Chandrashekhar. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay
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Название: Chandrashekhar
Автор: Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Математика
isbn: 4064066463311
isbn:
THE BOY AND THE GIRL.
SEATED in a mango-grove on the bank of the Bhagirathi, a boy was listening to the twilight murmur of the waters. At his feet a little girl, stretched on a bed of. springing turf, was silently looking at his face. She looked and looked and looked : she looked at the sky, the river, and the trees, and again looked at his face. The boy’s name was Protap, that of the girl was Shaibalini. Shaibalini was then a child of seven or eight, while Protap was iust stepping into youth.
Overhead the Papia [1] flitted away flooding the skies with the modulations of its music Shaibalini in an imitative melody made the mango-grove on the bank tremulous with Vibration. The murmur of the Ganges mingled with the mimic song.
The girl with her small hands strung a garland of wild flowers, delicate as the hands which culled them, and hung it round the neck of the boy. Anon she took it off and twisted it round her chignon; the next moment she put it off, only to place it round his neck again. It could not be settled who should wear the garland, and so finding a fat sleek cow grazing hard by, Shaibalini wound the contested garland round its horns and thus the point was decided. Quarrels like this were not of rare occurrence with them; there being times when the boy would fetch the young brood from the nest of birds, and pluck ripe mellow mangoes in the season and give them to Shaibalini in exchange for the garland.
In the soft sky of the gloaming when the stars were up, they would start counting. Who has seen them first? Which of them first came in view? How many do you see? Are they four? I see five. There is one, there is another, another, another, and another. It is a fib. Shaibalini could not see more than three.
Now let us count the boats. Tell me how many boats are passing? Are they sixteen? Come, a wager! it is eighteen. Shaibalini did not know to count; her first counting gave the number at nine, but the next raised it to twenty-one. Then they gave up the counting, and both fixed their gaze intently on one single boat. Who was in the boat-whither was it going—whence had it come P—were questions which puzzled their speculative powers. Look how the gold is flashing in the splashes of the oar.
1 ↑ The Indian sparrow-hawk, a song—bird, with a shrill, crescendo note.
Chapter II :- Who could Sink and Who could not
CHAPTER II.
WHO COULD SINK AND WHO COULD NOT.
THUS affection came into being. Call it love or not, just as you fancy. A lover of sixteen, a sweetheart of eight; but in any case no one knows to love like children.
I believe there is a curse on the love of childhood. How few of those whom you have loved in childhood you come across in youth, how few of them live so long, and how few remain worthy of your love! In old age, the memory only of the love of childhood is left; the rest all vanish, but how sweet is that memory!
Every boy must have been impressed some time or other with the face of some girl as particularly sweet—there is some transcendent charm in her eyes. How often did he pause in his play and look up at her face, how frequently did he stand perdu in her path to have a peep at her. Then that sweet face, that frank gaze—all, all have been swept away in the onrush of time, no one knows whither. We search the whole world to find it again—only the memory of it is left. There is a curse on the love of childhood.
Shaibalini was under the impression that she would be married to Protap. Protap knew it was not to be so. She was the daughter of an agnate; the relationship was distant, but yet an agnate. This was the first error in Shaibalini’s reckoning.
Then Shaibalini was the daughter of poor parents. She had no relation alive excepting her mother. They had nothing to call their own save a hut and Shaibalini’s wealth of beauty. Protap also was poor.
Shaibalini grew apace. Her beauty went on completing itself like the horned moon, but there was no marriage. There was expense in the matter, and who was to bear it? Who would care to search out that hoard of beauty in that wilderness and welcome it as an invaluable treasure?
Shaibalini increased in understanding. She knew that she had no other happiness in this world except in Protap, and she also knew that she had no chance of getting Protap in this life.
They took counsel of each other, they deliberated for days in private, and no one knew. When they had made up their minds, both went for a bath to the Ganges. Several people were swimming there. “Shaibalini, come let us swim,” proposed Protap. Both began to swim, both were expert in the natatory art, no other children in the village could swim like them. It was the rainy season, the water of the Ganges ran up to the brim—it glided along, swimming, dancing and racing. They clove the waters, churned and scattered them, and swam along. Their handsome youthful figures shone in the foaming eddies like twin gems set in a silver orb.
When the—bathing-folk in the ghât saw them swim off to a considerable distance, they called them back, but they paid no heed—they went on. Again the bathers called them back, rated them, abused them, but neither of the two would listen—they went on. When they had gone a long way, Protap said, “Shaibalini, now is the time for our tying the nuptial knot.”
“What is the use of going any further? Let it be even here,” answered Shaibalini.
Protap sank.
Shaibalini could not; she was afraid. “Why should I die?" thought she. “Who is Protap to me? I feel afraid, I cannot die.” Shaibalini could not sink; she turned and swam back to the shore.
Chapter III :- The Bridegroom Found.
CHAPTER III.
THE BRIDEGROOM FOUND.
NOT very far from where Protap sank, a skiff was rowing along. One of the passengers saw Protap sink and leapt into the water. The passenger was Chandrashekhar Sharma[1] Chandrashekhar swam up and lifted Protap into the boat. He drove the boat ashore, and accompanied Protap to his home.
Protap’s mother would not let him depart. She fell at his feet and prevailed upon him to partake of her hospitality for the day. Chandrashekhar remained in the dark as to the real object of Protap’s drowning.
Shaibalini did not show her face to Protap again. But Chandrashekhar saw her—saw her, and was charmed.
Just then Chandrashekhar was in the midst of a great perplexity. He had barely stepped over his thirty-second year. He was a householder, yet not worldly-minded. Up to this, he had not married. Marriage generally stands in the way of acquiring knowledge, hence he was very much averse to it. But lately he had lost his mother, a little over a year. Under the new conditions, celibacy obstructed the acquisition of knowledge. In the first place, he had to cook with his own hands; that cost him СКАЧАТЬ