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The King of the Dark Chamber

Chapter 16: XIV
By Rabindranath Tagore
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Plays/Films/Dramas

About This Book

The play presents a realm where the sovereign remains unseen and everyday life is filled with festivals, gossip, and ritual while citizens speculate about his absence. A devoted subject forges a deeply personal bond with the hidden ruler through trials of faith and symbolic encounters, shifting the action from public bustle to intimate, shadowed interiors. Using songs, allegory, and staged ceremonies, the drama probes longing, surrender, and the paradoxical authority of a presence that governs without display, asking whether devotion and power rest on outward visibility or on inward knowing.

XIV

[SUDARSHANA and SURANGAMA at the Window]

SUDARSHANA.
Must I go to the assembly of the princes, then? Is there no other means of saving father’s life?

SURANGAMA.
The King of Kanchi has said so.

SUDARSHANA .
Are these the words worthy of a King? Did he say so with his own lips?

SURANGAMA.
No, his messenger, Suvarna, brought this news.

SUDARSHANA.
Woe, woe is me!

SURANGAMA.
And he produced a few withered flowers and said, “Tell your Queen that the drier and more withered these souvenirs of the Spring Festival become, the fresher and more blooming do they grow within in my heart.”

SUDARSHANA.
Stop! Tell me no more. Do not torment me any more.

SURANGAMA.
Look! There sit all the princes in the great assembly. He who has no ornament on his person, except a single garland of flowers round his crown—he is the King of Kanchi. And he who holds the umbrella over his head, standing behind him—that is Suvarna.

SUDARSHANA.
Is that Suvarna? Are you quite certain?

SURANGAMA.
Yes, I know him well.

SUDARSHANA.
Can it be that it is this man that I saw the other day? No, no,—I saw something mingled and transfused and blended with light and darkness, with wind and perfume,—no, no, it cannot be he; that is not he.

SURANGAMA.
But every one admits that he is exceedingly beautiful to look at.

SUDARSHANA.
How could that beauty fascinate me? Oh, what shall I do to purge my eyes of their pollution?

SURANGAMA.
You will have to wash them in that bottomless darkness.

SUDARSHANA.
But tell me, Surangama, why does one make such mistakes?

SURANGAMA.
Mistakes are but the preludes to their own destruction.

MESSENGER.
[entering] Princess, the Kings are waiting for you in the hall. [Exit.]

SUDARSHANA.
Surangama, bring me the veil. [SURANGAMA goes out.] O King, my only King! You have left me alone, and you have been but just in doing so. But will you not know the inmost truth within my soul? [Taking out a dagger from within her bosom.] This body of mine has received a stain—I shall make a sacrifice of it to-day in the dust of the hall, before all these princes! But shall I never be able to tell you that I know of no stain of faithlessness within the hidden chambers of my heart? That dark chamber where you would come to meet me lies cold and empty within my bosom to-day—but, O my Lord! none has opened its doors, none has entered it but you, O King! Will you never come again to open those doors? Then, let death come, for it is dark like yourself, and its features are beautiful as yours . It is you—it is yourself, O King!