His words gave me a curious thrill; but there is no more matter-of-fact being in the world than a Calcutta Bachelor of Arts; so the pundit at once began a cross-examination that would have done credit to a Queen's counsel. "What flood? who were 'we'?" These and many other questions put with brutal bluntness met with a patient reply.
It had been a very big flood, somewhere, God knows how far, in the south country. One, two, three years ago? Oh, more than that! but he could not say how much more. The bard who sang and the woman who carried the vina had disappeared, been swept away perhaps. Since then he, Râmchunderji, had wandered over the world filling his stomach and that of his wife Seeta with songs. Their stomachs were not always full; oh, no! Of late (perhaps because the vina was so old) people had not cared to listen, and since the great flood nothing could be got without money. Seeta? Oh, yes! she was his wife. They had been married ever so long; he could not remember the time when they had not been married.
It was Narayan Das's opportunity for shaking his head. These infant marriages were subversive of due education. Here was a boy, who should be in Standard II. doing the compound rules, idling about in ignorance. It struck me, however, that Râmchunderji must be pretty well on to vulgar fractions and rule of three, with himself, Seeta, and the world as the denominators, so I asked him if his heart were still so devoid of greed that another four-anna bit would be welcome. His face showed a pained surprise. The Presence, he said, must be aware that four annas would fill their stomachs (which were not big) for many days. They had not come for alms, only to make music for the Presence out of gratitude. Thinking that music out of an ill-tuned vina was hardly the same thing, I forced another four-anna bit on the boy and sent him away.
Nearly a month passed ere I saw him again, though Narayan Das and I used, as the days grew warmer, to sit out in the trellised arch, within sight of the road. My knowledge of Sanskrit increased as I read of Râmchunderji's long exile, shared by Seeta, his wife; of how he killed the beasts in the enchanted forest; how she was reft from him by Râvana, the hydra-headed many-handed monster; and of how finally she was restored to his arms by the help of Hanumân the man-monkey, the child of the wild winds. But though the pundit used to waste many words in pointing out the beauties of a poem which held such hold on the minds of the people that their commonest names were derived from it, I never seemed to get into the spirit of the time as I had done when I listened with closed eyes to the boy's debased, illiterate rendering of the s'lokas.
It was after the school vacation had sent Narayan Das to see his relatives at Benares that the odd little couple turned up again. Râmchunderji's face looked more pinched and careworn than ever, and as he held the vina across his knees, Seeta, losing its contours, seemed more than ever inadequate to her veil.
"Perhaps one of the many devils which beset the virtuous has entered into the instrument," he said despondently; "but when I play, folk listen not at all. So greed remaineth in the stomach, and the heart is empty."
I offered him another four-anna bit, and when he demurred at taking it before beguiling the time with music, I laid it on the flat skin top of one of the gourds, hoping thus to ensure silence.
The wrinkles on his forehead seemed to go right up into his turban, and his voice took a perplexed tone. "It used not to be so. Before the flood Seeta and I had no thought of money; but now--" He began fingering the strings softly, and as they thrilled, the four-anna bit vibrated and jigged in a murmur of money that fitted strangely to the sort of rude chant in which he went on.
"Money is in the hands, the head, the heart;
Give! give, give, before we give again;