Page:Works of Tagore from the Modern Review, 1909-24 Segment 2.pdf/28

Rh reply. To give a satisfactory explanation to this question was difficult, but Apurba said to himself: "I must win, in the end, this rebellious heart."

On the next day, the mother-in-law observed some signs of petulance in Mrinmayi and shut her up in a room. When Mrinmayi could find no way to get out, she tore the bed sheet to rags with her teeth in vain anger, and flinging herself on the floor burst out weeping and calling in agony: "Father, father!"

Just then somebody came and sat by her. He tried to arrange her dishevelled hair as she turned from side to side, but Mrinmayi angrily shook her head and pushed his hand away. Apurba, (for it was he) bent his face to her ear and whispered:

"I have secretly opened the gate; let us run away by the back door."

Mrinmayi again violently shook her head and said "No."

Apurba tried to raise her face gently by the chin saying: "Do look who is there." Rakhal had come and was standing foolishly by the door looking at Mrinmayi.—But the girl pushed away Apurba's hand without raising her face.

He said: "Rakhal has come to play with you. Won't you come?"

She said: "No!" Rakhal was greatly relieved to be allowed to run away from this scene.

Apurba sat still and silent. Mrinmayi wept and wept, till she was so tired that she fell asleep; then Apurba went out silently and shut the door.

The next day Mrinmayi received a letter from her father, in which he expressed his regret for not being able to be present at the marriage of his darling daughter. He ended with his blessings. The girl went to her mother-in-law and said: "I must go to my father."

A scolding began at once:—"Your father! what a thing to ask. Your father has no decent house for himself,—how can you go to him?"

Mrinmayi came back to her room in despair and cried to herself, "Father, take me away from this place! I have nobody here to love me. I shall die, if I am left here."

In the depth of the night, when her husband fell asleep, she quietly opened the door and went out of the house. It was cloudy, yet the moonlight was strong enough to show her the path. But Mrinmayi had no idea which was the way to reach her father. She had a belief that the road, which the post runners took, led to all the adresses [sic] of all the men in the world.

So she went that way, and was quite tired out with walking when the night was nearly ended.

The early birds doubtfully twittered their greetings to the morning, when Mrinmayi came to the end of the road at the river bank, where there was a big bazaar. Just then she heard the clatter of the iron ring of the mail runner. She rushed to him and in her eager, tired voice cried: "I want to go to any father at Kushiganj. Do take ne with you."

The postman told her hurriedly that he did not know where Kushiganj was and the next moment wakened up the boatman of the mail boat and sailed away. He had no time either to pity or to question.

By the time Mrinmayi had descended the landing stairs and called a boat, the street and the river-bank were fully awake. Before the boatman could answer, some one from a boat near at hand called out:

"Hallo, Mrinu! How on earth could you get here?"

The girl replied in all eagerness:

"Bonomali, I must go to my father at Kushiganj. Please take me in your boat!"

This boatman belonged to her own village and knew all about the wild untameable girl. He said to her:

"You want to go to your father? That's good. I'll take you."

Mrinmayi got into the boat. The clouds thickened and the rain came down in showers. The river, swollen by the monsoon, rocked the boat, and Mrinmayi fell asleep. When she woke up, she found herself in her own bed in her mother-in-law's house.

The maid-servant began scolding her the moment she saw her awake. The mother-in-law came next. As she entered, Mrinmayi opened her eyes wide and silently looked in her face. But when the mother-in-law made a reference to the ill breeding of Mrinmayi’s family, the girl rushed out of her room and entered the next and shut the door from the inside.

Apurba came to his mother and said: "Mother, I don't see any harm in sending