Devdas’s first visit to Chandramukhi

Devdas’s first visit to Chandramukhi brings a social encounter to an abrupt emotional standstill. Taken to her house by Chunilal, he meets her not with curiosity or ordinary politeness but with a declared hatred of women and a look of disgust. He then reduces the visit to a blunt question about money, pays her, and moves toward the exit. Yet the insult does not settle the scene: Chandramukhi is deeply affected by his rejection, and later tells Chunilal that she feels attracted to him. Their meeting begins with an attempted transaction and ends with an unexpected attachment.

Arrival and immediate rejection

That night, Devdas and Chunilal dress elaborately and go out together, although Devdas is reluctant and Chunilal will not go out in plain clothes. At nine o’clock, their hired buggy stops before a two-storey house in Chitpore. Chunilal takes Devdas by the hand and pulls him inside. Chandramukhi, the owner, comes out to greet them. The journey has brought Devdas into a setting Chunilal intended him to enter, but Devdas’s response makes clear that he does not accept the encounter on those terms.

The sight of Chandramukhi provokes an aversion Devdas recognizes as having grown over the preceding days: he has unconsciously come to hate even the shadow of women. The narration presents the feeling as suddenly intensified by her presence, as though a latent hostility has become impossible to ignore. He frowns at Chunilal and asks, “Chuni, what is this hideous place you have brought me to?” His tone and glare astonish both Chunilal and Chandramukhi. Chunilal tries to contain the confrontation by taking Devdas’s hand and softly urging him inside; Devdas says nothing further, but enters and sits down with a sickened expression.

The room and the question of money

The arrangement of the room makes the discomfort visible. Devdas sits on a mattress; Chandramukhi takes a seat in another corner. A maid prepares a hookah with a silver rim, but Devdas does not touch it. When the maid, unsure what is expected, hands the hookah to Chandramukhi and leaves, Chandramukhi puffs on it. Devdas then rebukes her as rude and an ugly sight. His words silence her. The hookah continues to bubble intermittently, an ordinary sound that becomes conspicuous in the pause after his attack. Chandramukhi forgets to exhale; she eventually passes the hookah to Chunilal and stares at Devdas without speaking. None of the three says anything. Chunilal puts the hookah aside and goes downstairs, leaving the two of them together.

Devdas breaks the silence with a question: “Do you take money?” Chandramukhi, who is twenty-four and has known many kinds of men intimately over roughly ten years, is at a loss for words before she answers that she does, since that is how they live. Devdas cuts off her explanation. He insists that he is asking only whether she takes money, then pulls a note from his pocket, presses it into her palm, and makes to leave. He does not even look to see how much he has given her. The gesture turns the visit into an exchange on his terms: he will pay, but refuses to hear what the payment means to her or to remain in the encounter as a guest.

Withdrawal and aftermath

As Devdas goes to stand in the corridor, Chandramukhi asks whether he is already leaving. He does not answer. Later, she shows the money to Chunilal and offers to let him take it back to Devdas. Chunilal refuses, reasoning that Devdas gave it of his own free will. Chandramukhi sees the gesture differently: he paid not freely, she says, but with disgust because they take money. The disagreement sharpens the distinction between the outward act of payment and the humiliation she has experienced in receiving it.

Chunilal does not dismiss Devdas as mad. He tells Chandramukhi that Devdas has been very upset for the last few days. This supplies a limited context for the hostility without explaining its cause: the scene links his aversion to a recent disturbance, but does not disclose more. Chandramukhi asks whether Chunilal knows why he is upset. When Chunilal presses her to speak honestly, she admits, “It’s true—I do feel attracted to him.” Chunilal laughs in disbelief at the speed of this response, asking whether she has fallen in love in just five minutes; Chandramukhi joins him in laughing.

Significance of the encounter

The visit turns on a sharp mismatch between intention and effect. Chunilal has brought Devdas to Chandramukhi’s house, but Devdas resists the social encounter through contempt, silence, and money. Chandramukhi is not merely left with the note: she is struck by the intensity of his disgust, and that very encounter becomes the occasion on which she acknowledges an attraction. The account does not establish that this feeling is already love, nor does it explain what will follow from it. It records its surprising beginning alongside the insult that provokes it.

The hookah’s intermittent bubbling gives material form to the pause created by Devdas’s words: the room’s customary social activity continues, but conversation has stopped. Likewise, the note is both payment and a means of withdrawal. Devdas uses it to end the visit without looking back at the amount, while Chandramukhi’s offer to return it shows that she does not treat his gesture as a simple, welcome transaction. The encounter therefore introduces a relationship under conditions of asymmetry: Devdas attempts to close the exchange, while Chandramukhi’s response opens an emotional possibility he has not acknowledged.