Chapter 18

Khanna and Govindi do not get along. Why they don't get along is hard to say. By the reckoning of astrology there is some conflict between their planets, although at the time of the marriage the planets and constellations had been carefully matched. By the reckoning of the science of love this discord might have some other secret cause, and the experts of psychology might dig out yet another reason. We only know this much — that they do not get along. Khanna is wealthy, pleasure-loving, sociable, handsome, well enough educated, and is among the distinguished men of the city. Govindi may be no celestial nymph, but she is certainly beautiful. A wheat-gold complexion; modest eyes that rise once towards you and then drop again; cheeks that may have no flush of red, but have a smoothness; a soft frame, a shapely set of the limbs, round arms, on the face a kind of distaste in which there is a glimmer of pride too — as if she held the dealings and traffic of the world to be contemptible. Khanna has no lack of the outward means of pleasure — a first-class bungalow, first-class furniture, a first-class car, and boundless wealth! But in Govindi's eyes these things have, as it were, no value. In this salt sea she lies thirsting. The rearing of the children and the small everyday tasks of the household are everything to her. She stays so absorbed in these that her attention never turns to enjoyment. What attraction is and how it can be created — she has never given a thought to it. She is not a man's plaything, nor a thing for his enjoyment, so why should she strive to make herself attractive? If a man has no eyes to see her true beauty, and goes chasing after lovely women, that is his misfortune. She goes on serving her husband with the same love and devotion, as one who has conquered such feelings as malice and infatuation. And this boundless wealth seems to keep crushing her soul, keeps pressing it down. Her heart is forever yearning to be free of these shows and pretences. In her own simple and natural life, how happy she could have been — she dreams of this daily. Then why must Malti come into her path and become an obstacle? Why should there be the dancing-girls' performances, why should this suspicion and pretence and disquiet become a thorn in the path of her life! Long ago, when she studied at the girls' school, she had caught the disease of poetry — where sorrow and pain are the very essence of life, and wealth and luxury exist only that their bonfire may be lit, the bonfire that leads a man towards falsehood and disquiet. She still composes poetry now and then, but to whom is she to read it? Her poetry was not merely the surge of her mind or the flight of her feeling; in every single word of it was filled the anguish of her life and the cold burning of her tears! A longing to go and dwell in some land where, far from pretences and passions, she might enjoy simple bliss in her quiet little hut. When Khanna saw her poems he would mock them, and sometimes tear them up and throw them away. And this wall of wealth grew higher day by day, carrying the husband and wife further and further apart from each other. The sweeter and more gentle Khanna was with his clients, the more bitter and insolent he was at home. Often in anger he would speak abusive words to Govindi. Courtesy was for him a means of cheating the world, not an instinct of the mind. On such occasions Govindi would go and sit in her solitary room and weep the whole night through, while Khanna in the drawing-room listened to dancing-girls or went to the club and squandered his liquor. But for all this, Khanna was her all. Trampled and humiliated though she was, she was Khanna's slave. She would quarrel with him, burn, weep, but she would remain his. She could not even conceive of a life apart from him.

Today Mr Khanna had risen having looked on the face of some unlucky man. As soon as he opened the morning's letters, he found the prices of several of his stocks had fallen, by which he stood to lose several thousand. The workers at the sugar mill had gone on strike and were bent on riot and disturbance. He had bought silver in the hope of profit, but its price had fallen even further today. The deal with the Rai Sahib, which was in progress and from which he had hopes of good profit, seemed to be getting postponed for some days. Then, from too much drinking the night before, his head was heavy at this hour and his body ached. On top of that the chauffeur had said something was wrong with the car's engine, and news had also come of a civil suit being filed against his bank in Lahore. He sat fuming inwardly, when at that very moment Govindi came and said, "Bhishma's fever hasn't gone down today either; call some doctor."

Bhishma was his youngest son, and being weak from birth, he always had one complaint or another. Today a cough, tomorrow a fever; sometimes his ribs heaving, sometimes green and yellow stools. He had become ten months old but looked like five or six months. Khanna had formed the conviction that this child would not survive, so he stayed indifferent towards him, but for that very reason Govindi loved him more than all the other children.

Khanna said, showing the air of a father's affection, "It's not right to make children habituated to medicines, and you have a disease of dosing with medicine. The least little thing, and you call the doctor. Just watch — it's only the third day today. Perhaps it'll go down of itself today."

Govindi insisted, "It hasn't gone down for three days. I've tried home remedies and given up."

Khanna asked, "All right, I'll call him — whom should I call?"

"Call Doctor Nag."

"All right, I'm calling him — but understand this: a man doesn't become a good doctor just by becoming famous. Let Nag charge whatever fee he wishes; no one has been seen recovering from his medicine. He's famous, after all, for sending patients to heaven."

"Then call whomever you like. I said Nag only because he has come several times before."

"Why shouldn't I call Miss Malti? Her fee is lower too, and a lady doctor will understand the children's condition the way no male doctor can."

Govindi said, burning, "I don't consider Miss Malti a doctor."

Khanna too looked at her with fierce eyes and said, "So she went to England to dig grass, and is today giving the gift of life to thousands of people — is all that nothing?"

"It may be — I don't trust her. Let her treat the hearts of men. She has no other medicine."

That settled it. Khanna began to thunder. Govindi began to pour down rain. The coming of Malti's name between them was, as it were, the ultimatum of war.

Khanna flung all the papers onto the floor and said, "My life has turned bitter being with you."

Govindi said in a sharp voice, "Then go marry Malti! What's the harm yet, if your lentils will boil there?"

"What do you take me for?"

"Just this — that Malti wants to keep men like you as her slave, not as her husband."

"In your eyes am I so contemptible?"

And he began to give proof against this. Malti respects him as much as she perhaps respects no one else. She does not even let the Rai Sahib and the Raja Sahib come near her, but if she does not meet Khanna for even one day she complains.

Govindi blew away these proofs with a single puff. "It's because she takes you to be the blindest fool of all. Others she can't fool so easily."

Khanna boasted that, if he wished, he could marry Malti this very day. Today, this instant.

But Govindi did not believe it at all. "Though you rub your nose for seven births, even then she won't marry you. You are her pony — she'll feed you grass, sometimes stroke your face, run her hand over your haunches, but only so she can ride upon you. A thousand fools like you are in her pocket."

Govindi was going too far today. It seemed she had come prepared to fight him today. Calling the doctor was merely a pretext. How could Khanna bear so great an aspersion on his ability, his competence, his manhood!

"In your opinion I'm a fool and a simpleton — then why do these thousands rub their noses at my door? What raja or talukdar is there who doesn't make obeisance to me? I've made fools of hundreds and let them go."

"That's just Malti's distinction — that whoever shaves others with a straight razor, she shaves with a backward blade."

"You may abuse Malti as much as you like — you are not even the dust of her feet."

"In my eyes she is worse even than the prostitutes, because she hunts from behind a curtain."

Both loosed their fiery arrows. Whatever other harsh, harshest thing Khanna might have said to Govindi, it would not have stung her so badly, but this vile comparison with Malti was unbearable even to her forbearance. And whatever else Govindi might have said to Khanna, he would not have grown so hot, but this insult to Malti he could not bear. Each knew the other's tender spots. The aim of both struck home, and both winced. Khanna's eyes turned red. Govindi's face turned red. Khanna rose in a fury, seized both her ears and wrenched them hard, and dealt her three slaps. Govindi went inside, weeping.

After a while Doctor Nag came, and the Civil Surgeon Mr Tod came, and the physician-master Nilkanth Shastri came, but Govindi sat in her room with the child. Who said what, what diagnosis was made — she knew nothing. The calamity she had been imagining had today come down on her head. It was as if Khanna had today cut off all tie with her, as if he had driven her from the house and shut the door. The woman who sets up a market of beauty, whose very shadow she did not wish to let fall upon herself — was she to rule over Govindi indirectly? This shall not be. Khanna is her husband; he has the right to instruct and admonish her, even his beating she can bow her head to accept; but Malti's rule? Impossible! But until the child's fever was calmed, she could not stir. Even self-respect would have to bow its head before duty.

The next day the child's fever had gone down. Govindi ordered a tonga and set out from the house. Where she met with such disregard, there she could no longer stay. The blow had been so hard that even her attachment to the children had broken. Whatever duty she owed them, she had fulfilled. Whatever remains is Khanna's duty. Yes, the infant in her lap she could not give up in any way. He was bound up with her very life. And from this house she would go out with only her life. Nothing else was hers. He claimed that he maintained her. Govindi would show him that even outside his shelter she could stay alive. The three children had gone out to play at that time. Govindi felt the wish to fondle them once, but she was not running away anywhere. If the children loved her, they would come to her, would play in her house. When she felt the need, she herself would come to see the children. She only did not wish to take Khanna's shelter.

It had grown to evening. There was a fine bustle in the park. People lay on the green grass enjoying the breeze. Govindi, going by way of Hazratganj, had just turned towards the zoo when Malti and Khanna appeared coming towards her in a car. It seemed to her that Khanna pointed in her direction and said something — and Malti smiled. No, perhaps it was her own delusion. Khanna would not slander her to Malti — but how shameless she is. They say she has a good practice, and her family too is well off, and yet she goes about selling herself like this. Heaven knows why she doesn't marry — but then, who would marry her at all? No, that's not it. There are plenty of asses among men who would count themselves blessed to win her. But would Malti herself care for any of them? And what happiness lies in marriage anyway? She does very well not to marry. Now all are her slaves. Then she would become one man's slave-girl. She is doing very well. Even this gentleman now licks her soles; should she marry him, he'd begin to rule over her — but why would she marry him? And it's good if two or four such women remain in society — at least to keep men's ears warm.

Today there arose in Govindi's mind great sympathy for Malti. She is doing Malti an injustice by casting aspersions on her. Will not her eyes be opened when she sees my condition? If, seeing with her own eyes the wretched plight of married life, she does not get caught in this net, what wrong is she doing!

In the zoo a silence lay all around. Govindi had the tonga stopped and went, with the child, towards the green turf, but she had gone barely two or three steps when her sandals sank into water. A little earlier the lawn had been watered, and water was flowing beneath the grass. In her hurry, instead of turning back, she set one more step forward, and then her feet were caked with mud. She looked at her feet. Where would she now get water to wash her feet? All her mental anguish vanished. A fresh worry arose — of washing and cleaning her feet. Her train of thought halted. Until her feet were clean she could think of nothing.

Suddenly she saw a long pipe hidden in the grass, from which water was flowing. She went and washed her feet, washed her sandals, washed her hands and face, took a little water in her cupped palms and drank it, and went and sat down on the dry ground beyond the pipe. In dejection the thought of death comes at once. What if she were to die right here, sitting like this? The tonga-man would go straight off and bring the news to Khanna. Khanna would bloom the moment he heard it, but to show the world he would lay a handkerchief over his eyes. Toys and shows are dearer to children than a mother. This is her life — for which there is not even anyone to shed four drops of tears. Then she remembered the day when her mother-in-law was alive and Khanna had not yet become a wastrel. Then she had thought it bad that her mother-in-law flared up over every little thing; today it seemed to her that in that anger of her mother-in-law the juice of affection had been dissolved. Then she would sulk with her mother-in-law, and her mother-in-law would coax and fondle her. Today let her sulk for months — who cares? All at once her mind flew off and reached her mother's feet. Alas! If Mother were alive today, why would she be in this wretched state! She had nothing else, but at least she had an affection-filled lap, a love-filled aanchal, in which she could bury her face and weep. But no — she will not weep, she will not make that goddess unhappy in heaven. The utmost that she could do for me, she did! To be the companion of my fortune was not within her power. And why should she weep? She is no longer under anyone's command. She can earn enough for her own keep. She will start tomorrow itself, taking goods from the Gandhi Ashram and selling them. Shame about what? This is all that will happen — people will point a finger and say, "There goes Khanna's wife." But why should I even stay in this city? Why should I not go off to some other city, where no one knows me at all. Is it so hard to earn ten or twenty rupees? At least I'll eat the earnings of my own sweat — then no one will lord it over me. This gentleman puts on airs only because he maintains me. Now I'll maintain myself.

Suddenly she saw Mehta coming towards her. She felt vexed. At this moment she wanted complete solitude. She had no wish to speak with anyone, but here too a gentleman had arrived. And on top of it the child began to cry.

Mehta came near and asked in surprise, "How did you come to be here at this hour?"

Govindi said, soothing the child, "In the same way you came."

Mehta smiled and said, "Don't bring me into it — the washerman's dog, neither of the house nor of the ghat. Give him here, let me quiet the child."

"When did you learn this art?"

"I want to practise it. There's an examination of it coming up."

"Indeed! Have the examination days come close?"

"That depends on my preparation. When I'm ready, I'll sit for it. For small degrees we read and read and ruin our eyes. This, now — this is the examination of the business of living."

"Very well, I too shall see in which grade you pass."

So saying she handed the child into his lap. He tossed the child up several times, and it fell silent. Boasting like a child, he said, "Did you see how I quieted it by the force of a charm? Now I too will fetch a child from somewhere."

Govindi made a jest. "Fetch the child, by all means — or its mother too?"

Mehta shook his head with a jest-filled disappointment and said, "Such a woman is not to be found anywhere."

"Why — isn't there Miss Malti? Beautiful, educated, accomplished, charming — and what else do you want?"

"In Miss Malti there is not that one thing which I wish to see in my wife."

Govindi said, relishing this disparagement, "What's bad in her? Let me hear. Bees always swarm round her. I've heard that men nowadays like just such women."

Mehta said, guarding his moustache from the child's hands, "My wife will be of quite another kind. She will be such that I can worship her."

Govindi could not hold back her laughter. "Then it's not a woman you want — it's some idol. Such a woman is hardly to be found anywhere."

"No, indeed; such a goddess exists in this very city."

"Truly! I too would look upon her, and try to become like her."

"You know her well. She is the wife of a millionaire, yet holds luxury contemptible; who, even bearing neglect and disregard, does not waver from her duty; who sacrifices herself on the altar of motherhood; for whom renunciation is itself the greatest right; and who is fit to have her image made and to be worshipped."

There was a tremor of joy in Govindi's heart. Acting, though she understood, as if she did not, she said, "You praise such a woman? In my opinion she is fit for pity."

Mehta said with astonishment, "Fit for pity! You insult her. She is the ideal woman, and she who can be the ideal woman, she alone can be the ideal wife too."

"But that ideal is not for this age."

"That ideal is eternal and immortal. Man, by corrupting it, is bringing about his own destruction."

Govindi's inner being was blossoming. Such thrills had never risen there before. Of all the men she knew, Mehta's place was the highest. Receiving this encouragement from his lips, she was becoming intoxicated.

In that very intoxication she said, "Then come, give me a sight of her."

Mehta said, hiding his face in the child's cheeks, "Why, she is sitting right here."

"Where? I don't see her."

"It is to that very goddess I am speaking."

Govindi let out a loud laugh. "You've made up your mind to make fun of me today, haven't you?"

Mehta said with reverence, "Devi, you are doing me an injustice — and yourself more than me. There are very few beings in the world towards whom my heart holds reverence. You are one of them. Your patience and renunciation and gentleness and love are without compare. The greatest happiness I can conceive of in my life is to serve at the feet of some goddess like you. The womanhood I hold as my ideal — you are its living image."

Tears of joy started from Govindi's eyes. Wearing this armour of reverence, what calamity could she not face? It was as if the sound of soft music had broken out from every pore of her body. Suppressing in her mind the elation of her own womanliness, she said, "Why did you become a philosopher, Mehta ji — you ought to have been a poet."

Mehta laughed simply and said, "Do you suppose anyone can become a poet without becoming a philosopher? Philosophy is only the middle station."

"Then you are still on the road to poethood. But you also know this — that a poet never finds happiness in the world?"

"What the world calls sorrow is itself happiness for the poet. Wealth and grandeur, beauty and strength, learning and intellect — however much these glories may enchant the world, for the poet there is not the slightest attraction in them. The objects of his delight and attraction are extinguished hopes and effaced memories and the tears of broken hearts. The day his love for these glories ceases, that day he will be a poet no longer. Philosophy only sports with these mysteries of life; the poet dissolves into them. I have read two or three of your poems, and how much thrill, how much tremor, how much sweet anguish, how much weeping-rousing rapture I have found in them — I alone know. What a great injustice Nature has done us, in not making another goddess like you."

Govindi said in a longing-filled voice, "No, Mehta ji, this is your delusion. Such women you will find here in every lane, and I am the meanest of them all. A woman who cannot keep her man pleased, cannot make herself to his heart's liking — is she even a woman? Sometimes I think of learning this art from Malti. Where I fail, she succeeds. I cannot make even my own people my own; she makes even strangers her own. Is this not a thing of credit for her?"

Mehta said, making a face, "If liquor drives people mad, is it for that reason to be reckoned better than water, which slakes thirst, gives life, and brings calm?"

Govindi, taking refuge in jest, said, "Be that as it may, this I see — that water wanders about uncared for, while for liquor homes and households are sold off, and the stronger and more intoxicating the liquor, the better it is held. I hear that you too are a worshipper of liquor?"

Govindi had reached that state of despair in which a person begins to doubt even truth and religion, but Mehta's attention did not go that way. His attention stuck clinging to the last part of her sentence. Such shame and remorse over his drinking as came to him today, he had not felt even on hearing the grandest of sermons. He had answers to arguments — crushing answers — but to this sweet pinch no answer came to him. He regretted ever having lit on the argument of liquor. He had himself compared Malti to liquor. His own blow had fallen on his own head.

Abashed, he said, "Yes, Devi, I admit that I have this addiction. I will not excuse the sin by pleading my need of it and offering proofs of its thought-stimulating qualities — which is worse even than the sin. Today before you I make a vow that I shall not let one drop of liquor go down my throat."

Govindi said, stunned, "What have you done, Mehta ji! I declare before God, this was not my intent — I am pained by it."

"No, you ought to be glad that you have redeemed a man."

"I have redeemed you? Why, I myself was going to beg you for my own redemption."

"From me? Blessed is my fortune."

Govindi said in a piteous voice, "Yes, I see no one besides you to whom I might tell my tale. Look — keep this to yourself, though there's no need to remind you of that. My life has now become unbearable to me. Whatever penance I could perform till now, I have performed, but now it is no longer borne. Malti is bringing about my ruin. With no weapon of mine can I gain victory over her. You have influence over her. She respects you as she perhaps respects no other man. If you can in some way free me from her clutches, I shall be in your debt all my life. By her hands my happiness is being looted. If you can protect me, do so. I set out from home today resolved that I would not return. I made a great effort to break and fling away all the bonds of attachment, but a woman's heart is very weak, Mehta ji! Attachment is her very life. While life lasts, to break attachment is impossible for her. Until today I kept my anguish within my own mind, but today I spread out my aanchal and beg alms of you. Redeem me from Malti. I am being destroyed by the hands of this enchantress."

Her voice drowned in tears. She began to weep aloud.

Mehta had never risen so high in his own eyes — not even at the time when the Academy of France had congratulated him, calling his work the finest creation of the century. The very idol he worshipped with a true heart, whom in his mind he held to be his deity, and from whom he hoped for guidance in the inscrutable passages of life — she was today begging alms of him. He felt within himself such a power that he could split mountains, could swim across the ocean. An intoxication came over him, as a child mounted on a wooden horse imagines he is flying through the air. He had no awareness of how impossible the task was. He had no idea at all how much slaughter of his own principles it would require. He said in a tone of reassurance, "Be at ease about Malti. She will move out of your path. I did not know you were so unhappy on her account. The fault of my intellect, the fault of my eyes, the fault of my imagination. What more shall I say — else why would you have had to bear such anguish?"

Govindi felt a doubt. She said, "But to snatch its prey from a lioness is not easy — understand that."

Mehta said firmly, "A woman's heart is like the earth, from which sweetness too can be had, and bitterness too. As is the strength of the seed that falls into it."

"You must be regretting how you ever met her today."

"If I were to say that only today have I found the real joy of life, perhaps you would not believe me!"

"I have laid so great a burden upon your head."

Mehta said in a reverence-sweetened voice, "You are shaming me, Devi! I have already said it — I am your servant. Should my very life go for your good, I would count it my good fortune. Do not take this for a poet's gush of feeling; it is the truth of my life. What the ideal of my life is — the wish to tell you this cannot be held back from me. I am a worshipper of nature, and I wish to see man in his natural form — who laughs when he is glad, weeps when he is sorrowful, and, coming into anger, slays. With those who suppress both sorrow and joy, who hold weeping to be weakness and laughing to be levity, I have no bond. Life for me is a joyful play — simple, free, where there is no place for malice, envy, and burning jealousy. I do not worry over the past, I do not care for the future. For me, the present alone is everything. Worry over the future makes us cowards; the burden of the past breaks our backs. The force of life in us is so little that, spread out into past and future, it grows feebler still. We go on loading useless burdens upon ourselves, lying buried beneath the debris of customs and beliefs and histories, and never even speak of rising — the strength itself is gone. The energy, the vigour, that ought to have been spent in fulfilling man's duty — in cooperation, in brotherhood — gets offered up in avenging old enmities and paying off the debts of our forefathers. And as for this whirl of God and salvation — it makes me laugh. This salvation and worship is the very height of egoism, which is destroying our humanity. Where there is life, play, mirth, love — there is God; and to make life happy is itself worship and salvation. The man of knowledge says, let no smile come to the lips, let no tear come to the eyes. I say, if you cannot laugh and cannot weep, then you are not a man — you are a stone. That knowledge which crushes humanity is not knowledge — it is an oil-press. But forgive me — I've gone and delivered a whole speech. It's getting late now. Come, let me see you home. The child too has fallen asleep in my lap."

Govindi said, "I have a tonga waiting."

"I'll dismiss the tonga from here."

When Mehta returned after paying the tonga, Govindi said, "But where will you take me?"

Mehta asked, startled, "Why — I'll see you home."

"That is not my home, Mehta ji!"

"And is it Mr Khanna's home?"

"Is even that a thing to ask? That house is no longer mine. Where I get insult and rebuke, that I cannot call my home, nor think it so."

Mehta said in a pain-filled voice, every single syllable of which came from his inmost heart, "No, Devi, that home is yours, and will be so always. You created that home, you created the beings of it. And as the breath of life directs the body, so have you directed it. If the life breath goes out, what state will the body be in? Motherhood is a station of great glory, Devi! And in what station of glory has insult and rebuke and disregard not been met with? A mother's work is to give the gift of life. She in whose hands lies such matchless power — what does she care who sulks at her, who turns cross? As the body cannot stay without the breath of life, so the body itself is the breath's most fitting abode. What sermon on religion and renunciation am I to give you? You are their living image. I will say only this: that—"

Govindi said impatiently, "But I am not only a mother — I am a woman too, am I not?"

Mehta said, after staying silent for a minute, "Yes, you are; but I believe that a woman is only a mother, and whatever she is beyond that is all merely the preliminary to motherhood. Motherhood is the world's greatest discipline, the greatest penance, the greatest renunciation, and the greatest victory. In a single word I would call it absorption — of life, of personality, and of womanhood too. Of Mr Khanna you need understand only this — that he is not in his right senses. Whatever he says or does, he does in a state of frenzy; but this frenzy will not take long to subside, and the time will come very soon when he will hold you to be his deity."

Govindi gave no answer to this. Slowly she walked towards the car. Mehta stepped forward and opened the car door. Govindi got in and sat down. The car set off, but both were silent.

When Govindi, reaching her own door, stepped down from the car, Mehta saw by the electric light that her eyes were moist.

The children came running out of the house and clung to their mother, crying "Mother, Mother." On Govindi's face the bright, glory-filled radiance of motherhood shone out.

She said to Mehta, "Thank you very much for this trouble." And she bowed her head. A single drop of tear had fallen on her cheek.

Mehta's eyes too grew moist. Amid all this opulence and luxury, how unhappy this woman's heart is!