25

On that day, when the first breath of a new Phalgun carried the first hint of spring, Asha had spread a mat on the rooftop in the early evening and settled herself there after many long days. She had taken up a monthly journal and was reading, in the dim light, a serial tale with the closest attention. The hero of the story had at that moment fallen into the hands of bandits while returning home after a year away during the puja holidays, and Asha's heart trembled with anxiety --- while at that very same moment, the poor heroine had woken from a dream of calamity, weeping.

Asha could hold back her tears no longer. Asha was the most generous of critics when it came to Bengali fiction. Whatever she read seemed wonderful to her. She would call Binodini and say: "Dear chokher bali, I implore you --- do read this story. It is so beautiful! I read it and weep and cannot stop." Binodini, making her considered literary judgements, used to deal sharp blows to Asha's exuberant enthusiasm.

Today Asha had resolved to read this very story aloud to Mahendra, and she was closing the journal with eyes full of tears when Mahendra arrived. The moment she saw his face, Asha felt a pang of anxiety. Mahendra, making a forcible effort at cheerfulness, said, "Alone on the rooftop --- in whose thoughts are you absorbed?" Asha entirely forgot the hero and heroine and said, "Are you not well today?"

"I am perfectly well," said Mahendra.

"Then there is something troubling you inwardly --- tell me openly," said Asha.

Mahendra, taking a paan from Asha's box and putting it in his mouth, said, "I was thinking --- your aunt has not seen you for so long. If you could go to her suddenly and unexpectedly, how very glad she would be." Asha said nothing, only looked at Mahendra's face.

She could not understand why this thought had occurred to him anew. Seeing Asha remain silent, Mahendra said, "Have you no wish to go?" This question was difficult to answer.

She wished to go and see her aunt, but she did not wish to leave Mahendra. Asha said, "When you can get leave from the college and go together, I shall go with you."

"Even if I get leave, I could not go --- I must prepare for my examination," said Mahendra.

"Then let it be. I shall not go just now," said Asha.

"Why let it be? You wanted to go --- do go," said Mahendra.

"No, I have no wish to go," said Asha.

"Just the other day you so very much wished it --- the wish has suddenly gone?" Mahendra asked.

Asha was silent at these words, eyes lowered. Within himself, Mahendra was growing frantically impatient --- longing for unobstructed opportunity to make his peace with Binodini. Seeing Asha sitting in silence, an unreasoning anger took hold of him. He said, "Have you come to harbour some secret suspicion of me? Is that why you wish to keep a watch over me with your own eyes?" Asha's natural gentleness, her meekness and patience --- all of it suddenly became intolerably oppressive to Mahendra.

He thought to himself: "You want to go to your aunt --- then say so: I am going, come what may, send me somehow --- but no: first yes, then no, then silence --- what manner of creature is this?" Struck by this sudden harshness in Mahendra, Asha was bewildered and frightened.

She tried hard and could not compose any reply. She could not understand why Mahendra would sometimes show her such sudden tenderness and at other times become so suddenly cruel. The more incomprehensible Mahendra grew to her, the more her trembling heart, in fear and in love, seemed to fold itself around him ever more tightly. That Asha harboured some hidden suspicion of him and wished to keep him under constant surveillance! Was this a cruel jest, or a pitiless accusation? Did it call for a sworn denial, or a laugh and a dismissal?

Seeing the bewildered Asha remain silent once more, the impatient Mahendra rose swiftly and walked away. Where now was the story's hero from the monthly journal; where its heroine? The glow of sunset dissolved into darkness; the brief evening breeze of spring gave way to the cold of winter --- and Asha still lay prostrate on the mat. Late at night, Asha went to the bedroom and found that Mahendra had gone to bed without calling for her. It came to her at once that Mahendra, imagining her to be indifferent toward her kind aunt, was inwardly despising her.

Getting into bed, Asha clasped Mahendra's feet with both arms and lay with her face upon them. Mahendra was moved to pity and tried to draw her up to him. Asha would not stir. She said, "If I have been at fault in any way, forgive me." Mahendra said with a softened heart, "You have no fault, Chuni. I am an utter wretch --- that is why I wounded you without cause." Then Asha's tears fell and anointed Mahendra's two feet.

Mahendra sat up and lifted her in both arms to lie beside him. When the violence of her weeping had passed, she said, "Do I not wish to see my aunt? But I cannot bring myself to leave you. That is why I did not wish to go --- do not be angry." Mahendra gently wiped the tears from Asha's damp cheek and said, "What cause for anger is this, Chuni? That you cannot bear to leave me --- am I to be angry for that? You need not go anywhere." Asha said, "No --- I shall go to Kashi."

"Why?" Mahendra asked.

"Since the words have once passed your lips --- that I harbour suspicions of you --- I must go away for a little while, if only for a few days," said Asha.

"I committed the sin --- and you are to do the penance?" Mahendra asked.

"That I cannot say --- but a sin has been committed somewhere, else such impossible things could never have been said. How am I to hear things that I could never have imagined even in a dream?" Asha asked.

"Because you have no idea of how vile a person I am --- it is entirely beyond the reach of your dreaming," said Mahendra.

Asha said with anxiety, "There you go again --- do not say such things. But this time I shall go to Kashi." Mahendra said with a laugh, "Very well, go --- but if I come to ruin out of your sight, what then?" Asha said, "You need not alarm me with such threats --- I am already in a terrible state of agitation."

"But you ought to be agitated. If you carelessly allow a husband of this sort to go to the bad, whom will you blame afterwards?" Mahendra asked.

"I shall not blame you --- do not trouble yourself on that account," said Asha.

"You will accept the blame yourself?" Mahendra asked.

"A hundred times over," said Asha.

"Very well then --- I shall go to your uncle tomorrow and arrange everything," said Mahendra.

And with that, saying "it grows late," Mahendra turned on his side and lay down.

A little while later, turning back once more, he said, "Chuni --- never mind. Perhaps you had better not go after all." Asha said imploringly, "Why do you forbid it again? I have been tormenting myself over this --- if I do not go even now, that reproach of yours will stick to me. Send me away for even two or three days." Mahendra said, "Very well." And turned over and lay still.

On the day before her departure for Kashi, Asha flung her arms around Binodini's neck and said, "Dear Bali --- swear to me something, touching my hand." Binodini pinched Asha's cheek and said, "What is it, dear? Would I refuse any request of yours?"

"Who knows, sister --- lately you have grown so strange. You seem altogether unwilling to come near my husband," said Asha.

"Do you not know yourself why, sister? Those words Mahendra-babu spoke to Bihari-babu that day --- did you not hear them with your own ears? When such things have been said, is it right to show oneself at all --- do you not think so, dear Bali?" Binodini asked.

Asha understood well enough that it was not right. She herself had recently come to feel, from the depths of her own heart, how mortifying all that was. But still she said, "Such words get said all the time --- if you cannot endure them, what kind of love is that, sister? You must forget all that."

"Very well, sister --- I will forget it," said Binodini.

"And now, dear sister, I am going to Kashi tomorrow --- you must take particular care that my husband has no inconvenience. You cannot go on hiding yourself as you have been doing," said Asha.

Binodini was silent. Asha pressed her hand and said, "I implore you, dear Bali --- you must give me this one promise." Binodini said, "Very well."