Rabindranath Tagore, "The Sentence" [or: "Punishment"] (Translated 1913) (Short Story)
Translated as "The Sentence" by Rajani Ranjan Sen in Glimpses of Bengal Life in 1913.
Compare to Carolyn Brown's 2016 translation here. [Note: Carolyn Brown renders the final line of the story differently. In her version, the final lines are rendered as: “Your husband wants to see you,” said the doctor. “Shall I bring him to you?” “What husband?” she replied. See her essay on the difficulties of translating this story here.]
Tags: Marital dysfunction, Murder, Laborers, Justice System, Poverty
THE SENTENCE
(1)
THE wives of Dukhiram and Seedam Rui were engaged in violent wrangling and squabble early in the morning when the two brothers set out for earning their daily pittance with the sweat of their brow. The people of the locality had now got used to the uproar caused by their quarrel as they had been to various other kinds of noise constantly disturbing the peace of Nature.
As soon as they heard the sound of their sharp piercing voices they would call out to one another saying "There! There! It is in full swing now!" - meaning that it had turned out just as was to be expected and that there was no deviation from the usual course that day. As nobody thinks it worth while to seek for the cause of the sunrise in the east, so none would feel the least curious to ascertain the reason when the two sisters-in-law in that house indulged in tumultuous strife. The two brothers would no doubt be struck by the swell of their stormy quarrel more heavily than their neighbours, but they did not feel it as a source of inconvenience. In the world's long pathway they seemed to be riding a springless ekka car, and they accepted the constant creaking noise of its wheels rolling on either side as among the concomitants to the pilgrimage of life.
On those days, rather, when there would be no noise in the house and a kind of overladen heaviness reign therein, it was to be apprehended that something unusual was about to take place, and no one could divine what was going to turn up.
On the day our story opens, when the two brothers returned just before eve jaded and worn out after their day's hard toil, they found the house looking dismally sombre in its stillness.
Outside, too, it was rather stifling. There had been a heavy downpour at noon. The clouds were still very thick and not a puff of wind was stirring. The rains had made the weeds and jungle-growths very luxuriant all around, and the dense odour thereof added to that emitted by the wet plants in the submerged jute-fields rested motionless like a solid wall of evil smell on all sides. Frogs had been croaking in the low marsh behind the cowshed, and the silent evening sky was filled with the chirrups of numberless crickets.
Overshadowed by the first rain-clouds of the season, the Padma-lying not very far off-had assumed an ominous quiet. Many of the corn-fields had gone underneath the water which had approached close to the abodes of the people, so close, in fact that the straggling roots of a few jack and mango trees lying bare upon the edge of the broken bank seemed to be attempting to catch hold of some last support in the helpless grip of their outstretched fingers.
They had gone to work in the office-house of the Zemindar that day. Some crops had grown ripe on the chur land opposite, and all the poor village people had been engaged either in reaping them before it was overflooded by the rains or in cutting away the jute plants. It was these two brothers alone that the Zemindar's people came up with and marched off perforce. The whole day they toiled in stopping leakages in the roof of the office house and in making a few mat-doors, and could spare no time to come home. They had some little lunch there and occasional drenchings too in the rains in addition. They could not realise their wages in full, and in lieu of the balance they had earned a deal of abuses which were far in excess of their legitimate dues.
After wading through the mud and water in the pathway they found on their return in the evening that the younger sister-in-law Chandará had spread the fringe of her cloth on the ground and was lying prone thereon in silence, as if she also had like that cloudy day grown extremely sombre on the approach of evening after having given vent to copious flow of tears at midday. And the elder one, Radha, sat on the verandah with a bloated face, and her eighteen-months-old child had been crying. When the two brothers entered they found the nude child lying asleep upon its back on one side of the yard.
Without further waste of time the hungry Dukhiram said, "Let me have my food."
Like a powder-sack fired by the fall of a spark thereon, the elder wife blazed up at once, and raising her shrill voice to the skies she exclaimed, "Where is the food to be given to you? Did you leave rice with me? Shall I earn it myself?"
With hunger consuming him after the fatigues and humiliation suffered through the live-long day, the rude words of his wife in that dark, destitute, joyless house and specially the ugly insinuation in her last expression, seemed extremely unbearable to him.
"What do you say?" --he roared out like an angry tiger in a deep muffled voice, and without the least reflection took up a dao (chopper) and brought it down upon her head. Radha dropped down near the lap of her sister-in-law and death followed immediately.
With her cloth blood-stained, Chandara screamed out, "O! What is this?" Seedam pressed her mouth with his hands. Dukhiram threw the dao away and sat down on the floor with his face leaning upon his hand like one stupefied. The child woke up and began to cry in fear.
Perfect peace, serene and placid, reigned outside. The cowboys had been returning to the village with their charges. Those who had gone to the chur on the other side to reap the ripening paddy had returned in small boats in batches of five to seven and had reached their own homes with a few bundles of the plant upon their heads as the reward of their labour.
Uncle Ramlochan of the Chakravarti's house had been silently enjoying his smoke quite at ease after returning from the village Post Office where he had placed his letters. He suddenly remembered that his korfa (temporary) tenant Dukhiram had promised to pay a part of the large amount of rent he owed him. Expecting that he had returned home bythat time, he took up his umbrella and place his chadar [sheet or shawl] upon his shoulder and set out.
On reaching their home a kind of eerie sensation seemed to creep over his body, for, he saw no light in the house, and two or three dark figures were only indistinctly visible in the gloomy verandah. From one corner a stifled sob seemed to burst forth; and as often as the child tried to cry out "Ma, Ma" Seedam had been stopping its mouth with his hands.
Ramlochan grew a little alarmed and enquired, "Are you in, Dukhi?"
Dukhiram had hitherto stayed motionless like a stone image. As soon as he was called by name he at once gave vent to violent sobbing like a silly child. Seedam quickly came down to the courtyard and advanced near to Chakrabarti, who said, "Are the women all sitting so still after their quarrel? They had been screaming all the day through."
Seedam could not so long ascertain what was to be done. Various impossible tales were running through his head. He had just resolved to remove the dead body to some place when the night grew little deeper. He had never imagined that Chakrabarti would be coming in about this time.
He could not make out what answer to frame and said, "Yes. There had been a great deal of quarrel this day."
Chakrabarti was about to advance towards the verandah and said, "But then, why does Dukhi cry for that?"
Seedam saw there was no further chance and suddenly bawled out, "In course of the quarrel the younger woman had struck the elder on the head with a dao!"
It is hard to realise that there are dangers other than that to be presently avioded. Seedam had then been reflecting how to be saved from the clutches of terrible truth, but it never entered his head that untruth could be much more horrid. Upon hearing Ramlochan's question an answer suddenly ran up to his head and he at once gave expression to it.
Ramlochan started and exclaimed, "Eh! What is it you say? Not dead, I suppose!"
Seedam replied, "She is dead, " and caught hold of Chakrabarti's legs.
Chakrabarti found no way of escape. "What a peril have I been embroiled in this evening," thought he, 'what a hard shrift it would be, deposing before the court! Seedam could nohow be prevailed upon to loosen his hold of his legs, and he said, "Dada Thakur, how to save my wife now?"
Ramlochan was the chief counsellor of the whole village in matters of litigation. He pondered for a while and said, "Look here! There are means.
You just run to the police station and say that your elder brother Dukhi on his returning home in the afternoon wanted to have his meal and that this not being ready he had struck his wife on the head with a dao. I assure you the girl will be saved if you say so.” Seedam's throat parched up; he rose up and said, "Thakur, if I lose my wife another would be available, but if my brother be hanged I should have no other brother." But he had not thought of this while implicating his wife. He had said that on the impulse of the moment and his mind had now been unconsciously seeking solace and also justification for it.
Chakrabarti considered his words reasonable and said, "Then say as it has happened. It is impossible to look to all sides."
Saying this, Ramlochan at once left the place, and rumour ran apace throughout the village that Chandara had in course of an angry quarrel dealt a fatal cut with a dao upon her sister-in-law's head.
Like the flood rushing in when the embankment is broken through, the police entered the village in all haste, and extreme anxiety preyed upon the minds of the guilty and the innocent alike.
(2)
Seedam thought they must traverse the path already hewn out. What he told Chakrabarti with his own lips had gone round the whole village. He was quite at a loss to make out what turn things would take if some other story were to be set afloat again. He felt there was no way of saving his wife but by adding something more to what had been already said.
Seedam requested his wife to take the guilt upon her shoulders. She felt quite thunderstruck! Seedam gave her hopes and said, "Do as I tell you, you need not fear, we will save you" --encouraging words no doubt, but his throat grew dry and his face became suffused with a deadly pallor as he uttered them.
Chandara would not be much over seventeen or eighteen. She had a plump rotund face and a strong, well-knit and not-very-tall healthy body.
There was such symmetry is her limbs that nothing impeded the pliancy of their movements. She looked like a newly made vessel, tiny and shapely, moving with the greatest ease and with none of its parts grown slack. In all mundane matters she found much fun and took a great deal of interest; she loved to go to the neighbours for chit-chats; and while going to the landing place with her water-pot upon her loins to fetch water at the river-stairs, or while returning there- from, she would move her veil a little way with her fingers and with her bright, fickle, dense dark eyes take in all that was worth observing along the pathway.
The elder wife of the house was just the opposite her frame was loose and unsymmetrical and rather flaccid. She could neither carry on her household works, nor manage the veil over her head nor the child on her lap. She had nothing particular to attend to, still could she hardly ever make any leisure at any time. The younger sister would not talk much with her but would softly make a few prickly hits, and the latter would fly into a furious passion and boisterous vituperations and disturb the peace of the whole locality.
There was a strange similarity in the natures of these pairs of husbands and wives. The man Dukhiram had a large bulk with broad bones and a short nose. Two things he had to regret for-he did not seem to understand the world well, but he would not think of looking askance at it. Such a simple yet so terrible, so strange yet so helpless a being like him was hardly to be met with.
And Seedam? He looked like a piece of shining black marble sculpture worked out with infinite care. There was no trace of superfluity about him nor even the least dimple anywhere.
Each of his limbs seemed to have attained the greatest perfection in conjunction with skill and strength. In leaping down from the steep river-bank or propelling boats by means of long poles or gathering the best of the twigs from a bamboo clump-in all that he did there was a measured nicety and an easy grace. His long dark hair well dressed with oil was carefully combed away from his forehead and placed over his shoulders-- he paid good attention to his looks and attire.
Although he was not loath to have a look at the beauty of the other pretty village wenches and though he had ample desire to make himself look spruce and pleasant in their eyes, yet his love for his young wife was somewhat ardent. They would quarrel often and make up again, neither could put the other down. There was another reason for their holding very close to each other.
Seedam would think fickle and unsteady as her nature was, there was no believing Chandara. The latter also feared that as her husband's glance ranged on all sides he might slip out of hand some day unless he were kept under tight restraint,
From sometime before the occurrence detailed above, there was a serious misunderstanding brewing among them. Chandara had marked that her husband would go away on the plea of working at some distant place and be absent from home for two or three days at a stretch, but would bring no earnings home. Finding the outlook growing gloomy, she also feigned going to unbecoming lengths, In season and out of season she would go out to fetch water, and after returning from her trip in the village she would bestow copious praises upon the attainments of the second son of Kasi Majumdar.
Some one seemed to put poison into Seedam's days and nights. Engaged or free from work, he could at no time rest in peace even for an hour.
One day he rebuked his sister-in-law a great deal. She invoked her long-dead absent father in her ejaculations and shook her arms violently, and said, "That girl outstrips the tempest when she flies! Am I the person to curb her? I know she would bring about some dire disaster some day." Chandara came out from the side room and said softly, "Why, sister? What are you so very afraid of ?" - Upon this the two sisters plunged into fierce altercations.
Seedam rolled his eyes and said, "If I hear once again that you had gone to fetch water all alone, I shall pound your bones to powder." "How cool my bones would grow thereby!" replied Chandra, and prepared to go out at once.
Seedam leaped down, caught her by the hair and dragged her into the house, and closed the doors thereof.
On his return from work in the afternoon he found the doors open and none inside. Chandra had left three villages behind and reached her her maternal uncle's home.
With infinite trouble and after a great deal of coaxing and supplication, Seedam caused her to return home and confessed himself beaten this time. He realised that it was as hard to keep a tight hold upon this little wife as it would be to retain a jot of mercury in one's grip - it would seem to run out between the fingers.
He would take no other strong measures, but began to be a prey to great unrest. His ever appre- hensive love for his fickle young wife grew distressing to him like a sharp pang - so much so, that he would now feel that it would be a relief if she were to die and release him from all anxiety! Men are not so very envious of death as of his fellow-beings!
It was about this time that this calamity befel them.
When her husband asked Chandra to take upon herself the guilt of the murder, she stared dumb- founded. Like dismal fire the piercing glance of her two dark eyes began to scorch him. Her whole mind and body seemed to shrink and attempt to effect an egress from out of the clutches of her demoniac husband. Her whole soul and being turned away from him absolutely.
Seedam encouraged her saying that she had nothing to fear, and he tutored her repeatedly as to what she should have to tell the police and the Magistrate. Chandra did not pay the least heed to those long stories and continued sitting still like a wooden statue.
In all manner of business, Dukhiram's entire reliance was ever upon Seedam. When Seedam proposed laying the whole guilt upon Chandara, Dukhi asked, "What then was to become of her?" Seedam said he would save her, and the giant Dukhiram was relieved of all anxiety.
(3)
Seedam had taught his wife to say that her elder sister had come to strike her with a banthi, [A thin-bladed very curved cutting instrument] and that in warding it off by means of a dao, it had somehow struck her. This was all of Ramlochan's manufacture. He had also given detailed embellishments and lessons to Seedam as to the proofs necessary for its support.
The Police commenced the investigation. All the people of the locality had come to believe firmly that Chandara had killed her sister-in-law. All the evidence was to that effect. When the Police queried Chandara, she said "Yes, it was I who committed the murder."
"Why did you do so?"
"She was an eye-sore to me."
"Was there any altercation between you two?"
"None."
"Did she come to strike you first ?"
"No."
"Did she ill-treat you any way?"
"No."
People were simply astounded at her words. Seedam grew quite restless, and said, "She has not been speaking the truth. The elder wife first"
The Inspector stopped him with a sharp reprimand. He then cross-questioned her again and again in the usual approved mode, and she repeated the same answer over and over, and would never admit of any attack from the side of the elder woman.
Was ever a stiff-necked girl like this to be met with? She had been leaning towards the gallows with all her might. It was not possible to keep her back by any means whatever. Very petulently had she been mentally addressing her husband,- 'I leave you and prefer to choose the gallows for my mate with the offer of all my budding youth; therewith is to be my last marriage-tie in this life !"
Through the ever-wonted village pathway and by the place where the big chariot lay, across the market-place by the side of the landing stage, by the front of the Majumdars' house and beside the Post Office and the School house, and under the eyes of all the local people who knew her- this inoffensive, restless, playful, little village girl Chandara, now under arrest, trudged along with the impress of a black stigma sticking to her and left her old home and the old village for ever behind. A crowd of children followed them, and the village women -her old companions -looked from beneath their veils or from behind the door- way or from their hiding-places beside the trees, at poor Chandara now being escorted by the Police, and they shuddered with shame and hatred.
Chandara admitted her guilt before the Deputy Magistrate also. And it did not come out from what she said that the elder wife had at the time of the murder ill-treated her in any way.
But Seedam that day burst into tears as soon as he approached the witness-box, and addressing the court with palms joined said that his wife was innocent. The court stilled the heaving of his heart with a threat and put questions to him, and he gradually divulged the whole truth regarding the occurrence.
The court did not believe him, for, the most important and reliable witness of position, Ramlochan, deposed that he had arrived at the place of occurrence shortly after the murder, that Seedam had admitted everything before him and clasped his legs and importuned him to point out to him the means of saving his wife, and that the witness said nothing one way or the other, that Seedam had asked him whether his wife could be saved if he said that his elder brother killed his wife in anger when he could not get his meal which he wanted from her, and that thereupon the witness had admonished him saying, 'Take care, you rogue! Never utter one single lie before the court; there is no greater sin than doing that, etc.' Ramlochan had at first woven a lot of stories for saving Chandara, but she had herself turned round.
When he found that he exclaimed, "Goodness gracious! Am I to be hauled up for perjury at last? I shall say as much as I know."
With this in view he told what he knew and even did not omit to put in something in addition.
The Deputy Magistrate committed the accused to the Sessions.
In the meantime, laughing and crying, ploughing and marketing, and all other worldly business went on with their usual regularity, and the incessant Sraban showers flooded the fresh-ploughed fields as in the preceding years.
The Police produced the accused and the witnesses in court. A number of men had been waiting in the Munsiff's court in front for their cases to be called up. A pleader had arrived from Calcutta in a case regarding the partition of a marsh behind a kitchen-shed, and forty-nine witnesses were in attendance in connection with it. Numbers of people had been waiting for the most accurate adjustment of their petty accounts. They were under the impression that there was nothing of greater importance in the world just at the time.
From a window Seedam had been looking on with a fixed gaze at this daily routine work of this very busy world; everything appeared to him like a dream. From the branches of a large banyan tree in the compound a blackbird had been cooing -it had no law or courts to respect.
Chandara said to the Judge, "Well, how many more times am I to repeat the same things over and over again?"
The Judge explained to her, "Do you know what punishment is prescribed for the offence you have been confessing?"
Chandara replied, "No."
The Judge said, It is hanging on the gallows."
Chandara implored, "I do fall at your feet--why don't you mete that out to me? Do what you like, I can bear no longer!"
When Seedam was brought before the Court, Chandara turned her face away. The Judge said, "Look at the witness and say what is he to
you."
Chandara veiled her face with her hands and said, "He is my husband."
Question : "Does he not love you?"
Answer : "Oh! A great deal!"
Question : "Don't you love him?"
Answer : "Yes, ardently."
When Seedam was examined, he said he had killed the deceased.
Question : "Why?"
Seedam : "I wanted food, the elder wife gave me nothing"
Dukhiram fell down in a swoon as soon as he came to depose. When he recovered he said,
"Sir, it was I who committed the murder."
"Why?"
"I wanted food and she would give me nothing!"
After deal of cross-examination and after hearing the other witnesses, the Judge discerned clearly that the two brothers had been owning
the guilt with the object of saving female member of their house from the ignominy of dying upon the gallows. But Chandara had persisted-
in giving the same story from the stage of the Police enquiry up to the Sessions trial in consistent manner, and there had not been
the slightest deviation anywhere. Two pleaders volunteered to save her from the capital sentence and did their level best, but at last they had to admit being beaten by her.
When a very small dusky girl of very tender years laid aside her dolls in her father's house and came away to her husband's with her round little face, could any one at the time figure in his fancy on that auspicious night as to what was to come about this day? Her father on his deathbed felt relieved of all anxiety on her account upon the assurance that he had succeeded in placing her daughter in the way of felicity! Before the sentence was carried out in the Jail the kind-hearted Civil Surgeon asked Chandara if she wanted to see any one.
Chandara said, "I want to see my mother one last time."
The Civil Surgeon said, "Your husband wishes to see you. Shall I call him in?"
"Death," exlaimed Chandara.
[চন্দরা কহিল, 'মরণ।--']
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