Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay

“ Mathur was touched. "It is useless now to conceal from you that I am unhappy," he confessed at last, "but do not grieve that I confide not my troubles to you. Human ears will not hear them."
As Tara heard these words, a fleeting expression of intense pain shot across her pallid but noble features, but the next moment she stood calm and apparently without emotion.
"Give me one poor request then," said she now calmly, "will you promise?" A wild and hollow shriek like that of a screech-owl interrupted her words. Her husband started to his feet at the sound. ”

“ Matangini took hold of her sister's hand and drew her aside. When they were alone, she said, "Hem, I have something to ask of you." Hemangini did not reply but gazed upon her sister with an enquiring look in her large black eyes.
"Hem," Matangini resumed, "we part to-morrow."
Hemangini burst into tears. "Weep not, sister," said Matangini, calming her own agitated features with effort, "weep not; the gods will bless you, and you have a husband, Hem, who will make you happy." ”

“ But they had not proceeded far when the wind rose in fury, the lightning flashed, the thunder growled, and big drops of rain poured down too unmistakably.
"We shall be drenched to death," said Karuna, "can we not shelter ourselves beneath this tree?"
"Come then," said Matangini, as she led the way to the covert afforded by the overspreading boughs of a large tamarind. Just then a sudden flash of light illuminated the earth and revealed by its momentary gleam a human figure standing at the foot of the tree, within speaking distance of themselves. ”

“ It was not strange therefore that Mathur loved Champak, or if we may not use the word love, was fond of her blindly and ardently. The master who bent with an iron will the interest of all who surrounded him to subserve his own—was but a slave to the will of this coquette. To Tara, whose sweetness and patience put it beyond his power to be offended—he was indifferent, too much so perhaps to be ever unkind. ”

“ Should any one happen to be awake, she could not then overhear us," observed the other.
"No," returned Rajmohan, "should any be awake as you fear, then we are best as we are, for here under the shadows of the wall and the eaves, no one can possibly see us from the house—neither through the chinks nor probably from outside, should people happen to be out at this hour."
"True," said the other, "but who are in this room here?"
"Why should I tell you that?" Rajmohan said, but immediately addressed, "there can be no harm in telling it, in my chamber there is nobody there but my wife." ”

“ Mathur gave a start. Then checking himself he answered with an assumed lightness of air which was too transparent to deceive the eyes of affection, "Why, who told you that? What have I to grieve for?"
"Do not try to deceive me, love," returned Tara in a tone of earnest but affectionate remonstrance. "I know you care little for me or my love, but to a woman, her husband is—I cannot say what he is not. Deceive the world, but you cannot deceive me." ”

“ The paling blue of the starry heavens was now half covered by numbers of driving clouds, while one dense and settled mass of black hovered over the distant horizon and shed a sombre grey over the dimly seen outlines of the far-off tree-tops on its verge. A wild and fitful breeze occasionally moaned over the dark woods with an ominous sound and a few drops of pattering rain fell on the earth, on the leafy trees and on the luxuriant shrubbery. Matangini was too deeply absorbed in her own thoughts to heed the appearance of external nature, though lowering and gloomy looked the scene around her. ”

“ I know not what I felt."
"Matangini," said Madhav, speaking for the first time since the storm of passion had burst, "I too had thought we could part without a struggle, but you have—you see what you have done. But," continued he, his eyes again suffused with tears, "you have made many sacrifices, make one last sacrifice. Root out the feeling from a heart on which no impurity should leave a spot. ”

“ As the footsteps of her husband died away, Matangini left her bed and stealing with the same soft tread to the window overheard the following conversation.
After learning from Rajmohan that all was safe, his unknown companion began.
"Are you willing to assist us in this affair?"
"Not much I confess," said Rajmohan. "Not that I pretend to be honest so late, but though I don't like the man, he has done me some good."
"Why then do you not like him?" ashed the shrewd stranger.
"Because if he has done me some good he has done me harm too, and perhaps more harm than good," replied Rajmohan. ”

“ Proud and imperious, Champak ever ruled the household with the authority of its sole mistress. The household approached her with fear and perhaps with a secret feeling of dislike, for often it was that her naughty temper made them feel that every fair face is not the reflector of a generous heart. And, in spite of the rival and superior claims of Tara, she was the real as well as the apparent mistress of the house. Mathur Ghose was not perhaps formed by nature to love and be loved ”

“ Rajmohan replied, "you will do well not to conceal from me how much you stand in need of my aid. You are aware that a deed in such a big and wealthy house will be followed by too strict an enquiry and too hot a search for the property to render it convenient to you all to be enjoying your shares in quiet for some time, and you absolutely want somebody who can hold them in trust for you—which you well know none can do so well as I, specially as suspicion will not easily fall on me. ”

“ Matangini was perplexed, she saw that her sister was lost in fear and time could not be spared. The loquacious zeal of Karuna, who could not for the world forego this opportunity of being the first to carry such dreadful tidings, as well as the salutary effect that had been produced upon her fears by the unexpected intelligence, relieved Matangini of her anxiety, and the mortal enemy of the finny tribe, big with the importance of being the messenger of evil, flew to Madhav's chamber to discharge the mission which legitimately belonged to Hemangini. ”

“ Knowest not that in the moaning wind and amidst the howling storm I have dogged thy steps even but now?—knowest thou, harlot, why I have whetted my knife to-night? You answer not and I ask not for answer. I will kill you." He ceased and his eyes darted fire as he cast a last glance of scrutiny over her petrified features. A momentary pause ensued during which the howling storm without was alone heard. At length Matangini spoke and desperate calmness was in her voice. ”

“ Bhiku cowered with fear and crouched near the sardar.
"We have no heart to stay any longer," said the sardar to Madhav, "the ways of gods are known to themselves. Give your answer at once, or we shut you up and go." ”

“ But Madhav himself was just then too much bewildered by the mysterious sounds and the sudden impetuous flight of his captors, to be able fully to comprehend his position. For a moment he remained motionless and undecided. But he was soon ashamed of himself and shaking off unmanly apprehensions jumped into the veranda. Nothing was to be seen. He looked and looked and perceived a small streak of light creeping through a crevice which opened from the veranda into the open ground. ”

“ Yet even those keen glances charged with the fire of youth betrayed anxiety. The small lips indicated the sorrow nursed in her heart. The beauty of her figure and limbs had been greatly spoilt by her physical or mental suffering. Yet no sculptor had ever created anything nearly as perfect as the form half revealed by the neat sari she wore. The well-shaped limbs were almost entirely bare of ornaments. There were only churis on the wrists and a small amulet on her arm. These too were elegant in shape.
The younger woman put away her needlework and began to talk with the visitor. ”

“ No, mother, do not return but go to your sister and see what he will do." "Alas! Suki's mother, she cannot go to her sister even," responded Kanak, Matangini silently eyeing the ground from shame and confusion. "She has quarrelled with her sister because Madhav Babu did not invite her husband at the late shradh [8] . I could indeed give her shelter, but we are poor, Suki's mother, and I cannot take her there to starve."
"My death; but what a simple-hearted woman is she," replied Suki's mother. "She quarrelled with her sister on behalf of such a husband! The man does not deserve such a wife. ”

“ Rajmohan sprang from the bed with clenched fists.
"Woman," he said fiercely, "deceive me not. Canst thou? Thou little knowest how I have watched thee; how from the earliest day that thy beauty became thy curse, I have followed every footstep of thine—caught every look that shot from thine eyes. ”

“ She soon returned and informed Matangini that Madhav did not feel disposed to give weight to her (Karuna's) words and seemed particularly incredulous when she said that Matangini was in the house and that it was she who had brought the intelligence. "If she is here," Madhav had said, "I can hear the news from herself; bring her to me that I may learn from my sister-in-law how much there is to fear. Ask her to come hither."
"Go Hem," said Matangini to her sister, "You go—tell your husband that I am here and that what I say is true. He will believe you." ”

“ SOME WOMEN ARE THE EQUALS OF SOME MEN
TARA and Madhav bore away the seemingly lifeless Matangini to an apartment which was secure from interruption. The exertions of Tara, materially aided by the wholesome fresh air to which Matangini had been for so many days a stranger, soon recalled the blood to her face, and long before the first streaks of day had brightened the eastern sky, Matangini was again a living being. ”

“ Far from it, it was rather more likely that she would awaken Matangini's household in return, and deliver her over to their custody, fairly making it certain that Matangini had become either mad or dishonest. And even with her mother's consent, would Kanak have the courage to venture on such a journey at such an hour unattended or attended by only another woman, herself, specially when bands of dacoits were out, lurking on the wayside?
Matangini now perceived with despair that her only resource lay in herself. She must go herself. ”

“ The sun was shedding its mellowed parting beams on the house of Mathur Ghose, and the day which had been ushered in amidst the gloomy deeds which threatened the fate of Matangini was hastening to a close. The slanting rays fell at intervals on an open veranda, on the second floor. Tara was seated on the bare ground and was employed in tying the hair of her daughter into a khompa, [1] the knots and bends of which however satisfied neither herself nor the child. ”

“ But the same circumstances which often so cruelly match the fairest and tenderest of fair and tender Bengalis, consigned the eldest of his daughters, the noble and beautiful Matangini, to the arms of the brutal Rajmohan; yet, when the marriage took place, Matangini's father thought he had not chosen ill. Rajmohan had indeed then reached manhood and was therefore unsuited in age—but this was not minded much. He possessed no handsome person—but a handsome person was to be looked for in a boy bridegroom, not in a man. ”

“ Tara had procured an easy assent from her husband to her proposal that the wife of Rajmohan should find a shelter in their house. "Food and clothing,” Mathur said in reply, "are not scarce in my house, under the blessing of the gods and the Brahmans, and if the woman is as you say of good character, let her remain here as long as she chooses." But Tara's simple heart had not reckoned upon an opposition which certainly was powerful enough to counteract her benevolence. Champak liked not that it should be under the auspices of her rival that the stranger should obtain a footing in the household. ”

“ At this hour of dread loneliness, a young woman would have to thread her way through a wild and jungly path. She was, naturally enough, superstitious and her rich imagination was stored with tales of unearthly haunters of the woods, and had fed on them since infancy. A band of desperate robbers were stationed somewhere in the vicinity, and should she fall into their hands, she shuddered to think what might be the consequence. If among these robbers she should meet her husband! Matangini shuddered again. ”

“ But this time it was the cooing cry known among robbers as the signal of retreat.
"They fly; they fly; they fly," shouted several voices, "that is the cry of flight."
"Yes, but do not be too sure," said Madhav, "it may have been uttered to deceive you. Remain as you are."
Long did Madhav and his men wait, but nothing occurred. After another injunction to his retainers not to relax their vigilance and to keep up all night, Madhav turned his steps towards the inner apartments to thank the brave woman who had saved him from imminent danger. ”