this house, but you must also pursue me when I'm out of it? Am I not to have any peace at all?"
Asha winced like a stricken deer. Mahendra was fearfully incensed. "What has Chuni done to you, Kaki," he asked, "that you should go on like this?"
"I went away," replied Annapurna, "because I could not bear to see this chit of a girl so shameless. What made the miserable creature drag me back by bringing tears to her mother-in-law's eyes?"
Mahendra never knew before how effectually mothers and aunts can mar the most poetic episodes of life.
The next day Rajlakshmi sent for Vihari and said, "Will you speak to Mahin for me, my child? It's a long while since I've been to my native village of Baraset. I should like to pay the place a visit."
"Since you haven't been there for so long, why not stay away a little longer?" said Vihari. "I'll speak to Dada if you like, but I'm sure he'll never allow you to leave him."
Vihari did not at all like the readiness with which Mahendra gave his consent. "If you let mother go alone, who's to look after her?—Why not send sister Asha[1] with her?" he suggested with the hint of a smile.
Mahendra felt the implied taunt as he retorted, "What makes you think I can't do that?" But there the matter dropped.
Vihari seemed to find a sort of dry pleasure in saying things which he knew Asha would not like, and which would set her against him.
It is hardly necessary to mention that Rajlakshmi was not excessively anxious to revisit the place of her birth. As, when the river is low in summer, the boatman has to keep on sounding with his pole,—so in this ebb-tide of affection between mother and son, Rajlakshmi was feeling her way. That she should so soon touch bottom, with her proposal of going to Baraset, was more than she had expected. "There seems to be some difference," she thought to herself, "between my leaving home, and Annapurna's leaving home. She is an accomplished schemer, while I am only a mother. So I suppose I'd better go."
Annapurna grasped the situation and said, "If sister goes I can't remain."
"Do you hear, mother," said the tactless Mahendra, "if you go, Kaki will go also; how then are we to keep house?"
"Nonsense, Mistress Aunt," said Rajlakshmi, burning with a jealous hatred of the woman; "why should you go? Don't you see you are wanted here? you must stay on!"
Rajlakshmi could not brook further delay. The very next afternoon she was ready to start. Vihari did not, nor for the matter of that did anyone else, doubt for a moment that Mahendra would accompany his mother on the journey. But when the time came, it was found that Mahendra had arranged for a servant to go with her.
When Vihari inquired, "Dada, how is it you're not ready yet?" and Mahendra shamefacedly started to explain, "You see, my college—," Vihari cut him short with "All right, you stay on, I'll take mother along."
Mahendra was wroth, and when alone with Asha, remarked, "Vihari is really getting too bad. He wants to make out that he cares more for mother than I do!"
Annapurna had to remain; but she felt utterly shamed and crushed, and shrank within herself. Mahendra resented her aloofness, and Asha, too, showed that she felt aggrieved.
VIII
Rajlakshmi reached her native village. Vihari, who was to have returned after escorting her thither, could not do so after seeing what the place was like.
The only distant relatives still living in Rajlakshmi's childhood's home were one or two aged widows. A dense jungle of bamboo thickets and tangled vegetation had grown all around; the water of the pond had turned green; and the disquieting howl of jackals was to be heard even in broad daylight.
"This may be your birthplace, mother, right enough," said Vihari, "but it certainly can't be described as 'more glorious than heaven!'[2] Come back with me to Calcutta. 'Twould be a sin and a shame to leave you here alone."
Rajlakshmi was also beginning to feel a great sense of oppression, when, in the very nick of time, Binodini came to the rescue and took shelter with her.
