Flora Annie Webster Steel

"That is over! Thanks to KÂli Ma!" sighed Ramabhai, fanning herself vigorously as the last man shambled, a trifle sheepishly, from the inner apartment. She--was a stoutish BengÂli lady, with red betel--stained lips and smooth bandeaux of shiny black hair. Good-looking, good-natured, at the moment distinctly excited as she went on garrulously. "Muniya! down with the curtain, there is no further use for it now that crew has gone! And to think that the master will have to give each one of them five rupees! And for what? Forsooth! for the first seeing of such a bride as not one of them ever saw before. Lo! Shibi, marriage-monger!" Here she turned accusingly on one of the women who were busy unveiling themselves, chattering the while with shrill voices. "Hast no mind at all? Thou mightst have found newer words for thy description of my daughter!--'beautiful as a full moon, symmetrical as a cart-wheel, graceful as a young goose.' What are these for perfection? And thou didst use the same last week for Luchi Devi's girl, who is pock-marked and blind of an eye! But there! 'What's a fowl to one who has swallowed a sheep.' Parbutti,"--here she transferred her attentions to a young girl who was seated on a cushion resting her face in her henna-dyed hands, as if she felt dazed or tired--"an thou hast a grain of sense have a care of that nose-ring thy paternal auntie lent for the occasion or there will be flies in the pease porridge--there always is in that family. Yea! it is well over; and thank the gods, the priest found good omen in the morning watches, so I have not to dine the creatures. Fish curry and kid pillau is too much to pile on the getting of a trousseau; yet one must have meats at a wedding feast, if one in Sakta; and the bridegroom's folk are strict. As for clothes, I tell you, sisters, that 'boycotts' is well enough to play with every day, but when it comes to weddings and tinsel, 'tis a different matter. KÂli Ma! what a price for kulabatoon! Parbutti! an thou canst not remember that thou hast on thee four hundred rupees worth of Benares khim-kob, go put on the old Manchester. Thank Heaven!' Boycotts' is not so old yet, but one has stores left to come and go upon! Yea! Yea! A wedding is a great strain on a mother; and then there is the parting with my daughter, too--my sweeting, my little lump of delight----"

Here Ramabhai discreetly dissolved into regulation tears, mingled with sharp sobs and little outcries. It came easily, for she was really devoted to Parbutti, the little bride, who, in truth, looked distractingly pretty, all swathed in scarlet gold-flowered silk gauze, and hung with jewels galore.

Her grave open-eyed face looked, perhaps, a trifle stupid and obstinate, but there could be no question of its beauty.

"Mother!" she said seriously, "there is a smell of smoke--the tall one in the black coat smelt of it, and it is defilement. Had we not better pacify the gods?"

"Hark to her!" exclaimed Ramabhai, drying her facile tears triumphantly. "Saw you ever such a saint? He who gets my Parbutti is certain of salvation."

Parbutti sate silent. She did not even blush, though that is allowed to a BengÂli bride. But for all her outward calm she was inwardly quivering all over; and small wonder if she was! After long years spent, not like an English girl, in ignorance and innocence of matrimony, but in matter-of-fact expectation of it, that one great event in woman's life was close at hand. It had been delayed almost beyond propriety by the difficulty of finding a high-caste husband. For her father, though a Kulin Brahman, was sufficiently westernised not to hold with the caste habit of marrying a daughter to what may be called a professional husband: that is, to a Kulin who already possesses a score or two of wives. A suitable student had, however, been found at last, and the feminine portion of the household had plunged hysterically into all the suggestive ceremonials of a high-class BengÂli marriage. Even the widows let their blighted fancies dwell on kisses and blisses; so, feeling vicariously the sensuous pleasures of bridedom, vied with happier women in drugging the girl with sweets and scents, and secret whisperings of secret delights. The whole atmosphere was enervating, depraving; but Parbutti took all the gigglings and titterings gravely as her right. For this was the consummation of her hopes ever since, as a child of five, she had been taught to worship the gods, to pray for an amorous husband, and curse any woman who might try to win love from her.

"Look! how the little marionette scowls over it," the women had tittered as they watched her, a bit of a naked baby, going through the formula of the Brata, as it is called. "Truly no co-wife will dare to enter her house." And certainly her energy was prodigious.

"Mata! Mata! Ma! Keep my co-wife far--
Shiv! Shiv! Shiv! Grant she may not live--
Pot! Pot! Pot! Boil her hard and hot--
Broom! Broom! Broom! Sweep her from the room--
Mud! Mud! Mud! Moist thee with her blood--
Bell! Bell! Bell! Ring her soul to hell--"

and so on through every common and uncommon object on God's earth--and beneath it!

The childish body had swayed to the rhythm of the chant; the childish voice had risen clear in denunciation; the childish soul had given its consent to every wish; for Parbutti was nothing if not serious.

The very cantrips of the Sakta cult to which her parents--and some fifty millions of other BengÂlis--belonged, were to her so many indispensable realities.

She, as an unmarried girl, ate her plateful of sacrificial meat contentedly, though her mother refused it. She sate wide-eyed, solemn, acquiescent, when after long fasting the whole family waited in the dead of the night till the auspicious moment for sacrifice arrived, and in the silence the only sound was an occasional piteous, half-wondering bleat of the miserable victim--a pet goat, mayhap! She did not wink an eye when the consecrated scimitar curved downwards, a jet of red, red bubbling blood spurted into the dim light, and a sort of sob from the dying and the living alike told that atonement was made.

That sort of thing did not make her or any of the other women quiver; yet they were affectionate, emotional, kind-hearted. "Without shedding of blood is no remission of sin," is a Pauline text; but it was theirs also. Graven by age-long iteration in their limited minds and lives was the dogma that the Blood is the Life thereof. There was but one Sacrament; the Sacrament of Blood. Marriage was secondary, but cognate to it, of course; that was because it was the Gate to Birth and Death, through which none pass without the Great Sacrifice. So they clothed the bride in scarlet, and smeared her forehead with vermilion. It was this stability of inner thought which enabled the women to be so untiring in their variants of its outward application. All the bathings and anointings and soothsayings had this unchangeable dogma as foundation. So the round of ritual went on, the drums throbbed in unending rhythm, the conches blared in deafening yells, the whole house was full of the rustlings and bustlings of womenfolk. It must surely have been a wedding which made Babu Kishub Chander Sen write the ponderous dictum: "Man is a noun in the objective case, governed by the active verb woman."

Parbutti's father, being a sensible man, removed himself as much as possible from the ebullient atmosphere; perhaps it was as well, since he was a light in the Nationalist party, and the ceremonials of a Sakta wedding do not go well with talk of political rights and wrongs, of education, and equality, and exotic tyranny.

Even Parbutti's solemnity was not quite proof against the silly suggestiveness, the almost indecent jokes and tricks, the hysterical enhancing of emotions with which she was surrounded.

She felt it a relief when, the guests having retired for some sleep, she was free to perform her daily devotion at the shrine downstairs.

It was a quaint place, this shrine dedicated to Mai KÂli in her terrific form--in other words, to Our Lady of Pain--the Woman ever in travail of mind and body--the Ewig Weiblichkeit which is never satisfied. It formed on the river side of the house, a sort of low basement, private in so far that a flight of steep stone steps led down to it from the lowest storey of the house, public in that it opened on to some bathing steps. But few people came thither except on certain festivals; so Parbutti, still in her wedding finery, stole down to it confidently. She liked the small, dim, arched chamber where you could only see Mai KÂli as a blotch of crimson in her dark niche. And as you crept down the stairs behind that niche, and looked through the crisscross iron bars that filled up the arch, "She" showed nothing but a black shadow against the brilliance beyond. Parbutti used often to stand for an instant or two on the cornerwise landing of the stairs to look before passing up. Everything showed black but the low square of the outside doorway; and even the pigeons when they flew across it seemed flitting shadows on the light. To-day she was in a hurry, so she squatted down promptly at a respectful distance from the image, and began to smear the floor from a goglet of red paint she had brought with her. And as she did so she chanted:

"Om! Om! KÂli Ma!--
Ruler, Thou, of blackest night--
Dark, Dark, not a Star--
In Thy Heaven KÂli Ma!--
Thou who lovest the flesh of man--
By this blood I pray thee ban--
Aliens in Hindustan--
Kill them, KÂli Ma!--
Drink their blood and eat their flesh--
Thou shalt have it fresh and fresh--
Lo! devour it! lick thy lips--
Flesh in lumps and blood in sips--
Stain thyself with sacred red--
Make them lifeless, dead! dead! dead!
Blessed KÂli Ma!
Ho-o-m! 'Phut!"

The last two words were spoken with relish, not only because they were supposed to be the most potent part of the charm, but because they lent themselves to dramatic effect. Ho-om being given soft and low; phut explosively. The result being suggestive of an angry tom-cat. But the rest of the doggerel came slackly, for Parbutti was not much interested in it. It was not her curse at all, but one she had promised her schoolboy brother, Govinda, to say every evening. For many reasons; chiefly, it is to be feared, because someone else, at present nameless, was a class-fellow of the said Govinda's. But everyone knew, that if there was one compelling prayer on earth it was that of a maiden bride; even Mai KÂli could not resist it. And the petition was a fair one. Who wanted aliens in Hindustani? Not she! Why! their presence made your menkind do unspeakable things, so that life became wearisome with pacifying the gods. Imagine not being able to kiss ...

Voices close at hand, made her leap to her feet, and gain the staircase like a frightened hare. Then, of course, being a girl, she paused to peep through the grating.

Surely it was Govinda! Then, she need not have run away! No! he had a tall lad with him! Parbutti's heart beat to suffocation. Was it possible? Could it be? Was it--well! what she had been taught to consider her prayer, her pilgrimage, her paradise; that is, her duty and her pleasure combined? Stay! there was another lad--short! And yet another--middle-sized!

This was disconcerting; but perhaps if she listened a little she might find out. So she stood still as a mouse, all ears, praying in her inmost heart it might be the tall one.

Though they spoke in BengÂli, they used such a plentitude of English words that it was difficult for her to understand fully what they said. It was not all their fault, as it arose largely from the fact that the ideas they wished to express, being purely Western, had no Eastern equivalents. Parbutti, however, had been accustomed to this sort of talk, as she had been a great favourite of her father's, and till the last year or so, had often sate on his knee as he entertained his friends.

So she listened patiently to pÆans about Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, mingled with darkling threats--threats which must destroy all three by depriving some brother of the Liberty of Life or at best of an arm or a leg!

For they were only silly schoolboys, who, but for an alien ideal of education, would have been learning, as their father had learnt, unquestioning, unqualified obedience at a Guru's feet. Learning it probably with tears, tied up in a sack with a revengeful tom-cat, or with a heavy brick poised on the back of the neck for livelong hours; such being the approved punishments for the faintest disobedience. Small wonder then, if the organism accustomed to this immemorial control, runs a bit wild when it finds itself absolutely free to do and think as it likes.

These particular boys were very angry, apparently, because some one of their number had been forced to obey something or someone. It was tyranny. The Mother-land and their religion was outraged. They were all BengÂli Brahmans; so KÂli worshippers by birth, and of the Sakta cult; possibly of the Left-handed or Secret form of that cult. Anyhow they talked big of Force being the one ruling principle by which men could rule, of the true Saktas' or Tantriks' contempt for public opinion, of their determination to show the world that the Tantras had been given by the gods in order to destroy the oppressors of men. So, "Jai Anarchism! Jai KÂli! Jai Bhairavi! Jai Banda Materam!"

It was a sad farrago of nonsense; Western individualism dished up skilfully by professional agitators in a garb of Eastern mysticism; but they talked it complacently, while Parbutti, still as a mouse, told herself it must be the tall one; he had such a nice voice.

Her hopes gained confidence when he lingered behind with Govinda after the others departed, and began speaking in a lower voice. Could he be talking about her? Ever and always that came as the uppermost thought. Then consideration told her this was not possible; no respectable bridegroom could talk of his bride to another--not even if he also were a Kulin and a brother. What was it then, about which they were so mysterious when there was nobody nigh?--here a twinge of compunction shot through her--at least nobody they could know about.

At last, her ears becoming accustomed to the strain, she caught one sentence: "My father was Mai KÂli's priest here"; so by degrees gathered that there was some secret receptacle somewhere, and that the tall youth wished to hide something.

The something appeared to be in what Parbutti had supposed to be a hooded cage such as students often carry about with their pet avitovats or fighting quails inside. But this one contained a square box, which the boy removed with great care, and then, before Parbutti had grasped what he was doing, he was round at the back of the carven image, kneeling with his back towards her, and fumbling at the gilt wooden drapery about Mai KÂli's waist; Govinda meanwhile keeping a look-out at the door.

How close he was! If she put out a hand she could touch him--she thrilled all over at the thought! Too close at any rate for her to move; besides, she must see what happened.

Ye gods! The drapery slid up! Mai KÂli was hollow!

"If aught happens to me," said the nice voice solemnly, "I leave this in thy charge, oh! Govinda Ram, Kulin. Thou art the only other living soul who knows of it. And see thou use it as it should be used. A cocoanut full for a bomb. It requires no fuse. The concussion is sufficient if the hand is bold."

The box deposited, the panel slid back again, and the tall lad rising from his knees stepped to the front again. As he did so, Parbutti caught a glimpse of his face. It was beautiful as the young Bala-Krishna, and the whole soul and body of her went out to him--her hand stole through the bars to touch the air in which he had stood--the happy air which had touched him.

So absorbed was she in her joy that she did not realise what was going on until the sound of their voices brought her back to reality. Then she recognised that they were repeating the vow of secrecy which is imposed on all initiates to the Tantrik cult. "I swear by the Eternal Relentless and Living Power I worship never to divulge the Secret, but to bury it deeply in silence and ever preserve it inviolate and inviolable. I will conceal it as the water in a cocoanut is concealed. I will be a Kaula internally, a Saiva externally, and a Vaishnava when talking at public meetings." Then they branched off into that of the new secret political society which underlies the old religious mysteries. And Parbutti listened with growing fear, for this was sheer straightforward cursing of informers and lukewarm supporters and spies--and--and----

If they should go on to her? If he should curse her?

The long stillness had told on her nerves--she felt as if she must scream, must do something to prevent the dreadful sequence going on and on....

"And cursed be they who listen and----"

The voices were checked by a passionate cry--

"Curse me not! Curse me not! I swear! I, Parbutti, swear to keep faith!"

Then, terrified at everything, even her own temerity, she turned and fled.

There was little leisure allowed her for thought in the women's apartment that night, for each one vied with the other in devising cantrips, most of them undescribable, to secure for her a truly uxorious husband; but one thing beat through her brain. Would he, could he--if it were he--be angry with her? Surely not! She had sworn, and she would keep her oath. Yes! she would keep it faithfully.

So the day dawned and another tumult of rejoicing rose around her.

In view of the delay in her betrothals it had been arranged to crowd in the ceremonials as closely as possible, so as to expedite the actual marriage, and everybody was running about, conches were blowing, women were giggling and laughing as the professional guests of the male sex cracked doubtful jests while they awaited the arrival of the bridegroom.

And then came a sudden hush. Something must have happened. What was it?

Parbutti, sitting apart swathed in her wedding scarlet, was too dazed to notice the pause at first, until low, and whimpering, an unmistakable woman's wail rose amid the garlands and tinsels, the paper flowers, the swinging lanterns.

She started to her feet--was someone dead?

In a way, the news that had come was worse than death. That was an act of God to be accepted with what resignation could be mustered. But this? What! They had arrested a bridegroom on his wedding day!--and Govinda, too, the son of the house! What! Those boys--they could not be guilty! It was only the tyranny of the hated police. They could not be mixed up with Anarchists. So said some of the men; but others held their peace and looked sinister, while all the women wept and wailed, and called on Mai KÂli to avenge the sacrilege. Only Parbutti sate very still, very silent. She knew something that the others did not know, but the knowledge only increased her blind resentment, only aggravated her blind despair.

He had been filched from her--if it was he. She was too dulled by disappointment at first to do more than realise her loss, and the thought of her oath of fealty did not come to her at all until after three months' needless delay in trying the conspiracy case against some forty students in the college--a delay due entirely to the hair-splitting efforts of the counsel for the defence--Govinda settled it for himself by dying in prison of autumnal fever. His had never been a good life; he had almost died of it the year before; he might have died of it at home. But the loss of a son, even when he is not the only one, is a grievous loss to a Hindu household, and it brought enhanced and almost insensate anger to every member of it; except to Parbutti, who went about her household duties calmly, almost stupidly.

Then came the final blow. The bridegroom--was it he?--she wondered dully--shot himself with a revolver smuggled in to him by a woman, a young and pretty woman full of patriotism and poetry, a woman brought up on Western lines, who was almost worshipped by the Nationalist party of unrest.

Parbutti heard the tale, still calm to outward appearance. She heard women's voices, full of curiosity, tell of the deed of patriotism, as it was called: she heard them wonder what the woman agitator was really like, and say that KÂli Ma would surely, ere long, rise up in Her Power and smite the M'llechas hip and thigh.

And then they looked at her and shook their heads. Neither maid, wife, nor widow, it would be more difficult than ever to find fresh betrothals for her. Whereupon Ramabhai wept as she had wept before with sharp sobs and little outcries. And once more Parbutti said nothing, though she was quivering all over. It would be impossible to define her feelings, they were such an admixture of hatred, and love, of fear, and jealousy, and despair. And through it all came the question: "Was it he?"--while, as a background, sheer physical disappointment stretched every fibre of her mind and body almost to breaking joint.

So it went on until one day someone spoke to her almost as if she had been a widow, and bade her do something almost menial.

She did it without a word. It was noon time and the house was deserted; those who were in it being asleep. She sate for a while in the sunshine of the courtyard, her hands on her knees, doing nothing. Then suddenly she rose, and slipped into the room which Ramabhai used as a wardrobe.

When she emerged from it she was swathed in the scarlet and gold Benares khim-kob that had cost four hundred rupees, and her arms, her neck, her feet, were hung with golden ornaments.

They tinkled as she made her way down the steep stone stairs to KÂli's shrine. Dark, and still, and small, it lay, with a faint scent of incense about it; for the previous day had been a festival, and many folk had been to worship there.

But KÂli--Mai KÂli--would never have better worshipping than Parbutti meant to give her. How the idea had come to the girl's mind who can say; but dimly, out of her confused thoughts had grown the conviction that something must be done. She was the only one, now, who knew the secret; but it was useless in her hands. She could not go out and throw bombs, as he doubtless would have thrown them had he lived; so giving the Great Goddess the Blood for which she craved. Yes! he had meant to do it, for were not the aliens accursed? Had they not killed him?

She mixed everything up hopelessly; Mai KÂli and the Sacrament of Blood, her own loss and the public good; she felt angry, and weary, and disappointed; she felt that she ought to do something, that she must get Someone stronger than she was on her side, to do what she was helpless to do.

So, confused, obstinate, she stepped behind the image, slid back the panel, and took out the box. Then, producing a cocoanut shell from the folds of her sare, she filled it carefully, methodically, and put back the box carefully, methodically.

This done, she went to the front of the image, smeared the floor once more with blood-red, and began her maiden's prayer--the prayer that is infallible!

This time her voice was high and hard, for had not Mai KÂli to be compelled--yea! even by the greatest of sacrifices?

Higher and higher grew the voice; it did not falter at all: not even when at the final

"Hoom phut"

the girl, raising her hand on high, dashed the cocoanut she held upon the ground boldly.

There was a faint flash, an instant explosion, a grinding noise as the house rocked to its foundation, then steadied into quiescence.

But Parbutti had kept her promise to Mai KÂli, and to--him; for the Goddess might have satisfied Her craving for Blood, Her desire for Flesh amid the welter of broken stones and twisted grids, of shattered wood-carving and torn Benares khim-kob, of jewels rent apart and splintered bones, that was all remaining of Her shrine, Her image, and Her worshipper.

Whether She will keep her part of the bargain is another matter.

But the Maiden's Prayer has been said, the Greatest of Sacrifices has been made.