It was three o’clock in the morning. Ratan had been dozing in the reclining chair after midnight when suddenly the lawyer’s snoring startled her awake. His breathing was labored. She sat on the cot at his bedside, lifted his head, and rested it on her thigh. How much of the night was still left? She looked at the little clock on the table. It was only three. Four hours remained before dawn. The physician would not come until nine! Thinking of this, she became despondent. Would the wretched night never depart, carrying its black face away? It seemed as though an age had passed.
After several minutes, the lawyer’s breathing stopped. His whole body was drenched in sweat. He motioned with his hand for Ratan to move away, laid his head on the pillow, and closed his eyes again.
Suddenly, in a faint voice, he said, “Ratan—now the time of departure has come. My transgressions—”
He folded both hands and looked at her with pleading, helpless eyes. He wanted to say something, but no sound came from his mouth.
Ratan cried out, “Teemal, Maharaj, have you both died?”
Maharaj came and said, “I was hardly asleep, Bahuji. What is it? Babuji?”
Ratan scolded him, “Don’t talk nonsense. Go and bring the physician. Tell him to come immediately.”
Maharaj immediately put on his old overcoat, picked up his staff, and left. Ratan got up and began lighting the stove, thinking that perhaps the warmth might help. All her anxiety, all her weakness, all her grief seemed to vanish. In their place arose a powerful self-reliance. The stern demands of duty awakened her entire being.
After lighting the stove, she began applying heat to his chest with a wad of cotton. After heating it vigorously for about fifteen minutes, the lawyer’s breathing eased somewhat.
His voice came under control. Placing both hands on Ratan’s cheeks, he said, “You are suffering a great deal, Munni! Who knew that this moment would come so soon? I have done you a great injustice, my beloved! Oh, what a great injustice! All the longings of my heart have remained unfulfilled. I have ruined your life. Forgive me.”
These were the last words that came from his lips. This was the final thread of his life, the last bond of attachment.
Ratan looked toward the door. Maharaj was still nowhere to be seen. Teemal was standing there, while before him lay an unfathomable darkness, as though stunned by the final anguish of his own life.
Ratan said, “Teemal, will you heat some water?”
Teemal said without moving from where he stood, “What will you do with hot water, Bahuji? Have the donation ritual performed. Put two drops of Ganges water into his mouth.”
Ratan placed her hand on her husband’s chest. It was still warm. She looked toward the door again. Maharaj was not visible. She was still thinking that if the physician came, perhaps his condition could be brought under control.
She regretted bringing him here—perhaps the hardships of the journey and the climate had made his illness incurable. She also regretted going out for her walk in the evening. Perhaps he had caught cold during that very interval.
What is life, if not one long regret?
There was no end to the things she regretted. In these eight years of marriage, what comfort had she ever given her husband? He would remain absorbed in his law books until midnight while she lay sleeping. Even in the evening he would discuss cases with clients, while she went strolling in parks and cinemas and wandered through the markets. What had she regarded him as, other than a machine for earning money?
He had so often wanted her to sit beside him and talk with him, but she was always running away. She had never tried to draw close to his heart, never looked at him with eyes of love. Instead of lighting a lamp in her own home, she had enjoyed the light in other people’s homes. Nothing had mattered to her except entertainment. Luxury and amusement—these had been the two aims of her life. She had been content to soothe her wounded heart in this way. In her resentment that she had not been given bowls of sweet rice pudding and cream, she had kicked away the bread that was hers.
Today Ratan had gained a complete understanding of the love this departing soul had borne for her. Even now he had been absorbed in concern for her.
Ratan still had some pleasure in life, some interest, some enthusiasm. But what happiness had there been in his life? Neither the pleasures of eating and drinking nor any taste for fairs and entertainments. Was his life anything but a long penance, whose chief purpose was the fulfillment of duty?
Could Ratan not have made his life happy? Could she not, even for a moment, have freed him from the anxieties of stern duty? Who could say that a little pause and rest might not have kept this dying lamp burning for a few more days?
But she had never understood her duty toward her husband. Her conscience had always remained in rebellion, simply because she had been joined to him.
Was all the fault in that matter really his? Who could say that her poor parents might not have brought about an even worse fate for her? Were all young men necessarily ideals? Among them too were adulterers, hot-tempered men, drunkards, and every other kind. Who could say what condition she might have been in now?
Every hair on Ratan’s body seemed to reproach her at that moment. She bowed her head over her husband’s cold feet and began sobbing bitterly.
All those harsh feelings that had constantly risen in her heart, all those bitter words she had spoken to him in burning resentment, were now stinging her like hundreds of scorpions.
Alas! This had been her behavior toward a man who was as profound as the sea. How much tenderness, how much generosity there had been in this heart! If she gave him even a betel leaf, how happy he became. If she merely spoke to him with a little smile, how satisfied he would be. Yet even this much had been too difficult for her.
Her heart was breaking as she remembered these things. With her head resting on those feet, she felt an intense desire that her own life should leave her at that very moment. As she touched those feet with her forehead, such love surged within her that it seemed she would pour out, at that very instant, the treasure accumulated over an entire age.
Before the divine light of death, all the impurity within her, all her ill will, all her rebellion had vanished.
The lawyer’s eyes were open, but there was no sign of any emotion on his face. Even Ratan’s anguish could no longer illuminate his fading consciousness. He had become free of the bonds of joy and sorrow. If someone wept, there was no grief; if someone laughed, there was no happiness.
Teemal took Ganges water in a small ritual vessel and poured it into his mouth. Today he offered no resistance. He who had been an enemy of superstitions and customs had become quiet at this moment—not because religious faith had arisen within him, but because he no longer had any desire. With the same indifference, he would have swallowed a draught of poison.
How peacefully the greatest event in human life takes place.
That great part of the universe, that raging ocean of ambitions, that endless storehouse of effort, that stage upon which love and hatred, joy and sorrow play their parts, that arena of intellect and strength—who knows when and where it disappears into nothingness? No one knows.
Not even a sob, not even an exhalation, not even a sigh escapes!
Who can say where the waves of the sea come to an end? Who knows where sound becomes absorbed into the air? What else is human life but that wave, that sound? Why should it be surprising if its ending is just as peaceful, just as invisible?
The devotees of ghosts ask, “What was it that departed?” Some worshippers of science say that a faint light escapes. The devotees of pseudo-science say that life departed through the eyes, through the mouth, or into the universe.
Let someone ask them: when a wave subsides, does it flash? When sound dissolves, does it become visible?
This is merely a rest on an endless journey, a journey that has no end but leads to a new ascent.
What a great transformation! The man who could not bear even a mosquito’s bite can now be buried in the earth or placed upon a funeral pyre, and not a crease will appear on his forehead.
Teemal looked at the lawyer’s face and said, “Bahuji, come. Let us take him down from the cot. The master is gone!”
Saying this, he sat down on the ground and began to weep bitterly, covering both his eyes with his hands.
Thirty years of companionship had ended. The master who had never spoken even half a harsh word to him, who had never once addressed him rudely, was now leaving him forever.
Ratan was still waiting for the physician. Hearing these words from Teemal, she felt as though she had been struck. She rose and placed her hand on her husband’s chest.
After moving tirelessly for sixty years, it was now at rest. She could no longer bring herself to place her hand on his forehead. As she touched that body and looked at that dead face, she felt a renunciation born of remorse. The feet upon which she had just rested her head and wept—her fingers now felt as though they were being cut simply by touching them.
She had never understood how delicate life was. The thought of death had never entered her mind. Death had robbed her before her very eyes!
After a moment Teemal said, “Bahuji, what are you still looking at? Take him down from the cot. What was to happen has happened.”
He took hold of the feet, Ratan took hold of the head, and together they laid the body down. Ratan sat there on the ground and wept—not because she now had no support left in the world, but because she had failed to fulfill her duty toward him.
At that very moment the sound of a motorcar was heard, and the physician arrived.
Perhaps even now, somewhere in the depths of Ratan’s heart, there remained a dying spark of hope! She immediately wiped her eyes, adjusted the end of her sari over her head, gathered up her disheveled hair, and stood looking toward the door.
Dawn had stained the sky with its golden rays.
Was this the dawn of a new life for that soul?