As I stood there, Bimal came in from behind.
I hastily turned my eyes from the niche to the shelves
as I muttered: “I came to get Amiel’s
Journal.” What need had Ito volunteer an
explanation? I felt like a wrong-doer, a trespasser,
prying into a secret not meant for me. I could
not look Bimal in the face, but hurried away.
I had just made the discovery that it was useless
to keep up a pretence of reading in my room outside,
and also that it was equally beyond me to busy myself
attending to anything at all—so that all
the days of my future bid fair to congeal into one
solid mass and settle heavily on my breast for good—when
Panchu, the tenant of a neighbouring __zamindar__,
came up to me with a basketful of cocoa-nuts and greeted
me with a profound obeisance.
“Well, Panchu,” said I. “What
is all this for?”
I had got to know Panchu through my master.
He was extremely poor, nor was I in a position to
do anything for him; so I supposed this present was
intended to procure a tip to help the poor fellow
to make both ends meet. I took some money from
my purse and held it out towards him, but with folded
hands he protested: “I cannot take that,
sir!”
“Why, what is the matter?”
“Let me make a clean breast of it, sir.
Once, when I was hard pressed, I stole some cocoa-nuts
from the garden here. I am getting old, and
may die any day, so I have come to pay them back.”
Amiel’s Journal could not have done me any good
that day. But these words of Panchu lightened
my heart. There are more things in life than
the union or separation of man and woman. The
great world stretches far beyond, and one can truly
measure one’s joys and sorrows when standing
in its midst.
Panchu was devoted to my master. I know well
enough how he manages to eke out a livelihood.
He is up before dawn every day, and with a basket
of __pan__ leaves, twists of tobacco, coloured cotton
yarn, little combs, looking-glasses, and other trinkets
beloved of the village women, he wades through the
knee-deep water of the marsh and goes over to the
Namasudra quarters. There he barters his goods
for rice, which fetches him a little more than their
price in money. If he can get back soon enough
he goes out again, after a hurried meal, to the sweetmeat
seller’s, where he assists in beating sugar for
wafers. As soon as he comes home he sits at
his shell-bangle making, plodding on often till midnight.
All this cruel toil does not earn, for himself and
his family, a bare two meals a day during much more
than half the year. His method of eating is to
begin with a good filling draught of water, and his
staple food is the cheapest kind of seedy banana.
And yet the family has to go with only one meal a
day for the rest of the year.
At one time I had an idea of making him a charity
allowance, “But,” said my master, “your
gift may destroy the man, it cannot destroy the hardship
of his lot. Mother Bengal has not only this
one Panchu. If the milk in her breasts has run
dry, that cannot be supplied from the outside.”
