The Modern Review/Volume 12/Number 6/Adamant
ADAMANT
A Short Story.
(From the Bengali of Ravindranath Tagore).
I.
THEY met together in a ruined temple on the river bank: Mahamaya and Rajib.
In silence she cast her naturally grave look at Rajib with a tinge of reproach. It meant to say,—"How durst you call me here at this unusual hour today? You have ventured to do it only because I have so long obeyed you in all things!"
Rajib had a little awe of Mahamaya at all times, and now this look of hers thoroughly upset him: he at once gave up his fondly conceived plan of making a set speech to her. And yet he had to give quickly some reason for this interview. So, he hurriedly blurted out, "I say, let us run away from this place and marry." True, Rajib thus delivered himself of what he had had in his mind; but the preface he had silently composed was lost. His speech sounded very dry and bald,—even absurd. He himself felt confused after speaking it,—and had no power left in him to add some words to modify its effect. The fool! after calling Mahamaya to that ruined temple by river side at mid-day, he could only tell her "Come, let us marry!"
Mahamaya was a kulin's daughter; twenty-four years old,—in the full bloom of beauty as in the fulness of growth,—a frame of pure gold, of the hue of the early autumn sun's rays,—radiant and still as that sunshine, with a gaze free and fearless as day-light itself.
She was an orphan. Her elder brother, Bhabani Charan Chattopadhay, looked after her. The two were of the same mould—taciturn, but possessing a force of character which burnt silently like the mid-day sun. People feared Bhabani Charan without knowing why.
Rajib had come there from afar with the Burra Sahib of the silk factory of the place. His father had served this Sahib, and when he died, the Sahib undertook to bring up his orphan boy and took him with himself to this Bamanhati factory. In those early days such instances of sympathy were frequent among the Sahibs. The boy was accompanied by his loving aunt, and they lived in Bhabani Charan's neighbourhood. Mahamaya was Rajib's playmate in childhood, and was dearly loved by his aunt.
Rajib grew up to be sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, and even nineteen; and yet, in spite of his aunt's constant urging, he refused to marry. The Sahib was highly pleased to hear of this uncommon instance of good sense in a Bengali youth, and imagined that Rajib had taken him as his ideal in life. (I may here add that the Sahib was a bachelor.) The aunt died soon after.
For Mahamaya, too, no bridegroom of an equal grade of blue blood (kulin) could be secured except for an impossible dowry. She steadily grew up in maidenhood.
The reader hardly needs be told that though the god who ties the marriage-knot had so long been ignoring this young couple, the god who forms the bond of love had not been idle all this time. While old Hymen was dozing, young Cupid was very much awake.
Cupid's influence shows itself differently in different persons. Under his inspiration Rajib constantly sought for a chance of whispering his heart's longings, but Mahamaya never gave him such an opportunity; her silent and grave look sent a chill of fear through the wild heart of Rajib.
Today he had, by a hundred solemn entreaties and conjurations, (at last) succeeded in bringing her to this ruined temple. He had planned that he would today freely tell her all that he had to say,—and thereafter there would be for him either lifelong happiness or death in life. At this crisis of his fate Rajib only said, "Come, let us go and marry", and then he stood confused and silent like a boy who had forgotten his lesson!
For along while she replied not, as if she had never expected such a proposal from Rajib.
The noontide has many undefined plaintive notes of its own; these began to make themselves heard in the midst of that stillness. The broken door of the temple, half detached from its hinge, began at times to open and to close in the wind with a low wailing creak. The pigeon, perched on the temple window, began its deep booming. The wood-pecker kept up its monotonous noise as it sat working on the Shimul branch outside. The lizard darted through the heaps of dry leaves, with a rustling sound. A sudden gust of warm wind blowing from the fields passed through the trees, making all their foliage whistle. Unawares the river waters woke into ripple and lapped on the broken steps of the ghat. Amidst these causeless languid sounds came the rustic notes of a cow-boy's flute from a far-off tree-shade. Rajib stood reclining against the ruinous plinth of the temple like a tired dreamer, gazing at the river; he had not the spirit to look Mahamaya in the face.
After a while he turned his head and again cast a supplicating glance at Mahamaya's face. She shook her head and replied. "No. It can't be".
At once the whole fabric of his hopes was dashed down to the ground; for he knew that when Mahamaya shook her head it was through her own convictions, and nobody else in the world could bend her head to his own will. The high pride of pedigree had run in the blood of Mahamaya's family for untold generations,—could she ever consent to marry a Brahman of low pedigree like Rajib? To love is one thing, and to marry quite another. She, however, now realised that her own thoughtless conduct in the past had encouraged Rajib to hope so audaciously; and at once she prepared to leave the temple.
Rajib understood her, and quickly broke in with "I am leaving these parts tomorrow."
At first she thought of appearing indifferent to the news; but she could not. Her feet did not move, when she wanted to depart. Calmly she asked, "Why?" Rajib replied, "My Sahib has been transferred from here to the Sonapur factory, and he is taking me with him." Again she stood in long silence, musing thus,—"Our lives are moving in two contrary directions. I cannot hope to keep a man a prisoner of my eyes for ever." So she opened her compressed lips a little and said, "Very well." It sounded rather like a deep sigh.
With this word only she was again about to leave, when Rajib started up with the whisper, "Mr. Chattopadhyay is coming!"
She looked out and saw her brother coming towards the temple, and she knew that he had found out their assignation. Rajib, fearing to place Mahamaya in a false position, tried to escape by jumping out of a hole in the temple wall; but Mahamaya seized his arm and kept him back by main force. Bhabani Charan entered the temple,—and only cast one silent and placid glance at the pair.
Mahamaya looked at Rajib and said with an unruffled voice, "Yes, I will go to your house, Rajib. Do you wait for me."
Silently Bhabani Charan left the temple, and Mahamaya followed him as silently. And Rajib? He stood in a maze—as if he had been doomed to death.
II.
That very night Bhabani Charan gave a crimson silk sari to Mahamaya and told her to put it on at once. Then he said, "Follow me." Nobody had ever disobeyed Bhabani Charan's bidding or even his hint; Mahamaya herself was no exception to it.
That night the two walked to the burning-place on the river bank, not far from their home. There in the hut for sheltering dying men brought to the holy river's side, an old Brahman was lying in expectation of death. The two went up to his bedside. A Brahman priest was present in one corner of the room; Bhabani Charan beckoned to him. The priest quickly got his things ready for the happy ceremony. Mahamaya realised that she was to be married to this dying man, but she did not make the least objection. In the dim room, (partly) lit up by the glare of two funeral pyres hard by, the muttered sacred texts mingled with the groans of the dying as Mahamaya's marriage was celebrated.
The day following her marriage she became a widow. But she did not feel excessively grieved at the bereavement. And Rajib, too, was not so crushed by the news of her widowhood as he had been by the unexpected tidings of her marriage. Nay, he felt rather cheered. But this feeling did not last long. A second terrible blow laid him utterly in the dust: he heard that there was a grand ceremony at the burning ghat that day, as Mahamaya was going to burn herself with her husband's corpse.
At first he thought of informing his Sahib and forcibly stopping the cruel sacrifice with his help. But then he recollected that the Sahib had made over charge and left for Sonapur that very day; he had wanted to take Rajib away with him, but the youth had stayed behind on a month's leave.
Mahamaya had told him, "Do you wait for me." This request he must by no means disregard. He had at first taken a month's leave, but if need were he would take two months', then three months' leave and finally throw up the Sahib's service and live by begging, yet he would wait for her to his life's close.
Just when Rajib was going to rush out madly and commit suicide or some other terrible deed, a deluge of rain came down with a desolating storm at sunset. The tempest threatened to tumble his house down on his head. He gained some composure when he found the convulsion in outer Nature harmonising with the storm within his soul. It seemed to him that all Nature had taken up his cause and was going to bring to him some sort of remedy. The force he wished to apply in his own person but could not, was now being applied by Nature herself over earth and sky (in furtherance of the work of his heart).
At such a time some one pushed the door hard from the outside. Rajib hastened to open it. A woman entered the room, clad in a wet garment, with a long veil covering her entire face. Rajib at once knew her for Mahamaya.
In a heightened voice he asked, "Mahamaya, have you come away from the funeral pyre?" She replied, "Yes, I had promised to you to come to your house. Here I am, to keep my word. But, Rajib, I am not exactly the same person, I am changed altogether. I am the Mahamaya of old in my mind only. Speak now, I can yet go back to the funeral pyre. But if you swear never to draw my veil aside, never to look on my face,—then I shall live in your house."
It was enough to get her back from the hand of Death; all other considerations vanished before it. Rajib promptly replied, "Live here in any fashion you like,—if you leave me I shall die." Mahamaya said, "Then come away at once. Let us go where your Sahib has gone on transfer."
Abandoning all his property in that house, Rajib sallied forth into the midst of the storm with Mahamaya. The force of the wind made it hard for them to stand erect,—the gravels driven by the wind pricked their limbs like buck shot. The two took to the open fields, lest the trees by the roadside should crash down on their heads. The violence of the wind struck them from behind, as if the tempest had torn the couple asunder from human habitations and was blowing them away on to destruction.
III.
The reader must not discredit my tale as false or supernatural. There are traditions of a few such occurrences having taken place in the days when the burning of widows was customary.
Mahamaya had been bound hand and foot and placed on the funeral pyre, to which fire was applied at the appointed time. The flames had shot up from the pile, when a violent storm and rain-shower began. Those who had come to conduct the cremation, quickly fled for refuge to the hut of dying men and shut the door. The rain put the funeral fire out in no time. Meantime the bands on Mahamaya's wrists had been burnt to ashes, setting her hands free. Without uttering a groan amidst the intolerable pain of burning, she sat up and untied her feet. Then wrapping round herself her partly burnt cloth, she rose half naked from the pyre, and first came to her own house. There was none there; all had gone to the burning-place. She lighted a lamp, put on a fresh cloth, and looked at her face in a glass. Dashing the mirror down on the ground, she mused for a while. Then she drew a long veil over her face and went to Rajib's house which was hard by. The reader knows what happened next.
True, Mahamaya now lived in Rajib's house, but there was no joy in his life. It was not much, but only a simple veil that parted the one from the other. And yet that veil was eternal like death, but more agonising than death itself; because despair in time deadens the pang of death's separation, while a living hope was being daily and hourly crushed by the separation which that veil caused.
For one thing there was a spirit of motionless silence in Mahamaya from of old; and now the hush from within the veil appeared doubly unbearable. She seemed to be living within a winding sheet of death. This silent death clasped the life of Rajib and daily seemed to shrivel it up. He lost the Mahamaya whom he had known of old, and at the same time this veiled figure ever sitting by his side silently prevented him from enshrining in his life the sweet memory of her as she was in her girlhood. He brooded,—"Nature has placed barrier enough between one human being and another. Mahamaya, in particular, has been born, like Pallas-Athene, clad in Nature's panoply; there is an innate fence round her being. And now she seems to have been born a second time and come to me with a second line of fences round herself. Ever by my side, she yet has become so remote as to be no longer within my reach. I am sitting outside the inviolable circle of her magic and trying, with an unsatiated thirsty soul, to penetrate this thin but unfathomable mystery,—as the stars wear out the hours night after night in the vain attempt to pierce (the mystery of) the dark Night with their sleepless winkless downcast gaze."
Long did these two companionless lonely creatures thus pass their days together.
One night, on the tenth day of the new moon, the clouds withdrew for the first time in that rainy season, and the moon showed herself. The motionless moon-lit Night seemed to be sitting in a vigil by the head of the sleeping world. That night Rajib too had quitted his bed and sat gazing out of his window. From the heat-oppressed woodland a peculiar scent and the lazy hum of the cricket were entering into his room. As he gazed, the sleeping tank by the dark rows of trees glimmered like a polished silver plate. It is hard to say whether man at such a time thinks any clearly defined thought. Only his heart rushes in a particular direction,—it sends forth an effusion of odour like the woodland, it utters a cricket-hum like the Night. What Rajib was thinking of I know not; but it seemed to him that that night all the old laws had been set aside; that day the rainy season's Night had drawn aside her veil of clouds, and this Night looked silent, beautiful and grave like the Mahamaya of those early days. All the currents of his being flowed impetuously together towards that Mahamaya.
Like one moving in a dream, Rajib entered Mahamaya's bed-room. She was asleep then.
He stood by her side and stooped down to gaze on her,—the moonbeams had fallen on her face, But, O the horror! where was that face known of old? The flame of the funeral pyre, with its ruthless greedy tongue had utterly licked away a beauteous piece from the left cheek of Mahamaya and left there only the trace of its hunger.
Did Rajib start? Did a muffled cry escape from his lips? Probably so. Mahamaya woke up with a start—and saw Rajib before her. At once she replaced her veil and stood erect, leaving her bed. Rajib knew that the thunderbolt was uplifted. He fell down before her,—he clasped her feet, crying "Forgive me!"
She answered not a word, she looked not back for a moment, as she walked out of the room. She never returned to the house of Rajib. No trace of her was found anywhere else. The silent fire of her anger at that unforgiving eternal parting left all the remaining days of Rajib's earthly life branded with a long scar.