[7] Victory to thee, Maharáj!
[8] Loin-cloth.
[9] Melted butter.
CHAPTER VI.
| "God has a few of us, whom He whispers in the ear; |
| The rest may reason and welcome...." |
| —Browning. |
"Living still, and the more beautiful for our longing." |
The house of Sir Lakshman Singh, C.S.I.—like many others in advancing India—was a house divided against itself. And the cleavage cut deep. The furnishing of the two rooms, in which he mainly lived, was not more sharply sundered from that of the Inside, than was the atmosphere of his large and vigorous mind from the twilight of ignorance and superstition that shrouded the mind and soul of his wife. More than fifty years ago—when young India ardently admired the West and all its works—he had dreamed of educating his spirited girl-bride, so that the way of companionship might gladden the way of marriage.
But too soon the spirited girl had hardened into the narrow, tyrannical woman; her conception of the wifely state limited to the traditional duties of motherhood and household service. Happily for Sir Lakshman, his unusual gifts had gained him wide recognition and high service in the State. He had schooled himself, long since, to forget his early dreams: and if marriage had failed, fatherhood had made royal amends. Above all, in Lilámani, daughter of flesh and spirit, he had found—had in a measure created—the intimate companionship he craved; a woman skilled in the fine art of loving—finest and least studied of all the arts that enrich and beautify human life. But the gods, it seemed, were jealous of a relation too nearly perfect for mortal man. So Rama, eldest son, and Lilámani, beloved daughter, had been taken, while the estranged wife was left. Remained the grandchildren, in whom centred all his hope and pride. So far as the dividing miles and years would permit, he had managed to keep in close touch with Roy. But the fact remained that England had first claim on Lilámani's children; and Rama's were tossed on the troubled waters of transition.
As for India herself—sacred Mother-land—her distraught soul seemed more and more at the mercy of the voluble, the half-baked, the disruptive, at home and abroad.
Himself, steeped in the threefold culture of his country—Vedantic, Islamic, and European—he came very near the prevailing ideal of composite Indian nationality. Yet was he not deceived. In seventy years of life, he had seen intellectual India pass through many phases, from ardent admiration of the West and all its works, to no less ardent denunciation. And in these days he saw too clearly how those same intellectuals—with catchwords, meaningless to nine-tenths of her people—were breaking down, stone by stone, their mighty safeguard of British administration. Useless to protest. Having ears, they heard not. Having eyes, they saw not. The spirit of destruction seemed abroad in all the earth. After Germany—Russia. Would it be India next? He knew her peoples well enough to fear. He also knew them well enough to hope. But of late, increasingly, fear had prevailed. His shrewd eye discerned, in every direction, fresh portents of disaster—a weakened executive, divided counsels, and violence that is the offspring of both. His own Maharája, he thanked God, was of the old school, loyal and conservative: his face set like a flint against the sedition-monger in print or person. And as concessions multiplied and extremists waxed bolder, so the need for vigilance waxed in proportion....