When the girl was given the name of Subhashini, who could have guessed that she would be dumb when she grew up? Her two elder sisters were Sukheshini and Suhashini, and for the sake of uniformity her father had named his youngest girl Subhashini. She was called Subha for short.

Her two elder sisters had been married with the usual difficulties in finding husbands and providing dowries, and now the youngest daughter lay like a silent weight upon the heart of her parents. People seemed to think that, because she did not speak, therefore she did not feel; they discussed her future and their anxiety concerning it even in her presence. She had understood from her earliest childhood that God had sent her like a curse to her father’s house, so she withdrew herself from ordinary people and tried to live apart. If only they would all forget her, she felt she could endure it. But who can forget pain? Night and day her parents’ minds ached with anxiety on her account. Her mother especially looked upon her as a deformity. To a mother, a daughter is a more closely intimate part of herself than a son can be and a fault in her is a source of personal shame. Banikantha, Subha’s father, loved her rather better than he did his other daughters; her mother almost hated her as a stain upon her own body.

If Subha lacked speech, she did not lack a pair of large dark eyes, shaded with long lashes; and her lips trembled like a leaf in response to any thought that arose in her mind.

When we express our thoughts in words, the medium is not found easily. There must be a process of translation, which is often inexact, and then we fall into error. But black eyes need no translating; the mind itself throws a shadow upon them. In them, thought opens or shuts, shines forth or goes out in darkness, hangs steadfast like the setting moon or like the swift and restless lightning illumines all quarters of the sky. Those who from birth have had no other speech than the trembling of their lips learn a language of the eyes, endless in expression, deep as the sea, clear as the heavens, wherein play dawn and sunset, light and shadow. The dumb have a lonely grandeur like Nature’s own. Wherefore the other children almost dreaded Subha and never played with her. She was silent and companionless as the noontide.

She lived in a small village called Chandipur. The river on whose bank it stood was small for a river of Bengal, and kept to its narrow bounds like a daughter of the middle class. This busy streak of water never overflowed its banks, but went about its duties as though it were a member of every family in the villages besides it. On either side were houses and banks shaded with trees. So stepping from her queenly throne, the river-goddess became a garden deity of each home, and forgetful of herself performed her task of endless benediction with swift and cheerful feet.

Banikantha’s house looked out upon the stream. Every hut and stack in the place could be seen by the passing boatmen. I know not if amid these signs of worldly wealth anyone noticed the little girl who, when her work was done, stole away to the waterside and sat there. But here Nature herself made up for her want of speech and spoke for her. The murmur of the brook, the voice of the village folk, the songs of the boatmen, the cry of the birds and the rustle of trees mingled and were one with the trembling of her heart. They became one vast wave of sound which beat upon her restless soul. This murmur movement of Nature was the dumb girl’s language; that speech of the dark eyes, which the long lashes shaded, was the language of the world about her. From the trees, where the cicala chirped, to the quiet stars, there was nothing but signs and gestures, weeping and sighing. And in the deep mid-noon, when the boatmen and fisherfolk had gone to their dinner, when the villagers slept and the birds were still, when the ferry-boats were idle, when the great busy world paused in its toil and became suddenly a lonely, awful giant, then beneath the vast impressive heavens there were only dumb Nature and a dumb girl, sitting very silent—one under the spreading sunlight, the other where a small tree cast its shadow.

But Subha was not altogether without friends. In the stall were two cows, Sarbbashi and Panguli. They had never heard their names from her lips, but they knew her footfall. Though she could form no words, she murmured lovingly and they understood her gentle murmuring better than all speech. When the fondled them or scolded or coaxed them, they understood her better than men could do. Subha would come to the shed and throw her arms round Sarbbashi’s neck; she would rub her cheek against her friend’s and Panguli would turn her great kind eyes and lick her face. The girl visited them regularly three times a day, and at many an odd moment as well. Whenever she heard any words that hurt her, she would come to these dumb friends even though it might not be the hour for a regular visit. It was as though they guessed her anguish of spirit from her look of quiet sadness. Coming close to her, they would rub their horns softly against her arms, and in dumb, puzzled fashion try to comfort her. Besides these, there were goats and a kitten; but Subha had not the same equal friendship with them, though they showed the same attachment. Every time it got a chance, night or day, the kitten would jump into her lap, and settle down to slumber, and show its appreciation of an aid to sleep as Subha drew her soft fingers over its neck and back.

Subha had a comrade also among the higher animals, and it is hard to say what were the girl’s relations with him; for he could speak, and his gift of speech left them without any common language. He was the youngest boy of the Gosains, Pratap by name, an idle fellow. After long effort, his parents had abandoned the hope of his ever making a living. Now losers have this advantage, that though their own folk disapprove of them they are generally popular with everyone else. Having no work to chain them, they became public property. Just as every town needs an open space where all may breathe, so a village needs two or three gentlemen of leisure, who can give time to all; then, if we are lazy and want a companion, one is to hand.

Pratap’s chief ambition was to catch fish. He managed to waste a lot of time this way and might be seen almost any afternoon so employed. It was thus most often that he met Subha. Whatever he was about, he liked a companion; and, when one is trying to catch fish, a silent companion is best of all. Pratap respected Subha for her silence, and, as everyone called her Subha, he showed his affection by calling her Su. Subha used to sit beneath a tamarind tree, and Pratap, a little distance off, would cast his line. Pratap took with him a small allowance of betel, and Subha prepared it for him. And I think that, sitting there and gazing a long while, she desired ardently to bring some great help to Pratap, to be a real aid, to prove by any means that she was not a useless burden in the world. But there was nothing to do. Then she turned to the Creator in prayer for some rare power, that by an astonishing miracle she might startle Pratap into exclaiming: ‘My! I never dreamt our Su could do this!’

Only think, if Subha had been a water-nymph, she might have risen slowly from the river, bringing the gem of the snake’s crown to the landing-place. Then Pratap, leaving his paltry fishing, might have dived into the lower world, and seen there, on a golden bed in a palace, of silver, whom else but dumb little Su, Banikantha’s child! Yes, our Su, the only daughter of the king of that shining city of jewels! But that might not be, it was impossible. Not that anything is really impossible, but Su had been born, not into the royal house of Patalpur, but into Banikantha’s family, and thus she knew of no means by which she might astonish the Gosains’ boy.

She grew up, and little by little began to find herself. A new inexpressible consciousness like a tide from the central places of the sea, when the moon is full, swept through her. She saw herself, questioned herself, but no answer came that she could understand.

Late one night, when the moon was full, she slowly opened her door, and timidly peeped out. Nature, herself at full moon, like lonely Subha, was looking down on the sleeping earth. Subha’s strong young life beat within her; joy and sadness filled her being to its brim: she had felt unutterably lonely before but her feeling of loneliness was this moment as its intensest. Her heart was heavy and she could not speak. At the skirts of this silent troubled Mother, there stood a silent troubled girl.

The thought of her marriage filled her parents with anxious care. People blamed them, and even talked of making them outcastes. Banikantha was well off; his family even had fish-curry twice daily, and consequently he did not lack enemies. Then the women interfered, and Bani went away for a few days. Presently he returned and said: ‘We must go to Calcutta.’

They got ready to go to this strange place. Subha’s heart was heavy with tears, like a mist-wrapt dawn. With a vague fear that had been gathering for days, she dogged her father and mother like a dumb animal. With her large eyes wide open, she scanned their faces as though she wished to learn something. But not a word did they vouchsafe. One afternoon in the midst of all this, as Pratap was fishing, he laughed: ‘So then, Su, they have caught your bridegroom, and you are going to be married! Mind you don’t forget me altogether!’ Then he turned his mind again to his fishing. As a stricken doe looks in the hunter’s face, asking in silent agony: ‘What have I done to harm you?’ so Subha looked at Pratap. That day she sat no longer beneath her tree. Banikantha, having finished his nap, was smoking in his bedroom when Subha dropped at his feet and burst out weeping as she gazed towards him. Banikantha tried to comfort her and his own cheek grew wet with tears.

It was settled that on the morrow they should go to Calcutta. Subha went to the cowshed to bid farewell to the comrades of her childhood. She fed them from her hand; she clasped their necks; she looked into their faces, and tears fell fast from the eyes which spoke for her. That night was the tenth of the new moon. Subha left her room, and flung herself down on her grassy couch besides the river she loved so much. It was as if she threw her arms about the Earth, her strong, silent mother, and tried to say: ‘Do not let me leave you, mother. Put your arms about me, as I have put mine about you, and hold me fast.’

One day, in a house in Calcutta, Subha’s mother dressed her up with great care. She imprisoned her hair, knotting it up in laces, she hung her about with ornaments, and did her best to kill her natural beauty. Subha’s eyes filled with tears. Her mother, fearing they would grow swollen with weeping, scolded her harshly, but the tears disregarded the scolding. The bridegroom came with a friend to inspect the bride. Her parents were dizzy with anxiety and fear when they saw the God arrive to select the beast for his sacrifice. Behind the stage, the mother called her instructions aloud, so that her daughter’s weeping redoubled, before she sent her into the examiner’s presence. The great man, after looking her up and down a long time, observed: ‘Not so bad.’

He took special note of her tears, and thought she must have a tender heart. He put it to her credit in the account, arguing that the heart, which today was distressed at leaving her parents, would presently prove a useful possession. Like the oyster’s pearls, the child’s tears only increased her value, and he made no other comment.

The almanac was consulted, and the marriage took place on an auspicious day. Having delivered their dumb girl into another’s hands, Subha’s parents returned home. Thank God! Their caste in this world and their safety in the next were assured! The bridegroom’s work lay in the west, and shortly after the marriage he took his wife thither.

In less than ten days everyone knew that the bride was dumb! At least if anyone did not, it was not her fault, for she deceived no one. Her eyes told them everything, though no one understood her. She looked on every hand, but found no speech; she missed the faces, familiar from birth, of those who had understood a dumb girl’s language. In her silent heart there sounded an endless, voiceless weeping, which only the Searcher of Hearts could hear.