CHAPTER XXI.
Matilall on the Guddee.
People did not think much of Baburam Babu's shraddha. The rain, as the proverb has it, was out of all proportion to the thunder. Oil fell on a good many heads that were oiled already, while heads that were dry and destitute of oil only got cracked. Their disputation was all the profit that the pandits got. The uneducated city Brahmans had it all their own way. The harsh discipline of all kinds to which pandits subject themselves, creates in them a stubbornness of nature: they follow their own opinions and do not agree with all and everything they find. The Brahmans of a lower order, habitúes of the city, suit their conversation to the minds of the Babus: in the words of the proverb, they adapt their strokes to the quality of the wood. If it suits them to be Gosains, Gosains they can be; and the characters they can assume are as varied as the ingredients of a curry mixture; is it surprising then that they generally get the best of everything? The managers of the shraddha had taken every precaution to fill their own pockets: they were keen chiefly on their own share of the gifts: what did it matter to them whether the pandits or the poor received anything worth mentioning? There was a great flourish of trumpets over things that would be matter of public observation and could not be avoided, but equal consideration was not shown throughout. Management such as that is a mere playing to the gallery.
The stir which the shraddha had caused gradually died away.
Bancharam and Thakchacha took to flattering Matilall to an extraordinary extent, and Matilall, being of a very weak nature, was enthralled by their seductive language, and thought that he had no other friends on earth like them. With a view to increasing his importance they one day said to him:-- "Sir, you are now master: it behoves you to take your seat on the guddee of the master now in heaven: how otherwise will his dignity be maintained?" Matilall was highly delighted at the idea. As a child he had heard bits of the Ramayana and Mahabharata[42], and so it occurred to him that he would be seated on the guddee with the same pomp and circumstance with which Yudhishthira and Ram Chandra were anointed to the throne of their ancestors. Bancharam and Thakchacha saw that Matilall's face shone again with delight at the suggestion they had made, so the next day they settled on a date for the ceremony, and calling together all his kinsmen and friends, seated Matilall upon his father's guddee. In the village the report got about that Matilall had attained to this honour: The news soon spread: it was told in the market-place, in the bazar, at the ghât, and in the fields. A choleric old Brahman, when he heard it remarked, "Oh, he has attained the guddee, has he? What a fine expression! And whose guddee, pray? That of the great Jagat Sett[43], or of Devi Dass Balmukunda?"
When a man of sound sense attains to a high position or to great wealth, he is not liable to be lightly swayed hither and thither; whereas a man who lacks solidity of character, should he attain to a higher position than he is accustomed to, is as unstable as the waters of a flood. And so it proved with Matilall. Day and night, unceasing as a torrent, arose the hubbub of boisterous amusement. His companions did not diminish; on the contrary, their number daily increased, rapidly as the fabulous Raktabij[44]. Was there anything surprising in this? When rice is scattered there is no lack of crows, and a whole army of ants will come together at the scent of molasses.
Bakreswar Babu visited Matilall one day to try and get something out of him, and used all his arts to fascinate Matilall by his talk. But Matilall had been acquainted from his boyhood with Bakreswar's crafty cajolery, and so he gave him this answer:-- "Sir, you have destroyed all my chances in the next world by the partiality and favour you showed me in the past. I never failed to give you enough presents when I was a boy: why do you keep bothering me now?" Bakreswar went away with his head bent low, muttering to himself. Matilall was now as one inebriated with pleasure: though Bancharam and Thakchacha went occasionally to see him, he would have little to do with them in the way of business. Owing to the power-of-attorney he had given them, they had entire command over everything, and now and again they made the Babu a liberal advance, but nothing in the way of detailed accounts of expenditure was forthcoming from them.
As for the rest of his family, he never took the slightest notice of them: he never even troubled himself to enquire where they were or where they went. The ladies endured much hardship on this account, but Matilall by his riotous living had become so lost to all sense of shame that he paid no heed to the reports that reached him on the subject. To have to mourn for a husband is the greatest affliction that a faithful wife is called on to endure. It is some alleviation to her in her trouble, if she have good children; but if on the contrary they disappoint her it adds intensity to the bitterness of her grief, as melted butter thrown upon fire. Matilall's evil behaviour was a terrible grief to his mother, but she never spoke openly of it. One day, however, after long deliberation, she approached him and said:-- "My child, what was to be my lot, that has been: now, for the few remaining days that I have to live, let me not have to listen to this evil report of you. I cannot lend my ears to people's abuse of you. Have some little regard for your younger brother, your elder sister, and your stepmother: they are not getting half enough to eat. Ah, my child, I ask nothing for myself: I lay no farther burden upon you." To these words of his mother, Matilall, his eyes inflamed with passion, replied: "What? will you be always chattering and abusing me? Do you not know that I am now master in my own house? What is this evil report about me?" As he said this, he struck his mother a blow on the face and pushed her down. She got up from the ground after a short interval, and wiping away her tears with the border of her saree, said to her son: "Ah, my son! I never heard of children beating their mothers before, but it has been my destiny for this to happen to me. I have nothing further to say: I only pray that all may be well with you." Next day, without saying a word to any one, his mother left the house with her daughter.
Since the death of his father, Ramlall had made many efforts to be on good terms with his brother, but had had to suffer many indignities. Matilall was in constant anxiety lest he should have to give up the half of the property, and so be unable to continue his role of the grandee; and as life would be but a sorry farce if he had to give up that role, he must, he considered, take the necessary steps to mulct his brother of his share. Having settled on this plan, by the advice of course of Bancharam and Thakchacha, he forbade Ramlall the house. Thus shut out from the home of his fathers, Ramlall, after long deliberation, without having had an interview with his mother, sister, or any one, proceeded to another part of the country.