Page:Tales of Bengal (Sita and Santa Chattopadhyay).djvu/123

Rh Manindra came nearer, and taking out of his pocket a parcel wrapped in flimsy blue paper, said, "Friend, I have brought a little present for your wife. I did not put it down with the other presents, as it would be quite lost in that magnificent array." Saying this he took off the wrapping, and taking out a chain of gold put it into my trembling hands. It was a garland of jasmines. Some cunning workman had copied nature very faithfully in gold. My husband answered back laughingly, but I did not hear what he said. I looked up once more. He too spoke his farewell in a long look, then disappeared in the rapidly thinning crowd. The traveller who had first stepped into my young life in the rosy blushing dawn now went out of it for ever in the red glare of festive lamps and through a noisy festal crowd.

The ladies again thronged into the room. Kamalini took the golden chain off my hands and put it round my neck, remarking, "It is certainly of Cuttack workmanship. Our goldsmiths are not up to such work."

It was already midnight when we at last found ourselves alone. My husband tried to make me speak but in vain, and at last laid himself down to sleep. The hanging lamps went out one by one, flickering and spluttering. I sat still on my bed throughout that long night. Sleep refused to come to the aid of my tortured heart.

The next day I left the home of my childhood and stepped out with a stranger for a strange home. The most auspicious and joyous day in a woman's life ended for me in a flood of tears.

A warm welcome was waiting for me in the new home. But I seemed to have become an unfeeling automaton; I moved about as others made me move, and heard without answer the thousand remarks and questions which flew about me. The gladness and joy which I witnessed in others served only to petrify my heart more and more. Rh