The Modern Review/Volume 7/Number 4/"At Midnight"
"AT MIDNIGHT"
Translated from নিশীথে of Sj. Rabindra Nath Tagore.
"DOCTOR! Doctor!"
O bother! in this midnight—
Opening my eyes I saw our Zeminder Dakshiná Babu. I got up hurriedly and drawing the rickety chair offered him a seat and anxiously looked up to his face. It was then 30 mts. past 2 on the clock.
Dakshiná Babu with a colourless face and dilated eyes said "The old trouble again to-night. Your medicine has had no effect."
I gave him a delicate hint that perhaps he had again been taking a rather liberal dose of wine.
He felt nettled and retorted—"There you are mistaken. It is not wine. You won't be able to guess at the real cause without hearing my whole story out."
I turned up the wick of the small kerosene lamp dimly burning in a recess in the wall. The flame brightened up a little and a large volume of smoke came out. Drawing the end of my dhotie round my body, I took my seat on a packing-box covered with a newspaper. Dakshiná Babu began his story:—
"A notable housewife of the type of my first wife—it is very difficult to find the like of her. But I was then a young man and 'a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love' and kindred sentiments; moreover I had given my days and nights to the study of poetry. Her unalloyed housewifery, therefore, was not quite up to my heart. I often remembered the couplet of Kálidás that "a wife is a housewife, a counsellor, a companion in private, a favourite disciple in the fine arts." But on my wife lectures on aesthetics produced no perceptible effect. She would laugh outright if I addressed words of love to her as my sweetheart in a spirit of gallantry. Choice phrases culled from noble poems and fond terms of endearment met with the same ignominious fate before her laughter, as Indra's elephant did before the current of the Ganges. She had a wonderful gift of laughing.
Four years ago, I had an attack of a serious disease. I had a malignant pustule on my upper lip and was in the very jaws of death. There was no hope of life. One day, the disease took such a bad turn, that the doctor gave up the case as hopeless. At this crisis a relative of mine brought a Sannyásee—from goodness knows where—who made me swallow a certain root pounded and mixed with ghee. I had a narrow escape for the nonce. It might be the effect of the drug or mere luck.
During my illness, my wife did not rest for a single moment. She—weak woman as she was—with the poor strength of a mortal creature fought incessantly and unweariedly with the hovering myrmidons of death. Asa mother covers the child at her breast with her protecting hands, she zealously guarded this my unworthy life with her whole love, heart, and care. She had no food and no sleep nor did she attend to anything else in this world. Death, then, like a baffled tiger balked of his prey released me from his claws but gave my wife a smart slap in the act of leaving me.
She was then enciente. Soon after she brought forth a still-born child. From that time forth, there were the beginnings of various complicated diseases to which she became a prey. Then I began to nurse her but she felt embarrassed at this. She would say "what are you at? What would people say? Please do not come to my room in such a fashion day and night."
If I would fan her in her fever, pretending that 1 was fanning myself, there would ensue a scene; if in the course of nursing her my usual dinner-time was delayed even by 10 minutes, that, too, would cause ceaseless requests, entreaties and complaints on her part. All went contrary if I attempted to tend her even in the slightest degree. She used to say that so much fuss did not look well in one of the sterner sex.
You have perhaps seen our house at Baranagore. There is a garden in front of the house and the Ganges flows past the garden. Right under our bedroom, towards the south my wife turned a plot into a small garden after her own heart, hedging it in with Mehdi. That spot in the garden was of the simplest pattern and of a thoroughly indigenous type. There was no predominance of colour over odour, nor of variegated leaves over flowers; nor were there any useless plants growing in small jars with their Latin names written on paper wrapped round sticks and waving high in the air like so many triumphal banners. The Belá, the Jessamine, the Gandharaj, the Rose, the Karavi, the Rajanigandha reigned there. There was also a big Bokul tree with its base paved with white marble.
On summer evenings, during intervals of household work, this was her favourite seat, whence she could have a view of the Ganges, but the office-clerks. passing by in the sailing boats could not see her.
After a long confinement to bed, on a moon-lit spring evening, she said that she felt stifled by lying indoors and that she wanted to come out to that garden of hers.
With tender care I slowly carried her to the marble pavement and made her lie down on it. I would have fain laid her head upon my lap but I knew she would look upon it as a strange procedure on my part; sol placed a pillow under her head.
The full-blown Bokul flowers dropped one by one. The shadowy moon-light, peeping through the branches, fell upon her emaciated face. A still calmness pervaded the scene. Sitting aside in silence, in that heavy-scented darkness of shadows, I looked at her face and tears started in my eyes. Slowly drawing near her I lifted with both my hands one of her fevered worn-out hands. She did not resist it. As I sat silent in this posture for sometime, my heart overflowed and I exclaimed "I will never forget your love."
All at once I understood that the words were quite uncalled-for. My wife burst into laughter. There was a modest shame, there was happiness, and there was just a shade of mistrust and there was sharp ridicule, too, in a large measure, in that laugh. She did not utter a single word by way of protest, but by that laughter she made it clear to me that it was neither probable that I would never forget her, nor did she expect it at all.
It was for fear of this sweet piercing laughter of my wife that I never ventured to assume a gallant bearing towards her or to address the conventional phrases of endearment to her in the regular way of love-making. The things that came to my mind in her absence seemed to be mere babble when I stood before her. I cannot even now understand why the printed things that draw out floods of tears in the reading, excite laughter when we want to utter them. A speech can be contradicted or controverted but a laugh cannot be dealt with thus. Consequently I had to remain dumb. The moonlight grew brighter; a Kokila grew disconsolate by crying coo—coo. I wandered, if in such a moon-light night the bird's mate had turned deaf.
There was no sign of the alleviation of her troubles in-spite of prolonged treatment. The doctor advised a change of air as the likeliest course. I took my wife to Allahabad."
Dakshiná Babu stuck fast and abruptly stopped at this stage. Eyeing me suspiciously, he rested his head on his hands and brooded over his thoughts. I, too, remained silent. The kerosene lamp in the recess in the wall gave forth a dim light and the buzzing of the mosquitoes became distinctly audible in the silent room. Suddenly breaking the silence he resumed his story.
"At Allahabad she was placed under the treatment of Dr. Haran.
At last, a long period having been passed in the same condition, the Doctor said, I too came to perceive, my wife also understood that she was incurable and must remain a confirmed invalid for the rest of her days.
Then one day she said that since there was neither a chance of recovery nor was there any hope of her dying in the near future,—how long should I get on with her who was more dead than alive?—and she requested me to take a second wife.
It was, as though, a mere piece of sound reasoning and correct judgment; there was nothing in her manner to indicate that it involved nobleness or heroism or anything uncommon on her part.
Now, it was my turn to laugh; but have I such a gift of laughing? I, like the hero of a novel, exclaimed with a lofty, solemn air. "As long as I shall live—"
She said interrupting me "Come, come, you need not go on in that strain. Your words give one such a turn!"
Without acknowledging my defeat I said "I can never bring myself to love any one else in this life." At this, my wife burst into a laugh and I had to stop.
I cannot say whether I had then confessed it even to myself, but now I perfectly understand that I had grown weary at heart of this constant task of nursing without any hope of the patient's recovery. I had no such design as to break loose from it; still even to imagine that I would have to pass my whole life with this confirmed invalid, was painful to me. Alas! in the days of my first youth, when I looked forward, the world that was before me appeared bright and cheerful, with the magic of love, the expectancy of bliss and the mirage of beauty. Henceforth the remaining days are but a vast, dreary, barren, parching desert.
Surely, she had perceived this inward weariness in my nursing. I did not know then, but now I have not an iota of doubt that she could read me off as easily as a simple alphabet-book. Therefore, when assuming the role of the hero of a novel, I solemnly protested my love in a romantic vein she did but break out into a laugh in a spirit of deep affection and irrepressible fun. I would fain die with shame even to this day, when I think that she could read my innermost thoughts, unknown though they were to myself, like the searcher of hearts.
Haran Doctor belonged to my own caste. I was often invited to dine at his house. After a few visits the doctor introduced me to his daughter. The girl was unmarried—she was about 15 years of age. He could not marry her owing to the dearth of eligible bridegrooms, So the Doctor said. But I heard a rumour from outsiders that there was a flaw in the family pedigree.
There was no other flaw. She was as fair as she was accomplished. At times, therefore, on account of the discussion of various topics with her I was late in returning home and the time for administering medicine to my wife would be deferred. She knew that I had been to Haran Doctor's, but she never inquired after the reason for delay.
Once again, I began to see a mirage in the midst of a desert. When my whole soul was thirsty, clear overflowing water sparkled and bubbled before my very eyes. With all my efforts I could not turn my heart away.
The sickroom became doubly cheerless. Irregularities in nursing and administering medicine grew pretty frequent now.
Haran Doctor used to tell me often that it was better for those that were incurable to die, for in dragging their existence on they themselves enjoyed no ease and made others unhappy as well. The remark is unexceptionable as a general statement, still he had not acted well in starting the topic apropos of my wife. But doctors are so callous with regard to Life and Death that they are unable to gauge our feelings aright.
One day, I overheard by chance, from an adjoining room, a conversation between my wife and the doctor. She was saying "Doctor, why do you swell up the druggist's bill by making me swallow useless drugs? When my life itself is a disease, why not prescribe such a medicine as will make a speedy end of it?" The doctor exclaimed "For shame, don't talk thus."
These words gave a sudden and violent shock to my heart. When the doctor was gone I went to my wife's room. I sat at her bedside and began to smooth her temples with my hands. She complained "It is very hot here. It is better that you should go out. It is time for taking your 'constitutional', else you won't have a good appetite for your supper."
The plain import of going out was to call at the Doctor's house. It was I who had explained to her that to have a good appetite, a walk was absolutely necessary. Now, | can say it for certain, that she could perceive my pervarication everyday. I, fool as I was, took her for a fool."
At this stage Dakshiná Babu, resting his head on his hands, remained silent for a long spell. At last he asked for a glass of water. He drank it off and made a fresh start:—
"One day, the doctor's daughter Monoramá expressed a desire to visit my wife. I know not why, but I did not much relish the proposal; But there could be no fair and reasonable grounds for objection. She came to our house one evening.
That evening, my wife's pain was considerably aggravated. In moments of intense suffering she used to remain quiet and motionless. Her suffering could be inferred only from her clenched fists and livid face. Nothing was stirring in the room. I sat still at the bed-side. To-day she had not sufficient strength to request me to go out for a walk; or she had a yearning in her heart of hearts to have me by during her severe suffering.
The kerosene light was put beside the door to spare her eyes. The room was dark and silent. Only her hard breathing became audible during the intercession of pain.
Just at this time Monoramá stood before the door. The light of the lamp from the opposite side fell full upon her face, which so dazed her eyes that she could not, for a moment, discern what was in the room and she hesitated before entering.
My wife started and seized my hand and asked me who was there. In the weak state of her health she became affrighted at seeing a stranger and twice or thrice asked me in a subdued voice—"who's she? who's she? who's she?"
I stammered out that I did not know. And the next moment I felt the stings of conscience like a lash cutting into the flesh. Another minute and I said "Oh! I see! it is the doctor's daughter."
My wife cast a glance upon my face, but I could not look to hers. The next instant, she, in a faint voice, welcomed the guest and asked me to hold the lamp up.
Monoramá came into the room and took her seat. There were brief snatches of conversation between them. The doctor arrived just at this juncture.
He brought with him two phials of medicine from his dispensary. Producing them he said to my wife that the blue phial contained a liniment for external application and the contents of the second one were to be taken. He also cautioned her not to confuse the two, as the liniment was a deadly poison.
He cautioned me too and placed the phials on the table by the bed-side. Before departing he called for his daughter.
Monoramá pleaded, "Papa, mayn't I stay? Here is no female companion to look after the patient."
My wife grew flurried and requested her not to trouble herself for her sake, as she had her old servant-woman who looked after her as a mother.
The doctor said with a smile that my wife was Lakshi herself. She had nursed others all her life and she could not suffer herself to be nursed by another.
The doctor was about to leave with his daughter when my wife said "Doctor, he has been long sitting in this close room. Would you please take him out for a walk?" The doctor asked me to come out with him so that we might take a stroll by the riverside.
I complied soon enough after raising a slight objection. The doctor again warned my wife about the two phials of medicine when he was on the point of starting.
That night I dined at the doctor's house and was late in returning. Getting home I found my wife very restless. Stung with the pangs of remorse, I asked if her pain had aggravated.
She could not answer, but only regarded me with a mute expression. She had lost the power of speech.
Instantly I sent for the doctor. At first, for along while he could not understand what was the matter. At last he asked if the pain had aggravated and suggested that the liniment should be applied; he took up the phial from the table only to find it empty. He enquired of my wife if she had taken the liniment through mistake; she answered in the affirmative by a nod.
The doctor rushed out and drove in haste to his quarters for getting a stomach-pump. I reeled on to my wife's bed in a half-unconscious plight. Then as a mother solaces her ailing child, she drew my head towards her breast and tried to communicate her thoughts to me by the touch of her hands. By that pathetic pressure only, she iterated and re-iterated, as it were, "Grieve not; it is better that I am going. You will be happy and in that thought I pass away in happiness."
When the doctor returned, all her troubles had come to an end with the end of her life."
Taking another draught of water Dakshiná Babu complained that it was too hot and stepped outside; he came in after striding up and down the verandah for a while. It was evident that he did not like to tell his story, but as if I was drawing it out of him by some spell. He again went on.
"I returned to my native place with Monoramá as my wife.
She married me with her father's consent. But when I caressingly spoke to her, when I tried to win her heart by making love to her, she did not even smile but remained grave. How should I understand what doubt lurked in a corner of her heart?
About this time I fell into the habit of drinking.
It was on an early autumn eventide that I was walking with Monoromá in our garden at Baranagore. The darkness was closing fast. Not a sound was there, not even that of the fluttering of birds' wings in their nests. Only the yew trees standing in deep shadow on both sides of the garden-walk were rustling against the wind.
Feeling tired Monoromá lay down on the marble pavement round the Bokul tree. I, too, sat by her side. The darkness was deeper there. The portion of the sky that could be seen through the boughs was studded with stars. The cicalas chirped under the trees, and by their chirping they were weaving a thin fringe of sound, as it were, around the deep silence slipped from the bosom of the "illimitable inane."
That evening, too, I had taken a little wine and my mind was in the air. When gradually my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, the shadowy form of that weary-limbed, loose-skirted woman outlined in pale hues against the shadows of the trees stirred an irresistible sensation in my mind. Methought she was a shadow and that I could not by any means clasp her within my arms.
Just then the tops of the yew trees seemed to be a-blaze, as it were. Then the pale yellow moon with waning horns slowly climbed up the sky over the tree-tops. The mellow beams of the moon streamed on the face of the white-robed woman wearily reclining on the snow-white marble. I could not contain myself any longer. Drawing closer I grasped her hands within mine and said "Monoramá, you may not believe me, but I love you and can never forget you."
No sooner had I uttered these words than I started, remembering to have once before said these very same words to another. That very minute a sound of laughter 'went shrilling' over the boughs of the Bokul tree, over the tops of the yew trees, under the pale cresent moon, from the east to the far west of the Ganges. I could not say whether it was a heart-rending laugh or a sky-rending cry of agony. That very moment I swooned away and fell from the marble pavement.
When my senses returned, I found myself lying a-bed in my room. Monoramá asked why I had fainted away so suddenly. A tremor passed through my frame as I said "Did you not hear a hoarse laugh rumbling through the sky?"
Monoramá said with a smile that it was not a laugh but that we had heard the rustling of the wings of a long line of birds that were flying across the sky, and expressed her surprise at my having been so easily frightened.
In the day-time I was fully convinced that it was really the sound of the rustling of birds' wings. At that time of the year cranes came there from the north to feed on the churs of the river. But at the approach of evening, I could not continue in that belief. I imagined then that a great laugh had gathered itself, pervading the darkness, and it would burst forth on the lightest occasion, piercing the darkness. At last matters came to such a pass that after evening I dared not speak a word to Monoramá.
Then we left our house and sailed out on a boating excursion. In the month of Agraháyan my fears fled before the breezes of the river. For some days I enjoyed great happiness. Charmed with the beauties of the surrounding scenes, Monoramá too, after a long time, began slowly to unlock her heart to me.
At last we sailed down the Ganges, passed the Jalangi and reached the Padmá. That terrific Padmá was then enjoying, as though, her long winter-sleep like a lean serpent slunk to her hole in torpor. On the north, lay the lifeless, verdureless, trackless, wide expanse of churs stretching far, far, as the eye could reach and on the high banks to the south, the mango-groves of the villages, were trembling with folded hands, as it were, before the very mouth of that terrible ogress of a river;—the Padmá, in her sleep, was turning on her sides and the fissured banks were tumbling down into the waters.
Finding the place suitable for our strolls, I ordered my boat to be moored here.
One evening, we wandered away to a great distance in the course of our stroll. With the fading of the golden light of the setting sun, the clear beams of the new moon shone forth all at once. The white limitless expanse of sand-banks became steeped with the overflowing moon-beams reaching up to the farthest verge of the horizon. I then imagined that we two were alone roaming in the dreamland of the lifeless world of the moon (Chandraloka). A red shawl encircling Monoramá's face dropped under her head and covered her body. When the stillness grew deeper, when there remained nothing but a whiteness and a void without space or bound Monoromá gently put out her hand and grasped mine. She drew closer and stood with complete reliance on me surrendering as it were to me, her whole body, mind, life and youth. With a heart tremulous and pulsating with passion, I thought, could love be had within the four walls of a room? Nothing save this open, uncovered, wide sky can hold two persons. I then fancied that we had no house or home, nowhere to return, and we would thus wander away aimlessly and unopposed, hand in hand, over this moon-lit void along a way 'without space or bound.'
Walking thus we came to a point whence we saw at a distance a sort of pool in the midst of sands—the waters having stagnated there as the river had receded from the spot.
A long streak of moon-beam had swooned, as it were, upon that rippleless, sleeping, silent piece of water circled by a sandy desert. As we came to the spot, we halted. Monoramá prompted by some undefinable thought looked to my face; the shawl slipped off from her head. Lifting her face, glowing with a halo of moonlight, I kissed it.
Lo! at that moment in the silent sandy tract without a trace of human habitation, sounded a solemn voice thrice "who's she? who's she? who's she?"
I started, my wife too trembled. But the next moment, both of us came to perceive that the voice was not human, nor was it supernatural. It was the cry of some aquatic birds feeding on the chur, put to fright at our intrusion upon their sequestered and safe abode.
Nervous with the shock, we instantly returned to the boat and went to bed. Monoramá, tired as she was, soon fell asleep. Then in that darkness some one standing near my bed-curtain and pointing a long lean bony finger towards the sleeping figure of Monoramá began persistently to whisper low to my ear "who's she? who's she? who's she?"
I got up hastily, struck a match and lighted a candle. The apparition vanished, that very instant. And shaking the bed-curtain, heaving the boat, freezing the blood of my heavily perspiring body, a great laugh 'went shrilling' through the darkness of the night. It crossed the river, passed the sandbanks, blew past the sleeping countries, towns, and villages,—as if it was receding far far away, beyond country after country, world after world, gradually growing fainter and fainter—gradually it passed the land of Life and Death—it grew fainter and fainter—piercing as the point of a needle—such a faint voice I had never heard nor dreamt of. I fancied my brain to be the limitless sky and the voice, though melting far far away, could not recede from the confines of my brain. When at last it became utterly unbearable I thought of putting out the lamp with a view to compose myself to sleep. But as soon as I lay down, again that smothered voice broke out, in the darkness, by the side of the bed-curtain—"who's she? who's she? who's she?" The blood in my heart too, began to beat the same measure—"who's she? who's she? who's she?" In the depth of the night, in the still boat, my watch too, as though animated, pointing its hour-hand towards Monoramá began to sound with the same measured tick from above the shelf "who's she? who's she? who's she?"
Dakshiná Babu grew ashy pale, his voice became choked. I touched him and offered him a glass of water. Just at that time, the flame of the little kerosene lamp emitted a sudden glare and went out. I suddenly saw the first light of the dawn. The crow cawed; the doel whistled. The road in front of my house became alive with the creaking sound of a buffalo-cart passing along. All at once a change came over the expression of Dakshiná Babu's face. There was no longer the slightest sign of fear. He was heartily ashamed and highly incensed with me at what he had unfolded to me under the spell of the night and the fascination of imaginary dread. Without bidding a courteous adieu he abruptly dashed out of the room.
That very day, again at midnight, there was a knock at my door and a voice crying—"Doctor! Doctor!"
Bangabasi College.