[adapted]

by
Rabindranath Tagore

In the room next to the one where we boys used to sleep, there was a human skeleton. At night, it would rattle when the wind blew through its bones. In the daytime, we would shake its bones ourselves. We were learning about bones from a student at Campbell Medical School. Our guardians wanted us to learn all the sciences. How much we learned we don’t need to tell people who know us; and we will not say it to people who don’t know us.

Many years have passed since then. Now, the skeleton is gone from the room, and the science of bones is gone from our heads. Nothing is left.

One day, our house was full of guests, and I had to sleep in that same old room. The room felt strange now, and I couldn’t fall asleep. I kept turning from side to side and heard the church clock ring out every hour. At last, the lamp in the corner of the room made some strange noises and went out. Some people in our family had died not long ago, so the lamp going out made me think about death. I thought, in the great world of nature, when a lamp’s light goes out and is lost in the dark forever, it is much like how the light of a person’s life goes out, during the day or night.

This thought made me remember the skeleton. As I tried to picture what the person who once had that body looked like, it suddenly seemed that something was walking around my bed. It was touching the walls of the room, like it was searching. I could hear it breathing quickly. It seemed like it was looking for something and walking faster and faster around the room. I told myself it was just in my mind, that my excited brain was playing tricks on me. I thought the sound I heard was really just the beating of blood in my head. Still, I felt a cold shiver all over me. To make the feeling go away, I said out loud: “Who is there?” The footsteps stopped next to my bed, and a voice said: “It is I. I have come to look for that skeleton of mine.”

It seemed silly to be scared of something I was only imagining. So, holding my pillow a little tighter, I said in a casual way, “This is a strange thing to do in the middle of the night! What good will that skeleton be to you now?”

The answer seemed to come from right next to my mosquito net. “What a question! That skeleton had the bones that protected my heart. The beauty of my twenty-six-year-old self was around it. Shouldn’t I want to see it again?”

“Of course,” I said. “That makes sense. Well, go ahead and look for it, while I try to get some sleep.”

The voice said, “But I think you’re lonely. That’s okay; I’ll sit down for a while, and we can have a little talk. Years ago, I used to sit with people and talk. But for the last thirty-five years, I’ve only moaned in the wind at the places where the dead are burned. I want to talk to a living person again, like I used to.”

I felt someone sit down just outside my curtain. I gave in to the moment and said, as warmly as I could, “That sounds nice. Let’s talk about something happy.”

“The funniest thing I can think of is the story of my own life. Let me tell it to you.”

The church clock rang out the time. It was two o’clock.

“When I was alive and young, there was one thing I feared as much as death—my husband. I felt like a fish caught on a hook. It was as if a stranger had pulled me away from the calm and safety of my childhood home—and I had no way to escape him. My husband died two months after we got married, and my family and friends cried sadly for me. My husband’s father looked closely at my face and said to my mother-in-law, ‘Don’t you see? She has the evil eye.’—Well, are you listening? Are you enjoying the story?”

“Very much!” I said. “The beginning is very funny.”

“Let me go on, then. I went back to my father’s house, feeling very happy. People tried to hide it from me, but I knew I was very beautiful. What do you think?”

“Maybe,” I said quietly. “But remember, I never saw you.”

“What! You haven’t seen me? What about that skeleton of mine? Ha! ha! ha! Never mind. I was just joking. How can I make you believe that those two empty eye holes once held the brightest dark eyes? And that the smile from my red lips looked nothing like the teeth you saw on the skeleton? Just trying to tell you how graceful, lovely, and soft I once was makes me smile—and also makes me angry. The best doctors of my time could never have thought of my body’s bones as tools for learning about bones. You know, one young doctor once compared me to a golden champak flower. That meant he thought other people were good for science, but I was a flower, beautiful. Has anyone ever thought about the skeleton of a champak flower?

“When I walked, I felt like a diamond spreading light all around me. Every step I took made the world shine. I used to spend hours looking at my own hands—hands that could have gently controlled even the wildest man.

“But that old dry skeleton has lied to you about me. I couldn’t speak to defend myself. That’s why, of all men, I hate you the most! I want to make sure you never sleep again, by showing you the real me—full of beauty and color. I want to wipe out all the boring bone facts in your brain.”

“I could have promised by your body,” I cried, “if you still had it, that there is no memory of bones left in my head. The only thing there now is a bright picture of perfect beauty, glowing in the dark night. I can’t say more than that.”

“I had no girl-friends,” the voice went on. “My only brother had decided not to get married. In the women’s part of the house, I was all alone. I used to sit in the garden, under the trees, and dream that the whole world was in love with me. I thought the stars stayed awake just to look at my beauty. I believed the wind sighed as it passed by me on purpose, and the grass under my feet, if it had feelings, would faint from touching them. I felt like all the young men in the world were like grass under my feet. And my heart—though I don’t know why—used to feel sad.

“When my brother’s friend Shekhar finished medical school, he became our family doctor. I had already seen him many times from behind a curtain. My brother was a strange man. He didn’t like to look at the world clearly. It wasn’t empty enough for him. So, little by little, he pulled away from it until he stayed hidden in some quiet corner. Shekhar was his only friend, so he was the only young man I ever saw. And when I sat in my garden in the evening, all the pretend young men around me were just Shekhar in different forms.—Are you listening? What are you thinking about?”

I sighed and said, “I was wishing I was Shekhar!”

“Wait a bit. Listen to the whole story first. One day, during the rainy season, I had a fever. The doctor came to see me. That was the first time we met. I was lying down near the window, so the soft light of the evening sky could make my pale face look better. When the doctor came in and looked at my face, I imagined myself in his place and looked at myself through his eyes. I saw my gentle, pale face resting like a drooping flower on the soft white pillow. My curly hair fell over my forehead, and my eyelids were lowered shyly, casting a soft shadow over my face.

“The doctor, speaking very softly and shyly, asked my brother, ‘May I feel her pulse?’

“I held out my tired but smooth wrist from under the blanket. ‘Ah!’ I thought, as I looked at it, ‘If only I had a sapphire bracelet!’ (Widows were not supposed to wear jewelry or colorful clothes, only plain white.) I had never seen a doctor so nervous about touching a patient’s wrist. His fingers shook as he touched mine. He was checking my fever, but I was checking the beat of his heart.—Do you believe me?”

“Very easily,” I said. “The beat of the heart tells the truth.”

“After I got sick and well again a few times, I noticed that the number of guests in my imaginary evening garden started to get smaller. In the end, there was only one left! And finally, in my small world, there was just one doctor and one patient.

“In the evenings, I would secretly wear a yellow sari (Even though widows were not allowed to wear colors). I would put a string of white jasmine flowers in the braid of my hair. Then, with a small mirror in my hand, I would go sit under the trees in my usual spot.”

“Well! Are you maybe thinking that looking at your own beauty would get boring after a while? Oh no! I didn’t see myself with my own eyes. Back then, I felt like I was one person and also two people. I looked at myself as if I were the doctor. I looked, I admired, and I fell in love. But even though I gave myself so much love and attention, a sad sigh still stayed in my heart, like the wind moaning in the evening.

“After that, I was never alone again. When I walked, I looked down and watched how my pretty little toes moved on the ground. I wondered what the doctor would think if he saw them. At noon, the sun would shine so brightly in the sky. It was very quiet, except for the cry of a kite flying far away. Outside our garden wall, a street seller would pass by, calling out, ‘Bangles for sale, crystal bangles!’ I would lay out a clean white sheet on the grass and lie down on it with my head resting on one arm. I would let the other arm rest gently on the sheet, as if by accident. Then I imagined that someone had seen how beautiful my hand looked, had gently held it in both of his hands, kissed the pink palm, and then slowly walked away.—What if I stop the story here? Would that be okay?”

“Not a bad ending at all,” I said, thinking. “It might feel a little unfinished, but I could use the rest of the night to imagine the ending myself.”

“But that would make the story too serious! Where would the joke be? What about the skeleton with the grinning teeth?”

“So let me keep going. After the doctor started getting more patients, he rented a room on the ground floor of our house to meet people. I used to joke with him about medicines and poisons. I asked things like how much of a drug would be enough to kill someone. He liked the topic, and he would talk about it a lot. These talks made me used to the idea of death. So love and death were the only two things that filled my small world. My story is almost over now—there isn’t much more to tell.”

“Not much of the night is left either,” I said quietly.

“After a while, I saw that the doctor had become quiet and lost in thought. He looked like he was hiding something from me, and he seemed ashamed. One day, he came in looking nicely dressed and borrowed my brother’s carriage for the evening.

“My curiosity got the best of me, so I went to ask my brother about it. After talking for a bit about other things, I finally asked him, ‘By the way, Dada (big brother), where is the doctor going tonight in your carriage?’

“My brother answered quickly, ‘To his death.’

“‘Oh, please tell me the truth,’ I begged. ‘Where is he really going?’

“‘To get married,’ he said, this time a little more clearly.

“‘Oh, I see!’ I said, and then I laughed long and loud.”

“I slowly found out that the bride was rich and would give the doctor a lot of money. But why did he insult me by keeping it a secret? Had I ever begged him not to marry because it would hurt me? No. Men cannot be trusted. I knew only one man in my whole life, and in just one moment I learned the truth about him.

“When the doctor came in after work and was ready to leave, I said to him, laughing all the while: ‘Well, doctor, so you are getting married tonight?’

“My happy tone not only made the doctor feel nervous—it also made him angry.

“‘How is it,’ I continued, ‘that there are no lights, no band of music?’

“He gave a sigh and said: ‘Is marriage really such a happy thing?’

“I laughed even more. ‘No, no,’ I said, ‘this won’t do at all. Who has ever heard of a wedding without lights and music?’

“I bothered my brother about it so much that he finally ordered everything needed for a bright and cheerful wedding.”

“All the time I kept cheerfully talking about the bride, about what would happen, and what I would do when she came home. ‘And, doctor,’ I asked, ‘will you still go on feeling pulses?’ Ha! ha! ha! Even though we can’t see inside people’s minds—especially men’s—I swear these words were stabbing the doctor’s heart like sharp arrows.

“The wedding was to happen late at night. Before leaving, the doctor and my brother were drinking a glass of wine together on the terrace, just like they did every day. The moon had just come up.

“I went up to them smiling and said, ‘Have you forgotten your wedding, doctor? It is time to go.’

“I must tell you one small thing. I had gone down to the dispensary earlier and taken a little powder, which I secretly dropped into the doctor’s glass when no one was watching.

“The doctor drank the wine in one gulp. Then, with a voice full of emotion and a look that went straight to my heart, he said, ‘Then I must go.’

“The music started playing. I went into my room and dressed in my wedding clothes made of silk and gold. I took my jewellery from the safe and put all of it on. I placed the red mark of wifehood in the parting of my hair. Then I went to the tree in the garden and made my bed there.”

“It was a beautiful night. The soft wind from the south was gently blowing away the tiredness of the world. The smell of jasmine and bela flowers filled the garden with joy.

“When the sound of the music began to fade; when the moonlight began to grow dim; when the world—with all its memories of home and family—began to disappear like a dream, I closed my eyes and smiled.