35

Bihari had been studying at the Medical College for some years. He gave it up just before his final examination. When anyone expressed surprise, he would say: "I shall attend to other people's health by and by --- for the present, my own health wants looking after." The truth was that Bihari's energies were inexhaustible; he could not remain idle for a day, and yet he had no thirst for reputation, no desire for money, no pressing need to earn a livelihood.

After taking his degree he had first gone to Sibpur to study engineering. When he had learned what curiosity drove him to learn and acquired what practical skill he thought sufficient, he transferred to the Medical College. Mahendra had joined a year after taking his own degree, and their friendship there was famous among the Bengali students, who called them, with good-natured mockery, the Siamese twins. When Mahendra failed his examinations the previous year, the two friends found themselves in the same class together.

How the pair had suddenly separated no one among the students could fathom. Bihari could not bring himself to attend a place where he was bound to meet Mahendra daily, but never as before. Everyone knew Bihari would have passed with distinction and taken some honour; but his examination never came. In a cottage next to their house lived a poor Brahmin named Rajendra Chakravarty, who supported himself as a compositor at a printing press on twelve rupees a month. Bihari said to him: "Leave your son in my care. I will teach him myself." The Brahmin was overjoyed to be saved such an expense, and readily placed his eight-year-old son Basanta in Bihari's hands.

Bihari proceeded to educate the boy according to his own method.

"Until the age of ten," he declared, "I shall give him no books at all; everything will be learnt by mouth." Taking the boy with him to the Maidan, the Museum, the Alipore Zoo, the Sibpur Gardens, Bihari passed his days.

Teaching him English by conversation, telling him history as stories, testing and developing the child's faculties of observation in every manner imaginable --- this was Bihari's work from morning to night; he permitted himself not a moment's idleness. That evening there was no going out. Rain had stopped at midday and begun again towards afternoon. Bihari sat in his large upstairs room with the lamp lit, engaged in one of his invented games with Basanta.

"Basanta --- how many tiles are there in this room? Quick, tell me. And no counting."

"Twenty," said Basanta.

"Wrong --- eighteen." He snapped open the shutter and said: "How many panels has this shutter?" and shut it again before the boy could study it.

"Six," said Basanta.

"Right!" --- "How long is this bench? What is the weight of this book?" He was thus sharpening the boy's powers of perception when the bearer came to say: "Babujee, a woman---" Before he could finish his sentence, Binodini walked into the room.

"Good God, Bouthaan," said Bihari, astonished.

"What is the meaning of this?"

"Is there any female relation in your household?" said Binodini.

"No relation near or distant --- only my aunt, and she is at the family home in the country."

"Then take me to your family home in the country."

"On what pretext should I take you?"

"As a servant. I shall do the housework there."

"My aunt will be somewhat startled --- she had given me no indication that she lacked for servants. Let me hear first what has brought this resolve upon you. Basanta --- go to bed." Basanta went out.

Binodini said: "Hearing the outward facts, you will make nothing of what lies within."

"So be it. I shall misunderstand. What harm?"

"Very well --- misunderstand if you must. Mahendra loves me."

"That is not new news," said Bihari, "and not the kind of news one wishes to hear twice."

"I have no wish to repeat it. That is precisely why I have come to you. Give me shelter."

"You have no wish for it? Who made this calamity? Who turned Mahendra from the path he was following?"

"I did. I will not hide it from you. All of it was my doing. Think what you like of me --- once, just once, try to understand me from the inside. I have set Mahendra's household on fire with the burning in my own breast. I thought for a time that I loved Mahendra. But it was an error."

"If you loved him, could you have done such damage?" said Bihari.

"Thakurpo --- that is the voice of scripture. I am not in a state to hear such things yet. Set your texts aside for a moment and look into my heart as only God looks --- as one who truly knows. Today I wish to tell you everything --- the good in me and the bad."

"I keep the texts open, Bouthaan," said Bihari quietly.

"Let the burden of reading the heart according to its own laws rest with God alone. Without the guidance of our scriptures, we human beings cannot contain what we are about to do."

"Listen to me, Thakurpo," said Binodini.

"I say this without shame --- you could have saved me. Mahendra loves me, yes --- but he is utterly blind, a solid blindness: he understands nothing of me. There was a moment when I felt that you had understood me --- that you had shown me respect. Tell me truthfully --- do not try today to suppress that."

"I tell you truly," said Bihari.

"I did respect you."

"Then you were not wrong, Thakurpo. But if you understood me, if you respected me --- why did you stop there? What stood in the way of loving me? I have come to you tonight stripped of all shame and all pretence --- and I ask you without shame: why did you not love me? Such is my wretched fate. Even you --- you of all people --- had to go and lose your heart to Asha. No, do not be angry with me. Sit down, Thakurpo. I will conceal nothing. That you love Asha --- that I knew before you knew it yourself. But what either of you sees in Asha passes my comprehension. Good or ill, what has she got? Has Providence given men eyes but no inner vision? What do you see in her, how much do you see, that you go so completely astray? Fools! Blind fools!" Bihari rose to his feet and said: "I will hear everything you have to say to me tonight --- but there are certain things better left unspoken. I ask this of you above all else."

"I know where my words wound you, Thakurpo," said Binodini.

"But the man whose respect I had won, whose love would have given my life its meaning --- to come to him tonight, casting away all fear and shame --- you cannot know the degree of anguish that brings me here. Let me say one thing in truth: if you had not loved Asha, I would not have brought Asha to this ruin." Bihari went pale.

"What has happened to Asha? What have you done to her?"

"Mahendra is prepared to abandon his entire household and take me away with him tomorrow." Bihari burst out: "That shall not happen. On no account whatsoever."

"On no account? And who can stop Mahendra now?"

"You can." Binodini was silent for a moment; then, fixing her gaze on Bihari's face, she said: "For whose sake should I stop him? For the sake of your Asha? Have I no joys and sorrows of my own? Let Asha prosper, let Mahendra's household prosper --- and I am to erase every last claim I have on this life. I am not that good, Thakurpo. I have not read the scriptures so assiduously. If I give something up, what do I receive in return?" Bihari's face gradually took on a very hard expression.

"You have tried to speak very plainly," he said, "so I will be equally plain. What you have done tonight and the words you are using --- most of it is stolen from the literature you have been reading. Three-quarters of this is theatre and novel."

"Theatre! Novel!"

"Yes --- theatre and novel. And not of the highest order either. You believe all this is your own --- it is not. It is the echo of printing presses. Had you been a complete simpleton, unlettered and wholly artless, you would still not have been denied love in this world. But the theatrical heroine belongs on the stage; she cannot be lived with at home." Where was the fierce brilliance of her, the insufferable pride?

Like a serpent struck by a charmer's wand she went still and was brought low. After a long silence, without looking at Bihari's face, she said in a quiet and subdued voice: "What do you tell me to do?"

"Do not attempt anything extraordinary," said Bihari.

"Do what the simple good sense of any ordinary woman would counsel. Go back to your village."

"How am I to go?"

"I will put you in the women's carriage and see you as far as your station."

"Then let me stay here tonight."

"No," said Bihari.

"I do not trust myself that far." At these words Binodini slid from her chair to the floor and pressed his feet to her breast with desperate force.

"Keep that much weakness, Thakurpo," she pleaded.

"Do not make yourself as pure as a stone idol. For my sake, love me --- a thing imperfect --- and be a little imperfect yourself." Then she kissed his feet again and again.

The unexpectedness, the utter unforeseeableness of it, unmanned Bihari for a moment --- every knot of resolution in his body and mind seemed to slacken at once. Feeling that momentary stillness and bewilderment in him, Binodini released his feet, raised herself on her knees, put her arms about the neck of Bihari seated in his chair, and said: "My life, I know you cannot be mine for ever --- but for one moment tonight, love me. After that I will go away to our forest and our wilderness and ask nothing of anyone. Give me something to carry in my memory until I die." And with closed eyes she moved her lips close to his.

For a moment the two of them were motionless and the whole room was still. Then with a long, deep breath Bihari gently freed her arms from around him, moved to the other chair, cleared his constricted throat, and said: "There is a passenger train at one o'clock tonight." Binodini was quiet for a little while; then said, in a near-whisper: "I will take that train." Just then, barefoot and without his jacket, Basanta appeared beside Bihari's chair with his fair and luminous little face, staring gravely at Binodini.

"Why haven't you gone to sleep?" Bihari asked.

Basanta made no answer, only stood looking solemnly on. Binodini held out both her arms. The boy hesitated a moment, then went to her slowly. Binodini pressed him close to her breast with both arms and wept freely.