Eyesore/Chapter 27
XXVII
Mahendra was feeling dull and depressed after his excitement and want of sleep the previous night. It was March, and it had already begun to get warm. It was Mahendra's habit to spend the morning at his table in the corner, with his books. This morning he slipped down on to the floor-bed and dawdled on the cushions. It got late, but he would not get up for his bath. The hawkers began crying in the street. There rose the continuous rumbling of carriages on their way to the business quarters. From a house which was being built near by came the droning song of the women concrete-rammers, to which the regular tapping of their wooden mallets beat time. With his over-wrought nerves relaxed at the breath of the balmy South wind, Mahendra felt that stern resolve or strenuous effort would be entirely out of place on a lazy langorous spring morning such as this.
"What's up with you since this morning, friend Mahin?" came the voice of Binodini. "What! still lying down?" she continued as she came up. "Your breakfast[1] is ready, aren't you going to have your bath? What is the matter, friend—are you not feeling well—is it a headache?" With which she put her hand on his forehead to test its heat.
Mahendra, closing his eyes, said in a husky voice: "I'm not feeling very well to-day—I don't think I'll have a bath this morning."
"If you won't bathe, at least have a little something to eat," said Binodini,—and she persuaded him to accompany her to the dining-room, and attended him with anxious solicitude while he ate.
When he had finished, Mahendra came back to his room, and again stretched himself on the floor-bed. Binodini sat near him, and massaged his forehead with her fingers. Mahendra, after lying for a while with closed eyes said: "Friend Eyesore, you haven't taken anything yet. Do go and have something to eat yourself."
But Binodini would not stir. The languid midday breeze brought in the meaningless murmur of the cocoanut trees which fringed the garden wall. Mahendra's heart began to beat faster and faster, and Binodini's breath quickening in sympathy, stirred the hair over his forehead. Neither uttered a word. "Floating as we are on the eternal stream of creation," Mahendra was thinking, "what can it matter if one's boat momentarily touches a particular shore,—and even if it does matter, for how long after all can it matter—?"
With her fingers running over his forehead, Binodini drooped lower and lower, heavy with the fullness of her youth, till the ends of her loose hair fell on his face. His body repeatedly thrilled at each light touch as her locks were blown about by the breeze; spasms at his breast seemed to prevent his breath from coming through. He sat up with a start, saying: "No, I'd better be off, there's my college." And without looking towards Binodini, he rose from the bed and stood up.
"Don't be in such a hurry," said Binodini. "Let me get out your things." With which she fetched him his college suit.
Mahendra went off immediately, but was unable to compose his mind even there. After making several vain attempts to attend to the lectures, he came back home before closing-time. On entering his room he found Binodini lying prone on the floor-bed, with a bolster under her breast, her loose black hair scattered over her back. It seemed she had not heard his footsteps. Mahendra crept up on tiptoe, till he stood quite near. As Binodini read on, he heard her sigh.
"O Tender Heart!" said Mahendra, facetiously. "Don't waste your emotions on imaginary people. What is it you're reading?"
Binodini started up in dismay, and hastily hid her book under the flowing end of her sari. Mahendra tried to get a glimpse of it, and there ensued a tussle, at the end of which Mahendra proved the victor, and managed to get possession of the book;—he found it was Bankim's "Poison Tree." The defeated Binodini, breathing hard, turned her back on Mahendra in sulky silence.
Mahendra's heart was in a fearful flutter, but controlling himself with repeated efforts, he essayed a smile as he remarked: "What a disappointment! I thought it was some great secret, and after all this fuss, out comes the Poison Tree!"
"What secret am I supposed to have, may I know?" queried Binodini.
"It might have been a letter from Vihari, for instance," blurted out Mahendra.
Binodini sprang up like a suddenly-lighted flame. Lightning flashed from her eyes.
Mahendra realised his mistake. "I beg your pardon," he said, taking her hand in humble entreaty. "I was only jesting, forgive me."
"With whose name do you jest, pray?" said Binodini, coldly withdrawing her hand. "Had you been worthy of being his friend, I could have forgiven you. But your narrow heart has no room for true friendship, and yet you dare to jest!"
Binodini was about to sweep out of the room, but Mahendra clasped her by the feet and detained her. At that moment a shadow was seen in the doorway, and as Mahendra let go his hold, and raised his face with a start, he saw before him Vihari.
Vihari's steady gaze seemed to go through and through them both, as he icily remarked: "I'm intruding, I see, but I won't stay long. I came just to say one word. I've been to Benares, but I had no idea that sister Asha was there. In my ignorance I may appear to have sinned against her. I haven't a chance of asking her pardon, so I've come to beg yours. My only prayer is that if I have ever consciously or unconsciously sinned, my sin may not be visited on her."
Mahendra was wild that Vihari should have been witness of his weakness. He lost all compunction. "Rather like the guilty conscience of the proverb, isn't it?" he remarked with a caustic smile. "I never asked you to give any explanation nor to plead guilty either. Why then this playing the saint with mock contrition!"
Vihari stood awhile stiff as a statue. When, after strenuous efforts to speak, his lips began to tremble, Binodini interposed. "Don't reply to him, friend Vihari," she said. "Don't you say a thing. His foul words are only blackening his own mouth,—they're not touching you."
It is doubtful whether her words made their way into Vihari's ears. He left Mahendra's room, and went down the stairs as in a dream.
"Have you nothing to say to me?" continued Binodini, as she followed him. "If you think I've done anything wrong, rebuke me."
As Vihari still pursued his way in silence, she edged past him and caught hold of his hand. With a gesture of supreme contempt Vihari thrust her off as he rushed away. He was not aware that she had been hurled to the ground.
Mahendra hurried down at the sound of the fall, and found Binodini's elbow bleeding. "O I say!" he exclaimed. "What a nasty cut!" He tore a piece off his muslin tunic, and prepared a bandage for her wound.
But Binodini moved her arm out of his reach. "Don't touch it, let it bleed," she said.
"Let me do it up with a little medicine, so that it'll heal quickly without hurting you."
"I want it to hurt, let the scar remain," repeated Binodini, moving away still further.
"Can you forgive me for having in my agitation caused others to doubt you?"
Binodini:—"What's there to forgive?—you did right. What do I care for others' doubts? Are they who spurn me in scorn all in all,—and the supplicant at my feet nothing to me?"
Mahendra's whole being was convulsed as he said in choking accents: "Then you will not disdain my love?"
"I'll wear it as a crown," replied Binodini. "My life's not been so overburdened with love as to make me reject what's offered!"
"Then come to my room," said Mahendra taking both her hands in his. "I caused you pain today. You've also grievously wounded me by coming away. I'll know no rest nor comfort till all that is wiped away."
"Not to-day," said Binodini. "Let me go to-day. If I've given you pain, forgive me."
"Then do you forgive me too, else I'll have no sleep to-night."
"I forgive you," said Binodini.
Mahendra was determined to wrest some token of Binodini's forgiveness, of her love. But a glance at her face gave him pause.
Binodini went away down the stairs. Mahendra went up with slow steps and began to pace the terrace. That Vihari should have suddenly found him out, at last, gave him an unwonted sense of freedom. The humiliation of secrecy seemed to have in a great measure disappeared, now that even one person knew all about it. "I'll not pose as a moral creature any more," thought he. "But I love—it's not false that I love!" In his exaltation, he even prided himself on being frankly had. He seemed to fling a challenge to the whole world, spread out before him under the twinkling stars, as he said to himself: "Let those, who will, think ill of me—but I love!" and he allowed the image of Binodini in his heart to overshadow the whole of his horizon, of his world, of his life's duties.
It was as if Vihari had upset and broken his stoppered bottle, and allowed the stains of Binodini's black eyes and hair to overflow and blot out all the whiteness and all the writing of the past.
- ↑ The principal meal, which in some cases is also the breakfast, is taken about midday and must be served in the dining room—the others are looked upon as light refreshments, and may be served anywhere.