Ever since the death of her husband, Binodini, like a garden-plant in the wilderness, had been drooping in this dreary village. Now that she had come to pay her respects to her husband's respected relative, she entirely gave herself up to her service.
And what a service it was! What unremitting devotion! How deft was she in household work, how clever in the kitchen, how sweet-spoken!
Rajlakshmi would have to say, "It's late, my little mother, go and have something to eat."
But would she hear of it? How could she rest till she had fanned her Pishima[1] into her afternoon nap?
Rajlakshmi, after a while, would insist, "You'll get ill, my little mother, if you go on like this."
Binodini, with great self-depreciation, would reply, "No, Pishima, we who live in sorrow never get ill. What is there here, what have I got with which to welcome you home after all these years?"
Vihari in a few days got to be the boss of the village. Some would come to him for medicine, some for legal advice; he would be asked to find jobs for sons in some big Calcutta office, he would have to write out applications. His genial humour and quizzical curiosity took him everywhere, from the chess gathering of the elders to the drinking-haunts of the outcasts; nowhere was he looked upon as a stranger, they all respected him.
Binodini, also, from behind the scenes, tried her best to lighten the exile of the Calcutta youth in so dull a place.
As often as Vihari came back from his rounds in the village, he would find that someone had been arranging his room, putting flowers into a brass pot, placing novels by the side of his cushion seat; and in each book was written in a firm feminine hand, the name "Binodini."
This was rather different from the ordinary kind of hospita1ity met with in villages! Whenever Vihari al1uded to this in terms of praise; Rajlakshmi would say, "And this is the girl whom you people thought beneath notice!"
Vihari would laugh in reply. "We did wrong, mother, we are duly penitent. But isn't it better to regret a failure to get married?—it would be so awful to have to regret the marriage proving a failure!"
But Rajlakshmi would be continually harping on the thought, "Would that this girl had been my daughter-in-law. Why, oh why, was it not so!"
If Rajlakshmi so much as alluded to her return to Calcutta, Binodini's eyes would fill with tears. "Oh Pishima", she would say, "why did you come for so short a visit? I was getting along somehow while I did not know you, but how can I live without you now?"
And in the effusiveness of her emotion Rajlakshmi would cry out, "Oh! my little mother, why did you not come to me as the bride of my house, then I could have kept you in my arms for ever."
And when the conversation took this turn, Binodini would contrive some excuse for leaving the room to hide her blushes.
Rajlakshmi was awaiting a repentant letter of entreaty from Calcutta. Since the day he was born, her Mahin had never been separated from her for so long—he must, she thought, be greatly worrying over her absence by this time. So Rajlakshmi was athirst for this letter in which Mahendra would stormily lay claim to his mother's love.
It was Vihari, however, who got Mahendras' letter. He wrote, "Mother must be so happy to be in her native village after all this time."
"Poor Mahin is fearfully cut up," thought Rajlakshmi, "that's why he puts in that little touch about my being happy. As if his wretched mother could be happy anywhere away from her Mahendra!"
"Go on, Vihari, my child, what does he say next?"
"That's all, mother, nothing more," said Vihari, as he crushed the letter in his hand, slipped it into a book, and threw it into a corner.
Rajlakshmi could hardly contain herself. Mahin must be so furious with his mother, she concluded, that Vihari did not care to read out to her how strongly he felt. Like the toss of the sucking calf, the thought of Mahendra's anger, while it pained Rajlakshmi, drew forth, as well, an overflowing tenderness. She at once forgave Mahendra. "Let him be happy with his wife," she said to herself. "I'll not worry him anymore over her shortcomings. How very angry poor Mahin must be that his mother, whom be can't bear to be away
- ↑ Father's sister or cousin.
