13

When Binodini refused utterly to be caught, a scheme came into Asha's head. She went to Binodini and said, "Dear Bali, why do you never appear before my husband? Why do you keep hiding away from him?" Binodini answered, very briefly and with some spirit, "Fie, fie!"

"But why?" said Asha.

"I have heard from Mother that you are not a stranger to us." Binodini said gravely, "In this world there is no such thing as one's own people and strangers. Whoever you consider your own --- they are your own. Whoever you regard as a stranger --- even if they are near, they remain a stranger." Asha thought to herself that there was no answer to that.

And in truth, her husband did wrong by Binodini --- he did regard her as a stranger, and was unreasonably irritated by her presence. That evening Asha pressed her husband eagerly: "You must be introduced to my Sand-in-the-Eye." Mahendra laughed and said, "You are not lacking in boldness, are you?"

"Why?" asked Asha.

"What is there to fear?"

"The way you describe your friend's beauty," said Mahendra, "it does not sound like a particularly safe neighbourhood!"

"Oh, I think I can manage that," said Asha.

"Stop joking now --- tell me, will you meet her or not?" It was not that Mahendra felt no curiosity to see Binodini.

Indeed, of late there had been moments when he felt a positive eagerness. But that unnecessary eagerness seemed to him, on reflection, rather unbecoming. Where affairs of the heart were concerned, Mahendra's standard of right and wrong was somewhat stricter than the common run. He had formerly refused to entertain any thought of marriage, lest his mother's prior claim upon him be in the least degree diminished. Nowadays he wished to guard his bond with Asha in such a way that he should admit no curiosity whatever toward any other woman.

He took a certain pride in being singularly faithful and punctilious in matters of love. He even refused to acknowledge any other man as a true friend, for the sole reason that he called Bihari his friend --- and if anyone else sought to draw close to him, Mahendra would receive such a person with pointed indifference, and then, with Bihari, would make mock of the poor fellow's presumption, proclaiming his own sovereign detachment from the common herd. When Bihari objected to this, Mahendra would say, "You, Bihari, can make friends wherever you go. I cannot drag in just anyone and call him my friend." When this same Mahendra found his mind, from time to time, propelled against his will --- with an urgency and curiosity he could not suppress --- toward this unknown woman, he felt himself diminished in his own eyes, fallen short of his ideal.

At last, in sheer vexation, he began to press his mother to send Binodini away from the house.

"Let it alone, Chuni," said Mahendra.

"I have no time to be introduced to your Sand-in-the-Eye. When I study I must study, and in my leisure there is you --- where in all this is there room for a friend?"

"Very well," said Asha.

"I won't encroach on your medical studies --- I'll simply give Bali some part of my own share."

"You might give it," said Mahendra, "but why should I allow it?" Mahendra maintained that Asha's love for Binodini proved that her devotion to him was of an inferior kind.

"My love is single and undivided --- yours is not," he would say with pride.

Asha refused to accept this, and the argument would end in tears and quarrelling, though she could never win it in logic. It became a matter of pride to Mahendra that he would not yield so much as a needle's-point of space between them to Binodini. Asha could not bear this pride of his, but today she surrendered and said, "Very well then, for my sake --- meet my Bali just this once." Having proved to Asha the superior and unwavering character of his own love, Mahendra condescended at last to consent to an introduction with Binodini.

He added, however, "But don't make a nuisance of it at every odd hour." The very next morning Asha went and flung her arms around Binodini in her bed.

"What extraordinary behaviour," said Binodini.

"The chakori bird has left her moon and come to court the clouds!"

"Never mind your poetry, dear," said Asha.

"Why scatter pearls in a bamboo grove? Come, there is one who can match you in wit --- go and talk with him."

"And who is this wit?" asked Binodini.

"Your brother-in-law --- my husband," said Asha.

"No, I am not joking --- he has been pressing to be introduced to you." Binodini said to herself: So a summons has been issued for my attendance, by order of the wife.

And I am to come running? You do not know me so well as that. Binodini refused on any account to go. Asha was much mortified before her husband. Mahendra was inwardly furious. She objects to appearing before him! She places him in the same category as any ordinary man! Any other man would long since have contrived, by this means or that, to see Binodini and make her acquaintance. That Mahendra had not made the smallest effort to do so --- had that not revealed his character to her?

If Binodini only knew him a little better, she would understand the difference between other men and Mahendra. And only two days before, Binodini had said to herself, with some heat: "I have been in this house so long, and Mahendra has not once made any attempt to see me. When I am in Pishima's room, he never finds any pretext to come into Mother's apartment. What is the meaning of all this indifference? Am I an inanimate object? Am I not human? Am I not a woman? If only he had known me a little --- he would have understood the difference between his precious Chuni and Binodini." Asha proposed to her husband: "While you pretend to be at college, I'll bring my Sand-in-the-Eye to our room --- and then you come back suddenly and catch her. That will put an end to her pride."

"And what offence has she committed," said Mahendra, "to deserve so severe a punishment?"

"No, truly, I am very vexed with her," said Asha.

"Even to meet you she objects! I mean to break her resolve, whatever it takes."

"I am not dying for want of your friend's acquaintance," said Mahendra.

"I have no desire to meet anyone by such stealth." Asha took Mahendra's hand imploringly and said, "I swear to you, you must do this one thing. I want to break her certainty once and for all --- after that you two may do as you please." Mahendra said nothing.

"There's a good soul," said Asha softly.

"Do this for my sake." His eagerness had in truth grown very strong --- and it was precisely for that reason that he gave his consent with an exaggerated show of indifference.

On a clear and still autumn noon, Binodini was sitting in Mahendra's empty bedchamber teaching Asha to work a carpet slipper in wool. Asha, her mind elsewhere, kept glancing at the door and making mistake after mistake, demonstrating her hopeless incapacity before Binodini. At last Binodini, losing patience, snatched the work from Asha's hands and threw it down, saying, "You'll never manage it --- I have things to do, I must go."

"Wait just a little longer," said Asha.

"Look --- this time I won't make any mistakes." And she took up the needlework again.

At this moment Mahendra came and stood silently in the doorway behind Binodini. Without lifting her face from the needlework, Asha began to smile to herself.

"What has struck you as funny?" asked Binodini.

Asha could contain herself no longer. She burst into open laughter, flung the carpet onto Binodini, and cried, "No, you're quite right --- I'll never manage it" --- and then wrapped her arms around Binodini's neck and laughed all the harder.

Binodini had understood from the very beginning. Nothing in Asha's restlessness and manner had been hidden from her. She had quite known, moreover, when Mahendra came and stood behind her. And now she allowed herself to be caught in this most transparent of traps, with the air of the most innocent and unsuspecting creature in the world. Mahendra entered the room and said, "Why should a wretch like me be excluded from the cause of so much laughter?" Binodini gave a start and made as if to pull her veil over her head and rise.

Asha caught her by the hand.

"Either you sit and I leave," said Mahendra with a smile, "or we both stay." Binodini did not create a great commotion of mock-modesty in the manner of an ordinary girl --- tugging her hand free from Asha's and making a performance of her embarrassment.

In a natural enough tone she said, "I remain only at your request --- pray do not think ill of me for it."

"This shall be my curse upon you then," said Mahendra: "may your power of movement long be taken from you."

"I do not fear that curse," said Binodini.

"For your notion of 'long' will not last very long. I believe the time is already running out." As she spoke she made again as if to rise.

Asha clasped her hand and said, "I implore you, stay just a little longer."