The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore (children's ebooks online .txt) 📖

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.

The mark of Hindu wifehood and the symbol of all the devotion

that it implies.

The sari is the dress of the Hindu woman.

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.

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.

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.

The seclusion of the zenana, and all the customs peculiar to

it, are designated by the general term "Purdah", which means

Screen.

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