45

At dawn the next day Mahendra presented himself at Bihari's house. He found a number of bullock-carts at the gate, with servants loading them with furniture. Mahendra asked Bhaju, "What is all this?" Bhaju said, "Babu has taken a garden-house by the Ganges at Bali --- these things are being sent there."

"Is Babu at home?" asked Mahendra.

"He came back to Calcutta for two days only and went to the garden yesterday," said Bhaju.

Mahendra's mind was instantly filled with foreboding. There was no longer any doubt in him --- while he was absent, Binodini and Bihari had met. In his mind's eye he saw bullock-carts already loading before Binodini's lodgings as well. He was certain: "That is why the fool kept me away from the lodgings." Without a moment's delay, Mahendra jumped into his carriage and ordered the coachman to drive.

He called out to the coachman for going too slowly several times over. Arriving at the lane and drawing up before the door of the lodgings, he found no sign of any departure. The fear struck him that it might already have taken place. He knocked hard. The moment the old servant opened the door from within, Mahendra asked, "All is well here?"

"Yes sir, everything is quite well," came the reply.

Mahendra went upstairs and found Binodini had gone to bathe. He entered her empty room, flung himself upon the bed she had slept in the night before, drew the soft sheets towards his breast with both outstretched arms, buried his face in them and said over and over, "Cruel one! Cruel one!" Having thus given his feelings their unbridled course, he rose from the bed and waited for Binodini in a state of impatience, pacing the room.

He saw that a Bengali newspaper lay open on the low mattress. To pass the time, with a somewhat absent air, he picked it up; and wherever his eyes happened to fall, he found Bihari's name. His entire mind plunged at that spot in the paper. A letter-writer reported that, for the treatment and care of impoverished clerks who fell ill, Bihari had taken a garden-house by the Ganges at Bali --- arrangements had been made to accommodate five people at one time, and so forth. Binodini had read this item.

Having read it, what must she have felt? Surely her whole mind was straining in that direction, longing to fly there. This alone was not what made Mahendra's heart so restless --- there was also this: that Bihari's charitable resolve would heighten Binodini's veneration for him still further. Mahendra mentally dismissed Bihari as a humbug, called his enterprise a passing fad, and told himself: "Bihari has had this fad for improving the welfare of others since he was a boy." Mahendra tried to credit himself with being incomparably genuine when compared to Bihari --- he said: "I despise this performance of liberality and self-sacrifice for the purpose of dazzling fools." But alas --- the glory of such perfect, unconcerned genuineness might perhaps be lost on the world --- on one particular person in it.

It seemed to Mahendra that Bihari had made this, too, a move against him. Hearing Binodini's footstep, Mahendra hastily folded the paper and sat down upon it. When Binodini entered the room fresh from her bath, Mahendra looked at her face and was struck with wonder. Some extraordinary change had come over her. It was as if she had been spending these days in austerity, burning in a private fire. Her body had grown thin, and through that thinness a kind of radiance was visible in her pale face.

Binodini had abandoned all hope of a letter from Bihari. Imagining herself held in utter contempt by him, she had been burning inwardly, without a sound, night and day. There was no path of escape from this conflagration. It was as though Bihari had gone west to rebuke her by that very act --- and she had no means of reaching him. Binodini, always active and tireless, felt herself suffocating within the small compass of this lodging without work to do; her every energy turned inward and lacerated her.

To imagine her entire future life imprisoned in this loveless, workless, joyless lodging, in this blocked-in lane, for ever --- her rebellious nature beat its head against the unyielding walls of fate like a helpless creature against the bars of its cage. For the dull Mahendra who had closed off every avenue of escape from every side and reduced her life to such a narrow channel, Binodini had no bounds to her loathing and hatred. She had come to understand clearly that she would not be able to keep Mahendra at a distance much longer.

In this small lodging, Mahendra would press close to her and seat himself before her --- every day, by invisible degrees, he would move further and further in her direction --- and the daily battle in this dark pit of a socially ruined existence, on a bed of shame between disgust and desire, would be utterly repulsive. Binodini had, by her own hand and own effort, dug out from the depths of Mahendra's heart this slobbering, greedy, slime-covered reptile --- and how was she to protect herself from the coils of its tail?

Her heart was already wounded; the small confined lodgings; the ceaseless buffeting of Mahendra's waves of desire --- even to imagine this filled Binodini's whole spirit with a terror of dread. Where was the end to all this in life? When would she ever get free of it all? At the sight of Binodini's thin and pallid face, the fire of jealousy flared in Mahendra. Had he no power by which he could forcibly uproot this woman, absorbed in her austerity, from her thoughts of Bihari?

As an eagle sweeps a lamb in one instant to its inaccessible nest high in the clouds, was there no cloud-wrapped, world-forgotten place where Mahendra alone could hide this soft and beautiful quarry of his against his breast? In the heat of jealousy, his desire intensified fourfold. Could he bear to let Binodini out of his sight even for a moment now? He must guard against the spectre of Bihari at every hour --- he no longer had the courage to allow Bihari even a needle's-breadth of opening.

Separation's fire refines a woman's beauty to a new delicacy --- Mahendra had read as much in Sanskrit poetry; now, seeing it in Binodini, the more keenly he felt it, the more violently his heart was churned by that peculiar anguish that is mixed with pleasure. Binodini stood still for a moment, then asked Mahendra, "Have you had your tea?"

"Perhaps I have," said Mahendra, "but that need not prevent you from filling another cup with your own hand --- 'Pyala mujh bhar de re.'" Binodini, it seemed, deliberately struck Mahendra's ardour with a sudden cruelty.

She said: "Do you know where Bihari-Thakurpo is at present?" In an instant Mahendra turned pale.

"He is not in Calcutta just now," he said.

"What is his address?" asked Binodini.

"He has not told anyone," said Mahendra.

"Could one not find out by inquiry?" asked Binodini.

"I do not see any pressing necessity," said Mahendra.

"Is necessity everything?" said Binodini.

"Does a friendship from childhood count for nothing?"

"Bihari is indeed my childhood friend," said Mahendra, "but your acquaintance with him is of two days' standing --- yet it is plainly you who feel the greater urgency."

"You should be ashamed to say so," said Binodini.

"Even from such a friend as he is, you have not been able to learn how friendship is to be practised."

"I am not so very grieved on that account," said Mahendra.

"But the art of stealing a woman's heart by guile --- had I learned that from him, it might have served me today."

"That art," said Binodini, "cannot be learned by desire alone --- one must have the capacity."

"If you know your guru's address," said Mahendra, "tell me, and I will go and take initiation from him even at this late hour --- the test of my capacity can come after."

"Until you can find out where your friend is," said Binodini, "do not utter the word love in my presence. The way you have behaved towards Bihari-Thakurpo --- who could trust you?"

"If you had not trusted me so completely," said Mahendra, "you would not have humiliated me so entirely. Had you been at all uncertain of my love, perhaps I should not have suffered so unbearably. That Bihari knows the art of not being tamed --- had he taught that one art to this wretch, he would have done a true friend's service."

"Because Bihari is a man," said Binodini, "he cannot be tamed." And she remained as she was, standing by the window with her loosened hair spread down her back.

Mahendra suddenly rose to his feet, clenched his fists, and said in a voice thick with anger: "Why do you dare to humiliate me, again and again? You receive no reckoning for it --- is that because of your strength or because of my virtue? If you have indeed decided I am an animal, then know me for a ferocious one. I am not so thoroughgoing a coward as to be incapable of striking back." He paused, staring at Binodini's face --- then burst out: "Binod, let us leave this place, go somewhere. Let us get away from here. West, if you like, or the hills --- wherever you choose, let us go. There is no air to breathe here. I am dying."

"Let us go," said Binodini.

"Let us go this very moment --- west."

"Where in the west?" asked Mahendra.

"Nowhere in particular," said Binodini.

"We will not stay two days in any one place --- we will roam."

"That is best," said Mahendra.

"Let us go tonight." Binodini agreed and went to prepare a meal for Mahendra.

Mahendra understood that Binodini had not noticed the item in the newspaper. The power of attention for such things had left her. Anxious lest she chance to come across it, Mahendra remained on guard all day.