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Chapter One
Bimala's Story
I
MOTHER, today there comes back to mind the vermilion mark [1] at
the parting of your hair, the __sari__ [2] which you used to
wear, with its wide red border, and those wonderful eyes of
yours, full of depth and peace. They came at the start of my
life's journey, like the first streak of dawn, giving me golden
provision to carry me on my way.
The sky which gives light is blue, and my mother's face was dark,
but she had the radiance of holiness, and her beauty would put to
shame all the vanity of the beautiful.
Everyone says that I resemble my mother. In my childhood I used
to resent this. It made me angry with my mirror. I thought that
it was God's unfairness which was wrapped round my limbs--that my
dark features were not my due, but had come to me by some
misunderstanding. All that remained for me to ask of my God in
reparation was, that I might grow up to be a model of what woman
should be, as one reads it in some epic poem.
When the proposal came for my marriage, an astrologer was sent,
who consulted my palm and said, "This girl has good signs. She
will become an ideal wife."
And all the women who heard it said: "No wonder, for she
resembles her mother."
I was married into a Rajah's house. When I was a child, I was
quite familiar with the description of the Prince of the fairy
story. But my husband's face was not of a kind that one's
imagination would place in fairyland. It was dark, even as mine
was. The feeling of shrinking, which I had about my own lack of
physical beauty, was lifted a little; at the same time a touch of
regret was left lingering in my heart.
But when the physical appearance evades the scrutiny of our
senses and enters the sanctuary of our hearts, then it can forget
itself. I know, from my childhood's experience, how devotion is
beauty itself, in its inner aspect. When my mother arranged the
different fruits, carefully peeled by her own loving hands, on
the white stone plate, and gently waved her fan to drive away the
flies while my father sat down to his meals, her service would
lose itself in a beauty which passed beyond outward forms. Even
in my infancy I could feel its power. It transcended all
debates, or doubts, or calculations: it was pure music.
I distinctly remember after my marriage, when, early in the
morning, I would cautiously and silently get up and take the dust
[3] of my husband's feet without waking him, how at such moments
I could feel the vermilion mark upon my forehead shining out like
the morning star.
One day, he happened to awake, and smiled as he asked me: "What
is that, Bimala? What __are__ you doing?"
I can never forget the shame of being detected by him. He might
possibly have thought that I was trying to earn merit secretly.
But no, no! That had nothing to do with merit. It was my
woman's heart, which must worship in order to love.
My father-in-law's house was old in dignity from the days of the
__Badshahs__. Some of its manners were of the Moguls and
Pathans, some of its customs of Manu and Parashar. But my
husband was absolutely modern. He was the first of the house to
go through a college course and take his M.A. degree. His elder
brother had died young, of drink, and had left no children. My
husband did not drink and was not given to dissipation. So
foreign to the family was this abstinence, that to many it hardly
seemed decent! Purity, they imagined, was only becoming in those
on whom fortune had not smiled. It is the moon which has room
for stains, not the stars.
My husband's parents had died long ago, and his old grandmother
was mistress of the house. My husband was the apple of her eye,
the jewel on her bosom. And so he never met with much difficulty
in overstepping any of the ancient usages. When he brought in
Miss Gilby, to teach me and be my companion, he stuck to his
resolve in spite of the poison secreted by all the wagging
tongues at home and outside.
My husband had then just got through his B.A. examination and
was reading for his M.A. degree; so he had to stay in Calcutta
to attend college. He used to write to me almost every day, a
few lines only, and simple words, but his bold, round handwriting
would look up into my face, oh, so tenderly! I kept his letters
in a sandalwood box and covered them every day with the flowers I
gathered in the garden.
At that time the Prince of the fairy tale had faded, like the
moon in the morning light. I had the Prince of my real world
enthroned in my heart. I was his queen. I had my seat by his
side. But my real joy was, that my true place was at his feet.
Since then, I have been educated, and introduced to the modern
age in its own language, and therefore these words that I write
seem to blush with shame in their prose setting. Except for my
acquaintance with this modern standard of life, I should know,
quite naturally, that just as my being born a woman was not in my
own hands, so the element of devotion in woman's love is not like
a hackneyed passage quoted from a romantic poem to be piously
written down in round hand in a school-girl's copy-book.
But my husband would not give me any opportunity for worship.
That was his greatness. They are cowards who claim absolute
devotion from their wives as their right; that is a humiliation
for both.
His love for me seemed to overflow my limits by its flood of
wealth and service. But my necessity was more for giving than
for receiving; for love is a vagabond, who can make his flowers
bloom in the wayside dust, better than in the crystal jars kept
in the drawing-room.
My husband could not break completely with the old-time
traditions which prevailed in our family. It was difficult,
therefore, for us to meet at any hour of the day we pleased. [4]
I knew exactly the time that he could come to me, and therefore
our meeting had all the care of loving preparation. It was like
the rhyming of a poem; it had to come through the path of the
metre.
After finishing the day's work and taking my afternoon bath, I
would do up my hair and renew my vermilion mark and put on my
__sari__, carefully crinkled; and then, bringing back my body
and mind from all distractions of household duties, I would
dedicate it at this special hour, with special ceremonies, to one
individual. That time, each day, with him was short; but it was
infinite.
My husband used to say, that man and wife are equal in love
because of their equal claim on each other. I never argued the
point with him, but my heart said that devotion never stands in
the way of true equality; it only raises the level of the ground
of meeting. Therefore the joy of the higher equality remains
permanent; it never slides down to the vulgar level of triviality.
My beloved, it was worthy of you that you never expected worship
from me. But if you had accepted it, you would have done me a
real service. You showed your love by decorating me, by
educating me, by giving me what I asked for, and what I did not.
I have seen what depth of love there was in your eyes when you
gazed at me. I have known the secret sigh of pain you suppressed
in your love for me. You loved my body as if it were a flower of
paradise. You loved my whole nature as if it had been given you
by some rare providence.
Such lavish devotion made me proud to think that the wealth was
all my own which drove you to my gate. But vanity such as this
only checks the flow of free surrender in a woman's love. When I
sit on the queen's throne and claim homage, then the claim only
goes on magnifying itself; it is never satisfied. Can there be
any real happiness for a woman in merely feeling that she has
power over a man? To surrender one's pride in devotion is
woman's only salvation.
It comes back to me today how, in the days of our happiness, the
fires of envy sprung up all around us. That was only natural,
for had I not stepped into my good fortune by a mere chance, and
without deserving it? But providence does not allow a run of
luck to last for ever, unless its debt of honour be fully paid,
day by day, through many a long day, and thus made secure. God
may grant us gifts, but the merit of being able to take and hold
them must be our own. Alas for the boons that slip through
unworthy hands!
My husband's grandmother and mother were both renowned for their
beauty. And my widowed sister-in-law was also of a beauty rarely
to be seen. When, in turn, fate left them desolate, the
grandmother vowed she would not insist on having beauty for her
remaining grandson when he married. Only the auspicious marks
with which I was endowed gained me an entry into this family--
otherwise, I had no claim to be here.
In this house of luxury, but few of its ladies had received their
meed of respect. They had, however, got used to the ways of the
family, and managed to keep their heads above water, buoyed up by
their dignity as __Ranis__ of an ancient house, in spite of
their daily tears being drowned in the foam of wine, and by the
tinkle of the "dancing girls" anklets. Was the credit due to me
that my husband did not touch liquor, nor squander his manhood in
the markets of woman's flesh? What charm did I know to soothe
the wild and wandering mind of men? It was my good luck, nothing
else. For fate proved utterly callous to my sister-in-law. Her
festivity died out, while yet the evening was early, leaving the
light of her beauty shining in vain over empty halls--burning and
burning, with no accompanying music!
His sister-in-law affected a contempt for my husband's modern
notions. How absurd to keep the family ship, laden with all the
weight of its time-honoured glory, sailing under the colours of
his slip of a girl-wife alone! Often have I felt the lash of
scorn. "A thief who had stolen a husband's love!" "A sham
hidden in the shamelessness of her new-fangled finery!" The
many-coloured garments of modern fashion with which my husband
loved to adorn me roused jealous wrath. "Is not she ashamed to
make a show-window of herself--and with her looks, too!"
My husband was aware of all this, but his gentleness knew no
bounds. He used to implore me to forgive her.
I remember I once told him: "Women's minds are so petty, so
crooked!" "Like the feet of Chinese women," he replied. "Has
not the pressure of society cramped them into pettiness and
crookedness? They are but pawns of the fate which gambles with
them. What responsibility have they of their own?"
My sister-in-law never failed to get from my husband whatever she
wanted. He did not stop to consider whether her requests were
right or reasonable. But what exasperated me most was that she
was not grateful for this. I had promised my husband that I
would not talk back at her, but this set me raging all the more,
inwardly. I used to feel that goodness has a limit, which, if
passed, somehow seems to make men cowardly. Shall I tell the
whole truth? I have often wished that my husband had the
manliness to be a little less good.
My sister-in-law, the Bara Rani, [5] was still young and had no
pretensions to saintliness. Rather, her talk and jest and laugh
inclined to be forward. The young maids with whom she surrounded
herself were also impudent to a degree. But there was none to
gainsay her--for was not this the custom of the house? It seemed
to me that my good fortune in having a stainless husband was a
special eyesore to her. He, however, felt more the sorrow of her
lot than the defects of her character.
------
1. The mark of Hindu wifehood and the symbol of all the devotion
that it implies.
2. The __sari__ is the dress of the Hindu woman.
3. Taking the dust of the feet is a formal offering of reverence
and is done by lightly touching the feet of the revered one and
then one's own head with the same hand. The wife does not
ordinarily do this to the husband.
4. It would not be reckoned good form for the husband to be
continually going into the zenana, except at particular hours for
meals or rest.
5. __Bara__ = Senior; __Chota__ = Junior. In joint
families of rank, though the widows remain entitled only to a
life-interest in their husbands' share, their rank remains to
them according to seniority, and the titles "Senior" and "Junior"
continue to distinguish the elder and younger branches, even
though the junior branch be the one in power.
II
My husband was very eager to take me out of __purdah__. [6]
One day I said to him: "What do I want with the outside world?"
"The outside world may want you," he replied.
"If the outside world has got on so long without me, it may go on
for some time longer. It need not pine to death for want of me."
"Let it perish, for all I care! That is not troubling me. I am
thinking about myself."
"Oh, indeed. Tell me what about yourself?"
My husband was silent, with a smile.
I knew his way, and protested at once: "No, no, you are not going
to run away from me like that! I want to have this out with
you."
"Can one ever finish a subject with words?"
"Do stop speaking in riddles. Tell me..."
"What I want is, that I should have you, and you should have me,
more fully in the outside world. That is where we are still in
debt to each other."
"Is anything wanting, then, in the love we have here at home?"
"Here you are wrapped up in me. You know neither what you have,
nor what you want."
"I cannot bear to hear you talk like this."
"I would have you come into the heart of the outer world and meet
reality. Merely going on with your household duties, living all
your life in the world of household conventions and the drudgery
of household tasks--you were not made for that! If we meet, and
recognize each other, in the real world, then only will our love
be true."
"If there be any drawback here to our full recognition of each
other, then I have nothing to say. But as for myself, I feel no
want."
"Well, even if the drawback is only on my side, why shouldn't you
help to remove it?"
Such discussions repeatedly occurred. One day he said: "The
greedy man who is fond of his fish stew has no compunction in
cutting up the fish according to his need. But the man who loves
the fish wants to enjoy it in the water; and if that is
impossible he waits on the bank; and even if he comes back home
without a sight of it he has the consolation of knowing that the
fish is all right. Perfect gain is the best of all; but if that
is impossible, then the next best gain is perfect losing."
I never liked the way my husband had of talking on this subject,
but that is not the reason why I refused to leave the zenana.
His grandmother was still alive. My husband had filled more than
a hundred and twenty per cent of the house with the twentieth
century, against her taste; but she had borne it uncomplaining.
She would have borne it, likewise, if the daughter-in-law [7] of
the Rajah's house had left its seclusion. She was even prepared
for this happening. But I did not consider it important enough
to give her the pain of it. I have read in books that we are
called "caged birds". I cannot speak for others, but I had so
much in this cage of mine that there was not room for it in the
universe--at least that is what I then felt.
The grandmother, in her old age, was very fond of me. At the
bottom of her fondness was the thought that, with the conspiracy
of favourable stars which attended me, I had been able to attract
my husband's love. Were not men naturally inclined to plunge
downwards? None of the others, for all their beauty, had been
able to prevent their husbands going headlong into the burning
depths which consumed and destroyed them. She believed that I
had been the means of extinguishing this fire, so deadly to the
men of the family. So she kept me in the shelter of her bosom,
and trembled if I was in the least bit unwell.
His grandmother did not like the dresses and ornaments my husband
brought from European shops to deck me with. But she reflected:
"Men will have some absurd hobby or other, which is sure to be
expensive. It is no use trying to check their extravagance; one
is glad enough if they stop short of ruin. If my Nikhil had not
been busy dressing up his wife there is no knowing whom else he
might have spent his money on!" So whenever any new dress of
mine arrived she used to send for my husband and make merry over
it.
Thus it came about that it was her taste which changed. The
influence of the modern age fell so strongly upon her, that her
evenings refused to pass if I did not tell her stories out of
English books.
After his grandmother's death, my husband wanted me to go and
live with him in Calcutta. But I could not bring myself to do
that. Was not this our House, which she had kept under her
sheltering care through all her trials and troubles? Would not a
curse come upon me if I deserted it and went off to town? This
was the thought that kept me back, as her empty seat
reproachfully looked up at me. That noble lady had come into
this house at the age of eight, and had died in her seventy-ninth
year. She had not spent a happy life. Fate had hurled shaft
after shaft at her breast, only to draw out more and more the
imperishable spirit within. This great house was hallowed with
her tears. What should I do in the dust of Calcutta, away from
it?
My husband's idea was that this would be a good opportunity for
leaving to my sister-in-law the consolation of ruling over the
household, giving our life, at the same time, more room to branch
out in Calcutta. That is just where my difficulty came in. She
had worried my life out, she ill brooked my husband's happiness,
and for this she was to be rewarded! And what of the day when we
should have to come back here? Should I then get back my seat at
the head?
"What do you want with that seat?" my husband would say. "Are
there not more precious things in life?"
Men never understand these things. They have their nests in the
outside world; they little know the whole of what the household
stands for. In these matters they ought to follow womanly
guidance. Such were my thoughts at that time.
I felt the real point was, that one ought to stand up for one's
rights. To go away, and leave everything in the hands of the
enemy, would be nothing short of owning defeat.
But why did not my husband compel me to go with him to Calcutta?
I know the reason. He did not use his power, just because he had
it.
------
6. The seclusion of the zenana, and all the customs peculiar to
it, are designated by the general term "Purdah", which means
Screen.
7. The prestige of the daughter-in-law is of the first importance
in a Hindu household of rank [Trans.].
III
IF one had to fill in, little by little, the gap between day and
night, it would take an eternity to do it. But the sun rises and
the darkness is dispelled--a moment is sufficient to overcome an
infinite distance.
One day there came the new era of __Swadeshi__ [8] in Bengal;
but as to how it happened, we had no distinct vision. There was
no gradual slope connecting the past with the present. For that
reason, I imagine, the new epoch came in like a flood, breaking
down the dykes and sweeping all our prudence and fear before it.
We had no time even to think about, or understand, what had
happened, or what was about to happen.
My sight and my mind, my hopes and my desires, became red with
the passion of this new age. Though, up to this time, the walls
of the home--which was the ultimate world to my mind--remained
unbroken, yet I stood looking over into the distance, and I heard
a voice from the far horizon, whose meaning was not perfectly
clear to me, but whose call went straight to my heart.
From the time my husband had been a college student he had been
trying to get the things required by our people produced in our
own country. There are plenty of date trees in our district. He
tried to invent an apparatus for extracting the juice and boiling
it into sugar and treacle. I heard that it was a great success,
only it extracted more money than juice. After a while he came
to the conclusion that our attempts at reviving our industries
were not succeeding for want of a bank of our own. He was, at
the time, trying to teach me political economy. This alone would
not have done much harm, but he also took it into his head to
teach his countrymen ideas of thrift, so as to pave the way for a
bank; and then he actually started a small bank. Its high rate
of interest, which made the villagers flock so enthusiastically
to put in their money, ended by swamping the bank altogether.
The old officers of the estate felt troubled and frightened.
There was jubilation in the enemy's camp. Of all the family,
only my husband's grandmother remained unmoved. She would scold
me, saying: "Why are you all plaguing him so? Is it the fate of
the estate that is worrying you? How many times have I seen this
estate in the hands of the court receiver! Are men like women?
Men are born spendthrifts and only know how to waste. Look here,
child, count yourself fortunate that your husband is not wasting
himself as well!"
My husband's list of charities was a long one. He would assist
to the bitter end of utter failure anyone who wanted to invent a
new loom or rice-husking machine. But what annoyed me most was
the way that Sandip Babu [9] used to fleece him on the pretext of
__Swadeshi__ work. Whenever he wanted to start a newspaper,
or travel about preaching the Cause, or take a change of air by
the advice of his doctor, my husband would unquestioningly supply
him with the money. This was over and above the regular living
allowance which Sandip Babu also received from him. The
strangest part of it was that my husband and Sandip Babu did not
agree in their opinions.
As soon as the __Swadeshi__ storm reached my blood, I said to
my husband: "I must burn all my foreign clothes."
"Why burn them?" said he. "You need not wear them as long as
you please."
"As long as I please! Not in this life ..."
"Very well, do not wear them for the rest of your life, then.
But why this bonfire business?"
"Would you thwart me in my resolve?"
"What I want to say is this: Why not try to build up something?
You should not waste even a tenth part of your energies in this
destructive excitement."
"Such excitement will give us the energy to build."
"That is as much as to say, that you cannot light the house
unless you set fire to it."
Then there came another trouble. When Miss Gilby first came to
our house there was a great flutter, which afterwards calmed down
when they got used to her. Now the whole thing was stirred up
afresh. I had never bothered myself before as to whether Miss
Gilby was European or Indian, but I began to do so now. I said
to my husband: "We must get rid of Miss Gilby."
He kept silent.
I talked to him wildly, and he went away sad at heart.
After a fit of weeping, I felt in a more reasonable mood when we
met at night. "I cannot," my husband said, "look upon Miss Gilby
through a mist of abstraction, just because she is English.
Cannot you get over the barrier of her name after such a long
acquaintance? Cannot you realize that she loves you?"
I felt a little ashamed and replied with some sharpness: "Let her
remain. I am not over anxious to send her away." And Miss Gilby
remained.
But one day I was told that she had been insulted by a young
fellow on her way to church. This was a boy whom we were
supporting. My husband turned him out of the house. There was
not a single soul, that day, who could forgive my husband for
that act--not even I. This time Miss Gilby left of her own
accord. She shed tears when she came to say good-bye, but my
mood would not melt. To slander the poor boy so--and such a fine
boy, too, who would forget his daily bath and food in his
enthusiasm for __Swadeshi__.
My husband escorted Miss Gilby to the railway station in his own
carriage. I was sure he was going too far. When exaggerated
accounts of the incident gave rise to a public scandal, which
found its way to the newspapers, I felt he had been rightly
served.
I had often become anxious at my husband's doings, but had never
before been ashamed; yet now I had to blush for him! I did not
know exactly, nor did I care, what wrong poor Noren might, or
might not, have done to Miss Gilby, but the idea of sitting in
judgement on such a matter at such a time! I should have refused
to damp the spirit which prompted young Noren to defy the
Englishwoman. I could not but look upon it as a sign of
cowardice in my husband, that he should fail to understand this
simple thing. And so I blushed for him.
And yet it was not that my husband refused to support
__Swadeshi__, or was in any way against the Cause. Only he
had not been able whole-heartedly to accept the spirit of
__Bande Mataram__. [10]
"I am willing," he said, "to serve my country; but my worship I
reserve for Right which is far greater than my country. To
worship my country as a god is to bring a curse upon it."
------
8. The Nationalist movement, which began more as an economic than
a political one, having as its main object the encouragement of
indigenous industries [Trans.].
9. "Babu" is a term of respect, like "Father" or "Mister," but
has also meant in colonial days a person who understands some
English. [on-line ed.]
10. Lit.: "Hail Mother"; the opening words of a song by Bankim
Chatterjee, the famous Bengali novelist. The song has now become
the national anthem, and __Bande Mataram__ the national cry,
since the days of the __Swadeshi__ movement [Trans.].
Content of Chapter One [Rabindranath Tagore's novel: The Home and the World]
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