Hindu literature : Comprising The Book of good counsels, Nala and Damayanti, The Ramayana, and Sakoontala
Hindu literature : Comprising The Book of good counsels, Nala and Damayanti, The Ramayana, and Sakoontala-20
FIRST ATTENDANT.—Very well. [Exit.
CHILD.—No, no; I shall go on playing with the young lion.
[Looks at the female attendant and laughs.
KING.—I feel an unaccountable affection for this wayward child.
How blessed the virtuous parents whose attire
Is soiled with dust, by raising from the ground
The child that asks a refuge in their arms!
And happy are they while with lisping prattle,
In accents sweetly inarticulate,
He charms their ears; and with his artless smiles
Gladdens their hearts, revealing to their gaze
His tiny teeth, just budding into view.
ATTENDANT.—I see how it is. He pays me no manner of attention.
[Looking off the stage.] I wonder whether any of the hermits are about
here. [Seeing the King.] Kind Sir, could you come hither a moment and
help me to release the young lion from the clutch of this child, who is
teasing him in boyish play?
KING [approaching and smiling].—Listen to me, thou child of a mighty
saint.
Dost thou dare show a wayward spirit here?
Here, in this hallowed region? Take thou heed
Lest, as the serpent's young defiles the sandal,
Thou bring dishonor on the holy sage,
Thy tender-hearted parent, who delights
To shield from harm the tenants of the wood.
ATTENDANT.—Gentle Sir, I thank you; but he is not the saint's son.
KING.—His behavior and whole bearing would have led me to doubt it, had
not the place of his abode encouraged the idea.
[Follows the child, and takes him by the hand, according to the request
of the attendant. Speaking aside.
I marvel that the touch of this strange child
Should thrill me with delight; if so it be,
How must the fond caresses of a son
Transport the father's soul who gave him being!
ATTENDANT [looking at them both].—Wonderful! Prodigious!
KING.—What excites your surprise, my good woman?
ATTENDANT.—I am astonished at the striking resemblance between the
child and yourself; and, what is still more extraordinary, he seems to
have taken to you kindly and submissively, though you are a stranger to
him.
KING [fondling the child].—If he be not the son of the great sage, of
what family does he come, may I ask?
ATTENDANT.—Of the race of Puru.
KING [aside].—What! are we, then, descended from the same ancestry?
This, no doubt, accounts for the resemblance she traces between the
child and me. Certainly it has always been an established usage among
the princes of Puru's race,
To dedicate the morning of their days
To the world's weal, in palaces and halls,
'Mid luxury and regal pomp abiding;
Then, in the wane of life, to seek release
From kingly cares, and make the hallowed shade
Of sacred trees their last asylum, where
As hermits they may practise self-abasement,
And bind themselves by rigid vows of penance.
[Aloud.] But how could mortals by their own power gain admission to
this sacred region?
ATTENDANT.—Your remark is just; but your wonder will cease when I tell
you that his mother is the offspring of a celestial nymph, and gave him
birth in the hallowed grove of Kaśyapa.
KING [aside].—Strange that my hopes should be again excited!
[Aloud.] But what, let me ask, was the name of the prince whom she
deigned to honor with her hand?
ATTENDANT.—How could I think of polluting my lips by the mention of a
wretch who had the cruelty to desert his lawful wife?
KING [aside].—Ha! the description suits me exactly. Would I could
bring myself to inquire the name of the child's mother! [Reflecting.]
But it is against propriety to make too minute inquiries about the wife
of another man.
FIRST ATTENDANT [entering with the china peacock in her
hand].—Sarva-damana, Sarva-damana, see, see, what a beautiful Śakoonta
(bird).
CHILD [looking round].—My mother! Where? Let me go to her.
BOTH ATTENDANTS.—He mistook the word Śakoonta for Śakoontalá. The boy
dotes upon his mother, and she is ever uppermost in his thoughts.
SECOND ATTENDANT.—Nay, my dear child, I said, Look at the beauty of
this Śakoonta.
KING [aside].—What! is his mother's name Śakoontalá? But the name is
not uncommon among women. Alas! I fear the mere similarity of a name,
like the deceitful vapor of the desert, has once more raised my hopes
only to dash them to the ground.
CHILD [takes the toy].—Dear nurse, what a beautiful peacock!
FIRST ATTENDANT [looking at the child. In great distress].—Alas!
alas! I do not see the amulet on his wrist.
KING.—Don't distress yourself. Here it is. It fell off while he was
struggling with the young lion.
[Stoops to pick it up.
BOTH ATTENDANTS.—Hold! hold! Touch it not, for your life. How
marvellous! He has actually taken it up without the slightest
hesitation.[Both raise their hands to their breasts and look at each other in
astonishment.
KING.—Why did you try to prevent my touching it?
FIRST ATTENDANT.—Listen, great Monarch. This amulet, known as "The
Invincible," was given to the boy by the divine son of Maríchi, soon
after his birth, when the natal ceremony was performed. Its peculiar
virtue is, that when it falls on the ground, no one excepting the father
or mother of the child can touch it unhurt.
KING.—And suppose another person touches it?
FIRST ATTENDANT.—Then it instantly becomes a serpent, and bites him.
KING.—Have you ever witnessed the transformation with your own eyes?
BOTH ATTENDANTS.—Over and over again.
KING [with rapture. Aside].—Joy! joy! Are then my dearest hopes to be
fulfilled?
[Embraces the child.
SECOND ATTENDANT.—Come, my dear Suvratá, we must inform Śakoontalá
immediately of this wonderful event, though we have to interrupt her in
the performance of her religious vows.
[Exeunt.
CHILD [to the King].—Do not hold me. I want to go to my mother.
KING.—We will go to her together, and give her joy, my son.
CHILD.—Dushyanta is my father, not you.
KING [smiling].—His contradiction convinces me only the more.
Enter Śakoontalá, in widow's apparel, with her long hair twisted into a
single braid.
ŚAKOONTALÁ [aside].—I have just heard that Sarva-damana's amulet has
retained its form, though a stranger raised it from the ground. I can
hardly believe in my good fortune. Yet why should not Sánumatí's
prediction be verified?
KING [gazing at Śakoontalá].—Alas! can this indeed be my Śakoontalá?
Clad in the weeds of widowhood, her face
Emaciate with fasting, her long hair
Twined in a single braid, her whole demeanor
Expressive of her purity of soul:
With patient constancy she thus prolongs
The vow to which my cruelty condemned her.
ŚAKOONTALÁ [gazing at the King, who is pale with remorse]. Surely this
is not like my husband; yet who can it be that dares pollute by the
pressure of his hand my child, whose amulet should protect him from a
stranger's touch?
CHILD [going to his mother].—Mother, who is this man that has been
kissing me and calling me his son?
KING.—My best beloved, I have indeed treated thee most cruelly, but am
now once more thy fond and affectionate lover. Refuse not to acknowledge
me as thy husband.
ŚAKOONTALÁ [aside].—Be of good cheer, my heart. The anger of Destiny
is at last appeased. Heaven regards thee with compassion. But is he in
very truth my husband?
KING.—Behold me, best and loveliest of women,
Delivered from the cloud of fatal darkness
That erst oppressed my memory. Again
Behold us brought together by the grace
Of the great lord of Heaven. So the moon
Shines forth from dim eclipse, to blend his rays
With the soft lustre of his Rohiní.
ŚAKOONTALÁ.—May my husband be victorious———
[She stops short, her voice choked with tears.
KING.—O fair one, though the utterance of thy prayer
Be lost amid the torrent of thy tears,
Yet does the sight of thy fair countenance,
And of thy pallid lips, all unadorned
And colorless in sorrow for my absence,
Make me already more than conqueror.
CHILD.—Mother, who is this man?
ŚAKOONTALÁ.—My child, ask the deity that presides over thy destiny.
KING [falling at Śakoontalá's feet].—Fairest of women, banish from
thy mind
The memory of my cruelty; reproach
The fell delusion that overpowered my soul,
And blame not me, thy husband; 'tis the curse
Of him in whom the power of darkness reigns,
That he mistakes the gifts of those he loves
For deadly evils. Even though a friend
Should wreathe a garland on a blind man's brow,
Will he not cast it from him as a serpent?
ŚAKOONTALÁ.—Rise, my own husband, rise. Thou wast not to blame. My own
evil deeds, committed in a former state of being, brought down this
judgment upon me. How else could my husband, who was ever of a
compassionate disposition, have acted so unfeelingly? [The King
rises.] But tell me, my husband, how did the remembrance of thine
unfortunate wife return to thy mind?
KING.—As soon as my heart's anguish is removed, and its wounds are
healed, I will tell thee all.
Oh! let me, fair one, chase away the drop
That still bedews the fringes of thine eye;
And let me thus efface the memory
Of every tear that stained thy velvet cheek,
Unnoticed and unheeded by thy lord,
When in his madness he rejected thee.
[Wipes away the tear.
ŚAKOONTALÁ [seeing the signet-ring on his finger].—Ah! my dear
husband, is that the Lost Ring?
KING.—Yes; the moment I recovered it, my memory was restored.
ŚAKOONTALÁ.—The ring was to blame in allowing itself to be lost at the
very time when I was anxious to convince my noble husband of the reality
of my marriage.
KING.—Receive it back, as the beautiful twining plant receives again
its blossom in token of its reunion with the spring.
ŚAKOONTALÁ.—Nay; I can never more place confidence in it. Let my
husband retain it.
Enter Mátali.
MÁTALI.—I congratulate your Majesty. Happy are you in your reunion with
your wife: happy are you in beholding the face of your son.
KING.—Yes, indeed. My heart's dearest wish has borne sweet fruit. But
tell me, Mátali, is this joyful event known to the great Indra?
MÁTALI [smiling].—What is unknown to the gods? But come with me,
noble Prince, the divine Kaśyapa graciously permits thee to be presented
to him.
KING.—Śakoontalá, take our child and lead the way. We will together go
into the presence of the holy Sage.
ŚAKOONTALÁ.—I shrink from entering the august presence of the great
Saint, even with my husband at my side.
KING.—Nay; on such a joyous occasion it is highly proper. Come, come; I
entreat thee. [All advance.
Kaśyapa is discovered seated on a throne with his wife Aditi.
KAŚYAPA [gazing at Dushyanta. To his wife].—O Aditi,
This is the mighty hero, King Dushyanta,
Protector of the earth; who, at the head
Of the celestial armies of thy son,
Does battle with the enemies of heaven.
Thanks to his bow, the thunderbolt of Indra
Rests from its work, no more the minister
Of death and desolation to the world,
But a mere symbol of divinity.
ADITI.—He bears in his noble form all the marks of dignity.
MÁTALI [to Dushyanta].—Sire, the venerable progenitors of the
celestials are gazing at your Majesty with as much affection as if you
were their son. You may advance towards them.
KING.—Are these, O Mátali, the holy pair,
Offspring of Daksha and divine Maríchi,
Children of Brahmá's sons, by sages deemed
Sole fountain of celestial light, diffused
Through twelve effulgent orbs? Are these the pair
From whom the ruler of the triple world,
Sovereign of gods and lord of sacrifice,
Sprang into being? That immortal pair
Whom Vishnu, greater than the self-existent,
Chose for his parents, when, to save mankind,
He took upon himself the shape of mortals?
MÁTALI.—Even so.
KING [prostrating himself].—Most august of beings, Dushyanta, content
to have fulfilled the commands of your son Indra, offers you his
adoration.
KAŚYAPA.—My son, long may'st thou live, and happily may'st thou reign
over the earth!
ADITI.—My son, may'st thou ever be invincible in the field of battle!
ŚAKOONTALÁ.—I also prostrate myself before you, most adorable beings,
and my child with me.
KAŚYAPA.—My daughter,
Thy lord resembles Indra, and thy child
Is noble as Jayanta, Indra's son;
I have no worthier blessing left for thee,
May'st thou be faithful as the god's own wife!
ADITI.—My daughter, may'st thou be always the object of thy husband's
fondest love; and may thy son live long to be the joy of both his
parents! Be seated.
[All sit down in the presence of Kaśyapa.
KAŚYAPA [regarding each of them by turns].—Hail to the beautiful
Śakoontalá!
Hail to her noble son! and hail to thee,
Illustrious Prince! Rare triple combination
Of virtue, wealth, and energy united!
KING.—Most venerable Kaśyapa, by your favor all my desires were
accomplished even before I was admitted to your presence. Never was
mortal so honored that his boon should be granted ere it was solicited.
Because,
Bloom before fruit, the clouds before the rain—
Cause first and then effect, in endless sequence,
Is the unchanging law of constant nature:
But, ere the blessing issued from thy lips,
The wishes of my heart were all fulfilled.
MÁTALI.—It is thus that the great progenitors of the world confer
favors.
KING.—Most reverend Sage, this thy handmaid was married to me by the
Gandharva ceremony, and after a time was conducted to my palace by her
relations. Meanwhile a fatal delusion seized me; I lost my memory and
rejected her, thus committing a grievous offence against the venerable
Kanwa, who is of thy divine race. Afterwards the sight of this ring
restored my faculties, and brought back to my mind all the circumstances
of my union with his daughter. But my conduct still seems to me
incomprehensible;
As foolish as the fancies of a man
Who, when he sees an elephant, denies
That 'tis an elephant, yet afterwards,
When its huge bulk moves onward, hesitates,
Yet will not be convinced till it has passed
Forever from his sight, and left behind
No vestige of its presence save its footsteps.
KASYAPA.—My son, cease to think thyself in fault. Even the delusion
that possessed thy mind was not brought about by any act of thine.
Listen to me.
KING.—I am attentive.
KASYAPA.—Know that when the nymph Menaká, the mother of Śakoontalá,
became aware of her daughter's anguish in consequence of the loss of the
ring at the nymphs' pool, and of thy subsequent rejection of her, she
brought her and confided her to the care of Aditi. And I no sooner saw
her than I ascertained by my divine power of meditation, that thy
repudiation of thy poor faithful wife had been caused entirely by the
curse of Durvásas—not by thine own fault—and that the spell would
terminate on the discovery of the ring.
KING [drawing a deep breath].—Oh! what a weight is taken off my mind,
now that my character is cleared of reproach.
ŚAKOONTALÁ [aside].—Joy! joy! My revered husband did not, then,
reject me without good reason, though I have no recollection of the
curse pronounced upon me. But, in all probability, I unconsciously
brought it upon myself, when I was so distracted on being separated from
my husband soon after our marriage. For I now remember that my two
friends advised me not to fail to show the ring in case he should have
forgotten me.
KAŚYAPA.—At last, my daughter, thou art happy, and hast gained thy
heart's desire. Indulge, then, no feeling of resentment against thy
partner. See, now,
Though he repulsed thee, 'twas the sage's curse
That clouded his remembrance; 'twas the curse
That made thy tender husband harsh towards thee.
Soon as the spell was broken, and his soul
Delivered from its darkness, in a moment
Thou didst gain thine empire o'er his heart.
So on the tarnished surface of a mirror
No image is reflected, till the dust
That dimmed its wonted lustre is removed.
KING.—Holy father, see here the hope of my royal race.
[Takes his child by the hand.
KAŚYAPA.—Know that he, too, will become the monarch of the whole earth.
Observe,
Soon, a resistless hero, shall he cross
The trackless ocean, borne above the waves
In an aerial car; and shall subdue
The earth's seven sea-girt isles. Now has he gained,
As the brave tamer of the forest-beasts,
The title Sarva-damana; but then
Mankind shall hail him as King Bharata,
And call him the supporter of the world.
KING.—We cannot but entertain the highest hopes of a child for whom
your highness performed the natal rites.
ADITI.—My revered husband, should not the intelligence be conveyed to
Kanwa, that his daughter's wishes are fulfilled, and her happiness
complete? He is Śakoontalá's foster-father. Menaká, who is one of my
attendants, is her mother, and dearly does she love her daughter.
ŚAKOONTALÁ [aside].—The venerable matron has given utterance to the
very wish that was in my mind.
KAŚYAPA.—His penances have gained for him the faculty of omniscience,
and the whole scene is already present to his mind's eye.
KING.—Then most assuredly he cannot be very angry with me.
KAŚYAPA.—Nevertheless it becomes us to send him intelligence of this
happy event, and hear his reply. What, ho there!
PUPIL [entering].—Holy father, what are your commands?
KAŚYAPA.—My good Gálava, delay not an instant, but hasten through the
air and convey to the venerable Kanwa, from me, the happy news that the
fatal spell has ceased, that Dushyanta's memory is restored, that his
daughter Śakoontalá has a son, and that she is once more tenderly
acknowledged by her husband.
PUPIL.—Your highness's commands shall be obeyed. [Exit.
KAŚYAPA.—And now, my dear son, take thy consort and thy child,
re-ascend the car of Indra, and return to thy imperial capital.
KING.—Most holy father, I obey.
KAŚYAPA.—And accept this blessing—
For countless ages may the god of gods,
Lord of the atmosphere, by copious showers
Secure abundant harvest to thy subjects;
And thou by frequent offerings preserve
The Thunderer's friendship! Thus, by interchange
Of kindly actions, may you both confer
Unnumbered benefits on earth and heaven!
KING.—Holy father, I will strive, as far as I am able, to attain this
happiness.
KAŚYAPA.—What other favor can I bestow on thee, my son?
KING.—What other can I desire? If, however, you permit me to form
another wish, I would humbly beg that the saying of the sage Bharata be
fulfilled:—
May kings reign only for their subjects' weal!
May the divine Saraswati, the source
Of speech, and goddess of dramatic art,
Be ever honored by the great and wise!
And may the purple self-existent god,
Whose vital Energy pervades all space,
From future transmigrations save my soul!
[Exeunt omnes.
BALLADS OF HINDOSTAN
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS
BY
TORU DUTT
INTRODUCTION
If Toru Dutt were alive, she would still be younger than any recognized
European writer, and yet her fame, which is already considerable, has
been entirely posthumous. Within the brief space of four years which now
divides us from the date of her decease, her genius has been revealed to
the world under many phases, and has been recognized throughout France
and England. Her name, at least, is no longer unfamiliar in the ear of
any well-read man or woman. But at the hour of her death she had
published but one book, and that book had found but two reviewers in
Europe. One of these, M. André Theuriet, the well-known poet and
novelist, gave the "Sheaf gleaned in French Fields" adequate praise in
the "Revue des Deux Mondes"; but the other, the writer of the present
notice, has a melancholy satisfaction in having been a little earlier
still in sounding the only note of welcome which reached the dying
poetess from England. It was while Professor W. Minto was editor of the
"Examiner," that one day in August, 1876, in the very heart of the dead
season for books, I happened to be in the office of that newspaper, and
was upbraiding the whole body of publishers for issuing no books worth
reviewing. At that moment the postman brought in a thin and sallow
packet with a wonderful Indian postmark on it, and containing a most
unattractive orange pamphlet of verse, printed at Bhowanipore, and
entitled "A Sheaf gleaned in French Fields, by Toru Dutt." This shabby
little book of some two hundred pages, without preface or introduction,
seemed specially destined by its particular providence to find its way
hastily into the waste-paper basket. I remember that Mr. Minto thrust it
into my unwilling hands, and said "There! see whether you can't make
something of that." A hopeless volume it seemed, with its queer type,
published at Bhowanipore, printed at the Saptahiksambad Press! But when
at last I took it out of my pocket, what was my surprise and almost
rapture to open at such verse as this:—
"Still barred thy doors! The far East glows,
The morning wind blows fresh and free.
Should not the hour that wakes the rose
Awaken also thee?
"All look for thee, Love, Light, and Song,
Light in the sky deep red above,
Song, in the lark of pinions strong,
And in my heart, true Love.
"Apart we miss our nature's goal,
Why strive to cheat our destinies?
Was not my love made for thy soul?
Thy beauty for mine eyes?
No longer sleep,
Oh, listen now!
I wait and weep,
But where art thou?"
When poetry is as good as this it does not much matter whether Rouveyre
prints it upon Whatman paper, or whether it steals to light in blurred
type from some press in Bhowanipore.
Toru Dutt was the youngest of the three children of a high-caste Hindoo
couple in Bengal. Her father, who survives them all, the Baboo Govin
Chunder Dutt, is himself distinguished among his countrymen for the
width of his views and the vigor of his intelligence. His only son,
Abju, died in 1865, at the age of fourteen, and left his two younger
sisters to console their parents. Aru, the elder daughter, born in 1854,
was eighteen months senior to Toru, the subject of this memoir, who was
born in Calcutta on March 4, 1856. With the exception of one year's
visit to Bombay, the childhood of these girls was spent in Calcutta, at
their father's garden-house. In a poem now printed for the first time,
Toru refers to the scene of her earliest memories, the circling
wilderness of foliage, the shining tank with the round leaves of the
lilies, the murmuring dusk under the vast branches of the central
casuarina-tree. Here, in a mystical retirement more irksome to a
European in fancy than to an Oriental in reality, the brain of this
wonderful child was moulded. She was pure Hindoo, full of the typical
qualities of her race and blood, and, as the present volume shows us for
the first time, preserving to the last her appreciation of the poetic
side of her ancient religion, though faith itself in Vishnu and Siva had
been cast aside with childish things and been replaced by a purer faith.
Her mother fed her imagination with the old songs and legends of their
people, stories which it was the last labor of her life to weave into
English verse; but it would seem that the marvellous faculties of Toru's
mind still slumbered, when, in her thirteenth year, her father decided
to take his daughters to Europe to learn English and French. To the end
of her days Toru was a better French than English scholar. She loved
France best, she knew its literature best, she wrote its language with
more perfect elegance. The Dutts arrived in Europe at the close of 1869,
and the girls went to school, for the first and last time, at a French
pension. They did not remain there very many months; their father took
them to Italy and England with him, and finally they attended for a
short time, but with great zeal and application, the lectures for women
at Cambridge. In November, 1873, they went back to Bengal, and the four
remaining years of Toru's life were spent in the old garden-house at
Calcutta, in a feverish dream of intellectual effort and imaginative
production. When we consider what she achieved in these forty-five
months of seclusion, it is impossible to wonder that the frail and
hectic body succumbed under so excessive a strain.
She brought with her from Europe a store of knowledge that would have
sufficed to make an English or French girl seem learned, but which in
her case was simply miraculous. Immediately on her return she began to
study Sanscrit with the same intense application which she gave to all
her work, and mastering the language with extraordinary swiftness, she
plunged into its mysterious literature. But she was born to write, and
despairing of an audience in her own language, she began to adopt ours
as a medium for her thought. Her first essay, published when she was
eighteen, was a monograph, in the "Bengal Magazine," on Leconte de
Lisle, a writer with whom she had a sympathy which is very easy to
comprehend. The austere poet of "La Mort de Valmiki" was, obviously, a
figure to whom the poet of "Sindhu" must needs be attracted on
approaching European literature. This study, which was illustrated by
translations into English verse, was followed by another on Joséphin
Soulary, in whom she saw more than her maturer judgment might have
justified. There is something very interesting and now, alas! still more
pathetic in these sturdy and workmanlike essays in unaided criticism.
Still more solitary her work became, in July, 1874, when her only
sister, Aru, died, at the age of twenty. She seems to have been no less
amiable than her sister, and if gifted with less originality and a less
forcible ambition, to have been finely accomplished. Both sisters were
well-trained musicians, with full contralto voices, and Aru had a
faculty for design which promised well. The romance of "Mlle. D'Arvers"
was originally projected for Aru to illustrate, but no page of this book
did Aru ever see.
In 1876, as we have said, appeared that obscure first volume at
Bhowanipore. The "Sheaf gleaned in French Fields" is certainly the most
imperfect of Toru's writings, but it is not the least interesting. It is
a wonderful mixture of strength and weakness, of genius overriding great
obstacles, and of talent succumbing to ignorance and inexperience. That
it should have been performed at all is so extraordinary that we forget
to be surprised at its inequality. The English verse is sometimes
exquisite; at other times the rules of our prosody are absolutely
ignored, and it is obvious that the Hindoo poetess was chanting to
herself a music that is discord in an English ear. The notes are no less
curious, and to a stranger no less bewildering. Nothing could be more
naive than the writer's ignorance at some points, or more startling than
her learning at others. On the whole, the attainment of the book was
simply astounding. It consisted of a selection of translations from
nearly one hundred French poets, chosen by the poetess herself on a
principle of her own which gradually dawned upon the careful reader. She
eschewed the Classicist writers as though they had never existed. For
her André Chenier was the next name in chronological order after Du
Bartas. Occasionally she showed a profundity of research that would have
done no discredit to Mr. Saintsbury or "le doux Assellineau." She was
ready to pronounce an opinion on Napol le Pyrénéan or detect a
plagiarism in Baudelaire. But she thought that Alexander Smith was still
alive, and she was curiously vague about the career of Sainte-Beuve.
This inequality of equipment was a thing inevitable to her isolation,
and hardly worthy recording, except to show how laborious her mind was,
and how quick to make the best of small resources.
We have already seen that the "Sheaf gleaned in French Fields" attracted
the very minimum of attention in England. In France it was talked about
a little more. M. Garcin de Tassy, the famous Orientalist, who scarcely
survived Toru by twelve months, spoke of it to Mlle. Clarisse Bader,
author of a somewhat remarkable book on the position of women in ancient
Indian society. Almost simultaneously this volume fell into the hands of
Toru, and she was moved to translate it into English, for the use of
Hindoos less instructed than herself. In January, 1877, she accordingly
wrote to Mlle. Bader requesting her authorization, and received a prompt
and kind reply. On the 18th of March Toru wrote again to this, her
solitary correspondent in the world of European literature, and her
letter, which has been preserved, shows that she had already descended
into the valley of the shadow of death:—
"Ma constitution n'est pas forte; j'ai contracté une toux
opiniâtre, il y a plus de deux ans, qui ne me quitte point.
Cependant j'espère mettre la main à l'oeuvre bientôt. Je ne peux
dire, mademoiselle, combien votre affection—car vous les aimez,
votre livre et votre lettre en témoignent assez—pour mes
compatriotes et mon pays me touche; et je suis fière de pouvoir le
dire que les héroïnes de nos grandes épopées sont dignes de tout
honneur et de tout amour. Y a-t-il d'héroïne plus touchante, plus
aimable que Sîta? Je ne le crois pas. Quand j'entends ma mére
chanter, le soir, les vieux chants de notre pays, je pleure presque
toujours. La plainte de Sîta, quand, bannie pour la séconde fois,
elle erre dans la vaste forêt, seule, le désespoir et l'effroi dans
l'âme, est si pathétique qu'il n'y a personne, je crois, qui puisse
l'entendre sans verser des larmes. Je vous envois sous ce pli deux
petites traductions du Sanscrit, cette belle langue antique.
Malheureusement j'ai été obligée de faire cesser mes traductions de
Sanscrit, il y a six mois. Ma santé ne me permet pas de les
continuer."
These simple and pathetic words, in which the dying poetess pours out
her heart to the one friend she had, and that one gained too late, seem
as touching and as beautiful as any strain of Marceline Valmore's
immortal verse. In English poetry I do not remember anything that
exactly parallels their resigned melancholy. Before the month of March
was over, Toru had taken to her bed. Unable to write, she continued to
read, strewing her sick-room with the latest European books, and
entering with interest into the questions raised by the Société
Asiatique of Paris, in its printed Transactions. On the 30th of July she
wrote her last letter to Mlle. Clarisse Bader, and a month later, on
August 30, 1877, at the age of twenty-one years six months and
twenty-six days, she breathed her last in her father's house in
Maniktollah street, Calcutta.
In the first distraction of grief it seemed as though her unequalled
promise had been entirely blighted, and as though she would be
remembered only by her single book. But as her father examined her
papers, one completed work after another revealed itself. First a
selection from the sonnets of the Comte de Grammont, translated into
English, turned up, and was printed in a Calcutta magazine; then some
fragments of an English story, which were printed in another Calcutta
magazine. Much more important, however, than any of these was a complete
romance, written in French, being the identical story for which her
sister Aru had proposed to make the illustrations. In the meantime Toru
was no sooner dead than she began to be famous. In May, 1878, there
appeared a second edition of the "Sheaf gleaned in French Fields," with
a touching sketch of her death, by her father; and in 1879 was
published, under the editorial care of Mlle. Clarisse Bader, the romance
of "Le Journal de Mlle. D'Arvers," forming a handsome volume of 259
pages. This book, begun, as it appears, before the family returned from
Europe, and finished nobody knows when, is an attempt to describe scenes
from modern French society, but it is less interesting as an experiment
of the fancy, than as a revelation of the mind of a young Hindoo woman
of genius. The story is simple, clearly told, and interesting; the
studies of character have nothing French about them, but they are full
of vigor and originality. The description of the hero is most
characteristically Indian:—
"Il est beau en effet. Sa taille est haute, mais quelques-uns la
trouveraient mince; sa chevelure noire est bouclée et tombe jusqu'á
la nuque; ses yeux noirs sont profonds et bien fendus; le front est
noble; la lèvre supérieure, couverte par une moustache naissante et
noire, est parfaitement modelée; son menton a quelque chose de
sévère; son teint est d'un blanc presque féminin, ce qui dénote sa
haute naissance."
In this description we seem to recognize some Surya or Soma of Hindoo
mythology, and the final touch, meaningless as applied to a European,
reminds us that in India whiteness of skin has always been a sign of
aristocratic birth, from the days when it originally distinguished the
conquering Aryas from the indigenous race of the Dasyous.
As a literary composition "Mlle. D'Arvers" deserves high commendation.
It deals with the ungovernable passion of two brothers for one placid
and beautiful girl, a passion which leads to fratricide and madness.
That it is a very melancholy and tragical story is obvious from this
brief sketch of its contents, but it is remarkable for coherence and
self-restraint no less than for vigor of treatment. Toru Dutt never
sinks to melodrama in the course of her extraordinary tale, and the
wonder is that she is not more often fantastic and unreal.