The Home and the World

Mother, today there comes back to mind the vermilion mark at the parting of your hair, the sari 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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.

I was never self-conscious. But nowadays I often try to take an outside view—to see myself as Bimal sees me. What a dismally solemn picture it makes, my habit of taking things too seriously!

It is now four years since I framed a photograph of my husband in ivory and put it in the niche over there. If I happen to look that way I have to lower my eyes. Up to last week I used regularly to put there the flowers of my worship, every morning after my bath. My husband has often chided me over this.

How could we help thinking that it was all supernatural? This moment of our history seemed to have dropped into our hand like a jewel from the crown of some drunken god. It had no resemblance to our past; and so we were led to hope that all our wants and miseries would disappear by the spell of some magic charm, that for us there was no longer any boundary line between the possible and the impossible. Everything seemed to be saying to us: “It is coming; it has come!”

“Won’t you bear witness to the burning of this man’s cloth?”

Sandip smiled. “Of course I shall be a witness in the case,” he said. “But I shall be on the opposite side.”

“To tyrannize for the country is to tyrannize over the country. But that I am afraid you will never understand.” With this I came away.

All of a sudden the world shone out for me with a fresh clearness. I seemed to feel it in my blood, that the Earth had lost the weight of its earthiness, and its daily task of sustaining life no longer appeared a burden, as with a wonderful access of power it whirled through space telling its beads of days and nights. What endless work, and withal what illimitable energy of freedom! None shall check it, oh, none can ever check it! From the depths of my being an uprush of joy, like a waterspout, sprang high to storm the skies.

As soon as Bimala came into the sitting-room, in the evening, I said as I rose up to receive her: “Queen! Everything is ready, success is at hand, but we must have money.

“Money? How much money?”

“Not so very much, but by hook or by crook we must have it!”

“But how much?”

“A mere fifty thousand rupees will do for the present.”

“If the idea of a United India is a true one,” objects Nikhil, “Mussulmans 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.”

To keep Bimala’s heart in the rarefied air of idealism, I cut short all further discussion over the five thousand rupees.

“It is my desire,” I said, “to plant something greater than Swadeshi. I am not after dead logs but living trees—and these will take time to grow.”

“I am afraid, sir,” sneered the history student, “that you will get neither log nor tree. Sandip Babu rightly teaches that in order to get, you must snatch.”

To hear Sandip’s 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.

There was a drawer inside the safe. On opening this I found the money, not in currency notes, 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 sari.

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.

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 Sandip of all the world, today.

“Why is it possible,” I asked, “to use the Mussulmans thus, as tools against us? Is it not because we have fashioned them into such with our own intolerance? That is how Providence punishes us. Our accumulated sins are being visited on our own heads.”

“I have had no peace of mind, Amulya,” I said to him, “ever since I sent you off to sell my jewels.”

“Sandip Babu,” I said, “I wonder how you can go on making these endless speeches, without a stop. Do you get them up by heart, beforehand?”

I threw myself prone on the ground and sobbed aloud. It was for mercy that I prayed—some little mercy from somewhere, some shelter, some sign of forgiveness, some hope that might bring about the end. “Lord,” I vowed to myself, “I will lie here, waiting and waiting, touching neither food nor drink, so long as your blessing does not reach me.”

I heard the sound of footsteps. Who says that the gods do not show themselves to mortal men? I did not raise my face to look up, lest the sight of it should break the spell. Come, oh come, come and let your feet touch my head. Come, Lord, and set your foot upon my throbbing heart, and at that moment let me die.

Then came a palanquin, followed by a litter. The doctor was walking alongside the palanquin.

“What do you think, doctor?” asked the Dewan.

“Can’t say yet,” the doctor replied. “The wound in the head is a serious one.”

“And Amulya Babu?”

“He has a bullet through the heart. He is done for.”