Chapter 36

For two days there was great festivity in the village. Music played, there was singing and merriment, and Rupa, weeping and wailing, was sent off; but no one saw Hori come out of the house. He sat hidden away, as though his face were blackened. With Malti's coming the bustle had increased still more. Women from other villages came too.

Gobar, by his gentleness and affection, had charmed the whole village. There was no house where he had not left behind the memory of his sweet ways. Bhola fell at his feet. Bhola's wife fed him pan and gave him a rupee as a parting gift, and asked too for his address in Lucknow. If she ever came to Lucknow she would be sure to meet him. She made no mention to him of her money.

On the third day, when Gobar was about to set out, Hori, before Dhaniya, with eyes brimming over, confessed the wrong that had been churning his soul for several days, and said weeping — Son, in my attachment to this land I have loaded a bundle of sin upon my head. Heaven knows what punishment God will give me for it.

Gobar did not grow heated in the least; there was no resentment of any kind on his face. He said with reverence — There is nothing of wrongdoing in this, father! Yes, Ramsevak's money should be paid back. After all, what could you have done? I am fit for nothing, your farming yields no crop, a loan can be had nowhere, there is not food in the house even for a month. In such a state what else could you have done? Had you not saved the holding, where would you have lived? When a man has no power left, he leaves himself to destiny. Who knows how long this lawlessness will go on? For one to whom the bread of his belly is not granted, honour and dignity are all so much sham. Had you, like the others, throttled others and seized their savings, you too would be a man of substance. You never abandoned righteousness — this is the punishment for that very thing. In your place, I would either be in jail or have gone to the gallows. I could never have borne it, that I should keep earning and earning to fill everyone's house, while I myself sat with my children with a muzzle on my mouth.

Dhaniya would not agree to send the daughter-in-law along with him. Jhuniya too had a mind to stay here some days longer. It was settled that Gobar should go alone.

The next day at dawn Gobar took leave of everyone and set out for Lucknow. Hori came to see him off as far as the edge of the village. Never before had he felt such love for Gobar. When Gobar bent down at his feet, Hori broke into tears, as though he would never set eyes upon his son again. In his soul there was joy, there was pride, there was resolve. Having received this reverence and affection from his son, he had become radiant, he had become vast. The despondency that had spread over him a few days earlier, a kind of darkness in which he was losing his way — there was now in its place ardour and light.

Rupa was happy in her marital home. In the state in which her childhood had passed, money was the most precious thing of all. How many longings there had been in her heart that had remained shut up within it, smothered. She was now fulfilling them, and Ramsevak, middle-aged though he was, had grown young. For Rupa he was the husband; his being young, middle-aged, or old could make no difference to her womanly feeling. That feeling of hers did not depend upon the husband's looks or age; its foundation lay far deeper than that, in the strata of eternal tradition, which only some earthquake could shake. Her youth was rapt in itself; she adorned and dressed herself for her own sake and was pleased of her own accord. For Ramsevak she had another form. Then she became the housewife, busy with the work of the household. She did not wish to put him to shame or anxiety by displaying her youth. No feeling of any kind of incompleteness entered her mind. The granaries filled with grain, and the fields stretching to the village boundary, and the rows of cattle at the door, would not let any feeling of incompleteness enter into her.

And her greatest longing was to see her own people happy. How might she lift away their poverty? The memory of that cow was still green in her heart, the cow that had come like a guest and gone away leaving everyone in tears. After all these days that memory had grown more tender still. As yet her sense of self had not taken root in this new home. That same old house was her own home. Its people were her own kin; their sorrow was her sorrow and their happiness her happiness. Seeing a whole herd of cattle at this door, she could not feel that joy which seeing one cow at her own door would have brought. Her father's longing had never been fulfilled. The day that cow had come, what eagerness there had been in him! As though a goddess had come down from the sky. After that he had never again had the means to bring another cow, but she knew that even today that longing was as alive as ever in Hori's heart. This time, when she went, she would surely take the dun cow along with her. No — why not send it through her own man's hands. It needed only the asking of Ramsevak. His consent was given, and the next day Rupa sent the cow by way of a cowherd. She told the cowherd — Tell father it has been sent so that Mangal may drink the milk. Hori too was busy with the thought of getting a cow. As yet there was no great hurry for a cow, but Mangal was here, and how could he do without milk! The moment money came in, the first thing he would buy was a cow. Mangal was now not merely his grandson, not merely Gobar's son; he was the plaything of Malti Devi too. His rearing must be of that same kind.

But where was the money to come from? By chance, that very day a contractor began the digging of gravel in the village waste-land for a road. When Hori heard of it he hurried there at once, and began digging at eight annas a day. If this work held even for two months, money enough for a cow would come in. After working all day in the loo and the sun, he would come home utterly dead, but there was no mention of despondency. With the same ardour he would go again the next day to work. At night too, after eating, he would sit down before the oil-lamp and twist string. He would go to sleep somewhere about twelve or one. Dhaniya too had gone mad — instead of stopping him from labouring so hard, she herself would sit beside him twisting string. The cow had to be got, after all, and Ramsevak's money had to be repaid too. Gobar had said so. He had it greatly on his mind.

It had struck twelve at night. The two of them sat twisting string. Dhaniya said — If you feel sleepy, go and lie down. There is the work to do again at dawn.

Hori looked towards the sky — I will go. It must be only ten o'clock now. You go, lie down.

'I lie down a little while at noon.'

'I too eat my parched grain and sleep under a tree.'

'The loo must beat upon you cruelly.'

'What loo? There is good shade.'

'I am afraid you may fall ill.'

'Come now — those fall ill who have the leisure to fall ill. Here there is this one purpose: that this time when Gobar comes, half of Ramsevak's money should be saved up. He too will bring something. If only this year our throats can be freed of this debt, life will be another thing.'

'I think a great deal of Gobar this time — how gentle he has become.'

'When he left, he fell at my feet.'

'When Mangal came from there, how strong he was. Coming here, how thin he has grown.'

'There — milk, butter, what did he not have? Here, if he gets bread, that is much. Money from the contractor, and I will bring a cow.'

'The cow would have come long ago, but only when you would heed what was said. Your own farming you could scarcely manage, and you took the burden of Punia upon your head too.'

'What could I do — one has one's own dharma too. When Hira behaved so badly, someone was needed to look after his children. Tell me, who was there besides me? Had I not helped, what would have become of them today — think of it. And after all I did, Mangaru still went and filed a suit against her.'

'If she buries her money in the ground, will there not be suits?'

'What are you babbling? If the farming feeds the belly, that is much. What is there for anyone to bury?'

'Hira, it is as though he has gone clean out of the world.'

'My mind tells me that he will come, surely, sometime or other.'

The two slept. Hori rose at the dark hour of dawn and saw Hira standing before him — hair grown long, clothes in tatters, face dried up, in his body no trace of blood or flesh, as though even his stature had shrunk. He ran and fell at Hori's feet.

Hori clasped him to his breast and said — You have wasted clean away, Hira! When did you come? Today I was thinking of you again and again. Are you ill?

In his eyes today there was not that Hira who had made his life bitter, but rather that Hira who had been a small motherless, fatherless child. Those intervening twenty-five or thirty years seemed wiped away; there was not even a sign of them.

Hira gave no answer. He stood weeping.

Hori took his hand and said in a voice choked with feeling — Why do you weep, brother — slips and errors happen to a man. Where were you all these days?

Hira said in a piteous voice — Where shall I say, father! Understand only this much, that your sight was fated for me, and so I was spared. A murder sat upon my head. It seemed as though that cow stood before me always, sleeping or waking, never out of my sight. I went mad and was five years in the madhouse. It is six months now since I came out of there. I went about begging and eating. I never had the courage to come here. With what face would I show myself to the world? In the end my heart would not be still. Hardening my heart, I came. You — the children —

Hori cut him short — You ran away for nothing. Why, the matter would have been hushed up by giving the daroga five or ten rupees, and what would have come of it?

'I shall never in this life be quit of my debt to you, father!'

'I am no stranger, brother!'

Hori was glad. All the troubles of his life, all the despairs, were as though rolling at his feet. Who says he has been defeated in the struggle of life? This joy, this pride, this thrill — are these the signs of defeat? In these very defeats lay his victory. His broken, shattered weapons were his banners of victory. His breast had swelled up. A glow had come to his face. In Hira's gratitude all the success of his life had taken visible form. Had a hundred or two hundred maunds of grain been heaped in his granary, had a thousand or five hundred coins been buried in his cooking pot, could they have given him this joy of heaven?

Hira looked him over from head to foot and said — You too have grown very thin, father!

Hori said with a laugh — Then are these the days for me to grow fat? Those grow fat who have neither the thought of debt nor of honour. In this age, to be fat is shamelessness. Only by making a hundred lean does one grow fat. What joy is there in such fatness? Joy is there only when all are fat. Sobha met me.

'I met him only last night. You reared even your own people, and those who bore you enmity you reared as well, and you sit with your honour kept whole. He sold and disposed of all his farming and land, and now God alone knows how he will keep body and soul together.'

Today when Hori went off to the digging, his body was heavy. The fatigue of the night had not been worked off, but his steps were brisk and there was in his gait the stiffness of a man free of all care.

Today from ten o'clock the loo began to blow, and by the time noon came, fire was raining down. Hori kept lifting basketfuls of gravel and carrying them from the pit to the road, and loading them on the cart. When the noon break came, he was worn out of breath. Such fatigue he had never known. His feet would not even lift themselves. His body was scorching from within. He neither bathed nor ate his parched grain; in that very fatigue he spread his cloth and lay down under a tree, but with thirst his throat was drying up. To drink water on an empty stomach is not good. He tried to hold back his thirst, but every moment the burning within increased; it could not be borne. A labourer had set down a bucketful of water and was eating his parched grain. Hori rose, drew up a lota of water and drank it, and came back and lay down again, but within half an hour he vomited, and a deathly pallor spread over his face.

That labourer said — How do you feel, brother Hori?

Hori's head was reeling. He said — It is nothing, I am well.

As he spoke he vomited again, and his hands and feet began to grow cold. Why was his head reeling like this? Before his eyes a darkness seemed to be spreading. His eyes closed, and all the memories of his life came alive one by one upon the curtain of his heart, but out of sequence — the latter before, the former after — like the pictures of a dream, mismatched, distorted, unconnected. That happy childhood came, when he played at marbles and slept in his mother's lap. Then he saw, as though Gobar had come and was falling at his feet. Then the scene changed — Dhaniya, decked as a bride, wearing a red chundri, was feeding him a meal. Then a picture of a cow came before him, exactly like the wish-granting Kamadhenu. He had milked her and was giving the milk to Mangal when the cow became a goddess and —

That same labourer called out — The noon has passed, Hori, come, pick up your basket.

Hori said nothing. His life-breath was flying off, who knows in what worlds. His body was burning, his hands and feet were turning cold. The loo had struck him.

A man was sent running to his house. Within an hour Dhaniya came hurrying. Sobha and Hira came behind, making a litter of a small cot to carry him.

When Dhaniya touched Hori's body, her heart turned to ice within her. His face had lost its lustre.

In a trembling voice she said — How do you feel? Hori looked at her with unsteady eyes and said — You have come, Gobar? I have bought a cow for Mangal. She is standing there, look.

Dhaniya had seen the face of death. She knew it. She had seen it come on hushed feet, and she had seen it come like a storm. Before her eyes a mother-in-law had died, a father-in-law had died, two of her own children had died, scores of men of the village had died. A jolt struck her very life-breath. The very ground on which her life rested seemed to be slipping away; but no — this was a time for fortitude, her fear was groundless, the loo had struck him, and that was why he had lost consciousness.

Holding back the welling tears, she said — Look at me, here I am — do you not know me?

Hori's consciousness returned. Death had drawn near, the fire was about to flare up. The smoke had stilled. He looked at Dhaniya with piteous eyes; from both corners two drops of tears rolled down. In a faint voice he said — Forgive whatever I have said or done, Dhaniya! I am going now. The longing for a cow has stayed in my heart unfulfilled. Now the money here will go for the funeral rites. Do not weep, Dhaniya — how long will you keep me alive now? All the ruin has come to pass. Now let me die.

And his eyes closed again. At that same moment Hira and Sobha arrived with the litter. They lifted Hori up, laid him in the litter, and set off towards the village.

In the village this news spread like the wind. The whole village gathered. Hori, lying on the charpoy, perhaps saw everything, understood everything, but his tongue had stopped. Yes, the tears flowing from his eyes were telling that to break the bond of attachment was proving so hard. That which one could not accomplish — the sorrow for that is what is called attachment. What attachment is there for duties fulfilled and tasks completed! Attachment lies in leaving behind those helpless ones with whom we could not fulfil our duty, in those unfinished designs which we could not complete.

But even understanding all this, Dhaniya clung to the fading shadow of hope. The tears were falling from her eyes, yet like a machine she ran here and there — now roasting a mango to make a cooling drink, now rubbing his body with chaff. What could she do, there was no money, or she would have sent for a doctor.

Hira said, weeping — Sister-in-law, harden your heart. Have the godan performed; father is going.

Dhaniya looked at him with eyes of scorn. How much harder yet was she to make her heart? The dharma she owed towards her husband — must that be told to her? He who had been the companion of her life — was merely weeping over his name her dharma?

And several voices came — Yes, have the godan performed, this is the time for it now.

Like a machine Dhaniya rose. The string she had sold that day — she brought the twenty annas she had got for it, and placing it in her husband's cold hand, said to Matadin who stood before her — Maharaj, in the house there is no cow, no calf, no money. This is the money, this is his godan.

And, swooning, she fell to the ground.