Do you know how to die without flinching?
I do.
Then let the funeral fire be lighted for you! See, there lies the body of your husband.
Jivaji?
Yes, Jivaji. He was your husband by plighted troth. The baffled fire of the nuptial God has raged into the hungry fire of death, and the interrupted wedding shall be completed now.
Do not listen, my child. Go back to your son, to your own nest darkened with sorrow. My duty has been performed to its extreme cruel end, and nothing now remains for you to do.—Wife, your grief is fruitless. Were the branch dead which was violently snapped from our tree, I should give it to the fire. But it has sent living roots into a new soil and is bearing flowers and fruits. Allow her, without regret, to obey the laws of those among whom she has loved. Come, wife, it is time we cut all worldly ties and spent our remainder lives in the seclusion of some peaceful pilgrim shrine.
I am ready: but first must tread into dust every sprout of sin and shame that has sprung from the soil of our life. A daughter's infamy stains her mother's honour. That black shame shall feed glowing fire to-night, and raise a true wife's memorial over the ashes of my daughter.
Mother, if by force you unite me in death with one who was not my husband, then will you bring a curse upon yourself for desecrating the shrine of the Eternal Lord of Death.
Soldiers, light the fire; surround the woman!
Father!
Do not fear. Alas, my child, that you should ever have to call your father to save you from your mother's hands!
Father!
Come to me, my darling child! Mere vanity are these man-made laws, splashing like spray against the rock of heaven's ordinance. Bring your son to me, and we will live together, my daughter. A father's love, like God's rain, does not judge but is poured forth from an abounding source.
Where would you go? Turn back!—Soldiers, stand firm in your loyalty to your master Jivaji! do your last sacred duty by him!
Father!
Free her, soldiers! She is my daughter.
She is the widow of our master.
Her husband, though a Mussulman, was staunch in his own faith.
Soldiers, keep this old man under control!
I defy you, mother!—You, soldiers, I defy!—for through death and love I win to freedom.
30
A painter was selling pictures at the fair; followed by servants, there passed the son of a minister who in youth had cheated this painter's father so that he had died of a broken heart.
The boy lingered before the pictures and chose one for himself. The painter flung a cloth over it and said he would not sell it.
After this the boy pined heart-sick till his father came and offered a large price. But the painter kept the picture unsold on his shop-wall and grimly sat before it, saying to himself, "This is my revenge."
The sole form this painter's worship took was to trace an image of his god every morning.
And now he felt these pictures grow daily more different from those he used to paint.
This troubled him, and he sought in vain for an explanation till one day he started up from work in horror, the eyes of the god he had just drawn were those of the minister, and so were the lips.
He tore up the picture, crying, "My revenge has returned on my head!"
31
The General came before the silent and angry King and saluting him said: "The village is punished, the men are stricken to dust, and the women cower in their unlit homes afraid to weep aloud."
The High Priest stood up and blessed the King and cried: "God's mercy is ever upon you."
The Clown, when he heard this, burst out laughing and startled the court.The King's frown darkened.
"The honour of the throne," said the minister, "is upheld by the King's prowess and the blessing of Almighty God."
Louder laughed the Clown, and the King growled,—"Unseemly mirth!"
"God has showered many blessings upon your head," said the Clown; "the one he bestowed on me was the gift of laughter."
"This gift will cost you your life," said the King, gripping his sword with his right hand.
Yet the Clown stood up and laughed till he laughed no more.
A shadow of dread fell upon the Court, for they heard that laughter echoing in the depth of God's silence.
32
Prince Duryodhana, the son of the blind Kaurava King Dhritarashtra, and of Queen Gandhari, has played with his cousins the Pandava Kings for their kingdom, and won it by fraud.
You have compassed your end.
Success is mine!
Are you happy?
I am victorious.
I ask you again, what happiness have you in winning the undivided kingdom?
Sire, a Kshatriya thirsts not after happiness but victory, that fiery wine pressed from seething jealousy. Wretchedly happy we were, like those inglorious stains that lie idly on the breast of the moon, when we lived in peace under the friendly dominance of our cousins. Then these Pandavas milked the world of its wealth, and allowed us a share, in brotherly tolerance. Now that they own defeat and expect banishment, I am no longer happy but exultant.
Wretch, you forget that both Pandavas and Kauravas have the same forefathers.
It was difficult to forget that, and therefore our inequalities rankled in my heart. At midnight the moon is never jealous of the noonday sun. But the struggle to share one horizon between both orbs cannot last forever. Thank heaven, that struggle is over, and we have at last won solitude in glory.
The mean jealousy!
Jealousy is never mean—it is in the essence of greatness. Grass can grow in crowded amity, not giant trees. Stars live in clusters, but the sun and moon are lonely in their splendour. The pale moon of the Pandavas sets behind the forest shadows, leaving the new-risen sun of the Kauravas to rejoice.
But right has been defeated.
Right for rulers is not what is right in the eyes of the people. The people thrive by comradeship: but for a king, equals are enemies. They are obstacles ahead, they are terrors from behind. There is no place for brothers or friends in a king's polity; its one solid foundation is conquest.
I refuse to call a conquest what was won by fraud in gambling.
A man is not shamed by refusing to challenge a tiger on equal terms with teeth and nails. Our weapons are those proper for success, not for suicide. Father, I am proud of the result and disdain regret for the means.
But justice——
Fools alone dream of justice—success is not yet theirs: but those born to rule rely on power, merciless and unhampered with scruples.
Your success will bring down on you a loud and angry flood of detraction.
The people will take amazingly little time to learn that Duryodhana is king and has power to crush calumny under foot.
Calumny dies of weariness dancing on tongue-tips. Do not drive it into the heart to gather strength.
Unuttered defamation does not touch a king's dignity. I care not if love is refused us, but insolence shall not be borne. Love depends upon the will of the giver, and the poorest of the poor can indulge in such generosity. Let them squander it on their pet cats, tame dogs, and our good cousins the Pandavas. I shall never envy them. Fear is the tribute I claim for my royal throne. Father, only too leniently you lent your ear to those who slandered your sons: but if you intend still to allow those pious friends of yours to revel in shrill denunciation at the expense of your children, let us exchange our kingdom for the exile of our cousins, and go to the wilderness, where happily friends are never cheap!
Could the pious warnings of my friends lessen my love for my sons, then we might be saved. But I have dipped my hands in the mire of your infamy and lost my sense of goodness. For your sakes I have heedlessly set fire to the ancient forest of our royal lineage—so dire is my love. Clasped breast to breast, we, like a double meteor, are blindly plunging into ruin. Therefore doubt not my love; relax not your embrace till the brink of annihilation be reached. Beat your drums of victory, lift your banner of triumph. In this mad riot of exultant evil, brothers and friends will disperse till nothing remain save the doomed father, the doomed son and God's curse.
Enter an Attendant
Sire, Queen Gandhari asks for audience.
I await her.
Let me take my leave. [Exit.
Fly! For you cannot bear the fire of your mother's presence.
EnterQUEEN GANDHARI,the mother ofDURYODHANA
At your feet I crave a boon.
Speak, your wish is fulfilled.
The time has come to renounce him.
Whom, my queen?
Duryodhana!
Our own son, Duryodhana?
Yes!
This is a terrible boon for you, his mother, to crave!
The fathers of the Kauravas, who are in Paradise, join me in beseeching you.
The divine Judge will punish him who has broken His laws. But I am his father.
Am I not his mother? Have I not carried him under my throbbing heart? Yes,I ask you to renounce Duryodhana the unrighteous.
What will remain to us after that?
God's blessing.
And what will that bring us?
New afflictions. Pleasure in our son's presence, pride in a new kingdom, and shame at knowing both purchased by wrong done or connived at, like thorns dragged two ways, would lacerate our bosoms. The Pandavas are too proud ever to accept back from us the lands which they have relinquished; therefore it is only meet that we draw some great sorrow down on our heads so as to deprive that unmerited reward of its sting.
Queen, you inflict fresh pain on a heart already rent.
Sire, the punishment imposed on our son will be more ours than his. A judge callous to the pain that he inflicts loses the right to judge. And if you spare your son to save yourself pain, then all the culprits ever punished by your hands will cry before God's throne for vengeance,—had they not also their fathers?
No more of this, Queen, I pray you. Our son is abandoned of God: that is why I cannot give him up. To save him is no longer in my power, and therefore my consolation is to share his guilt and tread the path of destruction, his solitary companion. What is done is done; let follow what must follow! [Exit.
Be calm, my heart, and patiently await God's judgment. Oblivious night wears on, the morning of reckoning nears, I hear the thundering roar of its chariot. Woman, bow your head down to the dust! and as a sacrifice fling your heart under those wheels! Darkness will shroud the sky, earth will tremble, wailing will rend the air and then comes the silent and cruel end,—that terrible peace, that great forgetting, and awful extinction of hatred—the supreme deliverance rising from the fire of death.
33
Fiercely they rend in pieces the carpet woven during ages of prayer for the welcome of the world's best hope.
The great preparations of love lie a heap of shreds, and there is nothing on the ruined altar to remind the mad crowd that their god was to have come. In a fury of passion they seem to have burnt their future to cinders, and with it the season of their bloom.
The air is harsh with the cry, "Victory to the Brute!" The children look haggard and aged; they whisper to one another that time revolves but never advances, that we are goaded to run but have nothing to reach, that creation is like a blind man's groping.
I said to myself, "Cease thy singing. Song is for one who is to come, the struggle without an end is for things that are."
The road, that ever lies along like some one with ear to the ground listening for footsteps, to-day gleans no hint of coming guest, nothing of the house at its far end.
My lute said, "Trample me in the dust."
I looked at the dust by the roadside. There was a tiny flower among thorns.And I cried, "The world's hope is not dead!"
The sky stooped over the horizon to whisper to the earth, and a hush of expectation filled the air. I saw the palm leaves clapping their hands to the beat of inaudible music, and the moon exchanged glances with the glistening silence of the lake.
The road said to me, "Fear nothing!" and my lute said, "Lend me thy songs!"
34
[Footnote 1: The Bauls are a sect of religious mendicants in Bengal, unlettered and unconventional, whose songs are loved and sung by the people. The literal meaning of the word "Baul" is "the Mad."]
1
This longing to meet in the play of love, my Lover, is not only mine but yours.
Your lips can smile, your flute make music, only through delight in my love; therefore you are importunate even as I.
2
I sit here on the road; do not ask me to walk further.
If your love can be complete without mine let me turn back from seeking you.
I refuse to beg a sight of you if you do not feel my need.
I am blind with market dust and mid-day glare, and so wait, in hopes that your heart, my heart's lover, will send you to find me.
3
I am poured forth in living notes of joy and sorrow by your breath.
Mornings and evenings in summer and in rains, I am fashioned to music.
Should I be wholly spent in some flight of song, I shall not grieve, the tune is so dear to me.
4
My heart is a flute he has played on. If ever it fall into other hands let him fling it away.
My lover's flute is dear to him, therefore if to-day alien breath have entered it and sounded strange notes, let him break it to pieces and strew the dust with them.
5
In love the aim is neither pain nor pleasure but love only.
While free love binds, division destroys it, for love is what unites.
Love is lit from love as fire from fire, but whence came the first flame?
In your being it leaps under the rod of pain.
Then, when the hidden fire flames forth, the in and the out are one and all barriers fall in ashes.
Let the pain glow fiercely, burst from the heart and beat back darkness, need you be afraid?
The poet says, "Who can buy love without paying its price? When you fail to give yourself you make the whole world miserly."
6
Eyes see only dust and earth, but feel with the heart, and know pure joy.
The delights blossom on all sides in every form, but where is your heart's thread to make a wreath of them?
My master's flute sounds through all things, drawing me out of my lodgings wherever they may be, and while I listen I know that every step I take is in my master's house.
For he is the sea, he is the river that leads to the sea, and he is the landing-place.
7
Strange ways has my guest.
He comes at times when I am unprepared, yet how can I refuse him?
I watch all night with lighted lamp; he stays away; when the light goes out and the room is bare he comes claiming his seat, and can I keep him waiting?
I laugh and make merry with friends, then suddenly I start up, for lo! he passes me by in sorrow, and I know my mirth was vain.
I have often seen a smile in his eyes when my heart ached, then I knew my sorrow was not real.
Yet I never complain when I do not understand him.
8
I am the boat, you are the sea, and also the boatman.
Though you never make the shore, though you let me sink, why should I be foolish and afraid?
Is reaching the shore a greater prize than losing myself with you?
If you are only the haven, as they say, then what is the sea?
Let it surge and toss me on its waves, I shall be content.
I live in you whatever and however you appear. Save me or kill me as you wish, only never leave me in other hands.
9
Make way, O bud, make way, burst open thy heart and make way.
The opening spirit has overtaken thee, canst thou remain a bud any longer?
1
Come, Spring, reckless lover of the earth, make the forest's heart pant for utterance!
Come in gusts of disquiet where flowers break open and jostle the new leaves!
Burst, like a rebellion of light, through the night's vigil, through the lake's dark dumbness, through the dungeon under the dust, proclaiming freedom to the shackled seeds!
Like the laughter of lightning, like the shout of a storm, break into the midst of the noisy town; free stifled word and unconscious effort, reinforce our flagging fight, and conquer death!
2
I have looked on this picture in many a month of March when the mustard is in bloom—this lazy line of the water and the grey of the sand beyond, the rough path along the river-bank carrying the comradeship of the field into the heart of the village.
I have tried to capture in rhyme the idle whistle of the wind, the beat of the oar-strokes from a passing boat.
I have wondered in my mind how simply it stands before me, this great world: with what fond and familiar ease it fills my heart, this encounter with the Eternal Stranger.
3
The ferry-boat plies between the two villages facing each other across the narrow stream.
The water is neither wide nor deep—a mere break in the path that enhances the small adventures of daily life, like a break in the words of a song across which the tune gleefully streams.
While the towers of wealth rise high and crash to ruin, these villages talk to each other across the garrulous stream, and the ferry-boat plies between them, age after age, from seed-time to harvest.
4
In the evening after they have brought their cattle home, they sit on the grass before their huts to know that you are among them unseen, to repeat in their songs the name which they have fondly given you.
While kings' crowns shine and disappear like falling stars, around village huts your name rises through the still night from the simple hearts of your lovers whose names are unrecorded.
5
In Baby's world, the trees shake their leaves at him, murmuring verses in an ancient tongue that dates from before the age of meaning, and the moon feigns to be of his own age—the solitary baby of night.
In the world of the old, flowers dutifully blush at the make-believe of faery legends, and broken dolls confess that they are made of clay.
6
My world, when I was a child, you were a little girl-neighbour, a loving timid stranger.
Then you grew bold and talked to me across the fence, offering me toys and flowers and shells.
Next you coaxed me away from my work, you tempted me into the land of the dusk or the weedy corner of some garden in mid-day loneliness.
At length you told me stories about bygone times, with which the present ever longs to meet so as to be rescued from its prison in the moment.
7
How often, great Earth, have I felt my being yearn to flow over you, sharing in the happiness of each green blade that raises its signal banner in answer to the beckoning blue of the sky!
I feel as if I had belonged to you ages before I was born. That is why, in the days when the autumn light shimmers on the mellowing ears of rice, I seem to remember a past when my mind was everywhere, and even to hear voices as of playfellows echoing from the remote and deeply veiled past.
When, in the evening, the cattle return to their folds, raising dust from the meadow paths, as the moon rises higher than the smoke ascending from the village huts, I feel sad as for some great separation that happened in the first morning of existence.
8
My mind still buzzed with the cares of a busy day; I sat on without noting how twilight was deepening into dark. Suddenly light stirred across the gloom and touched me as with a finger.
I lifted my head and met the gaze of the full moon widened in wonder like a child's. It held my eyes for long, and I felt as though a love-letter had been secretly dropped in at my window. And ever since my heart is breaking to write for answer something fragrant as Night's unseen flowers—great as her declaration spelt out in nameless stars.
9
The clouds thicken till the morning light seems like a bedraggled fringe to the rainy night.
A little girl stands at her window, still as a rainbow at the gate of a broken-down storm.
She is my neighbour, and has come upon the earth like some god's rebellious laughter. Her mother in anger calls her incorrigible; her father smiles and calls her mad.
She is like a runaway waterfall leaping over boulders, like the topmost bamboo twig rustling in the restless wind.
She stands at her window looking out into the sky.
Her sister comes to say, "Mother calls you." She shakes her head.
Her little brother with his toy boat comes and tries to pull her off to play; she snatches her hand from his. The boy persists and she gives him a slap on the back.
The first great voice was the voice of wind and water in the beginning of earth's creation.
That ancient cry of nature—her dumb call to unborn life—has reached this child's heart and leads it out alone beyond the fence of our times: so there she stands, possessed by eternity!
10
The kingfisher sits still on the prow of an empty boat, while in the shallow margin of the stream a buffalo lies tranquilly blissful, its eyes half closed to savour the luxury of cool mud.
Undismayed by the barking of the village cur, the cow browses on the bank, followed by a hopping group ofsalikshunting moths.
I sit in the tamarind grove, where the cries of dumb life congregate—the cattle's lowing, the sparrows' chatter, the shrill scream of a kite overhead, the crickets' chirp, and the splash of a fish in the water.
I peep into the primeval nursery of life, where the mother Earth thrills at the first living clutch near her breast.
11
At the sleepy village the noon was still like a sunny midnight when my holidays came to their end.
My little girl of four had followed me all the morning from room to room, watching my preparations in grave silence, till, wearied, she sat by the doorpost strangely quiet, murmuring to herself, "Father must not go!"
This was the meal hour, when sleep daily overcame her, but her mother had forgotten her and the child was too unhappy to complain.
At last, when I stretched out my arms to her to say farewell, she never moved, but sadly looking at me said, "Father, you must not go!"
And it amused me to tears to think how this little child dared to fight the giant world of necessity with no other resource than those few words, "Father, you must not go!"
12
Take your holiday, my boy; there are the blue sky and the bare field, the barn and the ruined temple under the ancient tamarind.
My holiday must be taken through yours, finding light in the dance of your eyes, music in your noisy shouts.
To you autumn brings the true holiday freedom: to me it brings the impossibility of work; for lo! you burst into my room.
Yes, my holiday is an endless freedom for love to disturb me.
13
In the evening my little daughter heard a call from her companions below the window.
She timidly went down the dark stairs holding a lamp in her hand, shielding it behind her veil.
I was sitting on my terrace in the star-lit night of March, when at a sudden cry I ran to see.
Her lamp had gone out in the dark spiral staircase. I asked, "Child, why did you cry?"
From below she answered in distress, "Father, I have lost myself!"
When I came back to the terrace under the star-lit night of March, I looked at the sky, and it seemed that a child was walking there treasuring many lamps behind her veils.
If their light went out, she would suddenly stop and a cry would sound from sky to sky, "Father, I have lost myself!"
14
The evening stood bewildered among street lamps, its gold tarnished by the city dust.
A woman, gaudily decked and painted, leant over the rail of her balcony, a living fire waiting for its moths.
Suddenly an eddy was formed in the road round a street-boy crushed under the wheels of a carriage, and the woman on the balcony fell to the floor screaming in agony, stricken with the grief of the great white-robed Mother who sits in the world's inner shrine.
15
I remember the scene on the barren heath—a girl sat alone on the grass before the gipsy camp, braiding her hair in the afternoon shade.
Her little dog jumped and barked at her busy hands, as though her employment had no importance.
In vain did she rebuke it, calling it "a pest," saying she was tired of its perpetual silliness.
She struck it on the nose with her reproving forefinger, which only seemed to delight it the more.
She looked menacingly grave for a few moments, to warn it of impending doom; and then, letting her hair fall, quickly snatched it up in her arms, laughed, and pressed it to her heart.
16
He is tall and lean, withered to the bone with long repeated fever, like a dead tree unable to draw a single drop of sap from anywhere.
In despairing patience, his mother carries him like a child into the sun, where he sits by the roadside in the shortening shadows of each forenoon.
The world passes by—a woman to fetch water, a herd-boy with cattle to pasture, a laden cart to the distant market—and the mother hopes that some least stir of life may touch the awful torpor of her dying son.
17
If the ragged villager, trudging home from the market, could suddenly be lifted to the crest of a distant age, men would stop in their work and shout and run to him in delight.
For they would no longer whittle down the man into the peasant, but find him full of the mystery and spirit of his age.
Even his poverty and pain would grow great, released from the shallow insult of the present, and the paltry things in his basket would acquire pathetic dignity.
18
With the morning he came out to walk a road shaded by a file of deodars, that coiled the hill round like importunate love.
He held the first letter from his newly wedded wife in their village home, begging him to come to her, and come soon.
The touch of an absent hand haunted him as he walked, and the air seemed to take up the cry of the letter: "Love, my love, my sky is brimming with tears!"
He asked himself in wonder, "How do I deserve this?"
The sun suddenly appeared over the rim of the blue hills, and four girls from a foreign shore came with swift strides, talking loud and followed by a barking dog.
The two elder turned away to conceal their amusement at something strange in his insignificance, and the younger ones pushed each other, laughed aloud, and ran off in exuberant mirth.
He stopped and his head sank. Then he suddenly felt his letter, opened and read it again.
19
The day came for the image from the temple to be drawn round the holy town in its chariot.
The Queen said to the King, "Let us go and attend the festival."
Only one man out of the whole household did not join in the pilgrimage. His work was to collect stalks of spear-grass to make brooms for the King's house.
The chief of the servants said in pity to him, "You may come with us."
He bowed his head, saying, "It cannot be."
The man dwelt by the road along which the King's followers had to pass. And when the Minister's elephant reached this spot, he called to him and said, "Come with us and see the God ride in his chariot!"
"I dare not seek God after the King's fashion," said the man.
"How should you ever have such luck again as to see the God in his chariot?" asked the Minister.
"When God himself comes to my door," answered the man.
The Minister laughed loud and said, "Fool! 'When God comes to your door!' yet a King must travel to see him!"
"Who except God visits the poor?" said the man.
20
Days were drawing out as the winter ended, and, in the sun, my dog played in his wild way with the pet deer.
The crowd going to the market gathered by the fence, and laughed to see the love of these playmates struggle with languages so dissimilar.
The spring was in the air, and the young leaves fluttered like flames. A gleam danced in the deer's dark eyes when she started, bent her neck at the movement of her own shadow, or raised her ears to listen to some whisper in the wind.
The message comes floating with the errant breeze, with the rustle and glimmer abroad in the April sky. It sings of the first ache of youth in the world, when the first flower broke from the bud, and love went forth seeking that which it knew not, leaving all it had known.
And one afternoon, when among theamlaktrees the shadow grew grave and sweet with the furtive caress of light, the deer set off to run like a meteor in love with death.
It grew dark, and lamps were lighted in the house; the stars came out and night was upon the fields, but the deer never came back.
My dog ran up to me whining, questioning me with his piteous eyes which seemed to say, "I do not understand!"
But who does ever understand?
21
Our Lane is tortuous, as if, ages ago, she started in quest of her goal, vacillated right and left, and remained bewildered for ever.
Above in the air, between her buildings, hangs like a ribbon a strip torn out of space: she calls it her sister of the blue town.
She sees the sun only for a few moments at mid-day, and asks herself in wise doubt, "Is it real?"
In June rain sometimes shades her band of daylight as with pencil hatchings. The path grows slippery with mud, and umbrellas collide. Sudden jets of water from spouts overhead splash on her startled pavement. In her dismay, she takes it for the jest of an unmannerly scheme of creation.
The spring breeze, gone astray in her coil of contortions, stumbles like a drunken vagabond against angle and corner, filling the dusty air with scraps of paper and rag. "What fury of foolishness! Are the Gods gone mad?" she exclaims in indignation.
But the daily refuse from the houses on both sides—scales of fish mixed with ashes, vegetable peelings, rotten fruit, and dead rats—never rouse her to question, "Why should these things be?"
She accepts every stone of her paving. But from between their chinks sometimes a blade of grass peeps up. That baffles her. How can solid facts permit such intrusion?
On a morning when at the touch of autumn light her houses wake up into beauty from their foul dreams, she whispers to herself, "There is a limitless wonder somewhere beyond these buildings."
But the hours pass on; the households are astir; the maid strolls back from the market, swinging her right arm and with the left clasping the basket of provisions to her side; the air grows thick with the smell and smoke of kitchens. It again becomes clear to our Lane that the real and normal consist solely of herself, her houses, and their muck-heaps.
22
The house, lingering on after its wealth has vanished, stands by the wayside like a madman with a patched rag over his back.
Day after day scars it with spiteful scratches, and rainy months leave their fantastic signatures on its bared bricks.
In a deserted upper room one of a pair of doors has fallen from rusty hinges; and the other, widowed, bangs day and night to the fitful gusts.
One night the sound of women wailing came from that house. They mourned the death of the last son of the family, a boy of eighteen, who earned his living by playing the part of the heroine in a travelling theatre.
A few days more and the house became silent, and all the doors were locked.
Only on the north side in the upper room that desolate door would neither drop off to its rest nor be shut, but swung to and fro in the wind like a self-torturing soul.
After a time children's voices echo once more through that house. Over the balcony-rail women's clothes are hung in the sun, a bird whistles from a covered cage, and a boy plays with his kite on the terrace.
A tenant has come to occupy a few rooms. He earns little and has many children. The tired mother beats them and they roll on the floor and shriek.
A maid-servant of forty drudges through the day, quarrels with her mistress, threatens to, but never leaves.
Every day some small repairs are done. Paper is pasted in place of missing panes; gaps in the railings are made good with split bamboo; an empty box keeps the boltless gate shut; old stains vaguely show through new whitewash on the walls.
The magnificence of wealth had found a fitting memorial in gaunt desolation; but, lacking sufficient means, they try to hide this with dubious devices, and its dignity is outraged.
They have overlooked the deserted room on the north side. And its forlorn door still bangs in the wind, like Despair beating her breast.
23
In the depths of the forest the ascetic practised penance with fast-closed eyes; he intended to deserve Paradise.
But the girl who gathered twigs brought him fruits in her skirt, and water from the stream in cups made of leaves.
The days went on, and his penance grew harsher till the fruits remained untasted, the water untouched: and the girl who gathered twigs was sad.
The Lord of Paradise heard that a man had dared to aspire to be as the Gods. Time after time he had fought the Titans, who were his peers, and kept them out of his kingdom; yet he feared a man whose power was that of suffering.
But he knew the ways of mortals, and he planned a temptation to decoy this creature of dust away from his adventure.
A breath from Paradise kissed the limbs of the girl who gathered twigs, and her youth ached with a sudden rapture of beauty, and her thoughts hummed like the bees of a rifled hive.
The time came when the ascetic should leave the forest for a mountain cave, to complete the rigour of his penance.
When he opened his eyes in order to start on this journey, the girl appeared to him like a verse familiar, yet forgotten, and which an added melody made strange. The ascetic rose from his seat and told her that it was time he left the forest.
"But why rob me of my chance to serve you?" she asked with tears in her eyes.
He sat down again, thought for long, and remained on where he was.
That night remorse kept the girl awake. She began to dread her power and hate her triumph, yet her mind tossed on the waves of turbulent delight.
In the morning she came and saluted the ascetic and asked his blessing, saying she must leave him.
He gazed on her face in silence, then said, "Go, and may your wish be fulfilled."
For years he sat alone till his penance was complete.
The Lord of the Immortals came down to tell him that he had won Paradise.
"I no longer need it," said he.
The God asked him what greater reward he desired.
"I want the girl who gathers twigs."
24
They said that Kabir, the weaver, was favoured of God, and the crowd flocked round him for medicine and miracles. But he was troubled; his low birth had hitherto endowed him with a most precious obscurity to sweeten with songs and with the presence of his God. He prayed that it might be restored.
Envious of the repute of this outcast, the priests leagued themselves with a harlot to disgrace him. Kabir came to the market to sell cloths from his loom; when the woman grasped his hand, blaming him for being faithless, and followed him to his house, saying she would not be forsaken, Kabir said to himself, "God answers prayers in his own way."
Soon the woman felt a shiver of fear and fell on her knees and cried, "Save me from my sin!" To which he said, "Open your life to God's light!"
Kabir worked at his loom and sang, and his songs washed the stains from that woman's heart, and by way of return found a home in her sweet voice.
One day the King, in a fit of caprice, sent a message to Kabir to come and sing before him. The weaver shook his head: but the messenger dared not leave his door till his master's errand was fulfilled.
The King and his courtiers started at the sight of Kabir when he entered the hall. For he was not alone, the woman followed him. Some smiled, some frowned, and the King's face darkened at the beggar's pride and shamelessness.
Kabir came back to his house disgraced, the woman fell at his feet crying, "Why accept such dishonour for my sake, master? Suffer me to go back to my infamy!"
Kabir said, "I dare not turn my God away when he comes branded with insult."
25
The shade ofKING SOMAKA,faring to Heaven in a chariot, passes other shades by the roadside, among them that ofRITVIK,his former high-priest.
Where would you go, King?
Whose voice is that? This turbid air is like suffocation to the eyes; I cannot see.
Come down, King! Come down from that chariot bound for Heaven.
Who are you?
I am Ritvik, who in my earthly life was your preceptor and the chief priest of your house.
Master, all the tears of the world seem to have become vapour to create this realm of vagueness. What make you here?
This hell lies hard by the road to Heaven, whence lights glimmer dimly, only to prove unapproachable. Day and night we listen to the heavenly chariot rumbling by with travellers for that region of bliss; it drives sleep from our eyes and forces them to watch in fruitless jealousy. Far below us earth's old forests rustle and her seas chant the primal hymn of creation: they sound like the wail of a memory that wanders void space in vain.
Come down, King!
Stop a few moments among us. The earth's tears still cling about you, like dew on freshly culled flowers. You have brought with you the mingled odours of meadow and forest; reminiscence of children, women, and comrades; something too of the ineffable music of the seasons.
Master, why are you doomed to live in this muffled stagnant world?
I offered up your son in the sacrificial fire:thatsin has lodged my soul in this obscurity.
King, tell us the story, we implore you; the recital of crime can still bring life's fire into our torpor.
I was named Somaka, the King of Videha. After sacrificing at innumerable shrines weary year on year, a son was born to my house in my old age, love for whom, like a sudden untimely flood, swept consideration for everything else from my life. He hid me completely, as a lotus hides its stem. The neglected duties of a king piled up in shame before my throne. One day, in my audience hall, I heard my child cry from his mother's room, and instantly rushed away, vacating my throne.
Just then, it chanced, I entered the hall to give him my daily benediction; in blind haste he brushed me aside and enkindled my anger. When later he came back, shame-faced, I asked him: "King, what desperate alarm could draw you at the busiest hour of the day to the women's apartments, so as to desert your dignity and duty—ambassadors come from friendly courts, the aggrieved who ask for justice, your ministers waiting to discuss matters of grave import? and even lead you to slight a Brahmin's blessing?"
At first my heart flamed with anger; the next moment I trampled it down like the raised head of a snake and meekly replied: "Having only one child, I have lost my peace of mind. Forgive me this once, and I promise that in future the father's infatuation shall never usurp the King."
But my heart was bitter with resentment, and I said, "If you must be delivered from the curse of having only one child, I can show you the way. But so hard is it that I feel certain you will fail to follow it." This galled the King's pride and he stood up and exclaimed, "I swear, by all that is sacred, as a Kshatriya and a King, I will not shrink, but perform whatever you may ask, however hard." "Then listen," said I. "Light a sacrificial fire, offer up your son: the smoke that rises will bring you progeny, as the clouds bring rain." The King bowed his head upon his breast and remained silent: the courtiers shouted their horror, the Brahmins clapped their hands over their ears, crying, "Sin it is both to utter and listen to such words." After some moments of bewildered dismay the King calmly said, "I will abide by my promise." The day came, the fire was lit, the town was emptied of its people, the child was called for; but the attendants refused to obey, the soldiers rebelliously went off duty, throwing down their arms. Then I, who in my wisdom had soared far above all weakness of heart and to whom emotions were illusory, went myself to the apartment where, with their arms, women fenced the child like a flower surrounded by the menacing branches of a tree. He saw me and stretched out eager hands and struggled to come to me, for he longed to be free from the love that imprisoned him. Crying, "I am come to give you true deliverance," I snatched him by force from his fainting mother and his nurses wailing in despair. With quivering tongues the fire licked the sky and the King stood beside it, still and silent, like a tree struck dead by lightning. Fascinated by the godlike splendour of the blaze, the child babbled in glee and danced in my arms, impatient to seek an unknown nurse in the free glory of those flames.
Stop, no more, I pray!
Ritvik, your presence is a disgrace to hell itself!
This is no place for you, King! nor have you deserved to be forced to listen to this recital of a deed which makes hell shudder in pity.
Drive off in your chariot!—Brahmin, my place is by you in this hell. The Gods may forget my sin, but can I forget the last look of agonised surprise on my child's face when, for one terrible moment, he realised that his own father had betrayed his trust?
EnterDHARMA,the Judge of Departed Spirits
King, Heaven waits for you.
No, not for me. I killed my own child.
Your sin has been swept away in the fury of pain it caused you.
No, King, you must never go to Heaven alone, and thus create a second hell for me, to burn both with fire and with hatred of you! Stay here!
I will stay.
And crown the despair and inglorious suffering of hell with the triumph of a soul!
26
The man had no useful work, only vagaries of various kinds.
Therefore it surprised him to find himself in Paradise after a life spent perfecting trifles.
Now the guide had taken him by mistake to the wrong Paradise—one meant only for good, busy souls.
In this Paradise, our man saunters along the road only to obstruct the rush of business.
He stands aside from the path and is warned that he tramples on sown seed.Pushed, he starts up: hustled, he moves on.
A very busy girl comes to fetch water from the well. Her feet run on the pavement like rapid fingers over harp-strings. Hastily she ties a negligent knot with her hair, and loose locks on her forehead pry into the dark of her eyes.
The man says to her, "Would you lend me your pitcher?"
"My pitcher?" she asks, "to draw water?"
"No, to paint patterns on."
"I have no time to waste," the girl retorts in contempt.
Now a busy soul has no chance against one who is supremely idle.
Every day she meets him at the well, and every day he repeats the same request, till at last she yields.
Our man paints the pitcher with curious colours in a mysterious maze of lines.
The girl takes it up, turns it round and asks, "What does it mean?"
"It has no meaning," he answers.
The girl carries the pitcher home. She holds it up in different lights and tries to con its mystery.
At night she leaves her bed, lights a lamp, and gazes at it from all points of view.
This is the first time she has met with something without meaning.
On the next day the man is again near the well.
The girl asks, "What do you want?"
"To do more work for you."
"What work?" she enquires.
"Allow me to weave coloured strands into a ribbon to bind your hair."
"Is there any need?" she asks.
"None whatever," he allows.
The ribbon is made, and thence-forward she spends a great deal of time over her hair.
The even stretch of well-employed time in that Paradise begins to show irregular rents.
The elders are troubled; they meet in council.
The guide confesses his blunder, saying that he has brought the wrong man to the wrong place.
The wrong man is called. His turban, flaming with colour, shows plainly how great that blunder has been.
The chief of the elders says, "You must go back to the earth."
The man heaves a sigh of relief: "I am ready."
The girl with the ribbon round her hair chimes in: "I also!"
For the first time the chief of the elders is faced with a situation which has no sense in it.
27
It is said that in the forest, near the meeting of river and lake, certain fairies live in disguise who are only recognised as fairies after they have flown away.
A Prince went to this forest, and when he came where river met lake he saw a village girl sitting on the bank ruffling the water to make the lilies dance.
He asked her in a whisper, "Tell me, what fairy art thou?"
The girl laughed at the question and the hillsides echoed her mirth.
The Prince thought she was the laughing fairy of the waterfall.
News reached the King that the Prince had married a fairy: he sent horses and men and brought them to his house.
The Queen saw the bride and turned her face away in disgust, the Prince's sister flushed red with annoyance, and the maids asked if that was how fairies dressed.
The Prince whispered, "Hush! my fairy has come to our house in disguise."
On the day of the yearly festival the Queen said to her son, "Ask your bride not to shame us before our kinsfolk who are coming to see the fairy."
And the Prince said to his bride, "For my love's sake show thy true self to my people."
Long she sat silent, then nodded her promise while tears ran down her cheeks.
The full moon shone, the Prince, dressed in a wedding robe, entered his bride's room.
No one was there, nothing but a streak of moonlight from the window aslant the bed.
The kinsfolk crowded in with the King and the Queen, the Prince's sister stood by the door.
All asked, "Where is the fairy bride?"
The Prince answered, "She has vanished for ever to make herself known to you."
28
The Pandava Queen Kunti before marriage had a son, Karna, who, in manhood, became the commander of the Kaurava host. To hide her shame she abandoned him at birth, and a charioteer, Adhiratha, brought him up as his son.
I am Karna, the son of the charioteer, Adhiratha, and I sit here by the bank of holy Ganges to worship the setting sun. Tell me who you are.
I am the woman who first made you acquainted with that light you are worshipping.
I do not understand: but your eyes melt my heart as the kiss of the morning sun melts the snow on a mountain-top, and your voice rouses a blind sadness within me of which the cause may well lie beyond the reach of my earliest memory. Tell me, strange woman, what mystery binds my birth to you?
Patience, my son. I will answer when the lids of darkness come down over the prying eyes of day. In the meanwhile, know that I am Kunti.
Kunti! The mother of Arjuna?
Yes, indeed, the mother of Arjuna, your antagonist. But do not, therefore, hate me. I still remember the day of the trial of arms in Hastina when you, an unknown boy, boldly stepped into the arena, like the first ray of dawn among the stars of night. Ah! who was that unhappy woman whose eyes kissed your bare, slim body through tears that blessed you, where she sat among the women of the royal household behind the arras? Why, the mother of Arjuna! Then the Brahmin, master of arms, stepped forth and said, "No youth of mean birth may challenge Arjuna to a trial of strength." You stood speechless, like a thunder-cloud at sunset flashing with an agony of suppressed light. But who was the woman whose heart caught fire from your shame and anger, and flared up in silence? The mother of Arjuna! Praised be Duryodhana, who perceived your worth, and then and there crowned you King of Anga, thus winning the Kauravas a champion. Overwhelmed at this good fortune, Adhiratha, the charioteer, broke through the crowd; you instantly rushed to him and laid your crown at his feet amid the jeering laughter of the Pandavas and their friends. But there was one woman of the Pandava house whose heart glowed with joy at the heroic pride of such humility;—even the mother of Arjuna!