Kim (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) - Rudyard Kipling [69]
Kim pretended at first to understand perhaps one word in three of this talk. Then the Colonel, seeing his mistake, turned to fluent and picturesque Urdu and Kim was contented. No man could be a fool who knew the language so intimately, who moved so gently and silently, and whose eyes were so different from the dull fat eyes of other Sahibs.
‘Yes, and thou must learn how to make pictures of roads and mountains and rivers—to carry these pictures in thine eye till a suitable time comes to set them down upon paper. Perhaps some day, when thou art a chain-man,185 I may say to thee when we are working together: “Go across those hills and see what lies beyond.” Then one will say: “There are bad people living in those hills who will slay the chain-man if he be seen to look like a Sahib.” What then?’
Kim thought. Would it be safe to return the Colonel’s lead?
‘I would tell what that other man had said.’
‘But if I answered: “I will give thee a hundred rupees for knowledge of what is behind those hills—for a picture of a river and a little news of what the people say in the villages there”?’
‘How can I tell? I am only a boy. Wait till I am a man.’ Then, seeing the Colonel’s brow clouded, he went on: ‘But I think I should in a few days earn the hundred rupees.’
‘By what road?’
Kim shook his head resolutely. ‘If I said how I would earn them, another man might hear and forestall me. It is not good to sell knowledge for nothing.’
‘Tell now.’ The Colonel held up a rupee. Kim’s hand half reached towards it, and dropped.
‘Nay, Sahib; nay. I know the price that will be paid for the answer, but I do not know why the question is asked.’
‘Take it for a gift, then,’ said Creighton, tossing it over. ‘There is a good spirit in thee. Do not let it be blunted at St. Xavier’s. There are many boys there who despise the black men.’
‘Their mothers were bazar-women,’ said Kim. He knew well there is no hatred like that of the half-caste for his brother-in-law.
‘True; but thou art a Sahib and the son of a Sahib. Therefore, do not at any time be led to contemn the black men. I have known boys newly entered into the service of the Government who feigned not to understand the talk or the customs of black men. Their pay was cut for ignorance. There is no sin so great as ignorance. Remember this.’
Several times in the course of the long twenty-four hours’ run south did the Colonel send for Kim, always developing this latter text.
‘We be all on one lead-rope, then,’ said Kim at last, ‘the Colonel, Mahbub Ali, and I—when I become a chain-man. He will use me as Mahbub Ali employed me, I think. That is good, if it allows me to return to the Road again. This clothing grows no easier by wear.’
When they came to the crowded Lucknow station there was no sign of the lama. He swallowed his disappointment, while the Colonel bundled him into a ticca-gharri186 with his neat belongings and despatched him alone to St. Xavier’s.
‘I do not say farewell, because we shall meet again,’ he cried. ‘Again, and many times, if thou art one of good spirit. But thou art not yet tried.’
‘Not when I brought thee’—Kim actually dared to use the tum187 of equals—‘a white stallion’s pedigree that night?’
‘Much is gained by forgetting, little brother,’ said the Colonel, with a look that pierced through Kim’s shoulder-blades as he scuttled into the carriage.
It took him nearly five minutes to recover. Then he sniffed the new air appreciatively. ‘A rich city,’ he said. ‘Richer than Lahore. How good the bazars must be! Coachman, drive me a little through the bazars here.’
‘My order is to take thee to the school.’ The driver used the ‘thou’, which is rudeness when applied to a white man. In the clearest and most fluent vernacular Kim pointed out his error, climbed on to the box-seat, and, perfect understanding established, drove for a couple of hours up and down, estimating, comparing, and enjoying. There is no city—except Bombay, the queen of all—more beautiful in her garish style than Lucknow, whether you see her from the bridge over the river, or from the top of the Imambara188 looking down on the gilt umbrellas of the Chutter Munzil,189 and the trees in which the town is bedded. Kings have adorned her with fantastic buildings, endowed her with charities, crammed her with pensioners, and drenched her with blood. She is the centre of all idleness, intrigue, and luxury, and shares with Delhi the claim to talk the only pure Urdu.