Page:Tales of Bengal (Sita and Santa Chattopadhyay).djvu/42

Tales of Bengal feather dropped from the flitting wings of the fairy of dreams.

Within those few days I tried to gather ample compensation for all the dark days of my life. The harp of my life resounded with joyous strains full and loud. But in my eagerness, perhaps I had struck too hard; for one day the string broke. From that day the harp has been mute.

But at the same time when we were filling the hours with joy and laughter, the messenger of death had already entered the house. My grandfather took to his bed; it was his last illness. The day was given over to joy, but morning and evening I went twice to his room and sat by him. He used to look up at me, his gentle eyes full of pity, and he stroked my hair with his trembling hand. I knew that his heart was more full of the thoughts of the girl whom he was leaving behind than of the blessed land towards which every day carried him nearer. The waif whom he had long sheltered would now be left alone and shelterless. This gnawing anxiety seemed to hasten his end. He was one of the noblest of human beings, yet he used to bathe after touching me, to purify himself. My touch was pollution even to him! So what could I hope for at the hands of any other?

But these thoughts came afterwards. At that time I had no time to spare for gloomy thoughts. Grandfather sometimes used to draw me down to his bedside; he struggled to say something; but he could not utter it. His eyes expressed what his tongue failed to do; he seemed to ask a favour of me,—of me to whom he had given everything. But what that favour was, I never tried to know. I had then no time for reading the language of an old man's dim tear-filled eyes. Your bright dark eyes told me a new tale every morning, and my eyes wanted nothing else. So after a few hurriedly spoken words, accompanied with bright smiles, and after a few pats on his pillows, I used to leave Rh