The Poison Tree | Page 4

and dirty; there was no trace of human
occupation--only owls, mice, reptiles, and insects gathered there. The
light came only from one side. Nagendra saw some articles of furniture
for human use; but everything indicated poverty. One or two cooking
vessels, a broken oven, three or four brass dishes--these were the sole
ornaments of the place. The walls were black; spiders' webs hung in the
corners; cockroaches, spiders, lizards, and mice, scampered about
everywhere. On a dilapidated bedstead lay an old man who seemed to
be at death's door; his eyes were sunk, his breath hurried, his lips
trembling. By the side of his bed stood an earthen lamp upon a
fragment of brick taken from the ruins of the house. In it the oil was
deficient; so also was it in the body of the man. Another lamp shone by
the bedside--a girl of faultlessly fair face, of soft, starry beauty.

Whether because the light from the oil-less lamp was dim, or because
the two occupants of the house were absorbed in thinking of their
approaching separation, Nagendra's entrance was unseen. Standing in
the doorway, he heard the last sorrowful words that issued from the
mouth of the old man. These two, the old man and the young girl, were
friendless in this densely-peopled world. Once they had had wealth,
relatives, men and maid servants--abundance of all kinds; but by the
fickleness of fortune, one after another, all had gone. The mother of the
family, seeing the faces of her son and daughter daily fading like the
dew-drenched lotus from the pinch of poverty, had early sunk upon the
bed of death. All the other stars had been extinguished with that moon.
The support of the race, the jewel of his mother's eye, the hope of his
father's age, even he had been laid on the pyre before his father's eyes.
No one remained save the old man and this enchanting girl. They dwelt
in this ruined, deserted house in the midst of the forest. Each was to the
other the only helper.
Kunda Nandini was of marriageable age; but she was the staff of her
father's blindness, his only bond to this world. While he lived he could
give her up to no one. "There are but a few more days; if I give away
Kunda where can I abide?" were the old man's thoughts when the
question of giving her in marriage arose in his mind. Had it never
occurred to him to ask himself what would become of Kunda when his
summons came? Now the messenger of death stood at his bedside; he
was about to leave the world; where would Kunda be on the morrow?
The deep, indescribable suffering of this thought expressed itself in
every failing breath. Tears streamed from his eyes, ever restlessly
closing and opening, while at his head sat the thirteen-year-old girl, like
a stone figure, firmly looking into her father's face, covered with the
shadows of death. Forgetting herself, forgetting to think where she
would go on the morrow, she gazed only on the face of her departing
parent. Gradually the old man's utterance became obscure, the breath
left the throat, the eyes lost their light, the suffering soul obtained
release from pain. In that dark place, by that glimmering lamp, the
solitary Kunda Nandini, drawing her father's dead body on to her lap,
remained sitting. The night was extremely dark; even now rain-drops

fell, the leaves of the trees rustled, the wind moaned, the windows of
the ruined house flapped noisily. In the house, the fitful light of the
lamp flickered momentarily on the face of the dead, and again left it in
darkness. The lamp had long been exhausted of oil; now, after two or
three flashes, it went out. Then Nagendra, with noiseless steps, went
forth from the doorway.
CHAPTER II.
"COMING EVENTS CAST THEIR SHADOWS BEFORE."
It was night. In the ruined house Kunda Nandini sat by her father's
corpse. She called "Father!" No one made reply. At one moment Kunda
thought her father slept, again that he was dead, but she could not bring
that thought clearly into her mind. At length she could no longer call,
no longer think. The fan still moved in her hand in the direction where
her father's once living body now lay dead. At length she resolved that
he slept, for if he were dead what would become of her?
After days and nights of watching amid such sorrow, sleep fell upon
her. In that exposed, bitterly cold house, the palm-leaf fan in her hand,
Kunda Nandini rested her head upon her arm, more beauteous than the
lotus-stalk, and slept; and in her sleep she saw a vision. It seemed as if
the night were bright and clear, the sky of