WHEN Kamala reached the bank of the Ganges the short-lived December sun had already sunk to the verge of the pallid sky. Facing the oncoming dusk Kamala saluted the departing deity. She sprinkled drops of the sacred water on her head, then stepping into the stream and raising a handful of water in her joined palms, she bestowed a libation on the holy river and threw flowers into the current.
She bowed herself in adoration of all the heavenly powers. As she raised her head from the ground she remembered one more being to whom she owed worship. She had never aspired to look upon his face. On that one night which she had spent by his side her eyes had never rested even on his feet. In the bridal chamber he had spoken a word or two to her girl-companions but his accents had scarcely penetrated the barriers of the veil and of her own reserve. Now she stood at the river’s brink she strove intensely but unsuccessfully to recall the sound of his voice.
The night had been far spent before the wedding ceremonies were over. So utterly wearied had she been that sleep descended suddenly on her, when and where she could not tell. She awoke to find a young married neighbour shaking her out of her drowsiness with shrieks of laughter. She was alone on the couch. In this last moment of her existence her mind could grasp nothing tangible to remind her of the lord of that existence. His personality was a closed book to her. Face, voice, visible token, there was nothing that she could recall. Even the thread of red silk with which the bridegroom’s upper garment had been knotted during the ceremony — unknown to Kamala, it was the cheapest that Tarini Chaturjye could procure — she had never troubled to preserve.
The letter that Ramesh had written to Hemnalini was still fastened into the corner of her dress. She drew it out and sitting on the sand reread one of the sheets in the twilight. It was the portion of the letter which mentioned her husband — there were no details, only the fact that his name was Nalinaksha Chattopadhyay, that he had been a doctor at Rangpur, and that Ramesh could find no trace of him there. She searched for the remaining sheets but they were missing.
Nalinaksha! the name was balm to the wound in her soul. It seemed to fill her heart to overflowing, to take to itself an impalpable body and pervade her whole being. Tears flowed freely, melting the crust of her resolution and lightening the intolerable burden of her sorrow. A voice within her spoke: “The void is filled, the darkness has lifted; now I know that I too am part of the living world;” and she cried fervently, “If I would be a true wife to him I must live to prostrate myself at his feet. Nothing will rob me of this guerdon. While life endures he is not lost to me. The Lord has preserved me from death that I may serve him!”
She took the bunch of keys from the kerchief in which they were wrapped and flung them from her. Then she recollected that she wore as a fastening a brooch that Ramesh had given her, and this too she hastily undid and cast into the stream. Then turning westward she set forth. Whither she was bound and how she would set shout her quest she had no clear conception. She only knew that she must go forward, that she could not tarry a moment longer where she was.
The last glimmer of the wintry twilight soon faded from the sky. The sandy margin of the river gleamed faintly in the darkness, as though some painter had smudged out the figures on his brightly-hued landscape and left only the colourless canvas. The moonless sky studded with unwinking stars breathed gently down on the deserted river-bank.
Kamala could descry nothing before her but a seemingly endless, unpeopled void, but she knew that she must go forward and she never paused to consider what lay at the end of her march. She decided, however, to follow the bank of the river. This would relieve her of the necessity of asking her way and if danger threatened she could at once find asylum in the bosom of Mother Ganges.
There was not a particle of vapour in the air, and the darkness enveloped Kamala but did not blind her. As the night wore on jackals emerged from the shelter of the wheat-fields and howled discordantly. Kamala had been walking for some hours when the flats gave place to a high bank and the sand to cultivable soil. A village barred the way but as she approached it with beating heart it became apparent that all the inhabitants were sound asleep. Strength began to fail her as she skirted timidly round the village, and when at last she reached the top of an apparently sheer declivity she sank down at the foot of a banyan tree and slept the sleep of utter exhaustion.
When she awoke towards dawn, the waning moon had risen and cast some light on the darkness. Beside her stood an elderly woman who was plying her with questions in her own tongue. “Who are you, there? What are you doing, sleeping under a tree on a cold night like this?”
Kamala started up in alarm. Looking round she espied near at hand a landing-place at which two barges were moored. The old lady was on a journey and had risen early to bathe before other people were stirring.
“You look like a Bengali, you do,” she went on.
“I am a Bengali,” said Kamala.
“What are you doing lying here?”
“I started off for Benares. Late at night I felt sleepy so I lay down here.”
“Did you ever hear the like? Going to Benares on foot! Well, you had better get on board that barge. I’ll be along as soon as I’ve had my bath.”
The old lady bathed and then joining Kamala launched forth into an account of herself and her errand. She was related to the Sidhu Babu in Ghazipur, one of the members of whose family had just been married with great pomp and circumstance. Her own name was Nabinkali and her husband’s name was Mukundalal Datta; they were Kayasthas by caste, natives of Bengal, but they had been residing for some time in Benares. They had not been invited to their kinsfolk’s house for the wedding but had taken boat to Ghazipur in the hope that Sidhu Babu might after all find quarters for them. The mistress of the house had, however, regretted her inability to offer them hospitality. “You know, my dear,” she had said to Nabinkali, “my husband is very delicate; ever since he was a child he has had to live on special diet. We keep a cow in the house and churn its milk into butter; out of the butter we make ghi, and with the ghi we prepare luchis for him. A cow like that can’t be fed on any fodder that comes along—” and so forth and so on.
“What’s your name?” she asked after this recital. “Kamala.”
Nabinkali. “I see you’re wearing iron bangles; your husband is alive then?”
“He disappeared the day after our wedding.” Nabinkali. “Well I never! You look quite young too! Why, you can’t be more than fifteen,” she went on, after scanning Kamala from head to foot.
“I’m not certain about my age, but I must be about fifteen.”
Nabinkali. “You’re a Brahman, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Where do your folk live?”
Kamala. “I’ve never been to my husband’s native place; my father came from Bisukali” (though she had never been there Kamala knew that Bisukali was the, name of her father’s birthplace).
Nabinkali. “Then your parents — ?”
Kamala. “Both my father and my mother are dead.”
Nabinkali. “Bless my soul! What are you going to do?”
Kamala. “I only want a roof over my head and two meals a day. If I can find some decent people in Benares who will give me these I’ll work for my keep. I know how to cook.”
Nabinkali was secretly delighted at the prospect of obtaining the services of a Brahman lady-cook gratis. She took care, however, to dissemble her joy.
“We don’t need you ourselves,” she said, “we brought our own Brahman servants up-country with us. Moreover we can’t employ any one who has no qualification save that of being a Brahman. My husband mustn’t have his meals served up anyhow. One can’t get a good man under fourteen rupees a month and he wants his food and clothes besides. Still, here you are, a Brahman girl and in a difficulty; so perhaps you had better come along with us after all. We’ve such a number of mouths to feed and such a lot of stuff is thrown away, one more won’t make any difference. You won’t find the work too heavy for you. There’s only my husband and myself at home now. I’ve got all my daughters off my hands now and they’ve married well too. We’ve only one son and he’s a magistrate stationed at Serâjganj just now. We had a letter from the Governor appointing him two months back. I said to my husband, ‘Our Noto — that’s his name — isn’t hard up, why should he be treated like this? I know it’s not many people who have the luck to get such a good position, but it’s too bad that the poor lad should have to live so far from home. Why should he? What’s the necessity?’ But my husband only said, ‘Good Lord! That isn’t the point. You women don’t understand these things. Do you think it was for a living that I got Noto made a magistrate? We aren’t so badly off as all that! He must have a profession, you know, a young fellow like him, otherwise he’ll be up to some mischief or other.’”
The boats sped upstream before the wind and Benares was reached in a few hours. The whole party repaired to a two-storied house standing in a small garden on the outskirts of the city. There was no sign there of the fourteen-rupee Brahman cook. One of the servants was a Brahman, it is true, but he hailed from Orissa, and Uriya labour is notoriously the cheapest in north-eastern India. Moreover a few days after Kamala’s arrival Nabinkali dismissed him without paying his wages, in a sudden explosion of wrath. The difficulty of finding another cook on fourteen rupees a month proving insurmountable, Kamala had to assume entire charge of the kitchen.
Nabinkali was not sparing of good advice.
“You know, my dear,” she would admonish Kamala, “Benares city is a bad place for young girls like you. You must never set foot outside the compound alone. When I go to bathe in the Ganges or to worship the Bisweswar image I’ll take you along with me.”
She took careful precautions lest Kamala should escape from her clutches. The girl had practically no opportunity of meeting companions of her own sex and race. Household duties took up her whole day, and in the evening Nabinkali would discourse on the wealth of ornaments and jewellery, the gold and silver plate, and the rich brocades which fear of thieves had deterred her from bringing to Benares.
“My husband has never been accustomed to eat off brass, and he grumbled no end at first. He would say, ‘What does it matter if a few of the things are stolen? We can replace them in no time,’ but I could never reconcile myself to such a waste of money. I much prefer putting up with hardships for the time being. At home, you know, we have a huge house and a host of servants, more than I can count, but we can’t lug two or three dozen people about with us. My husband suggested renting an extra house near this one, but I said ‘no,’ I couldn’t stand that. It’s a good opportunity to have a little peace here. I should have no rest day or night if we had more servants and rooms to look after,” and so on ad nauseam.