The skeleton by the bindunatigore in the room next to the one in which we
boys used to sleep. There hung the human skeleton. In the night,
it would rattle in the breeze which played about its bones. In the day,
these bones were rattled by us. We were taking lessons in osteology from
a student in the Campbell Medical School. For our guardians were determined to make
us masters of all the sciences. How far they succeeded, we need not
tell those who know us, and it is better hidden from those who do
not. Many years have passed since then. In the meantime, the skeleton
has vanished from the room, and the science of osteology from our brains,
leaving no trace behind. The other day, our house was crowded with guests,
and I had to pass the night in the same old room. In
these now unfamiliar surroundings, sleep refused to come, and as I tossed from
side to side, I heard all the hours of the night chimed one after
another by the church clock near by. At length, the lamp in the
corner of the room, after some minutes of choking and spluttering went out altogether.
One or two bereavements had recently happened in the family. So the going
out of the lamp naturally led me to thoughts of death in the great arena
of nature. I thought, the light of a lamp losing itself in eternal
darkness, and the going out of the light of our little human lives by
day or by night, or much the same thing. My train of thought
recalled to my mind the skeleton. While I was trying to imagine what the
body which had cloaked it could have been like, it suddenly seemed to me
that something was walking round and round my bed, groping along the walls of
the room. I could hear its rapid breathing. It seemed as if it
was searching for something which it could not find in pacing round the room with
ever hastier steps. I felt quite sure that this was a mere fancy of
my sleepless, excited brain, and that the throbbing of the veins in my
temples was really the sound which seemed like running footsteps. Nevertheless, a cold
shiver ran all over me. To help to get rid of this hallucination,
I called out aloud, who is there? The footsteps seemed to stop at
my bedside, and the reply came, it is I I have come to
look for that skeleton of mine. It seemed absurd to show any fear before
the creature of my own imagination. So clutching my pillow a little more tightly,
I said, in a casual sort of way, A nice business for
this time of night. Of What use will let skeleton be to you?
Now? The reply seemed to come almost from my musquito curtain itself. What
a question? In that skeleton? Were the bones that encircled my heart?
The youthful charm of my six and twenty years bloomed about it? Should I
not desire to see it once more? Of course, said I, A
perfectly reasonable desire. Well go on with your search while I try to get
a little sleep, said the voice. But I fancy you are lonely all
right, I'll sit down awhile and we will have a little chat. Years
ago I used to sit by men and talk to them. But during the
last thirty five years I have only moaned in the wind in the burning places
of the dead. I would talk once more with a man as in the
old times. I felt that someone sat down just near my curtain. Resigning
myself to the situation, I replied, with as much cordiality as I could
summon. That will be very nice. Indeed, let us talk of something
cheerful. The funniest thing I can think of is my own life story.
Let me tell you that the church clock chimed the hour of two. When
I was in the land of the living and young, I feared one thing,
like death itself, and that was my husband. My feelings can be
likened only to those of a fish caught with a hook, for it was
as if a stranger had snatched me away with the sharpest of hooks from the
peaceful calm of my childhood's home, and from him I had no means of
escape. My husband died two months after my marriage, and my friends and
relations moaned pathetically on my behalf. My husband's father, after scrutinizing my face
with great care, said to my mother in law, do you not see
she has the evil eye? Well? Are you listening? I hope you
are enjoying the story very much. Indeed, said I, the beginning is
extremely humorous. Let me proceed. Then I came back to my father's house
in great glee. People tried to conceal it from me, but I knew
well that I was endowed with a rare and radiant beauty. What is your
opinion? Very likely, I murmured, which you must remember that I never
saw you. What not seeing me? What about that skeleton of mine?
Ha ha ha, Never mind, I was only joking. How can I
ever make you believe that those two cavernous hollows contained the brightest of dark,
languishing eyes, and that the smile which was revealed by those ruby lips had
no resemblance whatever to the grinning teeth which you used to see. The mere
attempt to convey to you some idea of the grace, the charm, the
soft, firm, dimpled curves which, in the fullness of youth were growing
and blossoming over those dry old bones makes me smile. It also makes me
angry. The most eminent doctors of my time could not have dreamed of the
bones of that body of mine as materials for teaching osteology. Do you know
one young doctor that I knew of actually compared me to a golden chumpuck blossom.
It meant that to him the rest of humankind was fit only to illustrate
the science of physiology. That I was a flower of beauty? Does anyone
think of the skeleton of a chumpuck flower? When I walked, I felt
that, like a diamond scattering splendor, my every movement set waves of beauty
radiating on every side. I used to spend hours gazing on my hands,
hands which could gracefully have reigned the liveliest of male creatures. But that stark
and staring old skeleton of mine has borne false witness to you against me,
while I was unable to refute the shameless libel. That is why, of
all men I hate you most, I feel. I would like, once
for all to banish sleep from your eyes with a vision of that warm,
rosy loveliness of mine, to sweep out with it all the wretched osteological stuff
of which your brain is full. I could have sworn by your body,
cried I, if you had it still, that no vista of osteology has
remained in my head, and that the only thing that it is now full
of is a radiant vision of perfect loveliness glowing against the black background of night.
I cannot say more than that I had no girl companions, went on
the voice. My only brother had made up his mind not to marry in
the Zenana, I was alone. Alone. I used to sit in the
garden under the shade of trees and dreamed that the whole world was in love
with me, That the stars, with sleepless gaze were drinking in my beauty.
That the wind was languishing in size, as on some pretext or other
it brushed past me, And that the lawn on which my feet rested,
had it been conscious, would have lost consciousness again at their touch. It
seemed to me that all the young men in the world were as blades of
grass at my feet and my heart, I know not why used to grow
sad. When my brother's friend Shaikah had passed out of the medical college,
he became our family doctor. I had already often seen him from behind a
curtain. My brother was a strange man and did not care to look on
the world with open eyes. He was not quite empty enough for his taste,
so he gradually moved away from it until he was quite lost in an
obscure corner. Shaikah was his one friend, so he was the only young
man I could ever get to see. And when I held my evening court
in my garden, then the host of imaginary young men whom I hat at
my feet were each one as Shaikah, are you listening? What are you
thinking of? I sighed as I replied, I was wishing. I was
Shaikhah, wait a bit hear the whole story. First, one day in
the rains, I was feverish. The doctor came to see me. That
was our first meeting. I was reclining opposite the window so that the blush
of the evening sky might temper the pallor of my complexion. When the doctor
coming in, looked up into my face, I put myself into his place
and gazed at myself. In imagination, I saw, in the glorious evening
light, the delicate wan face lathe like a drooping flower against a soft white
pillow, with the unrestrained curls playing over the forehead, and the bashfully lowered
eyelids casting a pathetic shade over the whole countenance. The doctor, in a
tone bashfully low asked, my brother, might I feel her pulse? I
put out a tired, well rounded wrist from beneath the coverlet. Ah,
thought I as I looked on it, if only there had been a sapphire
bracelet. I have never before seen a doctor so awkward about feeling a patient's
pulse. His fingers trembled as I felt my wrist, he measured the heat
of my fever. I gazed the pulse of his heart. Don't you believe
me? Very easily, said I. The human heartbeat tells its tale.
After I had been taken ill and restored to health several times, I found
that the number of the courtiers who attended my imaginary evening reception began to dwindle,
till they were reduced to only one. And at last, in my
little world there remained only one doctor and one patient. In these evenings,
I used to dress myself secretly in a canary colored SADDI twine about the braided
knot into which I did my hair, a garland of white jasmine blossoms,
and with the little mirror in my hand, betake myself to my usual seat
under the trees. Well, are you perhaps thinking that the sight of one's
own beauty would soon grow wearisome? Ah? No, for I did not
see myself with my own eyes. I was then one, and also two.
I used to see myself as though I were the doctor. I gazed.
I was charmed. I fell madly in love, But in spite of
all the caresses I lavished on myself, a sigh would wander about my heart,
moaning like the evening breeze. Anyhow, from that time I was never
alone. When I walked, I watched with downcast eyes the play of my
dainty little toes on the earth, and wondered what the doctor would have felt,
had he been there to see. At mid day, the sky would
fill with the glare of the sun, without a sound save now and then
the distant cry of a passing kite. Outside our garden walls, the hawker
would pass with his musical cry of bangles for sale, crystal bangles, and
I, spreading the snow white sheet on the lawn, would lie on it
with my head on my arm, with steadied carelessness. The other arm would
rest lightly on the soft sheet, and I would imagine to myself that some
one had caught sight of the wonderful pose of my hand, that some one
had clasped it in both of his and imprinted a kiss on its rosy palm,
and was slowly walking away. What if I ended the story here,
how would it do not half a bad ending? I replied thoughtfully, it
would, no doubt remain little incomplete. But I could easily spend the rest
of the night putting in the finishing touches. But that would make the story
too serious. Where would the laugh come in? Where would be the skeleton
with its grinning teeth? So let me go on. As soon as the
doctor had got a little practice, he took a room on the ground floor
of our house for a consulting chamber. I used then sometimes to ask him
jokingly about medicines and poisons, and how much of this strog or that would
kill a man. The subject was congenial, and he would wax eloquent.
These talks familiarize me with the idea of death, and so love and death
were the only two things that filled my little world. My story is now
nearly ended. There is not much left. Not much of the night is
left, either, I muttered. After a time, I noticed that the
doctor had grown strangely upsent minded, and it seemed as if he were ashamed
of something which he was trying to keep from me. One day he came
in somewhat smartly dressed and borrowed my brother's carriage for the evening. My curiosity
became too much for me, and I went up to my brother for information.
After some talk beside the point, I at last asked him, by
the way, thada, where is a doctor going this evening in your carriage?
My brother briefly replied to his death, Oh, do tell me,
I importuned. Where is he really going to be married? He said a
little more explicitly. Oh, indeed, said I, As I laughed long
and loudly, I gradually learned that the bride was an heiress who would bring
the doctor a large sum of money. But why did he insult me by
hiding all this from me? Had I ever begged and prayed him not to
marry because it would break my heart? Men are not to be trusted.
I have known only one man in all my life, and in a moment
I made this discovery. When the doctor came in after his work and was
ready to start, I said to him, rippling with laughter, the while,
well, doctor, so you are to be married to night? My
gayety not only made the doctor lose countenance, it thoroughly irritated him. How
is it? I went on, that there is no illumination, no band
of music. With a sigh, he replied, is marriage then such?
A joyful occasion, I burst out into renewed laughter. No, no,
said I, this will never do. Whoever heard of a wedding without lights
and music? I bothered my brother about it so much that he at once
ordered all the trappings of a gay wedding. All the time I kept on
gaily talking of the bride, of what would happen, of what I would
do. When the bride came home and doctor, I asked, will you
still go on feeling pulses? Ha ha ha. Though the inner workings of
people's, especially men's minds, are not visible, still I can take my
oath that these words were piercing the doctor's bosom like deadly darts. The marriage
was to be celebrated late at night. Before starting, the doctor and my
brother were having a glass of wine together on the terrace, as was their
daily habit. The moon had just risen. I went up, smiling and
said, have you forgotten your wedding? Doctor? It is time to start.
I must here tell you one little thing. I had meanwhile gone down
to the dispensary and got a little powder, which, at a convenient opportunity,
I had dropped unobserved into the doctor's glass. The doctor, draining his
glass at a gulp, in a voice thick with emotion, and with the
look that pierced me to the heart, said, then I must go.
The music struck up. I went into my room and dressed myself in my
bridal robes of silk and gold. I took out my jewelry and ornaments from
the safe and put them all on. I put the red mark of wifehood
on the parting in my hair. Then under the tree in the garden I
prepared my bed. It was a beautiful night. The gentle south wind was
kissing away the wariness of the world. The scent of jasmine and bella filled
the garden with rejoicing. When the sound of the music began to grow fainter
and fainter, the light of the moon to get dimmer and dimmer, the
world, with its life long associations of home and kin, to fade away
from my perceptions like some illusion. Then I closed my eyes and smiled.
I fancied that when people came and found me, they would see that smile
of mine lingering on my lips like a trace of rose colored wine. That
when I thus slowly entered my eternal bridle chamber, I should carry with me
the smile illuminating my face, But alas for the bridle chamber, alas for
the bridal robes of silk and gold. When I woke at the sound of
a rattling within me, I found three urchins learning osteology from my skeleton,
where in my bosom my joys and griefs used to throb, and the petals
of youth to open one by one. There the master with this pointer was
busy naming my bones. And as to that last smile, which I had
so carefully rehearsed, did you see any sign of that? Well? Well,
how did you like the story? It has been delightful, said I.
At this point, the first crow began to call, are you there?
I asked. There was no reply. The morning light entered the room
end of the skeleton.