13

At midday Binoy’s mind again grew restless with the desire to go to Gora. Binoy had never felt any hesitation in humbling himself before Gora. But even if one harbours no personal pride, the pride of friendship is difficult to restrain. Through his surrender to Paresh Babü’s household, Binoy was conscious of having somehow fallen short in the faithfulness he had owed Gora all these years — a sense of having committed a fault — but he had only expected that Gora would tease and chide him for it; he had never imagined that Gora would try to hold him thus at arm’s length. He left his lodging and had gone some distance before he turned and came back; fearing that friendship itself might suffer an indignity, he could not bring himself to go to Gora’s house.

After the midday meal, Binoy sat down with paper and pen intending to write a letter to Gora; he sat there idly slandering the pen as blunt without cause, picked up a small knife, and began sharpening the pen with great deliberateness — when from downstairs came a call: “Binoy!” Binoy dropped the pen and went quickly downstairs, saying, “Mahim-dada, come in — come upstairs.”

Mahim came up to the room, settled himself comfortably on Binoy’s bed, surveyed the furnishings of the room with considerable thoroughness, and said, “Look here, Binoy — it is not as though I don’t know your lodgings — I sometimes feel the wish to come and look in on you, but I know you are a good young man of the modern stamp; there is no hope of finding tobacco here, and so unless there is a particular reason —”

Seeing Binoy stir in consternation, Mahim said, “You are thinking you will run to the market this very moment and buy a new hookah and give me tobacco — don’t attempt it. I can forgive the want of tobacco, but a freshly made hookah loaded by an inexperienced hand is beyond my powers of endurance.”

So saying, Mahim picked up a hand-fan from the bed and, fanning himself, said, “I have come to you today at the cost of entirely ruining my Sunday afternoon nap, and there is some reason for it. You must do me a favour.”

Binoy asked what the favour was. Mahim said, “First give me your word — then I will tell you.”

Binoy: But if it proves to be within my power?

Mahim: It lies within your power alone. It is nothing at all — only your saying ‘yes’ is sufficient.

Binoy: Why do you press me so? You know very well that I am as one of your own household — it is inconceivable that I should fail to help you if I am able.

Mahim drew a small leaf-cup of betel from his pocket, gave two pieces to Binoy, popped the remaining three into his own mouth, and said, chewing as he spoke, “You know my Shashimukhi, of course. She is not entirely without looks — that is to say, she has not taken after her father. She is nearly ten years old now, and the time has come to find her a match. The thought of into whose wretched hands she may fall keeps me from sleeping at night.”

Binoy said, “Why are you in such a hurry — there is still time.”

Mahim: If it were your own daughter you would understand why I am in a hurry. The years pass and the age increases of itself, but the bridegroom does not come of himself. So as the days go by the heart grows more and more anxious. Now, if you give me a word of assurance, I might perhaps wait a little longer.

Binoy: I don’t have a very wide acquaintance — in all of Calcutta I know hardly any household other than yours — but I will look about and see.

Mahim: You know Shashimukhi’s character and qualities.

Binoy: Of course I do. I have known her from when she was a little child — she is a good girl.

Mahim: Then why look any further, my friend? I mean to entrust that girl into your hands.

Binoy leapt up in agitation and exclaimed, “What are you saying?”

Mahim. Why, what wrong have I said! Of course, in terms of lineage you are far above us — but Binoy, if after all this learning you still cling to lineage, then what is the use of it all!

Binoy. No, no, lineage is not the point, but the age —

Mahim. What do you mean! Is Shashi’s age so little? A girl from a Hindu household is not some memsahib — one cannot simply dismiss society.

Mahim was not one to let go easily — he pressed Binoy until the young man grew quite unsettled. At last Binoy said, “Give me a little time to think it over.”

Mahim. I am not fixing the date tonight, after all.

Binoy. Even so, the people at home —

Mahim. Yes, of course. Their opinion must be sought, naturally. As long as your uncle is alive, nothing can be done against his wishes.

With these words Mahim emptied the second packet of betel from his pocket and departed with an air suggesting that the matter had been all but settled.

Some days before, Anandamayi had obliquely raised the question of a match between Binoy and Shashimukhi. But Binoy had not given it so much as a passing thought. Even now the proposal did not strike him as particularly fitting, yet somehow the idea found a small foothold in his mind. It occurred to him that if this marriage were to take place, Gora could never on grounds of kinship push him away again. He had long mocked the notion of entangling matrimony with sentiment as a borrowed English habit, and so the prospect of marrying Shashimukhi did not seem impossible to him. For the present he was satisfied merely to have gained an occasion to consult Gora on the subject of Mahim’s proposal. Binoy’s secret wish was that Gora should press him a little on the matter. He had little doubt that if he did not readily consent, Mahim would try to enlist Gora to persuade him.

Turning all this over in his mind, Binoy felt his earlier despondency lift. He threw his shawl over his shoulder and set out at once for Gora’s house. He had gone but a short distance when he heard a voice from behind: “Binoy-babu!” Turning round, he saw Satish calling out to him.

Binoy brought Satish along and re-entered his lodgings. Satish drew from his pocket a small bundle tied in a handkerchief and said, “Can you guess what is inside this?”

Binoy named all manner of impossible things — “a dead man’s skull,” “a puppy” — and for each guess received Satish’s scornful rebuke. Then Satish untied his handkerchief and produced five or six small, dark fruits, asking, “Now tell me what these are.”

Binoy said whatever came to mind. At last, when he confessed defeat, Satish explained that his mother had an uncle in Rangoon who had sent her these fruits from there — and she had set aside five of them as a gift for Binoy-babu.

Burmese mangosteens were not easily come by in Calcutta in those days. Binoy turned them over, pressed and prodded them, and said, “Satish-babu, how does one eat these?”

Satish laughed at Binoy’s ignorance and said, “Mind you don’t bite into them — they must be cut open with a knife.”

Satish himself had, not long before, made an unsuccessful attempt to bite into one of these fruits and had become the object of his relatives’ laughter. He therefore felt greatly comforted in displaying a sage’s smile at Binoy’s equal ignorance.

After some playful conversation between the two unequal companions, Satish said, “Binoy-babu, Mother says that if you have the time you must come to our house — today is Lila’s birthday.”

Binoy said, “I cannot manage it today, my friend. I am going somewhere else today.”

Satish. Where are you going?

Binoy. To my friend’s house.

Satish. That friend of yours?

Binoy. Yes.

Satish could not understand the logic of going to a friend’s house while declining to visit theirs — especially as he had taken no great liking to this particular friend of Binoy’s. The man seemed more severe than the headmaster at school; he was not the sort before whom anyone might recite something and earn praise. That Binoy should feel the least desire to visit such a person did not sit well with Satish at all. He said, “No, Binoy-babu, you must come to our house.”

Binoy had already declared to himself with great resolve: “Even though invited, I shall go to Gora rather than to Paresh-babu’s house.” He had made up his mind that the wounded pride of friendship would not suffer today, that the honour of his bond with Gora would be placed above all else.

Yet it did not take him long to capitulate. Hesitating, protesting inwardly, he eventually took the boy by the hand and set off along the road toward number seventy-eight. That Anandamayi had thought of him and sent a portion of those rare fruits from Burma was an expression of affection he found impossible to disregard.

As Binoy drew near Paresh-babu’s house, he saw Panu-babu and several unfamiliar gentlemen emerging from it. They had been invited to the midday meal in honour of Lila’s birthday. Panu-babu passed by as though he had not seen Binoy at all.

The moment Binoy entered the house he heard a great burst of laughter and the sound of running feet. Sudhir had stolen Labanya’s key; and not content with that, he was threatening to expose before all the world the copybook locked in Labanya’s drawer — a copybook that contained, it seemed, ample material for mocking a certain aspiring poetess. This was the quarrel raging between the two sides when Binoy stepped onto the scene.

At the sight of him, Labanya’s party vanished in an instant. Satish ran after them to join in the merriment. A little while later Sucharita entered the room and said, “Mother asks you to take a seat — she will be here presently. Father has gone to Anath-babu’s house, and he too will not be long.”

In order to ease Binoy’s awkwardness, Sucharita brought up the subject of Gora. With a smile she said, “I suppose he will never come here again?”

Binoy asked, “Why?”

Sucharita said, “He must have been quite astonished to see us coming out before men. Whenever he sees women anywhere outside the domestic sphere, I imagine he cannot bring himself to respect them.”

Binoy found himself in some difficulty replying to this. He would have been glad to contest it, but how could he speak an untruth? He said, “Gora’s view is that unless women give their whole mind to the work of the household, the single-mindedness required by their duty becomes impaired.”

Sucharita said, “In that case, would it not have been better if men and women had divided the inner and outer worlds between them entirely? Since men are allowed into the home, perhaps their duties in the outer world are not well fulfilled either. Do you yourself agree with your friend?”

Until now Binoy had indeed agreed with Gora on the matter of women’s place. He had even written on the subject in the newspapers. But when it came to stating that this was his own view, the words would not leave his mouth. He said, “You see, in truth we are all slaves of habit in such matters. That is why it jars upon us to see women appearing in public — but the discomfort we feel is not really because we deem it wrong or improper; we simply try to prove that it is so by argument after the fact. The reasoning here is merely a pretext; the prejudice is the real thing.”

Sucharita said, “Your friend’s prejudices, I think, run very deep.”

Binoy. That is the impression one forms at first glance. But bear this in mind — the reason he holds so firmly to the customs of our country is not because he considers those customs superior. It is because we, out of a blind contempt for our own land, had set about scorning all its traditions wholesale, and he has taken a stand to check this work of destruction. His argument is: first we must come to possess our country whole — through reverence, through love — we must know it fully; and then, from within, by the laws of natural health, reform will proceed of its own accord.

Sucharita said, “If that were the natural course, why has it not happened until now?”

Binoy. It has not happened because, until now, we have been unable to see our country as one whole, to see our people as one people. We neither disrespected our countrymen in those days, nor did we truly respect them — that is to say, we scarcely noticed them at all — and so their strength never awoke. There was a time when the patient was left entirely unattended, without care or nourishment. Now he has been brought to the physician, but the physician holds him in such contempt that he can think of nothing except amputating his limbs one after another, and has no patience for any long, careful course of treatment. At this juncture my friend says: I cannot bear to see this most dear kinsman of mine destroyed by this style of medicine. I shall stop this cutting altogether, and first through favourable nourishment I shall awaken the vital force within him; then, if surgery be needed, the patient will be able to endure it, and if it prove unnecessary, perhaps the patient will recover on his own. Gora says that in our country’s present condition, deep reverence is the greatest medicine of all — it is for lack of this reverence that we cannot know our country in its wholeness, and because we do not know it, whatever measures we prescribe for it become mistreatment. Without loving one’s country one cannot have the patience to know it truly, and without knowing it one cannot help it, however much one may wish to.

Sucharita kept gently probing so that the conversation about Gora did not die out. Binoy too spoke Gora’s case with great eloquence. He seemed to argue with a clarity and vividness he had never achieved before; one might have doubted whether Gora himself could have presented his own views so luminously. This extraordinary arousal of Binoy’s intellect and expressive power filled him with a quiet elation, and his face grew bright with it. He said, “You know, the scriptures say: Atmanam viddhi — know thyself. Without that, there is no liberation, none at all. I tell you, my friend Gora has appeared as the manifestation of that self-knowledge of India. I cannot think of him as an ordinary man. While all our minds have been scattered outward by petty attractions and the lure of novelty, this one man stands unmoved amid all that dispersal and proclaims with a lion’s roar that ancient commandment: Atmanam viddhi.”

This conversation might have gone on much longer — Sucharita was listening with rapt attention — when suddenly from the adjoining room Satish began to declaim at the top of his voice: “Speak not in plaintive tones, nor reason cease, Life is a dream, a world of fleeting maya.”

Poor Satish was never given an opportunity to display his learning before the guests and visitors of the household. Even Lila could recite English poetry and set the gathering alight, but Baradasundari never called upon Satish. Yet Satish maintained a keen rivalry with Lila in all things. The supreme joy of his existence was to humble her pride in some fashion. The day before, in Binoy’s presence, Lila had undergone her examination. The uninvited Satish had then been unable to make any bid to surpass her, and had he tried, Baradasundari would have suppressed him at once. And so today, in the next room, he had ostensibly set about his literary practice aloud, as though for his own private edification. Sucharita could not repress her laughter at the sound.

Just then Lila came swinging her loosened braid into the room, threw her arms around Sucharita’s neck, and whispered something in her ear. At once Satish ran in at her heels and demanded, “Tell me then, Lila — what is the meaning of ‘manoyog’?”

Lila said, “I shall not tell you.”

Satish. Oh, listen to that! You won’t tell because you don’t know — admit it.

Binoy drew Satish close and laughed, saying, “Then you tell me — what is the meaning of manoyog?”

Satish drew himself up proudly and declared, “Manoyog means manonikesh.”

Sucharita asked, “And what does manonikesh signify?”

Who but a kinsman could put one in such a predicament? Satish acted as though he had not heard the question at all and bounded out of the room.

Binoy had firmly resolved, when he set out, to take his leave early from Paresh-babu’s house and go to Gora. Moreover, in the very act of speaking about Gora, the desire to go to him had grown strong within him. And so, hearing the clock strike four, he quickly rose from his chair.

Sucharita said, “You are leaving already? Mother is preparing some refreshments for you — would it not do to stay a little longer?”

For Binoy this was no question but a command. He sat down again at once. Labanya entered, dressed in a colourful silk sari, and said, “Didi, the refreshments are ready. Mother has asked everyone to come up to the rooftop.”

On the rooftop Binoy found himself pressed into sitting down to eat. Baradasundari began to recount the life-stories of each of her children in turn. Lalita drew Sucharita back into the house. Labanya settled herself on a chair, bent her head, and fell to knitting with two iron needles — someone had once told her that the play of her soft fingers during knitting was a most graceful sight to behold, and from that day it had become her habit to knit without any real purpose whenever there were people present.

Paresh arrived. Evening drew on. It being Sunday, they were to go to the place of worship. Baradasundari said to Binoy, “If you have no objection, will you accompany us to the samaj?”

After that there was no room for demurral. The party divided between two carriages and proceeded to the place of worship. When they were boarding the carriages to return, Sucharita suddenly started and said, “There goes Gauramohon-babu.”

No one doubted that Gora had seen the group. But affecting not to have noticed them, he strode away rapidly. At Gora’s arrogant discourtesy, Binoy bowed his head in shame before Paresh-babu’s family. Yet within himself he understood clearly — it was on seeing Binoy among this party that Gora had turned away with such vehement avoidance. The light of joy that had been burning in Binoy’s heart all this while was extinguished entirely. Sucharita grasped at once both Binoy’s state of mind and its cause, and at Gora’s injustice toward so devoted a friend, and at his unjust disregard for the Brahmos, anger against Gora welled up in her again — she found herself wishing, in the depths of her heart, that Gora might somehow be humbled.