XXXVII
When from the windows of the empty Ladies' compartment of the train Binodini saw the open fields and villages nestling in the shade, memories of the retired and peaceful village life awoke in her. She felt that cloistered in a retreat of her imagination and surrounded with her favorite books, she could regain her peace of mind and forget the wounds and heart-burnings of her town experiences. "It is well" she said to herself, as the scent of mango blossoms from the passing mango groves was wafted to her, soothing her whole being into a languor. "It is better so, let me forget, let me sleep, let me live the comfortable life of a village girl satisfied with her household and her neighbourly duties."
With the hope of peace allaying the thirst in her heart, Binodini entered her cottage home. Alas, where was the peace? There was only emptiness and poverty. All around was decay and disorder, uncared for and unclean. The house had been long closed and its damp and fusty atmosphere seemed to suffocate Binodini. The little furniture that had been there had been ravaged by worms and rats and was falling to pieces.
Binodini had arrived in the evening. Everything was dark and joyless, and after she had contrived to light a little mustard oil lamp its smoky light only served to bring out the squalor of her surroundings. Things she had not minded before now seemed to her intolerable—her whole being seemed to cry out in rebellion, "I cannot live here for a moment." In a little niche in the wall were some dusty books and magazines. She did not care to touch them. Outside in the dense mango groves there was not a breath of wind, and the shrilling of mosquitos and cicadas resounded.
Binodini's sole surviving relative had left the house sometime ago and had gone to stay with her married daughter. Binodini in despair went over to some of her neighbours. They seemed to be quite startled to see her. "O la," said they, "Binodini's complexion has turned quite fair, and she is dressed up smart just like a "mem sahib!"[1] Then they seemed to be making some sort of signs to each other, directed at her; as if something which they had only vaguely heard had come out true.
Binodini realised how far she had travelled from her early village life. She felt an exile in her own home. She lost all hope of feeling at home anywhere here, even for a moment.
Binodini had known the old village postman from her childhood. When the next day she was on the steps[2] of the common bathing tank[3] about to take her bath she saw him passing along the road with his letter-bag. She could contain herself no longer and throwing aside her towel she ran up the steps and called after him, asking, "Is there any letter for me, brother Panchu?"
"No", replied the old man.
"There may be one," insisted Binodini eagerly; "let me see." She then turned the half-a-dozen letters, that were to go round the village, over and over again, but not one of them was for her.
As she returned to the water's edge, crestfallen, one of her fellow-bathers mischievously began "Ola, sister Bindi, why so anxious for a letter?" Another aired her eloquence: "Well, well, how many are so fortunate as to get a letter? We have husbands and brothers, my dears, who have gone to their work in foreign parts, but the postman never favours us." And as the topic was pursued, the mischievous glances got keener, the sarcasm more and more pronounced.
Binodini had entreated Vihari at parting to write to her regularly, something, anything, just a line or two. It was hardly likely that Vihari would begin to do so the very next day, yet her desire was so insistent that she had not been able to help nursing a distant hope. She felt as if she had left Calcutta ages ago.
It did not take Binodini long, with the help of her girl friends and enemies, to make the discovery that her name had been connected with Mahendra's, and that the scandal was all over the village. Peace was out of the question.
Binodini then tried to keep herself aloof from the rest of the village. At this her neighbours were all the more incensed. They were loth to be deprived of the luxury of reproving and worrying the sinner.
In a village, seclusion is out of the question. There is no leisure to nurse a wounded heart in the darkness of a retired corner. The sore spot always attracts everybody's curious gaze. Binodini writhed like a live fish in a basket, but only succeeded in wounding herself more and more. Here she was not free even to live alone with her suffering.
When the next day the time for getting a letter had passed, Binodini shut herself into her room to write:—
Friend Vihari.—Fear not, I am not going to write you a love letter. You are my Judge, I humbly salute you. If I have sinned, you have awarded me cruel punishment, and at your word I have submitted to it. My only regret is that you do not know how cruel the punishment has been, for thus I am deprived of the pity which you would surely have felt, had you known. Even this I will bear, with my head at your feet, for the sake of your memory. But, my Master, is not the prisoner to get even food—not luxurious food, but bare sustenance? A line or two from you is all the food I crave. If you deny even that then your sentence is not exile, but death. My pride was immense, I had never dreamt I should bend for favours. But yours has been the victory, my Master. I now pray you merciful and let me live. Give me just enough to live through the life in this wilderness, none shall then sway me from the rigour of your discipline. This is all my complaint to-day. I have much else I would tell you of, which my heart is breaking to tell you, but I have vowed not to trouble you, and I shall keep to my vow.
Your
Sister Binod.
Binodini posted her letter—the whole village was scandalised afresh. To be living with closed doors, to be constantly writing, to be rushing after the postman for letters! Evidently even a short stay in Calcutta was enough to make away with all sense of decency and decorum!
There was no letter the next day either. Binodini seemed to be stupefied; her face set hard. Lashed as she was by the blows of insult and contumely, from within and without, the forces of destruction seemed to be churned up from the dark depths of her heart, ready to emerge from her in cruel demoniacal shape. In her dread at these monstrous apparitions Binodini shut herself into her room once more.
She had no keepsake of Vihari, neither a photograph, nor a line of any letter. She seemed to be hunting about for some memento in her emptiness. She wanted something to put in her bosom which would bring the tears to her harsh dry eyes. She wanted tears to come and melt her inner hardness, to put out the rising flames of rebellion and enable her to enthrone Vihari's iron command on the softest spot of her heart's love. But her heart was on fire like the cloudless midday sky, and no trace of any possible tear drop was there to be seen from horizon to horizon.
Translated by
Surendranath Tagore.
- ↑ Foreigner, Englishwoman.
- ↑ The women in the village step into the water in the sari they have on, and come back home in the wet garment and then change. The steps form a platform for preliminary toilet operations and gossip, and the whole process is a prolonged one.
- ↑ A rectangular artificial sheet of water.