BEFORE the crisis in Hemnalini’s affairs Annada Babu had always enjoyed perfect health, nevertheless he had been in the habit of constantly swallowing nostrums prescribed by physicians of both the western and the indigenous schools of medicine. Now, however, he had lost all inclination for drugs. When his physical disorders existed only in his imagination he had found them an absorbing topic of conversation; but now that his health was really affected he never made any allusion to his bodily ailments. He had fallen asleep in his chair from utter weariness when Hemnalini, hearing Jogendra’s step on the stair, laid down her needlework and hurried to the door to warn her brother not to disturb the sleeper. To her dismay she found that he had brought Nalinaksha home with him! She was on the point of taking refuge in another room when Jogendra interposed.
“Hem!” he called to her, “I’ve brought Nalinakska Babu. Let me introduce him to you.”
Hem stood still in confusion while Nalinaksha approached and bowed without raising his eyes to her face.
Meanwhile Annada Babu had awakened and called for his daughter. Hem re-entered the room and announced in a whisper that “Nalinaksha Babu” was there.
Jogendra ushered in his guest and Annada Babu bustled forward to greet him.
“We are indeed fortunate!” he exclaimed, “in having a visit from you. Hem, dear, don’t run away; sit down here. Nalinaksha Babu, this is my daughter Hem. She and I went to hear your address the other day and enjoyed it greatly. There was one thing you said — about never losing what we have once gained and incomplete gain being really a loss — that struck me as a very profound truth. Don’t you agree, Hem? The real test comes when a thing passes out of our possession. Then we know whether it was truly our own or not. I have a request to make of you, Nalin Babu. If you could drop in now and then for a talk we should consider it a great favour. We don’t go out much. You may be certain of finding my daughter and myself in this room at whatever hour you call.”
Nalinaksha threw one glance at Hemnalini’s self-conscious face before he replied:
“You mustn’t imagine me a solemn prig because I used a lot of long words on the lecture-platform. It was only because the students insisted that I consented to lecture at all — I never could withstand importunate people — but I think I have successfully deterred them from asking for a repetition of the dose! The lads make no secret of the fact that three-quarters of my address was incomprehensible to them. You were there too, Jogen Babu, and you mustn’t suppose that your appealing glances at your watch left me unmoved!” —
“You mustn’t mind me,” said Jogendra, “if I couldn’t follow it all, my own intelligence must be at fault.”
Annada. “After all, Jogen, there are certain things that only people of a certain age can understand.” Nalinaksha. “Yes, and at certain ages one does not need to understand everything.”
Annada. “By the way, Nalin Babu, there is one subject which I feel I must mention to you. The Creator sent men of your stamp into the world to perform certain tasks, hence you ought not to despise your body. People who have something to bestow have to be reminded that they ought not to squander their capital, otherwise they lose the power of giving.” Nalinaksha. “I think you will find when we become further acquainted that I despise nothing on earth. When I came into the world I was utterly dependent on the charity of others. It cost much labour and the fostering care of many individuals to bring my mind and body gradually to maturity. It would be unbecoming arrogance on my part to despise anything. What one cannot construct one has no title to destroy.”
Annada. “Very true, very true. You said something to the same effect in your address.”
Jogendra. “Well, I must be off; I have an engagement, but please don’t let me disturb you.”
Nalinaksha. “I must have your forgiveness before you go, Jogen Babu. I assure you I’m not in the habit of puzzling people. I had better be off too; we can go part of the way together.”
Jogendra. “No, please, don’t go. You mustn’t mind me. I’m incapable of sitting still for long in one place.”
Annada. “Never mind Jogen, please, Nalinaksha Babu. He comes and goes as he pleases and it’s not easy to pin him down.”
After Jogendra’s departure Annada Babu asked Nalinaksha where he was residing. Nalinaksha laughed.
“I can’t say that I’m living in any particular place at the moment. I have a great many acquaintances and they drag me about with them. I like it well enough but one requires a little peace and quiet now and then, so Jogen Babu has taken rooms for me in the house next to this. This lane of yours is certainly a restful place.”
Annada Babu was hugely gratified at this announcement, but if he had happened to glance at his daughter he would have noticed a momentary spasm of pain pass over her countenance. The next-door house was the one in which Ramesh had lived.
Tea was announced at this point and an adjournment was made to the ground floor.
“Hem, dear, give Nalin Babu a cup of tea,” was Annada Babu’s next remark.
The guest, however, politely declined the preferred refreshment.
Annada. “What’s this, Nalin Babu? Won’t you really have some tea? A cake, at least?”
Nalinaksha. “I must really ask you to excuse me.” Annada. “You’re a doctor, so I can’t lay down the law to you. But, personally, I look on tea as a pretext for drinking a modicum of hot water three or four hours after the midday meal, and I find it of benefit to my digestion. If you’re not in the habit of drinking tea we can make it specially weak for you.”
Nalinaksha glanced diffidently at Hemnalini and read in her expression that she was exercised over his reluctance and that she had been guessing at the cause of it. With his eyes on her face he proceeded: “I fear I have given you a wrong impression. Don’t suppose for a moment that I have any prejudices against your customs. I used to take tea regularly at one time, I still enjoy its aroma, and I sympathise with your liking for it. You probably do not know, however, that my mother’s views on ceremonial purity are very strict; and she is practically alone in the world but for me. I have to avoid any act that would impair the intimacy of our relations, and that is why I abstain from tea nowadays. In so far as you derive pleasure from drinking tea I can share in that pleasure and my scruples do not debar me in the least from enjoying your hospitality.”
Nalinaksha’s first utterances had been in the nature of a shock to Hemnalini. It was patent to her that he had not revealed his true self to his auditors but had merely been trying to conceal his real personality in a flood of talk. What she did not realise was that he was constitutionally incapable of talking to strangers without constraint, and that at his first meeting with any one his shyness led him to assume an air of assurance foreign to his real nature. Even when he essayed to speak out his true thoughts, a jarring note was audible of which he was not unconscious himself. It was for this reason that when the restless Jogendra rose to go Nalinaksha’s conscience had reproached him with insincerity, and he had attempted to escape also. When, however, Nalinaksha alluded to his mother, Hemnalini could not forbear gazing at him in reverent admiration, and her heart went out to him when she observed the expression of grave and earnest devotion that lit up his face the moment he mentioned her. She was conscious of an impulse to question him about his mother, but diffidence forbade.
“You’re perfectly right,” Annada Babu replied at once to Nalinaksha’s last speech. “Had I known this I should never have invited you to take tea. Please forgive me.”
“Why should I be denied! your kind invitation merely because I don’t drink tea?” was Nalinaksha’s smiling rejoinder.
After the guest had departed Hemnalini took her father upstairs and began to read the articles in a Bengal review to him till he dropped off to sleep. Such surrenders to fatigue had become habitual with the old gentleman of late.