Part 1

Transcriber’s Notes: Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. Bold text is surrounded by equal signs: =bold=.

RED OLEANDERS

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA · MADRAS MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO DALLAS · SAN FRANCISCO

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO

RED OLEANDERS

A DRAMA IN ONE ACT

BY

RABINDRANATH TAGORE

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON 1925

COPYRIGHT

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

RED OLEANDERS

A DRAMA IN ONE ACT

_The Curtain rises on a window covered by a network of intricate pattern in front of the Palace._

(_Nandini and Kishôr, a digger boy, come in._)

_Kishôr_

Have you enough flowers, Nandini? Here, I have brought some more.

_Nandini_

Run away, Kishôr, do,--back to your work, quick! You’ll be late again.

_Kishôr_

I must steal some time from my digging and digging of nuggets to bring out flowers to you.

_Nandini_

But they’ll punish you, my boy, if they know.

_Kishôr_

You said you _must_ have red oleanders. I am glad they’re hard to find in this place. Only one tree I discovered after days of search, nearly hidden away behind a rubbish heap.

_Nandini_

Show it me. I’ll go and gather the flowers myself.

_Kishôr_

Don’t be cruel, Nandini. This tree is my one secret which none shall know. I’ve always envied Bishu, he can sing to you songs that are his own. From now I shall have flowers which you’ll have to take only from my hands.

_Nandini_

But it breaks my heart to know that those brutes punish you.

_Kishôr_

It makes these flowers all the more preciously mine. They come from my pain.

_Nandini_

It pains me to accept anything which brings you hurt.

_Kishôr_

I dream of dying one day for your sake, Nandini.

_Nandini_

Is there nothing I can give you in return?

_Kishôr_

Promise that you will accept flowers only from me every morning.

_Nandini_

I will. But do be careful.

_Kishôr_

No, no, I shall be rash and defy their blows. My homage shall be my daily triumph.

[_Goes._

(_Professor comes in._)

_Professor_

Nandini!

_Nandini_

Yes, Professor!

_Professor_

Why do you come and startle one, now and again, and then pass by? Since you awaken a cry in our hearts, what harm if you stop a moment in answer to it? Let us talk a little.

_Nandini_

What need have you of me?

_Professor_

If you talk of need, look over there!--You’ll see our tunnel-diggers creeping out of the holes like worms, with loads of things of need. In this Yaksha Town all our treasure is of gold, the secret treasure of the dust. But the gold which is you, beautiful one, is not of the dust, but of the light which never owns any bond.

_Nandini_

Over and over again you say this to me. What makes you wonder at me so, Professor?

_Professor_

The sunlight gleaming through the forest thickets surprises nobody, but the light that breaks through a cracked wall is quite a different thing. In Yaksha Town, you are this light that startles. Tell me, what d’you think of this place?

_Nandini_

It puzzles me to see a whole city thrusting its head underground, groping with both hands in the dark. You dig tunnels in the underworld and come out with dead wealth that the earth has kept buried for ages past.

_Professor_

The _Jinn_ of that dead wealth we invoke. If we can enslave him the whole world lies at our feet.

_Nandini_

Then again, you hide your king behind a wall of netting. Is it for fear of people finding out that he’s a man?

_Professor_

As the ghost of our dead wealth is fearfully potent so is our ghostly royalty, made hazy by this net, with its inhuman power to frighten people.

_Nandini_

All you say is a kind of made-up talk.

_Professor_

Of course made-up. The naked is without a credential, it’s the made-up clothes that define us. It delights me immensely to discuss philosophy with you.

_Nandini_

That’s strange! You who burrow day and night in a mass of yellow pages, like your diggers in the bowels of the earth,--why waste your time on me?

_Professor_

The privilege of wasting time proves one’s wealth of time. We poor drudges are insects in a hole in this solid toil, you are the evening star in the rich sky of leisure. When we see you, our wings grow restless. Come to my room. For a moment allow me to be reckless in my waste of time.

_Nandini_

No, not now. I have come to see your king, in _his_ room.

_Professor_

How can you enter through the screen?

_Nandini_

I shall find my way through the network.

_Professor_

Do you know, Nandini, I too live behind a network of scholarship. I am an unmitigated scholar, just as our king is an unmitigated king.

_Nandini_

You are laughing at me, Professor. But tell me, when they brought me here, why didn’t they bring my Rañjan also?

_Professor_

It’s their way to snatch things by fractions. But why should you want to drag your life’s treasure down amongst this dead wealth of ours?

_Nandini_

Because I know he can put a beating heart behind these dead ribs.

_Professor_

Your own presence is puzzling enough for our governors here; if Rañjan also comes they will be in despair.

_Nandini_

They do not know how comic they are,--Rañjan will bring God’s own laughter in their midst and startle them into life.

_Professor_

Divine laughter is the sunlight that melts ice, but not stones. Only the pressure of gross muscle can move our governors.

_Nandini_

My Rañjan’s strength is like that of your river, Sankhini,--it can laugh and yet it can break. Let me tell you a little secret news of mine. I shall meet Rañjan to-day.

_Professor_

Who told you that?

_Nandini_

Yes, yes, we shall meet. The news has come.

_Professor_

Through what way could news come and yet evade the Governor?

_Nandini_

Through the same way that brings news of the coming Spring.

_Professor_

You mean it’s in the air,--like the rumours which flush in the colour of the sky, or flutter in the dance of the wind?

_Nandini_

I won’t say more now. When Rañjan comes you’ll see for yourself how rumours in the air come down on earth.

_Professor_

Once she begins to talk of Rañjan there’s no stopping Nandini’s mouth! Well, well, I have my books, let me take my shelter behind them,--I dare not go on with this.

(_Coming back after going a little way._)

Nandini, let me ask you one thing. Aren’t you frightened of our Yaksha Town?

_Nandini_

Why should I feel afraid?

_Professor_

All creatures fear an eclipse, not the full sun. Yaksha Town is a city under eclipse. The Shadow Demon, who lives in the gold caves, has eaten into it. It is not whole itself, neither does it allow any one else to remain whole. Listen to me, don’t stay here. When you go, these pits will yawn all the wider for us, I know,--yet I say to you, fly; go and live happily with Rañjan where people in their drunken fury don’t tear the earth’s veil to pieces.

(_Going a little way and then coming back._)

Nandini, will you give me a flower from your chain of red oleanders?

_Nandini_

Why, what will you do with it?

_Professor_

How often have I thought that there is some omen in these ornaments of yours.

_Nandini_

_I_ don’t know of any.

_Professor_

Perhaps your fate knows. In that red there is not only beauty, but also the fascination of fear.

_Nandini_

Fear! Even in me?

_Professor_

I don’t know what event you have come to write with that crimson tint. There was the gardenia and the tuberose, there was white jasmine,--why did you leave them all and choose this flower? Do you know, we often choose our own fate thus, without knowing it!

_Nandini_

Rañjan sometimes calls me Red Oleander. I feel that the colour of his love is red,--that red I wear on my neck, on my breast, on my arms.

_Professor_

Well, just give me one of those flowers,--a moment’s gift,--let me try to understand the meaning of its colour.

_Nandini_

Here, take it. Rañjan is coming to-day,--out of my heart’s delight I give it to you.

[_Professor goes._

(_Gôkul, a digger, comes in._)

_Gôkul_

Turn this way, woman! Who are you? I’ve never yet been able to understand you.

_Nandini_

I’m nothing more than what you see. What need have you to understand me?

_Gôkul_

I don’t trust what I can’t understand. For what purpose has the King brought you here?

_Nandini_

Because I serve no purpose of his.

_Gôkul_

You know some spell, I’m sure. You’re snaring everybody here. You’re a witch! Those who are bewitched by your beauty will come to their death.

_Nandini_

That death will not be yours, Gôkul, never fear! You’ll die digging.

_Gôkul_

Let me see, let me see, what’s that dangling over your forehead?

_Nandini_

Only a tassel of red oleanders.

_Gôkul_

What does it mean?

_Nandini_

It has no meaning at all.

_Gôkul_

I don’t believe you, one bit! You’re up to some trickery. Some evil will befall us before the day is out. That’s why you have got yourself up like this. Oh you terrible, terrible witch!

_Nandini_

What makes you think me so terrible?

_Gôkul_

You’re looking like an ominous torch with a red flame. Let me go and warn these fools.--Beware! Beware!

[_He goes._

_Nandini_ (_knocking at the network_)

Do you hear me?

_A voice_ (_from behind the scenes_)

I hear you. But don’t call me,--I have no time.

_Nandini_

Let me come inside. My heart is full to-day.

_Voice_

No, not into my room.

_Nandini_

I have brought you a garland of white _kunda_ flowers.

_Voice_

Wear it yourself.

_Nandini_

My own garland is of red oleanders.

_Voice_

I am like a mountain peak, my bareness is my adornment.

_Nandini_

Like waterfalls running down the peak, this white flower-chain will sway on your breast. Open the netting, I want to come in.

_Voice_

I can’t allow it. There’s no time.

_Nandini_

Don’t you hear that song in the distance?

_Voice_

What are they singing?

_Nandini_

The autumn song:

_Hark, ’tis Autumn calling: “Come, O, come away!”-- Her basket is heaped with corn._

Don’t you see the September sun is spreading the glow of the ripening corn in the air?

_Drunken with the perfumed wine of wind, the sky seems to sway among the shivering corn, its sunlight trailing on the fields._

You too come out, King!--out into the fields.

_Voice_

Fields! What could I do there?

_Nandini_

The work there is much simpler than your work in Yaksha Town.

_Voice_

It’s the simple which is impossible for me. A lake cannot run out dancing, like a frolicsome waterfall. Leave me now, I have no time.

_Nandini_

The day you let me into your storehouse the blocks of gold did not surprise me,--what amazed me was the immense strength with which you lifted and arranged them. But can blocks of gold ever answer to the swinging rhythm of your arms in the same way as fields of corn? Are you not afraid, King, of handling the dead wealth of the earth?

_Voice_

What is there to fear?

_Nandini_

The living heart of the earth gives itself up in love and life and beauty, but when you rend its bosom and disturb the dead, you bring up with your booty the curse of its dark demon, blind and hard, cruel and envious. Don’t you see everybody here is either angry, or suspicious, or afraid?

_Voice_

Curse?

_Nandini_

Yes, the curse of grabbing and killing.

_Voice_

But we bring up strength. Does not my strength please you, Nandini?

_Nandini_

Indeed it does. Therefore I ask you, come out into the light, step on the ground, let the earth be glad.

_Voice_

Do you know, Nandini, you too are half-hidden behind an evasion,--you mystery of beauty! I want to pluck you out of it, to grasp you within my closed fist, to handle you, scrutinise you,--or else to break you to pieces.

_Nandini_

Whatever do you mean?

_Voice_

Why can’t I strain out the tint of your oleanders and build a dream out of it to keep before my eyes? Those few frail petals guard it and hinder me. Within you there is the same hindrance, so strong because so soft. Nandini, will you tell me what you think of me?

_Nandini_

Not now, you have no time. Let me go.

_Voice_

No, no, don’t go. Do tell me what you think of me.

_Nandini_

Have I not told you often enough? I think you are wonderful. Strength swelling up in your arms, like rolling clouds before a storm,--it makes my heart dance within me.

_Voice_

And when your heart dances to see Rañjan, is that also----

_Nandini_

Let that be,--you have no time.

_Voice_

There _is_ time,--for this; only tell me, then go.

_Nandini_

That dance rhythm is different, you won’t understand.

_Voice_

I will, I _must_ understand.

_Nandini_

I can’t explain it clearly. Let me go.

_Voice_

Tell me, at least, whether you like me.

_Nandini_

Yes, I like you.

_Voice_

The same as Rañjan?

_Nandini_

Again the same question! I tell you, you don’t understand these things.

_Voice_

I _do_ understand, a little. I know what the difference is between Rañjan and me. In me there is only strength, in Rañjan there is magic.

_Nandini_

What d’you mean by magic?

_Voice_

Shall I explain? Underground there are blocks of stone, iron, gold,--there you have the image of strength. On the surface grows the grass, the flower blossoms,--there you have the play of magic. I can extract gold from the fearsome depths of secrecy, but to wrest that magic from the near at hand I fail.

_Nandini_

You have no end of things, yet why always covet?

_Voice_

All I possess is so much dead weight. No increase of gold can create a particle of a touchstone, no increase of power can ever come up to youth. I can only guard by force. If I had Rañjan’s youth I could leave you free and yet hold you fast. My time is spent in knotting the binding rope, but, alas, everything else can be kept tied, except joy.

_Nandini_

It is you who entangle yourself in your own net, then why keep on fretting?

_Voice_

You will never understand. I, who am a desert, stretch out my hand to you, a tiny blade of grass, and cry: I am parched, I am bare, I am weary. The flaming thirst of this desert licks up one fertile field after another, only to enlarge itself,--it can never annex the life of the frailest of grasses.

_Nandini_

One would never think you were so tired.

_Voice_

One day, Nandini, in a far off land, I saw a mountain as weary as myself. I could not guess that all its stones were aching inwardly. One night I heard a noise, as if some giant’s evil dream had moaned and moaned and suddenly snapped asunder. Next morning I found the mountain had disappeared in the chasm of a yawning earthquake. That made me understand how overgrown power crushes itself inwardly by its own weight. I see in you something quite opposite.

_Nandini_

What is it you see in me?

_Voice_

The dance rhythm of the All.

_Nandini_

I don’t understand.

_Voice_

The rhythm that lightens the enormous weight of matter. To that rhythm the bands of stars and planets go about dancing from sky to sky, like so many minstrel boys. It is that rhythm, Nandini, that makes you so simple, so perfect. How small you are compared to me, yet I envy you.

_Nandini_

You have cut yourself off from everybody and so deprived yourself.

_Voice_

I keep myself apart, that it may become easy for me to plunder the world’s big treasure-houses. Nevertheless there are gifts that your little flower-like fingers can easily reach, but not all the strength of my body,--gifts hidden in God’s closed hand. That hand I must force open some day.

_Nandini_

When you talk like that, I don’t follow you. Let me go.

_Voice_

Go then; but here, I stretch out this hand of mine from my window, place your hand on it for a moment.

_Nandini_

Only a hand, and the rest of you hidden? It frightens me!

_Voice_

Everybody flies from me because they only see my hand.

But if I wished to hold you with all of me, would you come to me, Nandini?

_Nandini_

Why talk like this when you wouldn’t even let me come into your room?

_Voice_

My busy time, overloaded with work, dragged along against obstruction, is not for you. On the day when you can arrive, full sail before the wind, into the bosom of my full leisure, the hour of welcome will strike. Even if that wind be a storm, all will be well. That hour is not yet come.

_Nandini_

Rañjan will bring that delightful wind here, I tell you. He carries his holiday-time with him, even in his work.

_Voice_

He has the red wine of oleanders to fill up his cup. But to me you want to pass on an empty leisure. Where is the wine?

_Nandini_

Let me go now.

_Voice_

Answer me first.

_Nandini_

How to fulfil leisure you will learn from Rañjan. He is so beautiful.

_Voice_

Beauty only responds to beauty. Its lute strings break when force tries to snatch an answer. But no more of this. Go, go away, or else there will be trouble.

_Nandini_

I go. But I tell you, my Rañjan is coming to-day. You cannot prevent him.

[_She goes._

(_Phágulal, the digger, and his wife Chandrá, come in._)

_Phágulal_

My bottle, Chandrá? Out with it!

_Chandrá_

What! Drink from early morning?

_Phágulal_

Isn’t it our holiday? Yesterday was the fast day of the War Goddess. To-day they worship the Flag.

_Chandrá_

Must you drink just because it’s a holiday? In our village home, on feast days, you never----

_Phágulal_

Freedom itself was enough for the holidays in our village. The caged bird spends its holiday knocking against the bars. In Yaksha Town holidays are more of a nuisance than work.

_Chandrá_

Let’s go back home, then.

_Phágulal_

The road to our home is closed for ever.

_Chandrá_

How’s that?

_Phágulal_

Our homes don’t yield them any profit.

_Chandrá_

But are we closely fitted to their profits only,--like husks to grains of corn,--with nothing of us left over?

_Phágulal_

Our mad Bishu says: to remain whole is useful only for the lamb itself; those who eat it prefer to leave out its horns and hooves, and even object to its bleating when butchered.

There’s the madcap, singing as he goes.

_Chandrá_

It’s only the last few days that his songs have burst forth.

_Phágulal_

That’s true.

_Chandrá_

He’s been possessed by Nandini. She draws his heart and his songs too.

_Phágulal_

No wonder.

_Chandrá_

Indeed! You’d better be careful. She’ll next be bringing out songs from _your_ throat,--which would be rough on our neighbours. The witch is up to all kinds of tricks, and is sure to bring misfortune.

_Phágulal_

Bishu’s misfortune is nothing recent, he knew Nandini long before coming here.

_Chandrá_

(_Calling out_) I say, Bishu, come this way. Maybe you’ll find somebody here also to listen to your singing,--it won’t be altogether thrown away.

(_Bishu comes in, singing._)

_Bishu_ (_sings_)

_Boatman of my dreams, The sail is filled with a boisterous breeze and my mad heart sings to the lilt of the rocking of thy boat, at the call of the far away landing._

_Chandrá_

I know who the boatman of your dreams is.

_Bishu_

How should you know from outside? You haven’t seen from inside my boat.

_Chandrá_

Your boat is going to get wrecked one of these days, let me tell you,--by that pet Nandini of yours.

(_Gôkul, the digger, comes in._)

_Gôkul_

I say, Bishu, I don’t quite trust your Nandini.

_Bishu_

Why, what has she done?

_Gôkul_

She does nothing, that’s the rub. I don’t understand the way she goes on.

_Chandrá_

To see her flaunting her prettiness all over the place makes me sick.

_Gôkul_

We can trust features that are plain enough to understand.

_Bishu_

I know the atmosphere of this place breeds contempt for beauty. There must be beauty even in hell; but nobody there can understand it, that’s their cruellest punishment.

_Chandrá_

Maybe we are fools, but even our Governor here can’t stand her--d’you know that?

_Bishu_

Take care, Chandrá, lest you catch the infection of our Governor’s eyes--then perhaps yours too will redden at the sight of us. What say you, Phágulal?

_Phágulal_

To tell you the truth, brother, when I see Nandini, I feel ashamed to think of myself. I can’t utter a word when she’s there.

_Gôkul_

The day will come when you’ll know her to your cost,--perhaps too late.

[_Goes._

_Phágulal_

Bishu, your friend Chandrá wants to know why we drink.

_Bishu_

God in his mercy has everywhere provided a liberal allowance of drink. We men with our arms supply the output of our muscles, you women with yours supply the wine of embraces. In this world there is hunger to force us to work; but there’s also the green of the woods, the gold of the sunshine, to make us drunk with their holiday-call.

_Chandrá_

You call these things _drink_?

_Bishu_

Yes, drinks of life, an endless stream of intoxication. Take my case. I come to this place; I am set to work burgling the underworld; for me nature’s own ration of spirits is stopped; so my inner man craves the artificial wine of the market place.

(_Sings_)

_My life, your sap has run dry, Fill then the cup with the wine of death, That flushes all emptiness with its laughter._

_Chandrá_

Come, brother, let us fly from here.

_Bishu_

To that boundless tavern, underneath the blue canopy? Alas, the road is closed, and we seek consolation in the stolen wine of the prison house. No open sky, no leisure for us; so we have distilled the essence of all the song and laughter, all the sunlight of the twelve hours’ day into one draught of liquid fire.

(_Sings_)

_Thy sun is hidden amid a mass of murky cloud. Thy day has smudged itself black in dusty toil. Then let the dark night descend the last comrade of drunken oblivion. Let it cover thy tired eyes with the mist that will help thee desperately to lose thyself._

_Chandrá_

Well, well, Bishu, you men have gone to the dogs in Yaksha Town, if you like, but we women haven’t changed at all.

_Bishu_

Haven’t you? Your flowers have faded, and you are all slavering for gold.

_Chandrá_

No, never!

_Bishu_

I say, yes. That Phágulal toils for hours over and above the twelve,--why? For a reason unknown to him, unknown even to you. But _I_ know. It’s your dream of gold that lashes him on to work, more severely than the foreman’s whip.

_Chandrá_

Very well. Then why don’t we fly from here, and go back home?

_Bishu_

Your Governor has closed the way as well as the will to return. If you go there to-day you will fly back here to-morrow, like a caged bird to its cage, hankering for its drugged food.

_Phágulal_

I say, Bishu, once upon a time you came very near spoiling your eyesight poring over books; how is it they made you ply the spade along with the rest of us stupid boors?

_Chandrá_

All this time we’ve been here, we haven’t got from Bishu the answer to this particular question.

_Phágulal_

Yet we all know it.

_Bishu_

Well, out with it then!

_Phágulal_

They employed you to spy on us.

_Bishu_

If you knew that, how is it you let me off alive?

_Phágulal_

But, we knew also, that game was not in your line.

_Chandrá_

How is it you couldn’t stick to such a comfortable job, brother?

_Bishu_

Comfortable job? To stick to a living being like a carbuncle on his back?

I said: “I must go home, my health is failing.”

“Poor thing,” said the Governor, “how can you go home in such a state? However, there’s no harm in your trying.”

Well, I did try. And then I found that, as soon as one enters the maw of Yaksha Town, its jaws shut fast, and the one road that remains open leads withinwards. Now I am swamped in that interior without hope and without light, and the only difference between you and me is, that the Governor looks down upon me even worse than upon you. Man despises the broken pot of his own creation more than the withered leaf fallen from the tree.

_Phágulal_

What does that matter, Bishu? You have risen high in our esteem.