The Modern Review/Volume 8/Number 1/The Elder Sister
THE ELDER SISTER
(A short story.)
Chapter I.
HAVING recounted at length the misdeeds of a wicked tyrannical husband of an unfortunate woman of the village, her neighbour Tara very shortly, declared her verdict by saying, "Fire be to such a husband's mouth."
At this Joygopal Babu's wife felt much hurt; it did not become womankind to wish in any circumstances whatever, any other species of fire than that of the cigar in husbandkind's mouth.
When, therefore, she expressed a mild deprecation on the point, hard-hearted Tara cried with redoubled vehemence, "'Twere better to be a widow seven births over than be the wife of such a husband" and saying this she broke up the meeting and left.
Sosi said within herself 'Can't imagine any offence of the husband that could so harden the heart against him.' Even as she was turning the matter over in her mind all the tenderness of her loving soul gushed forth towards her husband now abroad; throwing herself with stretched arms in that part of the bed which used to be accupied by her husband, she kissed the empty pillow and felt in it the smell of his husband's head, and shutting up the door she brought out from a wooden box a very old and almost faded photo of her husband and some letters in his handwriting and sat on with them. That hushed noon-tide thus passed away in the retired chamber in solitary musings amidst old memories, and in tears of sadness.
It was no new conjugality this between Sosikala and Joygopal. They had been married at an early age and had children since then. From prolonged association with each other, the days had passed by in a very easy, commonplace sort of way; on neither side had any symptoms of an excessive passion been visible. Having lived together nearly sixteen years without a break, when her husband was suddenly called away from home on business, a great impulse of love awoke in Sosi's soul. As separation strained the tie, love's knot tightened all the harder, and what in a relaxed state was not even felt as existing, now began to throb with pain.
So it happened that after such long years, and at such an age and being the mother of children, Sosi, on this spring-noon, in her lonely chamber, lying in the bed of separation, began to dream the sweet dream of a bride of budding youth. That love, which had been flowing before her life without her being conscious of it, suddenly roused her with its murmuring music, and she went a long way up the stream and saw many a golden mansion and many a grove on its ether bank,—but no foothold was to be had now amidst those vanished possibilities of happiness. She began to say to herself that when she next met her husband, she would not let the life be insipid nor the spring go in vain. On how many days, how very often, in idle disputation or some petty quarrel, she had teased her husband. With a penitent heart she now vowed in all the singleness of her mind that she would never show such impatience again, never oppose her husband's wishes, bear all his command, and with a heart filled with tenderness submit to all his dealings, good or ill; for the husband was all-in-all, the husband was the dearest object of love, the husband was divine.
For a long time Sosikala had been the sole and petted daughter of her parents. For this reason, though Joygopal held a small place, he had no anxieties about the future. His father-in-law had enough property to support one in a royal style in a village.
Just then very untimely, almost in his old age, a son was born to Sosikala's father. To tell the truth, at this unlooked-for, improper and unjust action on the part of her parents, Sosi felt very sore in her mind; nor was Joygopal particularly pleased.
The parents' love centered strongly on this son of their advanced years. When this newly-arrived, diminutive, sleepy suckling of a brother-in-law seized all the hopes and expectations of Joygopal within the tiny fists of his two weak hands, Joygopal took service in a tea-garden in Assam.
People pressed him to look for employment near about—but whether out of a general feeling of resentment, or knowing the means of rapid rise in a tea-garden, Joygopal would not pay heed to anybody; he sent his wife and children to his father-in-law's and left for Assam. This was the first separation between husband and wife in their married life.
This incident made Sosikala very angry with her baby brother. That soreness of heat which may not pass over lips rages the more keenly within. When the little fellow sucked and slept away at his ease, his big sister was making a hundred occasions, such as the rice is cold, the boys are too late for school, to worry herself and others, day and night, with her petulances and humours.
In a short time, the child's mother died. Before her death, she committed her infant son into her daughter's hand.
Then in no time the motherless child easily conquered his sister's heart. When with loud whoops he would fling himself on her and with right good-will try to grab up her mouth, nose, eyes within his tiny mouth; when he would sieze her locks within his little fists and refuse to give up possession; when awaking before the dawn he would roll up to her side and thrill her with delight with his soft touch and make a huge babble;—when, later un, he would call her jiji and jijima, and in hours of work and rest, by doing forbidden things, eating forbidden food, going to forbidden places, set up a regular tyranny on her, then Sosi could resist no longer. She surrendered herself completely to this wayward, little tyrant. As the child had no mother, his influence over her became all the greater.
Chapter II.
The child was named Nilmani. When he was two years old his father fell seriously ill. A letter reached Joygopal asking him to come away as quickly as possible. When after much pains Joygopal obtained leave and arrived, Kaliprasanna's last hour had come.
Before he died Kaliprasanna entrusted Joygopal with the charge of his minor son and devised a quarter of his estate to his daughter.
So Joygopal had to give up his appointment and come home to look after the properties.
After a long time husband and wife met again. When a material body breaks it might be set again edge to edge. But when two human beings are divided, after a long separation, they never re-unite at the same place, and to the same time; for the mind is a living thing, and moment by moment it develops and changes.
For Sosi, this new union stirred a new emotion in her. The numbness of age-long habit in their old conjugality was entirely removed by the longing born of separation, and she seemed to get her husband much more completely than before, and she vowed in her mind that whatever days might come and how long soever they might be, she would never allow the brightness of this glowing love to her husband to be dimmed.
At this new union, however, Joygopal felt differently. When before they were unremittingly together he had a bond of union with his wife through all his interests and idiosyncrasies, the wife was then a living truth in his life,—and there would, on a sudden, be a great rent in the web of his daily habit if she were left out. Consequently Joygopal found himself in deep waters at first when he went abroad. But in time this breach in habit was patched up by a new habit.
And this was not all. Formerly his days went by in the most indolent and careless fashion. Latterly, for two years, the stimulus of bettering his condition had stirred so powerfully in his breast that he had nothing else in his thoughts. As compared to the intensity of this new passion, his old life looked like an un-substantial shadow. The greatest changes in a woman's nature are wrought by love; in a man's, by ambition.
Joygopal when he returned after two years did not get back his wife quite the same as of old. To his wife's life his infant brother-in-law had added a new breadth. This part of her life was wholly unfamiliar to her—here he had no community with his wife. The wife tried hard to share this love for the child with him, but it cannot be said that she succeeded. Sosi would come with the child in her arms and hold him before her husband with a smiling face—Nilmani would clasp Sosi's neck for all he was worth and hide his face on her shoulder and admit no obligations of kindred. Sosi wished that her little brother might show Joygopal all the arts he had learnt to capture a man's mind. But Joygopal was not particularly keen about it, how would the child show any enthusiasm. Joygopal could not at all understand what there was in the heavy-pated, grave-faced, dusky child that so much love should be wasted on him.
Women quickly understand the ways of love. Sosi at once understood that Joygopal was not particularly attached to Nilmani. Henceforth she used to screen her brother with the greatest care—to keep him away from the unloving, repelling look of her husband. Thus the child came to be the treasure of her secret care, the object of her isolated love.
Joygopal was greatly annoyed when Nilmani cried, so Sosi would quickly press the child to her breast and, with her whole heart and soul, try to soothe him; specially, when Nilmani's cry happened to disturb Joygopal's sleep at night, and the latter would, with an expression of the most sinister hate, and in a tortured spirit, growl at the brat, Sosi felt humbled and fluttered like a guilty thing, and instantly taking up the child in her lap, she would retire to a distance, and in a voice of the most pleading love, and with such endearments as my gold, by treasure, by jewel, lull him to sleep.
Children will fall out for a hundred things. Formerly in such cases, Sosi would punish her children and side with her brother, for he was motherless. Now the law changed with the judge. Now Nilmani had often to bear heavy punishment without fault and without inquiry. This wrong went like daggers to Sosi's heart; so she would take her punished brother into her room, and with sweets and toys, and by caressing and kissing him, solace as much as she could, the child's stricken heart.
So it appeared that more Sosi loved Nilmani, the more was Joygopal annoyed with him. On the other hand, the more Joygopal showed his contempt for Nilmani, the more would Sosi bathe the child with the nectar of her love.
The fellow Joygopal would ever behave harshly to his wife, and Sosi would minister to her husband silently, meekly, and with loving kindness, only, inwardly, they hurt each other, moment by moment, about this Nilmani.
The hidden clashings of a silent conflict like this, are far harder to bear than an open quarrel.
Chapter III.
Of his whole body Nilmani's head was the foremost. It seemed as if the Creator had blown through a slender stick a big bubble at its top. The doctors also occasionally expressed the apprehension that the child might be as frail and evanescent as a bubble. For a long time, he could not speak or walk. Looking at his sad grave face it seemed as if his parents had all the weight of care of their advanced years on the head of this little child.
With her sister's care and nursing, Nilmani passed the period of danger and stepped into his sixth year.
In the month of Kartik, on the bhaiphota[1] day, Sosi had dressed Nilmani up as a little Babu, in coat and chader and red-bordered dhoti, and was giving him the 'brother's mark' when the aforenamed candid-spoken neighbour Tara came and, from one thing or another, started quarrel.
"'Tis no use," cried she, "giving the 'brother's mark' with so much show ruining the brother in secret."
At this Sosi was thunderstruck with astonishment, rage and pain. At last she heard that husband and wife they had conspired together to put up the minor Nilmani's property to sale for arrears of rent and purchase it in the benami of her husband's cousin. When Sosi heard this, she uttered a curse that those who could spread such a foul lie might be smitten with leprosy in the mouth. And then she went weeping to her husband and told him of the gossip. Joygopal said, "Nobody can be trusted in these days. Upen is my aunt's son, I felt quite secure by leaving him in charge of the properties—when did he allow the taluk Hasilpur to fall into arrears and purchase it himself in secret, if I had the least inkling about it."
"Won't you sue then?" asked Sosi in astonishment.
"How to sue one's cousin!" remarked Joygopal. "Besides, there will be no use, it will be simple waste of money."
It was Sosi's supreme duty to trust in her husband's words, but Sosi could not, by any means. Then, this happy home, this domesticity of love showed themselves before her in a ferocious, hideous shape. That home-life which had seemed to be her supreme refuge—all at once she saw it was nothing more than a cruel snare of self-interest, which had surrounded them, brother and sister, from all sides. She was a woman, single-handed, and she felt herself quite at sea as to how she should save the helpless Nilmani. The more she thought, the more her heart filled with terror, loathing and an infinite love for her imperilled, little brother. She thought that, if she only knew how, she would appear before the Lat Sahib, nay, write to the Maharani herself, to save her brother's property. The Maharani would not surely allow Nilmani's taluk of Hasilpur, with an income of seven hundred fifty-eight rupees a year, to be sold.
When Sosi was thus thinking of bringing her husband's cousin completely to book by appealing straight to the Maharani herself, Nilmani was suddenly seized with fever attended with convulsions.
Joygopal called in the village doctor. When Sosi asked for a better doctor, Joygopal said, "Why, Matilal isn't a bad sort."
Sosi fell at his feet and charged him with an oath on her own head; whereupon Joygopal said, "Well, I shall send for the doctor from town."
Sosi lay with Nilmani in her lap, in her bosom. Nilmani also will not loose her out of sight for a minute; he clung to her lest she should by some pretence escape; even while he slept he would not loosen his hold of her cloth-end.
The whole day wore out thus, and Joygopal came after nightfall and said that the doctor was not found in town, he had gone to see a patient at a distance. He added that he had to leave that very day on account of some litigation but he had told Matilal, and the latter would regularly call and see the patient.
At night Nilmani wandered in sleep. As soon as the morning dawned, Sosi, without the least scruple, took a boat, with his sick brother, to town, and went straight to the doctor's house. The doctor was at home—he had not left the town. Seeing a respectable female, he quickly found lodgings for her, and having installed her there under the care of an elderly widow, took up the treatment of the boy.
The next day Joygopal arrived. Blazing with fury, he ordered his wife to return home at once with him.
"Even if you cut me up, I won't return," replied the wife. "You all want to kill my Nilmani—he has no father, no mother, he has none else but me—I will save him."
"Then you remain here, and don't come back to my house," cried Joygopal indignantly.
Sosi at length fired up. "Your house! why, it is my brother's!"
"All right, we'll see," said Joygopal. The neighbours made a good stir over this incident for some time. Neighbour Tara said, "If you want to quarrel with your husband, do so at home. What is the good of leaving the home. After all he is your husband."
By spending all the money she had with her, and selling her ornaments, Sosi saved his brother from the jaws of death. Then she heard that the big jote they had in Dwarigram, whereon their dwelling house stood, the income of which from different sources was more than Rs. 1500 yearly—that this jote Joygopal had, in concert with the Zemindar, got Kharijed in his own name. Now the whole property belonged to them—not to her brother.
On recovery from the illness, Nilmani would plaintively cry, "Let us go home, sister." His heart was pining for his nephews and nieces, his companions. So he repeatedly said, 'Let us go home, sister,—that old house of ours.' At this Sosi wept. Where was their home!
But it was no good simply crying, her brother had no one else besides herself in the world. Sosi thought this, wiped her tears, and entering the Zenana of the Deputy Magistrate Tarini Babu, appealed to his wife. The Deputy Magistrate knew Joygopal. That a respectable female should forsake her home and seek to engage in a dispute with her husband regarding matters of property greatly annoyed him against Sosi. While keeping Sosi diverted, Tarini Babu instantly wrote to Joygopal. Joygopal forcibly put his wife and brother-in-law into a boat and brought them home.
Husband and wife, after a second separation, met again for the second time! The decree of Prajapati![2]
Having got back his old companions after such a long while, Nilmani sported about in great glee. Seeing his unsuspecting joy, Sosi felt as if her heart would break.
Chapter IV.
The Magistrate was touring in the Mofussil during the cold weather and pitched his tent within the village for a shooting. The Sahib met Nilmani on the village way. The other boys gave him a wide berth by varying Chanakya's couplet a little, and adding the Sahib to the category of 'the clawed, the toothed and the horned beast.' But grave-natured Nilmani, in imperturbable curiosity serenely gazed at the Sahib.
The Sahib felt amused and came up and asked in Bengali, "You read at the pathsala?"
The boy silently nodded, yes. 'What Pustakas[3] do you read?' asked the Sahib.
Nilmanit did not understand the word pustak, so he silently fixed his gaze on the magistrate's face. Nilmani detailed the story of the meeting with the Magistrate with great enthusiasm to her sister.
At noon, Joygopal, dressed in pantaloons, chapkan and pagree, had gone to pay his salams to the Sahib. Suitors, chaprasies, and constables had made a huge crowd around. Fearing the heat, the Sahib had seated himself at a court-table outside the tent, in the open shade, and placing Joygopal in a chair, was questioning him about the local conditions. Having won this seat of honour in open view of the entire community of the village, Joygopal swelled inwardly and thought it would be a good thing if any of the Chakravarties or Nandis came and saw him there.
At this moment, a woman, closely veiled, and accompanied by Nilmani, came straight up to the Magistrate. She said, "Sahib, into your hands I resign my helpless brother here, save him." The Shahib seeing the large headed, grave-natured boy whose acquaintance he had made before, and thinking that the woman must be of respectable family, at once stood up and said, "Please enter the tent."
The woman said "What I have got to say I will say here."
Joygopal writhed with a pale face. The curious villagers thought it a capital fun and attempted to press closer. But the moment the Sahib lifted his cane they scampered off.
Holding her brother by the hand Sosi narrated the history of the orphan from start to finish. As Joygopal tried to interrupt now and then, the magistrate thundered with a flushed face, 'Chup rao', and with the tip of his cane motioned to Joygopal to leave the chair and stand up.
Joygopal inwardly raging against Sosi stood on speechless. Nilmani nestled up close to his sister and listened awe-struck.
When Sosi had finished her story, the magistrate put a few questions to Joygopal, and on hearing his answers, kept silence for a long while and then addressed Sosi thus: "My good woman, though this matter may not come up before me, still rest assured, I will do all the needful about it, you can return home with your brother without the least misgiving."
Sosi said, "Sahib, so long as he does not get back his own home, I dare not take him there. Unless you keep Nilmani with you, none else will be able to save him." "And what would you do?" queried the Sahib.
"I will retire to my husband's house," said Sosi, "there is nothing to fear about me."
The Sahib smiled a little, and, as there was no other alternative, agreed to take charge of this Bengali boy—this lean, dusty, grave, sedate, gentle child with his neck covered with amulets.
When Sosi was about to take her leave, the boy clutched her cloth-end. 'No fear baba,—come,' said the Sahib. With tears streaming behind her veil, Sosi said, "Do go, my brother, my darling brother—you will meet your sister again!"
Saying this she embraced him and stroked his head and back, and somehow releasing her cloth-end, hastily withdrew; and just then the Sahib clasped Nilmani round with his left arm. The child wailed out, "Sister, O my sister!' Sosi turned round at once, and with her arm out-stretched sent a speechless solace, and with a bursting heart withdrew.
Again in that old, ever-familiar house husband and wife met. The decree of Prajapati!
But this union did not last long. For not long after the villagers learnt one morning that Sosi had died of cholera in the night—and her cremation had been finished in course of the night too.
None uttered a word about it. Only that neighbour Tara would sometimes be on the point of bursting out, but people would shut up her mouth saying, 'Hush.'
At the parting, Sosi gave her word to her brother, they would meet again. Where that word was kept none can tell.
Rashbehari Mookerjee.
From the Bengali of Babu Rabindranath Tagore.
- ↑ Lit. the 'brother's mark'. A beautiful and touching ceremony in which a Hindu sister makes a mark of sandalwood-paste on the forehead of her brother and utters a formula, 'putting the barrier in Yama's doorway' (figurative for wishing long life). On these occasions, the sisters entertain their brothers and make them presents of clothes, &c.
- ↑ The Hindu god of marriage.
- ↑ A literary word for books. The colloquial will be bahi.