Chapter 30

The mill is nearly entirely burned down, but that very mill will have to be raised up again. Mr Khanna has put all his efforts into this. The strike of the labourers continues, but there is now no special loss to the mill-owners from it. New men have been found at lower wages and work themselves to exhaustion, because they are all such as have suffered the hardships of unemployment, and now, as long as they can help it, do not wish to do anything that will hinder their livelihood. Take however much work you will, give however few holidays, they have no complaint. With heads bowed they stay at the work like bullocks. Snarls, abuse, even beating with sticks rouse no resentment in them; and now for the old labourers there has remained no other road but to come and work at these very reduced wages and flatter Khanna Sahib. In Pandit Onkarnath they no longer have the least faith. If they got him alone they might perhaps give him a sound thrashing, but Pandit ji keeps himself well guarded. After the lamps are lit he does not come out of his office, and he has begun to flatter the officials. Mirza Khurshed's prestige is still just what it was, but Mirza ji, seeing the hardship of these poor men and finding with himself no remedy for it, wishes in his heart that all of them be reinstated, yet at the same time, thinking of the hardship of the new men, says to those who ask only this—do as you wish.

When Mr Khanna saw the old men desirous of jobs again, he grew all the more haughty, although in his heart he wished that, at these wages, the old men were far better than the new. The new men, even putting forth all their strength, could not do as much work as the old men. The majority of the old men had been accustomed to working in the mill from childhood and were well seasoned. Most of the new men were unhappy peasants from the villages, who were used to working in the open air and the fields with the old wooden tools. Inside the mill they felt suffocated, and they were afraid of the swiftly turning parts of the machinery.

At last, when the old men were thoroughly defeated, Khanna agreed to reinstate them; but the new men were ready to work at even lower wages, and now this question came before the directors—whether to reinstate the old men or to keep the new. Half the directors were for keeping the new men's wages cut low; half held the view that the old men should be kept on at recent wages. A little more money would certainly have to be spent, but the work done would be far greater than that. Khanna was the soul of the mill, in a sense its all-in-all. The directors were puppets in his hands. The decision lay in Khanna's hands, and he was taking counsel in this matter not from his friends, but from his enemies too. First of all he took Govindi's counsel. Ever since he had been disappointed of Malti, and Govindi had come to know what respect a man as learned and experienced and wise as Mehta had for her, and what kind of striving he expected from her—since then the affection between husband and wife had awakened again. Call it not affection, yet companionship there was. There was no longer that heartburning and discord between them. The wall in between had broken down.

Malti's ways and manner too were undergoing a transformation. Mehta's life had so far been spent in study and reflection, and after reading everything, and thoroughly sifting the doctrines of the self and of the not-self, he kept arriving at this very truth—that the path of service which lies between engagement and renunciation, call it the yoga of action if you will, that alone can give meaning to life, that alone can make life lofty and holy. In any all-knowing God he had no faith. Although he did not declare his atheism, because in this matter he considered it impossible for himself to settle definitely upon any doctrine, yet this conviction had grown firm in his mind, that in the birth and death, the weal and woe, the sin and merit of creatures there is no divine ordinance. His idea was that man, in his arrogance, has made himself so great that the prompting of his every action is held to come from God. In the same way those locusts too must hold God responsible, the locusts that, when the sea comes in their way, perish in their billions. But if these ordinances of God are so unknowable that they do not come within man's understanding, then what contentment can man get from merely accepting them? Only one purpose of the conception of God could he understand, and that was the unity of human life. The doctrine of one self, or of the universal self, or the principle of non-violence, he saw not from the spiritual but from the material standpoint; though these principles had never been supreme in any age of history, yet their place in the cultural development of mankind is one of great importance. In the unity of human society Mehta had a firm faith, but for this faith he saw no need to accept the principle of God. His love of mankind did not rest on the basis that one soul dwells in all creatures alike. Dualism and non-dualism—apart from their practical importance, he saw no other use in them; and that practical importance was for him just this—to bring mankind nearer one another, to wipe out mutual distinctions, and to strengthen brotherly feeling. This unity, this indivisibility had settled into his soul in such a way that, for him, the creation of any spiritual basis was, in his view, futile, and having once grasped this principle, he could not sit at peace. To do as much work as possible, apart from self-interest, had become necessary for him. Without it his mind could not be calm. Thoughts of fame, of gain, or of the discharge of duty did not even enter his mind. Their very pettiness was enough to keep him from them. Service was becoming his self-interest now. And the influence of this generous disposition of his was, unknown to her, falling upon Malti too. All the men she had met so far had only stirred up her pleasure-loving nature. Her sacrificing nature had been growing weaker day by day, but on coming into Mehta's company her sense of sacrifice had awakened. In all spirited beings this feeling lies hidden, and on getting light it flashes forth. If a man is running after wealth or name, then take it that he has not yet come into contact with any refined soul. Malti now often went to the homes of the poor to see patients without taking a fee. A gentleness had entered her dealings with patients. Yes, she still could not turn her mind away from finery and adornment. The renunciation of rouge and powder seemed to her harder even than her inner changes.

These days the two of them would sometimes go off towards the villages, and staying two or three hours with the peasants, sometimes passing the night in their huts and eating their kind of food, they thought themselves blessed. One day they got as far as Semari, and wandering about they came out at Belari. Hori was sitting at the door smoking a chillum when Malti and Mehta came and stood there. Mehta recognised Hori the moment he saw him and said, "So this is your village? Do you remember, we had come to the Rai Sahib's place, and you had become a gardener in the play of the Dhanush-yajna?"

Hori's memory awoke. He recognised them and went towards Pateshwari's house to fetch chairs.

Mehta said, "There is no need of chairs. We are going to sit on this very cot. We have not come here to sit on a chair, but to learn something from you."

The two of them sat on the cot. Hori stood as if bewildered. What hospitality was he to show these people! They were great men. What had he that was fit to offer them?

At last he asked, "Shall I bring water?"

Mehta said, "Yes, we are thirsty."

"Shall I bring something sweet too?"

"Bring it, if there is any in the house."

Hori went into the house to fetch something sweet and water. Meanwhile the village children came and surrounded these two men and began to stare at them, as though some strange creatures of the zoo had come.

Silia, carrying the child, was going somewhere on some errand. Seeing these two men, she stopped short out of curiosity.

Malti came and took her child in her lap and, fondling it, said, "How old is it?"

Silia did not know exactly. Another woman told her, "It must be about a year old—isn't that so, girl?"

Sillo confirmed it.

Malti said playfully, "It is a lovely child. Give it to us."

Sillo, swelling with pride, said, "It is yours, after all."

"So shall I take it away?"

"Take it. Living with you it will become a man."

Other women of the village came and took Malti into Hori's house. Here, before the men, they could not get the chance to converse with Malti. Malti saw that a cot was laid out, and on it was spread a rug, which had come on loan from Pateshwari's house. Malti went and sat down. Talk began of the saving of children and the rearing of infants. The women listened attentively.

Dhaniya said, "How will all this cleanliness and discipline be managed here, Sarkar! There is not even a sure provision for food."

Malti explained, "Cleanliness costs nothing. With only a little effort and care it can be managed."

Dulari the grocer-woman asked, "How did you come to know all these things, Sarkar? Why, you are not even married yet?"

Malti smiled and asked, "How did you come to know that I am not married?"

All the women turned their faces away and smiled. Punia said, "Why, does that too stay hidden, Miss Sahib? One can tell the moment one sees the face."

Malti said bashfully, "I did not marry for this very reason—how then would I serve all of you!"

All said with one voice, "Blessings on you, Sarkar, blessings on you."

Silia began to press Malti's feet. "Sarkar has come from so far, she must be tired."

Malti, drawing her feet away, said, "No, no, I am not tired. I have come by motor-car. I want you all to bring your children, so that I may look at them and tell you how you can keep them healthy and free of disease."

In a little while twenty or twenty-five children had come. Malti began to examine them. Several children's eyes were inflamed; she put medicine in their eyes. Most of the children were feeble, the cause of which was that their parents got no good food. Malti was surprised to learn that in very few homes was there milk. Of ghee there was no sight for years.

Here too Malti explained to them the importance of eating well, as she did in every village. Her heart burned because these people did not eat well. She would feel anger at the villagers. Were you born for this, that you should toil yourselves to death, and what is produced you should not be able to eat? Where there is food for two or four bullocks, is there no fodder for one or two cows or buffaloes? Why do these people not regard food as the chief thing of life, but consider it merely a thing for keeping life going? Why do they not tell the government to give them money at a nominal interest and save them from the clutches of the usurious moneylenders? Whomever she asked, she learned just this—that the greater part of their earnings was spent in paying off the moneylenders' debts. The disease of partition too was spreading. There was such ill-will among them that perhaps hardly any two brothers lived together. The cause of this wretched plight of theirs was largely their narrowness and selfishness. Malti kept talking with the women on these very subjects. Seeing their reverence again and again, the prompting to service grew still stronger in her mind. Before this life of sacrifice, how trifling and artificial was that life of pleasure! Today her silk clothes, with their work of gold thread, and her body fragrant with scent, and her face adorned with powder, began to shame her. The gold watch tied at her wrist seemed to be glaring at her with its unblinking eyes. The jewelled necklace shining at her throat seemed to be throttling her. Before these goddesses of sacrifice and reverence she was looking low in her own eyes. She knew many things more than these villagers, recognised the course of the times better, but in the circumstances in which these poor women were making life meaningful, could she stay even a single day? In whom there is no trace of arrogance, who work the whole day, fast, weep, and yet are so cheerful of face! Others have become so much their own that their own existence has ceased to be. Their selfhood is in their sons, in their husbands, in their relatives. By guarding this feeling, and by widening its very field, the ideal of a future womanhood will be built. Among the awakened ladies, the feeling of self-service that has come and seated itself in its place—all for oneself, for one's own pleasure and luxury—against that, this state of slumber is better. Man is unfeeling, granted, but he is the son of these very mothers. Why did the mother not give such teaching to the son that he would worship his mother, would worship the female sex? For this very reason, that the mother does not know how to give this teaching, for this very reason, that she has effaced herself so much that her very form has been spoiled, her very individuality destroyed.

No, by effacing oneself the work will not get done. For the welfare of society woman will have to guard her rights, just as these peasants, for their own protection, will have to give up something of this godliness.

Evening had come. The women still surrounded Malti. They seemed never to be satisfied with her talk. Several women pressed her to stay the night here. To Malti too their simple affection seemed so dear that she accepted their invitation. At night the women would let her hear their songs. Malti too made good use of her time, going into every house and acquainting herself with their condition. Her guileless goodwill and sympathy were, for those village women, no less than the boon of a goddess.

There Mehta Sahib, settled cross-legged on the cot, was watching the wrestling of the peasants. He was regretting why he had not brought Mirza ji along; otherwise he too would have made up a pair. He was wondering how men who call themselves educated become so unfeeling towards such mature and harmless children. Like ignorance, knowledge too is simple, guileless and a dreamer of golden dreams. Its faith in humanity is so firm, so alive, that it begins to consider conduct contrary to it as inhuman. It forgets that wolves have always answered the harmlessness of sheep with claws and teeth. It builds an ideal world of its own and peoples it with ideal humanity and stays absorbed in that. How impassable, how hard to fathom, how unnatural reality is—to consider that becomes hard for it. Mehta ji at this moment, seated among these village folk, was solving this very question—why is their condition so pitiable? He could not summon the courage to look this truth in the face—that it is their very godliness that is the cause of their wretched plight. Would that these men were more men and less gods, then they would not be kicked aside thus. Whatever befall the country, let even revolution come, it is no concern of theirs. Let any party come before them in the form of the strong, they are ready to bow their heads before it. Their harmlessness has reached the limit of inertness, which only a hard blow can make active. Their soul, as if despairing on every side, has now sat down within itself with broken legs. The very consciousness of their life seems to have vanished from them.

Evening had come. Those who had so far been working in the fields were running home. At that very moment Mehta saw Malti among several women of the village, so absorbed, a child in her lap, as though she too were one of them. Mehta's heart was thrilled with joy. Malti had, in a way, made an offering of herself to Mehta. About this Mehta now had no doubt, but until now there had not awakened in his heart that intense feeling towards Malti without which to propose marriage would, for him, be ridiculous. Malti had come and stood at his door like an uninvited guest, and Mehta had welcomed her. In this there was no feeling of love, only the feeling of manliness. If Malti thought him worthy of turning her gracious glance upon, then Mehta could not refuse her grace. Along with this, he wished to remove Malti from Govindi's path, and he knew that, until Malti planted her front foot forward, she would not lift her back foot. He knew that, in deceiving Malti, he was giving proof of his own baseness. For this his soul had reproached him constantly, but the more closely he saw Malti, the more the attraction in his mind increased. The attraction of beauty could have no effect on him. This was the attraction of virtue. He knew that what one can call true love can be born only after one has been bound in a bond. The love that exists before that is only an attachment to beauty, which has no permanence; but before that one had first to make sure of this—whether the stone that would be set on the lathe of companionship has the capacity to be turned at all or not. Not all stones, set on the lathe, become beautiful images. In all these days Malti had cast her rays into the different parts of his heart, but they had not yet gathered to a focus and burst forth in that flame which would set his whole inner self alight. Today Malti, mixing with the villagers and wiping out all distinctions, had as it were focused these rays. And today, for the first time, Mehta felt a oneness with Malti. The moment Malti had returned from her round of the village, he set out with her towards the river. It was settled to pass the night here. Malti's heart, today for some reason, began to thump. On Mehta's face today she saw a strange light and longing.

By the riverbank a floor of silver was spread, and the river, wearing jewel-studded ornaments, was singing in sweet tones, showing its dance to the moon and the stars and the trees that drowsed with bowed heads. Mehta seemed intoxicated by that heady beauty of nature. As though his boyhood had returned with all its games. He turned several somersaults on the sand. Then, running, he went into the river and stood up to his knees in water.

Malti said, "Do not stand in the water. You may catch a chill."

Mehta, splashing the water, said, "My heart longs to swim across to the other side of the river."

"No, no, come out of the water. I will not let you go."

"Will you not come with me to that empty hamlet, where the kingdom of dreams lies?"

"But I do not know how to swim."

"All right, come, let us make a boat, and sit on it and go."

He came out. All around, for a long way, stood a forest of tamarisk. Mehta took a knife from his pocket and, cutting many twigs, gathered them. On the bank stood clumps of reed-grass. Climbing up, he cut and brought a bundle of reed-grass and, sitting there on the sandy floor, began to twist a rope of reed-grass. He was as glad as though he were making ready to ascend to heaven. Several times his fingers were cut, blood came out. Malti was annoyed, repeatedly urging him to go back to the village, but he had no care for it. There was the same boyish joy, the same wildness, the same obstinacy. Philosophy and science had all been swept away in this flood.

The rope was made ready. A large raft of tamarisk was made; the twigs were joined at the two ends with rope. Into its gaps the tamarisk twigs were stuffed, so that the water might not come up. The boat was ready. The night had grown still more dreamlike.

Mehta put the boat into the water and, taking Malti's hand, said, "Come, sit."

Malti said with alarm, "Will it bear the weight of two persons?"

Mehta said with a philosophical smile, "The vessel on which we are making our journey of life is far more unsubstantial than this, Malti. What are you afraid of?"

"Afraid of what, when you are with me?"

"Do you say it truly?"

"Until now I have conquered obstacles without anyone's help. Now I have your company."

The two of them sat on that tamarisk raft, and Mehta began to pole it along with a single tamarisk stick. The raft, swaying, moved off into the water.

Malti, to turn her mind away from this raft, asked, "You have always lived in cities; how did you get the habit of village life? I could never make such a raft."

Mehta, looking at her with enamoured eyes, said, "Perhaps it is the saṃskāra of my previous birth. The moment I touch nature, a new life as it were comes into me, vigour begins to run in every vein. Each bird, each beast, seems to be giving me an invitation to joy, as though reminding me of forgotten pleasures. This joy I find nowhere else, Malti—not in the weeping strains of music, not in the lofty flights of philosophy. As though all these were my own kin. Coming amid nature I seem to find my own self, as a bird returns to its nest."

The raft, swaying, now slanting, now straight, now spinning round, went on.

Suddenly Malti asked in a piteous voice, "And do I never come into your life?"

Mehta took her hand and said, "You come, you come again and again, like a gust of fragrance, like a shadow of imagination, and then you become invisible. I run to bind you in the embrace of my arms, but the hands remain empty. And you vanish."

Malti said in a state of frenzy, "But have you thought of the cause of this too? Wished to understand it?"

"Yes, Malti, I have thought much, thought again and again."

"And what did you learn?"

"Only this—that the foundation on which I wish to raise the edifice of my life is unstable. It is no vast edifice, only a small, peaceful cottage, but for that too some firm foundation is needed."

Malti, drawing her hand away, said, as though in a fit of sulking, "This is a false charge. You have always looked at me with the eyes of a tester, never with the eyes of love. Do you not even know this much, that woman does not want testing, she wants love? Testing is a thing that turns virtues into faults, the beautiful into the unbeautiful; love makes faults into virtues, the unbeautiful into the beautiful! I loved you; I cannot even imagine that there is any fault in you. But you tested me, and considering me unstable, fickle, and who knows what else, you have always run away from me. No—what I wish to say, let me say it out. Why am I unstable and fickle? Because I have not got that love which would make me stable and unfickle. If you had surrendered yourself before me as I have surrendered myself before you, you would not today lay this charge on me."

Mehta, enjoying Malti's sulking, said, "You have never tested me? Do you say it truly?"

"Never."

"Then you made a mistake."

"I do not care for that."

"Do not give way to sentiment, Malti! Before giving love we all test, and you did test, even if you did it indirectly. I tell you plainly today—at first I looked at you just as I look every day at thousands of women, only with a spirit of amusement. If I am not mistaken, you too took me for a new toy for your entertainment."

Malti broke in, "You speak wrongly. I never looked at you with that eye. On the very first day I made you my god in my heart..."

Mehta cut her short and said, "There is that sentiment again. In a matter of such importance I do not like sentiment. If you considered me worthy of this grace from the very first day, the only reason can be that I am more skilled at putting on a guise than you are; otherwise, as far as I have seen the nature of women, they do a good deal of sifting in the matter of love. In olden times too, was it not by the swayamvara that men were tested? That disposition still exists, even if its form has changed somewhat. I have constantly tried, ever since, to lay myself wholly before you and at the same time to reach to your very soul. And the deeper I have gone into the depths of your inmost being, the more I have found only jewels. I came for amusement, and today I am a worshipper. What you have found within me, I do not know."

The other bank of the river had come. The two got down and went and sat on that same sandy floor, and Mehta went on in the same flow, "And today it is to ask that very thing that I have brought you here."

Malti said in a trembling voice, "Is there still need for you to ask me this?"

"Yes, because today I shall show you that aspect of mine which perhaps you have not yet seen, and which I too have concealed. Well, suppose I marry you and tomorrow I am unfaithful to you—then what punishment would you give me?"

Malti looked at him in astonishment. The meaning of this did not come within her understanding.

"Why do you ask such a question?"

"For me it is a matter of great importance."

"I do not see the possibility of it."

"Nothing in the world is impossible. The greatest of saints can fall in a single moment."

"I would search out the cause of it and remove it."

"Suppose my habit does not leave me."

"Then I cannot say what I would do. Perhaps I would take poison and lie down to sleep."

"But if you put the question to me, I would give a different answer."

Malti asked with alarm, "Tell me!"

Mehta said with firmness, "First I would put an end to your life, then to my own."

Malti burst into a loud peal of laughter and shivered from head to foot. Her laughter was only a covering to hide her shiver.

Mehta asked, "Why did you laugh?"

"Because you do not seem to be such a believer in violence."

"No, Malti, in this matter I am a complete brute, and I see no reason to be ashamed of it. Spiritual love, and love that is all sacrifice, and selfless love, in which a man effaces himself and lives only for his beloved, is happy in her happiness and lays himself in surrender at her feet—these are meaningless words for me. I have read in books such love-tales, where the lover has given his life for the new lovers of his beloved, but that feeling I can call reverence, can call service, never love. Love is no meek, gentle cow, it is a ferocious lion that will not let even anyone's glance fall on its prey."

Malti, looking him in the eyes, said, "If love is a ferocious lion, then I shall stay far away from it. I had taken it to be only a cow. I consider love to be above suspicion. It is not a thing of the body, it is a thing of the soul. Suspicion has not the least place there, and violence is only the outcome of suspicion. It is complete self-surrender. In its temple it is not as a tester but as a worshipper that you can win the boon."

She rose and stood up and walked swiftly towards the river, as though she had found her lost road. She had never felt such vigour. Even in her free life she had found within herself a weakness which always kept her agitated, always kept her unstable. Her mind, as it were, kept searching for some support, on the strength of which it could hold firm, could face the world. Within herself she did not find this strength. Seeing the strength of intellect and character, she would go towards it, full of longing. Like water, she took on the shape of every vessel. She had no shape of her own.

Her disposition was still that of an examination candidate. A student can love books, and does come to love them, but he gives more attention to those parts of the book that may come in the examination. His first need is to succeed in the examination. The acquiring of knowledge comes after this. If he comes to know that the examiner is very kind, or is blind, and passes the students just so, then perhaps he would not even raise his eyes to look at the books. Whatever Malti did, she did to please Mehta. Her aim was to win Mehta's love and trust, to become the queen of his mental kingdom—but, like that same student, by establishing confidence in her own merit. That on her acquiring fitness the examiner would be satisfied with her of his own accord—that much patience she did not have.

But today Mehta, by as it were spurning her, had awakened her soul-strength. From the time she had first seen Mehta, her mind had inclined towards him. He had seemed to her the most capable of all her acquaintances. In his refined life, sharpness of intellect and firmness of thought were the highest thing. Wealth and grandeur she considered merely toys, which boys break and smash in their play. In beauty too there was now no special attraction for her, though for ugliness she had a loathing. Now it was only the power of intellect that could draw her towards itself, in whose shelter self-confidence might awaken in her, the prompting of her own development might come, power might be infused into her, the knowledge of the meaningfulness of her life might come. Mehta's intellectual strength and brilliance had set their seal upon her, and since then she had gone on refining herself. The motive force she needed she had got, and unknown to herself it was giving her movement and strength. The new ideal of life that had come before her—she was striving to bring herself near it, and feeling success, she was imagining that day when she and Mehta would become one self; and this imagining was making her still firmer and more devoted.

But today, when Mehta, having brought her hopes to the very door, set before her that ideal of love in which love had been brought down from the realm of the soul and surrender to the material plane, where suspicion and jealousy and indulgence reign, then her refined intellect was wounded. And the reverence she had for Mehta received as it were a jolt, as though a disciple were to see his guru perform some base deed. She saw that Mehta's sharpness of intellect was dragging the principle of love towards brutality, and was shutting its eyes to its godliness; and seeing this, her heart sank.

Mehta said, somewhat ashamed, "Come, let us sit a while longer."

Malti said, "No, we should go back now. It is getting late."