# The Modern Review/Volume 7/Number 2/The Hungry Stones

Original story (ক্ষুধিত পাষাণ) first published in Sadhana, Sravan 1302 B.E. (July-August 1895). This is the original translation, later slightly revised by the original author before publication in the compilation, The Hungry Stones and Other Stories
THE HUNGRY STONES
A short story
From the Bengali of Rabindranath Tagore.
MY relation and myself were returning to Calcutta from our Pujah trip when we met the gentleman in a train. From his dress and deportment we mistook him at first for an upcountry Mahomedan, but we felt more puzzled as we heard him talk. He went on discoursing on all conceivable subjects in a manner so confident that one would almost think that the Disposer of all things consulted him on all occasions in all that He did. That such secret and unheard of forces were actually working within, that the Russians had advanced so close to us, that the English had deep and secret policies, that confusion among the native chiefs had come to such a head, we had not the remotest idea, and were heretofore perfectly at ease. But our newly acquired friend said with a sly smile, "There happen more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are reported in your newspapers." As we had never stirred out of our homes before, the whole demeanour of the man simply struck us dumb with wonder. Be the topic ever so trivial, the man would now quote science, now comment on the Vedas, now repeat quatrains from some Persian poet, and as we had no pretensions to a knowledge of either science or the Vedas or Persian, our admiration for him went on increasing, and my theosophist relation was even firmly convinced that our fellow-passenger must have had some connection with something supernatural, some strange "magnetism" or "occult power" or "astral body" or something of that kind. He was listening to even the tritest remark that fell from the lips of that extraordinary mortal almost with devotional raptures and secretly taking down notes of his conversation. I fancy that the extraordinary man perceived it and was a little pleased with it.
When the train reached the junction, we all assembled in the waiting-room for the next corresponding train. It was then 10 p. m., and as the train, we heard, was likely to be very late owing to something wrong in the lines I spread my bed on the table and was about to lie down for a comfortable doze, when that extraordinary person deliberately set about spinning the following yarn. Of course, I could get no sleep that night.
When owing to a disagreement respecting some questions of administrative policy I threw up my appointment at Junagarh and entered the service of the Nizam of Hyderabad, as a hardy young man they appointed me at once as the collector of cotton duties at Barich.
Barich is a very lovely place. The Susta (Sans. Swachchha-toya) 'chatters over strony ways and babbles on the pebbles' tripping, like a skilled dancing girl, along her meandering course through the woods below the lonely hills. Right on the river's brim above a flight of 150 steps rising from the river stands at the foot of the hills a lonesome marble palace. Around it there is no habitation of man—the village and the cotton mart of Barich being far off.
About 250 years ago the Emperor Mahmud Shah II had built this palace for his pleasure and luxury on this lonely spot. In those days jets of rose-water would spurt out from ​the fountains of its baths, and there on the cold marble floors of the secluded spray-cooled rooms would sit the young Persian damsels, their hair dishevelled before bath, and, stretching their soft naked feet in the clear water of the reservoirs, would sing, to the tune of the guitar, the ghazals of their vineyards.
Now the fountains do not play, the songs have ceased, and the snowy feet no longer step gracefully on the snowy marble. It is now the vast and solitary quarters for cess-collectors like us, oppressed with solitude and destitute of female society. But Karim Khan, the old clerk of my office, warned me repeatedly not to take up my quarters there. "Pass the day there, if you like," said he, "but never stay there at night." I passed it off with a light laugh. The servants said that they would work till dark but go away at night. I gave my ready assent to it. The house had such a bad repute that even thieves would not venture near it after dark.
At first the solitude of that deserted palace weighed upon my chest like a nightmare, but I would stay out and work hard as long as possible, return home at night jaded and tired, go to bed and fall asleep.
But before a week had passed, the house began to exert upon me a weird fascination. It is difficult to describe it or to induce people to believe it, but I felt as if the whole house was like a living organism slowly and imperceptibly digesting me by the action of its stupefying gastric juice.
Perhaps the process had commenced as soon as I set my foot in the house, but I distinctly remember the day on which I first consciously felt its beginning.
It was then the beginning of summer and the market being dull I had no work on hand. A little before sunset I was sitting in an arm-chair near the water's edge below the steps. The Susta had shrunk and sunk low, a broad patch of the sands on the other side was glowing with the hues of the evening, and on this side the pebbles at the bottom of the clear shallow waters were glistening. There was not a breath of wind anywhere and the still air was laden with an oppressive scent from the spicy shrubs growing on the hills close by.
As the sun sank behind the hill tops a long dark curtain fell on the stage of day, as the intervening hills cut short the period of the mingling of light and shade at sunset. I thought of going out for a ride and was about to rise when I heard a footfall on the steps behind. I looked back, but there was none.
As I sat down again thinking it to be an illusion, I heard quite a number of steps, as if a large number of persons were rushing down the steps. A strange thrill of delight slightly tinged with fear passed through my frame, and though before my eyes there was not a figure, methought I saw a number of gay frolicsome girls coming down the steps to bathe in the Susta in that summer evening. Not a sound was there in the valley, in the river, in the palace, to break the silence of the evening, but I almost distinctly heard their gay and mirthful laugh, like the gurgle of a spring gushing forth in a hundred cascades, as they ran past me in quick playful pursuit of each other towards the river without noticing me at all. As they were invisible to me, so I was as it were invisible to them. The river was perfectly calm, but I almost distinctly felt that its still, shallow and clear waters were suddenly stirred by the splash of many an arm jingling with its bracelets, that the girls laughed and dashed and spattered water at one another and that the feet of the fair swimmers threw up the water in small pearly showers.
I felt a thrill at my heart—I cannot say whether the excitement was due exactly to fear or delight or curiosity. I felt a strong desire to see them more clearly, but naught could I see before me; I thought I could catch all that they said only if I strained my ears. But however hard did I strain them, I heard nothing but the chirping of the crickets in the woods. It seemed as if a dark curtain of 250 years was hanging before me and I would fain tremblingly lift a corner of it and peer through, though the grand assembly on the other side was completely enveloped in darkness.
The oppressive closeness of the evening was broken by a sudden gust of wind and the still surface of the Susta rippled and curled like the hair of a nymph, and the woods wrapt in the evening gloom gave forth a simultaneous murmur all at once and seemed to awaken from a black dream. Call it reality or dream, the momentary glimpse of that invisible mirage reflected ​from a far-off 250-year-old world vanished in a flash. The mystic forms that brushed past me with their quick unbodied steps, and loud voiceless laughter and threw themselves into the river, did not go back past me wringing their dripping apparels as they came. Like fragrance wafted away by the wind they were dispersed by a single breath of the spring.
Then I was filled with a lively apprehension that it was the Muse that had taken advantage of my solitude and possessed me—the witch had evidently come to ruin a poor devil like myself making a living by collecting cotton duties. I decided to have a substantial dinner—it is the empty stomach that all sorts of incurable diseases find an easy prey. I sent for my cook and gave orders for a rich, sumptuous 'moghlai' dinner redolent of spices and ghee.
Next morning the whole affair appeared awfully funny. With a light heart I put on a sola hat like the sahibs and drove out to my supervising work. I was to have written my quarterly report that day and expected to return late; but before it was dark I felt strangely drawn to my house—by whom I could not say—but I thought as if they were all waiting and I should delay no longer. Leaving my report unfinished I rose, put on my sola hat, and startling by the rattle of my carriage the shady desolate path wrapped in evening gloom I reached that vast silent palace standing on the dark skirts of the hills.
In the first floor the stairs led to a very spacious hall, its roof stretching wide over ornamental arches resting on three rows of massive pillars, and groaning day and night under the weight of its own intense solitude. The day had just closed and the lamps had not yet been lighted. As I pushed the door open a great bustle seemed to follow within, as if an assembly broke up in confusion and rushed out through the doors and windows and corridors and verandahs and rooms, to make their hurried escape.
As I saw no one I stood bewildered, my hair on end in a kind of ecstatic delight, and a faint scent of attar and unguents almost effaced by age lingered in my nose. Standing in the darkness of that vast desolate hall between the rows of those ancient pillars, I could hear the gurgle of fountains emptying on the marble floor, a strange tune in the guitar, the jingle of ornaments and the tinkle of anklets, the clang of bells announcing the hours, the distant note of 'nahabat', the din of the crystal pendants of chandeliers shaken by the breeze, the song of bulbuls from the cages in the corridors, the cackle of storks in the gardens, all creating round me a strange unearthly music.
Then I came under such a spell that this intangible, inaccessible, unearthly affair appeared to be the only reality in the world—and all else a mere dream. That I, that is to say, Srijut so-and-so, the eldest son of so-and-so of blessed memory, was drawing a monthly salary of Rs. 450 by the discharge of my duties as collector of cotton duties, and driving in my dog-cart to office every day in a short coat and sola hat, appeared to me to be such an astonishingly ludicrous illusion that I burst into a horse-laugh, as I stood in the gloom of that vast silent hall.
At that moment my servant entered with a lighted kerosene lamp in his hand. I do not know whether he thought me mad but I came at once to remember that I was in very deed, Srijut so-and-so, son of so-and-so of blessed memory, and that while our poets, great and small, alone could say whether inside or outside the earth there was a region where unseen fountains perpetually played and fairy guitars struck by invisible fingers sent forth an eternal harmony, this at any rate was certain that I collected duties at the cotton market at Barich and earned thereby Rs. 450 per mensem as my salary. I laughed in great glee over my curious illusion as I sat over the newspaper at my camp-table lighted by the kerosene lamp.
After I had finished my paper and eaten my 'Moghlai' dinner I put out the lamp and lay down on my bed in a small side-room. Through the open window a radiant star, high above the Avalli hills skirted by the darkness of their woods, was gazing intently from millions and millions of miles away in the sky at Mr. Collector lying on a humble camp-bedstead, and I wondered and felt amused at the idea, and do not know when I fell asleep or how long I slept, but I suddenly awoke with a start, though I heard no sound and saw no ​intruder—only that steady bright star on the hilltop had set, and the dim light of the new moon was stealthily entering the room through the open window as if shrinking from the intrusion.
I saw no one but still I felt distinctly as if some one was gently pushing me. As I awoke she said not a word, but beckoned me with her five fingers bedecked with rings to follow her cautiously. I got up noiselessly, and though not a soul save myself was there in the countless apartments of that deserted palace with its slumbering sounds and waking echoes I feared at every step lest any one should wake up. Most of the rooms of that palace were always kept closed and I had never entered them.
I followed breathless and with noiseless steps my invisible guide—I cannot now say where. What endless dark and narrow passages, long corridors, silent and solemn audience-chambers and close secret cells I crossed!
Though I could not see my fair guide, her form was not invisible to my mind's eye. An Arab girl, her arms hard and smooth as marble visible through her loose sleeves, a thin veil falling on her face from the fringe of her cap, and a curved dagger at her waist.
Methought that one of the thousand and one Arabian Nights had been wafted to me from the world of romance and that at the dead of night I was wending through the dark narrow alleys of slumbering Bagdad on my way to a trysting-place fraught with peril.
At last my fair guide abruptly stopped before a deep blue screen and seemed to point to something below. There was nothing there, but a sudden dread froze the blood in my heart—methought I saw there on the floor at the foot of the screen a terrible negro eunuch dressed in rich brocade sitting and dosing with outstretched legs, a naked sword on his lap. My fair guide lightly tripped over his legs and held up a fringe of the screen. I could catch a glimpse of a part of the room spread with a Persian carpet—some one was sitting inside on a bed—I could not see her, but only caught a glimpse of two exquisite feet in gold-embroidered slippers hanging out from loose saffron-coloured paijamas and placed idly on the orange-coloured velvet carpet. On one side there was a bluish crystal tray on which a few apples, pears, oranges and bunches of grapes in plenty, two small cups and a gold-tinted decanter were evidently awaiting the guest. A fragrant intoxicating vapour issuing from a strange sort of incense burning within almost overpowered my senses.
As with a trembling heart I made an attempt to step across the outstretched legs of the eunuch he woke up suddenly with a start and the sword fell from his lap with a sharp clang on the marble floor.
A terrific scream made me violently start and I saw I was sitting on that camp bedstead of mine sweating heavily and the crescent moon looking pale in the morning rays like a weary sleepless patient at dawn, and our crazy Meher Ali crying out as was his daily custom, "Stand back! Stand back!!" while going round the lonely road.
Such was the abrupt close of one of my Arabian Nights but there were yet a thousand nights left.
Then followed a great discord between my days and nights. During the day I would go to my work worn and tired cursing the bewitching night and her empty dreams, but as night came my daily life with its bonds and shackles of work would appear a petty, false, ludicrous vanity.
After nightfall I was caught and overwhelmed in the snare of a strange intoxication. I would be then transformed into some unknown individual of some bygone age figuring in some unwritten history; and the short English coat and tight breeches would not suit me in the least. With a red velvet cap on my head, loose paijamas, an embroidered vest, a long flowing silk gown, and coloured handkerchiefs scented with attar, I would complete my elaborate toilet, and sit on a high-cushioned chair, my cigarette replaced by a many-coiled narghileh filled with rose water as if in eager expectation of a strange meeting with the beloved one.
As the gloom of the night deepened, the marvellous incidents that would go on unfolding themselves I have no power to describe. I felt as if in the curious apartments of that vast edifice flew about in a sudden gust of the vernal breeze the fragments of a charming story, which I could follow for some distance, but of which I could never see the end. But all the same I ​would wander from room to room in the pursuit of those whirling fragments the whole of the night.
Amid the whirling eddy of these dreamy-fragments, amid the occasional smell of henna and the twangling of the guitar and the waves of air charged with fragrant spray, I would catch like a flash of lightning the momentary glimpse of a fair demoiselle. She it was who had those saffron-coloured paijamas, her white ruddy soft feet in gold embroidered slippers with curved toes, on her bosom a closefitting bodice wrought with gold, a red cap on her head from which a golden frill fell on her snowy brow and cheeks.
She had made me mad. It was after her that I wandered from room to room, from path to path among the bewildering maze of alleys of that enchanted dreamland in the nether world of sleep.
Sometimes of an evening while dressing myself carefully as a prince of the blood-royal before a large mirror with a candle burning on either side, I would see a sudden reflection of that Persian beauty by the side of my own, and then a sudden turn of her neck, a quick eager glance of intense passion and pain glowing in her large dark eyes, just a suspicion of language on her moist dainty cherry lips, her figure, fair and slim, crowned with youth like a blossoming creeper quickly uplifted in her graceful tilting gait, a dazzling flash of pain and craving and ecstasy and smile and glance and blaze of jewels and silk, and she melted away. A wild gust of wind laden with all the fragrance of hills and woods would put out my light, and I would fling aside my dress and lie down on my bed in the dressing room, my eyes closed and my body thrilling with delight, and there around me amid that breeze and all the perfume of the woods and hills, floated about in the silent gloom many a caress and many a kiss and many a tender touch of hands, and gentle murmurs in my ears, and fragrant breaths on my brow, and a delightfully perfumed kerchief was wafted again and again on my cheeks. A fascinating serpent would, as it were, slowly twist round me her stupefying coils, and heaving a heavy sigh I would lapse into insensibility followed by profound slumber.
One evening I decided to go out on my horse—I do not know who implored me to stay—but I would listen to no entreaties that day. My English hat and coat were resting on a rack and I was about to take them down, when a sudden blast of whirlwind crested with the sands of the Susta and the dead leaves of the Avalli hills caught them up whirling them round and round, while a loud peal of merry laughter rose higher and higher striking all the chords of mirth till it died away in the regions of sunset.
I could not go out for my ride, and from the next day I gave up my queer English coat and hat for good.
That day again at dead of night I heard the stifled heart-breaking sobs of some one—as if below the bed, below the floor, below the stony foundation of that gigantic palace, from the depths of a dark damp grave, some one piteously cried and implored: "Oh, rescue me! Break through these doors of hard illusions, deathlike slumber and fruitless dreams, place me by your side on the saddle, press me to your heart and tearing through hills and woods and across the river take me to the warm radiance of your sunny rooms above!"
Who am I? Oh, how can I rescue thee? What drowning beauty, what incarnate passion shall I drag to the shore from this whirling flux of dreams? O lovely ethereal apparition! Where didst thou flourish and when? By what cool spring, under the shade of what date-groves, wast thou born—in the lap of what homeless wanderer in the desert? What Bedouin brigand snatched thee from thy mother's arms like an opening bud plucked from a wild creeper, placed thee on a horse swift as lightning, crossed the burning sands and took thee to the slave-market of what royal city? And there, what officer of the Badshah observing the beauty of thy bashful blossoming youth paid for thee in gold, placed thee in a golden palanquin, and offered thee as a present for the seraglio of his master? And Oh, the history of that place! That music of the sareng, the jingle of anklets, the occasional flash of dagger through the golden wine of Shiraz, the gall of poison, and the piercing flashing glance! What infinite grandeur, what endless slavery! The slave girls to thy right and ​left waving the 'chamar' as diamonds flashed from their bracelets, the Badshah, the king of kings, in front of thee fallen on his knees at thy snowy feet in bejewelled shoes, and outside the terrible Abyssinian eunuch looking like a messenger of death but clothed like an angel standing with a naked sword in his hand! Then, Oh, thou flower of the desert, swept away by that bloodstained dazzling ocean of grandeur with its foam of jealousy and rocks and shoals of intrigue, on what land of cruel death wast thou cast, or on what other land more splendid but more cruel?
Suddenly at this moment that crazy Meher Ali screamed out, "Stand back! Stand back!! All is false! All is false!!" I opened my eyes and saw that it was already light. My chaprasi came and handed me my letters and the cook waited with a salam for my orders about the meal.
I said, "No, I can't stay here any longer." That very day I packed up and removed to my office. Old Karim Khan of my office smiled a little as he saw me. I felt nettled at it but said nothing and fell to my work.
As evening approached I grew absent-minded, I felt as if I had an appointment to keep and the work of examining the cotton accounts appeared wholly useless, even the Nizamat of the Nizam did not appear to be of much worth. Whatever belonged to the present, whatever was moving and acting and working for bread at the moment appeared exceedingly trivial, meaningless, and contemptible.
I threw my pen down, closed my ledgers, got into my dog-cart and drove away. I noticed that it stopped of itself at the gate of the marble palace just at the hour of twilight. With quick steps I climbed the stairs and entered the room.
A heavy silence was reigning within. The dark rooms were looking sullen as if they had taken offence. My heart was full of contrition but there was no one to whom I could lay it bare, or of whom I could ask forgiveness. I wandered about the dark rooms with a vacant mind. I wished I had a musical instrument to which I could sing to the unknown: "O fire, the poor moth that made a vain effort to fly away has come back to thee! Forgive it but this once, burn both its wings and consume it in thy flame!"
Suddenly two tear drops fell from overhead on my brow. Dark masses of clouds overcast the top of the Avalli hills that day. The gloomy woods and the sooty waters of the Susta were waiting in a terrible suspense in an ominous calm. Suddenly the land, water and sky shivered and a wild tempest-blast rushed howling through the distant pathless woods displaying its lightning teeth like a raving maniac who had broken his chains. The desolate halls of the palace banged their doors and moaned in the bitterness of anguish.
The servants were all in the office and there was no one to light the lamps here. The night was cloudy and moonless. In the dense gloom within I could distinctly feel that a woman was lying on her face on the carpet below the bed—her desperate fingers clasping and tearing her long dishevelled hair. Blood was trickling down her fair brow and she was now laughing a hard harsh mirthless laugh, now bursting into violent wringing sobs, now rending her bodice and striking at her bare bosom as the wind roared in through the open window and rain poured in torrents and soaked her through and through.
All night there was no cessation of the storm or of the passionate cry. I wandered from room to room in the dark in unavailing sorrow. Whom could I console when no one was by? Whose was this agony of intense mortification? Whence arose this inconsolable sorrow?
The mad man now cried out, "Stand back! Stand back!! All is false! All is false!!"
I saw the day had dawned and Meher Ali was going round and round the palace with his usual cry in that dreadful weather. Suddenly it occurred to me that perhaps that man also had once lived in that house and that though he had come out mad he came there every day and went round and round, fascinated by the weird spell cast by the marble demon.
Despite the storm and rain I ran to him and asked, "Ho, Meher Ali, what is false?"
The man made no reply, but pushing me aside went round and round with his frantic cry like a fascinated bird flying round the jaws of a serpent, only making a desperate effort to warn himself by repeatedly crying, "Stand back! Stand back!! All is false! All is false!!"
​I ran like a mad man through the pelting rain to my office and asked Karim Khan, "Tell me the meaning of all this!"
What I gathered from that old man was this: That at one time countless unrequited passions and unsatisfied longings and lurid flames of wild blazing pleasure raged within that palace and that the curse of those heartaches and blasted hopes had made every stone of that palace thirsty and hungry, eager to swallow up like a famished ogress any living man who might chance to come. Not one of those who lived there for three consecutive nights could escape these cruel jaws save Meher Ali who had come out at the cost of his reason.
I asked, "Is there no means whatever of my release?" The old man said, "There is only one means, but that is extremely difficult. I will tell you what it is, but first you must hear the history of a young Persian girl who once lived in that pleasure-dome. A stranger or a more heart-rending event never happened on this earth."
Just at this stage the coolies announced that the train was coming. So soon? We hurriedly packed up our luggage when the train steamed in. An English gentleman apparently just aroused from slumber was looking out of a first-class carriage endeavouring to read the name of the station. As soon as he caught sight of our fellow-passenger, he cried, "hallo," and took him into his own compartment. As we got into a second-class carriage we had no opportunity of finding out who the gentleman was nor could hear the end of his story.
I said, "The man evidently took us for fools and imposed upon us out of fun. The story is pure fabrication from start to finish." The discussion that followed ended in a lifelong rupture between my theosophist relation and myself.
Panna Lal Basu.
Bangabasi College, Jan., 1910.