The Skeleton - Rabindranath Tagore

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The skeleton by the bindnatagre 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.

(00:22):
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

(00:42):
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

(01:03):
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

(01:24):
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 were 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,

(01:47):
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, and 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

(02:07):
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 have come to

(02:29):
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

(02:50):
from my mosquito 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

(03:11):
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 and the burning places
of the dead. I would talk once more with a man,

(03:33):
as in the old times, I felt that some one
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

(03:56):
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

(04:19):
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

(04:42):
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 the
rare and radiant beauty. What is your opinion? Very likely,

(05:03):
I murmured, But 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

(05:25):
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

(05:45):
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 jumpuck blossom. It meant that to him the
rest of humankind was fit only to illustrate the science

(06:05):
of physiology. That I was a flower of beauty? Does
anyone think of the skeleton of a jumpuck 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

(06:26):
which could gracefully have rained 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

(06:49):
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

(07:12):
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
dream 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 sighs, as on some

(07:34):
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

(07:54):
brother's friend Shaika 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. Shaikhah was

(08:18):
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 had at my feet were
each one. Ashika, are you listening? What are you thinking of?
I sighed as I replied, I was wishing. I was
shakud wait a bit hear the whole story. First, one

(08:42):
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,

(09:05):
I saw, in the glorious evening light, the delicate wan
face lathed 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,

(09:25):
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

(09:46):
my fever. I gaged the pulse of his heart. Don't
you believe me? Very easily, said I. The human heart
beat 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.

(10:09):
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 Saudi 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

(10:29):
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

(10:51):
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 midday,

(11:13):
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 studied carelessness. The other arm would rest

(11:36):
slightly 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

(11:59):
remain a 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

(12:21):
consulting chamber. I used then sometimes to ask him jokingly
about medicines and poisons and how much of this strag
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

(12:42):
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 ups and 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

(13:05):
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, Dada, 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?

(13:27):
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

(13:48):
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.

(14:08):
Not only may the doctor loose 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.

(14:30):
Who ever 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

(14:53):
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

(15:14):
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,

(15:37):
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, and then

(16:00):
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,

(16:23):
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

(16:44):
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 silken 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

(17:06):
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.

(17:29):
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.