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

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desert sky--with no merciful moisture of its own, no colour

reflected, even, from what it looked upon. I should have been so

relieved if his anger had flashed out! But I could find nothing

in him which I could touch. I felt as unreal as a dream--a dream

which would leave only the blackness of night when it was over.

In the old days I used to be jealous of my sister-in-law for her

beauty. Then I used to feel that Providence had given me no

power of my own, that my whole strength lay in the love which my

husband had bestowed on me. Now that I had drained to the dregs

the cup of power and could not do without its intoxication, I

suddenly found it dashed to pieces at my feet, leaving me nothing

to live for.

How feverishly I had sat to do my hair that day. Oh, shame,

shame on me, the utter shame of it! My sister-in-law, when

passing by, had exclaimed: "Aha, Chota Rani! Your hair seems

ready to jump off. Don't let it carry your head with it."

And then, the other day in the garden, how easy my husband found

it to tell me that he set me free! But can freedom--empty

freedom--be given and taken so easily as all that? It is like

setting a fish free in the sky--for how can I move or live

outside the atmosphere of loving care which has always sustained

me?

When I came to my room today, I saw only furniture--only the

bedstead, only the looking-glass, only the clothes-rack--not the

all-pervading heart which used to be there, over all. Instead of

it there was freedom, only freedom, mere emptiness! A dried-up

watercourse with all its rocks and pebbles laid bare. No

feeling, only furniture!

When I had arrived at a state of utter bewilderment, wondering

whether anything true was left in my life, and whereabouts it

could be, I happened to meet Sandip again. Then life struck

against life, and the sparks flew in the same old way. Here was

truth--impetuous truth--which rushed in and overflowed all

bounds, truth which was a thousand times truer than the Bara Rani

with her maid, Thako and her silly songs, and all the rest of

them who talked and laughed and wandered about ...

"Fifty thousand!" Sandip had demanded.

"What is fifty thousand?" cried my intoxicated heart. "You

shall have it!"

How to get it, where to get it, were minor points not worth

troubling over. Look at me. Had I not risen, all in one moment,

from my nothingness to a height above everything? So shall all

things come at my beck and call. I shall get it, get it, get it

--there cannot be any doubt.

Thus had I come away from Sandip the other day. Then as I looked

about me, where was it--the tree of plenty? Oh, why does this

outer world insult the heart so?

And yet get it I must; how, I do not care; for sin there cannot

be. Sin taints only the weak; I with my Shakti am beyond

its reach. Only a commoner can be a thief, the king conquers and

takes his rightful spoil ... I must find out where the treasury

is; who takes the money in; who guards it.

I spent half the night standing in the outer verandah peering at

the row of office buildings. But how to get that fifty thousand

rupees out of the clutches of those iron bars? If by some

mantram I could have made all those guards fall dead in

their places, I would not have hesitated--so pitiless did I feel!

But while a whole gang of robbers seemed dancing a war-dance

within the whirling brain of its Rani, the great house of the

Rajas slept in peace. The gong of the watch sounded hour after

hour, and the sky overhead placidly looked on.

At last I sent for Amulya.

"Money is wanted for the Cause," I told him. "Can you not get it

out of the treasury?"

"Why not?" said he, with his chest thrown out.

Alas! had I not said "Why not?" to Sandip just in the same way?

The poor lad's confidence could rouse no hopes in my mind.

"How will you do it?" I asked.

The wild plans he began to unfold would hardly bear repetition

outside the pages of a penny dreadful.

"No, Amulya," I said severely, "you must not be childish."

"Very well, then," he said, "let me bribe those watchmen."

"Where is the money to come from?"

"I can loot the bazar," he burst out, without blenching.

"Leave all that alone. I have my ornaments, they will serve.

"But," said Amulya, "it strikes me that the cashier cannot be

bribed. Never mind, there is another and simpler way."

"What is that?"

"Why need you hear it? It is quite simple."

"Still, I should like to know."

Amulya fumbled in the pocket of his tunic and pulled out, first a

small edition of the Gita, which he placed on the table--

and then a little pistol, which he showed me, but said nothing

further.

Horror! It did not take him a moment to make up his mind to kill

our good old cashier! [23] To look at his frank, open face one

would not have thought him capable of hurting a fly, but how

different were the words which came from his mouth. It was clear

that the cashier's place in the world meant nothing real to him;

it was a mere vacancy, lifeless, feelingless, with only stock

phrases from the _Gita--Who kills the body kills naught! _

"Whatever do you mean, Amulya?" I exclaimed at length. "Don't

you know that the dear old man has got a wife and children and

that he is ..."

"Where are we to find men who have no wives and children?" he

interrupted. "Look here, Maharani, the thing we call pity is, at

bottom, only pity for ourselves. We cannot bear to wound our own

tender instincts, and so we do not strike at all--pity indeed!

The height of cowardice!"

To hear Sandip's phrases in the mouth of this mere boy staggered

me. So delightfully, lovably immature was he--of that age when

the good may still be believed in as good, of that age when one

really lives and grows. The Mother in me awoke.

For myself there was no longer good or bad--only death, beautiful

alluring death. But to hear this stripling calmly talk of

murdering an inoffensive old man as the right thing to do, made

me shudder all over. The more clearly I saw that there was no

sin in his heart, the more horrible appeared to me the sin of his

words. I seemed to see the sin of the parents visited on the

innocent child.

The sight of his great big eyes shining with faith and enthusiasm

touched me to the quick. He was going, in his fascination,

straight to the jaws of the python, from which, once in, there

was no return. How was he to be saved? Why does not my country

become, for once, a real Mother--clasp him to her bosom and cry

out: "Oh, my child, my child, what profits it that you should

save me, if so it be that I should fail to save you?"

I know, I know, that all Power on earth waxes great under compact

with Satan. But the Mother is there, alone though she be, to

contemn and stand against this devil's progress. The Mother

cares not for mere success, however great--she wants to give

life, to save life. My very soul, today, stretches out its hands

in yearning to save this child.

A while ago I suggested robbery to him. Whatever I may now say

against it will be put down to a woman's weakness. They only

love our weakness when it drags the world in its toils!

"You need do nothing at all, Amulya, I will see to the money," I

told him finally. When he had almost reached the door, I called

him back.

"Amulya," said I, "I am your elder sister. Today is not the

Brothers' Day [24] according to the calendar, but all the days in

the year are really Brothers' Days. My blessing be with you: may

God keep you always."

These unexpected words from my lips took Amulya by surprise. He

stood stock-still for a time. Then, coming to himself, he

prostrated himself at my feet in acceptance of the relationship

and did me reverence. When he rose his eyes were full of tears

... O little brother mine! I am fast going to my death--let me

take all your sin away with me. May no taint from me ever

tarnish your innocence!

I said to him: "Let your offering of reverence be that pistol!"

"What do you want with it, sister?"

"I will practise death."

"Right, sister. Our women, also, must know how to die, to deal

death!" with which Amulya handed me the pistol. The radiance of

his youthful countenance seemed to tinge my life with the touch

of a new dawn. I put away the pistol within my clothes. May

this reverence-offering be the last resource in my extremity ...

The door to the mother's chamber in my woman's heart once opened,

I thought it would always remain open. But this pathway to the

supreme good was closed when the mistress took the place of the

mother and locked it again. The very next day I saw Sandip; and

madness, naked and rampant, danced upon my heart.

What was this? Was this, then, my truer self? Never! I had

never before known this shameless, this cruel one within me. The

snake-charmer had come, pretending to draw this snake from within

the fold of my garment--but it was never there, it was his all

the time. Some demon has gained possession of me, and what I am

doing today is the play of his activity--it has nothing to do

with me.

This demon, in the guise of a god, had come with his ruddy torch

to call me that day, saying: "I am your Country. I am your

Sandip. I am more to you than anything else of yours. _Bande

Mataram_!" And with folded hands I had responded: "You are my

religion. You are my heaven. Whatever else is mine shall be

swept away before my love for you. Bande Mataram!"

Five thousand is it? Five thousand it shall be! You want it

tomorrow? Tomorrow you shall have it! In this desperate orgy,

that gift of five thousand shall be as the foam of wine--and then

for the riotous revel! The immovable world shall sway under our

feet, fire shall flash from our eyes, a storm shall roar in our

ears, what is or is not in front shall become equally dim. And

then with tottering footsteps we shall plunge to our death--in a

moment all fire will be extinguished, the ashes will be

scattered, and nothing will remain behind.

The cashier is the official who is most in touch with the

ladies of a zamindar's household, directly taking their

requisitions for household stores and doing their shopping for

them, and so he becomes more a member of the family than the

others. [Trans.].

The daughter of