26

The moon sets on one side of the sky as the sun rises on the other. Asha had gone --- and yet Mahendra had not so much as caught a glimpse of Binodini. He wandered ceaselessly about the house, contriving pretexts to present himself at his mother's chamber at all hours of the day and night, but Binodini would slip away at every turn, eluding his grasp, yielding nothing. Observing Mahendra's air of such profound emptiness, Rajlakshmi thought to herself: "His wife has left, and so nothing in this house pleases Mahin any longer." It stung her to reflect that in the matter of her son's happiness and sorrow, a mother had become so utterly superfluous beside a wife --- and yet the sight of Mahendra's wretched, disconsolate bearing filled her with pain.

She called Binodini to her and said, "Ever since that bout of influenza, I have had something like an asthma --- I cannot make the climb up the stairs frequently. You, my dear, must stay close and attend to all of Mahin's meals and comforts yourself. It has always been his way; he cannot manage unless someone tends to him. Look how strange he has become since his wife went away. And bless the girl too --- how could she simply go like that?" Binodini twisted the corner of her mouth slightly and began picking at the border of the bedspread.

Rajlakshmi said, "What is it, my dear? What are you thinking? There is nothing to think about in this. Whatever others may say, you are not a stranger to us." Binodini said, "I would rather not, Maa." Rajlakshmi said, "Very well then, never mind. I shall see to it myself as best I can." And with that she rose at once to go and set Mahendra's third-floor room in order.

Binodini started up in agitation and said, "You are unwell --- please do not go yourself, I shall go. Forgive me, Pisima; I will do whatever you command." Rajlakshmi had always treated the world's opinion with the most sovereign contempt.

Since her husband's death, she had known nothing in life and society beyond Mahendra. When Binodini had hinted at what society might say concerning Mahendra, Rajlakshmi had been irritated. She had watched over Mahin from his birth --- where in all the world was there so fine a son. And even he --- even Mahin --- must be slandered! Let anyone who dared have their tongue wither at the root. There was in Rajlakshmi a natural stubbornness, an inborn disposition to disregard the whole world in whatever she herself found agreeable or right.

That day, when Mahendra returned from college and looked into his own bedchamber, he was astonished. Throwing open the door, he found the room fragrant with sandalwood powder and incense. The mosquito-curtain was fringed with a border of rose-coloured silk. The floor-spread below gleamed spotless and white, and upon it, in place of the old bolsters he had always known, lay ornate foreign square cushions, embroidered with silk and wool flowers --- the fruit of Binodini's long and patient labour.

Asha had once asked her: "Whom are you making all these for, dear?" Binodini had laughed and replied: "For my funeral pyre. There is none to cherish me in this life except death itself." On the wall hung Mahendra's framed photograph, its four corners now adorned with neat knots tied in coloured ribbons; and below this portrait, resting against the wall, stood a small tea-table flanked on either side by flower-vases filled with bouquets --- as if Mahendra's image had received the homage of some unknown and ardent devotee.

Altogether, the room wore a quite different face. The bed had been shifted a little from its original position. The room had been divided in two: two large clothes-stands hung with garments had been arranged before the bed to form a sort of screen, so that the sitting-space on the floor and the sleeping-space above were now separate realms. The glass-doored cabinet where Asha had kept all her treasured things --- her Chinese toys and knick-knacks --- had been lined on the inside of its glass doors with gathered red cloth, so that nothing within was visible any longer.

Every trace of the room's former history had been thoroughly obscured beneath the fresh arrangement of a new pair of hands. Mahendra, weary from his day, laid himself down upon the white floor-spread and rested his head upon the new cushions; he was at once aware of a faint, sweet fragrance --- the cotton within the cushions had been richly mixed with the pollen of nagkesar blossoms and a little attar. His eyes began to close. He felt as if the fragrance he breathed was that of the delicate champak-coloured fingers of the one whose skilled and patient hands had wrought all this about him.

Just then the maidservant brought in a silver salver laden with fruit and sweetmeats, and a glass of iced pineapple sherbet. All of it differed, in some way, from the old domestic customs of the house --- everything had been composed with an abundance of care and refinement. The sum of tastes and fragrances and sights, all in their novelty, closed about Mahendra's senses and took them captive. When he had finished eating to his full satisfaction, Binodini entered the room slowly, carrying a silver tray with pan and spices.

She said, with a smile, "I have not been able to present myself at your mealtimes these past few days --- forgive me, brother-in-law. Whatever else you do, I beg of you on my head's oath, do not tell my thorn-in-the-eye that you have been neglected. I do what I can --- but what am I to do, brother? Every task in this household falls to my share alone." So saying, Binodini pushed the pan-tray forward before Mahendra.

In today's pan, too, one caught a faint distinctive new fragrance of keya and catechu. Mahendra said, "A lapse or two in the midst of all this attentiveness --- it is not a bad thing." Binodini said, "Not a bad thing? And why not, pray?" Mahendra replied, "Because then one can press a claim for it afterwards, with interest."

"And how much interest has accumulated, O great moneylender?" Mahendra said, "You were not here at mealtimes --- now you have made your appearance after the meal, which settles the account only in part, and there remains still an outstanding balance." Binodini laughed and said, "Your arithmetic is so exacting, I begin to think that once one falls into your hands, there is no escape." Mahendra said, "Whatever the accounts may say, what have I actually managed to collect?" Binodini said, "And what is there to collect? Yet you have kept me a prisoner all the same." Having said this, she suddenly transformed the jest into gravity and drew a quiet, barely perceptible sigh.

Mahendra too grew a little grave and said, "Then is this a gaol, dear Bali?" At that moment the peon came in at the appointed hour, set the lamp upon the side-table, and withdrew.

The sudden light in her eyes made Binodini raise one hand before her face as a shade; she said, casting her gaze downward, "I do not know what to make of it all. Who can argue with you? I must go --- I have things to attend to." Mahendra suddenly caught her hand and held it fast.

"If you have already accepted the bondage," he said, "where is there for you to go?" Binodini said, "For shame --- let go. She who has no road by which to flee --- why attempt to bind her further?" Binodini pulled her hand free by force and departed.

Mahendra lay back upon the fragrant cushioned spread, the blood churning within his breast. The evening was hushed, the room empty and still, the breeze of early spring was blowing, and Binodini's heart had seemed --- just for a moment --- on the very point of yielding itself. He felt as if he could no longer hold himself in check. He hastily extinguished the lamp, bolted the door, fastened the latch, and flung himself into bed long before the hour was right. But this, too, was no longer the old familiar bed.

Four or five mattresses made the surface far softer than before. And again a fragrance --- of agar-wood, or of khuskhus grass, or of what, he could not exactly make out. Many times Mahendra turned from side to side --- searching, as it were, for some remnant trace of the old life, something to clutch at. But nothing came to his hand. At nine o'clock there was a knock on the bolted door. Binodini called from without: "Brother-in-law, your dinner has come --- open the door." Mahendra leapt up with a start, meaning to open the door at once, and put his hand to the window-catch.

But he did not open it --- instead he threw himself flat upon the floor and said: "No, no, I am not hungry. I will not eat." From outside came the anxious inquiry: "Are you ill? Shall I bring water? Do you need anything?" Mahendra said, "I want nothing --- there is no need at all." Binodini said, "By my head, don't dissemble with me. Well then --- if there is no illness, open the door for a moment." Mahendra cried out with sudden vehemence: "No, I will not open it --- not for anything. Go away." With that, Mahendra sprang up, flung himself back into bed, and lay groping in the darkness of that restless heart and empty bed for the memory of Asha who had gone away.

When sleep refused utterly to come, Mahendra lit the lamp, took up pen and ink, and sat down to write a letter to Asha. He wrote: "Asha, do not leave me alone so many more days. You are the Lakshmi of my life. Without you, all the impulses of my being seem to snap their chains and drag me toward --- I know not what. The light by which I am to see my path --- where is it? It is in the love-warm gaze of your trusting eyes. Come soon, my auspice, my fixed star, my one. Steady me, shield me, fill my heart to the brim. Rescue me from the great sin of the least wrong done to you, from the terror of forgetting you for even a single instant." In this fashion Mahendra, driving himself with great force toward Asha, wrote on and on through much of the night, pouring out his agitation in many words.

From near and far the church clocks chimed three in the darkness. The sound of carriages in the Calcutta streets had all but ceased; the song in the Behag mode which had been rising from some upper storey at the far end of the neighbourhood, sung in a nautch-girl's voice, had by now been wholly engulfed in that silence which spreads over a sleeping world. Having fixed his thoughts with full concentration on Asha, and having disburdened so much of his inward turmoil upon the pages of a long letter, Mahendra found himself considerably composed, and the moment he lay down in bed, sleep came without the slightest delay.

When Mahendra woke in the morning, it was late; sunlight had already entered the room. He sat up quickly; after sleep, the whole business of the previous night had grown lighter and more remote in his mind. Coming out from the bed, he saw that the letter he had written to Asha lay on the side-table, held down by the inkpot. He read it through again, and thought: "What have I done --- this is the stuff of novels! Thank God I did not send it. What would Asha have made of it? She would not have understood even half of it." Mahendra felt ashamed of the momentary and exaggerated surge of feeling the previous night had caused in him; he tore the letter into small pieces and threw them away; then, in plain language, he wrote Asha a short note --- "How much longer will you delay? If your uncle does not expect to return soon, write and tell me, and I shall come myself to fetch you. I do not like being alone here."