35

That day, as he came away from Lalita, a doubt like a thorn kept turning and pricking within Binoy’s mind. He fell to thinking: ‘Without knowing clearly whether anyone wishes me to go to Paresh Babu’s house or not, I have been going there of my own accord and imposition. Perhaps that is not right. Perhaps many times I have disturbed and unsettled these people at inconvenient moments. I do not know the customs of their society; to what limit my claim on this household extends — of that I know nothing. Perhaps, like a fool, I am entering places where no one who is not family is permitted to come and go.’

As he was turning this thought over in his mind, it suddenly occurred to him that Lalita might today have seen something in his expression — something that had caused her to feel insulted. What feelings Binoy held in his heart towards Lalita had not been clear to Binoy himself all this while. Today it was concealed no longer. What was to be done with this new disclosure within his heart — that he could not think through at all. What was its relation to the outer world, what its bond with life and society, was it a dishonour to Lalita, was it a betrayal of trust towards Paresh Babu — he turned and turned these questions over a thousand times. The thought that Lalita had seen through him, and that it was for this very reason she was angry with him, made him feel as though he were sinking into the earth.

Going to Pareshbabu’s house had become impossible for Binoy, and the emptiness of his own lodgings weighed upon him like a burden, pressing down upon him without relief. The very next morning, at the first light of dawn, he presented himself at Anandamayi’s door. “Mother,” he said, “I shall stay with you for some days.”

In Binoy’s heart there also dwelt the intention of consoling Anandamayi in her grief over Gora’s separation from her. Perceiving this, Anandamayi’s heart melted with tenderness. Without uttering a word, she passed her hand gently and affectionately over Binoy’s body.

Binoy proceeded to make all manner of demands and entreaties regarding his food and care. He would engage in mock quarrels with Anandamayi from time to time, complaining that he was not being attended to with sufficient care — and thus, through constant chatter and playful scolding, he strove to keep both Anandamayi and himself distracted from their sorrow. In the evenings, when it grew difficult to keep the mind from straying, Binoy would create a commotion and drag Anandamayi away from all her household tasks; spreading a mat upon the veranda before the room, he would sit with her and have her tell him of her childhood, of her father’s household — of those days before her marriage, when she had been the dearest little child of the scholars in her grandfather the professor’s tol, and when all the students had indulged her in every way, so that her widowed mother had been a source of particular anxiety, on account of a fatherless girl being spoiled so. Binoy would say, “Mother, it seems strange to me to think that you were not always our mother. I believe the boys of the tol knew you as their very own tiny little mother. It must have been you who took it upon yourself to raise your grandfather.”

One evening, resting his head upon the soles of Anandamayi’s feet as she lay stretched out upon the mat, Binoy said, “Mother, I wish I could return all my learning and understanding to the Creator and become a child again, to take refuge in that lap of yours — with only you, and nothing else in all the world besides you.”

A weariness weighted with the heaviness of the heart was manifest in Binoy’s voice in such a way that Anandamayi felt both pain and wonder at once. She drew herself closer to Binoy and began slowly to pass her hand over his head. After a long silence, Anandamayi asked, “Binu, is all well with everyone in Pareshbabu’s household?”

At this question, Binoy was suddenly startled and felt a flush of embarrassment. He thought to himself: nothing can be hidden from Mother — she is the knower of my innermost being. With hesitation in his voice he replied, “Yes, they are all quite well.”

Anandamayi said, “I greatly wish to become acquainted with Pareshbabu’s daughters. At first, Gora’s feelings toward them were not favourable — but now that they have managed to win even him over, they cannot be ordinary people.”

Binoy brightened and said, “I too have often wished that I could somehow bring about an introduction between you and Pareshbabu’s daughters. I said nothing about it, fearing that Gora might take it amiss.”

Anandamayi asked, “What is the name of the elder daughter?”

As the exchange of questions and answers proceeded, when the subject of Lalita arose, Binoy attempted to dispatch it as briefly as possible. Anandamayi would not allow herself to be deflected. With a smile concealed within her, she said, “I have heard that Lalita is exceedingly clever.”

Binoy said, “From whom did you hear this?”

Anandamayi replied, “Why, from you yourself.”

There had been a time, not long before, when Binoy had felt not the slightest self-consciousness in speaking of Lalita. In that state of untroubled detachment he had freely discussed Lalita’s sharp intelligence with Anandamayi — and this he had entirely forgotten.

With the skill of an accomplished helmsman who steers clear of every obstacle, Anandamayi guided the conversation about Lalita in such a way that nearly all the principal episodes of Binoy’s acquaintance with her came to light. Even the fact that Lalita, distressed over Gora’s imprisonment, had fled alone with Binoy aboard a steamer — this too Binoy let fall in the telling today. As he spoke, his enthusiasm grew; the despondency that had pressed upon him in the evening hours seemed to have lifted entirely. That he had come to know so remarkable a character as Lalita, and was now able to speak of her freely — this felt to him like a great and precious gain. At the moment when supper was announced and the conversation was broken off, he suddenly awoke as if from a dream, and realised that he had poured out before Anandamayi every thought that had lain within his heart. Anandamayi had listened in such a way, and received it all in such a manner, that it did not even occur to Binoy that there had been anything in it to be ashamed of. Until today, Binoy had never concealed anything from his mother — even the most trivial matter he would come and tell her. But since his acquaintance with Pareshbabu’s family, some obstruction had arisen somewhere within him. That obstruction had not been wholesome for Binoy. Now, sensing that what lay in his heart regarding Lalita had, in some measure, been fully disclosed before the perceptive Anandamayi, Binoy felt a surge of joy. Had he not been able to offer this matter of his life wholly to his mother, it would in no way have become pure — it would have continued to leave a dark stain upon his thoughts.

That night Anandamayi turned the whole matter over in her mind for a long while. Reflecting that a resolution to the increasingly complex problem of Gora’s life might perhaps be found within Pareshbabu’s household, she came to think that, by whatever means, she must call upon those daughters once.