Kim (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) - Rudyard Kipling [117]
‘Very mightily they do so,’ sighed the old lady.
The voice launched into an immense tale of misfortune and bankruptcy, studded with plentiful petitions to the Government. ‘But for my fate, which overrules all, I had been now in Government employ. I bear a degree from the great school at Calcutta—whither, maybe, the son of this House shall go.’
‘He shall indeed. If our neighbour’s brat can in a few years be made an F.A.’ (First Arts—she used the English word, of which she had heard so often), ‘how much more shall children clever as some that I know bear away prizes at rich Calcutta.’
‘Never,’ said the voice, ‘have I seen such a child! Born in an auspicious hour, and—but for that colic which, alas! turning into black cholers, may carry him off like a pigeon—destined to many years, he is enviable.’
‘Hai mai!’ said the old lady. ‘To praise children is inauspicious, or I could listen to this talk. But the back of the house is unguarded, and even in this soft air men think themselves to be men, and women we know ... The child’s father is away too, and I must be chowkedar [watchman] in my old age. Up! Up! Take up the palanquin. Let the hakim and the young priest settle between them whether charms or medicine most avail. Ho! worthless people, fetch tobacco for the guests, and—round the homestead go I!’
The palanquin reeled off, followed by straggling torches and a horde of dogs. Twenty villages knew the Sahiba—her failings, her tongue, and her large charity. Twenty villages cheated her after immemorial custom, but no man would have stolen or robbed within her jurisdiction for any gift under heaven. None the less, she made great parade of her formal inspections, the riot of which could be heard half-way to Mussoorie.306
Kim relaxed, as one augur must when he meets another. The hakim, still squatting, slid over his hookah with a friendly foot, and Kim pulled at the good weed. The hangers-on expected grave professional debate, and perhaps a little free doctoring.
‘To discuss medicine before the ignorant is of one piece with teaching the peacock to sing,’ said the hakim.
‘True courtesy,’ Kim echoed, ‘is very often inattention.’
These, be it understood, were company-manners, designed to impress.
‘Hi! I have an ulcer on my leg,’ cried a scullion. ‘Look at it!’
‘Get hence! Remove!’ said the hakim. ‘Is it the habit of the place to pester honoured guests? Ye crowd in like buffaloes.’
‘If the Sahiba knew—’ Kim began.
‘Ai! Ai! Come away. They are meat for our mistress. When her young Shaitan’s colics are cured perhaps we poor people may be suffered to—’
‘The mistress fed thy wife when thou wast in jail for breaking the money-lender’s head. Who speaks against her?’ The old servitor curled his white moustaches savagely in the young moonlight. ‘I am responsible for the honour of this house. Go!’ and he drove the underlings before him.
Said the hakim, hardly more than shaping the words with his lips: ‘How do you do, Mister O’Hara? I am jolly glad to see you again.’
Kim’s hand clenched about the pipe-stem. Anywhere on the open road, perhaps, he would not have been astonished; but here, in this quiet backwater of life, he was not prepared for Hurree Babu, It annoyed him, too, that he bad been hoodwinked.
‘Ah ha! I told you at Lucknow—resurgam—I shall rise again and you shall not know me. How much did you bet—eh?’
He chewed leisurely upon a few cardamom seeds, but he breathed uneasily.
‘But why come here, Babuji?’
‘Ah! Thatt is the question,307 as Shakespeare hath it. I come to congratulate you on your extraordinary effeecient performance at Delhi. Oah! I tell you we are all proud of you. It was verree neat and handy. Our mutual friend, he is old friend of mine. He has been in some dam’-tight places. Now he will be in some more. He told me; I tell Mr. Lurgan; and he is pleased you graduate so nicely. All the Department is pleased.’
For the first time in his life, Kim thrilled to the clean pride (it can be a deadly pitfall, none the less) of Departmental praise—ensnaring praise from an equal of work appreciated by fellow-workers. Earth has nothing on the same plane to compare with it. But, cried the Oriental in him, Babus do not travel far to retail compliments.