Eyesore/Chapter 18
XVIII
After that trying day of the picnic Mahendra was anxious to make an attempt to re-conquer Binodini. But the very next day Rajlakshmi was down with influenza. The malady was not serious, but she became very weak and suffered considerably. Binodini devoted herself to nursing her day and night.
"If you go on like this you'll get ill yourself," said Mahendra; "let me engage some one to look after mother."
"Don't you worry, Dada," said Vihari; "let her go on with what she considers her duty. No one else can do it half so well."
Mahendra would be constantly coming to the invalid's room. But Binodini could not bear to see him fussing about where he was of no use. "How are you improving matters by sitting here!" she had to tell him more than once. "Why needlessly miss your college?"
Binodini felt a certain pride and satisfaction in having Mahendra at her feet. But when Binodini took up any duty, she had no thought for anything else, and she could not brook this spectacle of Mahendra's hankering heart displayed beside his mother's sick-bed—it revolted her.
Vihari would now and then come to inquire after Rajlakshmi. Whenever he entered the room he could tell at a glance if anything was amiss, and after quietly setting it right he would slip out. Binodini felt that her nursing had earned her Vihari's respect, and at his visits she somehow felt rewarded.
Smarting under his rebuff, Mahendra threw himself into his college work. And while this did not improve his temper, he was further exasperated by the change that had come over the household arrangements. His meals were not ready in time, the coachman was occasionally not to be found, the holes in his socks grew bigger and bigger. He had come to know the comfort of finding everything ready in its place when wanted, and Asha's innate inability no longer appeared a matter for indulgent amusement.
"How often have I told you, Chuni," he broke out one day, "to have the studs put in my shirt while I am bathing, and my college suit laid out. Why is it I never find them ready and get delayed every morning after my bath!" . "I told the boy about it," faltered Asha, greatly abashed.
"Told the boy, did you? What would have been the harm if you had seen to it yourself? One never gets any help from you at all!"
This was a thunderbolt for Asha. She had never been spoken to so sharply. But it did not occur to her to reply "It is you who stood in the way of my learning how to help!" She had always blamed her own stupidity and want of aptitude. And even when Mahendra had once so far forgotten himself as to compare her unfavourably with Binodini and say unkind things, she had accepted his rebuke in all humility.
Asha would restlessly hover near about her mother-in-law's room, and sometimes timidly linger in the doorway. She did so want to feel that she was of some use in the house, to show that she could do something, but no one seemed to want her assistance. She knew not how to express herself in work, how to claim her place in the household; her diffidence kept her wandering on its outskirts. Some undefined pain in her inmost being seemed to be growing more and more acute everyday, but she could not tell what her sorrow was, nor what it was she feared. She felt that she was spoiling the whole fabric of her life, but how that fabric had grown round her, what made it crumble at her touch, how it was to be made whole again, she had no idea. At times she felt she wanted to wail out aloud: "How useless, how unworthy, how incomparably stupid am I!"
In byegone days how happily the time had passed when Mahendra and Asha were together in a corner of their room, sometimes in talk, sometimes in silence. Now-a-days, in Binodini's absence, Mahendra could not find a word to say when alone with Asha, while the silence made him feel awkward.
One day seeing the servant-boy carrying a letter, Mahendra asked him: "Whose letter is that?"
"Vihari Babu's."
"Who gave it you?"
"The young mistress—" (meaning Binodini).
"Let's see!" said Mahendra as he took it from his hand. He felt strongly tempted to tear open the cover and read it, but after turning it over and over he tossed it back to the boy.
Had he opened the letter he would have found in it: "Pishima will not take her barley-water. May I try her with gruel instead?" Binodini never asked Mahendra's advice about the invalid's requirements—her reliance was on Vihari.
After pacing the verandah for a while Mahendra went into his room, and as he did so a picture, hanging crooked with one of the supporting strings giving way, caught his eye. "You never notice any thing" he flared up at Asha, "and that's why everything is going to rack and ruin." The flowers that Binodini had brought from the Dum-dum picnic and placed in a little metal vase, had faded away, but were still there. Any other day Mahendra would not have been troubled by such a trifle, to-day he was furious. "These must remain as they are till Binodini comes to throw them away, I suppose!" he sneered as he flung the vase with the flowers out on to the landing whence it rolled clanging down the stairs.
"Why is not Asha all I want her to be?" "Why cannot Asha do things as I should like them to be done?" "Why does not Asha keep me straight in the path of wedded life; why will her defects and weaknesses distract me away from it?" These were the grievances which were tossing about in his mind.
When he came to himself and glanced at Asha, he found her standing dazed, clutching the bed-post, with ashen face and trembling lips. As he looked up, she fled from the room. Mahendra slowly went out and brought back the vase. He then dropped into the chair at his desk in the corner, and sat there long, his elbows on the table, his face hidden in his hands.
It grew dark, the lamps were lit, but Asha came not. Mahendra began to rapidly walk up and down the terrace. It struck nine, a silence as of midnight descended on Mahendra's deserted room—yet Asha had not come.
At last Mahendra sent for her; and with hesitating steps she came upstairs and stood at the doorway leading to the terrace. Mahendra went up to her and drew her to his bosom—and in a moment her pent-up tears flooded her husband's breast—it seemed as if she would never get done, as if her sobs would break out of her in one great cry. Mahendra kissed her hair and kept her held close to him, as the silent stars looked on.
When they had retired, Mahendra sitting on the bed, said: "It's my turn to be on night-duty at the hospital, so for a time I must take some rooms near the college."
"Still so angry with me," thought Asha, "that he heeds must go away? So incorrigible am I that my husband is driven out of the house. Oh, why am I not dead!"
But there was nothing of anger in Mahendra's demeanour. He again drew Asha's face on to his breast and lightly passed his finger through her hair loosening it as he did so. When Mahendra had done this before, Asha had objected. To-day she nestled closer to him thrilled with gladness at his touch. Suddenly she felt a tear drop on her forehead, and Mahendra in a choking voice called: "Chuni!"
Asha made no reply but silently pressed his hand with her soft fingers.
"I have been in the wrong," said Mahendra, "forgive me."
Asha stopped him by placing her flower-petal palm over his mouth. "Don't say that!" she cried, "you've done nothing wrong, the fault is mine, chide me as you would your servant, make me worthy of sitting at your feet."
Before getting out of bed in the morning Mahendra said: "Chuni, my jewel, I'll always wear you next my heart that none else may get past you and enter there."
Asha, with a firm resolve to make every sacrifice for her husband's sake, nevertheless put in one little claim of her own. "You'll write to me, won't you?" she said.
"You too?" asked Mahendra.
"Do I know how to write?" protested Asha.
"Your writing would be pleasanter reading than the best of authors!" averred Mahendra pulling the little wisp of hair straying over her ears.
"Oh, don't tease me about my shortcomings," Asha pleaded.
Asha did her best to arrange Mahendra's portmanteau for him before his departure. Mahendra's thick winter clothes refused to be folded and accommodated within its limits, and what ought to have gone into one box filled two; and even then some things were left over to be tied up into a separate bundle. Asha was ashamed at the result; but the struggles and disputes and laughing recrimination which accompanied the process reminded them of old times. For the moment Asha quite forgot that the occasion was a parting.[1] The servant boy had several times brought word that the carriage was ready, but Mahendra paid no heed, and at last he angrily ordered the horse to be unharnessed.
It was only after the morning had passed into noon, and noon into evening, that, with many a parting admonition about not getting ill, and many a reminder about regularly writing letters, they actually separated.
Rajlakshmi had left her bed a couple of days ago. With a thick wrap round her she was having a game of cards with Binodini. Mahendra entered and without glancing at Binodini said: "Mother, I am on night duty at the hospital now. It's not convenient to be staying all this way off, so I've taken some rooms near the college. I'm going to live there from to-night."
Rajlakshmi took this sudden intimation ill; and said coldly: "Well if it's standing in the way of your work I suppose you must go!"
Though she was really quite convalescent the thought of Mahendra's leaving made her imagine herself ill and weak again. "Will you give me that pillow, child," she said to Binodini; and, as Rajlakshmi fell back on it, Binodini began to gently stroke her body with her hands.
Mahendra tried to feel his mother's pulse, but she drew away her hand saying querulously: "What can the pulse tell? You needn't worry about me, I'm all right." And as if with a great effort she turned over to the other side.
Mahendra without a word of leave-taking to Binodini, took the dust of his mother's feet and went away.
"What can be the matter?" wondered Binodini. "Is he angry, or afraid, or only showing off? He wants to show me he doesn't care? Well, let's see how long he can stop away!"
Binodini also thought she did not care, nevertheless she was disturbed in mind. She had delighted in goading Mahendra with many a prick, in keeping him in hand with many a bond, and the want of that occupation now made her restless. The house had lost for her its only excitement. Mahendra had lighted in her some flame, but she could not tell whether it was envy or love or partly both. "What woman was ever in such a plight?" she asked herself with bitter humour. "I know not whether I am the hunter or the hunted!" Whatever the real reason may have been, she wanted Mahendra, and with heaving breast kept on repeating to herself: "Where can he go? He must come back! He is mine!"
- ↑ The parting was as real as if he had gone out of town, for etiquette would prevent the ladies of the house paying any visits to the students' quarters.