Stories from Tagore, Rabindranath Tagore [best english books to read .txt] 📗

Every one in the office was against me for doing so. The three thousand rupees is a small matter, but the shame of all this to me is a great matter. I will do one thing. I will give you the whole day to bring back this money. If you do so, I shall say nothing about it and I will keep you on in your post."

It was now eleven o'clock. Haralal with bent head went out of the office. The clerks began to discuss the affair with exultation.

"What can I do? What can I do?" Haralal repeated to himself, as he walked along like one dazed, the sun's heat pouring down upon him. At last his mind ceased to think at all about what could be done, but the mechanical walk went on without ceasing.

This city of Calcutta, which offered its shelter to thousands and thousands of men had become like a steel trap. He could see no way out. The whole body of people were conspiring to surround and hold him captive—this most insignificant of men, whom no one knew. Nobody had any special grudge against him, yet everybody was his enemy. The crowd passed by, brushing against him: the clerks of the offices were eating their lunch on the road side from their plates made of leaves: a tired wayfarer on the Maidan, under the shade of a tree, was lying with one hand beneath his head and one leg upraised over the other: The up-country women, crowded into hackney carriages, were wending their way to the temple: a chuprassie came up with a letter and asked him the address on the envelope,—so the afternoon went by.

Then came the time when the offices were all about to close. Carriages started off in all directions, carrying people back to their homes. The clerks, packed tightly on the seats of the trams, looked at the theatre advertisements as they returned to their lodgings. From to-day, Haralal had neither his work in the office, nor release from work in the evening. He had no need to hurry to catch the tram to take him to his home. All the busy occupations of the city—the buildings—the horses and carriages—the incessant traffic—seemed, now at one time, to swell into dreadful reality, and at another time, to subside into the shadowy unreal.

Haralal had taken neither food, nor rest, nor shelter all that day.

The street lamps were lighted from one road to another and it seemed to him that a watchful darkness, like some demon, was keeping its eyes wide open to guard every movement of its victim. Haralal did not even have the energy to enquire how late it was. The veins on his forehead throbbed, and he felt as if his head would burst. Through the paroxysms of pain, which alternated with the apathy of dejection, only one thought came again and again to his mind; among the innumerable multitudes in that vast city, only one name found its way through his dry throat,—"Mother!"

He said to himself, "At the deep of night, when no one is awake to capture me—me, who am the least of all men,—I will silently creep to my mother's arms and fall asleep, and may I never wake again!"

Haralal's one trouble was lest some police officer should molest him in the presence of his mother, and this kept him back from going home. When it became impossible for him at last to bear the weight of his own body, he hailed a carriage. The driver asked him where he wanted to go. He said: "Nowhere, I want to drive across the Maidan to get the fresh air." The man at first did not believe him and was about to drive on, when Haralal put a rupee into his hand as an advance payment. Thereupon the driver crossed, and then re-crossed, the Maidan from one side to the other, traversing the different roads.

Haralal laid his throbbing head on the side of the open window of the carriage and closed his eyes. Slowly all the pain abated. His body became cool. A deep and intense peace filled his heart and a supreme deliverance seemed to embrace him on every side. It was not true,—the day's despair which threatened him with its grip of utter helplessness. It was not true, it was false. He knew now that it was only an empty fear of the mind. Deliverance was in the infinite sky and there was no end to peace. No king or emperor in the world had the power to keep captive this nonentity, this Haralal. In the sky, surrounding his emancipated heart on every side, he felt the presence of his mother, that one poor woman. She seemed to grow and grow till she filled the infinity of darkness. All the roads and buildings and shops of Calcutta gradually became enveloped by her. In her presence vanished all the aching pains and thoughts and consciousness of Haralal. It burst,—that bubble filled with the hot vapour of pain. And now there was neither darkness nor light, but only one tense fulness.

The Cathedral clock struck one. The driver called out impatiently: "Babu, my horse can't go on any longer. Where do you want to go?"

There came no answer.

The driver came down and shook Haralal and asked him again where he wanted to go.

There came no answer.

And the answer was never received from Haralal, where he wanted to go.

WORDS TO BE STUDIED

broker. This word meant originally a "broacher," one who broached or made a hole in casks of wine to test their value for sale. Then it came to mean a middleman in a sale.

attorney. This word comes from the Old French "tourner" meaning to turn. The original sense of the word is "one who turns or transfers (property)," and thus it comes to mean one who is appointed to do legal business in the name of another. Compare the phrase "power of attorney."

mortgage. This comes from the two words "mort-" meaning "death" and "gage" meaning "pledge,"—a death pledge. It is used for the transfer of property as a pledge or guarantee that the debt will be paid. Compare mortuary, mortal, mortify, mortmain; also compare engage, disengage, wage, wager.

repulsed. From the Latin "puls-" meaning "to drive." This Latin root has another form "pel," also meaning "to drive." We have thus two series of words:—
repel, impel, compel, expel, dispel, and
repulse, impulse (noun), compulsion, expulsion.

amiability. This word comes from the Latin "amicus" friend and is the same in origin as "amicability." Compare amicable and amiable.

salary. This originally meant "salt-money" from the Latin "sal" meaning "salt." First, it meant the "salt-money" given to soldiers, then it meant a fixed pay. Compare the use of namak in India,—namak khānā,—which is somewhat similar.

liliputian. This word has come into the English language from a famous story book called "Gulliver's Travels." "Liliput" was a place where tiny people lived and "Brobdingnag" was a place where giants lived. These two words are therefore sometimes used, in an amusing manner, to represent respectively the land of dwarfs and the land of giants.

B.A. degree. These titles were originally used in the old medieval universities of Europe. The word "bachelor" was taken from its use in chivalry, where it meant a young knight not yet fully qualified or equipped. Then came the "Master," or fully qualified person. A secondary meaning of bachelor, which is now the most common, is "an unmarried person,"—a man not being considered fully qualified or equipped till he is married.

romance. This word has a very interesting history. The Latin language was the literary language of the South of Europe for many centuries and the vernacular languages were despised. The word for "vernacular" was "romanicus" as contrasted with "Latinus," i.e. Latin. The old folk stories of the Middle Ages were written in the vernacular or "romance" languages, and as these stories were strange and mysterious, the word romance became used for this kind of literature.

pathetic. From the Greek word "pathos" meaning "suffering." Compare pathos, sympathy, pathology, electropathy, allopathy, homœopathy.

dilapidated. From the Latin "lapis" meaning a "stone." It probably means to separate stone from stone. Compare lapidary, dilapidation.

intermediate. From the Latin "medius" meaning "middle." Compare mediate, immediate, medium, mediocrity, mediator.

police. From the Greek "polis" meaning a "city." Compare politics, policy, metropolis, politician.

barrister. From the word "bar." There was a bar in the law court, from which the lawyer pleaded his case. So the pleader was called a bar-ister. Compare the phrase "called to the Bar."

obstacle. From the Latin root "sta-" meaning to stand. Compare obstinate, station, status, statute, instant, distance, constant.

dastardly. A word of doubtful origin,—probably akin to the word "dazed."

reality. From the Latin word "res" meaning a "thing." Compare real, unreal, realize, republic, really, realization.

alternated. From the Latin "alter" meaning "other." Compare alteration, alternative, alter, altercate.

infinity. From the Latin "finis" meaning "end." Compare finish, finite, definite, confine.

SUBHA

VI

SUBHA

When the girl was given the name of Subhashini, who could have guessed that she would prove dumb? Her two elder sisters were Sukeshini and Suhasini, and for the sake of uniformity her father named his youngest girl Subhashini. She was called Subha for short.

Her two elder sisters had been married with the usual cost and difficulty, and now the youngest daughter lay like a silent weight upon the heart of her parents. All the world seemed to think that, because she did not speak, therefore she did not feel; it discussed her future and its own anxiety freely in her presence. She had understood from her earliest childhood that God had sent her like a curse to her father's house, so she withdrew herself from ordinary people and tried to live apart. If only they would all forget her she felt she could endure it. But who can forget pain? Night and day her parents' minds were aching on her account. Especially her mother looked upon her as a deformity in herself. To a mother a daughter is a more closely intimate part of herself than a son can be; and a fault in her is a source of personal shame. Banikantha, Subha's father, loved her rather better than his other daughters; her mother regarded her with aversion as a stain upon her own body.

If Subha lacked speech, she did not lack a pair of large dark eyes, shaded with long lashes; and her lips trembled like a leaf in response to any thought that rose in her mind.

When we express our thought in words, the medium is not found easily. There must be a process of translation, which is often inexact, and then we fall into error. But black eyes need no translating; the mind itself throws a shadow upon them. In them thought opens or shuts, shines forth or goes out in darkness, hangs steadfast like the setting moon or like the swift and restless lightning illumines