These are thoughts which give one pause, and I decided
to devote myself to working it out. That very
day I said to Bimal: “Let us dedicate our
lives to removing the root of this sorrow in our country.”
“You are my Prince Siddharta, [17] I see,”
she replied with a smile. “But do not
let the torrent of your feelings end by sweeping me
away also!”
“Siddharta took his vows alone. I want
ours to be a joint arrangement.”
The idea passed away in talk. The fact is, Bimala
is at heart what is called a “lady”.
Though her own people are not well off, she was born
a Rani. She has no doubts in her mind that there
is a lower unit of measure for the trials and troubles
of the “lower classes”. Want is,
of course, a permanent feature of their lives, but
does not necessarily mean “want” to them.
Their very smallness protects them, as the banks
protect the pool; by widening bounds only the slime
is exposed.
The real fact is that Bimala has only come into my
home, not into my life. I had magnified her
so, leaving her such a large place, that when I lost
her, my whole way of life became narrow and confined.
I had thrust aside all other objects into a corner
to make room for Bimala—taken up as I was
with decorating her and dressing her and educating
her and moving round her day and night; forgetting
how great is humanity and how nobly precious is man’s
life. When the actualities of everyday things
get the better of the man, then is Truth lost sight
of and freedom missed. So painfully important
did Bimala make the mere actualities, that the truth
remained concealed from me. That is why I find
no gap in my misery, and spread this minute point of
my emptiness over all the world. And so, for
hours on this Autumn morning, the refrain has been
humming in my ears:
/*
It is the month of August, and the sky
breaks into a passionate
rain;
Alas, my house is empty.
*/
------
17. The name by which Buddha was known when a
Prince, before renouncing the world.
The change which had, in a moment, come over the mind
of Bengal was tremendous. It was as if the Ganges
had touched the ashes of the sixty thousand sons of
Sagar [18] which no fire could enkindle, no other
water knead again into living clay. The ashes
of lifeless Bengal suddenly spoke up: “Here
am I.”
I have read somewhere that in ancient Greece a sculptor
had the good fortune to impart life to the image made
by his own hand. Even in that miracle, however,
there was the process of form preceding life.
But where was the unity in this heap of barren ashes?
Had they been hard like stone, we might have had hopes
of some form emerging, even as Ahalya, though turned
to stone, at last won back her humanity. But
these scattered ashes must have dropped to the dust
through gaps in the Creator’s fingers, to be
blown hither and thither by the wind. They had
become heaped up, but were never before united.
Yet in this day which had come to Bengal, even this
collection of looseness had taken shape, and proclaimed
in a thundering voice, at our very door: “Here
I am.”
