Chandrashekhar. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ morning wore on, the wind began to rise. The boat was large and could not make head against adverse winds; the guards moored it at Bbadrahatty.

Sometime after, a barber-woman approached. She was married, and clad in a rather short red-bordered sari, with a fringe of a similar hue, and holding a basket full of lacdye—cotton in her hand. Finding a large ​number of black beards^[4] in the boat, she pulled her veil. The owners of the beards gazed at her in silence.

      Shaibalini’s food was cooking on an alluvial plat. She was still observing Hindu customs—-a Brahmin was cooking. One cannot transform oneself into a Saheb’s wife in the course of a single day. Foster knew that if Shaibalini did not escape or commit suicide, she must one day sit at table and relish Mahomedan cooking as a delicacy. But where was the hurry now? If he tried to force her hand, everything would be spoiled. With this idea, he had engaged a Brahmin cook for her, according to the suggestion of his servants. The Brahmin was cooking and a servant-woman standing by helped him. The barber-woman walked up to the latter and asked, “My friend, where are you coming from?”

The servant-woman got angry, specially as she received her wages from an Englishman and answered sharply, “What business have you to enquire, hussy? We are coming from Hilli, Delhi, or Mecca, if that will suit you.”^[5]

      The barber-woman was put out of countenance and said, “It is not that; I mean I am a barber by profession, and I am asking if any lady in your boat would like to have my services.”

The servant-woman was mollified, and said, “Very well, I will go and enquire.” With these words she went to ask Shaibalini if she would like to paint her feet with lacdye.^[6] Shaibalini had been devising schemes for ​diverting her mind anyhow, and said, “Yes, I will.” Then, with the guard’s permission, the servant-woman sent the barber-woman inside the boat, herself remaining busy in the cooking-place as before.

      On facing Shaibalini the barber-woman drew her veil a little deeper, and taking one of her feet began to paint. “Barber-woman, where do you live?” asked Shaibalini after surveying her for some time.

      She did not answer. “Barber-woman “what is your name?” again asked Shaibalini.

      Still no answer.

      “Barber-woman are you weeping?”

      “No,” came the soft reply.

      “Yes, you are weeping,” and Shaibalini pulled back the barber—woman’s veil. She had been actually weeping; when the veil had been removed, she smiled softly.

      “I made you out as soon as you came in,” said Shaibalini. “A veil before me, you silly! Never mind, but where do you come from?"

      The barber-woman was no other than sister-in-law Sundari. Wiping her tears she said, “Be off with you, quick. Now take my sari and put it on, I am taking it off for you. Take this lacdye-cotton basket, draw your veil close and clear out of the boat.”

      “How have you come?” vacantly repeated Shaibalini.

      “Whence I have come, how I have come, I will explain to you later on, if I find a suitable time for it. I have come here in search of you. I was told that the palanquin had gone in the direction of the Ganges. I got up in the morning, and without exchanging a word with a single soul, walked up to the river. Then I came to know that the boat had started northwards. I was to have walked a long way, but my feet began to ache, when I hired a boat and followed you. Yours ​is a big boat and slow, mine is a small one, so I caught you up quickly.”

      “How could you come alone?”

      It was on the tip of Sundari’s tongue to return, “You blackfaced! how could you come riding in an Englishman’s palanquin alone?” But finding it ill—suited for the occasion she held back and said :—

      “I have not come alone, my husband is with me. Leaving our boat a little way off I assumed the garb of a barber-woman and came.”

      “Well then?”

“Then put on my sari, take this lacdye-cotton basket, draw your veil close and get away; no one will know you. Follow the bank of the Ganges, you will find my husband in the boat. Don’t feel ashamed on account of his being the husband of your husband’s sister;^[7] you will go straight into the boat. As soon as you reach there, he will row off and take you home.”

      Shaibalini reflected for a time and said, “Very well, I grant it shall be so, but then what will become of you?”

      “Don't you trouble yourself for me. The Englishman, who can confine the Brahmin woman Sundari in a boat has not set his foot in Bengal yet. We are born of Brahmin parents, we are the wives of Brahmins, if our minds be firm there can be no danger for us in this world. Do you go, I will reach home in course of the night anyhow. The God who overcometh all evil is my hope. Don’t delay any longer. My husband hasn’t had his meal yet, I don’t know whether he will have any to-day at all.”

      ​"Well, suppose I return home, do you think my husband will reinstate me?”

      “Oh, ho! why shouldn’t he do it? As if it is such an easy matter after all not to do it.”

      “But remember, I have been abducted by the Englishman, do I maintain my caste any longer?”

      Sundari looked intently at her face in astonishment. She began to dart sharp soul-piercing glances at her, and the proud Shaibalini, like a serpent wincing under the touch of the medicinal root, dropped her face. “Will you speak the truth?” asked Sundari somewhat sternly.

      “Yes, I will.”

“Even on these waters of the Ganges?"^[8]

      “Yes. There is no need of your asking, I will tell you without it. Up till now I have held the Englishman at arm’s length. It cannot harm the religious scruples of my husband to take me back.”

      “Then make no doubt. He is a pious man, he will never do an unjust thing; what is the good of wasting time on unprofitable talk?”

      Shaibalini remained buried in thought for a while and then water stood in her eyes.

      “Supposing I do go,” she said, wiping her tears. “Suppose also, that my husband takes me back, but will my infamy be ever wiped away?"

Sundari made no answer. “Would not the little girls of the neighbourhood,” continued Shaibalini, “hereafter point their fingers at me and say, ‘look, there is she who was abducted by an Englishman!’ God forbid! if a son is born to me, who will accept my invitation at his rice ​ceremony^[9] and come to dine at my house? Or, if a daughter is born, what good Brahmin will marry his son to her? If I return home now, who will believe that I have not fallen off from my religion? How shall I shew my face there?”

      “What was in your destiny, has come to pass,” said Sundari, “that cannot be undone. You shall have to suffer a little all your time, yet you will have the satisfaction of living in your own home.”

      “For what happiness? What hopes of happiness have I, that I shall return home and suffer so much misery? I have neither father, mother, friend——”

      “Why, you have got your husband, else for whom is the life of a woman ?"

      “You know all—”

      “Yes, I do know СКАЧАТЬ