I

We are back in our quarters in the village, near a temple, in a two-storeyed house belonging to one of the Swami’s disciples, which had been placed at our disposal. Since our return we see but little of Damini, though she is still in charge of our household affairs. She has made friends with the neighbouring women, and spends most of her spare time in going about with them from one house to another.

The Swami is not particularly pleased. Damini’s heart, thinks he, does not yet respond to the call of the ethereal heights. All its fondness is still for earthen walls. In her daily work of looking after the devotees, — formerly like an act of worship with her, — a trace of weariness has become noticeable. She makes mistakes. Her service has lost its radiance.

The Master, at heart, begins to be afraid of her again. Between her brows there darkens a gathering frown; her temple is ruffled with fitful breezes; the loosening knot of her hair lowers over her neck; the pressure of her lips, the gleams from the corner of her eye, her sudden wayward gestures presage a rebellious storm.

The Swami turned to his kirtans with renewed attention. The wandering bee, he hoped, would be brought to drink deep of the honey, once enticed in by its fragrance. And so the short cool days were filled to the brim with the foaming wine of ecstatic song.

But no, Damini refused to be caught. The exasperated Swami laughed out one day: ‘The Lord is out hunting: the resolute flight of the deer adds zest to the chase: but succumb she must, in the end.’

When we had first come to know Damini, she was not to be found among the band of devotees clustering round the Master. That, however, did not attract our notice then. But now, her empty place had become conspicuous. Her frequent absences smote us tempestuously.

The Swami put this down to her pride, and that hurt his own pride. As for me, — but what does it matter what I thought?

One day the Master mustered up courage to say in his most dulcet tones: ‘Damini, my little mother, do you think you will have a little time to spare this afternoon? If so — — — ’

‘No,’ said Damini.

‘Would you mind telling me why?’

‘I have to assist in making sweetmeats at the Nandi’s.’

‘Sweetmeats? What for?’

‘They have a wedding on.’

‘Is your assistance so indispensably — — — ?’

‘I promised to be there.’

Damini whisked out of the room without waiting for further questioning.

Satish, who was there with us, was dumbfounded. So many men of learning, wealth, and fame had surrendered at the feet of the Master, and this slip of a girl, — what gave her such hardihood of assurance?

Another evening Damini happened to be at home. The Master had addressed himself to some specially important topic. After his discourse had progressed awhile, something in our faces gave him pause. He found our attention wandering. On looking round he discovered that Damini, who had been seated in the room, sewing in hand, was not to be seen. He understood the reason of our distraction. She was not there, not there, not there, — the refrain now kept worrying him too. He began to lose the thread of his discourse, and at last gave it up altogether.

The Swami left the room and went off to Damini’s door. ‘Damini,’ he called. ‘Why are you all alone here? Will you not come and join us?’

‘I am engaged,’ said Damini.

The baffled Swami could see, as he passed by the half-open door, a captive kite in a cage. It had somehow struck against the telegraph wires, and had been lying wounded when Damini rescued it from the pestering crows, and she had been tending it since.

The kite was not the only object which engaged Damini’s solicitude. There was a mongrel pup, whose looks were on a par with its breeding. It was discord personified. Whenever it heard our cymbals, it would look up to heaven and voice forth a prolonged complaint. The gods, being fortunate, did not feel bound to give it a hearing. The poor mortals whose ears happened to be within reach were woefully agonised.

One afternoon, when Damini was engaged in practising horticulture in sundry cracked pots on the roof-terrace, Satish came up and asked her point-blank: ‘Why is it you have given up coming over there altogether?’

‘Over where?’

‘To the Master.’

‘Why, what need have you people of me?’

‘We have no need, — but surely the need is yours.’

‘No, no!’ flung out Damini. ‘Not at all, not at all!’

Taken aback by her heat, Satish gazed at her in silence. Then he mused aloud: ‘Your mind lacks peace. If you would gain peace — — — ’

‘Peace from you, — you who are consumed day and night with your excitement, — where have you the peace to give? Leave me alone, I beg and pray you. I was at peace. I would be at peace.’

‘You see but the waves on the surface. If you have the patience to dive deep, you will find all calm there.’

Damini wrung her hands as she cried: ‘I beseech you, for the Lord’s sake, don’t insist on my diving downwards. If only you will give up all hope of my conversion, I may yet live.’

II

My experience has never been large enough to enable me to penetrate the mysteries of woman’s mind. Judging from what little I have seen of the surface from the outside, I have come to the belief that women are ever ready to bestow their heart where sorrow cannot but be their lot. They will either string their garland of acceptance for some brute of a man who will trample it under foot and defile it in the mire of his passions, or dedicate it to some idealist, on whose neck it will get no hold, attenuated as he is, like the dream-stuff of his imaginings.

When left to do their own choosing, women invariably reject ordinary men like me, made up of gross and fine, who know woman to be just woman, — that is to say, neither a doll of clay made to serve for our pastime, nor a transcendental melody to be evoked at our master touch. They reject us, because we have neither the forceful delusions of the flesh, nor the roseate illusions of fancy: we can neither break them on the wheel of our desire, nor melt them in the glow of our fervour to be cast in the mould of our ideal.

Because we know them only for what they are, they may be friendly, but cannot love us. We are their true refuge, for they can rely on our devotion; but our self-dedication comes so easy that they forget it has a price. So the only reward we get is to be used for their purposes; perchance to win their respect. But I am afraid my excursions into the region of psychology are merely due to personal grievances, which have my own experience behind them. The fact probably is, what we thus lose is really our gain, — anyway, that is how we may console ourselves.

Damini avoids the Master because she cannot bear him. She fights shy of Satish because for him her feelings are of the opposite description. I am the only person, near at hand, with whom there is no question either of love or hate. So whenever I am with her, Damini talks away to me of unimportant matters concerning the old days, the present times, or the daily happenings at the neighbours’ houses. These talks usually take place on the shaded part of the roof-terrace, which serves as a passage between our several rooms on the second storey, where Damini sits slicing betel-nuts.

What I could not understand was, how these trifling talks should have attracted the notice of Satish’s emotion-clouded vision. Even suppose the circumstance was not so trifling, had I not often been told that, in the world where Satish dwelt, there were no such disturbing things as circumstances at all? The Mystic Union, in which personified cosmic forces were assisting, was an eternal drama, not an historical episode. Those who are rapt with the undying flute strains, borne along by the ceaseless zephyrs which play on the banks of the ever-flowing Jamuna of that mystic paradise, have no eyes or ears left for the ephemeral doings immediately around them. This much at least is certain, that before our return from the cave, Satish used to be much denser in his perception of worldly events.

For this difference I may have been partly responsible. I also had begun to absent myself from our kirtans and discourses, perhaps with a frequency which could not elude even Satish. One day he came round on inquiry, and found me running after Damini’s mongoose, — a recent acquisition, — trying to lure it into bondage with a pot of milk, which I had procured from the local milkman. This occupation, viewed as an excuse, was simply hopeless. It could easily have waited till the end of our sitting. For the matter of that, the best thing clearly would have been to leave the mongoose to its own devices, thus at one stroke demonstrating my adherence to the two principal tenets of our cult, — Compassion for all creatures, and Passion for the Lord.

That is why, when Satish came up, I had to feel ashamed. I put down the pot, then and there, and tried to edge away along the path which led back to self-respect.

But Damini’s behaviour took me by surprise. She was not in the least abashed as she asked: ‘Where are you off to, Srivilas Babu?’

I scratched my head, as I mumbled: ‘I was thinking of joining the — — — ’

‘They must have finished by this time. Do sit down.’

This coming from Damini, in the presence of Satish, made my ears burn.

Damini turned to Satish. ‘I am in awful trouble with the mongoose,’ she said. ‘Last night it stole a chicken from the Mussulman quarters over there. I dare not leave it loose any longer. Srivilas Babu has promised to look out for a nice big hamper to keep it in.’

It seemed to me that it was my devotion to her which Damini was using the mongoose to show off. I was reminded how the Swami had given orders to Satish so as to impress me. The two were the same thing.

Satish made no reply, and his departure was somewhat abrupt. I gazed on Damini and could see her eyes flash out as they followed his disappearing figure; while on her lips there set a hard, enigmatic smile.

What conclusion Damini had come to she herself knew best; the only result apparent to me was that she began to send for me on all kinds of flimsy pretexts. Sometimes she would make sweetmeats, which she pressed on me. One day I could not help suggesting: ‘Let’s offer some to Satish as well.’

‘That would only annoy him,’ said Damini.

And it happened that Satish, passing that way, caught me in the act of being thus regaled.

In the drama which was being played, the hero and the heroine spoke their parts ‘aside.’ I was the one character who, being of no consequence, had to speak out. This sometimes made me curse my lot; none the less, I could not withstand the temptation of the petty cash with which I was paid off, from day to day, for taking up the role of middleman.

III

For some days Satish clanged his cymbals and danced his kirtans with added vigour. Then one day he came to me and said: ‘We cannot keep Damini with us any longer.’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘We must free ourselves altogether from the influence of women.’

‘If that be a necessity,’ said I, ‘there must be something radically wrong with our system.’

Satish stared at me in amazement.

‘Woman is a natural phenomenon,’ I continued, undaunted, ‘who will have her place in the world, however much we may try to get rid of her. If your spiritual welfare depends on ignoring her existence, then its pursuit will be like the chasing of a phantom, and will so put you to shame, when the illusion is gone, that you will not know where to hide yourself.’

‘Oh, stop your philosophising!’ exclaimed Satish. ‘I was talking practical politics. It is only too evident that women are emissaries of Maya, and at Maya’s behest ply on us their blandishments, — for they cannot fulfil the design of their Mistress unless they overpower our reason. So we must steer clear of them if we would keep our intellect free.’

I was about to make my reply, when Satish stopped me with a gesture, and went on: ‘Visri, old fellow! let me tell you plainly: if the hand of Maya is not visible to you, that is because you have allowed yourself to be caught in her net. The vision of beauty with which she has ensnared you to-day will vanish, and with the beauty will disappear the spectacles of desire, through which you now see it as greater than all the world. Where the noose of Maya is so glaringly obvious, why be foolhardy enough to take risks?’

‘I admit all that,’ I rejoined. ‘But, my dear fellow, the all-pervading net of Maya was not cast by my hands, nor do I know the way to escape through it. Since we have not the power to evade Maya, our spiritual striving should help us, while acknowledging her, to rise above her. Because it does not take such a course, we have to flounder about in vain attempts to cut away the half of Truth.’

‘Well, well, let’s have your idea a little more clearly,’ said Satish.

‘We must sail the boat of our life,’ I proceeded, ‘along the current of nature, in order to reach beyond it. Our problem is, not how to get rid of this current, but how to keep the boat afloat in its channel until it is through. For that, a rudder is necessary.’

‘You people who have ceased to be loyal to the Master, — how can I make you understand that in him we have just this rudder? You would regulate your spiritual life according to your own whims. That way death lies!’ Satish went to the Master’s chamber, and fell to tending his feet with fervour.

The same evening, when Satish lit the Master’s pipe, he also put forward his plaint against Maya and her emissaries. The smoking of one pipe, however, did not suffice for its adjudication. Evening after evening, pipe after pipe was exhausted, yet the Master was unable to make up his mind.

From the very beginning Damini had given the Swami no end of trouble. Now the girl had managed to set up this eddy in the midst of the smooth course of the devotees’ progress. But Shivatosh had thrown her and her belongings so absolutely on the Master’s hands that he knew not how or where to cast her off. What made it more difficult still was that he harboured a secret fear of his ward.

And Satish, in spite of all the doubled and quadrupled enthusiasm which he put into his kirtans, in spite of all the pipe-filling and massaging in which he tried to rest his heart, was not allowed to forget for a moment that Maya had taken up her position right across the line of his spiritual advance.

One day some kirtan singers of repute had arrived, and were to sing in the evening at the temple next door. The kirtan would last far into the night. I managed to slip away after the preliminary overture, having no doubt that, in so thick a crowd, no one would notice my absence.

Damini that evening had completely thrown off her reserve. Things which are difficult to speak of, which refuse to leave one’s choking throat, flowed from her lips so simply, so sweetly. It was as if she had suddenly come upon some secret recess in her heart, so long hidden away in darkness, — as if, by some strange chance, she had gained the opportunity to stand before her own self, face to face.

Just at this time Satish came up from behind and stood there hesitating, without our being aware of it at the moment. Not that Damini was saying anything very particular, but there were tears in her eyes, — all her words, in fact, were then welling up from some tear-flooded depth. When Satish arrived, the kirtan could not have been anywhere near its end. I divined that he must have been goaded with repeated inward urgings to have left the temple then.

As Satish came round into our view, Damini rose with a start, wiped her eyes, and made off towards her room. Satish, with a tremor in his voice, said: ‘Damini, will you listen to me? I would have a word with you.’

Damini slowly retraced her steps, and came and sat down again. I made as though to take myself off, but an imploring glance from her restrained me from stirring. Satish, who seemed to have made some kind of effort meanwhile, came straight to the point.

‘The need,’ said he to Damini, ‘which brought the rest of us to the Master, was not yours when you came to him.’

‘No,’ avowed Damini expectantly.

‘Why, then, do you stay amongst his devotees?’

Damini’s eyes flamed up as she cried: ‘Why do I stay? Because I did not come of my own accord! I was a helpless creature, and every one knew my lack of faith. Yet I was bound hand and foot by your devotees in this dungeon of devotion. What avenue of escape have you left me?’

‘We have now decided,’ stated Satish,‘that if you would go to stay with some relative all your expenses will be found.’

‘You have decided, have you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, then, — I have not!’

‘Why, how will that inconvenience you?’

‘Am I a pawn in your game, that you devotees should play me, now this way, now the other?’

Satish was struck dumb.

‘I did not come,’ continued Damini, ‘wanting to please your devotees. And I am not going away at the bidding of the lot of you, merely because I don’t happen to please you!’

Damini covered her face with her hands and burst out sobbing as she ran into her room and slammed the door.

Satish did not return to the kirtan singing. He sank down in a corner of the adjoining roof-terrace and brooded there in silence.

The sound of the breakers on the distant seashore came, wafted along the south breeze, like despairing sighs, rising up to the watching star clusters, from the very heart of the Earth. I spent the night wandering round and round along the dark, deserted village lanes.

IV

The World of Reality has made a determined onslaught on the Mystic Paradise, within the confines of which the Master sought to keep Satish and myself content by repeatedly filling for us the cup of symbolism with the nectar of idea. Now the clash of the actual with the symbolic bids fair to overturn the latter and spill its emotional contents in the dust. The Master is not blind to this danger.

Satish is no longer himself. Like a paper kite, with its regulating knot gone, he is still high in the skies, but may at any moment begin to gyrate groundwards. There is no falling off as yet in the outward rigour of his devotional and disciplinary exercises, but a closer scrutiny reveals the totter of weakening.

As for my condition, Damini has left nothing so vague in it as to require any guess-work. The more she notices the fear in the Master’s face, and the pain in Satish’s, the oftener she makes me dance attendance on her.

At last it came to this, that when we were engaged in talk with the Master, Damini would sometimes appear in the doorway and interrupt us with: ‘Srivilas Babu, would you mind coming over this way?’ without even condescending to add what I was wanted for.

The Swami would glance up at me; Satish would glance up at me; I would hesitate for a moment between them and her; then I would glance up at the door, — and in a trice I was off the fence and out of the room. An effort would be made, after my exit, to go on with the talk, but the effort would soon get the better of the talk, whereupon the latter would stop.

Everything seemed to be falling to pieces around us. The old compactness was gone.

We two had come to be the pillars of the sect. The Master could not give up either of us without a struggle. So he ventured once more to make an overture to Damini. ‘My little mother,’ said he,‘the time is coming for us to proceed to the more arduous part of our journey. You had better return from here.’

‘Return where?’

‘Home, to your aunt.’

‘That cannot be.’

‘Why?’ asked the Swami. ‘First of all,’ said Damini,‘she is not my own aunt at all. Why should she bear my burden?’

‘All your expenses shall be borne by us.’

‘Expenses are not the only burden. It is no part of her duty to be saddled with looking after me.’

‘But, Damini,’ urged the Swami in his desperation, ‘can I keep you with me for ever?’

‘Is that a question for me to answer?’

‘But where will you go when I am dead?’

‘I was never allowed,’ returned Damini icily, ‘to have the responsibility of thinking that out. I have been made to realise too well that in this world I have neither home nor property; nothing at all to call my own. That is what makes my burden so heavy to bear. It pleased you to take it up. You shall not now cast it on another!’

Damini went off.

‘Lord, have mercy!’ sighed the Swami.

Damini had laid on me the command to procure for her some good Bengali books. I need hardly say that by ‘good’ Damini did not mean spiritual, of the quality affected by our sect. Nor need I pause to make it clear that Damini had no compunction in asking anything from me. It had not taken her long to find out that making demands on me was the easiest way of making me amends. Some kinds of trees are all the better for being pruned: that was the kind of person I seemed to be where Damini was concerned.

Well, the books I ordered were unmitigatedly modern. The author was distinctly less influenced by Manu than by Man himself. The packet was delivered by the postman to the Swami. He raised his eyebrows, as he opened it, and asked: ‘Hullo, Srivilas, what are these for?’

I remained silent.

The Master gingerly turned over some of the pages, as he remarked for my benefit that he had never thought much of the author, having failed to find in his writings the correct spiritual flavour.

‘If you read them carefully, sir,’ I suddenly blurted out, ‘you will find his writings not to be lacking in the flavour of Truth.’ The fact is, rebellion had been long brewing within me. I was feeling done to death with mystic emotion. I was nauseated with shedding tears over abstract human feelings, to the neglect of living human creatures.

The Master blinked at me curiously before he replied: ‘Very well, my son, carefully read them I will.’ He tucked the books away under the bolster on which he reclined. I could perceive that his idea was not to surrender them to me.

Damini, from behind the door, must have got wind of this, for at once she stepped in and asked: ‘Haven’t the books you ordered for me arrived yet?’

I remained silent.

‘My little mother!’ said the Swami. ‘These books are not fit for you to read.’