The girl replied, "No!" Apurba's next question was, "Don't you love me?" But the question remained unanswered. There are times when answers to such questions are absolutely simple, but at other times they become too complex for a young girl to answer.
Apurba asked, "Do you feel unwilling to leave Rakhal behind?"
Mrinmayi instantly answered, "Yes." For a moment this young man, who was proud of his b. a. degree, felt a needle prick of jealousy deep down in his heart, and said:
"I shan't be able to come back home for a long time."—Mrinmayi had nothing to say. "It may be two years or more," he added. Mrinmayi told him with coolness, "You had better bring back with you, for Rakhal, a good Sheffield knife with three blades."
Apurba sat up and asked, "Then you mean to stay on here?"
Mrinmayi said, "Yes, I shall go to my own mother."
Apurba breathed a deep sigh and said:
"Very well: I shall not come home, until you write me a letter asking me to come to you. Are you very, very glad?"
Mrinmayi thought this question needed no answer, and fell asleep. Apurba got no sleep that night.
When it was nearly dawn, Apurba awakened Mrinmayi and said:
"Mrinu, it is time to go. Let me take you to your mother's house."
When his wife got up from her bed, Apurba held her by both hands and said:
"I have a prayer to make to you.—I have helped you several times and I want to claim my reward."
Mrinmayi was surprised and said:
"What?"
Apurba answered:
"Mrinu, please give me a kiss out of pure love."
When the girl heard this absurd request and saw Apurba's solemn face, she burst out laughing. When it was over, she held her face for a kiss, but broke out laughing again. After a few more attempts, she gave it up. Apurba pulled her ear gently as a mild punishment.
7.
When Mrinmayi came to her mother's house, she was surprised to find that it was not as pleasant to her as before. Time seemed to hang heavily on her hands, and she wondered in her mind what was lacking in the familiar home surroundings. Suddenly it seemed to her that the whole house and village were deserted and she longed to go to Calcutta. She did not know that even on that last aight the earlier portion of her life, to which she clung, had changed its aspect before she knew it. Now she could easily shake off her past associations as the tree sheds its dead leaves. She did not understand that her destiny had struck the blow and severed her youth from her childhood, with its magic blade, in such a subtle manner that they kept together even after the stroke; but directly she moved, one half of her life fell from the other and Mrinmayi looked at it in wonder. The young girl, who used to occupy the old bedroom in this house, no longer existed; all her memory hovered round another bed in another bedroom.
Mrinmayi refused to go out of doors any longer, and her laughter had a strangely different ring. Rakhal became slightly afraid of her. He gave up all thought of playing with her.
One day, Mrinmayi came to her mother and asked her:
"Mother, please take me to my mother-in-law's house."
After this, one morning the mother-in-law was surprised to see Mrinmayi come and touch the ground with her forehead before her feet. She got up at once and took her in her arms. Their union was complete in a moment, and the cloud of misunderstanding was swept away leaving the atmosphere glistening with the radiance of tears.
When Mrinmayi's body and mind became filled with womanhood, deep and large, it gave her an aching pain. Her eyes became sad, like the shadow of rain upon some lake, and she put these questions to her husband in her own mind.—Why did you not have the patience to understand me, when I was late in understanding you? Why did you put up with my disobedience, when I refused to follow you to Calcutta?
Suddenly she came to fathom the look in Apurba's eyes when, on that morning, he had caught hold of her hand by the village pool and then slowly released her. She remembered, too, the futile flights of that kiss, which had never reached its goal,
