III
THE STORY OF A WOMAN
Now Dokhio, the Father of Durga, was wroth because Shiva, to whom he had given his daughter in marriage, though he had the reputation of a God, was as poor as any beggar. And in his wrath he devised revenge. He made a great Feast, to which he bade Gods and Goddesses, Godlings and baby Godlings—all, save Shiva and his wife Durga. And Narod, the Mischief Man, was made the voice to bear the message to each guest.
So Narod went to Shiva, and “This is what your Father-in-law hath planned,” saith he, inciting.
But Shiva, “What is that to me?” “Dishonour, insult, affront—see you not?” said the Mischief Man.
And Shiva, again, “What is that to me? They who do not honour cannot hurt me.” …
Narod then went to Durga, Shiva’s wife: “A Feast of Gods and Goddesses,” saith he. “Let be,” said Durga; “What is that tome?”
“Such display of dresses and jewels, such cackling of women’s tongues. ‘Why is Shiva not there? Why not Durga?’ Surely a daughter may go to the house of her Father, by chance, on the day of the Feast, ignorant of what is forward?” …
Durga sought her husband. But he was firm. “They will make sport of you to spite me.”
“What matter? It were worse not to be seen there—things happening behind our backs.” …
But Shiva was firm.
Then did Durga use all the wiles of women—coaxing, sulking, flattering—Shiva was firm; so, finally she used the wiles of a more than human. …
She took unto herself ten forms each more awful than the last, and ten-headed she passed before Shiva, threatening and mocking. Till—“Go!” said Shiva; “Let happen what will happen.”
And Durga, a little fearfully, in that she had got at last her heart’s desire, arrayed herself in garments gorgeous and becoming, and made her way to her Mother’s house. And her Mother embraced her right gladly, so that a great contempt was in Durga’s heart for the trouble at which she had been in coming.
But the Mother said within herself: “It is well my Lord is away and busy, it is well … else might he hurt this child of mine.”
Yet soon the question came: “And where is my Father?”
“At the Place of Sacrifice, where he makes a great feast,” said the gentle Mother. “Stay with me, my child; leave such-like things to the men-people.”
But Durga: “A Feast? Nay, then must I go and see” … and she heeded nothing.
And Dokhio was furious, in that after all his insult would be robbed of point.
“Why art thou come hither?” he thundered. And she: “Because my Father’s daughters may not be kept from my Father’s Sacrifice.”
Then Dokhio cursed Shiva and all that belonged to him, which Durga hearing, passed out of life with grief inconsolable.
And Shiva, who had cared nothing for the slight to himself, revenged the death of his wife most mightily. He sent forth his lightning and consumed that great sacrifice ere they who were bidden had arrived to make it; and so the guests found nothing save charred wood, and a wizened old Dokhio with the head of a bearded goat.
For this was Shiva’s little joke to keep the matter for ever in the mind of Durga’s Father, Dokhio. ***** We sat on the great quiet roof in the cow-dust hour while the latest Mother-in-law among us told the story.
She meant it, I think, for the special benefit of Boho, the ten-year-old Bride; and she was gratified, for Boho caught her breath in great gusts at this bold coercion of a husband. Nothing did the story mean to her save that—punishment for such sacrilege.
But Kamalamoni looked up smiling from a game with the household tyrant—her Nagendra—aged four.
“It is not thus the story hath its ending,” she said.
“Then tell the rest, Kamal.” But Kamal was better occupied.
“And how calls the horse, my son? and how the dog? and the cat? and sheep? And,” roguishly—“and how the great grandmother when in anger?” Till she of many years claimed Nagendra as her fee for such impertinence and Kamala was forced to tell her tale.
“And how should story end which wails no dirge for death of wife?” said Kamala, hotly. For opinion is but experience crystallized. “When Durga’s soul left her body thus early, it wandered to the mountains of snow, and finding on the threshold of sense, the empty house of a new-born babe, it entered it.”
Uma was the name by which its parents chose to know the child; and Uma grew strong and beautiful, gentle and good, with no memory of Durga the Ten-Headed. … And, one day when she had come to her woman’s estate in our kingdom of life, and was playing with her waiting-woman among the swans beside the lotus-beds, an aged Priest-man appeared before her, and falling at her feet, said, “Durga Mother, thy Lord of Destruction fasts and prays sorrowing for thee: go and tend him.”
And Uma ran to her mother, wrathful. … “An old Priest-man fell at my feet, Mother,” she said, “and said unto me words which are not fit to be heard by me before my maidens.”
So Uma’s Father went out forthwith, and finding Narod—for he it was, the Mischief Man turned Priest in old-age, he heard the wondrous God-news about his daughter.
Shiva, it seemed, lived a life of prayer and fasting—close by in the Cave of the Cow’s mouth.
“Send Uma to tend him,” said Narod, “and haply he will look and love, and they be man and wife once more.”
Thus Uma was sent to Shiva, and tended him night and day; and the woman’s love for the thing that she tended, grew in her heart.
But Shiva, full of self-pity for loss of a jewel which he might better have preserved (for this was his thought), saw not that same jewel lying burnished and re-beautified in the dust at his feet. And Uma’s heart was sad, till even the Great God himself was moved to pity, and sent the little God of Love to wake Shiva the Monk from his trance of bead-telling.
Then, fearfully—for is not Shiva the Destroyer himself?—went the Godling of the arched bow, and hiding in the bracken he shot forth his arrows—not without success. And Shiva, furious, saw one upturned foot in flight, and the fire from his eye burnt up the thing he saw, so that Kama Deva comes no more among the haunts of men.
But, and when his anger was dead, he looked up, and his eyes being opened, he beheld Uma, knowing her for Durga his own possession.
And so, once more was fulfilled the destiny of a woman.
“But for three days in every year does Uma go back to her parents and her swanlets in the mountains of Snow; and this journeying of Uma is always at Durga-pooja time when we make feast for many days to worship the Ten-handed.”
In the silence which fell upon us after this story, she of many years was heard to yawn, while all the women snapped their fingers till her jaws met again.
From Shiva’s Temple gleaming white among the yellow-green of the date palms came the sound of the pooja bell—some one, a woman probably, praying for her Lord to the Lord of Killing and Cursing. Clear against the gray-blue sky stood, the cross-crowned spire of the Christian Cathedral; and almost at our doors, rang out the prayer-keeper’s call to the faithful Moslem: “There is no God so great as God.” …
“There is no God so great as—my God.” It is what we are all saying; and it makes at once the strength and the tragedy of human lives. “No God so great as my God.” What different things we mean when we say that—we of the bustling outside world.
The Hindu woman means one thing only. … “No God so great as my God.” That was the lesson each was taking from the story of Durga and Uma. Did not almost every fable and legend chant that chorus? “No God so Great.” … In punishment may be sometimes, or in penitence (see the miracle of the Destroyer himself turned monk for Durga)—but most of all in graciousness. …
“He knew Uma for her who went to Dokhio’s feast, and yet he forgave,” said Boho Rani, “Oh! the wonder.” …
But the Mother of Nagendra laughed, sure of her possession. … “The Godling of the arrows was not really burnt,” she said, “the flying foot belonged to Kama’s sheaf-bearer and rival, the less-than-godlet of unlawful love.” …
And the Wise Woman smiled to herself in the growing dusk. “The ignorant are incapable of receiving knowledge,” was what she said.