The Home and the World, Rabindranath Tagore [robert munsch read aloud txt] 📗

touches, little glances,

little words flit about and fill the darkness. When I get up in

the morning, I thrill with lively anticipations, my blood seems

to course through me to the strains of music ...

There was a double photo-frame on the table with Bee's photograph

by the side of Nikhil's. I had taken out hers. Yesterday I

showed Bee the empty side and said: "Theft becomes necessary only

because of miserliness, so its sin must be divided between the

miser and the thief. Do you not think so?"

"It was not a good one," observed Bee simply, with a little

smile.

"What is to be done?" said I. "A portrait cannot be better than

a portrait. I must be content with it, such as it is."

Bee took up a book and began to turn over the pages. "If you are

annoyed," I went on, "I must make a shift to fill up the

vacancy."

Today I have filled it up. This photograph of mine was taken in

my early youth. My face was then fresher, and so was my mind.

Then I still cherished some illusions about this world and the

next. Faith deceives men, but it has one great merit: it imparts

a radiance to the features.

My portrait now reposes next to Nikhil's, for are not the two of

us old friends?

Chapter Four

Nikhil's Story

III

I WAS never self-conscious. But nowadays I often try to take an

outside view--to see myself as Bimal sees me. What a dismally

solemn picture it makes, my habit of taking things too seriously!

Better, surely, to laugh away the world than flood it with tears.

That is, in fact, how the world gets on. We relish our food and

rest, only because we can dismiss, as so many empty shadows, the

sorrows scattered everywhere, both in the home and in the outer

world. If we took them as true, even for a moment, where would

be our appetite, our sleep?

But I cannot dismiss myself as one of these shadows, and so the

load of my sorrow lies eternally heavy on the heart of my world.

Why not stand out aloof in the highway of the universe, and feel

yourself to be part of the all? In the midst of the immense,

age-long concourse of humanity, what is Bimal to you? Your wife?

What is a wife? A bubble of a name blown big with your own

breath, so carefully guarded night and day, yet ready to burst at

any pin-prick from outside.

My wife--and so, forsooth, my very own! If she says: "No, I am

myself"--am I to reply: "How can that be? Are you not mine?"

"My wife"--Does that amount to an argument, much less the truth?

Can one imprison a whole personality within that name?

My wife!--Have I not cherished in this little world all that is

purest and sweetest in my life, never for a moment letting it

down from my bosom to the dust? What incense of worship, what

music of passion, what flowers of my spring and of my autumn,

have I not offered up at its shrine? If, like a toy paper-boat,

she be swept along into the muddy waters of the gutter--would I

not also... ?

There it is again, my incorrigible solemnity! Why "muddy"? What

"gutter" names, called in a fit of jealousy, do not change the

facts of the world. If Bimal is not mine, she is not; and no

fuming, or fretting, or arguing will serve to prove that she is.

If my heart is breaking--let it break! That will not make the

world bankrupt--nor even me; for man is so much greater than the

things he loses in this life. The very ocean of tears has its

other shore, else none would have ever wept.

But then there is Society to be considered ... which let Society

consider! If I weep it is for myself, not for Society. If Bimal

should say she is not mine, what care I where my Society wife may

be?

Suffering there must be; but I must save myself, by any means in

my power, from one form of self-torture: I must never think that

my life loses its value because of any neglect it may suffer.

The full value of my life does not all go to buy my narrow

domestic world; its great commerce does not stand or fall with

some petty success or failure in the bartering of my personal

joys and sorrows.

The time has come when I must divest Bimala of all the ideal

decorations with which I decked her. It was owing to my own

weakness that I indulged in such idolatry. I was too greedy. I

created an angel of Bimala, in order to exaggerate my own

enjoyment. But Bimala is what she is. It is preposterous to

expect that she should assume the r�le of an angel for my

pleasure. The Creator is under no obligation to supply me with

angels, just because I have an avidity for imaginary perfection.

I must acknowledge that I have merely been an accident in

Bimala's life. Her nature, perhaps, can only find true union

with one like Sandip. At the same time, I must not, in false

modesty, accept my rejection as my desert. Sandip certainly has

attractive qualities, which had their sway also upon myself; but

yet, I feel sure, he is not a greater man than I. If the wreath

of victory falls to his lot today, and I am overlooked, then the

dispenser of the wreath will be called to judgement.

I say this in no spirit of boasting. Sheer necessity has driven

me to the pass, that to secure myself from utter desolation I

must recognize all the value that I truly possess. Therefore,

through the, terrible experience of suffering let there come upon

me the joy of deliverance--deliverance from self-distrust.

I have come to distinguish what is really in me from what I

foolishly imagined to be there. The profit and loss account has

been settled, and that which remains is myself--not a crippled

self, dressed in rags and tatters, not a sick self to be nursed

on invalid diet, but a spirit which has gone through the worst,

and has survived.

My master passed through my room a moment ago and said with his

hand on my shoulder. "Get away to bed, Nikhil, the night is far

advanced."

The fact is, it has become so difficult for me to go to bed till

late--till Bimal is fast asleep. In the day-time we meet, and

even converse, but what am I to say when we are alone together,

in the silence of the night?--so ashamed do I feel in mind and

body.

"How is it, sir, you have not yet retired?" I asked in my turn.

My master smiled a little, as he left me, saying: "My sleeping

days are over. I have now attained the waking age."

I had written thus far, and was about to rise to go off bedwards

when, through the window before me, I saw the heavy pall of July

cloud suddenly part a little, and a big star shine through. It

seemed to say to me: "Dreamland ties are made, and dreamland ties

are broken, but I am here for ever--the everlasting lamp of the

bridal night."

All at once my heart was full with the thought that my Eternal

Love was steadfastly waiting for me through the ages, behind the

veil of material things. Through many a life, in many a mirror,

have I seen her image--broken mirrors, crooked mirrors, dusty

mirrors. Whenever I have sought to make the mirror my very own,

and shut it up within my box, I have lost sight of the image.

But what of that. What have I to do with the mirror, or even the

image?

My beloved, your smile shall never fade, and every dawn there

shall appear fresh for me the vermilion mark on your forehead!

"What childish cajolery of self-deception," mocks some devil from

his dark corner--"silly prattle to make children quiet!"

That may be. But millions and millions of children, with their

million cries, have to be kept quiet. Can it be that all this

multitude is quieted with only a lie? No, my Eternal Love cannot

deceive me, for she is true!

She is true; that is why I have seen her and shall see her so

often, even in my mistakes, even through the thickest mist of

tears. I have seen her and lost her in the crowd of life's

market-place, and found her again; and I shall find her once more

when I have escaped through the loophole of death.

Ah, cruel one, play with me no longer! If I have failed to track

you by the marks of your footsteps on the way, by the scent of

your tresses lingering in the air, make me not weep for that for

ever. The unveiled star tells me not to fear. That which is

eternal must always be there.

Now let me go and see my Bimala. She must have spread her tired

limbs on the bed, limp after her struggles, and be asleep. I

will leave a kiss on her forehead without waking her--that shall

be the flower-offering of my worship. I believe I could forget

everything after death--all my mistakes, all my sufferings--but

some vibration of the memory of that kiss would remain; for the

wreath which is being woven out of the kisses of many a

successive birth is to crown the Eternal Beloved.

As the gong of the watch rang out, sounding the hour of two, my

sister-in-law came into the room. "Whatever are you doing,

brother dear?" [16] she cried. "For pity's sake go to bed and

stop worrying so. I cannot bear to look on that awful shadow of

pain on your face." Tears welled up in her eyes and overflowed

as she entreated me thus.

I could not utter a word, but took the dust of her feet, as I

went off to bed.

When a relationship is established by marriage, or by mutual

understanding arising out of special friendship or affection, the

persons so related call each other in terms of such relationship,

and not by name. [Trans.].

Bimala's Story

VII

At first I suspected nothing, feared nothing; I simply felt

dedicated to my country. What a stupendous joy there was in this

unquestioning surrender. Verily had I realized how, in

thoroughness of self-destruction, man can find supreme bliss.

For aught I know, this frenzy of mine might have come to a

gradual, natural end. But Sandip Babu would not have it so, he

would insist on revealing himself. The tone of his voice became

as intimate as a touch, every look flung itself on its knees in

beggary. And, through it all, there burned a passion which in

its violence made as though it would tear me up by the roots, and

drag me along by the hair.

I will not shirk the truth. This cataclysmal desire drew me by

day and by night. It seemed desperately alluring--this making

havoc of myself. What a shame it seemed, how terrible, and yet

how sweet! Then there was my overpowering curiosity, to which

there seemed no limit. He of whom I knew but little, who never

could assuredly be mine, whose youth flared so vigorously in a

hundred points of flame--oh, the mystery