"Come, wife! There is no time for such things nowadays. Stay wrangling if thou wilt. I hate it all. Holy Lukshmi! it hath been so since the world began, and I am tired of it!"
He scarcely knew his own meaning; only this was clear--the old customs, the old conventional ways were an annoyance. Yet, as he walked moodily down the narrow street towards the police station, his mind circled round one thought--he had a right by immemorial usage to claim Durga if he chose. A queer medley altogether was Gopâl, the coppersmith, seated in the growing darkness on a certain flight of steps leading at one and the same time to a small Hindu temple and the back door of a native printing-office. Just over the way a yellow-trousered constable was pacing up and down in front of the police and octroi station, between a patent Birmingham-made weighing machine, warranted all the latest improvements, and a primitive water-clock; thus as it were keeping watch over the due measurement of the two great staples of civilisation--Time and Money, and looking with equal impartiality at the rising beam registering its burden accurately, and the copper bowl--made no doubt by a forebear of Gopâl's--sinking lower and lower as the water filtered through the hole in its bottom, until it marked the whereabouts of an hour by having to be fished up and set afloat once more on the Sea of Time--like the soul of a man according to the theory of metempsychosis. This flight of steps was a favourite resort of the idle, for, lying as it did just within the city gate, it was a coign of vantage whence things new and old might be seen clearly side by side. Gopâl liked it, because he himself was compounded of ancient characters and modern ideas. He sat gossiping over an ill-printed newspaper, watching the worshippers go up to do pooja in the temple, commenting on the last police news, and the chance of so and so being run in for a breach of the bye-laws; while through the high arched gateway, showing in shadow against the darkening sky, the herds of cattle came trooping dustily, undriven save by custom and the homing instinct. A packed throng, streaming through the gate in unison, then separating into flocks, and so, by endless unswerving subdivision through highways and byeways, into units, arriving each at last in the familiar stall. One of them, a big, pearl-grey, soft-eyed creature, walked in composedly to the courtyard where Durga-dei still crouched by the ashes of the fire, and, sidling into her accustomed corner, lowed for her supper. The woman rose and brought it mechanically. The cow at any rate must not fast. As she mixed the portion of parched grain with the fodder it smelt appetising, but she did not taste it. The hunger that was on her was not to be stayed by food. She did not envy Parbutti away at the wedding festivities at a neighbour's house--those festivities whence the ill-omened widow's face was barred; she did not envy Gopâl sitting on the steps watching the current of life slip into the old and the new channels, but in a vague way she envied Motiya, the milk-giver, her honoured place by the hearthstone. She envied her the calf which the milker on his rounds loosed from its tether in the dark shed, and an answering quiver seemed to run through her limbs as she saw the mother yield to the first rough touch of the sucking tongue. When that was over, she crouched down again to brood over the empty house. Parbutti would not be back till all hours, and Gopâl--what of Gopâl?
The night settled down. There was no moon, only a spangled star or two showing in the narrow slip of sky above her. The noise of the city without seemed lost in the stillness of the courtyard, where, through the darkness, you could hear the sound of Motiya chewing the cud of content.
That in one corner; in the other something different, and yet--
"Durga! Durga-dei!"
It was Gopâl's voice through the darkness.
II.
The dark nights had yielded to light ones, and drawn back into darkness again more than once, before the second act of the drama began. Such a still night! The moon over-riding the high walls shone straight down upon a man and a woman standing beside the row of fireplaces where the dead ashes of the past day's flame showed white. Through the stillness and the moonshine a man's voice petulant, almost peevish.
"Lo! I told thee from the beginning it must be so. There is time yet. Have patience awhile, Durga; when there is no escape Parbutti will yield--that is woman's way. Thou knowest that I love thee; were it not so why should I have sought thee?" Durga's clasped hands fell from their hold upon his arm listlessly.
"Yea! thou didst love me; that is true. And I? Knowest thou, Gopâl, why my heart sinks now as it never did when first I yielded to thy plan for peace? Then it seemed naught to keep it secret awhile--no harm--no blame; but now--Gopâl! knowest thou it comes upon me even as if I were a shameless one--since--since I have learnt to care--"