An Unfinished Song

Front matter

| {| | AN UNFINISHED SONG

| | |By Mrs. GHOSAL (Srimati Svarna Kumari Devi) | Author of "The Fatal Garland," etc. | |

Published at Essex Street, London, W.C.

Chapter 1

AN UNFINISHED SONG

CHAPTER I

"Man's love is of man's life a thing apart, 'Tis woman's whole existence."

He who wrote the above lines was a great man. It seems wonderful that a man should have read the inner nature of woman so clearly as to become aware of this subtle fact. In my own life, I feel that every word of it is true. When I retrace the history of my life, as far back as memory carries me, I see that I have always loved; love and life have been so blended that they became one. And were this love ever taken from me, life would be worthless, a mere blank, my individuality lost.

What was my age when love first came? I do not know the day and year of my birth. We had no horoscope cast, my sister and I. Once I found among a pile of waste paper an old note-book of my father's in which the dates of these important events were recorded. I tore out the page containing the record and pasted it in the corner of my song book, but the book got lost in course of time as books will. A search was made for it, and all the books I had ever possessed were brought together. The very scribbling block on which I had first practised the art of writing in big letters, from right to left and from left to right, even this appeared, but the song book, the book that was wanted above all others, was never found. Men will smile when I tell them of this lack of knowledge; they will grow sceptical over my simplicity. But women know what a difficult thing it is for the female memory to retain mere numbers. Both days and years escape them in their flight. We have no trouble in guessing the right day of the week, because weeks are short and quick to recur. But when we are asked the exact date of some bygone event, I would not ask any one to place reliance on our statements. We remember days by events, and only those days interest us on which events took place in which we were concerned. Let me, for instance, recall my sister's marriage. Before my mind's eye appears a moonlight night in the month of Falgoon. I still see the calm moon in the clear sky. I see a night made bright by the lights and the merriment of the bridal fête. But the full moon and the bridal song did not record numbers. Ask me not for the year, because years are to us only numbers, formless things following each other silently, and like a sage meditating on the Being without form or quality, so has the woman to stop and think and count backward and forward and backward again when she wants to trace the year in which a certain event occurred. But there is one thing the great God in His mercy has made impossible for her. She cannot, however hard she may try, count backward to the day of her birth. That event is happily shrouded in oblivion.

It is all a great riddle, a mystery—this birth of man. The constellations are busily at work at a certain moment to prepare a future for him, but he who is most concerned is oblivious to it all. So after all it is no fault of mine if I know not the year in which my life commenced. I seem to remember 1882 or 1883, but how far these figures are exact I cannot tell. And after all is there really any one who is the loser by this uncertainty? The loss is neither mine nor the reader's. If the want of knowledge of these three hundred and sixty-five days would shorten or lengthen a man's life to that extent, it would be a different matter. But as it is, man may forget time, but time will never forget man. My age will be the same whether I realise it or not, and it does not matter much to the reader if I am twenty instead of nineteen. Let me assume then that I am nineteen in order to settle the question finally. I am still a spinster. This may be a source of surprise to one who understands this land of ours; but it is gradually changing, for are there not many maids unmarried in this advanced age who count as many years as I do? And if a surprise it be I have a still greater in store for my readers. I, a Hindu maiden, knew love before I entered wedlock. I loved a man without even expecting him to become my husband.

I do not remember my mother; I lost her in my infancy. But my father's devotion offered compensation, and I loved him with a fondness greater than which no child could bestow on its mother. It is often argued that filial and conjugal affection are feelings of a very different nature. But my impression has been just the reverse. Here again I may differ from my reader. What the lover is to youth the parents are to childhood—the object of worship and affection, the idol of the heart. It has always seemed to me that a parent is protector and lover blended in one. Towards both we are drawn by the same desire, to make the beloved a part of ourselves, to have complete possession. The disappointment is the same in each case when love is not reciprocated, and we feel an equal readiness to embrace pain and adversity in order to promote the happiness of the beloved.

I had a sister but we had become somewhat estranged from each other. She was four or five years older than I, and lived with our father's sister in Calcutta for her education. I loved my sister dearly, and was delighted whenever she came home on a visit, but if she took up too much of my father's attention, if she claimed his affection in too great a degree, I ceased to appreciate her. After dinner my father was in the habit of lying down to enjoy his "gur (large hookah). In this quiet hour he would soon find his little girls on either side of him. When alone with him I used to consider it my special privilege to twine my arms round his neck. In this way I chatted with him, asking every evening anew the same question, "Whom do you love best?" to which he invariably replied that he loved both alike. But notwithstanding this I used to be quite certain in my mind that he loved me most. "Do you say this because you fear my sister will get angry?" I would question. This only made him smile and remain firm in his assertion.

I still remember the many ways in which I used to show my solicitude for him. If it was cold in winter, his warm clothing was insufficient to keep him warm, it required my little shawl to cover him and protect him from the cold. The punkah coolie could not do his duty in the summer, father would certainly be very uncomfortable unless I plied my little hand-fan to cool him. I remember I used to make cuts in the potatoes, and decorate them after my own fashion, so that they might please him when they were placed before him. Although I often cut my fingers during this performance I could not be induced to abstain from it. If the cook listened to my entreaties to let me put the salt into the curry, I thought how very palatable it now must be for father. If ever he had to hurry off to office without taking the betel I had prepared for him, I would go without food that day. My poor widowed aunt who superintended our household used to be put to great difficulty because she could get no flowers for her worship; for with the early dawn I was in the garden gathering all the opened buds for father, and no one else dared to claim one.

I remember that I was ill once while my sister was at home on a visit, and she took upon herself the duty of gathering flowers and presenting them to my father. Oh, how this pained me; I suffered more from it than from my illness. If I became cross and naughty, nothing would make me behave better so quickly as the threat, "You will not be allowed to rest with your father after dinner to-night."

I was at most five years old at the time of which I am writing. My young life was inundated with love, and from it I have drawn the conclusion that love is ever the same, whether it be between parent and child, brother and sister or youth and maiden. It is born in affection towards the parent, then passing in its development through the stages of love for brothers and sisters, and the fondness of friendship, it finally finds its full expression in the passion of youth and maiden. Just as I am the same individual now that I was in my infancy although I have assumed a different appearance through the growth and expansion of body and mind, so love is the same, though it grows, expands and blossoms out from infantile affection into the passion of youth. It can then no longer be sustained by the limited ideas of childhood, it seeks another object to which to attach itself, and as it passes through the different stages the heart learns in the end to yearn after the supreme ideal. That woman is blessed who, having found her idol, surrenders herself in worship to him entirely. That man is blessed who, once installed in the shrine of a consecrated heart, dedicates himself to her and thus justifies the end of life. That love alone is true which, based on self-abnegation, endures in its fullness throughout all time.

Thus I love father much even now. I would gladly sacrifice myself to procure his happiness, but he is no longer the only object of my affection, aspiration, desire, worship and contemplation, my only source of happiness. My all-pervading, all-embracing love did not twine around him alone very long. While I was still a child a rival appeared to share it.

Chapter 2

CHAPTER II

I have not so far disclosed the name of the place where our family lives; it is in the district of Dacca. My father has a small estate, but his income is mainly derived from service under Government. As long as he could attend to this at home we were very comfortable, but when I was about 8 or 9 years old he was transferred to another place. I mentioned before that my sister lived with an aunt in Calcutta, but I had not so far ever lived apart from my father, nor could I have borne the separation. Father accordingly took me with him to his new district. Here the only sort of school was at the house of the Zemindar of the village for the education of the children of his family, but many of the children of the neighbourhood attended it as well, myself among them. This is a custom generally adopted in India in country districts. In this school I made many warm friendships, but the warmest of all was with Chotu (little one). I did not learn his correct name. Possibly he was called Chotu because he was the youngest of the family, but it never occurred to me that he had another name. He was the nephew of Babu Krishna Mohan, in whose house the school was. The boy had lost his father and was therefore dependent upon his mother's brother. One reason for my friendship with Chotu was his superiority in age. He was the eldest of the pupils and might have been twelve or thirteen years old at the time. There is a strange fascination for children in one of superior age. He was the chief pupil of the schoolmaster, and that worthy used to lighten his labours by entrusting him with the duty of superintending the younger ones. The school was conducted in one of the outer apartments of Babu Krishna Mohan's house. It began at half-past seven in the morning and closed at ten. But the pupils were usually on the spot at half-past six, and found Chotu seated on one of the benches. The master did not appear as a rule until an hour after the school had opened, and it was Chotu who took charge of us in the meantime. He explained our lessons to us, wrote the alphabet into our copy books, distributed sweetmeats from a supply in his pocket, and spent the rest of his time getting his own lessons by heart, perhaps humming a song while he did so. This seemed to be a characteristic habit of his. At times we used to press him to sing louder for our benefit, but that would end the matter immediately. Only once we heard him distinctly sing a line or two or a song. It was one morning as we were about to enter the schoolroom. One of the little girls, the naughty one, Prabha, had an idea. "Listen," she said, "Chotu is singing. Let us wait and hear him awhile, and after we have learnt what he sings, we will tease him and sing the song before him."

A day or two before there had been a theatrical company from Calcutta at Babu Krishna Mohan's house on the occasion of his son's marriage. I went to their performance with my aunt, but, unfortunately, I slept through more than half of it. Once I was roused from my sleep by a tremendous noise and saw a Prince dressed in brocade stamping his foot upon the stage in a furious passion and flourishing a wooden sword. I was very frightened but fell asleep again. Later on my aunt woke me to see a number of houris suspended in the air, a scene that pleased me. I thought Chotu might have learned his song at this performance:—

". . . . Alas, we met When moon and stars had faded, Springtime had fled and flowers withered lay, Garland in hand through the dark night I awaited. . . ."

Having heard Chotu sing thus far we entered the room giggling and laughing at him. Later I regretted I had not listened to the song until it was finished, and looked through numbers of books of poems, but could never find it in print. But now poor Chotu had to endure his tormentors: "We heard you, you thought we would never hear you sing, but we have." Chotu was greatly abashed, but as for me I never forgot those lines, although I only heard them that once.

Chotu gave away sweetmeats, as I said before. They were not specially good, only what we got every day at home, but when received from his hand, they were like the sweet cakes at horiloot that are thrown broadcast among the people and are supposed to contain special merit.

Now these sweetmeats were supposed to be the reward of good conduct, but soon became the reverse in my case. If Chotu had occasion to chide me for any naughtiness my eyes filled with tears and my gaiety changed very suddenly. This seemed to be more than Chotu could bear, and contrary to all rules he would give me a much larger share of the coveted sweets, adding caresses to the bountiful gift. This unfortunately did not make a better girl of me. I do not know whether the sweets or the caresses were at fault, but certainly my caprices increased. I would give a wrong answer even when I knew my lesson well. If Chotu came to examine my writing I would spill a drop of ink on his hand and laugh outright at what I had done. If he explained a sum on the blackboard, I considered it a special joke to rub out the chalk and wipe it over him. If on these occasions he showed any annoyance, I invariably resorted to tears, but if he entered into the spirit of the thing and retorted with further pranks my merriment knew no bounds. The result of it all was that Chotu's position as a schoolmaster must have been wellnigh unbearable to him, for all the children gradually followed my example, and there used to be lively scenes in the little schoolroom.

My father no longer received the choicest flowers, for one bunch was given to Chotu every day in return for his sweetmeats and kind treatment. When I questioned in my own little heart which afforded me the greater pleasure, the gift of flowers to father or to Chotu, I was unable to answer. If in the early morning I found a bud that specially pleased me, the thought of father and of Chotu entered my mind at the same moment. I was anxious to see Chotu every morning, but at dusk I waited as eagerly for my father's return. I seemed to love him most with whom I was for the time being. I became more emphatic in assuring my father how deeply I loved him, at which he was evidently amused, for he usually replied by saying,

"Do you really?"

"Truly, father, I mean it."

Then my father would smile and kiss me. Now Chotu had never yet kissed me, so surely it was father who loved me most. Then why should I bestow so much affection upon Chotu? For love expects love in return; of this I was convinced even in my infancy, although no one had told me so.

Thus passed two years, years so happy and full of childish delights. Often in later life how I recalled those days when I studied with Chotu in the little country school. Ten years have passed since then. I have known the fiery passion of youth. Mighty joys and sorrows, ambitions and aspirations have come and gone, yet lingers still the memory of those days, the memory of the love of my early life, when such happiness was mine as I have never known since, because it was unmixed with any sorrow. But life has ever been a vast riddle to me.

After two years my father was again transferred, and about that time my sister's marriage took place.

Chapter 3

CHAPTER III

I saw Him first at my sister's house at a tennis party. My sister's husband is a barrister who took his degree in England. He has a small party at his house every week for tennis. He, too, has been abroad, and is distantly related to my brother-in-law.

So I met him and fell in love with him at first sight, I hear my credulous reader laughingly assert. No, not that, far from it. I am not recording a romance; we only became acquainted. I saw him look at me and smile, and then turning to my sister, he remarked in a low tone, "You are keeping a jewel concealed in a mine, and letting a lotus fade away in a wooden box."

My name is Mrinalini (Lotus), but they call me Moni (Jewel). I overheard his remark, and it jarred on me. My brother-in-law, however, took it up and gave a whole verse of poetry in reply:—

Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear. Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

Brothers and sisters-in-law in this country have the time-honoured privilege of teasing and joking with one another as much as they like. But, alas for poor me! I was so shy, and so unequal a match for him, that all I could do was to smile pleasantly and grumble inwardly the whole time.

Then there was my sister's brother-in-law, who had taken his M.A. degree in Sanskrit and would not let the opportunity pass of showing off his learning. So he replied with a Sanskrit quotation, which meant that a jewel does not seek anyone, it has to be sought.

Everyone smiled, but I did not enjoy the joke at my expense, nor look with special favour upon the man who had occasioned it. However, this was before tennis began, and the feeling was modified later on. After play was over the guests assembled in the drawing-room, and he was asked to sing. He consented, and sang an English song. But my sister was not satisfied, and urged him to sing in Bengali. He made some objections and apologies, but finally yielded. But what was this? The song he sang was the same I had heard Chotu sing in the schoolroom of my childhood:

"Alas, we met When moon and stars had faded, Spring-time had fled and flowers Withered lay."

But I heard it clearly now, no longer in the humming tone in which Chotu used to sing it. His voice blended with the notes of the piano and filled the house with sweet melody. I stood spellbound and listened like one in a trance. I drank in every word of the song as one parched with thirst will drink without breathing when at last he finds the spring he sought.

Alas, this is a world of disappointment, seldom here do we get what we long for in its entirety. Scarcely was the song begun when it was interrupted. A friend of the family, Mr. Mullick, entered the drawing-room, accompanied by his wife and daughter. Both the player and the singer left their places and joined in greeting the visitors. This formality ended, the singer was urged to finish his song, but he refused. Miss Mullick was reputed to be a good singer; every one, except me, urged her to sing, and she remained at the piano till the time came for us to break up shortly afterwards.

Miss Mullick, or Kusum as we called her, had hardly any chance of entering a protest in her modest way. She sang, and the listeners were so charmed that they urged her to sing again and again.

The mellow harmony of Kusum's voice, however, was lost on me. I heard only one song and the music of that dwelt in my heart:

"Alas, we met When moon and stars had faded, Spring-time had fled and flowers Withered lay."

The music ceased in time. The guests departed and the house was quiet once more. But the song that had entered my soul rang through me still, and even in my dream that night I heard it, and saw the schoolroom of my childhood once more, now filled, so it seemed, with the furniture of my sister's drawing room; a party of guests had assembled, and I thought I heard some one sing the same sweet song, not softly humming as of old, but singing with a full and manly voice, while his beautiful eyes were fixed on me in a loving look—

"Alas, we met When moon and stars had faded, Spring-time had fled and flowers Withered lay."

The music of that song and the deep tenderness of those eyes fixed upon me sent a thrill of delight through me and I awoke and found it was dawn.

I wished to hear that song again and again. It seemed I had no other wish. On that account alone did I look forward to next week's tennis party. The day came, the guests assembled, but the singer of that song of mine was absent. This was a source of great disappointment to me. At the dinner table I ventured to enquire.

"Why has not Mr. Roy been here today?"

My sister reiterated my question. "I was thinking of the same thing," she said. "Why did not Mr. Roy come?"

This gave my brother-in-law a chance for a joke. "Indeed! Well, had he known he would be missed so much, he would surely have come. Shall I send for him?"

This was all lost on me. I was attracted to the singer, not to the man, and so I answered unabashed.

"Yes send for him, he sings well. I wish to hear him sing once more."

I had no motive other than to hear the song, but I soon saw that they had, for my sister replied eagerly, "Romanath has called several times, but we have never yet invited him to dine. We ought to do so." My brother-in-law agreed very readily. Mr. Roy was accordingly invited and came in due course.

When I saw him again, I was somewhat disappointed. I had seen him only once before, and his personality had not made a very lasting impression upon me. Meanwhile ten or twelve days had elapsed. During this time, my fancy had been busy. I had imagined him to be like the vision I had seen in my dream. Though I did not remember the features I saw in my dream vision, I recalled the deep and loving look.

The man I met at dinner was certainly handsome. He had finely cut aristocratic features, a well-shaped head with beautiful hair, and he wore a glossy jet black moustache, but his eyes—ah, there lay the difference! They had not that tender, fond expression I had seen in my dream. In his conversation, too, I searched in vain for the ideal. His humour seemed very forced. He paid many compliments which seemed uncalled for, jarring on a Hindu maiden's ears. It was, perhaps, my untrained taste that was at fault. For how could one who had so long been accustomed to the best English society show other than good manners?

In the course of conversation my sister enquired the reason of his absence from last week's tennis party.

He had accepted an invitation to the Mullicks that day, he explained.

"I had refused them so often," he continued, "that I had not the heart to do so again. Did you really expect me? If I had known that I would sooner have sacrificed a thousand Mullicks."

"I say, Romanath," broke in my brother-in-law, "don't get so very eloquent, it might make me jealous, you know."

"What songs had you after dinner?" my sister enquired. "Does not Miss Mullick sing well?"

"Mr. Roy smiled as he replied,

"Yes—at least that is her reputation, the general belief. What a lovely colour, it suits your complexion beautifully."

The last remark applied to the colour I wore. My seat at the table was beside him, but no conversation of any importance passed between us. My brother-in-law conversed with him on political topics. He spoke to me at intervals, but we did not get far beyond questions and answers. "Could I sing?" "Did I read poetry?" "What poet was my favourite?" "How long did I expect to remain at my sister's?"

In return I expressed my admiration of his song, and most sincere I was when I expressed it. Possibly he was pleased, for he replied, "I do not know many Bengali songs, I see I must learn them now."

This was the only remark I heard him make that seemed agreeable to me; I thought he spoke sincerely then.

After dinner he sang again,

"Alas, we met When moon and stars had faded, Spring-time had fled and flowers withered lay. Garland in hand through the dark night I awaited The bridegroom who would come when all was bright and gay. Then the house would be filled with fragrance and soft music, And the mellow flute the tune of Sahana would play."

The song was over, but to me it was unfinished, something was left out. I was charmed but not satisfied.

He then approached me, as ever, with a compliment on his lips.

"I wish I were an artist, I would paint you as I see you now." This time I was not annoyed; he seemed no longer a stranger to me. Of a sudden the dream vision and he were blended into one. And I saw whom? Him or another?

Chapter 4

CHAPTER IV

I felt like one mesmerised, and this condition was repeated every time he called at the house. When I received him, I was perfectly indifferent, even in conversation. I felt towards him as a mere acquaintance, but when he began to sing my whole nature changed. It was ever the same song, and that song was the enchantress. I resolved not to ask him to sing again, but when the time came I could not resist. The strange fascination of the song lay in its power to bring back to my memory the days of my childhood. It poured a flood of feeling over me that awoke the dormant emotions of the maiden, and ere the song was ended, it created a vortex in which I felt myself carried into the realm of the ideal, searching for something I knew and yet I knew not. I was lost in an intense longing; it seemed as if a god had taken possession of him who sang. Anon as I listened to the melody it broke the barriers of time until the past and the present were blended and the singer himself became identified with one I had known of old, until I felt as if I were walking in a trance.

Nor was the spell broken by his departure; I often remained in a partial stupor during the entire night. Waking or sleeping I could not banish that song from my heart. In a day or two, however, I usually managed to master myself, and when I met him again after a week or, perhaps, sooner, I was perfectly self-controlled. Still I was shy on receiving him, because I remembered the spell his music exercised over me. My condition became an enigma to me. As the sky assumes different colours before and after sunset, so did my whole nature change with the coming and disappearance of the effect that that song had over me.