48

When Bihari was wandering in the west, he had thought to himself that without tying himself to some task, he would know no peace again. With this in mind, he had taken upon himself the care and treatment of Calcutta's poor clerks when they fell sick. The summer fish in a shrunk and muddy pond gasps out a thin and wretched existence in the slime --- the life of the lane-dwelling, low-salaried, family-burdened clerk was just such a life; and Bihari had long looked upon those pale, lean, care-worn gentlemen with compassion.

He resolved to give them the shelter of the woodland and the open wind off the river. He took a garden-house at Bali and, with the help of a Chinese carpenter, began to build small, pretty cottages. But his mind was not stilled. The nearer the day came when his work was to begin, the more his spirit recoiled from his own purpose. His mind kept saying: "There is no happiness in this work, no savour, no beauty --- it is nothing but dry, dull weight." The prospect of work had never pressed upon Bihari so heavily before.

There had been a time when Bihari had no particular need of anything; whatever presented itself before him, he could apply himself to it without effort. Now a certain hunger had awakened in him; it would not let him give himself to anything else until it was appeased. In the old way of habit he turned things over and handled them, but the next moment he was anxious to put them down and be free of them. The youth that had lain motionless and sleeping within Bihari, of which he had never even thought --- Binodini had touched it with her golden wand and woken it.

Like a newly hatched Garuda bird, it ransacked the whole world in search of its own sustenance. This hungry creature was unknown to the old Bihari; it gave him no peace. What was he to do now with Calcutta's emaciated, short-lived, wretchedly salaried clerks? The Ganges of Ashadh flowed before him. Now and then on the far bank, the dense, heavy ranks of dark cloud would press down over the trees in close and smothering closeness; the whole surface of the river would turn, in one place, to the gleaming black of polished steel, and in another would flash and glitter like fire.

Whenever Bihari's eyes fell on this splendour of the new rains, the door of his heart swung open and out into that tender blue-drenched light someone stepped alone; someone stood with loosened dark hair spread loose and wet, the heavy waves of it flowing free; and gathering to herself all the scattered broken rays of light that fell from between the torn clouds above, she directed the burning, imploring gaze of her undivided eyes upon him, and upon no one else. The life that had passed until now in contentment --- Bihari now looked upon it as the greatest loss of his life.

How many such clouded evenings, how many such moonlit nights had come and gone; they had approached the door of Bihari's empty heart and turned silently away with the cup of nectar untouched --- on those rare and blessed occasions, how much music had been left unstruck, how many festivals unobserved, past counting. The memories of his former life --- Binodini had lit them all with the red light of that suspended kiss and made them seem pale and worthless now. How the greater part of his days had slipped past in living as a shadow of Mahendra --- what satisfaction had there been in any of it?

That the flute of love sings from the innermost hollow of the universe, amid water and earth and sky, in such a melody and with such a cry --- this Bihari, asleep to all feeling, had never so much as guessed. How was he to forget the Binodini who had in a single moment's sudden embrace borne him across into this extraordinary world of beauty? Her gaze, her longing had spread through every particle of the world; her ardent and restless breath set the current of his blood swaying and surging at every moment; and the tender warmth of her touch, enveloping him, held his pulse-quickened heart open and flowering like a blossom.

And yet why had Bihari kept himself at so great a distance from that same Binodini? The reason was this: in the world's midst, he could not conceive of any relationship with Binodini that would be worthy of the beauty with which she had anointed him. To gather the lotus one must stir up the mud beneath it. What place was there to set her where beauty would not turn to ugliness? And if it came to a contest and a snatching-match with Mahendra, the whole affair would take on so vile an aspect that Bihari could not allow even the edges of his mind to entertain such a possibility.

And so Bihari, on the solitary riverbank, in the midst of the music of the world, enshrined his goddess in imagination and burnt his own heart before her like incense. For fear of receiving some news that would tear his web of happy dreaming to shreds, he would not write to inquire after Binodini at all. On a clouded morning he lay quietly under the jambu tree heavy with fruit at the southern end of his garden, idly watching the country-boats coming and going on the river; gradually the hours passed.

The servant came and asked whether food should be prepared --- Bihari said, "Not yet." The master-carpenter came and called him to view the work for an important consultation --- Bihari said, "In a little while." At that moment Bihari started up with a shock --- Annapurna stood before him.

He scrambled to his feet in confusion; with both hands he clasped her feet and pressed his brow to the earth in prostration. Annapurna laid her right hand upon his head and back with great tenderness. In a tear-filled voice she said, "Bihari, why have you grown so thin?"

"To win back your affection, Kakima," said Bihari.

At this, the tears ran streaming down Annapurna's face. Bihari said with quick concern, "Kakima, have you not eaten yet?"

"No," said Annapurna, "I have not yet had the time."

"Come then," said Bihari, "let me make ready for cooking. Today, after so long, I shall eat what you have cooked with your own hands, and eat the blessed remnants from your plate, and be restored to life." Bihari raised no subject connected with Mahendra or Asha.

Annapurna had once, with her own hand, shut that door before him. He observed that cruel prohibition with all his wounded pride. After the meal Annapurna said, "The boat is ready at the landing, Bihari --- come to Calcutta with me now."

"What need have I in Calcutta?" said Bihari.

"Didi is gravely ill," said Annapurna, "and she has asked to see you." Bihari was struck.

"Where is Mahin-da?" he asked.

"He is not in Calcutta," said Annapurna.

"He has gone west." At this, Bihari's face turned white in an instant.

He sat without a word.

"Do you not know what has happened?" asked Annapurna.

"I know something," said Bihari, "but not how it has ended." Then Annapurna told him of Mahendra's flight west with Binodini.

In a single instant the colour of all the water and land and sky changed before Bihari's eyes; all the accumulated richness in the storehouse of his imagination turned bitter in a moment.

"Did the enchantress Binodini merely toy with me that evening? Was her declaration of love, her surrender, all of it a deception? She has left her village without shame and gone west alone with Mahendra! Shame upon her --- and shame upon me, the fool who believed in her even for one moment." Alas, overcast evening of Ashadh!

Alas, moonlit night after the rain --- where has your enchantment gone?