16

Baradasundari said, “You are not going to arrange Sucharita’s marriage, it seems?”

Pareshbabu stroked his grey beard for a while in his usual calm and grave manner, and then said quietly, “Where is the bridegroom?”

Baradasundari said, “Why — her marriage with Panubabu has been more or less decided — at least that is what we have understood in our hearts — and Sucharita knows it too.”

Paresh said, “I do not think Radharani is particularly fond of Panubaba.”

Baradasundari. Look, I do not like these things. I make no distinction between Sucharita and my own daughters, but one must also say — what is so extraordinary about her? If a learned and devout man like Panubaba has taken a liking to her, is that something to be dismissed? Whatever you may say, my Labanya is far better looking than her — but I tell you plainly, whoever we choose for her, she will marry him and never say no. If you keep inflating Sucharita’s pride, it will become very difficult to find her a match.

After this, Paresh said nothing further. He never argued with Baradasundari — least of all in matters concerning Sucharita.

When Sucharita’s mother died giving birth to Satish, Sucharita was seven years old. Her father, Ramsharan Haldar, joined the Brahmo Samaj after his wife’s death, and, driven out by the persecution of the neighbourhood, left the village and took refuge in Dhaka. It was there, during his employment at the post office, that he struck up a close friendship with Paresh. From that time, Sucharita came to regard Paresh exactly as she would her own father.

Ramsharan’s death came suddenly. Whatever money he possessed he divided between his son and daughter, and by his will he entrusted Pareshbabu with the responsibility of making all further arrangements. From that time, Satish and Sucharita became members of Paresh’s household.

It did not please Baradasundari when anyone, whether of the household or without, showed Sucharita particular affection or attention. Yet, for whatever reason, Sucharita drew love and esteem from everyone around her. Baradasundari’s own daughters quarrelled among themselves over her affection. In particular, Lalita, the second daughter, clung to Sucharita day and night with a jealous and possessive love.

Baradasundari harboured the ambition that her daughters would surpass all the learned women of that era in the renown of their scholarship. That Sucharita, growing up alongside her daughters, should attain the same results in this regard was not to her liking. For this reason, various obstacles were placed in Sucharita’s path whenever she was to go to school.

Perceiving the cause of these obstacles, Paresh withdrew Sucharita from school and began to instruct her himself. More than that, Sucharita grew to be, in a particular way, his very companion. He conversed with her on many subjects; wherever he went, he took her along; and when he was compelled to be at a distance, he would raise numerous topics in letters and discuss them at length. In this manner, Sucharita’s mind had ripened considerably beyond her years and her circumstances. A gravity had grown in her countenance and her bearing such that no one could think of her as a mere girl; and though Labanya was nearly her equal in age, she regarded Sucharita as her elder in all things — even Baradasundari, try as she might, could not hold her in contempt.

The reader has already made the acquaintance of Haranbabu — a man of ardent devotion to the Brahmo Samaj, with a hand in all its undertakings: teacher at the night school, editor of a journal, secretary of the women’s college — his energy knew no fatigue. Everyone had hoped that this young man would one day hold the highest position in the Brahmo Samaj. In particular, his command of the English language and his reputation for mastery of philosophy had spread, through his students, even beyond the bounds of the Brahmo Samaj.

For all these reasons, Sucharita, like every other member of the Brahmo community, held Haranbabu in great esteem. When she was about to leave Dhaka and come to Calcutta, a particular eagerness to make his acquaintance had stirred within her.

In the event, not only did she make the acquaintance of the celebrated Haranbabu, but within a short time he did not hesitate to make known the attraction his heart had formed for Sucharita. He had not expressed his affection to her in explicit terms — yet he became so attentive to filling every gap in her education, correcting her deficiencies, encouraging her aspirations, and advancing her improvement, that it became apparent to everyone that he wished to mould this young woman into a companion particularly worthy of himself.

This development destroyed Baradasundari’s earlier regard for Haranbabu, and she began to try to think of him with disdain as nothing more than an ordinary schoolmaster.

When Sucharita realised that she had won the heart of the celebrated Haranbabu, she felt within herself a pride mingled with reverence.

Though no formal proposal had come from the principal party, when everyone had settled it as certain that Sucharita would marry Haranbabu, Sucharita too had given her silent assent — and how she might make herself worthy, through education and self-cultivation, of the great service to the Brahmo Samaj to which Haranbabu had dedicated his life had become for her a matter of particular and earnest concern. She could not feel within her heart that she was going to marry a man of flesh and blood — it was as if she were preparing to wed the sublime good of the Brahmo community itself: a good that was supremely learned through vast reading and profoundly serious through the knowledge of truth. This prospect of marriage seemed to her like a fortress of stone fashioned out of awe, reverence, and a sense of difficult responsibility — not merely a place in which to dwell in happiness, but a place in which to do battle — not domestic, but historical.

Had the marriage taken place under these circumstances, everyone on the bride’s side would have accounted it a singular piece of good fortune. But Haranbabu thought so highly of the responsibilities of his own exalted and self-dedicated life that he considered it beneath him to marry on the mere strength of personal inclination. He could not bring himself to act in this matter without first fully weighing what the Brahmo Samaj stood to gain from such a union. He therefore began to examine Sucharita from that vantage.

To examine in this fashion, one must also submit to examination. Haranbabu became a familiar presence in Pareshbabu’s household. The name by which his own family called him — Panubaba — now spread to this family as well. It was no longer possible to see him only as a treasury of English learning, a vessel of philosophical knowledge, and an incarnation of the Brahmo Samaj’s benevolence — the fact that he was simply a human being became the most immediate reality of all. And so he came to be not merely an object of esteem and reverence, but fell within the compass of liking and disliking.

It was a curious thing — the very quality that had drawn Sucharita’s reverence from a distance began, on closer acquaintance, to wound her. In taking upon himself the guardianship and protection of all that was true, good, and beautiful in the Brahmo Samaj, Haranbabu presented a figure that appeared incongruously diminished. The true relationship of a human being to truth is one of devotion — and that devotion naturally makes a person humble. When, instead, it makes a person arrogant and vain, that person throws into sharp relief, by contrast with the truth, his own pettiness. It was in precisely this that Sucharita could not help but reflect on the difference between Pareshbabu and Haran. Before the truth Pareshbabu had gained from the Brahmo Samaj, his head seemed always bowed — there was not the least presumption in him concerning it — he had plunged his own life into its depths. Looking on Pareshbabu’s serene countenance, one perceived the greatness of the truth he carried in his heart. But it was not so with Haranbabu — a certain aggressive self-assertion in the name of Brahmoism overwhelmed everything else and broke forth indecorously in all his words and deeds. This had enhanced his standing within the community; but since Sucharita, by virtue of Paresh’s teaching, could not confine herself within sectarian narrowness, Haranbabu’s exclusive Brahmo fervour chafed at her natural humanity. Haranbabu believed that through religious discipline his perception had grown so marvellously clear that he could with perfect ease judge the virtue and vice, the truth and falsehood, of every other person. Hence he was ever ready to pronounce judgement on all. Worldly people engage in slander and gossip, but when such work is done in the language of piety, it mingles with spiritual arrogance to create something immensely and acutely disagreeable in the world. This Sucharita could not abide at all. She was not without a certain pride in the Brahmo community, and yet the notion that its great men had grown great because of some special power conferred by being Brahmo, and that those of corrupt character outside the Brahmo Samaj had been rendered feeble and ruined precisely for want of it — this proposition had given rise to many arguments between her and Haranbabu.

Whenever Haranbabu, keeping an eye on the good of the Brahmo Samaj, did not spare even Pareshbabu from censure, Sucharita would become as intolerant as a wounded serpent. In that era, the Bhagavad Gita was not yet a subject of discussion among the English-educated class in Bengal. But Pareshbabu would now and then read the Gita with Sucharita — he had also read to her, by and large, the entirety of Kali Singh’s Mahabharata. This had not pleased Haranbabu. He was in favour of banishing all such works from a Brahmo household. He had not read them himself. He wished to set apart the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, and the Bhagavad Gita as things belonging to the Hindus. Among the religious scriptures, the Bible alone was his resource. That Pareshbabu did not observe the boundary between Brahmo and non-Brahmo in his reading of scripture and in various small matters felt to Haran like thorns piercing his skin. That anyone should blame Paresh openly or in their heart — Sucharita could never endure such presumption. And it was this very presumption, breaking into the open, that had diminished Haranbabu in Sucharita’s eyes.

For all these reasons and more, Haranbabu was growing dimmer day by day in Pareshbabu’s household. Although Baradasundari was no less eager than Haranbabu himself in maintaining the distinction between Brahmo and non-Brahmo, and although she too often felt embarrassed by her husband’s conduct, she did not regard Haranbabu as an ideal man. A thousand faults in him were visible to her eyes.

Though Sucharita’s heart was turning away from Haranbabu day by day, inwardly, under the strain of his sectarian zeal and narrow aridness, there was yet no doubt or dispute in anyone’s mind that she would indeed marry him. Just as in the shop of religious society, the man who pastes a ticket of great price in bold letters upon himself is gradually accepted by others too as being of great value — so it was that when Haranbabu, in accordance with his lofty resolve, approved of Sucharita after suitable examination, everyone would accept it with a bowed head: of this there was no hesitation in Haranbabu’s mind, nor in anyone else’s. Even Pareshbabu had not inwardly dismissed Haranbabu’s claim. Everyone regarded Haranbabu as the future pillar of the Brahmo Samaj, and he, without contradicting the judgement, concurred with it. It was therefore Pareshbabu’s anxiety to consider whether Sucharita would be sufficient for a man like Haranbabu — the question of how far Haranbabu would be satisfactory for Sucharita never entered his mind.

Just as no one had thought it necessary to consider Sucharita in this marriage proposal, Sucharita herself had not thought of her own self. Like everyone else in the Brahmo community, she too had taken it for granted that the day Haranbabu declared, ‘I am prepared to take this young woman,’ she would accept this marriage as her own great and solemn duty.

Such was the way things had been proceeding. Then, one day, the brief and heated exchange that passed between Haranbabu and Sucharita on account of Gora was enough to rouse in Paresh’s mind the misgiving that Sucharita did not perhaps hold Haranbabu in sufficient esteem — that perhaps there was cause for their natures not to agree. It was for this reason that when Baradasundari was pressing for the marriage to be arranged, Paresh could no longer give his assent as he had before. That very day Baradasundari called Sucharita aside and said to her, “You have managed to worry your father.”

Sucharita started at this — that she should, even inadvertently, become a source of anxiety to Pareshbabu was, for her, a greater affliction than anything else. Her face went pale as she asked, “Why, what have I done?”

Baradasundari. I cannot say, my dear. It has seemed to him that you do not care for Panubaba. Everyone in the Brahmo Samaj knows that your marriage to Panubaba is as good as settled — under these circumstances, if you —

Sucharita. But, Mother, I have not said a word about this matter to anyone!

Sucharita had reason to be astonished. She had been vexed by Haranbabu’s conduct again and again, to be sure, but she had never once entertained so much as a thought against the proposed match. Whether she would be happy in this marriage or not — that debate had never arisen in her mind, because she knew that this marriage was not to be judged from the vantage of happiness or unhappiness.

Then it came back to her that, in Pareshbabu’s very presence, she had plainly betrayed her irritation toward Panubaba. It struck her to the heart to think that he had been troubled by this. She had never displayed such want of self-restraint before, she told herself, and inwardly resolved that she would never do so again.

Meanwhile, Haranbabu himself arrived not long after that same day. His mind too had grown restless. Until then he had believed that Sucharita worshipped him in her heart; and this tribute of worship would have come to him still more completely, had it not been for a certain blind and misplaced devotion that Sucharita bore toward the old Pareshbabu. Though he had pointed out to her the many shortcomings of Pareshbabu’s life, Sucharita seemed to regard him as a deity nonetheless. At this, Haranbabu had inwardly laughed, and had inwardly been vexed — yet he had hoped that with the passage of time and a suitable occasion, he would be able to redirect this misplaced devotion into the proper and exclusive channel.

Be that as it may, as long as Haranbabu had thought of himself as the worthy object of Sucharita’s reverence, he had confined himself to making remarks about her minor actions and conduct, and had busied himself with guiding and improving her through constant advice — he had never raised the matter of marriage in plain terms. When, hearing a few words from Sucharita on that particular day, he suddenly understood that she too had begun to sit in judgement over him, it had become difficult for him from that moment to maintain his customary gravity and composure. On the few occasions he had met Sucharita since then, he had been unable to feel or display the dignity of his former self. A note of contentiousness had entered his speech and manner with her. He had found trivial pretexts to carp at her without cause. Yet before Sucharita’s unmoved indifference, he had been forced to admit defeat within himself, and had returned home to brood over his wounded pride.

Be that as it may, upon seeing one or two signs of Sucharita’s want of deference, it became difficult for Haranbabu to remain long and steadily seated in the high chair of the examiner. Previously he had not visited Pareshbabu’s house so frequently — lest anyone should suspect that he had grown restless in his affection for Sucharita, he had come only once a week, conducting himself as though Sucharita were his pupil. But what had suddenly come over him these past few days — Haranbabu had come more than once in a single day on the most trivial of pretexts, and had sought on equally trivial pretexts to force conversation upon Sucharita. This had also given Pareshbabu an opportunity to observe the two of them closely, and his suspicion had been steadily deepening.

Today, no sooner had Haranbabu arrived than Baradasundari drew him aside and said, “Well, Panubaba, everyone says that you intend to marry our Sucharita, and yet I have never heard a word of it from your own lips. If you truly have such an intention, why do you not say so plainly?”

Haranbabu could delay no longer. What he most wished for now was to somehow bind Sucharita to himself and be at ease — the examination of her devotion to him and her worthiness for the service of the Brahmo Samaj could wait for a later time. Haranbabu said to Baradasundari, “I had not said so because I considered it unnecessary to state the obvious. I had been waiting only for Sucharita to turn eighteen.”

Baradasundari said, “You carry things a little too far. We consider fourteen quite sufficient.”

That afternoon, at tea, Pareshbabu was astonished to observe Sucharita’s manner. Sucharita had not shown Haranbabu such care and cordiality in a long time. When Haranbabu was about to take his leave, she had even asked him to stay a little longer, on the pretext of showing him a new piece of handiwork of Labanya’s.

Pareshbabu’s mind was set at ease. He thought he had been mistaken. He even smiled to himself a little, reflecting that perhaps some secret lovers’ quarrel had taken place between the two, and that it had since been made up.

That same day, when taking his leave, Haran raised with Pareshbabu the matter of the marriage. He made it known that he had no wish to delay in this regard.

Pareshbabu said, with some surprise, “But you have always held it wrong for girls to marry before the age of eighteen. You have even written as much in the paper.”

Haranbabu said, “That rule does not apply in Sucharita’s case. For the maturity of her mind is such as one rarely sees even in women considerably older.”

Pareshbabu said with calm firmness, “Be that as it may, Panubaba. Since no particular harm appears imminent, it is our duty to wait until Radharani has reached the age you yourself have prescribed.”

Haranbabu, embarrassed that his weakness had been exposed, said, “Most certainly it is our duty. My wish is only this — that on some day we call everyone together, invoke the name of God, and make the arrangement definitive.”

Pareshbabu said, “That is an excellent proposal.”