it, vanished at the touch of my theft. I began to mutter to myself, as the telling mantrams, Vande mataram, Vande mataram, my country, my golden country, all this gold is for you, for none else. But in the night, the mind is weak. I came back into the bedroom, where my husband was asleep, closing my eyes as I passed through, and went off to the open terrace beyond, on which I lay prone, clasping to my breast the end of the saree, tied over the gold, and each one of the rolls gave me a shock of pain. The silent nights stood there with forefinger appraised. I could not think of my house as separate from my country. I had robbed my house. I had robbed my country. For this sin, my house had ceased to be mine. My country also was estranged from me. Had I died begging for my country, even unsuccessfully, that would have been worship, acceptable to the gods. But theft is never worship. How then can I offer this gold? Ah, me! I am doomed to death myself. Must I desecrate my country with my empire's touch? The way to put the money back is close to me. I have not the strength to return to the room. Take again that key. Open once more that safe. I should swoon on the threshold of my husband's door. The only road left now is the road in front. Neither have I the strength deliberately to sit down and count the coins. Let them remain behind their coverings. I cannot calculate. There was no mist in the winter sky. The stars were shining brightly. If, thought I to myself, as I lay out there, I had to steal the stars one by one, like golden coins for my country. These stars so carefully stored up in the bosom of the darkness, then the sky would be blinded, the night without forever, and my theft would rob the whole world. But was not also this very thing I had done, robbing of the whole world? Not only of money, but of trust, of righteousness. I spent the night lying on the terrace. When at last it was morning, and I was sure that my husband had risen and left the room, then only with my shawl pulled over my head could I retrace my steps towards the bedroom. My sister-in-law was about, with her brass pot, watering her plants. When she saw me passing in the distance, she cried, Have you heard the news, Chotarani? I stopped in silence, all in a tremor. It seemed to me that the rolls of sovereigns were bulging through the shawl. I feared they would burst and scatter in a ringing shower, exposing to all the servants of the house the thief who had made herself destitute by robbing her own wealth. Your band of robbers, she went on, has sent an anonymous message threatening to loot the treasury. I remained as silent as a thief. I was advising Brother Nikhil to seek your protection, she continued banteringly. Call off your minions, robber queen. We will offer sacrifices to your Band-e-Matharam, if you will but save us. For doings there are these days, but for the Lord's sake, spare our house, at least from burglary. I hastened into my room without reply. I had to put my foot on quicksand and could not now withdraw it. Struggling would only send me down deeper. If only the time would arrive when I could hand over the money to Sandeep. I could bear it no longer. Its weight was breaking through my very ribs. It was still early when I got word that Sandeep was awaiting me. Today I had no thought of adornment. Wrapped as I was in my shawl, I went off to the outer apartments. As I entered the sitting room, I saw Sandeep and Amulia there, together. All my dignity, all my honor, seemed to run tingling through my body, from head to foot, and vanish into the ground. I should have to lay bare a woman's uttermost shame in sight of this boy. Could they have been discussing my deed in their meeting place? Had any vestige of a veil of decency been left for me? Weave men shall never understand men. When they are bent on making a road for some achievement, they think nothing of breaking the heart of the world into pieces, to pave it for the progress of their chariot. When they are mad with the intoxication of creating, they rejoice in destroying the creation of the Creator. This heartbreaking shame of mine will not attract even a glance from their eyes. They have no feeling for life itself. All their eagerness is for their object. What am I to them but a meadow flower in the path of a torrent in flood? What good will this extinction of me be to Sandeep? Only five thousand rupees? Was not I good for something more than only five thousand rupees? Yes, indeed. Did I not learn that from Sandeep himself? And was I not able in the light of this knowledge to despise all else in my world? I was the giver of light, of life, of Shakti, of immortality. In that belief, in that joy, I had burst all my bounds and come into the open. Had any man then fulfilled for me that joy, I should have lived in my depth. I should have lost nothing in the loss of my all. Do they want to tell me now that all this was false? The sound of my praise, which was sung so devotedly, did it bring me down from my heaven? Not to make heaven of earth, but only to level heaven itself with the dust? Part 16 The money, queen, said Sandeep, with his keen glance, full on my face. Amulia also fixed his gaze on me. Though not my own mother's child, yet the dear lad is brother to me, for mother is mother all the world over. With his guileless face, his gentle eyes, his innocent youth, he looked at me. And I, a woman, of his mother's sex, how could I hand him poison, just because he asked for it? The money, queen, Sandeep's insolent demand rang in my ears. For very shame and vexation, I felt I wanted to fling that gold at Sandeep's head. I could hardly undo the knot of my sari. My fingers trembled so. At last the paper rolls dropped on the table. Sandeep's face grew black. He must have thought that the rolls were of silver. What contempt was in his looks? What utter disgust at incapacity? It was almost as if he could have struck me. He must have suspected that I had come to parlay with him. To offer to compound his claim for five thousand rupees with a few hundreds. There was a moment when I thought he would snatch up the rolls and throw them out of the window, declaring that he was no beggar but a king claiming tribute. Is that all? asked Amulia, with such pity welling up in his voice, that I wanted to sob out aloud. I kept my heart tightly pressed down and merely nodded my head. Sandeep was speechless. He neither touched the rolls nor uttered a sound. My humiliation went straight to the boy's heart. With a sudden faint enthusiasm he explained, It's plenty. It will do splendidly. You have saved us. With which he tore open the covering of one of the rolls. The sovereigns shone out and in a moment the black covering seemed to be lifted from Sandeep's countenance also, his delight being forth from his features. Unable to control his sudden revulsion of feeling, he sprang up from his seat towards me. What he intended, I know not. I flashed a lightning glance towards Amulia. The color had left the boy's face as at the stroke of a whim. Then with all my strength I thrust Sandeep from me. As he reeled back, his head struck the edge of the marble table and he dropped on the floor. There he lay a while motionless. Exhausted with my effort, I sank back on my seat. Amulia's face lightened with a joyful radiance. He did not even turn towards Sandeep but came straight up, took the dust off my feet and then remained there sitting on the floor in front of me. O my little brother, my child, this reverence of yours is the last touch of heaven left in my empty world. I could contain myself no longer and my tears flowed fast. I covered my eyes with the end of my saree, which I pressed to my face with both my hands and sobbed and sobbed. And every time that I felt on my feet his tender touch trying to comfort me, my tears broke out afresh. After a little when I had recovered myself and taken my hands from my face, I saw Sandeep back at the table, gathering of the sovereigns in his handkerchief, as if nothing had happened. Amulia rose to his seat from his place near my feet. His wet eyes shined. Sandeep coolly looked up at my face as he remarked, It is six thousand. What do we want with so much, Sandeep Babu cried Amulia. Three thousand five hundred is all we need for our work. Our wants are not for this one place only, Sandeep replied. We shall want all we can get. That may be, said Amulia, but in future I undertake to get you all you want. Out of this, Sandeep Babu, please return the extra two thousand five hundred to the Maharani. Sandeep glanced inquiringly at me. No, no, I exclaimed. I shall never touch that money again. Do with it as you will. Can man ever give as women can? said Sandeep, looking towards Amulia. They are goddesses, agreed Amulia with enthusiasm. We men can at best give off our power, continued Sandeep, but women give themselves. Out of their own life they give birth. Out of their own life they give sustenance. Such gifts are the only true gifts. Then turning to me, Queen said he, If what you have given us has been only money, I would not have touched it. But you have given that which is more to you than life itself. There must be two different persons inside men. One of these in me can understand that Sandeep is trying to delude me. The other is content to be deluded. Sandeep has power, but no strength of righteousness. The weapon of his which rouses up life smites it again to death. He has the unfailing quiver of the gods, but the shafts in them are of the demons. Sandeep's handkerchief was not large enough to hold all the coins. Queen, he asked, can he give me another? When I gave him mine, he reverently touched his forehead with it, and then suddenly kneeling on the floor, he made me an obeisance. Goddess, he said, it was to offer my reverence that I had approached you, but you repulsed me and rolled me in the dust. Be it so, I accept your repulse as your boon to me. I raise it to my head in salutation, with which he pointed to the place where he had been hurt. Had I then misunderstood him, could it be that his abstract hands had really been directed towards my feet? Yet surely even Amulia had seen the passion that flamed out of his eyes, his face. But Sandeep is such an adept in setting music to his chant of praise that I cannot argue. I lose my power of seeing truth. My sight has clouded over like an opium eater's eyes. And so, after all, he gave me back twice as much in return for the blow I had dealt him. The wound on his head ended by making me bleed at heart. When I had received Sandeep's obeisance, my theft seemed to gain a dignity. And the gold glittering on the table to smile away all fear of disgrace. All stings of conscience. Like me, Amulia also was one back. His devotion to Sandeep, which had suffered a momentary check, placed up anew. The flower vase of his mind filled once more with offerings for the worship of Sandeep and me. His simple face shone out of his eyes with the pure light of the morning star at dawn. After I had offered worship and received worship, my sin became radiant. And as Amulia looked on my face, he raised his folded hands in salutation and pride. Bandai Mataram. I cannot expect to have this adoration surrounding me forever. And yet, this has come to be the only means of keeping alive my self-respect. I can no longer enter my bedroom. The bedstead seems to thrust out a forbidden hand. The iron safe fronds at me. I want to get away from this continual insult to myself, which is rankling within me. I want to keep running to Sandeep to hear him sing my praises. There is just this one little altar of worship, which had kept its head above the all-provading depths of my dishonor. And so I want to cleave to it night and day. For on whichever side I step away from it, there is only emptiness. Praise, praise, I want unceasing praise. I cannot live if my wine cup be left empty for a single moment. So, as the very price of my life, I want Sandeep of all the world today. Part 17. When my husband nowadays comes in for his news, I feel I cannot sit before him. And yet it is such a shame not to be near him that I feel I cannot do that either. So I seek myself where we cannot look at each other's face. That was how I was sitting the other day when the Bararani came and joined us. It is all very well for you, brother, said she, to laugh away these threatening letters. But they do frighten me so. Have you sent off that money you gave me to the Calcutta bank? No, I have not yet had the time to get it away, my husband replied. You are so careless, brother dear, you had better look out. But it is in the iron safe right inside the inner dressing room, said my husband, with a reassuring smile. What if they get in there? You can never tell. If they go so far, they might as well carry you off too. Don't you fear no one will come for poor me? The real attraction is in your room. But joking apart, don't run the risk of keeping money in the room like that. They will be taking only the government revenue to Calcutta in a few days now. I will send this money to the bank under the same escort. Very well. But see, you don't forget all about it. You are so absent-minded. Even if that money gets lost while in my room, the lost cannot be yours, Sister Rani. Now, now, brother, you will make me very angry if you talk in that way. Was I making any difference between yours and mine? What if your money is lost? Just not that hurt me. If Providence has thought fit to take away my all, it has not left me insensible to the valley of the most devoted brother known since the days of Lakshman. Well, Junior Rani, are you turned into a wooden doll? You have not spoken a word yet. Do you know, brother, our Junior Rani thinks I try to flatter you. If things come to that pass, I should not hesitate to do so. But I know my dear old brother does not need it. Thus the Senior Rani chattered on, not forgetting now and then to draw her brother's attention to this or that special delicacy amongst the dishes that were being served. My head was all the time in the world. The crisis was fast coming. Something must be done about replacing that money. And as I kept asking myself what could be done and how it was to be done, the unceasing pattern of my sister-in-law's words seemed more and more intolerable. What made it all the worse was that nothing could escape my sister-in-law's keen eyes. Every now and then she was casting side glances towards me. What she could read in my face I do not know. But to me it seemed that everything was written there only too plainly. Then I did an infinitely rash thing. Affecting an easy, amused laugh I said. All the Senior Rani's suspicions I see are reserved for me. Her fears of thieves and robbers are only a faint. The Senior Rani smiled mischievously. You are right, sister-mine. A woman's theft is the most fatal of all thefts. But how can you elude my watchfulness? Am I a man that you should hoodwink me? If you fear me so, I retarded. Let me keep in your hands all I have as security. If I cause you loss, you can then repay yourself. Just listen to her, our simple little Junior Rani. She laughed back, turning to my husband. Does she not know that there are losses which no security can make good, either in this world or in the next? My husband did not join in our exchange of words. When he had finished, he went off to the outer apartments. For nowadays, he does not take his midday rest in our room. All my more valuable jewels were in deposit in the treasury, in charge of the cashier. Still, what I kept with me must have been worth 30,000 or 40,000. I took my jewel box to the Bararani's room and opened it out before her, saying, I leave these with you, sister. They will keep you quite safe from all worry. The Bararani made a gesture of mock despair. You positively astound me, Chotarani, she said. Do you really suppose I spend sleepless nights for fear of being robbed by you? What harm if you did have a wholesome fear of me? Does anybody know anybody else in this world? You want to teach me a lesson by trusting me. No, no. I am bothered enough to know what to do with my own jewels, without keeping watch over yours. Take them away. There's a deer, so many prying servants are about. I went straight from my sister-in-law's room to the sitting room outside and sent for Amulia. With him, Sandeep came along too. I was in a great hurry and said to Sandeep, if you don't mind, I want to have a word or two with Amulia. Would you? Sandeep smiled, her eyes smiled. So Amulia and I are separate in your eyes. If you have set about to bring him from me, I must confess I have no power to retain him. I made no reply, but stood waiting. Be it so, Sandeep went on. Finish your special talk with Amulia. But then you must give me a special talk all to myself too, or it will mean a defeat for me. I can stand everything, but not defeat. My share must always be the lion's share. This has been my constant quarrel with Providence. I will defeat the dispenser of my fate, but not take defeat at his hands. With a crushing look at Amulia, Sandeep walked out of the room. Amulia, my own little brother, you must do one thing for me, I said. I will stake my life for whatever duty you may lay on me, sister. I brought out my jewel box from the foals of my shawl, and placed it before me. Sell or pawn these, I said, and get me six thousand rupees as fast as ever you can. No, no, sister Rani, said Amulia, touched to the quick. Let these jewels be. I will get you six thousand all the same. Oh, don't be silly, I said impatiently. There is no time for any nonsense. Take this box. Get away to Calcutta by the night train, and bring me the money by the day after tomorrow positively. Amulia took a diamond necklace out of the box, held it up to the light, and put it back gloomily. I know, I told him, that you will never get the proper price for these diamonds. So I am giving you jewels worth about thirty thousand. I don't care if they all go, but I must have that six thousand without fail. Do you know, sister Rani, said Amulia, I have had a quarrel with Sandeep Babu over the six thousand rupees he took from you. I cannot tell you how ashamed I felt, but Sandeep Babu would have it, that we must give up even our shame for the country. That may be so, but this is somehow different. I do not fear to die for the country, to kill for the country that much. Shakti has been given me. But I cannot forget the shame of having taken money from you. There Sandeep Babu is ahead of me. He has no regrets or compunctions. He says we must get rid of the idea, that the money belongs to the one, in whose box it happens to be. If we cannot, where is the magic of Bandai Mataram? Amulia gathered enthusiasm as he talked on. He always wongs up when he has me for a listener. The Gita tells us, he continued, that no one can kill the soul. Killing is a mere word. So also is it taking away of money. Whose is the money? No one has created it. No one can take it away with him, when he departs this life, for it is no part of his soul. Today it is mine, tomorrow my son's, that next day his creditors. Since in fact money belongs to no one, why should any blame attach to our patriots? If instead of leaving it for some worthless sum, they take it for their own use? When I hear Sandeep's words uttered by this boy, I tremble all over. Let those who are snake charmers play with snakes. If harm comes to them, they are prepared for it. But these boys are so innocent, all the world is ready with its blessing to protect them. They play with a snake, not knowing its nature. And when we see them smilingly, trustfully putting their hands within the reach of its fangs, then we understand how terribly dangerous the snake is. Sandeep is right when he suspects, that though I for myself may be ready to die at his hands, this boy I shall wean from him and save. So the money is wanted for the use of your patriots, I question with a smile. Of course it is, said Amulia proudly. Are they not our kings? Poverty takes away from their regal power. Do you know we always insist on Sandeep Babu traveling first class? He never shirks kingly honors. He accepts them not for himself, but for the glory of his all. The greatest weapon of those who rule the world, Sandeep Babu has told us, is the hypnotism of their display. To take the vow of poverty will be for them, not merely a penance, it would mean suicide. At this point, Sandeep noiselessly entered the room. I threw my shawl over the jewel case with a rapid movement. The special talk business not over yet? He asked with a sneer in his tone. Yes, we have quite finished, said Amulia apologetically. It was nothing much. No Amulia, I said, we have not quite finished. So exit Sandeep for the second time, I suppose, said Sandeep. If you please, and as to Sandeep's re-entry, not today, I have no time. I see, said Sandeep, as his eyes flashed, no time to waste, only for special talks. Jealousy, where the strong man shows weakness, there the weaker sex cannot help beating her drums of victory. So I repeated firmly, I really have no time. Sandeep went away, looking black. Amulia was greatly perturbed. Sister Rani, he pleaded. Sandeep Babu is annoyed. He has neither cause nor right to be annoyed, I said with some vehemence. Let me caution you about one thing, Amulia. Say nothing to Sandeep Babu about the sale of my jewels, on your life. No, I will not. Then you had better not delay any more. You must get away by tonight's train. Amulia and I left the room together. As we came out on the veranda, Sandeep was standing there. I could see he was waiting to wailay Amulia. To prevent that, I had to engage him. What is it you wanted to tell me, Sandeep Babu? I asked. I have nothing special to say. Mayor Smalltalk. And since you have not the time, I can give you just a little. By this time Amulia had left. As we entered the room, Sandeep asked, What was that box Amulia carried away? The box had not escaped his eyes. I remained firm. If I could have told you, it would have been made over to him in your presence. So you think Amulia will not tell me? No, he will not. Sandeep could not concede his anger any longer. You think he will gain the mastery over me? He blazed out. That shall never be. Amulia there would die a happy death if I deem to trample him under foot. I will never, so long as I live, I love you to bring him to your feet. Oh, the weak, the weak! At last Sandeep had realized that he is weak before me. That is why there is this sudden outburst of anger. He has understood that he cannot meet the power that I wield with Mayor's strength. With a glance I can crumble his strongest partifications. So he must needs resort to bluster. I simply smile in contemptuous silence. At last have I come to a level above him. I must never lose this vantage ground. Never descend lower again. I must all my degradation. This bit of dignity must remain to me. I know, said Sandeep, after a pause, it was your jewel case. You may guess as you please, said I, but you will get nothing out of me. So you trust Amulia more than you trust me. Do you know that the boy is a shadow of my shadow, the echo of my echo? That he is nothing if I am not at his side. Where he is not your echo, he is himself Amulia. And that is where I trust him more than I can trust your echo. You must not forget that you are under a promise to render up all your ornaments to me for the worship of the Divine Mother. In fact, your offering has already been made. Whatever ornaments the Gods leave to me will be offered up to the Gods. But how can I offer those which have been stolen away from me? Look here, it is no use you are trying to give me the slip in that fashion. Now is the time for grim work. Let that work be finished. Then you can make a display of your woman's wilds to your heart's content, and I will help you in your game. The moment I had stolen my husband's money and paid it to Sandeep, the music that was in our relations stopped. Not only did I destroy all my own value by making myself cheap, but Sandeep's powers too lost scope for the full play. You cannot employ your marksmanship against a thing which is right in your grasp. So Sandeep has lost his aspect of the hero, a tone of low quarrelsomeness has come into his words. Sandeep kept his brilliant eyes fixed full on my face till they seemed to blaze with all the thirst of the midday sky. Once or twice he fidgeted with his feet, as though to leave his seat, as if to spring right on me. My whole body seemed to swim, my veins throbbed, the hot blood surged up to my ears. I felt that if I remained there, I should never get up at all. With a supreme effort, I tore myself off the chair and hastened towards the door. From Sandeep's dry throat there came a muffled cry. Wither would you flee, queen? The next moment he left his seat with a bound to see's hold of me. At the sound of footsteps outside the door, however, he rapidly retreated and fell back into his chair. I checked my steps near the bookshelf, where I stood staring at the names of the books. As my husband entered the room, Sandeep exclaimed, I say, Nikhil, don't you keep browning among your books here? I was just telling queen B of our college club. Do you remember that contest of hours over the translation of those lines from Browning? You don't? She should never have looked at me if she meant I should not love her. There are plenty, many you call such, I suppose she may discover. All her soul too if she pleases, and yet leave much as she found them. But I am not so, and she knew it, when she fixed me, glancing round them. I managed to get together the words to render it into Bengali somehow. But the result was hardly likely to be a joy forever to the people of Bengal. I really did think at one time that I was on the verge of becoming a poet, but Providence was kind enough to save me from that disaster. Do you remember old Dakshina? If he had not become a salt inspector, he would have been a poet. I remember his rendering to this day. No queen B, it is no use rummaging those bookshelves. Nikhil has ceased to read poetry since his marriage. Perhaps he has no further need for it. But I suppose the fever fit of poetry, as the Sanskrit has it, is about to attack me again. I have come to give you a warning, Sandeep, said my husband. About the fever fit of poetry? My husband took no notice of his attempt at humor. For some time he continued. Mohammedan preachers have been about stirring up the local Muslims. They are all wild with you, and may attack you any moment. Are you come to advise light? I have come to give you information, not to offer advice. Had these estates been mine, such a warning would have been necessary for the preachers, not for me. If, instead of trying to frighten me, you give them a taste of your intimidation, that would be wordier both of you and me. Do you know that your weakness is weakening your neighbouring zamindars also? I did not offer you my advice, Sandeep. I wish you, too, would refrain from giving me yours. Besides, it is useless. And there is another thing I want to tell you. You and your followers have been secretly worrying and oppressing my ten entry. I cannot allow that any longer. So I must ask you to leave my territory. For fear of the Muslims, or is there any other fear you have to threaten me with? There are fears, the want of which is cowardice. In the name of those fears, I tell you, Sandeep, you must go. In five days I shall be starting for Calcutta. I want you to accompany me. You may, of course, stay in my house there. To that there is no objection. All right, I have still five days time then. Meanwhile, Queen Bee, let me hum to you my song of parting from your honey-hype. Ah, you poet of modern Bengal, throw open your doors and let me plunder your words. The theft is really yours, for it is my song which you have made your own. Let the name be yours by all means, but the song is mine. With this, Sandeep struck up in a deep husky voice, which threatened to be out of tune, a song in the Bhairavi mode. In the springtime of your kingdom, my queen, meetings and partings chase each other in their endless hide-and-seek, and flowers blossom in the wake of those that droop and die in the shade. In the springtime of your kingdom, my queen, my meeting with you had its own songs, but has not also my leaf-taking any gift to offer you? That gift is my secret hope, which I keep hidden in the shadows of your flower garden, that the rains of July may sweetly temper your fiery June. His boldness was immense, boldness which had no veil, but was naked as fire. One finds no time to stop it. It is like trying to resist a thunderbolt, the lightning flashes. It laughs at all resistance. I left the room. As I was passing along the veranda towards the inner apartments, Amulia suddenly made his appearance and came and stood before me. Fear nothing, Sister Rani, he said. I am off tonight and shall not return unsuccessful. Amulia said I, looking straight into his earnest, youthful face. I fear nothing for myself, but may I never cease to fear for you. Amulia turned to go, but before he was out of sight, I called him back and said, Have you a mother, Amulia? I have a sister. No, I am the only child of my mother. My father died when I was quite little. Then go back to your mother, Amulia. But Sister Rani, I have now both mother and sister. Then Amulia, before you leave tonight, come and have your dinner here. There won't be time for that. Let me take some food for the journey, consecrated with your touch. What do you especially like, Amulia? If I had been with my mother, I should have had lots of pouch cakes. Make some for me with your own hands, Sister Rani.