44

When Rajlakshmi saw clearly that Asha could not bind Mahendra's heart, she thought: "If nothing else, at least my illness may serve as pretext to keep Mahendra at home." She began to fear that her illness might get entirely well.

She started slipping away the medicine without Asha's knowledge. Mahendra, his mind elsewhere, noticed little. But Asha could see that Rajlakshmi's illness was not improving --- if anything, it seemed to be growing worse. She told herself that Mahendra was not choosing the right medicines with sufficient attention and care --- Mahendra's mind was in such a state of derangement that even his mother's sickness could not rouse him. Asha could not, within herself, refrain from condemning Mahendra for so great a degradation.

When a man goes wrong in one thing, does he go wrong in everything else in just this way? One evening, in the worst of her suffering, Rajlakshmi suddenly thought of Bihari. He had not come in so long --- she had lost count. She asked Asha, "Bou-ma, do you know where Bihari is at present?" Asha understood: it was always Bihari who had nursed and cared for her in illness --- and so in this hour of pain it was Bihari whom the older woman called to mind.

Alas --- even Bihari, the one fixed anchor of this household, was gone now. If Bihari-Thakurpo were here, he would have tended to her in this hard time --- he was not heartless as this other man was. A long sigh rose from Asha's heart.

"Mahin must have quarrelled with Bihari," said Rajlakshmi.

"He has done a very wrong thing, Bou-ma. There is no friend in the world more devoted to Mahin's welfare than Bihari." As she spoke, tears gathered in the corners of her eyes.

One by one, many things came back to Asha's mind. Bihari had made every effort, in countless ways, to warn the blind and foolish Asha in time --- and the result was that he had steadily become less and less welcome to her. Thinking of this now, Asha heaped reproach upon herself. The one true friend had been driven away; the one true enemy had been embraced. Why would God not punish such an ungrateful fool? The long sighing breath with which Bihari had taken his leave of this house --- would that breath not fall upon this house like a curse?

After sitting silently in thought for a long while, Rajlakshmi suddenly said, "Bou-ma, if Bihari had been here, he might have saved us in this dark hour --- things might not have been allowed to come so far." Asha sat still in silence.

Rajlakshmi drew a breath and said, "If he knew I was ill, he would not be able to stay away." Asha understood that Rajlakshmi wished Bihari to receive this news.

Without Bihari she had grown entirely defenceless. The lamp in the room had been put out; Mahendra stood by the window in the moonlight, silent. He could no longer take pleasure in reading. There was no joy in the house. When one's nearest and dearest become as strangers to one --- when the ease of those relations is gone --- one cannot dismiss them as one would a stranger, yet one cannot receive them with the freedom of those one loves; their inalienable claim presses upon the heart at every moment, an intolerable weight.

Mahendra had no wish to go before his mother --- whenever she caught sight of him entering her presence unexpectedly, she looked at his face with such anxious, frightened searching that it wounded him. When Asha came near him on any occasion, speaking with her was difficult, and silence was equally painful. There was no way to go on like this. Mahendra had made a firm resolution not to see Binodini at all for seven days. Two days remained --- how was he to get through them? Mahendra heard footsteps behind him --- he understood that Asha had entered the room.

Pretending not to have heard, he stayed where he was, perfectly still. Asha understood the pretence, but did not go away. She stood behind him and said, "I have something to say, and then I will go." Mahendra turned and said, "Why must you go? Sit awhile." Asha paid no heed to this courtesy, but stood where she was and said, "It would be right to send word to Bihari-Thakurpo about Mother's illness." The moment he heard Bihari's name, the deep wound in Mahendra's heart was struck.

He composed himself a little and said, "Why right? Does my treatment not inspire confidence?" Asha's heart was full of reproach for Mahendra's insufficient care of his mother, and so it came out: "But Mother's illness has not improved at all --- it seems to be getting worse every day." Mahendra understood the temperature beneath these mild words.

Asha had never reproved him so indirectly before. Stung in his pride, he said with astonished mockery, "I see I must take lessons in medicine from you." This mockery struck the accumulated pain in Asha's heart like a sudden and unexpected blow --- and the room was dark besides, and so that same Asha who had always kept silence answered now with blazing, unguarded spirit: "Never mind medicine --- you might at least learn how to care for your mother." That Asha should answer him like this left Mahendra without limit to his astonishment.

The sharp unfamiliar words made Mahendra brutal.

"You know very well," he said, "why I have forbidden your Bihari-Thakurpo this house --- and now you invoke him again!" Asha left the room at speed.

A storm of shame swept her out. Not shame for herself --- a man sunk to the neck in guilt, and he could give voice to such base slander! A shamelessness so monstrous could not be covered by the largest mountain of shame. The moment Asha left, Mahendra felt the full weight of his own defeat. That Asha could ever, in any circumstances, deliver such a verdict upon him --- this Mahendra had never imagined. He saw that where his throne had stood, he lay in the dust. For the first time in all this time, he was afraid that Asha's grief might be turning into contempt.

And then the thought of Bihari drove his anxiety about Binodini to the point of urgency. Whether Bihari had returned from the west, who could say? In the meantime, Binodini might find out his whereabouts; a meeting between Binodini and Bihari was by no means impossible. Mahendra could hold out no longer. In the night, Rajlakshmi's suffocation grew worse, until she could bear it no longer and sent for Mahendra herself. With difficulty she formed the words: "Mahin, I have a great longing to see Bihari --- it has been so long since he came." Asha was fanning her mother-in-law.

She kept her face bowed. Mahendra said, "He is not here --- he has gone west somewhere."

"My heart tells me he is still in the city," said Rajlakshmi, "and only stays away out of wounded feeling for you. I beg it of you on my life --- go to his house tomorrow."

"Very well, I will go," said Mahendra.

Everyone, today, was calling for Bihari. Mahendra felt himself abandoned by the world.