7

Rising early in the morning, Binoy found that the sky had cleared during the night. The morning light had bloomed pure and bright as the smile of a new-born child. One or two white clouds drifted idly across the sky, altogether without purpose.

He was standing on the veranda, his heart glowing at the memory of another such clear morning, when he caught sight of Paresh coming along the road slowly, a walking-stick in one hand and Satish’s hand in the other. The moment Satish spotted Binoy on the veranda he clapped his hands and shouted out “Binoybabu!” Paresh too looked up and saw Binoy. Binoy hurried downstairs, and Paresh, with Satish in tow, came inside his lodgings.

Satish took Binoy’s hand and said, “Binoybabu, the other day you said you would come to our house — but you never came, did you?”

Binoy smiled and laid an affectionate hand on Satish’s back. Paresh carefully leant his walking-stick against the table, sat down in the chair, and said, “Had you not been there the other day, we should have been in a great deal of difficulty. You did us a very great service.”

Binoy said with eager embarrassment, “What do you say — what did I do, after all.”

Satish suddenly turned and asked him, “I say, Binoybabu, have you no dog?”

Binoy laughed and said, “A dog? No, I have no dog.”

Satish asked, “Why — why have you not kept a dog?”

Binoy said, “The idea never occurred to me.”

Paresh said, “I hear Satish came to see you the other day — I hope he did not bother you too greatly. He chatters so much that his elder sister has given him the name Bakhtiyar Khilji.”

Binoy said, “I can chatter a great deal myself, so the two of us got on splendidly. What do you say, Satishbabu!”

Satish made no reply to this; but fearing that his new nickname might diminish his standing in Binoy’s eyes, he grew agitated, and said, “It’s all very well — quite fine, in fact. Bakhtiyar Khilji — that is quite fine. Now, Binoybabu, did not Bakhtiyar Khilji fight battles? Did he not conquer Bengal?”

Binoy laughed and said, “He used to fight in the old days — now he has no more need of fighting; now he merely delivers speeches. And he conquers Bengal all the same.”

In this fashion a great deal of conversation passed between them. Paresh had spoken the least of anyone — he had merely smiled from time to time with a serene and pleasant countenance and joined in with a word here and there. When the time came to take his leave he rose from the chair and said, “Our house — number seventy-eight — is just along from here, keeping always to the right—”

Satish said, “He knows our house. He came with me all the way to our very door the other day.”

There was no reason whatsoever to feel embarrassed at this, yet inwardly Binoy felt a flush of embarrassment. It was as though something of his had been found out.

The old gentleman said, “Then you know our house already. In that case, whenever you should—”

Binoy: There is no need to say another word. Whenever I—

Paresh: After all, we are in the same neighbourhood — it is only because this is Calcutta that we have not known one another all this time.

Binoy walked with Paresh as far as the road. For a little while he stood by the gate and watched. Paresh walked slowly on with his stick, while Satish, chattering all the while, trotted along beside him.

Binoy said to himself: I have never seen a man like Pareshbabu — one feels an impulse to bow down and touch the dust of his feet. And what a remarkable boy Satish is! If he lives, he will become someone truly worthwhile — such intelligence, and such artlessness combined.

However admirable this old man and this boy might be, under ordinary circumstances such a degree of reverence and affection after so brief an acquaintance would scarcely have been possible. But Binoy’s heart was in such a state that it stood in no need of longer acquaintance.

After that, Binoy fell to thinking — he must call at Pareshbabu’s house; otherwise the demands of civility would not be met.

But the India of his own faction — speaking through Gora’s voice — kept telling him: You cannot go there regularly. Take care!

Binoy had at every step submitted to a great many prohibitions imposed by the India of his faction. Many times he had felt hesitant, yet he had submitted. Today a rebellion stirred within him. It began to seem to him that India was nothing but a figure of prohibitions.

The servant came to report that the meal was ready — but Binoy had not yet even bathed. It was past noon. All of a sudden Binoy shook his head vigorously and said, “I shall not eat — the rest of you go.”

So saying, he slung his umbrella over his shoulder and went out into the street — he did not even take a wrapper for his shoulders.

He went straight to Gora’s house. Binoy knew that on Amherst Street a house had been rented and the office of the Hindu Hitaishi established there; every midday Gora went to that office and kept alive, through letters, all the members of his party scattered across Bengal. It was here that his devotees came to hear his counsel and counted themselves fortunate to be of service to him.

That day too Gora had gone to the work of the office. Binoy came almost at a run into the inner quarters of the house, to Anandamayi’s room. Anandamayi was then seated at her meal, and Lachmiya sat beside her, fanning her.

Anandamayi looked up in surprise and said, “Why, Binoy, what has happened to you?”

Binoy sat down before her and said, “Mother, I am very hungry — give me something to eat.”

Anandamayi said in a flurry, “Now you have put me in a fix. The brahmin cook has gone — you boys again with your—”

Binoy said, “Did I come to eat the brahmin cook’s food? In that case, what fault is there in my own cook at my lodgings? It is the blessings from your own plate that I have come to eat, Mother. Lachmiya, bring me a glass of water, will you.”

The moment Lachmiya brought the water, Binoy drained it in great gulps. Then Anandamayi had another plate fetched, and with tender care she kneaded the rice from her own plate and transferred it to his, and Binoy ate it as a man eats who has been long famished.

A sorrow that had been lying on Anandamayi’s heart was lifted away that day. Seeing the gladness on her face, Binoy too felt as though a burden had rolled from his chest. Anandamayi sat down to stitch a pillowcase; from the adjoining room, where screwpine flowers had been gathered for making keya-khaer, their fragrance drifted in; and Binoy, half-reclining with his head resting on one upraised hand near Anandamayi’s feet, forgot all the rest of the world and, just as in the old days, talked on and on with perfect contentment.