A Peep into Life

(A STORY)

BY PREMENDRA MITRA

(Translated from Bengali by Phani Bhushan Maitra)

It is nesting time. Restless and anxious birds may be seen often and often returning to their nests with dried twigs, cast-off feathers, and sticks in their beaks.

A husband and wife…….two grains of sand indistinguishable from the illimitable mass.

The man is a clerk in a merchant firm……Year in and year out, he has to keep accounts of export and import on the pages of big leather-bound ledgers in bold and distinct characters. The wife is a mere girl and no more, dark-complexioned, poor, yet respectable…. She is bashful, patient, and full of kindliness.

Little do they know of the country-wide awakening of the black denizens of Africa whose mighty yell sends an icy shiver through the white-skinned tribes of the cold and snowy regions. It matters not to them if a vast, dying yellow race has cast off its cerements and stood up resolutely to prove that even under a pale exterior the blood that flows in their veins is as warm and scarlet as in anybody else.

They are just humble folk–the clerk and his wife.

Yet, a mere girl herself, the wife has to take up the reins of her husband’s household. He has no living relations left.

To write poems of love, or even to read them, is outside their lot. In addressing each other the sweet, smooth ‘Darling’ amply satisfies them. The pure and divine love each heart cherishes for the other requires not unwonted expressions of affection borrowed from love-fictions or invented by the ecstatic brain.

Her husband’s morning meal finished under her strict and loving care, the girl would daily accompany him to the door from behind which she would invariably peep out and smile a sweet farewell to her dearest. The man as well smiles in return. This is their meek submission to the inevitable pang of parting, and each heart treasures up the smile of the other in the heart.

Be sure that you come early today; please don’t be late…..", some day the wife ventures to word a timid request.

"Bah," the man readily protests, "I was only half an hour late yesterday; but didn't I explain? Somehow the lines went wrong and our tram…..Well, you are a child to worry yourself over a few minutes’ delay like that."

"Pooh, worry, you say! Who worries, please?" stammers the girl, blushing.

Evening gathers. Scarcely a knock is heard on the door but two eager and willing hands shoot the bolt. Tired and worn out by the lifeless toil of the day, the man goes straight to the bedroom and sits on the spotlessly clean counter-pane. The scene which now follows is as typical as their morning parting.

"Why should you unlace my shoes daily?" the husband lovingly complains, a little disconcerted perhaps.

"What harm, please?" comes the grave answer from the dutiful wife.

"Well, harm or no harm," with a vain attempt at superiority and temper, the man remonstrates, "I can do this as well as you."

"Exactly so; but will you kindly hold your tongue?" and the busy fingers ply through the knots.

They have their holidays. On such happy occasions they prepare an extra dish or two and sometimes go so far as to venture to indulge in the rare luxury of inviting one or two friends. They have neither a maid nor a servant. So the girl has got to serve her husband and his guests. Enveloped in her ample folds and deeply veiled, she performs her duties shyly and sweetly.

Such afternoons as these are simply meant to be babbled away in meaningless gossip. Lolling lazily at full length on the same white bed, they would launch upon such common talk as may be expected of an ignorant couple; innocent of all conceit of knowledge. To thread their way along the endless and intricate paths of a dark and complex labyrinth, is beyond them; whatever problems they encounter, they solve readily and easily.

"Oh dear, I have just killed a mosquito. That a sin?" the girl asks in perplexity.

"How can you doubt?" promptly answers her husband.

"But," the wife is yet unconvinced, "what about the fish you take daily, or the flesh of goats?"

Undoubtedly a dilemma.

But the man overcomes the difficulty. "Well, you see, er, the thing is, they are meant for our food. This is Divine Law. Can you take your food and sin in taking it? Ha, ha……."

"I see." The girl is satisfied and her doubt is set at rest. Altogether a second problem now.

"Is it true that the earth is to run against a comet and be shattered to pieces in less than ten days? The womenfolk of the household living next door carne to me yesterday and told me so. An eminent astronomer has, I heard, so predicted."

The man pooh-poohs her fear away.

"What rotten rubbish is this! Really, who but women can believe such nonsense! The earth to collide with a comet!"

The girl is altogether ashamed of her credulity.

"Well, to be frank, I didn’t really believe it either. Why, don't you remember a similar rumour years ago? Yes, yes, it was before we were married."

Such is the merry hum of a happy Pair.

One day it so happens that the husband walks all the way home from office. The fare he would have paid for his tram, he spends for a fragrant garland of sweet-scented flowers.

Once within the secluded precincts of the bedroom, the man, taking his wife by surprise, winds the wreath round her hair and exclaims, "How do you like the smell of it, darling?"

She is thoroughly delighted.

"But will you never stop throwing away money like this?" the girl yet complains as she thinks she should.

"Ha……Throwing money away….. Really……Why, it’s my tram-fare……"

This time the girl is as genuinely angry as she is grieved.

"My God.......You walked all this distance from office simply to buy this trifle for me!…. Who wants it?…….Not I, to be sure……Take it , please."

"Goodness me…..You fly into a rage!"……..the husband explains, "Just hear me first; won't you?…….While at office I got a bad head-ache. So, I thought, I had better walk through the open Maidan rather than return by tram. More-over, we were let off a few minutes earlier today.…..Was it really so very wrong of me?……How unjust of you!….."

"I am sorry," the wife now says, soothing her ruffled consort, "I thought it was to buy this that you..."

That he has finally triumphed is evident to the youth.

"Well, if really I am to blame after all, give me my wreath, please……But had I only known before……"

"Oh yes, give you your wreath……All right.……Just wait and see," and the girl-wife winds it round and round her hair, unalloyed bliss filling her heart.

"How quick-tempered……How you twist and misconstrue my words!" she even ventures to accuse her husband.

The girl is down with fever. The temperature is high and alarming, and shows no tendency to come down during the first two days. On the third day, as he is about to leave home for office, the husband voices his unconcealed anxiety. "I don't know how long we can pull on like this…..You have nobody to attend to your needs throughout the long hours of the day…..Let me rather take you to your father…….."

"Oh no," the patient objects, "I shall be all right tomorrow......Why don’t you attend office as usual, as if nothing has happened?"

The youth complies; but he gropes and gropes for some way out of it. The next day the temperature rises yet higher.

"Well, really I can delay no longer," her husband is now firm, "I am away at office for nearly the whole of the day. You are practically alone and helpless with nobody to look after you……Take you to your father I must."

For a few moments the two big eyes of the ailing patient stare at his face and meekly entreat him in speechless prayer. She then turns her head away.

"How I hate to be there!" is all she breathes heavily.

During the illness they fall out over the cooking.

"I can do it all right," the girl asserts with conviction, "why should you then go without meals?"

"Maybe you can," the husband is obdurate, "but I won’t allow you to. I would rather take my meals at some hotel."

"Is it really practicable after all?" doubts his wife, shocked. "Why not?….Moreover, necessity knows no law," the youth argues.

"But," still persists his wife fondly, "as yet, I find no necessity."

The aching and suffering wife turns a deaf ear to all her husband’s importunities and is about to go to the kitchen. Thus thwarted in his loving care and attention, he loses his head and swears, "She who cooks my meal today, would have to put it into the mouth of my corpse."

The ferocity of the oath stuns her.

She comes without a word and weeps in misery on the pillow.

The husband repents for his rashness immediately afterwards and vainly seeks to console her.

"Why did you persist so obstinately?" He strokes her hair caressingly and excuses himself. "I had to swear, darling. You see, I had simply no alternative……Please, please don't be cross. Just judge for yourself. If the toil of cooking aggravates your illness, who suffers more? A solitary meal at a hotel gives you no rest now; but can't you see, how long-why, for days on end perhaps–I would then have to suffer for want of home-cooked food! Well, just get well first and cook to your heart’s content; I would never then stand in the way."

"Now that you have your own way, what more can you have to say? You swore the vilest of oaths. You can't expect me to cook after that." The girl is yet sore and in pain, and the husband continues trying to make her forgive and forget.

By God's grace the girl recovers and their quarrel comes to an end without any more ado. Once again they are reconciled to each other.

A new birdie comes to this happy nest. A boy.

She falls a prey to colitis as an after-effect of delivery. Her parents would not allow her to shift to her home, ill and weak as she yet is.

The husband is nervous.

"Is colitis really fatal?" he often asks of his friends with an anxious face.

With the passage of days the girl gets weaker and weaker and ultimately becomes quite bedridden.

Her husband has still to attend his office. He is late in attendance and commits frequent mistakes in copying. He is rebuked for his negligence.

Yet no spirit of intense resentment or insubordinate rebellion ever rises in their heart against the cruel and unprovoked tyranny of their Creator. This heartless injustice, this partiality does not make them curse the world at large. They bow down to men on earth and the gods on high alike.

Some day it so happens that when the girl finds her young man all to herself, she timidly looks at his face and asks, "Will I not survive my illness?"

"What madness is this!" the husband laughs a forced laugh and tries to chase her fears away. "It is nothing serious after all. Why do you fear?"

"Oh, how I wish to live!" the girl fondly speaks out her desire.

"But what is there to worry about at all?" the young man says by way of encouragement and laughs on hysterically.

It is a laugh more pitiable and pathetic than tears; it wrings his heart in its merciless grip and brings drops of hot blood to his eyes.

But her illness goes gradually from bad to worse and the order of things changes.

Now it is the wife who encourages her husband.

No more does she ask in fear and trepidation about the end of her disease. She now tries her best to assume a merry countenance, as much as her skin and bone would allow, and gurgles on, "Now that I have run out the course of my suffering, I’m sure I would recover directly." She then indulges in childish talks as to how they will manage their household, how they will bring up the child of their heart, what they will name him, and so on and so forth.

Seated petrified at the head of the sick-bed, the husband holds her cold and bony palm in his warm hands and listens to her prattle.

A meaningless smile hovers round his lips all the while.

"Away with your constant anxieties for my sake, please Mind you, they will tell upon your health," the girl again and again harps on the same tune and warns the youth. "For I must be all right again."

"Oh, of that I am sure; how can I doubt?" the husband mechanically replies.

But they are all the time well aware that each of them can see through this shallow. lying consolation from the other. Yet they deem this their noble duty and they daily play this little scene of excruciating anguish though their hearts bleed in consequence. They have naught but tears that can be shed in loneliness, in each other’s absence.

Yet the hapless clerk has to attend office. The big bound ledgers with accounts in them keep staring at his face vacantly. He has to copy, and he copies.

How the heart longs to fly home! Still he is obliged to walk all the way from office. Now he saves his tram-fare, not for any sweet garland of mild perfume, but to pay for the doctor’s bill.

Occasionally he feels a sharp pang in the heart. If he had only been a little more well off! He could then have arranged for better nursing and secured more expert medical advice.

Before she loses her consciousness for ever and finally drops into eternal darkness, she casts off all feigned show of hope, and wails out, "Oh God, my God, how with all my heart I have prayed to be spared! In tears have I day and night begged of Him for life, but merciless as He is..."

It is a bubble that breaks and loses itself.

The dark and stormy days of the wild Vaisakha are then furiously raging, carrying destruction to happy and harmless homes and nests.