15

When smothered embers receive a breath of air they blaze up again. The zeal of the young couple's love, which had been fading a little, was struck by a third force and rekindled. Asha had no gift for witty or animated conversation, but Binodini could supply it in abundance; and in Binodini's company Asha found for herself a great and welcome shelter. To keep Mahendra always in a state of cheerful stimulation was no longer an impossible labour she had to perform alone. In the short months since their marriage, Mahendra and Asha had been attempting to exhaust themselves in each other's presence --- the music of their love had begun from its very first note at the highest pitch --- they had been drawing upon capital, not living on interest.

How were they to convert this mad flood into the calm, daily current of ordinary life? After intoxication comes that lull in which man reaches for another draught to dispel his lassitude --- but where was Asha to find that fresh draught? Then Binodini arrived and placed a new bright vessel, brimming full, in Asha's hands. Seeing Mahendra cheerful, Asha was at ease. She no longer needed to exert herself. When Mahendra and Binodini exchanged banter and repartee, she simply joined in with her whole heart's laughter.

When Mahendra cheated at cards, Asha would appeal to Binodini as arbitrator, lodging her complaint in the most piteous terms. If Mahendra teased her or said something outrageous, she expected Binodini to come to her defence with a fitting reply. In this way the company of three flourished and established itself. Yet Binodini's diligence in the work of the house did not slacken on that account. Cooking, housekeeping, attending to Rajlakshmi --- all of it she accomplished fully and completely before joining in the pleasures of the evening.

Mahendra would say impatiently, "At the rate you are going, you will ruin the servants entirely." Binodini would reply, "Better that than ruining oneself by doing nothing. Go --- get off to your college."

"But on a day like this, with the rain ---" Mahendra began.

"No, that will not do --- your carriage is ready --- you must go to college," said Binodini.

"I had told them to send the carriage away," said Mahendra.

"I told them to bring it," said Binodini --- and fetched his college clothes and laid them before him.

"You ought to have been born into a Rajput household," said Mahendra, "to arm your kinsmen for battle." Idling away hours in amusement, shirking his studies --- Binodini tolerated none of it.

Under her firm discipline, irregular pleasures during the day vanished altogether, and in consequence the leisure hours of the evening became extraordinarily precious and desirable to Mahendra. The day seemed to wait for its own passing. Formerly, meals were not ready at the appointed hour, and Mahendra gladly used this as a pretext to miss college. Now Binodini herself arranged matters so that Mahendra's meal before college was ready early each morning, and the moment it was done, word came to him --- carriage waiting.

Formerly his clothes --- far from being neatly folded and ready each day --- might be at the washerman's or might be lying in some unaccountable corner of the wardrobe, and it would take prolonged searching even to know which. At first Binodini would laugh and scold Asha about all these irregularities in front of Mahendra, and Mahendra too would smile with affection at Asha's helpless incompetence. But in the end, out of her attachment to her friend, Binodini took the burden of household management out of Asha's hands altogether and into her own.

The house began to look presentable again. A button had come off Mahendra's coat, and Asha was at a loss to deal with it promptly --- Binodini would come swiftly, snatch the coat from the bewildered Asha's hands, and sew the button on in a moment. One day a cat got at Mahendra's prepared meal --- Asha was in a flutter; Binodini went straight to the kitchen and, finding or improvising she knew not what, managed somehow to produce a meal, leaving Asha utterly astonished. Thus in his meals and clothing, in work and in rest, Mahendra began to feel on all sides the attending hand of Binodini.

The woollen slippers she had knitted lay upon his feet, and the woollen muffler she had woven rested around his throat --- surrounding him with something like the soft touch of a personal tenderness. These days Asha came to Mahendra dressed and adorned by her friend's own hands, fragrant with perfume --- in her there was something partly of herself and something partly of another; her beauty and elegance seemed, like the Ganga and the Yamuna, to have merged with her friend's.

Bihari was no longer welcome as he had once been --- he was no longer sent for. He had written to say that the following Sunday he would come and take his midday meal at Mahendra's mother's table. Mahendra saw that it would entirely ruin Sunday, and wrote back hastily to say he had important business that would take him out of the house that day. Nevertheless, Bihari came after his own midday meal to enquire after Mahendra. A servant told him that Mahendra had not gone out. Bihari called "Mahinada!" from the staircase and made his way to Mahendra's room.

Mahendra, put out, said "I have a very bad headache" --- and leaned against the bolster.

Asha, hearing this and reading the expression on Mahendra's face, fell into a flutter, and looked toward Binodini to know what was to be done. Binodini knew quite well the matter was nothing serious, yet she said with every appearance of anxious concern, "You have been sitting so long --- lie down. Let me fetch some eau de cologne."

"Never mind," said Mahendra, "there is no need." Binodini paid no heed; she went swiftly and mixed eau de cologne with iced water, then brought it and gave Asha a damp handkerchief, saying, "Bind it round Mahendra-babu's head."

"Don't bother, don't bother," Mahendra kept saying.

Bihari sat by, suppressing his amusement, watching the scene. Mahendra thought with quiet satisfaction: Let Bihari see how well I am tended. Asha's hands trembled with shyness before Bihari, and she could not bind it properly --- a drop of eau de cologne trickled into Mahendra's eye. Binodini took the cloth from Asha's hands and bound it with expert skill, then soaked another piece of cloth in the cologne, wringing it carefully, drop by drop. Asha pulled her veil over her head and began to fan him.

"Are you more comfortable now, Mahendra-babu?" asked Binodini in a gentle voice.

With that honeyed tone still upon her lips she cast a quick sidelong glance at Bihari's face. His eyes were dancing with amusement --- the entire performance was pure comedy to him. Binodini understood then that this was not a man to be easily deceived. Nothing escaped his notice.

"Binodin-bouthaan," said Bihari with a laugh, "with nursing of this order, the illness will not heal --- it will grow worse."

"And how should I know that?" said Binodini.

"We are ignorant women. Is it written in your books of medicine?"

"Most certainly," said Bihari.

"Indeed, watching that nursing, my own head begins to ache. But those with poor stars in their fortune must get well smartly and without treatment. Mahinada has better luck." Binodini put down the wet cloth and said, "Very well --- let a friend attend to a friend's ailments." Bihari had been growing inwardly vexed by all he had observed.

He had been absorbed in his studies these past days, and had not known to what degree Mahendra, Binodini and Asha had, between the three of them, woven their entanglement. Today he looked at Binodini carefully, and Binodini looked back at him with equal care. In a voice a little sharper than usual, Bihari said, "Quite right. Let a friend attend to his friend. I brought this headache with me --- I'll take it away with me again. Spare the eau de cologne." He turned to Asha and said, "Sister-in-law, prevention is better than cure."