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The King of the Dark Chamber

Chapter 23: THE END
By Rabindranath Tagore
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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.

XX

[The Dark Chamber]

SUDARSHANA.
Lord, do not give me back the honour which you once did turn away from me! I am the servant of your feet—I only seek the privilege of serving you.

KING.
Will you be able to bear me now?

SUDARSHANA.
Oh yes, yes, I shall. Your sigh repelled me because I had sought to find you in the pleasure garden, in my Queen’s chambers: there even your meanest servant looks handsomer than you. That fever of longing has left my eyes for ever. You are not beautiful, my lord—you stand beyond all comparisons!

KING.
That which can be comparable with me lies within yourself.

SUDARSHANA.
If this be so, then that too is beyond comparison. Your love lives in me—you are mirrored in that love, and you see your face reflected in me: nothing of this mine, it is all yours, O lord!

KING.
I open the doors of this dark room to-day—the game is finished here! Come, come with me now, come outside—into the light!

SUDARSHANA.
Before I go, let me bow at the feet of my lord of darkness, my cruel, my terrible, my peerless one!

THE END