Page:Works of Tagore from the Modern Review, 1909-24 Segment 1.pdf/19

Rh ﻿cidents lay at the door of Labanya and what portion the bearer was answerable for, is a nice problem for ethical mathematics to solve.

Navendu's heart convulsed with pain within his breast, like the tail of a lizard just cut off. He went about moping like an owl all day long.

Labanya banished from her face all traces of her inward merriment and kept on enquiring in very anxious tones—"What has happened to you? You are not ill, I hope?"

Navendu made great efforts to smile and find a humorous reply. "How can there be"—he managed to say—"any illness within your jurisdiction since you are the Goddess of Health yourself?"

But the smile flickered out the next moment. His thoughts were—"I subscribed to the Congress fund to begin with, published a nasty letter in a newspaper and on the top of that, when the Magistrate Sahib himself did me the honour to call on me—I kept him in waiting. I wonder what he is thinking of me."

Alas, Father Purnendu Sekhar, by a strange irony of Fate I am made to appear what I am not.

The next morning, Navendu decked himself in his best clothes, wore his watch and chain and put a big turban on his head.

"Where are you off to?"—enquired his sister-in-law.

"Urgent business"—Navendu replied. Labanya kept quiet.

Arriving at the Magistrate's gate, he took out his card-case.

"You cannot see him now"—said the orderly peon icily.

Navendu took out a couple of rupees from his pocket. The peon at once salaamed him and said—"There are five of us, sir." Immediately Navendu pulled out a ten-rupee note and handed it to him.

He was sent for by the Magistrate, who was doing some writing work in his dressing gown and bed-room slippers. Navendu salaamed him. The Magistrate pointed to a chair with his finger and without raising his eyes from the paper before him said—"What can I do for you, Babu?"

Fingering his watch-chain nervously, Navendu said in shaky tones—"Yesterday you were good enough to call at my place, sir—"

The Sahib knitted his brows and lifting just one eye from his paper, said—"I called at your place! Babu, what nonsense are you talking?

"Beg your pardon, Sir"—faltered out Navendu—"There has been a mistake—some confusion"—and wet with perspiration, tumbled out of the room somehow. And that night as he lay tossing on his bed, came into his ear with a recurring persistency a distant dream-like voice—"Babu, you are a howling idiot."

On his way back home Navendu came to the conclusion that the Magistrate denied having called, simply because he was highly offended.

Coming home he explained to Labanya that he had been out purchasing rose-water. No sooner had he uttered the words than half-a-dozen chuprassis wearing the Collectorate badge made their appearance and after salaaming Navendu, stood there grinning.

"Have they come to arrest you because you subscribed to the Congress Fund?"—whispered Labanya with a smile.

The six peons displayed a dozen rows of teeth and said—"Bakshish—Babu-saheb."

From a side room Nilratan came out and said in an irritated manner—"Bakshish? What for?"

The peons, grinning as before, answered—"The Babu-Saheb went to see the Magistrate—so we have come for bakshish."

"I didn't know"—laughed out Labanya—"that the Magistrate was selling rose-water now-a-days. Coolness wasn't the special feature of his trade before."

Navendu in trying to reconcile the story of his purchase with his visit to the Magistrate, uttered some incoherent words which nobody could make the sense of.

Nilratan spoke to the peons—"There has been no occasion for Bakshish,—you shan't have it."

Navendu said, feeling very small—"Oh they are poor men—what's the harm of giving them something?"—and he took out a currency note. Nilratan snatched it away from Navendu's hand, remarking—"There are poorer men in the world—I will give it to them for you."

Navendu felt greatly distressed in not being able to appease these ghostly retainers