Page:Tales of Bengal (Sita and Santa Chattopadhyay).djvu/37

Rh me to this earth was her love. To a child the world is full of friends and playmates. The ties of blood bring some to it and others come drawn by the bond of joy and love. The world is a willing slave to the child-emperor. Miserable indeed is he, whom no child rules with its soft little fingers. But from the moment of my birth the world frowned upon me. I did not know with whom ties of blood connected me and no person ever approached me through love. Dumb, inanimate nature was my sole friend. I was a stranger to the play of human emotions.

The memories of my childhood are all vague and shadowy. There is no event, no loving playmate, to which these shadows could cling and take distinct shape. There is only one face which comes to my mind when I think of that period. It is the face of my mother.

The first distinct impression of my life, the first that I remember with any degree of clearness, is one of weeping and tears. I was clasping my mother round her neck and sobbing upon her shoulders. Tears ran down her face, too. The memory of her tear-stained face still remains with me; it was like a white lotus drenched with dew. An old man was standing by my mother. Clusters of hair, white as the sea-foam, framed his gentle and benign face. "I have come to entrust this poor thing to you," my mother was saying, "Miserable mother that I am, I cannot by any means keep my child with me." The old man stretched out his arms to take me. I clung to my mother more firmly, while her tears fell fast on my hair. I have told you already that the world then meant nothing to me but my mother. It seemed that the world was taking farewell of me in tears. The arms of the old man did not tempt me. I viewed him with suspicion. I was too young to understand fully what was happening but the sight of my mother's tears filled my heart with terrible forebodings. I have no distinct recollection now, how long that drama of tears and sorrow lasted, but I vaguely Rh