Rabindranath Tagore, "Atonement" [or "Expiation"] (1894 / Translated 1913) (Short Story)
Tags: Marital Dysfunction, Theft, Country vs. City, Travel to England, Caste
Atonement
Our Anathbandhu is a youth ill favoured by Providence and suspended in that mid-space. Every one believed that he could be successful in any undertaking he would have liked to lay his hands upon. But he never liked to employ himself in any undertaking and succeeded in none, and everybody's confidence in his abilities remained unshaken.
All said his name would stand at the top of the list in the examination, but he would not enter appearance in the examination at all. Every one was certain that he could easily occupy the highest place in any department if he would accept service, — he did not accept any appointment whatsoever. He looked upon the common people with great disdain, for they were too insignificant. He had not the least regard for the uncommon personages for he could be much more uncommon if only he would feel so inclined.
All his fame and reputation, and his happiness, prosperity and good luck, had been stowed away in the store-room of not-impossible over-reaching all time and space. In the region of matter-of-fact actuality, however, Heaven had bestowed upon him a rich father-in-law and a gentle wife. She was named Bindhyabashini.
Anathbandhu did not like his wife's name, and would not also consider her suited to him in point of beauty and attainments. But there was no limit to his wife's pride in being so lucky in her husband. She had full conviction that her husband was superior to all other husbands of all other wives, and her husband also had not the least doubt about it, and public opinion was also helpful in contributing to this belief.
Bindhyabashini was always in apprehension lest this pride in her husband should in any way suffer a lowering. If she could set him upon the highest crest of the immovable cloud-piercing heights of her heart's devotion and thus keep him entirely aloof from the stare of the earth's ignorant populace, then only could she be free to dedicate her life solely to the worship of her husband without the least anxiety. But in this material world it is not possible to retain the venerated one ever on high by devotion alone; and there was no paucity of creatures on earth who would not admit of Anathbandhu's being a model of a man. Bindhyabashini had to suffer much pain occasionally in consequence.
Anathbandhu used to stay in his father-in-law's house when he studied in the college. He did not appear in the examination when the time for it arrived, and he left the college the following year. This event put Bindhyabashini much out of countenance before other people. She gently told him at night, "It would have been better if you had taken the exam."
Anathbandhu smiled disdainfully and said, "Does one acquire an additional couple of arms if he appears? Our Kedar has also passed the examination." Bindhyabashini was consoled. What accession should it be to Anathbandhu's glory by passing an examination that a herd of asses and cattle in in the land easily get over?
Her neighbour Kamala came to the friend of her childhood, Bindhya, to give her the joyous tiding of her brother Ramesh's passing the examination and securing a job with a stipend. Bindhyabashini causelessly suspected that Kamala's joy was not pure and unalloyed and that there was a secret hit upon her husband. So she did not express much pleasure at her friend's joy, and gratuitously informed her in rather a querulous tone that F. A. is no examination worth the name, and that there was so to say no examination in the English colleges lower than the B. A. Needless to say, she had gathered all these informations from her husband.
Kamala was at first somewhat astonished in getting such a sudden rebuff while imparting a joyous news to a dear friend nearest to her heart. But she too was a creature of the feminine species, and so grasped the trend of Bindhya's mind in a moment, and a drop of keen poison ran up to her tongue at this slight to her brother. Said she, "How could we have so much information,-- we never went to England nor did we marry an English husband! Ignorant women as we are, we simply know that Bengali lads have to pass F. A. in the college, and even that every one cannot do!" In a very sweet, harmless and friendly manner she spoke thus and left her. Bindhya who was averse to quarrel suffered without protesting, entered her room and wept in silence.
Another event came about in course of a few days. A rich distant relation came to Calcutta for a time and took refuge in Bindhya's father's house. On this occasion there was much festivity in Raj Kumar Babu's house. The son-in-law used to occupy the large parlour in the outer quarters of the house. In order to evince particular regard for the new-comers, he was requested to vacate it for accommodating them and to take up the uncle's apartment for a few days.
Anathbandhu's self-conceit was greatly stirred by this incident. He first took his revenge upon his father-in-law by reviling him before his wife and thus causing her to shed copious tears. Then he attempted to make a display of his wounded self- conceit by refusing to take his meal and by other stronger means as well. Upon this Bindhyabashini felt borne down by shame. From her inborn sense of self-respect she understood that there could be no greater self-humiliation than in expressing self- conceit before all in a matter like this. She fell at his feet and wept and restrained him with great difficulty.
Bindhya was not unreasonable; so she did not blame her parents; she saw it was a petty natural occurrence. But the thought of her husband being deprived of the warmth of his relation's love on account of his stay in his father-in-law's house rose in her mind.
From that day forth she would daily tell her husband, "Take me to your own home; I shall stay here no longer."
Anathbandhu had enough of conceit, but hardly any sense of self-respect. He felt no inclination to return to the indigence of his own house. Then his wife showed a little sternness and said, "If you don't, I shall go alone."
Much annoyed at heart Anathbandhu arranged to take his wife to his thatched mud-walled house in a small village far away from Calcutta. On the the eve of their departure, Raj Kumar Babu and his wife asked their daughter to stay in their house for some time longer. She sat grave and silent with her head bent down, and intimated by her silence - 'No, that is not to be.'
Finding her so resolute her parents began to suspect that some pain had perhaps been unknowingly caused to her. Raj Kumar Babu asked her with a pang in his heart, "Have you been pained at any unwitting ill-treatment of ours, Ma?"
Bindhyabashini looked tenderly to her father's face and said, "Not for a moment even. In much happiness, much kindness have my days passed here with you. " --And she began to weep, but her determination was not shaken.
Her parents sighed and said inwardly, -- whatever the amount of tenderness and affection lavished in bringing up a daughter, she becomes a stranger as soon as she is given away in marriage.
At last with tears in her eyes, Bindhyabashini bade adieu to her parents' home hallowed by lifelong affections, and left her companions and other inmates and ascended her litter.
(2)
Vast is the difference between rich man's house in Calcutta and an humble one in a village. But never for a day did Bindhyabashini express dissatisfaction by her conduct or manners. She began to help her mother-in-law cheerfully in the household duties. In view of their being poor her father had sent a maid-of-all-work with her, himself bearing all the expenses on her account.
Bindhyabashini sent her away as she reached her husband's home. Servant as she was in a rich man's house, she might turn up her nose every moment on witnessing the poverty of her father-in-law's house, even the apprehension of this seemed intolerable to her.
Out of affection her mother-in-law would try to prevent her from taking up toilsome duties, but Bindhya would cheerfully join in all manner of work with untiring alertness; and thus she won over her mother-in-law's heart and all the village women-folk were also charmed with her accomplishments.
But the effect of this was not conducive to entire satisfaction, for the ways of the world are not like what is recorded in the First Part of the work Moral Lessons, merely a series of simple instructions couched in chaste language. The cruel humour-loving Satan having intervened, all the rules of morality have been tangled together and twisted into matted knots. Good deeds do not all at once bring forth unalloyed good results, but troubles often arise all on a sudden.
Anathbandhu had two younger brothers and an elder one. The latter served abroad, and the two younger boys were educated and the family maintained with the help of the sum of about fifty rupees that he earned.
Needless to say it would be impossible to do much in a household with fifty rupees a month in these days. But this was enough to add to the hauteur of the elder brother's wife Syamasankari. The man worked all the year round, so the wife had earned the right of enjoying rest all this time. She would do no work, and still behave herself in such way as if she had greatly obliged the whole world by the sole fact of being the wife of her earning husband.
When after her arrival in her father-in-law's home Bindhyabashini as the very idol of the house engaged herself in constant work, Syamasankari felt her narrow heart being held by some one in a tight grip. It was hard to make out the reason. The elder wife perhaps thought that the other one, the daughter of a rich family, had employed herself in the drudgeries of house-keeping simply to make a show, and that this had the effect of lowering herself in the estimation of others. Any way, the wife of fifty-rupees-a-month could nohow bear with the rich man's daughter. In her very humility she perceived traces of intolerable pride.
Anathbandhu on his part established a library in the village, caused himself to be made its president after gathering together a score or so of schoolboys, and began sending telegrams to newspapers. He even became the special correspondent of some English papers and thus added to the astonishment of the good village people. But he never brought a single pice into the family coffer, while the items of miscellaneous expenditure began rather to swell. Bindhyabashini began to pester him constantly with her entreaties to enter into some kind of service, but he would never condescend to lend his ears to her. He told his wife that there were without doubt employments fit for his acceptance but the English Government being very partial reserved them for big Englishmen, and the Bengalis had no chance in spite of all their fitness.
Shyamasankari began constantly to spirt out her venomous utterances directly as well as obliquely towards her sister-in-law. Parading their own poverty she would say overbearingly, "Poor folks as we are, how can we possibly maintain a big man's daughter and his son-in-law? He was very well off there and had no kind of worries! How should he bear all the hardships of living upon a simple diet here?"
The mother-in-law was very much afraid of the elder wife and would not dare take the part of the weaker one and speak a word for her. The latter had thus to digest in silence the plain meal supplied by fifty-rupees-a-month and the pungent words of his consort.
In the meantime the elder brother came home for a while on some holiday and began to hear a lot of vigorous pronouncements from his better half. At last when the interruptions to his peaceful slumber began nightly to grow too frequent, he called Anathbandhu one day and very gently and lovingly told him, "It is proper to look for some employment. How can I maintain the family all alone?"
Like a serpent trodden under the feet, Anathbandhu hissed out: "It is not possible to bear so many reminders in respect only for a petty allotment of a few handfuls of very coarse inedible rice twice a day!" -- And forthwith he resolved to cross over to his father-in-law's quarters with his wife.
She, however, would never agree to this. In her opinion the younger brother had ever family claim as it were upon his brother's food and to his sister-in-law's reproaches, but it would be a great shame to be under a father-in-law's shelter. Bindhyabashini could bend herself like the humblest and the poorest of females at her father-in-law's house, but she would rather like to keep her self-respect intact and walk with her head erect in her father's. Just then the post of the third tutor of the local Entrance School fell vacant. Anathbandhu's brother and Bindhyabashini both began pressing him hard to accept it. Even in this, evil came out of good. That his own brother and sole wedded wife could deem him fit for such an utterly worthless post, conjured up unconquerable petulent self- conceit in his mind, and his indifference towards all manner of worldly drudgery increased fourfold more than ever before.
His brother then took up his hands in his and pacified him after a great deal of importunities. Every one thought that he should not be meddled with and that it would be fortunate for the family if he were to continue to stay in the house any way. The elder brother returned to his place of employ after the holidays were over. In her pent-up fury Syamashankari's face bloated up and she made a large ugly, round globe of it. Anathbandhu came and said to Bindhya, "It is not possible to secure any decent berth in these times without going to Europe. I am thinking of going to Europe. Procure some money from your father on some pretext."
The proposal itself of going to Europe struck Bindhya like a thunderbolt; then, she could not make out how she was to beg for money from her father, and at the very thought thereof she was borne down by shame!
Anathbandhu's pride stood in the way of his craving for any money from his father-in-law with his own lips; he could not, however, understand why the daughter should not extract money from her father by force or fraud. In this connection Anath showed a great deal of temper, and Bindhyabashini was struck to the core and had to shed copious tears.
Some days thus flitted away in want and mental anguish.
The great annual Pujah at last approached in autumn. Raj Kumar Babu sent men and conveyances with great pomp to fetch his daughter and son-in- law home with kindly greetings. After a year the daughter entered her father's house with her husband. The son-in-law was the recipient of much greater endearments this time than what had lately been intolerable to him in the case of the rich relation. After a long time could Bindhyabashini also take the veil off her face and float about as it were upon the waves of festivities and the affections of her people.
It is the sixth day of the moon to-day, and the Pujah is to commence to-morrow on the seventh. There was no end of hurry and bustle. All the apartments of the mansion had been filled with friends and relations near and distant. Bindhyabashini was very much tired that night and laid herself down to sleep. This was not the room where she used to sleep formerly ; mother had this time out of particular fondness given up her own apartment for the use of the son-in-law.
Being deeply asleept, Bindhya doesn't hear when Anathbandhu came into the room to sleep. Very early in the dawn the Sanai [Shenai--a kind of fife] began to pipe out its notes. But the tired Bindhyabashini's sleep was not broken. Kamal and Bhuban, two of Bindhya's friends, having made futile attempts to peep through her bedroom door at last broke into a merry peal of loud jesting laughter. Bindhya then woke up suddenly and found that her husband had risen and gone out she could not know when. Abashed, she came down from the bed and saw that her mother's iron-safe lay open and that her father's cash-box was also not there.
She then recollected that there was much hubbub in the house owing to the loss of her mother's bunch of keys last evening. There was no doubt that some thief must have stolen the keys and had done this. The sudden apprehension of the thief hurting her husband some way then struck her mind and she felt a violent throb in her breast. Going to search underneath, her eyes fell upon a letter lying under the weight of her mother's keys near the foot of the bedstead.
The letter was in her husband's hand. She opened it and read, and gleaned therefrom that her husband had with the help of a friend gathered his passage money for proceeding to Europe, and that finding no other means of enabling him to defray his expenses there he had last night helped himself to his father-in-law's money and had descended into the inner gardens down the staircase attached to the verandah and made himself scarce by vaulting over the walls! The vessel weighed anchor this very morning!
All the blood in her body froze up by the time she had finished reading the letter. Laying hold of the bed-post she sank down upon the floor, and a noise like the chirpings of crickets on the silent night of death seemed to sound in the cavities of her ears and fill her frame through and through. Over and above this, numbers of Sanais in varied tunes began to sound from the courtyard and the neighbouring houses, and from various mansions in the distance The whole of Bengal had then gone mad with pleasure.
The autumn sun-rays tinged with the festive laughter effected a gleeful entrance into the bedchamber. Seeing the doors closed till so late an hour on a festive day Bhuban and Kamal laughed loud and hurled jokes, and began to batter the doors noisily with their fists. Having no response even after this they got somewhat alarmed and began to call "Bindi," "Bindi," aloud.
In a choked broken voice Bindhyabashini responded: "Presently ;-you had better go for a while." Fearing their friend was ill, they called mother in, and she asked, "Bindu, what is the matter, 'Ma?--why are the doors shut still?"
Bindhya restrained her gushing tears and said, "Bring in father with you here for once." Mother grew very much alarmed and at once brought Raj Kumar Babu to the door along with her. Bindhya opened the doors and admitted them and then quickly closed them again.
Bindhya then fell upon the floor, caught her father's legs and with her heart rent into a thousand pieces cried, "Pardon me, papa; I have stolen money from your chest."
Dumb-founded they sat down upon the bed. Bindya said she had done this for sending her husband to England.
Her father said, "Why did you not ask for the money from us?"
Bindhyabashini replied, "Lest you object to his going to England."
Raj Kumar Babu grew very angry. Mother began to weep. So did the daughter. And from all quarters of Calcutta came in the sound of joyous music in varied tunes.
That same Bindhya who could never brook to beg for money even from her father, and that same wife who could risk her life for withholding even from the ken of her dearest friend the least tinge of dishonor touching her husband, found in the midst of the festive crowd to-day all her dignity as a daughter, all her pride as a wife and all her self-respect as a woman entirely crushed and crumbled to the dust at the feet of all people known and unknown, loved and despised. Having laid out the plot from before and stolen the keys artfully and having extracted the money with the help of his wife, Anathbandhu had run away to England in course of the night-such was the topic that caused great uproar in that house so full of friends and relatives. Bhuban, Kamal, and a number of the inmates of the house and some neighbours and servants as well had hung near the door and overheard everything. Finding the anxious master and mistress enter the closed room of the son-in-law they had all come in eager curiosity and apprehensions.
Bindhyabashini did not show her face to any one. She lay prone upon the bed within closed doors without any food. Nobody felt any pain at her sorrow. All were filled with astonishment at the wicked machinations of the plotter. All thought that the true colour of Bindhya's character lay hidden from them so long for want of occasion to manifest itself. The festivities of the Pujah, however, passed off somehow in that cheerless house.
(3)
Borne down by sorrow and disgrace Bindhya came back to her father-in-law's house. There the widowed mother suffering the pangs of separation from her son and the sorrowing daughter-in-law as isolated from her husband now came in close contact. Both of them under the silent shadow of their great grief drew near to each other and went on performing the lowliest household duties with their own hands with the profoundest fortitude.
Much as her mother-in-law approached closer to her, her parents receded further away. Bindhya felt inwardly that they were both poor and united by the same ties of affliction, that her parents were rich and far above their position. In addition to the remoteness caused by poverty, she had further fallen low by owning the theft. Who knows if the ties of affection and kinship would bear the strain of so much disparity!
After his arrival in England Anathbandhu used at first to correspond with his wife regularly. But gradually letters grew scarce, and shadow of neglect came to be imperceptibly discerned in them.
A number of English girls,-superior in beauty, knowledge, wisdom and all possible attainments to his illiterate wife engaged in household drudgery,- esteemed Anathbandhu as a very wise, handsome and likely personage. Against such odds, therefore, it would be no wonder if Anathbandhu were to consider his little wife of not very fair complexion, who wore a veil and was clad in a simple piece of cloth, as being in no way suitable to him.
Yet, however, he would feel no delicacy in wiring to this helpless Bengali girl when he was in want of money. And it was this Bengali girl who sold away all her jewellery-retaining only a pair of glass bangles on her wrists-and supplied him with money. All her most valuable ornaments were in her father's house, there being no proper place for keeping them in safety in her village home. On the plea of having been invited to attend the houses of her husband's relatives on several occasions she had her ornaments brought back one by one. At last having finished the sale of her bracelets and silver bangles and even her Benares Sari and shawl, she wrote a letter of the most abject entreaty, disfiguring every one of its lines with her tears and earnestly requesting him to return.
Clean-shaven and with hair cropped short and clad in coat and trousers, the husband returned a barrister and took refuge in a hotel. It was not possible to live in his father's house, for, in the first place there was no room there suitable for him; then, poor country folks grow absolutely helpless on loss of caste. His father-in-law's people, too, were rigid Hindus observing all the rites enjoined by religion; they also could not give shelter to one who had lost his caste.
He had soon to come down from the hotel to a hired house for want of funds. But he was not ready to bring his wife over there. After his return from England it was twice or thrice only that he had come to see his mother and his wife and that also in the day time. He had not met them any more, The only consolation of the two sorrowing women was that Anathbandhu was now in his own country and among his friends. Along with this, there was no limit to their pride on account of Anathbandhu's uncommon reputation as a counsel. Bindhyabashini began to upbraid herself as being unfit for the company of her illustrious husband, and at the same time felt all the more proud of him on that account. She was pressed down by sorrow and her heart swelled with pride. She hated non-Hindu manners; but still, on seeing her husband she would reflect, 'Many persons now-a-days don European costumes but they fit none so well as my husband- SO like a true European! Nothing to make out that he is a Bengali!"
When it grew hard for him to make both ends meet, when in his regrets Anathbandhu felt convinced that in this cursed India there was no appreciation of merit and that the members of his own profession had been secretly placing obstacles in the way of his advancement, when the quantity of vegetables began to exceed that of meat and fish in his dishes and the honored place of the roasted fowl was about to be monopolised by the fried lobster, when the tidiness of his dress and the lustre of of his smooth-shaven face brightened by pride began to grow pale, - when, in short, the tuning of his life-string strung tight to the hightest note in the octave began to come down to the plaintive F sharp,- just then a serious accident in Raj Kumar Babu's family brought a change in the eventful tide of Anathbandhu's career. While returning one day from his maternal uncle's house near the bank of the Ganges, Raj Kumar Babu's only son Hara Kumar was drowned along with his wife and little son by his boat colliding with a steamer. There was thus none else left but Bindhyabashini in Raj Kumar Babu's house.
After his great sorrow had somewhat calmed, Raj Kumar Babu went to Anathbandhu and told him mildly, "You must make an expiation, child, and come back to caste. I have none else to own but you."
Anathbandhu agreed to the proposal with eagerness. He thought it would be a good way of taking revenge upon those of his fellow-countrynen in the Bar Library who were jealous of him and did not show enough of regard for his uncommon intellect. Raj Kumar Babu consulted the Pandits who were of opinion that there were means for reclaiming him to caste if he had not partaken of bovine meat.
Although when abroad, the meat of that same prohibited quadruped was also included among his favourite eatables, still he felt not the least compunction in denying the fact. He told his dear friends: "When the community wilfully desire to hear a falsehood I see nothing wrong in obliging them by a mere word of mouth? The rule of our society as constituted at present is to purge the tongue that ate beef by two ugly objects, lie and cow-dung; I do not wish to disregard it." An auspicious day was fixed upon for the expiation ceremony and his readmission to society. In the meantime, not only did Anathbandhu take to wearing the national garments dhuti and chadar, but by his arguments and elucidations he daubed the faces of the members of the European community with ink and those of the Hindu society with lime.
Whoever heard him was mighty well pleased! Bindhyabashini's soft heart, so full of the nectar of love, began to heave with joy and pride. Said she to herself: "Whoever returns from England pretends to be a Shaheb, there is no means of making him out to be a Bengali. But my husband has come back without any change. His devotion to Hinduism has rather increased manifold now."
Brahmans and Pandits filled Raj Kumar Babu's house on the appointed day. No expenses spared, and ample provision was also made for feasts and presents. There was no limit to the festivities in the inner apartments as well. The whole yard and the quadrangle were lively with the bustle of serving the invited people. Like a fragment of light cloud borne aloft on the morning breeze and tinged with the autumn sunshine, Bindhyabashini was floating about cheerily with a joyous face in the midst of all that bustle and work. Her husband was the chief hero of all the great doings of the day-as if the whole of Bengal had been converted into a great stage to-day where the uplifted curtain revealed Anathbandhu alone before the gaze of the wondering on-lookers of the earth. Expiation was not a confession of guilt - it was rather a bestowal of favour. Anath having entered the Hindu society after his return from England has glorified it. And the halo of that glory reflected in a thousand rays from all quarters made Bindhyabashini's love-lit face radiant with a wondrous lustre. All the sorrow and humiliation she had suffered all the days of her paltry life being at an end, she now lifted her head erect and ascended the throne of glory in the presence of her friends and relations filling her father's house to-day. Her husband's greatness rendered his unworthy wife an object of honor before the whole world.
The rituals were at an end. Anathbandhu had been readmitted into caste. The invited friends and Brahmans had sat with him and finished partaking of their dinner with great satisfaction. Friends warted to see the son-in-law and called him to the inner apartments.
In a placid temper and with a smiling cheerful face and chewing betel all the way, he went towards the inner quarters at a slow and idle pace dragging his chadar trailing on the floor after him.
Arrangements were being made after the feast for the bestowal of the customary presents to the Brahmans; in the meantime, they had gathered together in the assembly room, and presently there began a tumultuous wrangling as they attempted to make a display of their learning. With a view to take a little rest the master of the house, Raj Kumar Babu, sat for a time in the midst of that noisy assembly of the Pandits. While he was listening to their discussions on the Smriti Shastra [Hindu Law] the door-keeper came in and handed him a card and announced, "There is a European lady arrived here."
Raj Kumar Babu rose up astonished. The next moment casting his eyes upon the card he found written thereon in English Mrs. Anathbandhu which meant, Anathbandhu Sircar's wife.
Sircar Raj Kumar Babu stared for long time, but could nohow gather the significance of these simple words.
Just then, a blue-eyed English girl freshly arrived from England of steps light as those of a hind and of the complexion of white milk-foam, and and with a ruddy forehead and copper-coloured tresses--entered appearance in the meeting-place in person and stood scanning the face of each of the assembled personages. But she failed to discover her dear familiar face. All the learned discussions on the Samhitas came to a stand-still upon her sudden advent and deep funereal silence overspread the place.
Just then Anathbandhu appeared on the stage again in his slow, idle gait with his trailing sheet. In a moment the English girl ran up to him and held him in embrace and imprinted the kiss of connubial union upon his lips tinged red by the betel.
The discussions on the Samhitas could not be resumed there any more that day.
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- Indian Travel Writers in the West: the Colonial Period (1794-1947) Amardeep Singh
- Short Stories by Rabindranath Tagore: A Collection Amardeep Singh