17

After two or three hours of sleep, when Gora woke and looked to the side and saw that Binoy was sleeping, his heart filled with joy. It was as one feels when, waking from a dream in which a beloved thing has been lost, one finds that it has not been lost after all. That by relinquishing Binoy his own life would be so crippled — this Gora understood on waking and seeing Binoy beside him. Stirred with delight, he nudged and shook Binoy awake and said, “Come, there is work to be done.”

Gora had a regular occupation every morning. He visited the homes of the lower-class people of the neighbourhood — not to benefit them or instruct them, but simply to meet and be among them. He had little or no such dealings among the educated class. These people called him Dadathakur and welcomed him with a tightly packed hookah. It was solely for the sake of accepting their hospitality that Gora had taken up smoking, forcing himself to it.

Among this circle, Nanda was Gora’s foremost devotee. Nanda was the son of a carpenter, twenty-two years old. He made wooden boxes in his father’s shop. Among the hunters on the Dhapa fields, there was no one with an aim as unerring as Nanda’s. At bowling in cricket, too, he was without rival.

In his hunting and cricket teams, Gora had brought together respectable students alongside the sons of carpenters and blacksmiths. Within this mixed company, Nanda excelled over all in every form of sport and physical exercise. Some among the respectable students were envious of him, but under Gora’s authority all were compelled to acknowledge him as their captain.

A few days earlier, a chisel had fallen on Nanda’s foot, wounding him, so that he had been absent from the sports ground. In these days of his preoccupation with Binoy, Gora’s mind had been unsettled and he had not been able to visit their home. That morning he set out for the carpenters’ quarter with Binoy at his side.

Coming near the door of the upper-floor tile-roofed room of Nanda’s family, they heard from within the sound of women weeping. Nanda’s father and the other male members of the household were not at home. The keeper of a tobacco shop that stood nearby came up and said, “Nanda passed away early this morning; they have taken him away for cremation.”

Nanda was dead! Such health, such strength, such vigour, such a heart, so young an age — and that same Nanda had died in the early hours of this morning. Gora stood rigid and still, his whole body taut. Nanda was merely the son of an ordinary carpenter — the void his absence left in the world, even for a moment, would be noticed by very few — yet today Nanda’s death struck Gora as something cruelly incongruous and impossible. Gora had seen the life in him — so many people lived on, but where was such abundance of life to be found as in him!

Enquiring as to the cause of his death, they learned that he had suffered from tetanus. Nanda’s father had proposed sending for a doctor, but Nanda’s mother had insisted vehemently that her son had been seized by an evil spirit. The exorcist had come the previous night and spent the whole of it burning and beating Nanda and reciting incantations over him. When the illness began, Nanda had once implored them to send word to Gora — but his mother, fearing that Gora would come and insist on treating him by Western medicine, had by no means allowed word to be sent to Gora.

On the way back from there, Binoy said, “What ignorance — and what a terrible punishment for it!”

Gora said, “Do not console yourself, Binoy, by setting this ignorance aside and thinking yourself exempt from it. If you could see plainly how great this ignorance is and how severe its punishment, you would not try to shake the matter off by giving vent to a mere exclamation and putting it at arm’s length.”

As his inner agitation mounted, Gora’s pace grew steadily faster. Binoy made no reply to his words and applied himself to keeping step with him.

Gora continued, “The entire nation has sold its head to falsehood. Gods, lesser spirits, the owl’s cry, a sneeze, Thursday, the inauspicious conjunction of three tithis — the fears are without limit — how could these people ever learn to deal with truth and reality with the kind of manly directness the world demands? And you and I suppose that, having read a few pages of science, we are no longer of their company. But know this for certain: few people can ever truly keep themselves safe, by book-learning alone, from the pull of the degradation that surrounds them on all sides. Until these people believe in the sovereignty of natural law over the workings of the world, until they are no longer bound by false fears, until then even our educated class will not be free of its influence.”

Binoy said, “But even if the educated class were free of it, what of that? How few educated people there are! It is not as though others need to be elevated for the sake of elevating the educated — rather, the honour of education lies in elevating others.”

Gora took Binoy by the hand and said, “That is precisely what I mean to say. But because I have seen time and again that you can detach yourselves from the common people in the pride of your refinement and education and rest quite comfortably, I wish to warn you again and again: without delivering those below from their bondage, you yourselves shall never truly be delivered. If the hull of a boat has a hole in it, the mast of the boat can never go about fanning itself with its own importance, however high it may stand.”

Binoy walked on beside Gora in silence.

Gora walked in silence for a while and then suddenly burst out, “No, Binoy, I cannot bear this with any ease. The blow that the spirit-charmer who came and killed my Nanda has struck — I feel it, and all my country feels it. I cannot see these things as isolated incidents, each separate and small.”

Still seeing Binoy make no reply, Gora thundered out, “Binoy, I can see perfectly well what you are thinking in your mind. You are thinking that there is no remedy, or that there is a long delay before the time for remedy arrives. You are thinking that all these fears and falsehoods that press down upon the whole of India — India’s burden is like the Himalayas; who could shove and stir it? But I cannot think in this way — if I thought so, I could not live. That there is a remedy for whatever strikes at my country, however powerful it may be — and that the remedy lies in our hands alone — this conviction stands firm in my mind, and it is by this conviction that I am able to endure so much sorrow and suffering and humiliation all around me.”

Binoy said, “I have not the courage to keep faith erect in the face of so vast a national calamity.”

Gora said, “The darkness is immense, and the candle flame is small. Yet in that great darkness I place my faith more firmly in the small flame than in the dark. I cannot by any means believe that misery can endure for ever. The power of knowledge and the power of life throughout all the universe are assailing it, without and within, ceaselessly — and however small we may be, we shall stand on the side of that knowledge and that life, and if we die standing there, we shall die knowing this: that our side will prevail — we shall not spread our bed upon the inertia of our land, as though it were the greatest and most invincible power of all, and simply lie down upon it. I say this: to place one’s faith in evil in the world is the same thing as fearing ghosts; the result of both is that one never applies oneself to the true cure for the disease. False fears and false exorcists — together they are what kills us. Binoy, I tell you again and again — never, not even for one moment in a dream, let yourself think it impossible that this country of ours will be free: that ignorance will not bind it for ever, and that the English will not be able to keep it shackled behind their merchant ships for all time to come. Holding this conviction firm in our minds, we must be ready each and every day. You are all at ease, counting on some future date on which the battle for India’s freedom will begin. I tell you: the battle has already begun; the battle is being fought at every moment; if in such a time you are able to remain at ease, there is no greater cowardice than that.”

Binoy said, “You know, Gora, one difference between you and us that I can see is this: the things that happen every day in our country on the roads and in the lanes, things that have been happening for a long time — you seem to see them each day with fresh eyes. To us they are like our own breathing, which we forget — these things neither inspire us nor dishearten us, bring us neither joy nor sorrow — day after day passes in an utter emptiness; we do not feel either ourselves or our country in the world around us.”

Suddenly Gora’s face flushed crimson, the veins at his temples swelled — he clenched both fists and broke into a run behind a carriage in the middle of the road, and with a voice of thunder that startled every soul in the street, he roared, “Stop the carriage!” A portly gentleman wearing a thick gold watch-chain had been driving the carriage — he glanced once behind him, whipped his two spirited horses, and vanished in an instant.

An elderly Muslim man had been making his way with a basket on his head, laden with fruit, vegetables, eggs, bread, butter, and other provisions, headed toward the kitchen of some English master. The chain-wearing gentleman had shouted at him to get out of the way of the carriage; the old man, not hearing him, was nearly run over as the carriage bore down upon him. His life was saved by a narrow margin, but the basket and its contents went tumbling about the road, and the infuriated gentleman, turning from the coach-box, called him a ‘damn swine’ and brought his whip down sharply across the old man’s face — a line of blood appeared on his brow. The old man breathed ‘Allah’ and set about picking up what had not been ruined and placing it back in his basket. Gora returned and began himself to gather the scattered things and lift them into the basket. The Muslim porter, greatly abashed by this behaviour from a respectable passer-by, said, “Why do you trouble yourself, Babu — none of this is of any use now.” Gora knew the futility of what he was doing, and he also knew that the man being helped felt humiliated — as an act of assistance, such a gesture had little practical value — but that one gentleman had wrongfully humiliated another man, and that a second gentleman was seeking to balance the disturbed scales of justice by placing himself on equal footing with the humiliated — this was beyond the comprehension of the people in the street. When the basket was filled, Gora said to him, “The loss you have suffered is too great for you to bear alone. Come, come with us to our house, and I will buy everything from you at the full price. But, father, let me tell you one thing: for submitting to this humiliation without a word of protest, Allah will not pardon you.”

The Muslim man said, “He who has done wrong — Allah will punish him; why should He punish me?”

Gora said, “He who submits to injustice is also guilty, for he helps injustice to grow in the world. You will not understand my meaning, but keep it in mind all the same: meekness is not virtue; it fosters the wicked. Your own Muhammad understood this — that is why he did not spread his faith by playing the part of a meek and gentle man.”

As Gora’s own house was not near at hand, he took the Muslim man to Binoy’s lodging. Standing before Binoy’s chest of drawers, he said to Binoy, “Take out some money.”

Binoy said, “Why are you so impatient — do sit down, I shall give it.”

Saying so, he suddenly could not find his key. The impatient Gora gave a single pull, and the flimsy drawer, disregarding the locked key’s resistance, came open.

The moment the drawer opened, what first caught the eye was a large group photograph of all the members of Pareshbabu’s family. Binoy had obtained it from his young friend Satish.

Having gathered the money and sent the Muslim man on his way, Gora said not a word about the photograph. Seeing Gora remain silent on the matter, Binoy too could not bring himself to raise it — yet a word or two exchanged would have set his mind at ease.

Gora said abruptly, “I am going.”

Binoy said, “Come, come — would you go alone! Mother has asked me to come and dine at your house. I am therefore coming along.”

The two of them stepped out into the road. For the rest of the way, Gora spoke no more. The sight of that photograph in the desk had suddenly reminded him once again that a principal current of Binoy’s heart was flowing along a path that had no connection with Gora’s own life. The apprehension — that gradually the old stream of their friendship might grow dull and the main current run in that direction — pressed vaguely upon the deepest recesses of Gora’s heart like an indefinable weight. In all their thoughts and endeavours, the two friends had until now known no separation — now it was growing difficult to sustain that — Binoy was becoming independent in one place.

Binoy understood why Gora had fallen silent. But he felt a reluctance to press against this fence of silence and break it open. That there was a genuine and real distance in the place where Gora’s mind was now coming to rest — this too Binoy himself felt.

On arriving home, they found Mahim standing at the door, looking out toward the road. Seeing the two friends, he said, “What a business! You spent the whole of last night without sleeping — I was thinking you must both have fallen soundly asleep on a footpath somewhere! It is not a little late. Go, Binoy, go and bathe.”

Having urged Binoy to go and bathe, Mahim turned his attention to Gora and said, “Look, Gora — consider the matter I spoke to you about. If you suspect Binoy of being irreligious, where are we to find a Hindu match in today’s market? Mere Hindu custom alone will not do — learning too is required! The sort of thing that results when learning and Hindu practice are combined is not quite orthodox according to Hindu scripture, to be sure, but it is not a bad thing either. If you had a daughter of your own, you and I would come to exact agreement on the matter.”

Gora said, “Well then — I dare say Binoy will not object.”

Mahim said, “Just listen! Who’s worried about Binoy’s objection? It’s your objection that frightens me. You yourself, with your own lips, make the request to Binoy once — that’s all I ask — if it comes to nothing, then so be it.”

Gora said, “Very well.”

Mahim said to himself, ‘Now I can put in an order for sandesh at the confectioner’s and for curd and condensed milk at the dairy.’

At an opportune moment Gora said to Binoy, “Dada has begun pressing rather hard for your marriage to Shashimukhi. What do you say to it now?”

Binoy. First tell me what you yourself wish.

Gora. I say, what’s wrong with it?

Binoy. You used to say it was quite wrong! It had more or less been settled between us that neither of us would marry.

Gora. Now it has been settled that you will marry and I will not.

Binoy. Why? Why should the same journey yield different fruit for each?

Gora. It is precisely for fear of different fruit that this arrangement is being made. Providence fashions some men to bear a heavy burden naturally, while others go through life lightly burdened by nature — if one tries to run these two creatures in harness together, one must add a weight from outside to even the scales. If you marry and take on some measure of responsibility, you and I will be able to keep pace with each other.

Binoy smiled a little and said, “If that is the scheme, then lay the counterweight on this side.”

Gora. You have no objection to the counterweight then?

Binoy. Whatever comes to hand can serve the purpose of balancing the scales. A stone will do, a clod of earth will do, whatever one pleases.

What lay behind Gora’s enthusiasm for this marriage proposal was not lost on Binoy. Suspecting that Gora had been harbouring the fear that Binoy might marry into Pareshbabu’s family, Binoy smiled inwardly. No such intention or possibility had crossed his mind for even a single moment. It was entirely out of the question. In any case, he reflected, if he agreed to marry Shashimukhi, this strange anxiety would be uprooted once and for all, and then their friendship would again become healthy and tranquil, and he would have no cause for embarrassment from any quarter in his association with Pareshbabu’s household — with this thought he gave his easy consent to the marriage with Shashimukhi. The rest of the day passed in repaying the night’s debt of sleep after the midday meal. No further conversation passed between the two friends that day; only when the curtain of evening darkness fell upon the world and the veil between hearts lifts among those who are dear to each other — at such an hour Binoy sat upon the rooftop, gazing straight up at the sky, and said, “Look here, Gora, there is something I wish to tell you. I feel there is a grave incompleteness in our patriotism. We see India in only half its fullness.”

Gora. Why do you say so?

Binoy. We see India as a country of men only, and we do not see the women at all.

Gora. Do you wish, like the English, to see women everywhere — indoors and outdoors, on water and on land and in the air, at meals and in amusement and in work, everywhere? The result of that would be that one would end up seeing women far more than men — and that too would destroy the balance of vision.

Binoy. No, no, you cannot simply dismiss what I am saying in that fashion. Why do you raise the question of seeing things as the English do or not? What I am saying is this — it is a truth that we do not bring women’s share of our own country into our thinking in the proper measure. I can speak of you yourself — you never think of women for a single moment — you seem to know the country as though it were stripped of women — and such knowledge can never be true knowledge.

Gora. When I have seen my mother, when I have known my mother, I have seen and known all the women of my country in that one place.

Binoy. That is merely a composed speech you have put together to deceive yourself. When the people of a household see their own women amid the daily work of the home with the overfamiliarity of long acquaintance, that is not genuine seeing at all. If we could see the women of our country beyond the domestic necessities of our own households, we would see the beauty and the wholeness of our motherland — we would behold a form of the country for which it would be easy to lay down one’s life — at the very least, we would never fall into the error of supposing that the women of our country simply do not exist anywhere. I know that the moment any comparison is drawn with European society you will flare up in anger — I have no wish to do so — I do not know precisely to what degree or in what manner our women might appear in society without their dignity being violated, but this must be acknowledged: because women remain hidden from view, our own country presents itself to us as only a half-truth — it cannot bestow upon our hearts a full love or a full strength.

Gora. How did you come to make this sudden discovery just now?

Binoy. Yes, I have discovered it recently, and it came to me all at once. So great a truth I did not know all this while. That I have been able to learn it, I count myself fortunate. Just as we see the peasant only in his ploughing and the weaver only in his cloth-making and thereby disdain them as lowborn — they do not come before us in their completeness, and it is by this division between the lowborn and the gentry that the country has been weakened — in precisely the same way, because we confine the women of our country to their cooking and grinding and see them only in that, we regard women as mere females and look upon them as very slight — and by this the whole of our country has been diminished.

Gora. Day and night are two divisions of time — man and woman are likewise two portions of society. In its natural state, woman is hidden like the night — all her work is deep and private. In our reckoning of labour, we leave the night out. But because we leave it out, none of its profound work is actually omitted. In the secret recess of rest, it makes good our losses and sustains our nourishment. Where society is in an unnatural condition, there they force the night into day — there factories run by gaslight, there dancing and music continue through the whole night by lamplight — and what is the result? The result is that the night’s natural hidden work is ruined, exhaustion mounts, losses are not repaired, and people grow frenzied. If we likewise drag women into the open field of work, their deep hidden labour is disrupted — society’s health and peace are broken, a kind of intoxication enters society. That intoxication may for a moment be mistaken for power, but it is a power that destroys. Power has two aspects — one manifest, the other unmanifest; one is exertion and the other is rest; one is application and the other is restraint — if you disturb this balance of power, it becomes agitated, but that agitation is no blessing. Man and woman are the two aspects of social power; man is the manifest aspect, but being manifest does not make him the greater — woman is the unmanifest, and if one continually strives to make the unmanifest manifest, one rapidly spends all the capital and drives society toward ruin. That is why I say — if we men dwell in the field of the sacrifice and women guard the storehouse, then even though women remain unseen, the sacrifice will be duly accomplished. Those who would spend every form of energy in the same direction, in the same place, in the same manner, are frenzied.

Binoy. Gora, I do not wish to dispute what you have said — but you have not disputed what I was saying either. The real point —

Gora. Look here, Binoy, if we argue further about this, it will become a mere quarrel of words. I grant that you have recently become far more conscious of women than I have — and therefore any attempt to make me feel what you are feeling is unlikely ever to succeed. Let us then acknowledge, for the time being, that we disagree on this matter.

Gora brushed the matter aside. But even when a seed is blown away, it falls upon the earth, and once fallen, nothing prevents it from sprouting when the moment is right. Hitherto Gora had excluded women entirely from the field of his life — he had never dreamed of feeling this as a want or a loss. Today, seeing the change that had come over Binoy, the distinct existence and influence of womankind in the world had become apparent to him. But where their place lay, what their purpose was — this he had been unable to determine; and that was why he had no taste for arguing with Binoy on the subject. He could neither deny it nor grasp it, and so he wished to keep it beyond the reach of discussion.

That night, as Binoy was returning to his lodgings, Anandamayi called out to him and said, “Is it true that your marriage with Shashimukhi has been settled?”

Binoy replied with an abashed smile, “Yes, Mother — Gora has played matchmaker in this auspicious business.”

Anandamayi said, “Shashimukhi is a good girl, but my dear, do not be childish. I know your heart, Binoy — you are in two minds about something, and that is why you are rushing into this. There is still time to think it over carefully; you are not a young boy any more — do not enter into so weighty a matter with so light a heart.”

Saying this, she gently stroked Binoy’s back with her hand. Binoy said nothing and quietly took his leave.