One day I had the faith to believe that I should be
able to bear whatever came from my God. I never
had the trial. Now I think it has come.
I used to test my strength of mind by imagining all
kinds of evil which might happen to me—poverty,
imprisonment, dishonour, death—even Bimala’s.
And when I said to myself that I should be able to
receive these with firmness, I am sure I did not exaggerate.
Only I could never even imagine one thing, and today
it is that of which I am thinking, and wondering whether
I can really bear it. There is a thorn somewhere
pricking in my heart, constantly giving me pain while
I am about my daily work. It seems to persist
even when I am asleep. The very moment I wake
up in the morning, I find that the bloom has gone from
the face of the sky. What is it? What
has happened?
My mind has become so sensitive, that even my past
life, which came to me in the disguise of happiness,
seems to wring my very heart with its falsehood; and
the shame and sorrow which are coming close to me
are losing their cover of privacy, all the more because
they try to veil their faces. My heart has become
all eyes. The things that should not be seen,
the things I do not want to see—these I
must see.
The day has come at last when my ill-starred life
has to reveal its destitution in a long-drawn series
of exposures. This penury, all unexpected, has
taken its seat in the heart where plenitude seemed
to reign. The fees which I paid to delusion for
just nine years of my youth have now to be returned
with interest to Truth till the end of my days.
What is the use of straining to keep up my pride?
What harm if I confess that I have something lacking
in me? Possibly it is that unreasoning forcefulness
which women love to find in men. But is strength
mere display of muscularity? Must strength have
no scruples in treading the weak underfoot?
But why all these arguments? Worthiness cannot
be earned merely by disputing about it. And
I am unworthy, unworthy, unworthy.
What if I am unworthy? The true value of love
is this, that it can ever bless the unworthy with
its own prodigality. For the worthy there are
many rewards on God’s earth, but God has specially
reserved love for the unworthy.
Up till now Bimala was my home-made Bimala, the product
of the confined space and the daily routine of small
duties. Did the love which I received from her,
I asked myself, come from the deep spring of her heart,
or was it merely like the daily provision of pipe
water pumped up by the municipal steam-engine of society?
I longed to find Bimala blossoming fully in all her
truth and power. But the thing I forgot to calculate
was, that one must give up all claims based on conventional
rights, if one would find a person freely revealed
in truth.
Why did I fail to think of this? Was it because
of the husband’s pride of possession over his
wife? No. It was because I placed the
fullest trust upon love. I was vain enough to
think that I had the power in me to bear the sight
of truth in its awful nakedness. It was tempting
Providence, but still I clung to my proud determination
to come out victorious in the trial.
