Page:Works of Tagore from the Modern Review, 1909-24 Segment 2.pdf/118

Rh asked her: "And how did you like it, Charu?" A vigorous shaking of the head was all the reply she got, which translated into words must have meant: "I did not like it, and I never will like it, so there!"

Divining that it was a pure case of jealousy the mother gave up showing any attention to Tara in her daughter's presence. But when after her early supper Charu had gone off to bed, and Moti Babu was sitting out on deck with Tara, Annapurna took her seat near the cabin door and asked Tara to give them a song. As the melody flooded the evening sky, seeming to enrapture into a hush the villages reposing under the dusk, and filling Annapurna's tender heart with an ecstacy of unutterable love and beauty, Charu left her bed and came up sobbing: "What a noise you are all making, mother! I can't get a wink of sleep!" How could she bear the idea of being sent off to bed alone, and all of them hanging round Tara, revelling in his singing?

Tara, for his part, found the tantrums of this little girl, with the bright black eyes, highly diverting. He tried his best to win her over by telling her stories, singing songs to her, playing on the flute for her,—but with no success. Only when he plunged into the river for his daily swim, with his dhoti lifted short above his knees and tightened round his waist, his fair supple limbs cleaving the water with skilful ease, like some water-sprite at play, her curious gaze could not help being attracted. She would be looking forward every morning to his bath-time, but without letting any one guess her fascination. And when the time came, this little untaught actress would fall to practice her knitting by the cabin window with a world of attention; only now and again her eyes would be raised to throw a casual, seemingly contemptuous glance at Tara's performance.

They had long passed by Nandigram, but of this Tara had taken no notice. The big boat swept onwards with a leisurely movement, sometimes under sail, sometimes towed along, through river, tributary and branch. The days of its inmates wore on like these streams, with a lazy flow of unexciting hours of mild variedness. No one was in any kind of hurry. They all took plenty of time over their daily bath and food, and even before it grew quite dark the boats would be moored near the landing place of some village of sufficient size, against a woodland background, lively with the sparkle of fireflies and the chirping of cicadas. In this way it took them over ten days to get to Katalia.

On the news of the Zamindar Babu's arrival, men, palanquins and ponies were sent out to meet his boat, and the retainers fired off a salvo startling the village crows into noisy misgivings. Impatient of the delay occasioned by this formal welcome Tara quietly slipped off the boat by himself, and made a rapid round of the village. Some he hailed as brother or sister, others as uncle or aunt, and in the short space of two or three hours he had made friends with all sorts and conditions of people.

It was perhaps because Tara acknowledged no bonds that he could win his way so easily into others' affections,—anyhow in a few days the whole village had capitulated unconditionally. One of the reasons for his easy victory was the quickness with which he could enter into the spirit of every class, as if he was one of themselves. He was not the slave of any habit, but he could easily and simply get used to things. With children, he was just a child, yet aloof and superior. With his elders, he was not childish, but neither was he a prig. With the peasant, he was a peasant without losing his brahminhood. He took part in the work or play of all of them with zest and skill. One day as he was seated at a sweetmeat-seller's, the latter begged him to mind the shop while he went on some errand, and the boy cheerfully sat there for hours, driving off the flies with a palmyra leaf. He had some knowledge of how to make sweetmeats; and could also take a hand at the loom, or at the potter's wheel with equal ease.

But though he had made a conquest of the village, he had been unable to overcome the jealousy of one little girl; and