Page:Nil Durpan.djvu/116

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Sadhu.   Just see and place your hand on her nose. The body is become stiffer than that of a dead person.

Saralota.   (Speaking slowly to Reboti, after placing the hand on the nose.) Her breathing is full, the fire coming out of the head is so very intense that my throat, as it were burns.

Sadhu.   Has the Gomastah (head clerk) fallen into the hands of the Sahebs while he is gone to bring the physician? Let me go to the lodging-house of that physician.

(Exit Sadhu

Soirindri.   Ah! Ah! my Lord! That mother for whose abstinence from food thou hast grieved so much; that mother, for whose weakness thou hadst served her feet; that mother who for some days was, by no means, able to sleep without placing thee in her lap, that very same dear mother is now lying senseless before thee, and thou art not seeing her once (seeing Sabitri). As the cow, losing her young one, wanders about with loud cries, then being bit by a serpent falls down dead on the field, so is the mother lying senseless on the ground being grieved for her son. My Lord, open thine eyes once more; call thy maid-servant[1] once more with thy sweet voice and thus satisfy her ears once. The sun of happiness has set at noon for me; what shall my Bipin do? (With tears in her eyes falls upon the breast of Nobin Madhab).

Saralota.   Ye who are here take hold of our sister.

Soirindri.   (Rising up) I became an orphan while very young; it is for this death-like Indigo that my father was taken to the Factory, and he returned no more. That place became to him the residence of Yama (Death). My poor mother took me to the house of my maternal uncle, and there through grief for her husband, she bade adieu to the world. My uncles preserved me; I remained like a flower accidentally

  1. The term 'Maid-servant' here refers to Soirindri herself, the wife of Nobin Madhab.

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