The sounds of night take on all manner of disguises. A twig snaps, and one thinks that somebody is running for his life. A door slams, and one feels it to be the sudden heart-thump of a startled world.
Lights would suddenly flicker under the shade of the distant trees, and then go out again. Horses’ hoofs would clatter, now and again, only to turn out to be riders leaving the palace gates.
I continually had the feeling that, if only I could die, all this turmoil would come to an end. So long as I was alive my sins would remain rampant, scattering destruction on every side. I remembered the pistol in my box. But my feet refused to leave the window in quest of it. Was I not awaiting my fate?
The gong of the watch solemnly struck ten. A little later, groups of lights appeared in the distance and a great crowd wound its way, like some great serpent, along the roads in the darkness, towards the palace gates.
The Dewan rushed to the gate at the sound. Just then a rider came galloping in. “What’s the news, Jata?” asked the Dewan.
“Not good,” was the reply.
I could hear these words distinctly from my window. But something was next whispered which I could not catch.
Then came a palanquin, followed by a litter. The doctor was walking alongside the palanquin.
“What do you think, doctor?” asked the Dewan.
“Can’t say yet,” the doctor replied. “The wound in the head is a serious one.”
“And Amulya Babu?”
“He has a bullet through the heart. He is done for.”
Endnotes
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The mark of Hindu wifehood and the symbol of all the devotion that it implies. ↩
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The sari is the dress of the Hindu woman. ↩
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Taking the dust of the feet is a formal offering of reverence and is done by lightly touching the feet of the revered one and then one’s own head with the same hand. The wife does not ordinarily do this to the husband. ↩
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It would not be reckoned good form for the husband to be continually going into the zenana, except at particular hours for meals or rest. ↩
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Bara = Senior; Chota = Junior. In joint families of rank, though the widows remain entitled only to a life-interest in their husbands’ share, their rank remains to them according to seniority, and the titles “Senior” and “Junior” continue to distinguish the elder and younger branches, even though the junior branch be the one in power. ↩
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The seclusion of the zenana, and all the customs peculiar to it, are designated by the general term “Purdah,” which means Screen. ↩
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The prestige of the daughter-in-law is of the first importance in a Hindu household of rank. —Trans. ↩
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The Nationalist movement, which began more as an economic than a political one, having as its main object the encouragement of indigenous industries. —Trans. ↩
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Babu is a term of respect, like “Father” or “Mister,” but has also meant in colonial days a person who understands some English. ↩
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Lit.: “Hail Mother;” the opening words of a song by Bankim Chatterjee, the famous Bengali novelist. The song has now become the national anthem, and Bande Mataram the national cry, since the days of the Swadeshi movement. —Trans. ↩
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The Jupiter Pluvius of Hindu mythology. ↩
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Bimala, the younger brother’s wife, was the Chota or Junior Rani. ↩
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According to the Hindu calendar. —Trans. ↩
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The son-in-law is the pet of a Hindu household. ↩
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A Vaishnava poet (Sanskrit) whose lyrics of the adoration of the Divinity serve as well to express all shades of human passion. —Trans. ↩
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When a relationship is established by marriage, or by mutual understanding arising out of special friendship or affection, the persons so related call each other in terms of such relationship, and not by name. —Trans. ↩
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The name by which Buddha was known when a Prince, before renouncing the world. ↩
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The condition of the curse which had reduced them to ashes was such that they could only be restored to life if the stream of the Ganges was brought down to them. —Trans. ↩
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Sakuntala, after the king, her lover, went back to his kingdom, promising to send for her, was so lost in thoughts of him, that she failed to hear the call of her hermit guest who thereupon cursed her, saying that the object of her love would forget all about her. —Trans. ↩
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A line from Bankim Chatterjee’s national song “Bande Mataram.” ↩
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A quotation from the Upanishads. ↩
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There is a world of sentiment attached to the ornaments worn by women in Bengal. They are not merely indicative of the love and regard of the giver, but the wearing of them symbolizes all that is held best in wifehood—the constant solicitude for her husband’s welfare, the successful performance of the material and spiritual duties of the household entrusted to her care. When the husband dies, and the responsibility for the household changes hands, then are all ornaments cast aside as a sign of the widow’s renunciation of worldly concerns. At any other time the giving up of ornaments is always a sign of supreme distress and as such appeals acutely to the sense of chivalry of any Bengali who may happen to witness it. —Trans. ↩
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The cashier is the official who
