Eyesore/Chapter 38
EYESORE
By Rabindranath Tagore.
XXXVIII
BINODINI had heard that anyone invoked in single-minded meditation could not help responding to the call. So with closed eyes and clasped hands she called upon Vihari: "My life is empty, my heart is empty, emptiness surrounds me—come into this emptiness, come even for a moment, come you must, for I'll take no refusal."
As she repeated this with all her strength Binodini seemed to really feel stronger. She felt that her call, her love, could not be in vain. Passive memories which serve only to feed false hopes with the heart's blood, are merely exhausting. But a supreme effort of will is a true ally, it really draws nearer the object which it singles out from all the world as its quest.
When, for Binodini, the darkness of the unlit room thus became intensely filled with the thought of Vihari, and social conventions, neighbourly bickerings and the rest of her world faded away into distant nothingness, she suddenly heard a knock at the door. She jumped up from her seat on the floor, saying with simple, perfect conviction as she flung open the door: "Have you come, my Master?" How at such a moment could any one else in the world come to her door?
"I have come, Binod!" Mahendra replied.
With infinite loathing and scathing contempt Binodini repulsed him, saying: "Oh get away, get away from here, get away at once!"
Mahendra was struck stiff dumb.
"Bindi, my girl, when is your old granny—" Here an elderly neighbour who was coming to Binodini to make the inquiry suddenly stopped short as she came up to the door, and with a hasty ejaculation she pulled her veil low over her face and hurried away.
There was a great commotion in the village. The elders in their evening gathering place decided that this sort of thing could not be allowed. The goings on at Calcutta might have been ignored. But to have dared to bring Mahendra to the village by writing letter after letter—this brazen openness was too much! The shameless hussy must be sent out of the village.
The next morning Binodini was sure that a reply from Vihari would come. But there was no letter. "What hold has Vihari on me?" Binodini began to ask herself. "Why am I here at his word? Why did I give him to understand that my whole life was his to command? The only need he has for me is to use me to save his beloved Asha. I am to have no wants, no claims of my own, not even a line of a letter—so mean, so contemptible am I!" A jealous envy welled up in Binodini's breast as seated stiffly in her room she continued her meditations: "I might have borne it all for another, but certainly not for Asha! This exile, this poverty, this scandal, this contempt, this life-long emptiness—all this for Asha! Why did I submit to be cheated so? Why did I not fulfil my vow of destruction? Oh fool, fool that I have been! Why did I fall in love with Vihari?"
Her aged relative, just back from her daughter's, broke in upon her thoughts with: "What's this I hear, you wretched minx?"
"What you have heard is true," rejoined Binodini quietly.
"Then what made you bring your shame to our neighbourhood—why did you come here?"
Binodini kept silent in her bitterness.
"Look here, child; you simply can't stay on here", continued the old woman. "My evil fate took away from me all whom I had of my own. Even that I've been able to bear and live through. But this sort of thing I'm not going to put up with. You've dragged our good name through the dust, you wretched girl. You must go away at once."
"I'll go at once", said Binodini as she stepped outside the room and stood at the door.
As she did so, Mahendra, unwashed, unkempt, came up to the outer gate. He had not had a morsel to eat nor a wink of sleep since his arrival last evening, his face was drawn, his eyes bloodshot. He had thought of making another attempt at inducing Binodini to go with him at daybreak, but the shock of Binodini's strangely contemptuous reply had made him hesitate. As the morning wore on and the time for the only day-train drew near, Mahendra had cast aside all questioning and misgiving and engaging a carriage driven off to Binodini's cottage. The courage of one who has taken an irrevocable step against social conventions was his—and with the courage had come also a wild joy driving away all doubt and despondency. The staring passers by seemed to him like so many earthen dolls.
Without glancing this way or that Mahendra marched straight up to the door where Binodini was standing and said: "Binod, I'm not such a coward as to leave you alone here to be reviled by these villagers. I must and shall take you away with me. If afterwards you choose to forsake me, do so, I'll not seek to hold you. I swear by yourself that it shall always be exactly as you wish. If you take pity on me, that'll be life to me—if not I'll take myself off your path. Many a time in my life have I been false to my trust but do not mistrust me to-day. We stand on the brink of chaos, this is not the time to utter falsehoods."
With unfluttered naturalness Binodini said: "Yes, you may take me along. Have you brought a carriage?
"I have."
Binodini's aged relative came out and said: "Mahendra, you may not know me, but we are kin. Your mother was a girl of this village and used to call me Aunt. May I ask you what you mean by this sort of thing? You have a wife at home; your mother is still with you. Yet you are carrying on in this mad way, lost to all shame. How will you even show your face again in society?"
This rather brought Mahendra down from the region into which he had exalted himself. He had a mother and a wife, and there was a thing called society. These simple truths seemed to come home to him with a new force. He had never dreamt of being reminded of these things in this out of the way village. To be standing in the midst of the village in the broad light of day trying to lure a widowed girl of respectable parentage from her home into the streets—was this curious chapter to be added to his biography;—while yet he had a mother, a wife and still belonged to society!
Finding Mahendra standing silent, the old woman flew into a rage and said: "If you must go, get away at once and don't be loitering about the entrance to my house." With this she slammed the door on them and bolted it from within.
Bereft of all her possessions, fasting and untidy, Binodini stepped into the carriage. When Mahendra would have followed her in she said: "The Railway Station is not a long way off. You had better walk."
"All the village will stare at me," said Mahendra.
"Have you any sense of shame left?" remarked Binodini as she asked the coachman to start.
"Isn't the gentleman coming?" asked the coachman.
Mahendra hesitated but dared not. The carriage drove off. Mahendra walked along towards the station with bowed head and leaving the main road went round the outskirts of the village. By this time the village women had finished their bath and midday meal. Only a few elderly dames who spent a longer time over their daily duties than the others could be seen going through the shady mango groves, with their towels and toilet accessories, to the secluded steps of the bathing tank.