topics: |  fiction | bengali | translation

One of my most powerful tales of a relationship, untouched by physicality.  The
dialogues (and the sparks) between the earthy, greedy sandip and the
innocent bimala - and the langugage in which it is expressed - are
early pointers to the creative fireworks of shesher kabita.  The entire
story is psychologically very powerful - the quiet bimala who falls for the
flamboyant sandip but eventually finds a quiet strength in her husband,
is very insightful.

	"Can man ever give as woman can? ... women give themselves"
						   	- Sandip

For me, the women characters in Tagore are far superior in their psychology
than woman characters in any other writer.  Also, the males that understand
women; e.g. to quote Sandip again - "Women have a weakness for greedy men;
for it is this greed of ours which gives them the upper hand."

The translation by Surendranath (his nephew) is very delicate, it almost
transparently takes you to tagore.  He and his sister Indira grew up in
intimate contact with Tagore, who was only 10 years older, and came
particularly close during Tagore's sojourn in England in 1878-9. Surendranath
is undoubtedly one of Tagore's finest translators; both My reminescences
(জীবনস্মৃতি, Jivansmriti) and Four chapters (chAr adhyAy) are notable
works translated by Surendranath.

Excerpts

[Bimala's story]

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 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. p.3


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.  p.3

---

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. p.4

--- [Sandip's Story]

The impotent man says: "That which has come to my share is mine."  And
the weak man assents.  But the lesson of the whole world is: "That is
really mine which I can snatch away."  My country does not become mine
simply because it is the country of my birth.  It becomes mine on the
day when I am able to win it by force.  . . .

Let moral ideals remain merely for those poor anaemic creatures of starved
desire whose grasp is weak.  Those who can desire with all their soul and
enjoy with all their heart, those who have no hesitation or scruple, it is
they who are the anointed of Providence.  Nature spreads out her riches and
loveliest treasures for their benefit.  They swim across streams, leap over
walls, kick open doors, to help themselves to whatever is worth taking.  In
such a getting one can rejoice; such wresting as this gives value to the
thing taken.

Nature surrenders herself, but only to the robber.  For she delights
in this forceful desire, this forceful abduction.  And so she does not
put the garland of her acceptance round the lean, scraggy neck of the
ascetic.  The music of the wedding march is struck.  The time of the
wedding I must not let pass.  My heart therefore is eager.  For, who
is the bridegroom? It is I.  The bridegroom's place belongs to him
who, torch in hand, can come in time.  The bridegroom in Nature's
wedding hall comes unexpected and uninvited.

Ashamed? No, I am never ashamed! I ask for whatever I want, and I do
not always wait to ask before I take it.  Those who are deprived by
their own diffidence dignify their privation by the name of modesty.
The world into which we are born is the world of reality. p.37

---

"It is true," he said, "that you cannot get anything except by force.
But then what is this force? And then also, what is this getting? The
strength I believe in is the strength of renouncing."

"So you," I exclaimed, "are infatuated with the glory of bankruptcy."

"Just as desperately as the chick is infatuated about the bankruptcy
of its shell," he replied.  "The shell is real enough, yet it is given
up in exchange for intangible light and air.  A sorry exchange, I
suppose you would call it?"

When once Nikhil gets on to metaphor, there is no hope of making him
see that he is merely dealing with words, not with realities. 38

---

Women find in my features, my manner, my gait, my speech, a masterful
passion -- not a passion dried thin with the heat of asceticism, not a
passion with its face turned back at every step in doubt and debate,
but a full-blooded passion.  It roars and rolls on, like a flood, with
the cry: "I want, I want, I want."  Women feel, in their own heart of
hearts, that this indomitable passion is the lifeblood of the world,
acknowledging no law but itself, and therefore victorious.  For this
reason they have so often abandoned themselves to be swept away on the
flood-tide of my passion, recking naught as to whether it takes them
to life or to death.  This power which wins these women is the power
of mighty men, the power which wins the world of reality.

Those who imagine the greater desirability of another world merely
shift their desires from the earth to the skies.  It remains to be
seen how high their gushing fountain will play, and for how long.  But
this much is certain: women were not created for these pale
creatures -- these lotus-eaters of idealism. 39

---

"Affinity!" Why should there be only one? There may be affinity with
thousands.  It was never in my agreement with nature that I should
overlook all my innumerable affinities for the sake of only one.  I
have discovered many in my own life up to now, yet that has not closed
the door to one more -- and that one is clearly visible to my eyes.  She
has also discovered her own affinity to me.

And then?

Then, if I do not win I am a coward. 40

---

I wonder what could have happened to my feeling of shame.  The fact
is, I had no time to think about myself.  My days and nights were
passing in a whirl, like an eddy with myself in the centre.  No gap
was left for hesitation or delicacy to enter.

---[Bimala]

One day [Sandip] said to my husband: "Do you know, Nikhil, when I
first saw our Queen Bee, she was sitting there so demurely in her
gold-bordered sari.  Her eyes were gazing inquiringly into space, like
stars which had lost their way, just as if she had been for ages
standing on the edge of some darkness, looking out for something
unknown.  But when I saw her, I felt a quiver run through me.  It
seemed to me that the gold border of her sari was her own inner fire
flaming out and twining round her.  That is the flame we want, visible
fire!  Look here, Queen Bee, you really must do us the favour of
dressing once more as a living flame."

So long I had been like a small river at the border of a village.  My
rhythm and my language were different from what they are now.  But the
tide came up from the sea, and my breast heaved; my banks gave way and
the great drumbeats of the sea waves echoed in my mad current.  I
could not understand the meaning of that sound in my blood.  Where was
that former self of mine? Whence came foaming into me this surging
flood of glory? Sandip's hungry eyes burnt like the lamps of worship
before my shrine.  All his gaze proclaimed that I was a wonder in
beauty and power; and the loudness of his praise, spoken and unspoken,
drowned all other voices in my world.  Had the Creator created me
afresh, I wondered? Did he wish to make up now for neglecting me so
long? I who before was plain had become suddenly beautiful.  I who
before had been of no account now felt in myself all the splendour of
Bengal itself. 43

---

Sandip Babu would consult me about every little thing touching the
Cause.  At first I felt very awkward and would hang back, but that
soon wore off.  Whatever I suggested seemed to astonish him.  He would
go into raptures and say: "Men can only think.  You women have a way
of understanding without thinking.  Woman was created out of God's own
fancy.  Man, He had to hammer into shape."

Letters used to come to Sandip Babu from all parts of the country
which were submitted to me for my opinion.  Occasionally he disagreed
with me.  But I would not argue with him.  Then after a day or two -- as
if a new light had suddenly dawned upon him -- he would send for me and
say: "It was my mistake.  Your suggestion was the correct one." He
would often confess to me that wherever he had taken steps contrary to
my advice he had gone wrong.  Thus I gradually came to be convinced
that behind whatever was taking place was Sandip Babu, and behind
Sandip Babu was the plain common sense of a woman.  The glory of a
great responsibility filled my being.

--- [Sandip]

I shall never forget the picture of her wrath! That Bee is beautiful
is a discovery of my own.  Most of our people would see nothing in
her.  Her tall, slim figure these boors would call "lanky".  But it is
just this lithesomeness of hers that I admire -- like an up-leaping
fountain of life, coming direct out of the depths of the Creator's
heart.  Her complexion is dark, but it is the lustrous darkness of a
sword-blade, keen and scintillating. 47

--- [Sandip]

The other day, at dinner, she was gazing at me in a curious sort of
way, little realizing what such glances mean! As my eyes met hers, she
turned away with a flush.  "You are surprised at my appetite," I
remarked.  "I can hide everything, except that I am greedy! Anyhow,
why trouble to blush for me, since I am shameless?"

This only made her colour more furiously, as she stammered: "No, no, I
was only. . . "

"I know," I interrupted.  "Women have a weakness for greedy men; for
it is this greed of ours which gives them the upper hand.  The
indulgence which I have always received at their hands has made me all
the more shameless.  I do not mind your watching the good things
disappear, not one bit.  I mean to enjoy every one of them."

---

I was aware that it is unsafe suddenly to awake a sleep-walker.  But I
am so impetuous by nature, a halting gait does not suit me.  I knew I
was overbold that day.  I knew that the first shock of such ideas is
apt to be almost intolerable.  But with women it is always audacity
that wins.

---

"Women . . .   know that men love delusions, so they give them full
measure by borrowing their own phrases.  They know that man, the
drunkard, values intoxication more than food, and so they try to pass
themselves off as an intoxicant.  As a matter of fact, but for the
sake of man, woman has no need for any make-believe."

---

"Passion," I replied, "is the street lamp which guides us.  To call it
untrue is as hopeless as to expect to see better by plucking out our
natural eyes."

Nikhil was visibly growing excited.  "I accept the truth of passion,"
he said, "only when I recognize the truth of restraint.  By pressing
what we want to see right into our eyes we only injure them: we do not
see.  So does the violence of passion, which would leave no space
between the mind and its object, defeat its purpose."

"It is simply your intellectual foppery," I replied, "which makes you
indulge in moral delicacy, ignoring the savage side of truth.  This
merely helps you to mystify things, and so you fail to do your work
with any degree of strength."

"The intrusion of strength," said Nikhil impatiently, "where strength
is out of place, does not help you in your work . . .   But why are
we arguing about these things? Vain arguments only brush off the fresh
bloom of truth."

---

Nikhil suddenly stood up.  "I tell you plainly, Sandip," he said, "man
may be wounded unto death, but he will not die.  This is the reason
why I am ready to suffer all, knowing all, with eyes open."

With these words he hurriedly left the room.

I was staring blankly at his retreating figure, when the sound of a
book, falling from the table, made me turn to find Bee following him
with quick, nervous steps, making a detour to avoid passing too near
me.

A curious creature, that Nikhil! He feels the danger threatening his
home, and yet why does he not turn me out? I know, he is waiting for
Bimal to give him the cue.  If Bimal tells him that their mating has
been a misfit, he will bow his head and admit that it may have been a
blunder! He has not the strength of mind to understand that to
acknowledge a mistake is the greatest of all mistakes.  He is a
typical example of how ideas make for weakness.  I have not seen
another like him -- so whimsical a product of nature! He would hardly do
as a character in a novel or drama, to say nothing of real life.

---

There is a wrench at my heart, a pang in every nerve.  When I have put
out the light and am in my bed, little touches, little glances, little
words flit about and fill the darkness.  When I get up in the morning,
I thrill with lively anticipations, my blood seems to course through
me to the strains of music . . .

---

I had written thus far, and was about to rise to go off bedwards when,
through the window before me, I saw the heavy pall of July cloud
suddenly part a little, and a big star shine through.  It seemed to
say to me: "Dreamland ties are made, and dreamland ties are broken,
but I am here for ever -- the everlasting lamp of the bridal night."

---

Now let me go and see my Bimala.  She must have spread her tired limbs
on the bed, limp after her struggles, and be asleep.  I will leave a
kiss on her forehead without waking her -- that shall be the
flower-offering of my worship.  I believe I could forget everything
after death -- all my mistakes, all my sufferings -- but some vibration of
the memory of that kiss would remain; for the wreath which is being
woven out of the kisses of many a successive birth is to crown the
Eternal Beloved.

---

When, before my marriage, I used to see a brother-in-law of mine, now
dead, mad with drink -- beating his wife in his frenzy, and then
sobbing and howling in maudlin repentance, vowing never to touch
liquor again, and yet, the very same evening, sitting down to drink
and drink -- it would fill me with disgust.  But my intoxication today
is still more fearful.  The stuff has not to be procured or poured
out: it springs within my veins, and I know not how to resist it.

Must this continue to the end of my days? Now and again I start and
look upon myself, and think my life to be a nightmare which will
vanish all of a sudden with all its untruth.  It has become so
frightfully incongruous.  It has no connection with its past.  What it
is, how it could have come to this pass, I cannot understand.

One day my sister-in-law remarked with a cutting laugh: "What a
wonderfully hospitable Chota Rani we have! Her guest absolutely will
not budge."

---

For two whole days I did not stir out.  Then, for the first time, I
discovered how far I had travelled.  My life felt utterly tasteless.
Whatever I touched I wanted to thrust away.  I felt myself waiting --
from the crown of my head to the tips of my toes -- waiting for
something, somebody; my blood kept tingling with some expectation.

I tried busying myself with extra work.  The bedroom floor was clean
enough but I insisted on its being scrubbed over again under my eyes.
Things were arranged in the cabinets in one kind of order; I pulled
them all out and rearranged them in a different way.  I found no time
that afternoon even to do up my hair; I hurriedly tied it into a loose
knot, and went and worried everybody, fussing about the store-room.
The stores seemed short, and pilfering must have been going on of
late, but I could not muster up the courage to take any particular
person to task -- for might not the thought have crossed somebody's
mind: "Where were your eyes all these days!"

In short, I behaved that day as one possessed.

---

It is now four years since I framed a photograph of my husband in
ivory and put it in the niche over there.  If I happen to look that
way I have to lower my eyes.  Up to last week I used regularly to put
there the flowers of my worship, every morning after my bath.  My
husband has often chided me over this.

"It shames me to see you place me on a height to which I do not
belong," he said one day.

"What nonsense!"

"I am not only ashamed, but also jealous!"

"Just hear him! Jealous of whom, pray?"

"Of that false me.  It only shows that I am too petty for you, that
you want some extraordinary man who can overpower you with his
superiority, and so you needs must take refuge in making for yourself
another 'me'."

---

"I want!"  Sandip went on one day -- this was the primal word at the
root of all creation.  It had no maxim to guide it, but it became fire
and wrought itself into suns and stars.  Its partiality is terrible.
Because it had a desire for man, it ruthlessly sacrificed millions of
beasts for millions of years to achieve that desire.  That terrible
word "I want" has taken flesh in woman, and therefore men, who are
cowards, try with all their might to keep back this primeval flood
with their earthen dykes.  They are afraid lest, laughing and dancing
as it goes, it should wash away all the hedges and props of their
pumpkin field.  Men, in every age, flatter themselves that they have
secured this force within the bounds of their convenience, but it
gathers and grows.  Now it is calm and deep like a lake, but gradually
its pressure will increase, the dykes will give way, and the force
which has so long been dumb will rush forward with the roar: "I want!"

These words of Sandip echo in my heart-beats like a war-drum.

--- [Sandip]

My theory of life makes me certain that the Great is cruel.  To be
just is for ordinary men -- it is reserved for the great to be unjust.
The surface of the earth was even.  The volcano butted it with its
fiery horn and found its own eminence -- its justice was not towards its
obstacle, but towards itself.  Successful injustice and genuine
cruelty have been the only forces by which individual or nation has
become millionaire or monarch.

That is why I preach the great discipline of Injustice.  I say to
everyone: Deliverance is based upon injustice.  Injustice is the fire
which must keep on burning something in order to save itself from
becoming ashes.  Whenever an individual or nation becomes incapable of
perpetrating injustice it is swept into the dust-bin of the world.

---

But what is teasing me is that I am getting entangled.  Am I not born
to rule? -- to bestride my proper steed, the crowd, and drive it as I
will; the reins in my hand, the destination known only to me, and for
it the thorns, the mire, on the road? This steed now awaits me at the
door, pawing and champing its bit, its neighing filling the skies.
But where am I, and what am I about, letting day after day of golden
opportunity slip by?

I used to think I was like a storm -- that the torn flowers with which I
strewed my path would not impede my progress.  But I am only wandering
round and round a flower like a bee -- not a storm.

---

"I want it; it is here; let me take it" -- This is a clear-cut,
straightforward policy.  Those who can pursue its course with vigour
needs must win through in the end.  But the gods would not have it
that such journey should be easy, so they have deputed the siren
Sympathy to distract the wayfarer, to dim his vision with her tearful
mist.

I can see that poor Bimala is struggling like a snared deer.  What a
piteous alarm there is in her eyes!  How she is torn with straining at
her bonds!  This sight, of course, should gladden the heart of a true
hunter.  And so do I rejoice; but, then, I am also touched; and
therefore I dally, and standing on the brink I am hesitating to pull
the noose fast.

There have been moments, I know, when I could have bounded up to her,
clasped her hands and folded her to my breast, unresisting.  Had I
done so, she would not have said one word.  She was aware that some
crisis was impending, which in a moment would change the meaning of
the whole world.  Standing before that cavern of the incalculable but
yet expected, her face went pale and her eyes glowed with a fearful
ecstasy.  Within that moment, when it arrives, an eternity will take
shape, which our destiny awaits, holding its breath.

But I have let this moment slip by.  I did not, with uncompromising
strength, press the almost certain into the absolutely assured.  I now
see clearly that some hidden elements in my nature have openly ranged
themselves as obstacles in my path.

---

  It is August, the sky breaks into a passionate rain;
  Alas, empty is my house.
	 - Vidyapati

---

there is a lower unit of measure for the trials and troubles of the
"lower classes".  Want is, of course, a permanent feature of their
lives, but does not necessarily mean "want" to them.  Their very
smallness protects them, as the banks protect the pool; by widening
bounds only the slime is exposed.

---

  my quest is the death-draught of immortality.

--- [Sandip]

Woman knows man well enough where he is weak, but she is quite unable
to fathom him where he is strong.  The fact is that man is as much a
mystery to woman as woman is to man.  If that were not so, the
separation of the sexes would only have been a waste of Nature's
energy.

---

It is because I am such a mystery to my own mind that my attraction
for myself is so strong! If once the whole of myself should become
known to me, I would then fling it all away -- and reach beatitude!

---

We are men, we are kings, we must have our tribute.  Ever since we
have come upon the Earth we have been plundering her; and the more we
claimed, the more she submitted.  From primeval days have we men been
plucking fruits, cutting down trees, digging up the soil, killing
beast, bird and fish.  From the bottom of the sea, from underneath the
ground, from the very jaws of death, it has all been grabbing and
grabbing and grabbing -- no strong-box in Nature's store-room has been
respected or left unrifled.  The one delight of this Earth is to
fulfil the claims of those who are men.  She has been made fertile and
beautiful and complete through her endless sacrifices to them.  But
for this, she would be lost in the wilderness, not knowing herself,
the doors of her heart shut, her diamonds and pearls never seeing the
light.

---

But it is impossible to drive all this into Nikhil's head.  He has
such a prejudice in favour of truth -- as though there exists such an
objective reality! How often have I tried to explain to him that where
untruth truly exists, there it is indeed the truth.

---

"We think," he said, "that we are our own masters when we get in our
hands the object of our desire -- but we are really our own masters only
when we are able to cast out our desires from our minds."

--- [Bimala]

I had put my foot on quicksand, and could not now withdraw it.
Struggling would only send me down deeper.

---

"Can man ever give as woman can?" said Sandip, looking towards Amulya.

"They are goddesses!" agreed Amulya with enthusiasm.

"We men can at best give of our power," continued Sandip.  "But women
give themselves.  Out of their own life they give birth, out of their
own life they give sustenance.  Such gifts are the only true gifts."
Then turning to me, "Queen!" said he, "if what you have given us had
been only money I would not have touched it.  But you have given that
which is more to you than life itself!"

There must be two different persons inside men.  One of these in me
can understand that Sandip is trying to delude me; the other is
content to be deluded. 163

---

His boldness was immense -- boldness which had no veil, but was naked as
fire.  One finds no time to stop it: it is like trying to resist a
thunderbolt: the lightning flashes: it laughs at all resistance

what a juggler with ideas is Sandip. He has no interest in discovering truth,
but to make a quizzical display of it rejoices his heart. Had he been born in
the wilds of Africa he would have spent a glorious time inventing argument
after argument to prove that cannibalism is the best means of promoting true
communion between man and man.  But those who deal in delusion end by deluding
themselves, and I fully believe that, each time Sandip creates a new
fallacy, he persuades himself that he has found the truth, however
contradictory his creations may be to one another. 177

--- [Sandip, as Nikhil is sending him away]

Goddess, the time has come for me to leave you.  It is well.  The work
of your nearness has been done.  By lingering longer it would only
become undone again, little by little.  All is lost, if in our greed
we try to cheapen that which is the greatest thing on earth.  That
which is eternal within the moment only becomes shallow if spread out
in time.  We were about to spoil our infinite moment, when it was your
uplifted thunderbolt which came to the rescue.

--- [Nikhil, after witnessing Bimala's power over Amulya]

I could only preach and preach, so I mused, and get my effigy burnt
for my pains.  I had not yet been able to bring back a single soul
from the path of death.  They who have the power, can do so by a mere
sign.  My words have not that ineffable meaning.  I am not a flame,
only a black coal, which has gone out.  I can light no lamp.  That is
what the story of my life shows -- my row of lamps has remained unlit.

---

"This won't do," I said.  "Did you not promise me you would have a
sleep?"

"I might have made the promise," he replied, "but my sleep did not,
and it was nowhere to be found." 225

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