45

Binay had not the faintest dream that beneath the ground on which he had been treading so freely, these past many days, as guest and friend, a social volcano lay active and seething. When he had first begun to mix with Pareshbabu’s family, he had felt considerable constraint; not knowing with any certainty the limits of his welcome, he had always moved with a measure of apprehension. Gradually, as that apprehension wore away, it never occurred to him that any danger whatsoever lurked anywhere. Now, suddenly learning that his conduct was causing Lalita to be spoken of ill in the eyes of society, it was as though a thunderbolt had struck his head. What chiefly sharpened his distress was this: he was himself aware that the warmth he felt in his heart toward Lalita had long since crossed the boundary of ordinary friendship and risen far beyond it — and in the present circumstances, where the societies to which each of them belonged were so vastly different, he regarded such excess of feeling as a fault in his own conscience. More than once he had thought that in coming to this family as a trusted guest, he had not kept to his proper place — that in one respect he had been playing a part; if the true nature of his feelings were made known to the people of this household, it would be a matter of shame for him.

It was at such a time that Baradasundari, one noon, sent him a note summoning him especially and asked, “Binaybabu, you are a Hindu, are you not?” And when Binay acknowledged it, she asked again — “You cannot renounce Hindu society, can you?” And when Binay let it be known that for him this would be impossible, then as Baradasundari went on to say “Then why do you—” — no answer came to Binay’s lips to meet that “then why.” He sat with his head bowed utterly low. It seemed to him that he had been caught out; that something he had wished to hide even from the sun and moon and air had now been exposed before everyone here. His mind kept revolving — what must Pareshbabu be thinking, what must Lalita be thinking, what must Sucharita be thinking of him! By what angel’s error had he been granted a temporary place in this heaven — and now, bearing on his head all the shame of one who has trespassed where he had no right, he must today be banished from it entirely.

Then, passing out through Paresh’s gate, the very first thing he saw was Lalita — and it came to him: ‘Let me, at this moment of final leave-taking, acknowledge before her some great humiliation and bring to a cataclysmic close everything that has passed between us’ — but he could not think how it might be done; and so, without looking at Lalita’s face, he offered her a silent salutation and walked away with his head bowed.

Until just the other day Binay had been outside Paresh’s family — and now he stood outside again. But what a difference! Why was that outside so empty today? Nothing had been lost from his previous life — he still had his Gora, he still had his Anandamayi. And yet it seemed to him as though a fish had been taken from water and cast upon dry land — whichever way he turned, he could find no foothold for his life anywhere. In the crowded streets of the city, hemmed in on all sides by tall buildings, Binay saw everywhere the pale and shadowy face of some utter ruin overhanging his existence. He was himself astonished at this universal aridity, this universal emptiness. Why had it come to be? When had it come to be? How was it possible? These questions he put again and again to a cold and unresponsive void that returned no answer.

“Binaybabu! Binaybabu!”

Binay turned and saw — it was Satish. Binay clasped him in an embrace and said, “Why, dear friend, dear companion!” His voice seemed on the verge of breaking into tears. How much sweetness this boy too had woven into the life of Pareshbabu’s household — Binay felt it today as he had perhaps never felt it before.

Satish said, “Why do you not come to our house? Tomorrow Labanya-didi and Lalita-didi are dining with us, and Mashi has sent me to invite you.”

Binoy understood that Mashi knew nothing of what had transpired. He said, “Satish-babu, give Mashi my pranam — but I cannot come, I am afraid.”

Satish seized Binoy’s hand imploringly and said, “Why can you not come? You must come — I shall not let you go on any account.”

Satish’s earnest entreaty had a particular reason behind it. His school had set him the task of writing an essay on “The Treatment of Animals,” and in that essay he had scored forty-two out of fifty — he was desperately eager to show the piece to Binoy. He knew Binoy to be a man of great learning and discernment; he had firmly decided that a person of Binoy’s refined taste would properly appreciate the worth of his writing. If Binoy acknowledged the excellence of his essay, then Lila — who had no such sensitivity — would be exposed as contemptible whenever she cast doubt upon Satish’s genius. It was he himself who had arranged the invitation through Mashi, for he wished his elder sisters to be present at the very moment when Binoy delivered his verdict upon the composition.

Hearing that Binoy could not possibly attend the dinner, Satish was utterly cast down.

Binoy put his arm around the boy’s shoulder and said, “Satish-babu, come along to our house.”

As the essay happened to be in Satish’s pocket at that very moment, he could not refuse Binoy’s invitation. Acknowledging the sin of wasting time so close to his school examinations, the boy who aspired to poetic renown went along to Binoy’s lodgings.

Binoy seemed altogether unwilling to let him go. He listened to the essay — and the praise he bestowed upon it showed none of the composed impartiality one expects of a critic. Moreover, he sent out to the market for refreshments and fed the boy handsomely.

Afterwards, having walked Satish to the vicinity of his home, Binoy said, with a needless agitation in his manner, “Well then, Satish-babu, I shall take my leave, brother!”

Satish caught his hand and tugged at it, saying, “No, do come inside with me.”

Today this entreaty was of no avail.

Walking on as though in a dream, Binoy found his way to Anandamayi’s house, but he was unable to see her. He entered the solitary room on the rooftop where Gora used to sleep — in this room how many happy days and how many happy nights had passed in the companionship of their boyhood friendship; how much joyful conversation, how many resolutions, how many earnest discussions of weighty matters; how many loving quarrels and how many tender, amicable reconciliations. Into that earlier life of his, Binoy sought to enter and lose himself as he once had done — but the new acquaintance of these few intervening days stood blocking the path, refusing to let him into that precise place. That the centre of his life had imperceptibly shifted and that the orbit of his existence had changed — this Binoy had not clearly perceived all this while. Now that no doubt remained, he was overtaken by dread.

Some clothes had been spread to dry on the rooftop, and when Anandamayi came in the late afternoon to gather them as the sun declined, she was astonished to find Binoy in Gora’s room. She came quickly to his side, laid her hand upon him, and said, “Binoy, what is the matter, Binoy? Why has your face gone so pale?”

Binoy sat up and said, “Mother, when I first began visiting Pareshbabu’s house, Gora used to be angry. At the time I considered his anger unjust — but the fault was not his; it was my own foolishness.”

Anandamayi smiled a little and said, “I do not claim that you are a boy of great wisdom, but in this particular matter in what way has your want of wisdom revealed itself?”

Binoy said, “Mother, I never considered for a moment that our two societies are entirely different from each other. I had been drawn in by the pleasure and benefit I felt in their friendship, their manner, their example — it did not cross my mind even for an instant that there was anything else to think about.”

Anandamayi said, “Hearing you speak, even now nothing crosses my mind.”

Binoy said, “Mother, you do not know — I have stirred up a great deal of unrest in society on their account. People have begun to speak such things of them that I can no longer go there—”

Anandamayi said, “Gora repeats one thing again and again, and I find it very true. He says: where there is some injustice within, it is the greatest calamity of all when peace prevails without. If unrest has awakened in their society, I see no reason for you to feel remorse — you will find that it will do good in the end. So long as your own conduct remains blameless, that is enough.”

And therein lay precisely Binoy’s great perplexity. Whether his own conduct was truly above reproach was what he was utterly unable to determine. Since Lalita belonged to a different society, and since marriage with her was not possible, his attachment to her tormented him like a secret sin, and the thought that the terrible hour of atonement for this sin had now arrived was what afflicted him.

Binoy suddenly burst out, “Mother, it would have been far better if the proposal of my marriage to Shasimukhi had simply gone through and been done with. I ought to be bound, by whatever means, to the place that is rightfully mine — bound in such a way that nothing could ever move me from it.”

Anandamayi laughed and said, “Which is to say, rather than making Shasimukhi your wife, you wish to make her your household chain — what a fortunate destiny for Shashi!”

Just then a servant came and announced that two young ladies from Pareshbabu’s household had arrived. On hearing this, Binoy’s heart lurched within his chest. It seemed to him that they had come to lodge a complaint with Anandamayi in order to put Binoy on his guard. He rose to his feet at once and said, “I shall go, Mother!”

Anandamayi rose and, taking hold of his hand, said, “Do not leave the house altogether, Binoy! Wait in the downstairs room for a little while.”

As he made his way downstairs, Binoy kept repeating to himself: “There was no need for any of this. What has happened has happened, but even had I died I would never have gone back there. When the punishment for a fault blazes up like fire, even if the offender is consumed and perishes in it, that punishing flame seems never willing to be extinguished.”

As Binoy was about to enter the ground-floor room on the street side that had been Gora’s, Mahim arrived home from the office, in the process of freeing his swollen belly from the confinement of his coat-buttons. He took Binoy’s hand and said, “Ah, Binoy! Splendid! I have been looking for you.”

Saying this, he led Binoy into Gora’s room, settled him into a chair, sat down himself, and, drawing a betel-box from his pocket, offered Binoy a paan.

“Hey, bring the tobacco here!” — he roared this order and then came directly to the point. He asked, “What has been settled about that matter? It cannot go on much longer—”

He observed that Binoy’s manner was considerably softer than before. There was not, to be sure, any great enthusiasm — yet neither was there any apparent attempt to wriggle out of the conversation by some evasion. Mahim was eager to fix the date and time without delay; Binoy said, “Let Gora come back first.”

Mahim, somewhat reassured, said, “That is only a matter of a few days. Binoy, shall I have some refreshments brought? What do you say? Your face looks terribly drawn today — you have not taken ill, I hope?”

Once Binoy had extricated himself from the obligation of taking refreshments, Mahim retired into the inner quarters to attend to his own hunger. Binoy pulled some book or other from Gora’s table and began turning the pages, then set the book aside and paced from one end of the room to the other.

The servant came and said, “Mother is calling.”

Binoy asked, “Whom is she calling?”

The servant said, “You, sir.”

Binoy asked, “Are the others still there?”

The servant said, “Yes, they are.”

As a student walks towards the door of an examination hall, so did Binoy make his way upstairs. Coming to the doorway and hesitating a moment, he heard Sucharita’s voice — calm and warm with its habitual friendliness, exactly as before — saying, “Binoy-babu, do come in.” Hearing that voice, Binoy felt as though he had received an unexpected gift.

When Binoy entered the room, both Sucharita and Lalita were startled at the sight of him. In so short a time the marks of a sudden and severe blow had been written plainly upon his face. His countenance, once like a lush green field, now wore the look of a field across which a plague of locusts had swept and passed — the ever-smiling surface stripped bare. In Lalita’s heart, alongside pain and compassion, there arose a faint glimmer of something that resembled joy.

On any other occasion Lalita would not have been the first to open conversation with Binoy — but the moment he entered the room today, she said, “Binoy-babu, we have a matter to consult you about.”

It was as though someone had suddenly shot an arrow of resounding joy into Binoy’s breast. He was startled into a sudden delight. In an instant, brightness suffused his pallid and wearied face.

Lalita said, “We sisters together wish to establish a small school for girls.”

Binoy said with rising enthusiasm, “Starting a girls’ school has long been one of the resolves of my life.”

Lalita said, “You must help us in this endeavour.”

Binoy said, “Whatever lies within my power shall be done without any failing. Tell me what it is I must do.”

Lalita said, “Because we are Brahmos, Hindu guardians do not trust us. You will have to make the effort on this front.”

Binoy said, with growing ardour, “Have no fear at all — I shall manage it.”

Anandamayi said, “And indeed he will manage it very well. There is no one to match him when it comes to winning people over with words.”

Lalita said, “The manner in which the school’s work ought to be organised and conducted — dividing the time-table, arranging the classes, selecting the books — all of this you will have to put in order for us.”

This work too was not beyond Binoy’s abilities, but he found himself bewildered. Baradasundari had forbidden her daughters any association with him, and an agitation against them was running through society — could it be that Lalita knew nothing of all this? If, in these circumstances, Binoy pledged himself to fulfil Lalita’s request, the question of whether that would be improper, and whether it would bring harm to Lalita, began to assail him. And yet, if Lalita was seeking his assistance in some worthy cause, where within him lay the strength to refuse that request?

Sucharita too had been taken entirely by surprise. She had not imagined even in a dream that Lalita would so suddenly and directly appeal to Binoy in this manner about a girls’ school. Enough complication had already arisen on account of Binoy — and now what was this besides! Seeing that Lalita was deliberately and knowingly setting this business in motion, Sucharita was seized with apprehension. She understood that a spirit of revolt had awakened in Lalita — but was it right of her to entangle poor Binoy in this turmoil? Full of anxiety, Sucharita spoke up: “We shall of course have to consult Father about this. Binoy-babu should not grow too hopeful too quickly just because he has been appointed inspector of a girls’ school.”

Binoy understood that Sucharita had tactfully interposed an obstacle to the proposal, and this deepened the unease in his mind. It was plain to see that Sucharita knew of the crisis that had arisen — so Lalita certainly could not be unaware of it either. Then why was Lalita—? Nothing became clear.

Lalita said, “We must of course ask Father. Once he knows that Binoy-babu is willing, I shall speak to him. He will never object — and he too must be part of our school.”

Turning towards Anandamayi, she said, “We shall not let you go either.”

Anandamayi laughed and said, “I can come and sweep out the rooms of your school for you. What else could a person like me possibly do?”

Binoy said, “That alone will be more than enough, Mother! The school will become entirely spotless.”

After Sucharita and Lalita had taken their leave, Binoy set off on foot in the direction of the Eden Gardens. Mahim came to Anandamayi and said, “I saw that Binoy seems to have come round considerably — the sooner the matter is settled and done with, the better. Who knows when he might change his mind again.”

Anandamayi, astonished, said, “What do you mean! When did Binoy agree to anything? He said nothing of the kind to me.”

Mahim said, “I had a full conversation with him only today. He said that once Gora returns, a date can be fixed.”

Anandamayi shook her head and said, “Mahim, I tell you, you have not understood correctly.”

Mahim said, “However thick my wits may be, I am old enough to understand plain speech — you may be quite sure of that.”

Anandamayi said, “My dear, I know you will be angry with me, but I can see that some trouble will come of this.”

Mahim said with gravity, “Trouble comes only when someone makes trouble.”

Anandamayi said, “Mahim, I will bear whatever you all say to me, but I cannot take any part in something that may lead to unpleasantness — and that is for your own good.”

Mahim said with some harshness, “If you leave the responsibility of our welfare to us, then you need hear nothing disagreeable either — and perhaps it will go better for us as well. You can think of our good once Shasimukhi’s wedding is over and done with. What do you say?”

Anandamayi made no reply to this, but drew a long sigh; and Mahim, drawing a paan from the box in his pocket and chewing it as he went, departed.