Or now she is in trouble—her lord is at the wars, and her little ones are defenceless in the Fortress which overlooks the desert ... what shall she do? She sends her bracelet, and a strand of silk, a circlet of gold—it is but a symbol, to him whom hereby she calls her Brother, “Bracelet-bound-Brother”—and hereafter her soul knows no fear.
And he? the Brother—whose but hers is his devotion, his life; and he gives both willingly, albeit knowing he may never even see the face of her he serves. Not the crassest mind would attach the smallest scandal to the relationship.... And perhaps selflessness in love, the love of a man, has seldom in India reached a higher level.... And that brings me to a reminiscence.
It was a hot day in an extra oppressive June, and I was making my way through the Bazaar of a Raj Town—to the rabbit warren where burrowed the workers in enamel. The Bazaar itself was full of interest—open-air booths, gay with glass bangles and draperies; quaint ox-carts, tied up in gorgeous red “lampshades” to shelter the bargaining Purdahnashin; wedding processions; priests with begging bowls, and pontifical bulls, small and white and saucy, moving from grain stall to vegetables, exacting toll at will.... But my Master-worker had more still to chain me. The artists sat on the roof, dreaming their colour dreams. They told me they worked on the roof because in a busy town you cannot get near enough to the Earth-Mother; and you are reduced to lessening the distance between you and the sky. “What would you?—something living must watch a man at work—if he wants perfection.”
They sat before queer little tables; some beat out on the rich gold trinket the pattern which was to hold the colour—mixed to some secret prescription, old as the City, of precious stones ground fine as powder; others painted—their pallet, slabs of brass with five finger marks for hollow; their brush, steel needles. All the light and colour in the sky seemed entrapped in that workshop. And now, suddenly the light has gone, and the workmen grope after their tools and pack them away; and the roof is left to the women and me.
They were telling me a story—the old-time one of that Queen who full of grief at her lord’s cowardice in refusing to stand by his overlord, had buried herself alive under a sour plum-tree, which ever after grew and flourished exceedingly in appraisement of her deed. “Tchut”! said one: “Bury herself—what work! Better far have girt his sword upon that not-man, and sent him forth in the name of his Fathers, and of all the fighters yet unborn.”... And all the other women wagged their heads in appreciation of this sentiment.
Now I had heard that story last in Bengal. But far other was the comment. The Bengal variant tells of the clever subtlety with which the husband avoided the battle, and how it was only the wife’s action which betrayed him to the overlord, who said, “Because this woman had shame in her heart for a man’s cowardice, the women of this house shall for ever be called ‘Queens,’ but their husbands shall not be Kings.”
And when they get as far as that, the women say: “What! can any desire widowhood? Alas, what little love the Ranee had, not to rejoice that her lord was saved the danger of death! Alas! what defect in love to cast blame upon him in dying!”
But it is never in Bengal that the story is followed by another old as the Sack of Chittore. The Rajput widow is about to spring into the flames when she sees the boy who saw her husband die. She pauses awhile, and “Oh Badal,” says she, “tell me ere I go hence to join my lord—tell me how he bore himself against his enemy.” And Badal: “He was the reaper of the harvest of battle. I followed his steps as the humble gleaner of his sword, on the bed of honour he spread a carpet of the slain—a barbarian Prince his pillow, he laid him down: and he sleeps ringed about by his foes.”
Hearing which she of the warrior caste, goes smiling through the fire to her tryst.
The fact is, you see, the ideals of the women are not the same. Both have given to the world, do give to the world, new types of perfection in love; but to one, love means the service of the world, and compulsion of the highest in her Beloved to that end; to the other it means just the service of her lord, it means self-abnegation and worship to the exclusion of all criticism.