Rabindranath Tagore, "The Elder Sister" (1895 / Translated 1918) (Short Story)
Tags: property/inheritance drama, disobedient wives and villainous husbands, illness, murder, cholera as a ruse for violent death, benevolent British magistrates, proper child-rearing
THE ELDER SISTER
I
Having described at length the misdeeds of an unfortunate woman's
wicked, tyrannical husband, Tara, the woman's neighbour in the village,
very shortly declared her verdict: 'Fire be to such a husband's
mouth.'
At this Joygopal Babu's wife felt much hurt; it did not become
womankind to wish, in any circumstances whatever, a worse species
of fire than that of a cigar in a husband's mouth.
When, therefore, she mildly disapproved the verdict, hard-hearted Tara
cried with redoubled vehemence: ''Twere better to be a widow seven
births over than the wife of such a husband,' and saying this she
broke up the meeting and left.
Sasi said within herself: 'I can't imagine any offence in a husband
that could so harden the heart against him.' Even as she turned
the matter over in her mind, all the tenderness of her loving soul
gushed forth towards her own husband now abroad. Throwing herself with
outstretched arms on that part of the bed whereon her husband was wont
to lie, she kissed the empty pillow, caught the smell of her husband's
head, and, shutting the door, brought out from a wooden box an old and
almost faded photograph with some letters in his handwriting, and sat
gazing upon them. Thus she passed the hushed noontide alone in her
room, musing of old memories and shedding tears of sadness.
It was no new yoke this between Sasikala and Joygopal. They had been
married at an early age and had children. Their long companionship
had made the days go by in an easy, commonplace sort of way. On
neither side had there been any symptoms of excessive passion. They
had lived together nearly sixteen years without a break, when her
husband was suddenly called away from home on business, and then a
great impulse of love awoke in Sasi's soul. As separation strained
the tie, love's knot grew tighter, and the passion, whose existence
Sasi had not felt, now made her throb with pain.
So it happened that after so many long years, and at such an age,
and being the mother of children, Sasi, on this spring noon, in her
lonely chamber, lying on the bed of separation, began to dream the
sweet dream of a bride in her budding youth. That love of which
hitherto she had been unconscious suddenly aroused her with its
murmuring music. She wandered a long way up the stream, and saw many a
golden mansion and many a grove on either bank; but no foothold could
she find now amid the vanished hopes of happiness. She began to
say to herself that, when next she met her husband, life should not
be insipid nor should the spring come in vain. How very often, in idle
disputation or some petty quarrel, had she teased her husband! With
all the singleness of a penitent heart she vowed that she would never
show impatience again, never oppose her husband's wishes, bear all
his commands, and with a tender heart submit to whatever he wished of
good or ill; for the husband was all-in-all, the husband was the
dearest object of love, the husband was divine.
Sasikala was the only and much-petted daughter of her parents. For this
reason, though he had only a small property of his own, Joygopal had no
anxieties about the future. His father-in-law had enough to support
them in a village with royal state.
And then in his old age a son was born untimely to Sasikala's
father. To tell the truth, Sasi was very sore in her mind at this
unlooked-for, improper, and unjust action of her parents; nor was
Joygopal particularly pleased.
The parents' love centred in this son of their advanced years, and
when the newly arrived, diminutive, sleepy brother-in-law seized with
his two weak tiny fists all the hopes and expectations of Joygopal,
Joygopal found a place in a tea-garden in Assam.
His friends urged him to look for employment hard-by, but whether out
of a general feeling of resentment, or knowing the chances of rapid
rise in a tea-garden, Joygopal would not pay heed to anybody. He sent
his wife and children to his father-in-law's, and left for Assam. It
was the first separation between husband and wife in their married life.
This incident made Sasikala very angry with her baby brother. The
soreness which may not pass the lips is felt the more keenly within.
When the little fellow sucked and slept at his ease, his big sister
found a hundred reasons, such as the rice is cold, the boys are too
late for school, to worry herself and others, day and night, with her
petulant humours.
But in a short time the child's mother died. Before her death, she
committed her infant son to her daughter's care.
Then did the motherless child easily conquer his sister's heart. With
loud whoops he would fling himself upon her, and with right good-will
try to get her mouth, nose, eyes within his own tiny mouth; he would
seize her hair within his little fists and refuse to give it up;
awaking before the dawn, he would roll over to her side and thrill her
with his soft touch, and babble like a noisy brook; later on, he
would call her _jiji_ and _jijima_, and in hours of work and rest, by
doing forbidden things, eating forbidden food, going to forbidden
places, would set up a regular tyranny over her; then Sasi could
resist no longer. She surrendered herself completely to this wayward
little tyrant. Since the child had no mother, his influence over her
became the greater.
II
The child was named Nilmani. When he was two years old his father
fell seriously ill. A letter reached Joygopal asking him to come as
quickly as possible. When after much trouble he got leave and arrived,
Kaliprasanna's last hour had come.
Before he died Kaliprasanna entrusted Joygopal with the charge of his
son, and left a quarter of his estate to his daughter.
So Joygopal gave up his appointment, and came home to look after his
property.
After a long time husband and wife met again. When a material body
breaks it may be put together again. But when two human beings are
divided, after a long separation, they never re-unite at the same
place, and to the same time; for the mind is a living thing, and moment
by moment it grows and changes.
In Sasi reunion stirred a new emotion. The numbness of age-long habit
in their old marriage was entirely removed by the longing born of
separation, and she seemed to win her husband much more closely than
before. Had she not vowed in her mind that whatever days might come,
and how long soever they might be, she would never let the brightness
of this glowing love for her husband be dimmed.
Of this reunion, however, Joygopal felt differently. When they were
constantly together before he had been bound to his wife by his
interests and idiosyncrasies. His wife was then a living truth in his
life, and there would have been a great rent in the web of his daily
habit if she were left out. Consequently Joygopal found himself in
deep waters at first when he went abroad. But in time this breach in
habit was patched up by a new habit.
And this was not all. Formerly his days went by in the most indolent
and careless fashion. For the last two years, the stimulus of bettering
his condition had stirred so powerfully in his breast that he had
nothing else in his thoughts. As compared with the intensity of this
new passion, his old life seemed like an unsubstantial shadow. The
greatest changes in a woman's nature are wrought by love; in a man's,
by ambition.
Joygopal, when he returned after two years, found his wife not quite
the same as of old. To her life his infant brother-in-law had added a
new breadth. This part of her life was wholly unfamiliar to him--here
he had no communion with his wife. His wife tried hard to share her
love for the child with him, but it cannot be said that she succeeded.
Sasi would come with the child in her arms, and hold him before her
husband with a smiling face--Nilmani would clasp Sasi's neck, and hide
his face on her shoulder, and admit no obligation of kindred. Sasi
wished that her little brother might show Joygopal all the arts he had
learnt to capture a man's mind. But Joygopal was not very keen about
it. How could the child show any enthusiasm? Joygopal could not at all
understand what there was in the heavy-pated, grave-faced, dusky
child that so much love should be wasted on him.
Women quickly understand the ways of love. Sasi at once understood that
Joygopal did not care for Nilmani. Henceforth she used to screen her
brother with the greatest care--to keep him away from the unloving,
repelling look of her husband. Thus the child came to be the treasure
of her secret care, the object of her isolated love.
Joygopal was greatly annoyed when Nilmani cried; so Sasi would quickly
press the child to her breast, and with her whole heart and soul try
to soothe him. And when Nilmani's cry happened to disturb Joygopal's
sleep at night, and Joygopal with an expression of displeasure, and
in a tortured spirit, growled at the child, Sasi felt humbled and
fluttered like a guilty thing. Then she would take up the child in
her lap, retire to a distance, and in a voice of pleading love, with
such endearments as 'my gold, my treasure, my jewel,' lull him to
sleep.
Children will fall out for a hundred things. Formerly in such cases,
Sasi would punish her children, and side with her brother, for he was
motherless. Now the law changed with the judge. Nilmani had often to
bear heavy punishment without fault and without inquiry. This wrong
went like a dagger to Sasi's heart; so she would take her punished
brother into her room, and with sweets and toys, and by caressing and
kissing him, solace as much as she could his stricken heart.
Thus the more Sasi loved Nilmani, the more Joygopal was annoyed with
him. On the other hand, the more Joygopal showed his contempt for
Nilmani, the more would Sasi bathe the child with the nectar of her
love.
And when the fellow Joygopal behaved harshly to his wife, Sasi would
minister to him silently, meekly, and with loving-kindness. But
inwardly they hurt each other, moment by moment, about Nilmani.
The hidden clash of a silent conflict like this is far harder to bear
than an open quarrel.
III
Nilmani's head was the largest part of him. It seemed as if the Creator
had blown through a slender stick a big bubble at its top. The doctors
feared sometimes that the child might be as frail and as quickly
evanescent as a bubble. For a long time he could neither speak nor
walk. Looking at his sad grave face, you might think that his parents
had unburdened all the sad weight of their advanced years upon the head
of this little child.
With his sister's care and nursing, Nilmani passed the period of
danger, and arrived at his sixth year.
In the month of Kartik, on the _bhaiphoto_[26] day, Sasi had dressed
Nilmani up as a little Babu, in coat and _chadar_ and red-bordered
_dhoti_, and was giving him the 'brother's mark,' when her outspoken
neighbour Tara came in and, for one reason or another, began a quarrel.
[26] Lit. the 'brother's mark.' A beautiful and touching ceremony in
which a Hindu sister makes a mark of sandalwood paste on the forehead
of her brother and utters a formula, 'putting the barrier in Yama's
doorway' (figurative for wishing long life). On these occasions, the
sisters entertain their brothers and make them presents of clothes,
etc.
''Tis no use,' cried she, 'giving the "brother's mark" with so
much show and ruining the brother in secret.'
At this Sasi was thunderstruck with astonishment, rage, and pain. Tara
repeated the rumour that Sasi and her husband had conspired together
to put the minor Nilmani's property up for sale for arrears of rent,
and to purchase it in the name of her husband's cousin. When Sasi heard
this, she uttered a curse that those who could spread such a foul
lie might be stricken with leprosy in the mouth. And then she went
weeping to her husband, and told him of the gossip. Joygopal said:
'Nobody can be trusted in these days. Upen is my aunt's son, and I
felt quite safe in leaving him in charge of the property. He could not
have allowed the _taluk_ Hasilpur to fall into arrears and purchase it
himself in secret, if I had had the least inkling about it.'
'Won't you sue then?' asked Sasi in astonishment.
'Sue one's cousin!' said Joygopal. 'Besides, it would be useless,
a simple waste of money.'
It was Sasi's supreme duty to trust her husband's word, but Sasi could
not. At last her happy home, the domesticity of her love seemed
hateful to her. That home life which had once seemed her supreme
refuge was nothing more than a cruel snare of self-interest, which had
surrounded them, brother and sister, on all sides. She was a woman,
single-handed, and she knew not how she could save the helpless
Nilmani. The more she thought, the more her heart filled with terror,
loathing, and an infinite love for her imperilled little brother. She
thought that, if she only knew how, she would appear before the _Lat
Saheb_,[27] nay, write to the Maharani herself, to save her brother's
property. The Maharani would surely not allow Nilmani's _taluk_[28]
of Hasilpur, with an income of seven hundred and fifty-eight rupees a
year, to be sold.
[27] The Viceroy.
[28] Land.
When Sasi was thus thinking of bringing her husband's cousin to book
by appealing to the Maharani herself, Nilmani was suddenly seized with
fever and convulsions.
Joygopal called in the village doctor. When Sasi asked for a better
doctor, Joygopal said: 'Why, Matilal isn't a bad sort.'
Sasi fell at his feet, and charged him with an oath on her own head;
whereupon Joygopal said: 'Well, I shall send for the doctor from
town.'
Sasi lay with Nilmani in her lap, nor would Nilmani let her out of his
sight for a minute; he clung to her lest by some pretence she should
escape; even while he slept he would not loosen his hold of her dress.
Thus the whole day passed, and Joygopal came after nightfall to say
that the doctor was not at home; he had gone to see a patient at a
distance. He added that he himself had to leave that very day on
account of a lawsuit, and that he had told Matilal, who would regularly
call to see the patient.
At night Nilmani wandered in his sleep. As soon as the morning dawned,
Sasi, without the least scruple, took a boat with her sick brother, and
went straight to the doctor's house. The doctor was at home--he had not
left the town. He quickly found lodgings for her, and having installed
her under the care of an elderly widow, undertook the treatment of
the boy.
The next day Joygopal arrived. Blazing with fury, he ordered his wife
to return home with him at once.
'Even if you cut me to pieces, I won't return,' replied his wife.
'You all want to kill my Nilmani, who has no father, no mother, none
other than me, but I will save him.'
'Then you remain here, and don't come back to my house,' cried
Joygopal indignantly.
Sasi at length fired up. '_Your_ house! Why, 'tis my brother's!'
'All right, we'll see,' said Joygopal. The neighbours made a great
stir over this incident. 'If you want to quarrel with your husband,'
said Tara, 'do so at home. What is the good of leaving your house?
After all, Joygopal is your husband.'
By spending all the money she had with her, and selling her ornaments,
Sasi saved her brother from the jaws of death. Then she heard that the
big property which they had in Dwarigram, where their dwelling-house
stood, the income of which was more than Rs. 1500 a year, had been
transferred by Joygopal into his own name with the help of the
Jemindar. And now the whole property belonged to them, not to her
brother.
When he had recovered from his illness, Nilmani would cry plaintively:
'Let us go home, sister.' His heart was pining for his nephews and
nieces, his companions. So he repeatedly said: 'Let us go home,
sister, to that old house of ours.' At this Sasi wept. Where was
their home?
But it was no good crying. Her brother had no one else besides herself
in the world. Sasi thought of this, wiped her tears, and, entering the
Zenana of the Deputy Magistrate, Tarini Babu, appealed to his wife.
The Deputy Magistrate knew Joygopal. That a woman should forsake her
home, and engage in a dispute with her husband regarding matters of
property, greatly incensed him against Sasi. However, Tarini Babu
kept Sasi diverted, and instantly wrote to Joygopal. Joygopal put
his wife and brother-in-law into a boat by force, and brought them home.
Husband and wife, after a second separation, met again for the second
time! The decree of Prajapati![29]
[29] The Hindu god of marriage.
Having got back his old companions after a long absence, Nilmani was
perfectly happy. Seeing his unsuspecting joy, Sasi felt as if her heart
would break.
IV
The Magistrate was touring in the Mofussil during the cold weather and
pitched his tent within the village to shoot. The Saheb met Nilmani on
the village _maidan_. The other boys gave him a wide berth, varying
Chanakya's couplet a little, and adding the Saheb to the list of 'the
clawed, the toothed, and the horned beasts.' But grave-natured Nilmani
in imperturbable curiosity serenely gazed at the Saheb.
The Saheb was amused and came up and asked in Bengali: 'You read at
the _pathsala_?'
The boy silently nodded. 'What _pustaks_[30] do you read?' asked the
Saheb.
[30] A literary word for books. The colloquial will be _boi_.
As Nilmani did not understand the word _pustak_, he silently fixed his
gaze on the Magistrate's face. Nilmani told his sister the story of
his meeting the Magistrate with great enthusiasm.
At noon, Joygopal, dressed in trousers, _chapkan_,[31] and
_pagri_,[32] went to pay his salams to the Saheb. A crowd of suitors,
_chaprasies_,[33] and constables stood about him. Fearing the
heat, the Saheb had seated himself at a court-table outside the tent,
in the open shade, and placing Joygopal in a chair, questioned him
about the state of the village. Having taken the seat of honour in
open view of the community, Joygopal swelled inwardly, and thought
it would be a good thing if any of the Chakrabartis or Nandis came
and saw him there.
[31] A _chapkan_ is a long coat.
[32] Turban.
[33] Servants.
At this moment, a woman, closely veiled, and accompanied by Nilmani,
came straight up to the Magistrate. She said: 'Saheb, into your
hands I resign my helpless brother. Save him.' The Saheb, seeing the
large-headed, solemn boy, whose acquaintance he had already made, and
thinking that the woman must be of a respectable family, at once stood
up and said: 'Please enter the tent.'
The woman said: 'What I have to say I will say here.'
Joygopal writhed and turned pale. The curious villagers thought it
capital fun, and pressed closer. But the moment the Saheb lifted his
cane they scampered off.
Holding her brother by the hand, Sasi narrated the history of the
orphan from the beginning. As Joygopal tried to interrupt now and
then, the Magistrate thundered with a flushed face, '_Chup rao_,' and
with the tip of his cane motioned to Joygopal to leave the chair and
stand up.
Joygopal, inwardly raging against Sasi, stood speechless. Nilmani
nestled up close to his sister, and listened awe-struck.
When Sasi had finished her story, the Magistrate put a few questions to
Joygopal, and on hearing his answers, kept silence for a long while,
and then addressed Sasi thus: 'My good woman, though this matter
may not come up before me, still rest assured I will do all that is
needful about it. You can return home with your brother without the
least misgiving.'
Sasi said: 'Saheb, so long as he does not get back his own home, I
dare not take him there. Unless you keep Nilmani with you, none else
will be able to save him.'
'And what would you do?' queried the Saheb.
'I will retire to my husband's house,' said Sasi; 'there is nothing
to fear for me.'
The Saheb smiled a little, and, as there was nothing else to do, agreed
to take charge of this lean, dusty, grave, sedate, gentle Bengali boy
whose neck was ringed with amulets.
When Sasi was about to take her leave, the boy clutched her dress.
'Don't be frightened, _baba_,--come,' said the Saheb. With tears
streaming behind her veil, Sasi said: 'Do go, my brother, my darling
brother--you will meet your sister again!'
Saying this she embraced him and stroked his head and back, and
releasing her dress, hastily withdrew; and just then the Saheb put his
left arm round him. The child wailed out: 'Sister, oh, my sister!'
Sasi turned round at once, and with outstretched arm made a sign of
speechless solace, and with a bursting heart withdrew.
Again in that old, ever-familiar house husband and wife met. The decree
of Prajapati!
But this union did not last long. For soon after the villagers learnt
one morning that Sasi had died of cholera in the night, and had been
instantly cremated.
None uttered a word about it. Only neighbour Tara would sometimes
be on the point of bursting out, but people would shut up her mouth,
saying, 'Hush!'
At parting, Sasi gave her word to her brother they would meet again.
Where that word was kept none can tell.
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