Page:Tales of Bengal (Sita and Santa Chattopadhyay).djvu/80

Tales of Bengal days and nights remained, then the curtain would drop upon the neglected and insignificant drama of her life. But the days passed and still she stood with empty hands. She lived on in the hope that before the unopened bud was withered completely, the south wind would come just once to whisper in her ears, and would steal a whiff of fragrance from her heart. Then she would have fulfilled her life's mission. But the days passed and a traveller advanced along the way toward her. Not the messenger of light, whom she awaited and desired. It was the terrible god of death with his deadly wand.

One day I saw that as soon as Nirjharinee came and stood by the window, her mother pulled her back from it, saying something to her in a sharp tone. So this joy too was to be denied her. The sorrow of her perpetual and unavailing tryst was the only thing left to her, and now that was to be taken away. If I could have met Animesh then!

But I could not avoid Molly to the end. She captured me one day, suddenly in the midst of the road. She flung herself upon me like a mad creature and sobbed out: "You are bad, you are wicked. Why did you take her old letter, if you did not intend to give her a new one? I told her she would get her letter and she did not get it."

"Don't be in such a hurry, your sister is going to have her letter very soon now." Some how I got rid of her, and hurried off. I sat down in a field and thought and thought. Nirjharinee's eyes looked as if they were wells of laughter in her better days. But the laughter had been quenched in tears. Could no one give back laughter its lost kingdom? How would she look now, if she smiled? How would she appear, if the despair and conflict could be banished and the whole picture re-painted in colours of gladness?

Should I try? She was about to step into the realm Rh