SAVED By RABINDRANATH TAGORE

Deprived of wedded happiness, the childless Gouri betook herself to the consolations of religion. She sent for Paramananda Swami, the young preacher of the Prayer-House hard by, and, formally acknowledging him as her spiritual preceptor, asked him to expound the Gita to her. All the wasted love and affection of her woman’s heart was poured out in reverence at the feet of her Guru.

No one had any doubts about the purity of Paramananda’s character. All worshipped him. And because Paresh did not dare to hint at any suspicion against him, his jealousy ate its way into his heart like a hidden cancer.

One day some trifling circumstance made the poison overflow. Paresh reviled Paramananda to his wife as a hypocrite, and said : ‘Can you swear that you are not in love with this crane that plays the ascetic ?’

Gouri sprang up like a snake that has been trodden on, and, maddened by his suspicion, said with bitter irony : ‘ And what if I am ?’ At this Paresh forthwith went off to the Court-house, and locked the door on her.

In a white heat of passion at this last outrage, Gouri got thedoor open somehow, and left the house.

Paramananda was poring over the scriptures in his lonely room in the silence of noon. All at once, like a flash of lightning out of a cloudless sky, Gouri broke in upon his reading.

The news of the shameful insults that were daily heaped on his disciple disturbed the religious meditations of Paramananda. He felt he ought to leave the place at once ; at the same time he could not make up his mind to forsake the tortured woman. Who can say how the poor ascetic got through those terrible days and nights ?

At last one day the imprisoned Gouri got a letter. ‘My child,’ it ran,’ it is true that many holy women have left the world to devote themselves to God. Should it happen that the trials of this world are driving your thoughts away from God, I will with God’s help rescue his handmaid for the holy service of his feet. If you desire, you may meet me by the tank in your garden at two o’clock to-morrow afternoon.’

Gouri hid the letter in the loops of her hair. At noon next day when she was undoing her hair before her bath she found that the letter was not there. Could it have fallen on to the bed and got into her husband’s hands, she wondered. At first, she felt a kind of fierce pleasure in thinking that it would enrage him ; and then she could not bear to think that this letter, worn as a halo of deliverance on her head, might be defiled by the touch of insolent hands.

With swift steps she hurried to her husband’s room. He lay groaning on the floor, with eyes rolled back and foaming mouth. She detached the letter from his clenched fist, and sent quickly for a doctor.