After leaving Calcutta, Devdas traveled to Elahabad. While there, he wrote to Chondromookhi, “Wife, I never thought that I would love again! To have loved, and come away empty-handed is pain enough, then to risk loving again is folly.”

What Chondromookhi’s answer was, I cannot say, but during this period, Devdas kept wondering, “Couldn’t I just ask her to come here?” The next moment, he would think “What if Parvati were to hear of it?” In this fashion, he wavered between Parvati and Chondromookhi. Sometimes he would imagine them both together as though they were bosom friends. Sometimes he felt that they had both turned away from him and at these times he would be filled with great dissatisfaction.

He moved from Elahabad to Lahore, where chanced upon his erstwhile friend, Choony. They renewed their aquaintanceship, and Devdas began drinking again. Guiltily, he recalled Chondromookhi’s adjurations, he considered how wise she was, how steadfast, how affectionate. He did not think of Parvati for long stretches of time, then suddenly her memory would blaze up like a flash of lightning.

In Lahore, Devdas grew ill again. Yet he continued to go out, sometimes staying out all night. Once he did not return for two days; helpless with fear and worry, the faithful Dharmadas waited, barely able to eat or drink. On the third day, Devdas returned with a raging fever. Doctors were summoned and began treatment. Dharmadas begged, “Let me send word to your mother.”

Devdas replied, “I cannot see her in this state.”

“Why hide from her, when you need her most? Devdas, let’s fo to Benaras.”

But Devdas said stubbornly, “No, Dharmadas, not now. Wait till I’m better.”

Dharmadas even considered mentioning Chondromookhi, but he held her in such deep disgust, that he could not bring himself to speak her name.

Devdas himself thought of her often, yet he did not talk of her, or send word to her. As a result, no one came to him.

Finally one day he was able to leave his bed.

He said, “Dharmadas, let’s go somewhere else.”

“Let’s just go home, or to your mother!”

Instead, they returned to Elahabad. After a few days there, Devdas said, “Dharmadas, let’s go to Bombay.”

The month was Jaistha; in Jaistha, Bombay is not too warm. Devdas felt that his health was improving. Dharmadas had said again, “Let’s go home.” But he refused. “I feel much better in this place. We’ll stay here a little longer.”

Almost a year had gone by, the month was Bhadro. Devdas, leaning on Dharmadas, walked out of the Bombay hospital, tears misting his eyes. While he lay in the hospital, he had been pondering his fate. He had everything , and he had nothing. He had a mother, a brother, Parvati, Chondromookhi; yet he was no one’s responsibility. Dharmadas wept, “Let us go to your mother now.”

Devdas was in the last stages of disease now. His liver was eaten away, he had a fever, and a cough. His once fair skin had darkened almost to black. His eyes were sunken, yet glittered unnaturally. He was all skin and bones, his figure deformed and twisted. At last, he said, “Dharmadas, let’s go home.”

On the train, his fever overcame him again, he lay unconscious as they passed Benaras. As they neared Patna, he gained consciousness. He tried to smile but could not. He said, “Iguess we won’t see mother this time. I think it will be hard going home. The fever’s worse, Dharmadas.”

“Let’s get off at Patna and see a doctor.”

“No, no, let’s go home.”

I was nearly dawn when the train drew into Pandua station. After falling continuously all night, the rain had stopped. Pandua! That was in the vicinity of Hathipota, where Parvati lived. On a sudden impulse, Devdas rose to his feet. On the floor, next to his bunk, Dharmadas lay asleep. Guiltily, Devdas gently touched his faithful head in farewell, not daring to wake him. Then he opened the carriage door noiselessly and stepped down. Then the train pulled away, taking the sleeping Dharmadas with it.

A solitary horse and coach stood near the station, and Devdas hailed the coachman.

“Can you take me to Hathipota?”

“No, sir. The rains have made the roads impossible. This horse will never make it through all the mud.”

Devdas asked anxiously, “Can a palanquin be found?”

“No, sir.”

Devdas sank down. Even a blind man could read the despair in his face. The coachman said, “An ox-cart might make it. Shall I fetch you one?”

“How long will an ox-cart take to reach Hathipota?”

“Perhaps two days.”

“Two days!” thought Devdas “Two days. Will I live that long?”

He recalled all the empty promises that he had made in his life, but this promise he had to keep – he had promised to see her before he died, but he had no certainty that he would live to keep this promise.

As he sat in the ox-cart, Devdas remembered his mother, and tears smarted in his eyes. Then another face, a loving and lovely face, that of Chondromookhi, took its place beside his mother, and the two seemed to look compassionately down at him. Devdas’s tears flowed freely now. He had despised her, disgusted by her profession, but now she took her place on a par with his mother. Devdas wept, he would never see her again, nor would she get the news of his death anytime soon. Yet he must get to Parvati, to keep his promise. In his disordered mind, this thought was fixated, he must reach Parvati.

The rains had flooded parts of the road, and sometimes mudslides obstructed, so the driver had to get out and heave the wheels and beat the pair of oxen mercilessly to unstick them. A cold wind blew, chilling Devdas. The month was Ashar, after all. The fever started again. He asked fearfully, “How much farther?”

“Another ten miles, sir.”

“Go as fast as you can. I’ll