in a bride's robe, and through death's arch you come back to repeat our wedding in the soul.
Neither lute nor drum is struck, no crowd has gathered, not a wreath is hung on the gate.
Your unuttered words meet mine in a ritual unillumined by lamps.
27
I was walking along a path overgrown with grass, when suddenly I heard from some one behind, "See if you know me?"
I turned round and looked at her and said, "I cannot remember your name."
She said, "I am that first great Sorrow whom you met when you were young."
Her eyes looked like a morning whose dew is still in the air.
I stood silent for some time till I said, "Have you lost all the great burden of your tears?"
She smiled and said nothing. I felt that her tears had had time to learn the language of smiles.
"Once you said," she whispered, "that you would cherish your grief for ever."
I blushed and said, "Yes, but years have passed and I forget."
Then I took her hand in mine and said, "But you have changed."
"What was sorrow once has now become peace," she said.
28
Our life sails on the uncrossed sea whose waves chase each other in an eternal hide-and-seek.
It is the restless sea of change, feeding its foaming flocks to lose them over and over again, beating its hands against the calm of the sky.
Love, in the centre of this circling war-dance of light and dark, yours is that green island, where the sun kisses the shy forest shade and silence is wooed by birds' singing.
AMA AND VINAYAKA
Night on the battlefield: AMA meets her father VINAYAKA.
AMA. Father!
VINAYAKA. Shameless wanton, you call me "Father"! you who did not shrink from a
Mussulman husband!
AMA. Though you have treacherously killed my husband, yet you are my father; and I hold back a widow's tears, lest they bring God's curse on you. Since we have met on this battlefield after years of separation, let me bow to your feet and take my last leave!
VINAYAKA. Where will you go, Ama? The tree on which you built your impious nest is hewn down. Where will you take shelter?
AMA. I have my son.
VINAYAKA. Leave him! Cast never a fond look back on the result of a sin expiated with blood! Think where to go.
AMA. Death's open gates are wider than a father's love!
VINAYAKA. Death indeed swallows sins as the sea swallows the mud of rivers. But you are to die neither to-night nor here. Seek some solitary shrine of holy Shiva far from shamed kindred and all neighbours; bathe three times a day in sacred Ganges, and, while reciting God's name, listen to the last bell of evening worship, that Death may look tenderly upon you, as a father on his sleeping child whose eyes are still wet with tears. Let him gently carry you into his own great silence, as the Ganges carries a fallen flower on its stream, washing every stain away to render it, a fit offering, to the sea.
AMA. But my son——
VINAYAKA. Again I bid you not to speak of him. Lay yourself once more in a father's arms, my child, like a babe fresh from the womb of Oblivion, your second mother.
AMA. To me the world has become a shadow. Your words I hear, but cannot take to heart. Leave me, father, leave me alone! Do not try to bind me with your love, for its bands are red with my husband's blood.
VINAYAKA. Alas! no flower ever returns to the parent branch it dropped from. How can you call him husband who forcibly snatched you from Jivaji to whom you had been sacredly affianced? I shall never forget that night! In the wedding hall we sat anxiously expecting the bridegroom, for the auspicious hour was dwindling away. Then in the distance appeared the glare of torches, and bridal strains came floating up the air. We shouted for joy: women blew their conch-shells. A procession of palanquins entered the courtyard: but while we were asking, "Where is Jivaji?" armed men burst out of the litters like a storm, and bore you off before we knew what had happened. Shortly after, Jivaji came to tell us he had been waylaid and captured by a Mussulman noble of the Vijapur court. That night Jivaji and I touched the nuptial fire and swore bloody death to this villain. After waiting long, we have been freed from our solemn pledge to-night; and the spirit of Jivaji, who lost his life in this battle, lawfully claims you for wife.
AMA. 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
AMA. Mother mine, I had not hoped to see you again. Let me take dust from your feet.
RAMA. Touch me not with impure hands!
AMA. I am as pure as yourself.
RAMA. To whom have you surrendered your honour?
AMA. To my husband.
RAMA. Husband? A Mussulman the husband of a Brahmin woman?
AMA. 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.
RAMA. Are you indeed a true wife?
AMA. Yes.
RAMA. Do you know how to die without flinching?
AMA. I do.
RAMA. Then let the funeral fire be lighted for you! See, there lies the body of your husband.
AMA. Jivaji?
RAMA. 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.
VINAYAKA. 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,
