Father, it may be that I have disgraced the rites
of your house, but my honour is unsullied; I loved
him to whom I bore a son. I remember the night
when I received two secret messages, one from you,
one from my mother; yours said: “I send
you the knife; kill him!” My mother’s:
“I send you the poison; end your life!”
Had unholy force dishonoured me, your double bidding
had been obeyed. But my body was yielded only
after love had given me—love all
the greater, all the purer, in that it overcame the
hereditary recoil of our blood from the Mussulman.
Enter RAMA, AMA’S mother
Mother mine, I had not hoped to see you again.
Let me take dust from your feet.
Touch me not with impure hands!
I am as pure as yourself.
To whom have you surrendered your honour?
To my husband.
Husband? A Mussulman the husband of a Brahmin
woman?
I do not merit contempt: I am proud to say I
never despised my husband though a Mussulman.
If Paradise will reward your devotion to your husband,
then the same Paradise waits for your daughter, who
has been as true a wife.
Are you indeed a true wife?
Yes.
Do you know how to die without flinching?
I do.
Then let the funeral fire be lighted for you!
See, there lies the body of your husband.
Jivaji?
Yes, Jivaji. He was your husband by plighted
troth. The baffled fire of the nuptial God has
raged into the hungry fire of death, and the interrupted
wedding shall be completed now.
Do not listen, my child. Go back to your son,
to your own nest darkened with sorrow. My duty
has been performed to its extreme cruel end, and nothing
now remains for you to do.—Wife, your grief
is fruitless. Were the branch dead which was
violently snapped from our tree, I should give it to
the fire. But it has sent living roots into a
new soil and is bearing flowers and fruits. Allow
her, without regret, to obey the laws of those among
whom she has loved. Come, wife, it is time we
cut all worldly ties and spent our remainder lives
in the seclusion of some peaceful pilgrim shrine.
