Page:Tales of Bengal (Sita and Santa Chattopadhyay).djvu/125

Rh "But let such things go. We must not talk about them on this auspicious day. Let me arrange your room. Why have you put out the light?"

Kalyani lighted the lamp again and moved about the room, putting everything in its place. Suddenly she came upon my wedding sari, thrown upon the floor. She picked it up and cried, "Why have you flung it here, dear? Well, I will put it up for you. The old women here say that one must not wear one's wedding dress twice. It is to be kept in a box, and when torn should be thrown into water."

She folded the thing carefully and then, pointing out a box of marble to me, said, "Do you see that box over there, by the side of the big iron safe? I put it there in the morning. It is my present to you. I have got nothing else. That one was given to me by my husband. Will you keep your wedding dress in it? It will then remain apart from your other things."

I assented. Kalyani put the dress there and went out. After a few minutes she re-entered with a few chains of camphor beads in her hand. These she arranged about the rich crimson silk. Suddenly I got up and, snatching that garland of jasmines from my neck, flung it into the box.

"Why do you put it there?" asked Kalyani in astonishment. "It should go into the jewel box; you will have to take it out frequently."

"No," I said, "let it remain there; I will never take it out again. When I fling the wedding dress into water, this, too, shall accompany the dress."

Kalyani looked at me for a minute with her wonderful eyes, then said "Very well, let it remain there."

"Rangadi!"

Young Vidyut, with her slender, graceful figure and Rh