12

When Binoy and Gora came out into the street from Paresh’s house, Binoy said, “Gora, walk a little more slowly, brother — your legs are a good deal longer than ours — if you don’t shorten your stride a bit, we get quite winded trying to keep up with you.”

Gora said, “I wish to go alone. I have a great deal to think about today.”

And with that he strode off at his usual rapid pace.

Binoy felt the sting of it. Today he had rebelled against Gora and broken his rule. He would have been glad to receive a scolding from Gora on that account. A storm would have blown over and the oppressiveness cleared from the sky of their lifelong friendship, and he would have breathed freely again.

Apart from this, another thing was troubling him. Today, when Gora had arrived at Paresh’s house for the first time and found Binoy sitting there in easy familiarity, he would surely have concluded that Binoy went there regularly. Not that there was any wrongdoing in going there; whatever Gora might say, Binoy counted it a particular gain to be intimately acquainted with Paresh Babü’s well-educated family; if Gora saw any fault in mixing with them, that was simply narrow-mindedness on his part — yet in an earlier conversation Gora had apparently come to understand that Binoy did not frequent Paresh Babü’s house, and it might well appear to him now that this was untrue. And especially since Baradasundari had made a point of calling him into the inner rooms, where an acquaintance had formed between him and her daughters — this had not escaped Gora’s sharp attention. Mingling with the young women in this way, and basking in Baradasundari’s warmth, Binoy had inwardly felt a great pride and pleasure — but along with this, the difference in the welcome accorded to him and to Gora in that household had been quietly stinging him. Until this day no one had come between these two friends and stood as an obstacle. Once, in the flush of Gora’s Brahmo enthusiasm, a brief shadow had fallen over their friendship — but as I have said before, for Binoy opinion is not a very large matter; however fiercely he may argue about opinions, it is persons who are most real to him. Now it seemed that persons were about to come between them, and this had frightened him. Binoy valued his connection with Paresh’s family, for he had never tasted quite such joy in his life — but Gora’s friendship was woven into the very fabric of Binoy’s existence; he could not even imagine a life severed from that friendship.

Until today, Binoy had never allowed any person to draw as close to his heart as Gora had done. All this time he had simply read books, argued and quarreled with Gora, and loved Gora; there had never been any occasion to concern himself in the least with anyone else in the world. Gora, too, had no lack of devoted followers, but he had no friend other than Binoy. There is within Gora’s nature something of a quality of solitude — on the one hand he does not disdain to mix with ordinary people — yet to form intimate bonds with a variety of persons is utterly impossible for him. Most people cannot help but be sensible of a certain distance between themselves and him.

Today Binoy understood that his heart was being drawn more and more deeply toward the members of Paresh Babü’s household. And yet the acquaintance was not of long standing. At this he began to feel something like the shame of a man who has committed a fault, and this in the eyes of Gora.

The way in which Baradasundari today had displayed Binoy’s own daughters’ English handwriting and their needlework, and had him listen to their recitations, giving full expression to a mother’s pride — Binoy could vividly imagine how utterly contemptible this would appear to Gora. And in truth there was much that was rather ridiculous in it; and in the pride that the daughters had learned a little English, had received praise from an English memsahib, and had been briefly favoured by the wife of the Lieutenant-Governor, there was, by one reckoning, a certain meanness as well. Yet knowing and understanding all this, Binoy had been unable to feel the contempt for it that Gora’s standard demanded. He had found it all rather pleasant. A girl like Labanya — she was quite beautiful to look at, of that there was no doubt — had shown him Moore’s poetry in her own hand with an air of no small self-satisfaction, and Binoy had felt his own pride gratified by it. Baradasundari had not quite caught the right tone of the modern age, yet she was busily and excessively displaying modernity — the incongruity of this was not lost on Binoy, yet even so he had found Baradasundari rather agreeable; the simplicity of her pride and her impatience had won his liking. That the young women had kept the house sweet with the sound of their laughter, had made and served the tea, had adorned the walls with their own handiwork, and had all the while read and enjoyed English poetry — however modest all this might be, Binoy was charmed by it. He had never encountered such delight in his solitary life, so bare of human companionship. The images he began to paint in his mind — of the dress and adornment, the laughter and conversation, the quiet occupations of these young women — were beyond counting. A young man who, absorbed in books and disputes over opinions, had scarcely known when he had stepped across the threshold of youth — to such a one, within the modest dwelling of Paresh, a new and wondrous world had revealed itself.

That Gora had left Binoy in anger and gone his own way — Binoy could not in his heart call this anger unjust. A real disruption had come at last, after all these years, into the long friendship of these two companions.

Through the still darkness of the rainy night, clouds broke into thunder now and again. An immense heaviness pressed upon Binoy’s spirit. It seemed to him that his life, which had always moved along a single road, had today turned away from it and taken a new and different path. In this darkness, where had Gora gone — and where was he himself headed?

At the moment of parting, love’s force runs stronger. How vast and how powerful was Binoy’s love for Gora — this he understood today, on the very day that love received its wound.

When he reached his lodging the darkness of the night and the emptiness of the room felt overwhelmingly close and hollow about him. He came out once thinking he would go to Gora’s house; but he could not bring himself to hope that this night Gora’s heart would open to him, and so he went back again, lay down wearily upon his bed, and closed his eyes.

The next morning when he rose, his mind felt lighter. In the night his imagination had inflated his grief beyond all need — in the morning the friendship with Gora and the new acquaintance with Paresh’s family no longer seemed to him utterly irreconcilable. He smiled to himself at last night’s anguish, wondering what all the fuss had really been about.

Binoy threw a shawl over his shoulder and walked briskly to Gora’s house. Gora was sitting downstairs reading the newspaper. He had caught sight of Binoy when he was still in the street — but when Binoy arrived, Gora’s eyes did not lift from the newspaper. Without a word, Binoy came in and snatched the paper clean out of Gora’s hands.

Gora said, “I believe you are mistaken — I am Gaurmohon, a superstition-ridden Hindu.”

Binoy said, “Perhaps you are the one who is mistaken. I am Shri Binoy — the aforesaid Gaurmohon’s superstition-ridden friend.”

Gora: But Gaurmohon is so utterly shameless that he has never felt any embarrassment before anyone on account of his superstitions.

Binoy: Binoy is exactly the same. The difference being, of course, that he does not brandish his beliefs and go out to attack others.

Before long an uproarious argument had broken out between the two friends. The whole neighbourhood understood that Binoy and Gora had met today.

Gora said, “You have been frequenting Paresh Babü’s house — why did you need to deny it to me the other day?”

Binoy: I denied it for no particular reason — I denied it because I had not been going there. It was only yesterday that I entered their house for the very first time.

Gora: I suspect that, like Abhimanyu, you know the way in — but not the way out.

Binoy: That may well be — perhaps it is simply my nature. Those whom I respect or love, I cannot abandon. You yourself have had occasion to know this side of my character.

Gora: So the visits there are to continue from now on?

Binoy: What is to say that only I shall continue going? You have the use of your legs too; you are not some inanimate object, fixed to one spot.

Gora: Oh, I go and I come — but from the signs I observed in you, it looks as though you are going there altogether. How did the hot tea sit with you?

Binoy: It was a little strong.

Gora: Well then?

Binoy: Not drinking it would have been rather stronger.

Gora: So social observance is, in your view, merely a matter of social convenience?

Binoy: Not always. But look here, Gora — where the heart comes into conflict with society, in my case —

Gora grew agitated and would not let Binoy finish his sentence. He burst out, “The heart! It is precisely because you look upon society as a small and trivial thing that at every turn you find your heart in conflict with it. But if you were to feel how far the pain reaches when society receives a blow, then you would be ashamed to bring up that heart of yours. You feel it is a great hardship to cause the slightest hurt to Paresh Babü’s daughters — yet it causes me no small hardship that you can so effortlessly wound the whole country for so trifling a reason.”

Binoy said, “Well then, I will speak the plain truth, brother Gora. If drinking one cup of tea constitutes a wound to the whole country, then that wound will do the country good. To go on carefully avoiding it is to make the country excessively frail and pampered.”

Gora: My dear sir, I know all those arguments — do not take me for a complete fool. But this is not the right time for all that reasoning. When a sickly child refuses to take his medicine, the mother herself takes medicine while in good health, to show the child that they share the same condition — now that is not a matter of logic, it is a matter of love. Without that love, however much logic there may be, the bond between mother and child is severed. And then the work is lost too. I too do not make a debating point of a cup of tea — but I cannot endure separation from my country. Not drinking tea is a far simpler thing; giving pain to Paresh Babü’s daughters is a far smaller thing. To become one with the whole country, to merge with it completely, is in our present condition the most important task of all — once that union is achieved, whether you drink tea or do not drink tea, that question will resolve itself in two words.

Binoy: Then I see there is a very long wait ahead before my second cup of tea.

Gora: No, the wait need not be so very long. But, Binoy, why trouble yourself about me any further? Along with a good many other unpleasant features of Hindu society, the time has come to be rid of me as well. Otherwise the feelings of Paresh Babü’s daughters will be hurt.

Just then Abinash entered the room. He was Gora’s disciple. What he heard from Gora’s lips he reduced, through his own inferior understanding, and distorted, through his own inferior language, and went about broadcasting in all directions. What people could not understand at all of Gora’s words, they understood quite well in Abinash’s version and expressed approval.

Abinash bore a strong feeling of jealousy toward Binoy. Accordingly, whenever he found the opportunity, he attempted to argue with Binoy in his foolish way. Binoy would grow extremely impatient with his stupidity — whereupon Gora would take over Abinash’s line of argument himself and enter the fray against Binoy. Abinash would then believe that his own reasoning was flowing out through Gora’s mouth.

Abinash’s arrival interrupted Binoy’s chance of a reconciliation with Gora. He rose and went upstairs. Anandamayi was seated on the veranda outside the storeroom, cutting vegetables.

Anandamayi said, “I have been hearing you two talking for quite some time now. So early in the morning? You have had your breakfast before coming out, I hope?”

On any other day Binoy would have said no, he had not eaten, and a meal would have materialized for him in Anandamayi’s presence. But today he said, “No, Mother — I won’t have anything — I ate before I left.”

Today Binoy did not wish to add to his offences in Gora’s eyes. Feeling that Gora had not yet forgiven him for his association with Paresh Babü’s family — that he was being kept, as it were, at a slight remove — a quiet discomfort stirred within him. He took out a penknife from his pocket and sat down to peel the potatoes.

When he went downstairs about a quarter of an hour later, he found that Gora had gone out with Abinash. Binoy sat in silence in Gora’s room for a long while. Then he picked up the newspaper and with an absent mind began looking at the advertisements. After that he let out a long sigh, got up, and walked away.