B. A. 1ST SemesterEnglish 01

Compulsory Core (CBCS)

Edited by

Dr. Sanjib Kumar Sarma

Assistant Professor

Department of English

Dispur College,

Guwahati

B.A. ENGLISHAn Anthology of english prose & drama

Gauhati University

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CHOICE BASED CREDIT SYSTEMSyllabus of Gauhati Univertsity

B.A. First Semester (Compulsory Core)

Paper-Eng-CC-1016 : Total Marks : 100 (80+20)

PROSE & DRAMA SECTION 60

1. Arthur Miller : All My Sons

2. George Orwell (1903-1950) : Shooting an Elephant

3. D.H. Lawrence : The Women Who Rode Away

4. Manoj Das (1934-) : The Misty Hour

5. Munin Barkotoki (1915-1995) : Krishna Kanta Handiqui

6. Rohinton Mistry (1952-) : Running Water

7. Michael Ondaatje (1943-) : Angulimala

8. Salman Rushdie : Good Advice is Rarer than Rubies

CONTENTS

1. Arthur Miller : All My Sons 5

2. George Orwell (1903-1950) : Shooting an Elephant 76

3. D.H. Lawrence : The Women Who Rode Away 90

4. Manoj Das (1934-) : The Misty Hour 132

5. Munin Barkotoki (1915-1995) : Krishna Kanta Handiqui 143

6. Rohinton Mistry (1952-) : Running Water 154

7. Michael Ondaatje (1943-) : Angulimala 173

8. Salman Rushdie : Good Advice is Rarer than Rubies 181

GRAMMAR SECTION 192

ALL MY SONS– Arthur Miller

About the Author : Arthur Miller, full name Arthur Asher Millerwas born on October 17, 1915, New York, US. An American playwright, who connected social awareness with a searching concernfor his character’s inner life. He wrote several plays and screenplays.As an intellectual dramatist, Miller is a strong critic of the contemporaryAmerican society and its values both social and moral. His best knownplays are all my sons, The cricuble, death of a Salesman, A view fromthe bridge, The Price. Miller’s family was of Austrian Jewish descent.His father manufactural women’s coats, but the unit was not successful.The family was facing financial hardship. So Miller compeled to workfor tuition money to attend the University of Michigan. He wrote hisfirst play ‘No Villain’ at Michigan. Miller wrote plays screenplays,novels, short stories, non fictional and an autobiography. His worksbased on American history, his personal life, his observations of theAmerican contemporary society and universal stories about anindividual’s struggle with society, his family. The eventful life of Millercame to the end on February, 10, 2005 in connection USA due tocongestive heart failure.

Drama : A play in three acts

By Arthur Miller

Characters : Joe keller (Keller), Kate Keller (Mother),

Chris Keller, Ann Deever, George Deever, Dr. Jim Bayliss(Jim), Sue Bayliss, Frank Lubey and Bert.

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Act One

The back yard of the Keller home in the outskirts of anAmerican town. August of our era. The stage is hedged on right andleft by tall, closely planted poplars which lend the yard a secludedatmosphere. Upstage is filled with the back of the house and its open,unroofed porch which extends into the yard some six feet. The houseis two stories high and has seven rooms. It would have cost perhapsfifteen thousand in the early twenties when it was built. Now it isnicely painted, looks tight and comfortable, and the yard is green withsod, here and there plants whose season is gone. At the right, besidethe house, the entrance of the driveway can be seen, but the poplarscut off view of its continuation downstage. In the left corner, downstagestands the four foot high stamp of a slender apple tree whose uppertrunk and branches lie toppled beside it, fruit still clinging to its branches.

Downstage right is a small, trellised arbor, shaped like a seashell, with a decorative bulb hanging from its forward curving roof.Carden chairs and a table are scattered about. A garbage pail on theground next to the porch steps, a wire leaf burner near it.

On the rise : It is early Sunday morning. Joe Keller is sitting inthe sun reading the want ads of the Sunday paper, the other sectionsof which lie neatly on the ground beside him. Behind his back, insidethe arbor, Doctor Jim bayliss is reading part of the paper at the table.

Keller is nearing sixty. A heavy man of stolid mind and build,a business man these many years, but with the imprint of the machineshop worker and boss still upon him. When he reads, when he speaks,when he listens, it is with the terrible concentration of the uneducatedman for whom there is still wonder in many commonly known things,a man whose judgements must bedredged out of experience and apeasant like common sense. A man among men.

Doctor Bayliss is nearly forty. A wry self controlled man, aneasy talker, but with a wisp of sadness that clings even to his selfeffacing humor.

At curtain, Jim is standing at left, staring at the broken tree.He taps a pipe on it, blows through the pipe, feels in his pockets fortobacco, then speaks.

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Jim : Where’s your tobacco?Keller : I think I left it on the table.

Jim goes slowly to table on the arbor, fings a pouch, and sitsthere on the bench, filling his pipe.

Keller : Gonna rain tonight.Jim : Paper says so?Keller : Yeah, right here.Jim : Then it can’t rain.

Frank Lubey enters, through a small space between thepoplars. Frank is thirty two but balding. A pleasant, opinionated manuncertain of himself, with a tendency toward peevishness whencrossed, but always wanting it pleasantly and neighborly. He rathersaunters in, leisurely, nothing to do. He does not notice Jim in thearbor. On his greeting, Jim does not bother looking up.Frank : Hya.Keller : Hello, Frank. What’s doing?Frank : Nothing. Walking of my breakfast. {looks up at the sky}

That beautiful? Not a cloud in the sky.Keller : (looking up), Yeah, nice.Frank : Every Sunday ought to be like this.Keller : (indicating the sections beside him) Want the paper?Frank : What’s the difference, it’s all bad news. What’s today’s

calamity?Keller : I don’t know, I don’t read the news part anymore. It’s more

interesting in the want ads.Frank : Why, you trying to buy something?Keller : No, I’m just interested. To see what people want, you know?

For instance here’s a guy is looking for two Newfoundlanddogs. Now what’s he want with two Newfoundland dogs?Frank : That is funny.Keller : Here’s another one. Wanted, old dictionaries. High pricespaid. Now what’s a man going to do with an old dictionary?Frank : Why not? Probably a book collector.Keller : You mean he’ll make a living out of that?Frank : Sure, there’s a lot of them.

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Keller : (shaking his head) All the kind of business going on. In myday, either you were a lawyer, or a doctor, or you worked in a shop.Now ….Frank : Well, I was going to be a forester once.Keller : Well, that shows you. In my day, there was no such think.(Scanning the page, sweeping it with his hand) You look at a page likethis you realize how ignorant you are. (softly, with wonder, as hescans page) Psss!Frank : (noticing tree) Hey, what happened to your tree?Keller : Ain’ t that aweful? The wind must’ve got it last night. Youheard the wind didn’t you?Frank : Yeah, I got a mess in my yard, too. (goes to tree) What apity. (turning to Keller) What did Kate say?Keller : They’re all asleep yet. I’m just waiting for her to see it.Frank : (struck) You know? Its funny.Keller : What?Frank : Larry was born in August. He’d be twenty seven this month.And his tree blows down.Keller : (touched) I’m surprised you remember his birthday, Frank.That’s nice.Frank : Well, I’m working on his horoscope.Keller : How can you make him a horoscope? That’s for the future,ain’t it?Frank : Well, what I’m doing is this, see. Larry was reported missingon November twenty fifth, right?Keller : Yeah?Frank : Well, then, we assume that if he was killed it was on Novembertwenty fifth. Now, what Kate wants …..Keller : Oh, Kate asked you to make a horoscope?Frank : Yeah, what she wants to find out is whether Novembertwenty-fifth was his favorable day, then it’s completely possible he’salive somewhere, because, I mean, it’s possible. (he notices Jim now.Jim is looking at him as though at an idiot. To Jim, with an uncertainlaugh) I didn’t even see you.Keller : (to Jim) Is he talking sense?Jim : He’s alright. He’s just completely out of his mind, that’s all.

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Frank : (peeved) The trouble with you is, you don’t believe inanything.Jim : And your trouble is that you believe in anything. You didn’tsee my kid this morning, did you?Frank : No.Keller : Imagine? He walked off with his thermometer. Right out ofhis bad.Jim : (getting up) What a problem. One look at a girl and he takesher temperature. (goes to the driveway, looks upstage toward street)Frank : That boy’s going to be a real doctor. He’s smart.Jim : Over my dead body he’ll be a doctor. A good beginning too.Frank : Why? It’s an honorable profession.Jim : (looking at him tiredly) Frank, will you stop talking like acivics book? (Keller laughs)Frank : Why, I saw a movie a couple of weeks ago, reminded me ofyou. Here was a doctor in that picture …Keller : Don Ameche!Frank : I think it was, yeah. And he worked in his basementdiscovering things. That’s what you ought to do. You could helphumanity instead of…Jim : I would love to help humanity on a Warner brothers salary.Keller : (pointing at him, laughing) That’s very good, Jim.Jim : (looking toward house) Well, where’s the beautiful girl thatwas supposed to be here?Frank : (excited) Annie came?Keller : Sure, sleeping upstairs. We picked her up on the one o’clocktrain last night. Wonderful thing. Girl leaves here, a scrawny kid.Couple of years go by, she’s regular woman. Hardly recognized her,and she was running in and out of this yard all her life. That was avery happy family used to live in your house, Jim.Jim : Like to meet her. The block can use a pretty girl. In thewhole neighborhood there’s not a damned thing to look at. (Sue, Jim’swife, enters. She is rounding forty, an overweight woman fears it. Onseeing her, Jim wryly adds) except my wife, of course.Sue : (in same spirit) Mrs. Adams is on the phone, you dog.Jim : (to Keller) Such is the condition which prevails. (going to hiswife) My love, my light.

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Sue : Don’t sniff around me. (pointing to their house) And give hera nasty answer. I can smell the perfume over the phone.Jim : What’s the matter with her now?Sue : I don’t know dear. She sounds like she’s in terrible pain.Unless her mouth is full of candy.Jim : Why don’t you just tell her to lay down?Sue : She enjoys it more when you tell her to lay down. And whenare you going to see Mr. Hubbard?Jim : My dear, Mr. Hubbard is not sick, and I have better things todo than to sit there and hold his hand.Sue : It seems to me that for ten dollars you could hold his hand.Jim : (to Keller) If you son wants to play golf tell him I’m ready.Or if he’d like to take a trip around the world for about thirty years.(he exits)Keller : Why do you needle him? He’s doctor, women are supposedto call him up.Sue : All said was Mrs. Adams is on the phone. Can I have someof your parsley?Keller : Yeah, sure. (Sue goes to parsley box and pulls some parsley)You were a nurse too long, Susie. You’re too ….. too,….. realistic.Sue : (laughing, pointing at him) Now you stand it!Lydia Lubby enters. She is a robust, laughing girl of twenty seven.Lydia : Frank, the toaster …. (sees the others) Hya.Keller : Hello!Lydia : (to Frank) The toaster is off again.Frank : Well, plug it in, I just fixed it.Lydia : (kindly, but insistently) Please, dear, fix it back like it wasbefore.Frank : I don’t know why you can’t learn to turn on a simple thinglike a toaster! (He exits)Sue : (Laughing) Thomas Edison.Lydia : (apologetically) He’s really very handy. (she sees brokentree) Oh, did the wind get your tree?Keller : Yeah, last night.Lydia : Oh, what a pity. Annie get in?Keller : She’ll be down soon. Wait’ll you meet her, Sue, she’s aknockout.

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Sue : I should’ve been a man. People are always introducing meto beautiful women. (to Joe) Tell her to come over later: I imagineshe’d like to see what we did with her house. And thanks. (she exits)Lydia : Is She still unhappy, Joe?Keller : Annie? I don’t suppose she goes around dancing on her toes,but she seems to be over it.Lydia : She going to get married? Is there anybody…?Keller : I suppose … say, it’s a couple of years already. She can’tmourn a boy forever.Lydia : It’s so strange. Annie’s here and not even married. And I’vegot three babies. I always thought it’d be the other way around.Keller : Well, that’s what a war does. I had two sons, now I got one.It changed all the tallies. In my day when you had sons it was anhonor. Today, a doctor could make a million dollars if the could figureout a way to bring a boy into the world without a trigger finger.Lydia : You know, I was just reading…..

Enter Chris Keller from house, stands in doorway.Lydia : Hya, Chris.

Frank shouts from outstage.Frank : Lydia, come in here! If you want the toaster to work don’tplug in the malted mixer.Lydia : (embarrassed, laughing) Did i?Frank : And the next time I fix something don’t tell me I’m crazy!

Now come in here!Lydia : (to Keller) I’ll never hear the end of this one.Keller : (calling to Frank) So what’s the difference? Instead of toasthave a malted!Lydia : Sh! Sh! (she exits, laughing)

Chris watches her off. He is thirty two. Like his father, solidlybuilt, a listener. A man capable of immense affection and loyalty. Hehas a cup of coffee in one hand, part of a doughout in the other.Keller : You want the paper?Chris : That’s all right, just the book section.

He bends down and pulls out part of the paper on porch floor.Keller : You’re always reading the book section and you never buy abook.

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Chris : (coming down to settee) I like to keep abreast of myignorance.

He sits on the settee.Keller : What is what, every week a new book comes out?Chris : Lots of new books.Keller : All dif ferent?Chris : All dif ferent.

Keller shakes his head, puts knife down on bench, takesoilstone up to the cabinet.Keller : Psss! Annie up yet?Chris : Mother’s giving her breakfast in the dining room.Keller : (looking at the broken tree) See what happened to the tree?Chris : (without looking up) Yeah.Keller : What’s mother going to say?

Bert runs up from driveway. He is about eight. He jumps onstool, then on Keller’s back.Bert : You’re finally up.Keller : (swinging him around and putting him down) Ha! Bert’s here!

Where’s Tommy? He’s got his father’s thermometer again.Bert : he’s taking a reading.Chris : What!Bert : But it’s only oral.Keller : Oh, well, there’s no harm in oral. So what’s new this morning,bert?Bert : Nothing. (He goes to the broken tree, walks around it)Keller : Then you couldn’t’ve made a complete inspection of theblock. In the beginning, when I first made you a policeman you usedto come in every morning with something new. Now, nothings evernew.Bert : Except some kids from Thirtieth Street. They started kickinga can down the block, and I made them go away because you weresleeping.Keller : Now you’re talking, Bert. Now you’re on the ball. First thingyou know I’m liable to make you a detective.Bert : (pulling him down by the lapel and whispering in his ear) CanI see the jail now?

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Keller : Seeing the jail ain’t allowed, Bert. You know that.Bert : Aw, I betcha there isn’t even a jail. I don’t see any bars onthe cellar windows.Keller : Bert, on my word of honor there’s a jail in the basement. Ishowed you my gun, didn’t it?Bert : But that’s a hunting gun.Keller : That’s an arresting gun!Bert : Then why don’t you ever arrest anybody? Tommy sadanother dirty word to Doris yesterday, and you didn’t even demotehim.

Keller chuckles and winks at chris, who is enjoying all this.Keller : Yeah, that’s a dangerous character, that Tommy. (beckonshim closer) What word does he say?Bert : (backing away quickly in great embarrassment) Oh, I can’tsay that.Keller : (grabbing him by the shirt and pulling him back) Well, gimmean idea.Bert : I can’t. it’s not a nice word.Keller : Just whisper it in my ear. I’ll close my eyes. May be I won’teven hear it.

Bert, on tiptoe, puts his lips to Keller’s ear, then in unbearableembarrassment, steps back.Bert : I can’t, Mr. Keller.Chris : (laughing) Don’t make him do that.Keller : Okay, Bert. I take your word. Now go out, and keep botheyes peeled.Bert : (interested) For what?Keller : For what! Bert, the whole neighborhood is depending onyou. A policeman don’t ask questions. Now peel them eyes!Bert : (mystified, but willing) Okay. (he runs offstage back of arbor)Keller : (calling after him) And mum’s the word, Bert.

Bert stops and sticks his head through the arbor.Bert : About what?Keller : Just in general. Be v-e-r-y careful.Bert : (nodding in bewilderment) Okay. (he exits)Keller : (laughing) I got all the kid crazy!

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Chris : One of these days, they’ll all come in here and beat yourbrains out.Keller : What’s she going to say? May be we ought to tell her beforeshe sees it.Chris : She saw it.Keller : How could she see it? I was the first one up. She was still inbed.Chris : She was out here when it broke.Keller : When?Chris : About four this morning. (indicating window above them) Iheard it cracking and I woke up and looked out. She was standingright there when it cracked.Keller : What was she going out here four in the morning?Chris : I don’t know. When it cracked she ran back into the houseand cried in the kitchen.Keller : Did you talk to her?Chris : No, I ….. figured the best thing was to leave her alone.

Pause.Keller : (deeply touched) She cried hard?Chris : I could hear her right through the floor of my room.Keller : (after slight pause) What was she doing out here at thathour? (Chris silent. With an undertone of anger showing). She’sdreaming about him again. She’s walking around at night.Chris : I guess she is.Keller : She’s gelling just like after he died. (slight pause) What’s themeaning of that?Chris : I don’t know the meaning of it. (slight pause) But I knowone thing, Dad. We’ve made a terrible mistake with Mother.Keller : What?Chris : Being dishonest with her. That kind of thing always pays off,and now it’s paying off.

Keller : What do you mean, dishonest?Chris : You know Larry’s not coming back and I know it. Why dowe allow her to go on thinking that we believe with her?Keller : what do you want to do, argue with her?

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Chris : I don’t want to argue with her, but it’s time she realized thatnobody believes Larry is alive any more. (Keller simply moves away,thinking, looking at the ground) Why shouldn’t she dream of him, walkthe nights waiting for him. Do we contradict her? Do we say straightout that we have no hope any more? That we haven’t had any homefor years now?Keller : (frightened at the thought) You can’t say that to her.Chris : We’ve got to say it to her.Keller : How’re you going to prove it? Can you prove it?Chris : For God’s sake, three years! Nobody comes back after threeyears. It’s insane.Keller : To you it is, and to me. But not to her. You can talk yourselfblue in the face, but there’s no body and no grave, so where are you?Chris : Sit down, Dad. I want to talk to you.

Keller looks at him searchingly a moment.Keller : The trouble is the Goddam newspapers. Every month someboy turns up from nowhere, so the next one is going to be Larry, so…Chris : All right, all right, listen to me . (Slight pause. Keller sits onsettee) You know why I asked Annie here, don’t you?Keller : (he knows, but) Why?Chris : You know.Keller : Well, I got an idea, but ….. What’s the story?Chris : I’m going to ask her to marry me. (slight pause. Keller nods)Keller : Well, that’s only your business, Chriss.Chris : You know it’s not only my business.Keller : What do you want me to do? You’re old enough to knowyour own mind.Chris : (asking, annoyed) Then it’s all right, I’ll go ahead with it?Keller : Well, you want to be sure Mother isn’t going to….Chris : Then it isn’t just my business.Keller : I’m just saying.Chris : Sometimes you infuriate me, you know that? Isn’t it yourbusiness, too, if I tell this to Mother and she throws a fit about it? Youhave such a talent for ignoring things.Keller : I ignore what I gotta ignore. The girl is Larry’s girl.Chris : She’s not Larry’s girl.

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Keller : From Mother’s point of view he is not dead and you have noright to take his girl. (slight pause) Now you can go on from there ifyou know where to go, but I’m telling you I don’t know where to go.See? I don’t know. Now what can I do for you?Chris : I don’t know why it is, but every time I reach out for somethingI want, I have to pull back because other people will suffer. My wholebloody life, time after time.Keller : You’re a considerate fella, there’s nothing wrong in that.Chris : To hell with that.Keller : Did you ask Annie yet?Chris : I wanted to get this settled first.Keller : How do you know she’ll marry you? May be she feels thesame way Mother does?Chris : Well, if she does, then that’s the end of it. From her letters Ithink she’s forgotten him. I’ll find out. And then we’ll thrash it outwith Mother? Right? Dad, don’t avoid me.Keller : The trouble is, you don’t see enough women. You never did.Chris : So what? I’m not fast with women.Keller : I don’t see why it has to be Annie.Chris : Because it is.Keller : That’s a good answer, but it don’t answer anything. Youhaven’t seen her since you went to war. It’s five years.Chris : I can’t help it. I know her best. I was brought up next door toher. These years when I think of someone for my wife, I think ofAnnie. What do you want, a diagram?Keller : I don’t want a diagram…. I ….. I’m … she thinks he’scoming back Chris. You marry that girl and you’re pronouncing himdead. Now what’s going to happen to mother? Did you know? I don’t.(pause)Chris : all right, then, dad.Keller : (thinking Chris has retreated) Give it some more thought.Chris : I’ve given it three years of thought. I’d hoped that if I waited,Mother would forget Larry and then we’d have a regular weddingand everything happy. But if that can’t happen here, then I’ll have toget out.Keller : What the hell is this?

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Chris : I’l get out. I’ll get married and live some place else. May bein New York.Keller : Are you crazy?Chris : I’ve been a good son too long, a good sucker. I’m throughwith it.Keller : You’ve got a business here. What the hell is this?Chris : The business! The business doesn’t inspire me.Keller : Must you be inspired?Chris : Yes. I like it an hour a day. If I have to grub for money allday long at least at evening I want it beautiful. I want a family, I wantsome kids, I want to build something that I can give myself to. Annieis in the middle of that. Now… where to I find it?Keller : You mean.. (goes to him) Tell me something, you mean you’dleave the business?Chris : Yes. On this I would.Keller : (after a pause) Well… you don’t want to think like that.Chris : Then help me stay here.Keller : All right, but… but don’t think like that. Because what thehell did I work for? That’s only for you, Chris, the whole shootingmatch is for you!Chris : I know that, Dad. Just you help me stay here.Keller : (putting a fist up to Chris’s jaw) But don’t think that way,you hear me?Chris : I am thinking that way.Keller : (lowering his hand) I don’t understand you, do I?Chris : No, you don’t. I’m a pretty tough guy.Keller : Yah, I can see that.

Mother appears on porch. She is in her early fifties, a womanof uncontrolled minspirations and an overwhelming capacity for love.Mother: Joe?Chris : (going toward porch) Hello, Mom.Mother: (indicating house behind her. To Keller) Did you take a bagfrom under the sink?Keller : Yeah, I put it in the pail.Mother: Well, get it out of the pail. That’s my potatotes.

Chris bursts out laughing. Goes up into alley.

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Keller : (laughing) I thought it was garbage.Mother: Will you do me a favor, Joe? Don’t be helpful.Keller : I can afford another bag of potatoes.Mother: Minnie scoured that pail in boiling water last night. It’s cleanerthan your teeth.Keller : And I don’t understand why, after I worked forty years andI got a maid, why I have to take out the garbage.Mother : If you would make up your mind that every back in thekitchen isn’t full of garbage you wouldn’t be throwing out myvegetables. Last time it was the onions.

Chris comes on, hands her bag.Keller : I don’t like garbage in the house.Mother: Then don’t eat. (she goes into the kitchen with bag)sChris : That settles you for today.Keller : Yeah, I’m in last place again. I don’t know, once upon a timeI used to think that when I got money again I would have a maid andmy wife would take it easy. Now I got money, and I got a maid andmy wife is working for the maid. (he sits in one of the chairs)Mother comes out on last line. She carries a pot of string beans.Mother: It’s her day off, what are you crabbing about?Chris : (to Mother) Isn’t Annie finished eating?Mother : (looking around preoccupiedly at yard) She’ll be right out.(moves). That wid did some job on this place. (of the tree) So muchfor that, thank Got.Keller : (indicating chair beside him) Sit down, take it easy.Mother : (pressing her hand to top of her head) I’ve got such a funnypain on the top of my head.Chris : Can I get you an aspirin?

Mother picks a few petals off ground, stands there smellingthem in her hand, then sprinkles them over plants.Mother: No more roses. It’s so funny….. everything decides to happenat the same time. This month is birthday, his tree blows down, Anniecomes. Everything that happened seems to be coming back. I wasjust down the cellar, and what do I stumble over? His baseball glove.I haven’t seen it in a century.Chris : Don’t you think Annie looks well?

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Mother: Fine. There’s no question about it. She’s beauty… I stilldon’t know what brought her here. Not that I’m not glad to see her,but…Chris : I just thought we’d all like to see each other again. (motherjust looks at him, nodding ever so slightly, almost as though admittingsomething) And I wanted to see her myself.Mother : (as her nods halt, to Keller) The only think is I think hernose got longer. But I’ll always love that girl. She’s one that didn’tjump into bed with somebody else as soon as it happened with herfells.Keller : (as though that were impossible for Annie) Oh, what’re you…Mother: Never mind. Most of them didn’t waid till the telegramswere opened. I’m just glad she came, so you can see I’m notcompletely out of my mind. (sits, and rapidly breaks string beans inthe pot)Chris : Just because she isn’t married doesn’t mean she’s beenmourning Larry.Mother: (with an undercurrent of observation) Why then isn’t she?Chris : (a little flustered) Well…. It could have been any number ofthings.Mother: (directly at him) Like what, for instance?Chris : (embarrassed, but standing his ground) I don’t know.Whatever it is. Can I get you an aspirin?

Mother puts her hand to her head. She gets up and goesaimlessly toward the trees on rising.Mother: It’s not like a headache.Keller : You don’t sleep, that’s why. She’s wearing out more bedroomslippers than shoes.Mother : I had a terrible night. (she stops moving) I never had a nightlike that.Chris : (looking at Keller) What was it, Mom? Did you dream?Mother: More, more than a dream.Chris : (hesitantly) About Larry?Mother : I was fast asleep and … (raising her arm over the audience)Remember the way he used to fly low past the house when he was intraining? When we used to see his face in the cockpit going by? That’s

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the way I saw him. Only high up. Way, way up, where the clouds are.He was so real I could reach out and touch him. And suddenly hestarted to fall. And crying, crying to me… Mom, Mom! I could hearhim like he was in the room. Mom!... it was his voce! If I could touchhim I knew could stop him, if I could only…. (breaks off, allowing heroutstretched hand to fall) I woke up and it was so funny. The wind….It was like the roaring of his engine. I came out here …. I must’vestill been half asleep. I could hear that roaring like he was going by.The tree snapped right in front of me… and I like …. Came awake.(she is looking at tree. She suddenly realizes something, turns with areprimanding finger shaking slightly at Keller) See? We should neverhave planted that tree. I said so in the first place. It was too soon toplant a tree for him.Chris : (alarmed) Too soon!Mother: (angering) We rushed into it. Everybody was in such a hurryto bury him. I sad not to plant it yet. (to Keller) I told you to…!Chris : Mother, Mother! (she looks into his face) The wind blew itdown. What significance has that got? What are you talking about?Mother, please…. Don’t go through it all again, will you? It’s no good,it doesn’t accomplish anything. I’ve been thinking, y’know? ….maybe we ought to put our minds to forgetting him?Mother: that’s the third time you’ve said that this week.Chris : Because it’s not right. We never took up our lives again.We’re like at a railroad station waiting for a train that never comes in.Mother: (pressing the top of her head) Get me an aspirin, heh?Chris : Sure, and let’s break out of this, heh, Mom? I thought thefour of us might go out to dinner a couple of nights, may be go dancingout at the shore.Mother: Fine. (to Keller) We can do it tonight.Keller : Swell with me!Chris : Sure, let’s have some fun. (to Mother) You’ll start with thisaspirin. (he goes up and into the house with new spirit. Her smilevanishes)Mother: (with an accusing undertone) Why did he invite her there?Keller : Why does that bother you?

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Mother: She’s been in New York three and a half years, why all of asudden…?Keller : Well, may be ….. may be he just wanted to see her.Mother: Nobody comes seven hundred miles ‘just to see’.Keller : What do you mean? He lived next door to the girl all his life,why shouldn’t he want to see her again? (Mother looks at him critically)Don’t look at me like that, he didn’t tell me any more than he told you.Mother: (a warning and a question) He’s not going to marry her.Keller : How do you know he’s seven thinking about it?Mother: It’s got that about it.Keller : (sharply watching her reaction) Well? So what?Mother: (alarmed) What’s going on here Joe?Keller : Now listen, kid…Mother : (avoiding contact with him) She’s not his girl, Joe. She knowsshe’s not.Keller : You can’t read her mind.Mother: Then why is she still single? New York is full of men, whyisn’t she married? (pause) Probably a hundred people told her she’sfoolish, but she’s waited.Keller : How do you know why she waited?Mother: She knows what I know that’s why. She’s faithful as a rock.In my worst moments, I think of her waiting, and I know again thatI’m right.Keller : Look, it’s a nice day. What are we arguing for?Mother: (warningly) Nobody in this house dast take her faith away,Joe. Strangers might. But not his father, not his brother.Keller : (exasperated) What do you want me to do? What do youwant?Mother : I want you to act like he’s coming back. Both of you. Don’tthink I haven’t noticed you since Chris invited her. I won’t stand forany nonsense.Keller : But, Kata..Mother : Because if he’s not coming back then I’ll kill myself! Laugh.Laugh at me. (She points to tree) But why did that happen the verynight she came back? She goes to sleep in his room and his memorialbreaks in pieces. Look at it look. (she sits on bench) Joe…

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Keller : Calm yourself.Mother: Believe with me, Joe. I can’t stand all alone.Keller : All right, all right, calm yourself.Mother: You above all have got to believe, you…Keller : (rising) Why me above all?Mother: Just don’t stop believing.Keller : What does that mean, me above all?

Bert comes rushing on.Bert : Mr. Keller! Say, Mr. Keller …. (pointing up the driveway)Tommy just said it again!Keller : (not remembering any of it) Said what? Who?Bert : The dirty word.Keller : Oh, well….Bert : Gee, aren’t you going to arrest him? I warned him.Mother: (with suddenness) Stop that, Bert, Go home. (Bert backs up,as she advances) there’s no jail here.Keller : (as though to say, ‘Oh-what-the-hell-let-him-believe-there-is) Kate…Mother: (turning on Keller furiously) There’s no jail here! I want youto stop that jail business! (he turns, shamed, but peeved)Bert : (past her to Keller) He’s right across the street.Mother : Go home, Bert. (Bert turns around and goes up driveway.She is shaken. Her speech is bitten off, extremely urgent.) I want youto stop that, Joe. That whole jail business!Keller : (alarmed, and therefore angered) Look at you, look at youshaking.Mother : (trying to control herself, moving about clasping her hands) Ican’t help it.Keller : What have I got to hide? What the hell is the matter with youKate?Mother : I didn’t say you had anything to hide, I’m just telling you tostop it! now stop it! (as Ann and Chris appear on the porch. Ann istwenty six, gentle but despite herself capable of holding fast to whatshe knows. Chris opens door for her)Anna : Hya, Joe! (she leads off a general laugh that is not selfconscious because they know one another too well. Chriss, bringing

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Ann down, with an outstretched, chivalric arm) Take a breath of thatair, kid. You never get air like that in New York.Mother : (genuinely overcome with it) Annie, where did you get thatdress!Ann : I couldn’t resist. I’m taking it right off before I ruin it. (swingsaround) How’s that for three weeks’ salary?Mother : (to Keller) Isn’t she the most….? (To Ann) It’s gorgeous,simply gor…Chris : (to Mother) No kidding, now isn’t she the prettiest gal youever saw?Mother : (caught short by his obvious admiration, she finds herselfreaching out for a glass of water and aspirin in his hand and ….) Yougained a little weight, didn’t you, darling? (She gulps pill and drinks.)Ann : It comes and goes.Keller : Look how nice her legs turned out!Ann : (as she runs to fence) Boy, the poplars got thick, didn’t they?(Keller moves to settee and sits)Keller : Well, it’s three years, Annie. We’re getting old, kid.Mother : How does Mom like New York? (Ann keeps looking throughtrees)Ann : (A little hurt) Why’d they take our hammock away?Keller : Oh, no, it broke. Couple of years ago.Mother : What broke? He had one of his light lunches and floppedinto it.Ann : (laughs and turns back toward Jim’s yard( Oh, excuse me!

Jim has come to fence and is looking over it. he is smoking acigar. As she cries out, he comes on around on stage.Jim : How do you do? (to Chris) She looks very intelligent!Chris : Ann, this is Jim …. Doctor Bayliss.Ann : (shaking Jim’s hand) Oh, sure, he writes a lot about you.Jim : Don’t you believe it. He likes everybody. In the battalion hewas known as Mother McKeller.Ann : I can believe it. You know…? (to Mother) It’s so strangeseeing him come out of that yard. (to chris) I guess I never grew up.It almost seems that Mom and Pop are in there now. An you and mybrother are doing algebra and Larry trying to copy my homework.Gosh, those dear dead days beyond recall.

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Jim : Well, I hope that doesn’t meen you want me to move out?Sue : (calling from offstage) Jim, come in here! Mr. Hubbard is onthe phone!Jim : I told you I don’t want…Sue : (commandingly sweet) Please, dear! Please!Jim : (resigned) All right, Susie. (training off) All right, all right…(to Ann) I’ve only met you, Anna, but if I may offer you a piece ofadvice…. When you marry. never, even in your mind, never countyour husband’s money.Sue : (from offstage) Jim?Jim : At once! (Turns and goes off) At once. (He exits)Mother : (Ann is looking at her. She speaks meaningfully) I told herto take up the guitar. It’d be a common interest for them. (they laugh)Well, he loves he guitar!

Ann, as though to overcome Mother, becomes suddenly lively,crosses to Keller on settee, sits on his lap.Ann : Let’s eat at the shore tonight! Raise some hell around here,like we used to before Larry went!Mother : (emotionally) You think of him! You see? (triumphantly) Shethinks of him!Ann : (with an uncomprehending smile) What do you mean, Kate?Mother: Nothing. Just that you …. Remember him, he’s in yourthoughts.Ann : That’s a funny thing to say… how could I help rememberinghim?Mother : (it is drawing to a head the wrong way for her. She startsanew. She rises and comes to Ann) Did you hang up your things?Ann : Yeah ….. (to Chris) Say, you’ve sure gone in for clothes. Icould hardly find room in the closes.Mother : No, don’t you remember? That’s Larry’s room.Ann : You mean … they’re Larry’s?Mother : Didn’t you recognize them?Ann : (slowly rising, a little embarrassed) Well, it never occurredto me that you’d… I mean the shoes are all shined.Mother : Yes, dear. (slight pause, Ann can’t stop staring at her. Mother

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breaks it by speaking with the relish of gossip, putting her arm aroundAnn and walking with her) For so long I’ve been aching for a niceconversation with you, Annie. Tell me something.Ann : What?Mother: I don’t know. Something nice.Chris : (wryly) She means do you go out much?Mother: Oh, shut up.Keller : And are any of the serious?Mother: (laughing, sits in her chair) Why don’t you both choke?Keller : Annie, you can’t go into a restaurant with that woman anymore. In five minutes thirty nine strange people are sitting at the tabletelling her their life stories.Mother : if I can’t ask Annie a personal question …Keller : Asking her is all right, but don’t beat her over the head.You’re beating her, you’re beating her. (they are laughing)

Ann takes pan of beans off the stool, buts them on floorunder chair and sits.Ann : (to Mother) Don’t let them bulldoze you. Ask me anythingyou like. What do you want to know, Kate? Come on, let’s gossip.Mother : (to Chris and Keller) She’s the only one is got any sense. (toAnn) Your Mother …. She’s not getting a divorce, heh?Ann : No, she’s calmed down about it now. I think when he getsout they’ll probably live together. In New York, of course.Mother : That’s fine. Because your father is still …. I mean he’s adecent man after all is said and done.Ann : I don’t care. She can take him back if she likes.Mother : And you? You… (shakes her head negatively) go out much?(slight pause)Ann : (delicately) You mean am I still waiting for him?Mother : Well, no. I don’t except you to wait for him but….Ann : (kindly) But that’s what you meant, isn’t it?Mother : Well…. Yes.Ann : Well, I’m not, Kate.Mother : (faintly) You’re not?Ann : Isn’t it ridiculous? You don’t really imagine he’s…?Mother : I know, dear, but don’t say it’s ridiculous, because the paperswere full of it. I don’t know about New York, but there was half a

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page about a man missing even longer than Larry, and he turned up inBurma.Chris : (coming to Ann) He couldn’t have wanted to come home verybadly, Mom.Mother : Don’t be so smart.Chris : You can have a helluva time in Burma.Ann : (rises and swings around in back of Chris) So I’ve heard.Chris : Mother, I’ll bet you money that you’re the only woman in thecountry who after three years is still …Mother : You’re sure?Chris : Yes, I am.Mother : Well, if you’re sure then you’re sure. (She turns her headaway for an instant) They don’t say it on the radio but I’m sure that inthe dark of night they’re still waiting for their sons.Chris : Mother, you’re absolutely…Mother : (weaving him off) Don’t be so damned smart! Now stop it!(slight pause) There are a few things you don’t know. All of you. AndI’ll tell you one of them, Annie. Deep, deep in your heart you’vealways been waiting for him.Ann : (resolutely) No, Kate.Mother : (with increasing demand) But deep in your heart, Annie!Chris : She ought to know, shouldn’t she?Mother : Don’t let them tell you what to think. Listen to your heart.Only your heart.Ann : Why does your heart tell you he’s alive?Mother : Because he has to be.Ann : But why, Kate?Mother : (going to her) Because certain things have to be, and certainthings can never be. Like the sun has to rise, it has to be. That’s whythere’s Got. Otherwise anything could happen. But there’s God, socertain things can never happen. I would know, Annie.. just like theday he (indicates Chris) went into that terrible battle. Did he writeme? Was it in the papers? No, but that morning I couldn’t raise myhead off the pillow. Ask Joe. Suddenly, I knew. I knew! And he wasnearly killed that day. Ann, you know I’m right!Ann stands there in silence, then turns trembling, going upstage.

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Ann : No, Kate.Mother : I have to have some tea.Frank appears, carrying a ladder.Ann : (taking his hand) Why, Frank, you’re loosing your hair.Keller : He’s got responsibility.Frank : Gee whiz!Keller : Without Frank has stars wouldn’t know when to come out.Frank : (laughs. To Ann) You look more womanly. You’ve matured.You…Keller : Take it easy, Frank, you’re a married man.Ann : (as they laugh) You still haberdashering?Frank : Why not? May be I too can get to be president. How’s yourbrother? Got his degree, I hear.Ann : Oh, George has his own office noe!Frank : Don’t say! (funereally) And your dad? Is he….?Ann : (abruptly) Fine. I’ll be in see Lydia.Frank : (sympathetically) How about it, does Dad expect a parolesoon?Ann : (with growing ill –ease) I really don’t know, i…Frank : (staunchly defending her father for her sake) I mean becauseI feel, you know, that if an intelligent man like your father is put inprison, there ought to be a law that says either you execute him, or lethim go after a year.Chris : (interrupting) Want a hand with that ladder, Frank?Frank : (taking cue) That’s all right, I’ll… (picks up ladder) I’ll finishthe horoscope tonight, Kate. (embarrassed) See you later, Ann, youlook wonderful. (he exits. They look at Ann)Ann : (to Chris, as the sits slowly on stool) Haven’t they stoppedtalking about Dad?Chris : (comes down and sits on arm of chair) Nobody talks about himany more.Keller : Gone and forgotten, kid.Ann : Tell me. Because I don’t want to meet anybody on the block ifthey’re going to…Chris : I don’t want you to worry about it.Ann : (to Keller) Do they still remember the case, Joe? Do they talkabout you?

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Keller : The only one still talks about it is my wife.Mother : That’s because you keep on playing policeman with the kids.All their parents hear out of you is jail, jail, jail.Keller : Actually what I happened was that when I got home from thepenitentiary the kids get very interested in me. You know kids. I was(laughs) like the expert on the jail situation. And as time passed theygot it confused and …. I ended up a detective. (laughs)Mother : Except that they didn’t get it confused. (to Ann) He handsout police badges from the Post Toasties boxes. (they laugh)Ann rises and comes to Keller, putting her arm around his shoulder.Ann : (wonderously at them, happy) Gosh, it’s wonderful to hear youlaughing about it.Chris : Why, what’d you expect?Ann : The last thing I remember on this block was one word…;Murderers!’ Remember that, Kate? Mrs. Hammond standing in frontof our house yelling that word? She’s still around, I suppose?Mother : They’re all still around.Keller : Don’t listen to her. Every Saturday night the whole gang isplaying poker in this arbor. All the ones who yelled murderer takingmy money now.Mother : Don’t, Joe. She’s a sensitive girl, don’t fool her. (to Ann)They still remember about Dad. It’s different with him. (indicatesJoe) He was exonerated, your father’s still there. That’s why I wasnot so enthusiastic about your coming. Honestly, I know how sensitiveyou are and I told Chris, I said….Keller : Listen, you do like I did and you’ll be all right. The day I comehome, I got out of my car… but not in front of the house …. On thecorner. You should’ve been here, Annie, and you too Chris. You’d’ aseen something. Everybody know I was getting out that day. Theporches were loaded. Picture it now. None of them believed I wasinnocent. The story was, I pulled a fast one getting myself exonerated.So I get out of my car, and I walk down the street. But very slow. Andwith a smile. The beast! I was the beast … the guy who sold crackedcylinder heads to the Army Air Force… the guy who made twentyone P-40s crash in Australia. Kid, walking down the street that day Iwas guilty as hell. Except I wasn’t, and there as a court appear in my

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pocket to prove I wasn’t, and I walked…. Past …. The porches.Result? Fourteen months later I had one of the best shops in the stateagain, a respected man again, bigger than ever.Chris : (with admiration) Joe McGuts.Keller : (now with great force): That’s the only way you lick’em isguts! (To Ann) The worst thing you did was to move away from here.You made it tough for your father when he gets out. That’s why I tellyou, I like to see him move back right on this block.Mother : (pained) How could they move back?Keller : It ain’t gonna end till they move back! (To Ann) Till peopleplay cards with him again, and talk with him, and smile with him….You play cards with a man you know he can’t be a murderer. And thenext time you write him I like you to tell him just what I said. (Annsimply stares at him) You hear me?Ann : (surprised) Don’t you hold anything against him?Keller : Annie, I never believed in crucifying people.Ann : (mystified) But he was your partner, he dragged you throughthe mud.Keller : Well, he ain’t my sweetheart, but you gotta forgive, don’tyou?Ann : You, either, Kate? Don’t you feel any….?Keller : (to Ann) The next time you write Dad….Ann : I don’t write him.Keller : (struck) Well, every now and then you…Ann : (a little shamed, but determined) No, I’ve never written to him.Neither has my brother. (to Chris) Say, do you feel this way, too?Chris : He murdered twenty one pilots?Keller : What the hell kinda talk is that?Mother : That’s not a thing to say about a man.Ann : What else can you say? When they took him away I followedhim, went to him every visiting day. I was crying all the time. Until thenews came about Larry. Then I realized. It’s wrong to pity a man likethat. Father or no father, there’s only one way to look at him. Heknowingly shipped out parts what would crash an airplane. And howdo you know Larry wasn’t one of them?Mother : I was waiting for that. (going to her) As long as you’re here.

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Annie, I want to ask you never to say that again.Ann : You surprise me. I thought you’d be made at him.Mother : What your father did had nothing to do with Larry. Nothing.Ann : But we can’t know that.Mother : (striving for control) As long as you’re here!Ann : (perplexed) But, Kate….Mother : Put that out of your head!Keller : Because ….Mother : (quickly to Keller) That’s all, that’s enough. (places her handon her head) Come inside now, and have some tea with me. (Sheturns and goes up steps)Keller : (to Ann) The one thing you….Mother : (Sharply) In a minute! (Mother turns and goes into house)Now look, Annie…Chris : All right, Dad, forget it.Keller : No, she doesn’t feel that way. Anni….Chris : I’m sick of the whole subject, now cut it out.Keller : You want her to go on like this? (to Ann) Those cylinderheads when into P-40s only. What’s the matter with you? You knowLarry never flew a P-40.Chris : So who flew those P-40s, pigs?Keller : The man was a fool, but don’t make a murderer out of him.You got no sense? Look what it does to her! (to Ann) Listen, yougotta appreciate what was doing in that shop in the war. The both ofyou! It was a madhouse. Every half hour the Major calling for cylinderheads, they were whipping us with the telephone. The trucks werehauling them away hot, damn near. I mean just try to see it human,see it human. All of a sudden a batch comes out with a crack. Thathappens, that’s the business. A fine, hairline crack. All right, so… sohe’s a little man, your father, always scared of loud voices. What’llthe Major say? Half a day’s production shot… What’ll I say? Youknow what I mean? Human. (he pauses) So he take out his tools andhe…. Covers over the cracks. Alright, that’s bad, it’s wrong, but that’swhat a little man does. If I could have gone in that day I’d a toldhim…. Junk’em Steve, we can afford it. But alone he was afraid. ButI know he meant no harm. He believed they’d hold up a hundredpercent. That’s a mistake, but it ain’t murder. You mustn’t feel thatway about him. You understand me? It ain’t right.

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Ann : (she regards him a moment) Joe, Let’s forget it.Keller : Annie, the day the news came out about Larry he was in thenext cell to mine…. Dad. And he cried, Annie…. He cried half thenight.Ann : (touched) He should a cried all night. (slight pause)Keller : (almost angered) Annie, I do not understand why you ….!Chris : (breaking in, with nervous urgency) Are you going to stop it?Ann : Don’t yell at him. He just wants everybody happy.Keller : (clasps her around the waist, smiling) That’s my sentiments.Can you stand steak?Chris : And champagne?Keller : Now you’re operation! I’ll call Swanson’s for a table! Bittime tonight, Annie!Ann : Can’t scare me.Keller : (to Chris, pointing at Ann) I like that girl. Wrap her up. (theylaugh. Goes up porch) You got nice legs, Annie!.... I want to seeeverybody drunk tonight. (pointing at Chris) Look at him, he’s blushing(He exits, laughing into the house)Chris : (calling after him) Drink your tea, Casanova. (he turns to Ann)Isn’t he a great guy?Ann : You’re the only one I know who loves his parents.Chris : I know. It went out of style, didn’t it?Ann : (with a sudden touch of sadness) It’s all right. It’s a good thing.(She looks about) You know? It’s lovely here. The air is sweet.Chris : (hopefully) You’re not sorry you came?Ann : Not sorry, no. But I’m…. not going to stay.Chris : Why?Ann : In the first place, your mother as much as told me to go.Chris : Well….Ann : You saw that ….. and then you…. You’ve been kind of..Chris : What?Ann : Well…. Kind of embarrassed ever since I got here.Chris : The trouble is I planned on kind of sneaking up on you over aperiod of a week or so. But they take it for granted that we’re all set.Ann : I know they would. Your mother anyway.Chris : How did you know?Ann : From her point of view, why else would I come?

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Chris : Well ….. would you want to? (Ann still studies him) I guessyou know this is why I asked you to come.Ann : I guess this is why I came.Chris : Ann, I love you. I love you a great deal. (finally) I love you.(Pause. She waits) I have no imagination…. That’s all I know to tellyou. (Ann is waiting, ready) I’m embarrassing you. I didn’t want totell it to you here. I wanted some place we’d never been, a placewhere we’d be brand new to each other… You feel it’s wrong here,don’t you? This yard, this chair? I want you to be ready for me. Idon’t want to win you away from anything.Ann : (putting her arms around him) Oh, Chris, I’ve been ready along, long time.Chris : Then he’s gone forever. You’re sure.Ann : I almost got married two years ago.Chris : Why didn’t you?Ann : You started to write me… (slight pause)Chris : You felt something that far back?Ann : Everyday since.Chris : Ann, why didn’t you let me know?Ann : I was waiting for you, Chris. Till then you never wrote. Andwhen you did, what did you say? You sure can be ambiguous, youknow.Chris : (looks toward house, then at her, trembling) Give me a kiss,Ann. Give me a … (they kiss) God, I kissed you, Annie, I kissed Anni.How long, how long I’ve been waiting to kiss you!sAnn : I’ll never forgive you. Why did you wait all these years? All lvedone is sit and wonder if I was crazy for thinking of you.Chris : Annie, we’re going to live now! I’m going to make you sohappy. (He kisses her, but without their bodies touching)Ann : (A little embarrassed) Not like that you’re not.Chris : I kissed you….Ann : Like Larry’s brother. Do it like you, Chris. (He breaks awayfrom her abruptly) What is it, Chris?Chris : Let’s drive some place …. I want to be alone with you.Ann : No… what is it, Chris, your mother?Chris : No… nothing like that.

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Ann : Then what’s wrong? Even in your letters, there was somethingashamed.Chris : Yes, I suppose I have been. But it’s going from me.Ann : You’ve got to tell me…Chris : I don’t know how to start. (He takes her hand)Ann : It wouldn’t work this way. (slight pause)Chris : (speaks quietly, factually at first) It’s all mixed up with somany other things… You remember, overseas, I was in command ofa company?Ann : Yeah, sure.Chris : Well, I lost them.Ann : How many?Chris : Just about all.Ann : Oh, gee!Chris : It take a little time to toss that off. Because they weren’t justmen. For instance, one time it’d been raining several days and this kidcame to me, and gave me his last pair of dry socks. Put them in mypocket. That’s only a little thing… but … That’s the kind of guys I hd.They didn’t die… They killed themselves for each other. I mean thatexactly. A little more selfish and they’d’ve been here today. And I gotan idea…. Watching them go down. Everything was being destroyed,see, but it seemed to me that one new thing was made. A kind of …responsibility. Man for man. You understand me? To show that, tobring that onto the earth again like some kind of a monument andeveryone would feel it standing there, behind him, and it would makea difference to him. (pause) And then I came home and it wasincredible. I ….. there was no meaning in it here. The whole thing tothem was a kind of a … bus accident. I went to work with Dad, andthat rat-race again. I felt… what you said…. Ashamed somehow.Because nobody was changed at all. It seemed to make suckers outof a lot of guys. I felt wrong to be alive, to open the bank book, todrive the new car, to see the new refrigerator. I mean you can takethose things out of a war, but when you drive that car you’ve got toknow that it came out of the love a man can have for a man, you’vegot to be a little better because of that. Otherwise what you have isreally loot, and there’s blood on it. I didn’t want to take any of it. AndI gues that included you.

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Ann : And you still feel that way?Chris : I want you know, annie.Ann : Because you mustn’t feel that way anymore. Because youhave a right to whatever you have. Everything, Chris, understandthat? To me, too… And the money, there’s nothing wrong in yourmoney. Your father put hundreds of planes in the air, you should beproud. A man should be paid for that….Chris : Oh Annie, Annie…. I’m going to make a fortune for you!Keller : (offstage) Hello… Yes. Sure.Ann : (laughing softly) What’ll I do with a fortune? (they kiss. Kellerenters from house)Keller : (thumbing toward house) Hey, Ann, your brother…. (Theystep apart shyly. Keller comes down, and wryly) What’s this, LaborDay?Chris : (waving him away knowing the kidding will be endless) Allright, all right.Ann : You shouldn’t burst out like that.Keller : Well, nobody told me it was Labor Day. (looks around)Where’s the hot dogs?Chris : (loving it) All right. You said it once.Keller : Well, as long as I know it’s Labor Day from now on, I’ll weara bell around my neck.Ann : (affectionately) He’s so subtle!Chris : George Bernard Shaw as an elephant.Keller : George!.... Hey, you kissed it out of my head… your brother’son the phone.Ann : (surprised) My brother?Keller : Yeah, George. Long distance.Ann : What’s the matter, is anything wrong?Keller : I don’t know, Kate’s talking to him. Hurry up, She’ll cost himfive dollars.Ann : (takes a steop upstage, then comes down toward Chris) I wonderif we ought to tell your mother yet? I mean I’m not very good in anargument.Chris : We’ll wait till tonight. After dinner. Now don’t get tense, justleave it to me.Keller : what’re you telling her?

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Chris : Go agead, Ann. (With misgivings, Ann goes up and into house.)We’re getting married, Dad. (Keller nods indecisively) Well, don’tyou say anything?Keller : (distracted) I’m glad, Chris, I’m just…. George is calling fromColumbus.Chris : Columbus!Keller : Did Annie tell you he was going to see his father today?Chris : No, I don’t think she knew anything about it.Keller : (asking uncomfortably) Chris! You…. You think you knowher pretty good?Chris : (hurt and apprehensive) What kind of question?Keller : I’m just wondering. All these years George don’t go to see hisfather. Suddenly he goes…. And she comes here.Chris : Well, what about it?Keller : It’s crazy, but it comes to my mind. She don’t hold nothingagainst me, does she?Chris : (angry) I don’t know what you’re talking about.Keller : (a little more combatively) I’m just talking. To his last day incourt the man blamed it all on me… and his is his daughter. I mean ifshe was sent here to find out something?Chris : (angered) Why? What’s there to find out?Ann : (on phone, offstage) Why are you so excited, George? Whathappened there?Keller : I mean if they want to open up the case again, for the nuisancevalue, to hurt us?Chris : Dad …. How could you like that of her?Ann : (still on the phone) But what did he say to you, for God’s sake?Keller : It couldn’t be, heh. You know.Chris : Dad, you amaze me…Keller : (breaking in) All right, forget it forget it. (with great force,moving about) I want a clean start for you, Chris. I want a new signover the plant…. Christopher Keller, Incorporated.Chris : (a little uneasily) J.O. Keller is good enough.Keller : We’ll talk about it. I’m going to build you a house, stone, witha driveway from the road. I want you to spread out, Chris, I want youto use what I made for you. (He is close to him now) I mean, with joy,Chris, without shame…. With joy.

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Chris : (touched) I will , Dad.Keller : (with deep emotion) Say it to me.Chris : Why?Keller : Because sometimes I think you’re…. ashamed of the money.Chris : No, don’t feel that.Keller : Because it’s good money, there’s nothing wrong with thatmoney.Chris : (a little frightened) Dad, you don’t have to tell me this.Keller : (with overriding affection and self confidence now. He gripsChris by the back of the neck and with laughter between his determinedjaws) Look, Chris, I’ll go to work on Mother for you. We’ll get her sodrunk tonight we’ll all get married. (steps away, with a wide hestureof his arm) There’s gonna be a wedding, kid, like there never wasseen! Champagne, tuxedos…!He breaks off as Ann’s voice comes out loud from the house whereshe is still talking on the phone.Ann : Simply because when you get excited you don’t controlyourself…. (Mother comes out of house) Well, what did he tell youfor God’s sake? (Pause) All right, come then. (Pause) Yes, they’ll allbe here. Nobody’s running away from you. And try to get hold ofyourself, will you? (Pause) All right, all right. Goodbye.There is a brief pause as Ann hangs up receiver, then comes out ofkitchen.Chris : Something happen?Keller : He’s coming here?Ann : On the seven o’clock. He’s in Columbus. (To mother) I told himit would be all right.Keller : Sure, fine! Your father took sick?Ann : (mystified) No, George didn’t say he was sick. I …. (shaking itoff) I don’t know, I suppose it’s something stupid, you know my brother… (She comes to Chris) Let’s go for a drive, or something….Chris : Sure. Give me the keys, Dad.Mother : Drive through the park. It’s beautiful now.Chris : Come on, Ann. (to them) Be back right away.Ann : (as she and Chris exit up driveway) See you.Mother comes down toward Keller, her eyes fixed on him.Keller : Take your time. (to Mother) What does George want?

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Mother : He’s been in Columbus since this morning with Steve. He’sgotta see Annie right away, he says.Keller : What for?Mother : I don’t know. (She speaks with warning) He’s a lawyernow, Joe. George is a lawyer. All these years he never even sent apostcard to Steve. Since he got back from the war, not a postcard.Keller : So what?Mother : (her tension breaking out) Suddenly he takes an airplanefrom New York to see him. An airplane!Keller : Well? So?Mother : (trembling) Why?Keller : I don’t read minds. Do you?Mother : Why, Joe? What has Steve suddenly got to tell him that hetakes an airplane to see him?Keller : What do I care what Steve’s got to tell him?Mother : You’re sure, Joe?Keller : (frightened, but angry) Yes, I’m sure.Mother : (sits stiffly in a chair) Be smart now, Joe. The boy is coming.Be smart.Keller : (desperately) Once and for all, did you hear what I said? Isaid I’m sure!Mother : (nods weakly) All right, Joe. (he straightens up) Just…. Besmart.Keller, in hopeless fury, looks at her, turns around, goes up to porchand into house, slamming screen door violently behind him. Mothersits in chair downstage, stiffly, staring, seeing.

CURTAIN.

As twilight falls, that evening.On the rise, Chris is discovered sawing the broken off tree,

leaving stump standing alone. He is dressed in good pants, white shoes,but without a shirt. He disappears with tree up the alley when Motherappears on porch. She comes down and stands watching him. Shehas on a dressing gown, carries a tray of grape juice drink in a pitcher,and glasses with sprigs of mint in them.

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Mother : (Calling up alley) Did you have to put on good pants to dothat? (she comes downstage and puts tray on table in the arbor. Thenlooks around uneasily, then feels pitcher for coolness. Chris entersfrom alley brushing off his hands) You notice there more light withthat things gone?Chris : My aren’t you dressing?Mother : It’s suffocating upstairs. I made a grape drink for Georgie.He always liked grape. Come and have some.Chris : (impatiently) Well, come on, get dressed. And what’s Dadsleeping so much for? (He goes to table and pours a glass of juice)Mother : To his last day in court Steven never gave up the idea thatDad made him do it. If they’re going to open the case again I won’tlive through it.Chris : George is just a damn fool, Mother. How can you take himseriously?Mother : That family hates us. May be even Annie….Chris : Oh, now, Mother…..Mother : You think just because you like everybody, they like you!Chris : All right, stop working yourself up. Just leave everything tome.Mother : When George goes home tell her to go with him.Chris : (non committally) Don’t worry about Annie.Mother : Steve is her father, too.Chris : Are you going to cut it out? Now, come.Mother : (going upstage with him) You don’t realize how people canhate, Chris, they can hate so much they’ll tear the world to pieces.Ann, dressed up, appears on the porch.Chris : Look! She’s dressed already. (As he and Mother mount porch)I’ve just got to put on a shirt.Ann : (in a preoccupied way) Are you feeling well, Kate?Mother : What’s the difference, dear. There are certain people, youknow, the sicker they get, the longer they live. (She goes into thehouse)Chris : You look nice.Ann : We’re going to tell her tonight.Chris : Absolutely, don’t worry about it.

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Ann : I wish we could tell her now. I can’t stand scheming. My stomachgets hard.Chris : It’s not scheming, we’ll just get her in a better mood.Mother : (offstage, in the house) Joe, are you going to sleep all day!Ann : (laughing) The only one who’s relaxed is your father. He’s fastasleep.Chris : I’m relaxed.Ann : Are you?Chris : Look. (He holds out his hand and makes it shake.) Let meknow when George gets here.He goes into the house. Ann moves aimlessly, and then is drawn towardtree stump. She goes to it, hesitantly touches broken top in the hush ofher thoughts. Offstage Lydia calls, ‘Johnny! Come get your supper!’Sue enters, and halts, seeing Ann.Sue : Is my husband…?Ann : (turns, startled) Oh!Sue : I’m terribly sorry.Ann : it’s all right, I…. I’m just a little silly about the dark.Sue : (looks about) It’s getting dark.Ann : Are you looking for your husband?Sue : As usual. (laughs tiredly) He spends so much time here, they’llbe charging him rent.Ann : Nobody was dressed so he drove over to the depot to pick upmy brother.Sue : Oh, your brother’s in?Ann : Yeah, they ought to be here any minute now. Will you have acold drink?Sue : I will, thanks. (Ann goes to table and pours) My husband. Toohot to drive me to the beach. Men are like little boys…. For theneighbors they’ll always cut the grass.Ann : People like to do things for the Kellers. Been that way since Ican remember.Sue : It’s amazing. I gues your brother’s coming to give you away,heh?Ann : (giving her drink) I don’t know. I suppose.Sue : You must be all nerved up.

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Ann : It’s always a problem getting yourself married, isn’t it?Sue : That depends on your shape, of course. I don’t see why youshould have had a problem/Ann : I’ve had chances…Sue : I’ll bet. It’s romantic ….. it’s very unusual to me, marrying thebrother of your sweetheart.Ann : I don’t know. I think it’s mostly that whenever I need somebodyto tell me the truth I’ve always thought of Chris. When he tells yousomething you know it’s so. He relaxes me.Sue : And he’s got money. That’s important, you know.Ann : It wouldn’t matter to me.Sue : You’d be surprised. It makes all the difference. I married anintern. On my salary. And that was bad, because as soon as a womansupports a man he owes her something. You can never owe somebodywithout resenting them. (Ann laughs) That’s true, you know.Ann : Underneath, I think the doctor is very devoted.Sue : Oh, certainly. But it’s bad when a man always sees the bars infront of him. Jim thinks he’s in jail all the time.Ann : Oh…Sue : That’s why I’ve been intending to ask you a small favor, Ann.It’s something very important to me.Ann : Certainly, if I can do it.Sue : You can. When you take up housekeeping, try to find a placeaway from here.Ann : Are you fooling?Sue : I’m very serious. My husband is unhappy with Chris around.Ann : How is that?Sue : Jim’s a successful doctor. But he’s got an idea he’d like to domedical research. Discover things. You see?Ann : Well, isn’t that good?Sue : Research pays twenty five dollars a week minus laundering hairshirt. You’ve got to give up your life to go into it.Ann : How does Chris…..Sue : (with growing feeling) Chris makes people want to be betterthat it’s possible to be. He does that to people.Ann : Is that bad?

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Sue : My husband has a family, dear. Every time he has a session withChris he feels as though he’s compromising by not giving up everythingfor research. As though Chris or anybody else isn’t compromising. Ithappens with Jim every couples of years. He meets a man and makesa status out of him.Ann : May be he’s right. I don’t mean that Chris is a statue, but….Sue : now darling, you know he’s not right.Ann : I don’t agree with you. Chris…Sue : Let’s face it, dear. Chris is working with his father, isn’t he?He’s taking money out of that business every week in the year.Ann : What of it?Sue : You ask me what of it?Ann : I certainly do. (She seems about to burst out) You oughtn’t castaspersions like that, I’m surprised at you.Sue : You’re surprised at me!Ann : He’d never take five cents out of that plant if there was anythingwrong with it.Sue : You know that.Ann : I know it. I resent everything you’ve said.Sue : (moving toward her) You know what I resent, dear?Ann : Please, I don’t want to argue.Sue : I resent living next to the Holy family. It makes me look like abum, you understand?Ann : I can’t do anything about that.Sue : Who is he to ruin a man’s life? Everybody knows Joe pulled afast one to get out of jail.Ann : That’s not true!Sue : Then why don’t you go out and talk to people? Go on, talk tothem. There’s not a person on the block who doesn’t know the truth.Ann : That’s a lie. People come here all the time for cards and…Sue : So what? They give him credit for being smart. I do, too, I’vegot nothing against Joe. But if Chris wants people to put on the hairshirt let him take off the broadcloth. He’s driving my husband crazywith that phony idealism of his and I’m at the end of my rope on it!(Chris enters on porch, wearing shirt and tie now. She turns quickly,hearing. With a smile) Hello, darling. How’s Mother?Chris : I thought George came.

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Sue : No, it was just us.Chris : (coming down to them) Susie, do me a favor, heh? Go up toMother and see if you can calm her. She’s all worked up.Sue : She still doesn’t know about you two?Chris : (Laughs a little) Well, she senses it, I guess. You know mymother.Sue : (going up to porch) Oh, yeah, she’s psychic.Chris : May be there’s something in the medicine chest.Sue : I’ll give her one of everything. (on porch) Don’t worry aboutKate…. Couple of drinks, dance her around a little…. She’ll loveAnn. (To Ann) Because you’re the female version of him. (Chrislaughs) Don’t be alarmed, I said version. (She goes into house)Chris : Interesting woman, isn’t she?Ann : Yeah, she’s very interesting.Chris : She’s a great nurse, you know, she….Ann : (in tension, but trying to control it) Are you still doing that?Chris : (sensing something wrong, but still smiling) Doing what?Ann : As soon as you get to know somebody you find a distinction forthem. How do you know she’s a great nurse?Chris : What’s the matter, Ann?Ann : The woman hates you. She despises you!Chris : Hey… What’s hit you?Ann : Gee, Chris……Chat happened here?Ann : You never…… Why didn’t you tell me?Chris : Tell you what?Ann : She says they think Joe is guilty.Chris : What differences does it make what they think?Ann : I don’t care what they think, I just don’t understand why youtook the trouble to deny it. You said it was all forgotten.Chris : I didn’t want you to feel there was anything wrong in youcoming here, that’s all. I know a lot of people think my father wasguilty, and I assumed there might be some question in your mind.Ann : But I never once suspected him.Chris : Nobody says it.Ann : Chris, I know how much you love him, but it could never….

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Chris : Do you think I could forgive him if he’d done that thing?Ann : I’m not here out of blue sky, Chris. I turned my back on myfather, if there’s anything wrong here now ….Chris : I know that, Ann.Ann : George is coming from Dad, and I don’t think it’s with a blessing.Chris : He’s welcome here. You’ve got nothing to fear from George.Ann : Tell me that…. Just tell me that.Chris : The man is innocent, Ann. Remember he was falsely accusedonce and it put him through hell. How would you behave if you werefaced with the same thing again? Annie, believe me, there’s nothingwrong for you here, believe me, kid.Ann : All right, Chris, all right. (They embrace as Keller appears quietlyon the porch. Ann simply studies him)

Keller : Every time I come out here it looks like Playland!(they break and laught in embarrassment)

Chris : I thought you were going to shave?Keller : (sitting on bench) in a minute. I just woke, I can’t see

nothing.Ann : You looks shaved.Keller : Oh, no. (messages his jaw) Gotta be extra special tonight. Bignight, Annie. So how’s it feel to be a married woman?Ann : (laughs) I don’t know, yet.Keller : (to Chris) What’s the matter, you slipping? (He takes a littlebox of apples from under the bench as they talk)Chris : The great roué!Keller : What is that, roué?Chris : It’s Franch.Keller : Don’t talk dirty. (they laugh)Chris : (to Ann) You ever meet a bigger ignoramus?Keller : Well, somebody’s got to make a living.Ann : (as they laugh) That’s telling him.Keller : I don’t know everybody’s getting so Goddam educated in thiscountry there’ll be nobody to take away the garbage. (they laugh) It’sgetting so the only dumb ones left are the boses.Ann : You’re not so dumn, Joe.

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Keller : I know, but you go into out plant, for instance. I got so manylieutenants, majors an colonels that I’m ashamed to ask somebody tosweep the floor. I gotta be careful I’ll insult somebody. No kidding.It’s a tragedy: you stand on the street today and spit, you’re gonna hita college man.Chris : Well, don’t spit.Keller : (breaks the apple in half, passing it to Ann and Chris) I meanto say, it’s coming to a pass. (he takes a breath) I been thinking,Annie… your brother, George. I been thinking about your brotherGeorge. When he comes I like you o brooch something to him.Chris : Broach.Keller : What’s the matter with brooch?Chris : (smiling) It’s not English.Keller : When I when to night school it was brooch.Ann : (laughing) Well, in day schools it’s broach.Keller : Don’t surround me, will you? Seriously, Ann… You say he’snot well. George, I been thinking, why should be know himself out inNew York with that cut throat competition, when I got so many friendshere …. I’m very friendly with some big lawyers in town. I could setGeorge up here.Ann : That’s awfully nice of you, Joe.Keller : No, kid, it ain’t nice of me. I want you to understand me. I’mthinking of Chris. (slight pause) See… this is what I mean. You getolder, you want to feel that you… accomplished something. My onlyaccomplishments is my son. I ain’t brainy. That’s all accomplished.Now, a year, eighteen months, your father’ll be a free man. Who is hegoing to come to, Annie? His baby. You. He’ll come, old, mad, intoyour house.Ann : That can’t matter any more, Joe.Keller : I don’t what that to come between us. (gestures betweenChris and himself)Ann : I can only tell you that could never happen.Keller : You’re in love now, Annie, but believe me, I’m older than youand I know…. a daughter is a daughter, and a father is a father. Andit could happen. (he pauses) I like you and George to go to him inprison and tell him…. ‘Dad, Joe wants to bring you into the businesswhen you get out.’

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Ann : (surprised, even shocked) You’d have him as a partner?Keller : No, no partner. A good job. (pause. He sees she is shocked, alittle mystified. He gets up, speaks more nervously) I want him toknow that when he gets out he’s got a place waiting for him. It’ll takehis bitterness away. To know you got a place…Ann : Joe, you owe him nothing.Keller : I owe him a good kick in the teeth, but he’s your father.Chris : Then kick him in the teeth! I don’t want him in the plant, sothat’s that! You understand? And besides, don’t talk about him likethat. People misunderstand you!Keller : And I don’t understand why she has to crucify the man.Chris : Well, it’s her father if she feels…..Keller : No, no.Chris : (almost angrily) What’s it to you? Why….?Keller : (a commanding outburst in high nervousness) A father is afather! (as though the outburst had revealed him, he looks about,wanting to retract it. His hand goes to his cheek) I better …. I bettershave. (he turns and a smile is on his face, to Ann) I didn’t mean toyell at you, Annie.Ann : Let’s forget the whole thing, Joe.Keller : Right. (to Chris) She’s likeable.Chris : (a little peaved at the man’s stupidity) Shave, will you?Keller : Right again.As he turns to porch Lydia comes hurrying from her house.Lydia : I forgot all about it. (Seeing Chris and Ann) Hya. (To Joe) Ipromised to fix Kate’s hair for tonight. Did she comb it yet?Keller : Always a smile, hey, Lydia?Lydia : Sure, why not?Keller : (going up on porch): Come on up and comb my Katie’s hair.(Lydia goes up on porch) She’s got a big night, make her beautiful.Lydia : I will.Keller : (holds door open for her and she goes into kitchen. To Chrisand Ann) hey, that could be a song. (he sings softly) Come on up andcomb my Katie’s hair… Oh, come up and comb my Katie’s hair….Oh, come on up, ‘cause she’s my lady fair …. (To Ann) how’s thatfor one year of night school? (he continues singing as he goes intokitchen) Oh, come on up, come on up, and comb my lady’s hair….

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Jim Bayliss round corner of driveway, walking rapidly. Jim crosses toChris, motions him and pulls him down excitedly. Keller stands justinside kitchen door, watching them.Chris : What’s the matter? Where is he?Jim : Where’s your mother?Chris : Upstairs, dressing.Ann : (crossing to them rapidly) What happened to George?Jim : I asked him to wait in the car. Listen to me now. Can you takesome advice? (they wait) don’t bring him in here.Ann : Why?Jim : Kate is in bad shape, you can’t explode this in front of her.Ann : Explode what?Jim : You know why he’s here, don’t try to kit it away. There’s bloodin his eye, drive him somewhere and talk to him alove.Ann turns to go up drive, takes a couble of steps, sees Keller, andstops. He goes quietly on into house.Chris : (shaken, and therefore angered) Don’t be an old lady.Jim : He’s come to take her home. What does that mean? (to Ann)You know what that means. Fight it out with him some place else.Ann : (comes back down toward Chris) I’ll drive …. Him somewhere.Chris : (goes to her) No.Jim : Will you stop being an idiot?Chris : Nobody’s afraid of him here. Cut that out!He starts for driveway, but is brought up short by George, who entersthere. George is Chris’s age, but a paler man, now on the edge of hisself restraint. He speaks quietly, as though afraid to find himselfscreaming. An instant’s hesitation and Chris steps up to him, handextended, smiling.Chris : Helluva way to do, what’re you sitting out there for?George : Doctor said your mother isn’t well, I ….Chris : So what? She’d want to see you, wouldn’t she? We’ve beenwaiting for you all afternoon. (He puts his hand on George’s arm, butGeorge pulls away, coming across toward Ann).Ann : (touching his collar) This is filthy, didn’t you bring another shirt?George breaks away from her, and moves down, examining the yard.Door opens, and he turns rapidly, thinking it is Kate, but it’s Sue. Shelooks at him, he turns away and moves to fence. He looks over it athis former home. Sue comes downstage.

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Sue : (annoyed) How about the beach, Jim?Jim : Oh, it’s too hot to drive.Sue : How’d you get to the station…. Zeppelin?Chris : This is Mrs. Bayliss, George. (calling , as George pays noattention, staring at house) George! (George turns) Mrs. Bayliss.Sue : How do you do.George : (removing his hat) You’re the people who bought our house,aren’t you?Sue : that’s right. Come and see what we did with it before you leave.George : (walks down and way from her) I liked it the way it was.Sue : (after a brief pause) He’s frank, isn’t he?Jim : (pulling her off) See you later …. Take it easy, fella. (they exit)Chris : (calling after them) Thanks for driving him! (Turning to George)How about some grape juice? Mother made it especially for you.George : (with forced appreciation) Good old Kate, remembered mygrape juice.Chris : You drank enough of it in this house. How’re you been, George?…. Sit down.George : (keeps moving) It take me a minute. (looking around) Itseems impossible.Chris : What?George : I’m back here.Chris : Say, you’ve gotten a little nervous, haven’t you?George : Yeah, toward the end of the day. What’re you, big executivenow?Chris : Just kind of medium. How’s the law?George : I don’t know. When I was studying in the hospital is seemedsensible, but outside there doesn’t seem to be much of a law. Thetrees got thick, didn’t they? (points to stump) What’s that?Chris : Blew down last night. We had it there for Larry. You know.George : Why, afraid you’ll forget him?Chris : (starts for George) What kind of remark is that?Ann : (breaking in, putting a restraining hand of Chris) When did youstart wearing a hat?George : (discovers hat in his hand) Today. From now on I decided tolook like a lawyer, anyway. (He hold is up to her) Don’t you recognizeit?

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Ann : Why? Where…?George : Your father’s …. He asked me to wear it.Ann : How is he?George : He got smaller.Ann : Smaller?George : Yeah, little. (holds our his hand to measure) He’s a little man.That’s what happens to suckers, you know. it’s good I want to him intime …. Another year there’d be nothing left but his smell.Chris : What’s the matter, George, what’s the trouble?George: The trouble? The trouble is when you make suckers out ofpeople once, you shouldn’t try to do it twice.Chris : What does that mean?George : (to Ann) You’re not married yet, are you?Ann : George, will you sit down and stop….?George : Are you married yet?Ann : No, I’m not married yet.George : You’re not going to marry him.Ann : Why am I not going to marry him?George : Because his father destroyed your family.Chris : Now look, George……George : Cut it short, Chris. Tell her to come home with me. Let’s notargue, you know what I’ve got to say.Chris : George, you don’t want to be the voice of God, do you?George : I’m ….Chris : That’s been your trouble all your life, George, you dive intothings. What kind of statement is that to make? You’re a big boy now.George : I’m a big boy now.Chris : Don’t come bulling in here. If you’re got something to say, becivilized about it.George : Don’t civilize me!Ann : Shhh!Chris : (ready to hit him) Are you going to talk like a grown man oraren’t you?Ann : (quickly, to forestall an outburst) Sit down, dear. Don’t be angry,what’s the matter? (He allows her to seat him, looking at her) Nowwhat happened? You kissed me when I left, now you….

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George : (breathlessly) My life turned upside down since then. I couldn’tgo back to work when you left. I wanted to go to Dad and tell him youwere going to be married. It seemed impossible not to tell him. Heloved you so much. (he paused) Annie …. We did a terrible thing. Wecan never be forgiven. Not even to send him a card at Christmas. Ididn’t see him once since I got home from the war! Annie, you don’tknow what was done to that man. You don’t know what happened.Ann : (afraid) Of course I know.George : You can’t know, you wouldn’t be here. Dad came to workthat day. The night foreman came to him and showed him the cylinderheads…. They were coming out of the process with defects. Therewas something wrong with the process. So Dad went directly to thephone and called here and told Joe to come down right away. But themorning passed. No sign of Joe. So Dad called again. By this time hehad over a hundred defectives. The Army was screaming for stuffand Dad didn’t have anything to ship. So Joe told him… on the peoplehe told him to weld, cover up the cracks in any way he could, and shipthem out.Chris : Are you through now?George : (surging back at him) I’m not through now! (Back to Ann)Dad was afraid. He wanted Joe there if he was going to do it. But Joecan’t come down …. He’s sick. Sick! He suddenly gets the flu!Suddenly! But he promised to take responsibility. Do you understandwhat I’m saying? On the telephone you can’t have responsibility! In acourt you can always deny a phone call and that’s exactly what hedid. They know he was a liar the first time, but in the appeal theybelieved the rotten lie and now Joe is a big shot and your father is thepatsy. (He gets up) Now what’re you going to do? Eat his food, sleepin his bed? Answer me. What’re you going to do?Chris : What are you going to do, George?George : He’s too smart for me, I can’t prove a phone call.Chris : Then how dare you come in heare within that rot?Ann : George, the court ….George : The court didn’t know your father! But you know him. Youknow in your heart Joe did it.Chris : (whirling him around) Lower your voice or I’ll throw you outof here!

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George : She knows. She knows.Chris : (to Ann) Get him out of here, Ann. Get him out of here.Ann : George, I know everything you’ve said. Dad told me that wholething in court, and they….George : (almost a scream) The court did not know him, Annie!Ann : Shhh!.... But he’ll say anything, George. You know how quickhe can lie.George : (turning to Chris, with deliberation) I’ll ask you something,and look me in the eye when you answer me.Chris : I’ll look you in the eye.George : You know your father….Chris : I know him well.George : And he’s the kind of boss to let a hundred and twenty oncylinder heads be repaired and shipped out of his shop without evenknowing it?Chris : He’s that kind of boss.George : And that’s the same Joe Keller who never left his shopwithout first going around to see that all the lights were out.Chris : (with growing anger) The same Joe Keller.George : The same man who knows how many minutes a day hisworkers spend in the toilet.Chris : The same man.George : Any my father, that frightened mouse who’d never buy ashirt without somebody along …. That man would do such a thing onhis own?Chris : On his own. And because he’s a frightened mouse this isanother thing he’d do ….. throw the blame on somebody else in courtbut it didn’t work, but with a fool life you it works!Ann : (deeply shaken) Don’t talk like that!Chris : (sits facing George) Tell me, George. What happened? Thecourt record was good enough for you all these years, why isn’t itgood now? Why did you believe it all these years?George : (after a slight pause) Because you believed it…. That’s thetruth, Chris. I believe everything, because I thought you did. But todayI heard it from his mouth. From his mouth it’s altogether different

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than the record. Anyone who knows him, and knows your father, withbelieve it from his mouth. Your Dad took everything we have. I can’tbeat that. But she’s one item he’s not going to grab. (He turns to Ann)Get your things. Everything they have is covered with blood. You’renot the kind of girl who can live with that. Get your things.Chris : Ann…. You’re not going to believe that, are you?Ann : (goes to him) You know it’s not true, don’t you?George : How can he tell you? It’s his father. (To Chris) None ofthese things ever even cross your mind?Chris : Yes, they crossed my mind. Anything can cross your mind!George : He knows, Annie. He knows!Chris : The voice of God!George : Then why isn’t your name on the business? Explain that toher!Chris : What the hell has that got to do with….?George : Annie, why isn’t his hame on it?Chris : Even when I won’t own it!George : Who’re you kidding? Who gets it when he dies? (To Ann)open your eyes, you know the both of them, isn’t that the first thingthey’d do, the way they love each other? ….. J.O. Keller and son?(pause. Ann looks from him to Chris) I’ll settle it. Do you want tosettle it, or are you afraid to?Chris : What do you mean?George : Let me go up and talk to your father. In ten minutes you’llhave the answer. Or are you afraid of the answer?Chris : I’m not afraid of the answer. I know the answer. But mymother isn’t well and I don’t want a fight here now.George : let me got to him.Chris : You’re not going to start a fight here now.George : (To Ann) What more do you want! (There is a sound offootsteps in the house).Ann : (turns her head suddenly toward house) Someone’s coming.Chris : (to George, quietly) You won’t say anything now.Ann : You’ll go soon. I’ll call a cab.George : You’re coming with me.Ann : And don’t mention marriage, because we haven’t told her yet.George : You’re coming with me.

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Ann : You understand? Don’t …. George, you’re not going to startanything now! (She hears footsteps) Shhh!Mother enters on porch. She is dressed almost formally. Her hair isfixed. They are all turned toward her. On seeing George she raisesboth hands, comes down toward him.Mother : Georgie, Georgie.George : (he has always liked her) Hello, Kate.Mother : (cup his face in her hands) They made an old man out ofyou. (Touches his hair) Look, you’re grey.George : (her pity, open and unabashed, reaches into him, and hesmiles sadly) I know, I ……Mother : I told you when you went away, don’t try for medals.George : (laughs, tiredly) I didn’t try, Kate. They made it very easyfor me.Mother : (actually angry) Go on, You’re all alike. (To Ann) Look athim, why did you say he’s fine? He looks like a ghost.George : (relishing her solicitude) I feel alright.Mother : I’m sick to look at you. What’s the matter with your mother,why don’t she feed you?Ann : He just hasn’t any appetite.Mother : If he ate in my house he’d have an appetite. (to Ann) I pityyour husband! (To George) Sit down. I’ll make you a sandwich.George : (sits with an embarrassed laugh) I’m really not hungry.Mother : Honest of God, it breaks my heart to see what happened toall the children. How we worked and planned for you, and you end upno better than us.George : (with deep feeling for her) You….. you haven’t changed atall, you know that, Kate?Mother : None of us changed, George. We all love you. Joe was justtalking about the day you were born and the water got shut off. Peoplewere carrying basins from a block away… A stranger would havethought the whole block was on fire! (they laugh. She sees the juice.To Ann) Why didn’t you give him some juice!Ann : (defensively) I offered it to him.Mother : (scoffingly) You offered it to him! (thrusting glass into George’shand) Give it to him! (To George, who is laughing) And now you’regoing to sit here and drink some juice …. And look like something.

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George : (sitting) Kate, I feel hungry already.Chris : (proudly) She could turn Mahatma Gandhi into a heavy weight!Mother : (To Chris, with great energy) Listen, to hell with the restaurant!I got a ham in the icebox, and frozen strawberries, and avocados, and….Ann : Swell, I’ll help you!George : The train leaves at eight thirty, Ann.Mother : (to Ann) You’re leaving?Chris : No, Mother, she’s not….Ann : (breaking though it, going to George) You hardly got here. Giveyourself a chance to get acquainted again.Chris : Sure, you don’t even know us anymore.Mother : Well, Chris, if they can’t stay, I don’t….Chris : No, it’s just a question of George, Mother, he planned on….George : (gets up politely, nicely, for Kate’s sake) Now wait a minute,Chris….Chris : (smiling and full of command, cutting him off) If you want togo, I’ll drive you to the station now, but if you’re staying, no argumentswhile you’re here.Mother : (at last confessing the tension) Why should he argue? (shegoes to him. With desperation and compassion, stroking his hair)Georgie and us have no argument. How could we have an argument,Georgie? We all got hit by the same lighting, how can you…? Did yousee what happened to Larry’s tree, Georgie? (she has taken his arm,and unwillingly he moves across the stage with her) Imagine? WhileI was dreaming of him in the middle of the night, the wind came alongand…Lydia enters on porch. As soon as she sees him :Ludia : Hey, Georgie! Georgie! Georgie! Georgie! Georgie! (Shecomes down to him eagerly. She has a flowered hat in her hand,which Kate takes from her as she goes to George)George : (As they shake hands eagerly, warmly) Hello, Laughy. What’dyou do, grow?Lydia : I’m a big girl now.Mother : Look what he can do to a hat!Ann : (to Lydia, admiring the hat) Did you make that?Mother : In ten minutes! (she puts it on)

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Lydia : (fixing it on her head) I only rearranged it.George : You still make your own clothes?Chris : (of Mother) Ain’ t she classy! All she needs now is a Russianwolfhound.Mother : (Moving her head) It feels like somebody is sitting on myhead.Ann : No, it’s beautiful, Kate.Mother : (kisses Lydia. To George) She’s a genius! You should’vemarried her. (they laugh) This one can feed you!Lydia : (strangely embarrassed) Oh, stop that, Kate.George : (to Lydia) Didn’t hear you had a babyMother : You don’t hear so good. She’s got three babies.George : (a little hurt by it. To Lydia) No kidding, three?Lydia : Yeah, it was one, two, three …. You’ve been away a longtime, Georgie.George : I’m beginning to realize.Mother : (to Chris and George) The trouble with you kids is you thinkto much.Lydia : Well, we think, too.Mother : Yes, but not all the time.George : (with almost obvious envy) They never took Frank, heh?Lydia : (a little apologetically) No, he was always one year ahead ofthe draft.Mother : It’s amazing. When they were calling boys twenty sevenFrank was twenty eight, when they made it twenty eight, he was justtwenty nine. That’s why he took up astrology. It’s all in when youwere born, it just goes to show.Chris : What does it go to show?Mother : (to Chris) Don’t be so intelligent. Some superstitions arevery nice! (To Lydia) Did he finish Larry’s horoscope?Lydia : I’ll ask him now, I’m going in. (to George, a little sadly, almostembarrassed) Would you like to see my babies? Come on.George : I don’t think so, Lydia.Lydia : (Understanding) All right. Good luck to you, George.George : Thanks. And to you…. And Frank. (She smiles at him, turnsand goes off to her house. George stands staring after her).

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Lydia : (as she runs off) Oh, Frank!Mother : (Reading his thoughts) She got pretty, heh?George : (sadly) Very pretty.Mother : (as a reprimand) She’s beautiful, you damned fool!George : (looks around longingly, and softly, with a catch in his throat)She makes it seem so nice around here.Mother : (shaking her finger at him) Look what happened to youbecause wouldn’t listen to me! I told you to marry that girl and stayout of the war!George : (laughs at himself) She used to laugh too much.Mother : And you didn’t laugh enough. While you were getting madabout Fascism Frank was getting into her bed.George : (to Chris) He won the war, Frank.Chris : All the battles.Mother : (in pursuit of this mood) The day they started the draft,George, I told you you loved that girl.Chris : (laughs) And truer love hath no man!Mother : I’m smarter than any of you.George : (laughing) She’s wonderful.Mother : And how you’re going to listen to me, George. You had bigprinciples, Eagle Scouts the three of you. So now I got a tree, and thisone (indicating Chris) when the weather gets bad he can’t stand onhis feet. And that big dope (pointing to Lydia’s house) next door whonever reads anything but Andy Gump has three children and his housepaid off. Stop being a philosopher, and look after yourself. Like Joewas just saying … You move back here, he’ll help you get set, and I’llfind you a girl and put a smile on your face.George : Joe? Joe wants me here?Ann : (eagerly) He asked me to tell you, and I think it’s a good idea.Mother : Certainly. Why must you make believe you hate us? Is thatanother principle? … That you have to hate us? You don’t hate us,George, I know you, you can’t fool me, I diapered you. (Suddenly, toAnn) You remember Mr. Marcy’s daughter?Ann : (laughing, to George) She’s got you hooked already! (Georgelaughs, is excited)Mother : You look her over, George. You’ll see she’s the mostbeautiful….

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Chris : She’s got warts, George.Mother : (to Chris) She hasn’t got warts! (To George) So the girl hasa little beauty mark on her chin….Chris : And two on her nose.Mother : You remember. Her father’s the retired police inspector.Chris : Seargent George.Mother : He’s a very kind man!Chris : He looks like a gorilla.Mother : (to George) He never shot anybody.They all burst out laughing as Keller appears in the doorway. Georgerises abruptly and stares at Keller, who comes rapidly down to him.Keller : (the laughter stops. With strained joviality) Well! Look who’shere! (Extending his hand) Georgie, good to see ya.George : (shaking hands. Somberly) How’re you, Joe?Keller : So-s. Getting old. You coming out to dinner with us?George : No, got to be back in New York.Ann : I’ll call a cab for you. (She goes up into the house)Keller : Too bad you can’t stay, George. Sit down. (To mother) Helooks fine.Mother : He looks terrible.Keller : That’s what I said, you look terrible, Georg. (They laugh) Iwere the pants and she beats me with the belt.George : I saw your factory on the way from the station. It looks likegeneral Motors.Keller : I wish it was General Motors, but it ain’t. Sit down, George.Sit down. (takes cigar out of his pocket) So you finally went to seeyour father, I hear?George : Yes, this morning. What kind of stuff do you make now?Keller : Oh, little of everything. Pressure cookers, an assembly forwashing machines. Got a nice, flexible plant now. So how’d you findDad? Feel alright?George : (searching Keller, speaking indecisively) No, he’s not well,Joe.Keller : (lighting his cigar) Not his heart again, is it?George : It’s everything, Joe. It’s his soul.Keller : (blowing out smoke) Uh huh….Chris : How about seeing what they did with your house?

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Keller : Leave him be.George : (to Chris, indicating Keller) I’d like to talk to him.Keller : Sure, he just got here. That’s the way they do, George. A littleman makes a mistake and they hang him by his thumbs. The big onesbecome ambassadors. I with you’d-a told me you were going to seeDad.George : (studying him) I didn’t know you were interested.Keller : In a way, I am. I would like him to know George, that as faras I’m concerned, any time he wants, he’s got a place with me. Iwould like him to know that.George : He hates your guts, Joe. Don’t you know that?Keller : I imagined it. But that can change, too.Mother : Steve was never like that.George : He’s like that now. He’d like to take every man who mademoney in the war and put him up against a wall.Chris : He’ll need a lot of bullets.George : And he’d better not get any.Keller : that’s a sad thing to hear.George : (with bitterness dominant) Why? What’s you expect him tothink of you?Keller : (the force of his nature rising, but under control) I’m sad tosee he hasn’t changed. As long as I know him, twenty five years, theman never learned how to take the blame. You know that, George.George : (he does) Well, I …..Keller : But you do know it. Because the way you come in here youdon’t look like you remember it. I mean in nineteen thirty seven whenwe had the shop on Flood Street. And he damn near blew us all upwith that heater he left burning for two days without water. He wouldn’tadmit that was his fault, either. I had to fire a mechanic to save hisface. You remember that.George : Yes, but….Keller : I’m just mentioning it, George. Because this is just anotherone of a lot of things. Like when he gave Frank that money to investin oil stock.George : (distressed) I know that, I ….

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Keller : (driving in, but restrained) But it’s good to remember thosethings, kid. The way he cursed Frank because the stock went down.Was that Frank’s fault? To listen to him Frank was a swindler. And allthe man did was to give him a bad tip.George : (gets up, moves away) I know those things ….Keller : Then remember them, remember them. (Ann comes out ofhouse) There are certain men in the world who rather see everybodyhung before they’ll take balance. You understand me, George?They stand facing each other, George trying to judge him.Ann : (coming downstage) The cab’s on its way. Would you like towash?Mother : (with the thrust of hope) Why must he go? Make the midnight,George.Keller : Sure, you’ll have dinner with us!Ann : How about it? Why not? We’re eating at the lake, we couldhave a swell time.A long pause, as George looks at Ann, Chris, Keller, then back to her.George : All right.Mother : Now you’re talking.Chris : I’ve got a shirt that’ll go right with that suit.George : Is Lydia…? I mean, Frank and Lydia coming?Mother : I’ll get you a date that’ll make her look like a … (She startsupstage)George : (laughing) No, I don’t want a date.Chris : I know somebody just for you! Charlotte Tanner! (he starts forthe house)Keller : Call Charlotte, that’s right.Mother : Sure, call her up. (Chris goes into house)Ann : You go up and pick out a shirt and tie.George : (stops, looks around at them and the place) I never felt athome anywhere but here. I feel so… (he nearly laughs, and turnsaway from them) Kate, you look so young, you know? you didn’tchange at all. It…. Rings an old bell. (turns to Keller) You too, Joe,you’re amazingly the same. The whole atmosphere is.Keller : Say, I ain’t got time to get sick.Mother : He hasn’t been laid up in fifteen years.Keller : Except my flu during the war.

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Mother : Huhh?Keller : Well, sure … (To George) I mean except for that flu. (Georgestands perfectly still) Well, it slipped my mind, don’t look at me thatway. He wanted to go to the shop but he couldn’t lift himself off thebed. I thought he had pneumonia.George : Why did you say he’s never…..?Keller : I know how you feel, kid, I’ll never forgive myself. If I could’vegone in that day I’d never allow Dad to touch those heads.George : She said you’ve never been sick.Mother : I said he was sick, George.George : (going to Ann) Ann, didn’t you hear her say…?George : Id remember pneumonia. Especially if I got it just the daymy partner was going to patch up cylinder heads…. What happenedthat day, Joe?Frank enters briskly from driveway, holding Larry’s horoscope in hishand. He comes to Kate.Frank : Kate! Kate!Mother : frank, did you see George?Frank : (extending his hand) Lydia told me, I’m glad to …. You’ll haveto pardon me. (pulling mother over) I’ve got something amazing foryou, Kate, I finished Larry’s horoscope.Mother : You’d be interested in this, George. It’s wonderful the wayhe can understand the….Chris : (entering from house) George, the girl’s on the phone…Mother : (desperately) He finished Larry’s horoscope!Chris : Frank, can’t you pick a better time than this?Frank : The greatest men who ever lived believed in the stars!Chris : Stop filling her head with that junk!Frank : Is it junk to feel that there’s a greater power than ourselves?I’ve studied the stars of his life! I won’t argue with you, I’m tellingyou. Somewhere in this world your brother is alive!Mother : (instantly to Chris) Why isn’t it possible?Chris : Because its insane.Frank : Just a minute now. I’ll tell you something and you can do asyou please. Just let me say it. He was supposed to have died onNovember twenty fifth. But November twenty fifth was his favoriteday. That’s known, that’s known, Chris!

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Mother : Why isn’t it possible, why isn’t it possible, Chris!George : (to Ann) Don’t you understand what she’s saying? She justtold you to go. What are you waiting for now?Chris : Nobody can tell her to go. (A car horn is heard)Mother : (to Frank) Thank you, darling, for your trouble. Will you tellhim to wait, Frank?Frank : (as he goes) Sure thing.Mother : (calling out) They’ll be right out, driver!George : You heard her say it, he’s never been sick!Mother : He misunderstood me, Chris! (Chris, looks at her, struck)George : (to Ann) He simply told your father to kill pilots, and coveredhimself in bed!Chris : You’d better answer him, Annie. Answer him.Mother: I packed your bag, darling.Chris : What?Mother: I packed your bag. All you’ve got to do is close it.Ann : I’m not closing anything. He asked me here and I’m stayingtill he tells to go. (To George) Till Chris tells me!Chris : That’s all! How get out of there, George!Mother: (to Chris) But if that’s how he feels….Chris : That’s all, nothing more till Christ comes, about the case orLarry as long as I’m here! (to George) Now get out of here, George!George : (to Ann) You tell me. I want to hear you tell me.Ann : Go, George!

They disappear up the driveway, Ann saying, ‘Don’t take itthat way, Georgie! Please don’t take it that way’.Chris : (turning to his mother) What do you mean you packed herbag? How dare you pack her bag?Mother : Chris….Chris : How dare you pack her bag?Mother: She doesn’t belong here.Chris : Then I don’t belong here.Mother : She’s Larry’s girl.Chris : And I’m his brother and he’s dead, and I’m marrying his girl.Mother : Never, never in this world!Keller : You lost your mind?Mother : You have nothing to say!

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Keller : (cruelly) I got plenty to say. Three and a half years you beentalking like a maniac… Mother smashes him across the face.Mother : Nothing. You have nothing to say. Now I say. He’s comingback, and everybody has got to wait .Chris : Mother, Mother…..Mother: Wail, wait….Chris : How long? How long?Mother: (rolling out of her) Till he comes. Forever and ever till hecomes!Chris : (as an ultimatum) Mother, I’m going ahead with it.Mother : Chris, I’ve never said no to you in my life, now I say no!Chris : You’ll never let him go till I do it.Mother: I’ll never let him go and you’ll never let him go!Chris : I’ve let him go. I’ve let him go a long….Mother: (with no less force, but turning from him) Then let your fathergo. (pause. Chris stands transfixed)Keller : She’s out of her mind.Mother : Altogether! (To Chris, but not facing them) Your brother’salive, darling, because if he’s dead, your father killed him. Do youunderstand me now? As long as you live, that boy is alive. God doesnot let a son be killed by his father. Now you see, don’t you? Now yousee. (Beyond control, she hurries up and into the house)Keller : (Chris has not moved. He speaks insinuatingly, questioningly)She’s out of her mind.Chris : (in a broken whisper) Then…. You did it?Keller : (with the beginning of plea in his voice) He never flew a P-40….Chris : (struck. Deadly) But the others.Keller : (insistently) She’s out of her mind. (he takes a step towardChris, pleadingly.)Chris : (unyielding) Dad…. You did it?Keller : He never flew a P-40, what’s the matter with you?Chris : (still asking, and saying) Then you did it. To the others.

Both hold their voices down.Keller : (afraid of him, his deadly insistence) What’s the matter withyou? What the hell is the matter with you?

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Chris : (quietly, incredibly) How could you do that? How?Keller : What’s the matter with you!Chris : Dad…. Dad, you killed twenty one men!Keller : What, killedChris : You killed them, you murdered them.Keller : (as though throwing his whole nature open before Chris)how could I kill anybody?Chris : Dad! Dad!Keller : (trying to hush him) I didn’t kill anybody!Chris : then explain it to me. What did you do? Explain it to me orI’ll tear you to pieces!Keller : (horrified at his overwhelming fury) Don’t, Chris, don’t….Chris : I want to know what you did, now what did you do? You hada hundred and Twenty cracked engine heads, how what did you do?Keller : If your going to hang me then I ….Chris : I’m listening. God almighty, I’m listening!Keller : (their movements are those of subtle pursuit and escape.Keller keeps a step out of Chris’s range as he talks : You’re a boy,what could I do! I’m in business, a man is in business. A hundred andtwenty cracked, you’re out of business. You got a process, the processdon’t work you’re out of business. You don’t know how to operate,your stuff is no good, they close you up, they tear up your contracts.What the hell’s it to them? You lay forty years into a business andthey knock you out in five minutes, what could I do, let them takeforty years, let them take my life away? (his voice cracking) I neverthough they’d install them. I swear to Got. I thought they’d stop ‘embefore anybody took off.Chris : Then why’d you ship them out?Keller : By the time they could spot them I thought I’d have theprocess going again, and I could show them they needed me andthey’d let it go by. But weeks passed and I got no kick-back, so I wasgoing to tell them.Chris : Then why didn’t you tell them?Keller : It was too late. The paper, it was all over the front page,twenty one went down, it was too late. They came with handcuffs

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into the shop, what could I do? (He sits on bench) Chris… Chris, I didit for you, it was a chance and I took it for you. I’m sixty one yearsold, when would I have another chance to make something for you?Sixty one years old you don’t get another chance, do ya?Chris : You even knew that they wouldn’t hold up in the air.Keller : I didn’t say that.Chris : But you were going to warn them not to use them….Keller : But that doesn’t mean….Chris : It means you knew they’d crash.Keller : It don’t mean that.Chris : Then you thought they’d crash.Keller : I was afraid may be…Chris : You were afraid may be! God in heaven, what kind of a manare you? Kids were hanging in the air by those heads. You knew that!Keller : For you, a business for you!Chris : (with burning fury) For me! Where do you live, where haveyou come from? For me!.... I was dying everyday and you werekilling my boys and you did it for me? What the hell do you think I wasthinking of, the Goddam business? Is that as far as your mind can see,the business? What is that, the world of business? What the hell doyou mean, you did it for me? Don’t you have a country? Don’t youlive in the world? What the hell are you? You’re not even an animal,no animal kills his own, what are you? What must I do to you? I oughtto tear the tongue out of your mouth, what must I do? (with his fist hepounds down upon his father’s shoulder. He stumbles away, coveringhis face as he weeps) What must I do, Jesus God, what must I do?Keller : Chris ….. My Chris….

CURTAINS

Two o’clock the following morning, Mother is discovered on the rise,rocking ceaselessly in a chair, staring at her thoughts. It is an intense,slight, sort of rocking. A light shows from upstairs bedroom, lowerfloor windows being dark. The moon is strong and casts its bluishlight.

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Presently Jim, dressed in jacked and hat, appears, and seeing her,goes up beside her.Jim : Any news?Mother : No news.Jim : (gently) You can’t sit up all night, dear, why don’t you go to bed?Mother : I’m waiting for Chris. Don’t worry about me, Jim, I’mperfectly all right.Jim : But it’s almost two o’clock.Mother : I can’t sleep. (slight pause) You had an emergency?Jim : (tiredly) Somebody had a headache and thought he was dying.(slight pause) Half of my patients are quite mad. Nobody realizeshow many people are walking loose, and they’re cracked as coconuts.Money. Money- money-money. You say it long enough it doesn’t meananything. (She smiles, makes a silent laugh) Oh, how I’d love to bearound when that happens!Mother : (shaking her head) You’re so childish, Jim! Sometimes youare.Jim : (looks at her a moment) Kate. (pause) What happened?Mother : I told you. He had an argument with Joe. Then he got in thecar and drove away.Jim : What kind of an argument?Mother : An argument, Joe… He was crying like a child, before.Jim : They argue about Ann?Mother : (after slight hesitation) No, not Ann. Imagine? (indicateslighted window above) She hasn’t come out of that room since heleft. All right in that room.Jim : (looks up at window, then at her) : What’d Joe do, tell him?Mother : (stops rocking) Tell him what?Jim : Don’t be afraid , Kate, I know. I’ve always known.Mother : How?Jim : it occurred to me a long time ago.Mother : I always had the feeling that in the back of his head, Chris….almost knew. I didn’t think it would be such a shock.Jim : (gets up) Chris would never know how to live with a thing likethat. It takes a certain talent… for lying. You have it, and I do. But nothim.

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Mother : What do you mean… He’s not coming back?Jim : Oh, no he’ll come back. We all come back, Kate. These privatelittle revolutions always die. The compromise is always made. In apeculiar way. Frank is right… every man does have a star. The starof one’s honesty. And you spend your life groping for it, but one it’sout it never lights again. I don’t think he went very far. He probablyjust wanted to be alone to watch his star go out.Mother : Just as long as he comes back.Jim : I wish he wouldn’t, Kate. One year I simply took off, went toNew Orleans, for two months I lived on bananas and mils, and studieda certain disease. And then she came, and she cried. And I went backhome with her. And now I live in the usual darkness, I can’t findmyself, it’s hard sometimes to remember the kind of man I wanted tobe. I’m a good husband, Chris is a good son… He’ll come back.Keller comes out on porch in dressing gown and slippers. He goesupstage… To alley. Jim goes to him.Jim : I have the feeling he’s in the park. I’ll look for him. Put her tobed, Joe, this is no good for what she’s got. (Jim exits up driveway)Keller : (coming down) What does he want here?Mother : His friend is not home.Keller : (comes down to her. His voice is husky) I don’t like himmixing in so much.Mother : It’s too late. Joe. He knows.Keller : (apprehensively) How does he know?Mother : He guessed it a long time ago.Keller : I don’t like that.Mother : (laughs dangerously, quietly into the line) What you don’tlike.Keller : Yeah, what I don’t like.Mother : You can’t bull yourself through this one, Joe, you better besmart now. This thing… this thing is not over yet.Keller : (indicating lighted window above) And what is she doing upthere? She don’t’ come out of the room.

Mother : I don’t know, what is she doing? Sit down, stop bingmad. You want to live? You better figure out your life.

Keller : She don’t know, does she?Mother : Don’t ask me, Joe.

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Keller : (almost an outburst) Then who do I ask? But I don’t thinkshe’ll do anything about it.Mother : You’re asking me again.Keller : I’m asking you. What am I, a stranger? I thought I had afamily here. What happened to my family?Mother : You’ve got a family. I’m simply telling you that I have tostrength to think any more.Keller : You have not strength. The minute there’s trouble you haveno strength.Mother : Joe, you’re doing the same thing again. All your live wheneverthere’s trouble you yell at me and you thing that settles it.Keller : Then what do I do? Tell me, talk to me, what do I do?Mother : Joe …. I’ve been thinking this way. If he comes back…Keller : What do you mean ‘If’? He’s coming back!Mother : I think if you sit him down and you….. explain yourself. Imean you ought to make it clear to him that you know you did aterrible thing. (Not looking into his eyes) I mean if he saw that yourealize what you did. You see?Keller : What ice does that cut?Mother : (a little fearfully) I mean if you told him that you want to payfor what you did.Keller : (sensing… quietly) How can I pay?Mother : Tell him…. You’re willing to go to prison. (pause)Keller : (struck, amazed) I’m willing to….?Mother : (quickly) You wouldn’t go, he wouldn’t ask you to go. But ifyou told him you wanted to, if he could feel that you wanted to pay,may be he would forgive you.Keller : He would forgive me! For what?Mother : Joe, you know what I mean.Keller : I don’t know what you mean! You wanted money, so I mademoney. What must I be forgiven? You wanted money, didn’t you?Mother : I didn’t want it that way.Keller : I didn’t want it that way, either! What difference is it whatyou want? I spoiled the both of you. I should’ve put him out when hewas ten like I was put out, and make him earn his keep. Then he’dknow how a buck is made in this world. Forgiven! I could live on aquarter a day myself, but I got a family so I …..

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Mother : Joe, Joe…. It don’t excuse it that you did it for the family.Keller : It’s got to excuse it!Mother : There’s something bigger than the family to him.Keller : Nothing is bigger!Mother : There is to him.Keller : There’s nothing he could do that I wouldn’t forgive. Becausehe’s my son. Because I’m his father and he’s my son.Mother : Joe, I tell you….Keller : Nothings bigger than that. And you’re going to tell him, youunderstand? I’m his father and he’s my son, and if there’s somethingbigger than that I’ll put a bullet in my head!Mother : You stop that!Keller : You heard me. Now you know what to tell him. (Pause. Hemoves from her. Halts) But he wouldn’t put me away though…. Hewouldn’t do that … Would he?Mother : He loved you, Joe, you broke his heart.Keller : But to put me away…Mother : I don’t know. I’m beginning to thing we don’t really him.They say in the war he was such a killer. Here he was always afraidof mice. I don’t know him. I don’t know what he’ll do.Keller : Goddam, If Larry was alive he wouldn’t act like this. Heunderstood the way the world is made. He listened to me. To him theworld had a forty foot front, it ended at the building line. This one,everything bothers him. You make a deal, overcharge two cents, andhis hair falls out. He don’t understand money. Too easy, it came tooeasy. Yes, sir, Larry. That was a boy we lost. Larry. Larry. (He slumpson chair in front of her) What am I gonna do, Kate?Mother : Joe, Joe, please… you’ll be alright, nothing is going to happen.Keller : (desperately, lost) For you, Kate, for both of you, that’s all Iever lived for…Mother : I know, darling, I know. (Ann enters from the house. Theysay nothing, waiting for her to speak)Ann : Why do you stay up? I’ll tell you when he comes.Keller : (rises, goes to her) You didn’t eat supper, did you? (to mother)Why don’t you make her something?Mother : Sure, I’ll….

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Ann : Never mind, Kate, I’m all right. (they are unable to speak toeach other) There’s something I want to tell you. (She starts, thenhalts) I’m not going to do anything about it.Mother : She’s a good girl! (To Keller) You see? She’s a…..Ann : I’ll do nothing about Joe, but you’re going to do something forme. (Directly to Mother) You made Chris feel guilty with me. I’d likeyou to tell him that Larry is dead and that you know it. You understandme? I’m not going out of here alone. There’s no life for me that way.I want you to set him free. And then I promise you, everything willend, and we’ll go away, and that’s all.Keller : You’ll do that. You’ll tell me.Ann : I know what I’m asking, Kate. You had two sons. But you’veonly got one now.Keller : You’ll tell him.Ann : And you’ve got to say it to him so he knows you mean it.Mother : My dear, if the boy was dead, it wouldn’t depend on mywords to make Chris know it…. The night he gets into your bad, hisheart will dry up. Because he know and you know. to his dying dayhe’ll wait for his brother! No, my dear, no such thing. You’re going inthe morning, and you’re going alone. That’s your life, that’s your lonelylife. (she goes to porch, and starts in)Ann : Larry is dead, Kate.Mother : (she stops) Don’t speak to me.Ann : I said he’s dead. I know! He crashed off the coast of ChinaNovember twenty fifth! His engine didn’t fail him. But he died. Iknow ….Mother : How did he die? You’re lying to me. If you know, how did hedie?Ann : I loved him. You know I loved him. Would I have looked atanyone else if I wasn’t sure? That’s enough for you.Mother : (moving on hr) What’s enough for me? What’re you talkingabout? (She grasps Ann’s wrists)Ann : You’re hurting my wrists.Mother : What are you talking about! (pause. She stares at Ann amoment, then turns and goes to Keller)Ann : Joe, go in the house.

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Keller : Why should I …..Ann : Please go.Keller : Lamme know when he comes. (Keller goes into house)Mother : (as She sees Ann taking a letter from her pocket) What’sthat?Ann : Sit down. (Mother moves left to chair, but does not sit) Firstyou’ve got to understand. When I came, I didn’t have any idea thatJoe…. I had nothing against him or you. I came to get married. Ihoped… So I didn’t bring this to hurt you. I thought I’d show it to youonly if there was no other way to settle Larry in your mind.Mother : Larry? (snatches letter from Ann’s hand)Ann : He wrote to me just before he… (mother opens and begins toread letter) I’m not trying to hurt you, Kate. You’re making me dothis, now remember you’re … Remember. I’ve been so lonely, Kate… I can’t leave here alone again. (a long low moan comes fromMother’s throat as she reads) You made me show it to you. Youwouldn’t believe me. I told you a hundred times, why wouldn’t youbelieve me!Mother : Oh, my God….Ann : (with pity and fear) Kate, please, please…Mother : My God, my God….Ann : Kate, dear, I’m so sorry… I’m so sorry.Chris enters from the driveway. He seems exhausted.Ann : Where were you? …. You’re all perspired. (mother doesn’tmove) where were you?Chris : Just drove around a little. I thought you’d be gone.Ann : Where do I go? I have now here to go.Chris : (to Mother) Where’s Dad?Ann : Inside lying down.Chris : Sit down, both of you. I’ll say what there is to say.Mother : I didn’t hear the car….Chris : I left it in the garage.Mother : Jim is out looking for you.Chris : Mother… I’m going away. There are a couple of firms inCleveland, I think I can get a place. I mean, I’m going way for good.

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(To Ann alone) I know what you’re thinking, Annie. It’s true. I’myellow. I was made yellow in this house because I suspected myfather and I did not nothing about it, but if I know that night when Icame home what I know now, he’d be in the district attorney’s officeby this time, and I’d have brought him there. Now if I look at him, allI’m able to do is cry.Mother : What are you talking about? What else can you do?Chris : I could jail him! I could jail him, if I were human any more. ButI’m like everybody else now. I’m practical now. You made me practical.Mother : But you have to be.Chris : The cats in that alley are practical, the bums who ran awaywhen we were fighting were practical. Only the dead ones weren’tpractical. But now I’m practical, and I spit on myself. I’m going away.I’m going now.Ann : (going up to him) I’m coming with you.Chris : No, Ann.Ann : Chris, I don’t ask you to do anything about Joe.Chris : You do, you do.Ann : I swear I never will.Chris : In your heart you always will.Ann : Then do what you have to do!Chris : Do what? What is there to do? I’ve looked all night for areason to make him suffer.Ann : There’s reason, there’s reason!Chris : What? Do I raise the dead when I put him behind bars?Then what’ll I do if for? We used to shoot a man who acted like adog, but honor was real there, you were protecting something. Buthere? This is the land of the great big dogs, you don’t love a man here,you eat him! That’s the principle, the only one we live by…. It justhappened to kill a few people this time, that’s all. The world’s thatway, how can I take it out on him? What sense does that make? Thisis a zoo, a zoo!Ann : (to Mother) You know what he’s got to do! Tell him!Mother : Let him go.Ann : I won’t let him go. You’ll tell him what he’s got to do…Mother : Annie!

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Ann : Then I will!Keller enters from house. Chris sees him, goes down near

arbor.Keller : What’s the matter with you? I want to talk to you!Chris : (pulling violently away from him) Don’t do that, Dad. I’mgoing to hurt you if you do that. There’s nothing to say so say it quick.Keller : Exactly what’s the matter? What’s the matter? You got toomuch money? Is that what bothers you?Chris : (with an edge of sarcasm) It bothers me.Keller : If you can’t get used to it, then throw it away. You hear me?Take every cent and give it to charity, throw it in the sewer. Does thatsettle it? In the sewer, that’s all. You think I’m kidding? I’m telling youto do it, if it’s dirty then burn it. It’s your money, that’s not my money.I’m a dead man, I’m an old dead man, nothing’s mine. Well, talk tome! What do you want to do.Chris : It’s not what I want to do. It’s what you want to do.Keller : What should I do? (Chris is silent) Jail? You want me to go tojail? If you want me to go, say so! Is that where I belong? Then tellme so! (slight pause) What’s the matter, why can’t you tell me?(Furiously) You say everything else to me, say that! (slight pause) I’lltell you why you can’t say it. Because you know I don’t belong there.Because you know! (with growing emphasis and passion, and apersistent tone of desperation) Who worked for nothing in that war?When they ship a gun or a truck out a Detroid before they got theirprice? Is that clean? It’s dollars and cents, nickels and dimes, war andpeace, it’s nickels and dimes, what’s clean? Half the Goddam countryis gotta go if I go! That’s why you can’t tell me.Chris : That’s exactly why.Keller : Then …. Why am I bad?Chris : I know you’re no worse than most men but I thought youwere better. I never saw you as a man. I saw you as my father.(Almost breaking) I can’t look at you this way, I can’t look at myself!

He turns away, unable to face Keller. Ann goes quickly toMother, takes letter from her and starts for Chris. Mother instantlyrushes to intercept her.Mother : Give me that!

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Ann : He’s going to read it! (She thrusts letter into Chris hand)Larry. He wrote it to me the day he died.Keller : Larry!Mother : Chris, it’s not for you. (he starts to read) Joe… go away….Keller : (mystified, frightened) Why’d she say, Larry, what…?Mother : (desperately pushes him toward alley, glancing at Chris) Goto the street, Joe, go to the street! (she comes down beside Keller)Don’t, Chris…. (pleading with her whole soul) Don’t tell him.Chris : (quietly) Three and one half years …. Talking, talking. Nowyou tell me what you must do… This is how he died, now tell mewhere you belong.Keller : (pleading) Chris, a man can’t be a Jesus in this world!Chris : I know all about the world. I know the whole crap story.Now listen to this, and tell me what a man’s got to be! (Reads) “Mydear Ann:,…”, you listening? He wrote this the day he died. Listen,don’t cry…. Listen! “My dear Ann : it is impossible to put down thethings I feel. But I’ve got to tell you something. Yesterday they flewin a load of papers from the states and I read about Dad and yourfather being convicted. I can’t express myself. I can’t tell you how Ifeel. .. I can’t bear to live any more. Last night I circled the base fortwenty minutes before I could bring myself in. how could he havedone that? Everyday three or four men never come back and he sitsback there doing business…. I don’t know how to tell you what Ifeel…. I can’t face anybody… I’m going out on a mission in a fewminutes. They’ll probably report me as missing. If they do, I want youto know that you mustn’t wait for me. I tell you, Ann, if I had himthere now I could kill him….” (Keller grabs the letter from Chris’shand and reads it. After a long pause) Now blame the world. Do youunderstand that letter?Keller : (speaking almost in audibly) I think I do. Get the car. I’ll puton my jacket. (he turns and starts slowly for the house. Mother rushesto intercept him)Mother : Why are you going? You’ll sleep, why are you going?Keller : I can’t sleep here. I’ll feel better if I go.Mother : You’re so foolish. Larry was your son too, wasn’t he? Youknow he’d never tell you to do this.

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Keller : (looking at letter in his hand) Then what is this if it isn’ttelling me? Sure, he was my son. But I think to him they were all mysons. And I guess they were, I guess they were. I’ll e right down.(exits into house)Mother : (to Chris, with determination) You’re not going to take him!Chris : I’m taking him.Mother : It’s up to you, if you tell him to stay he’ll stay. Go and tellhim!Chris : Nobody could stop him now.Mother : You’ll stop him! How long will he live in prison? Are youtrying to kill him?Chris : (holding out letter) I thought you read this!Mother : (of Larry, the letter) The war is over! Didn’t you hear? It’sover!Chris : Then what was Larry to you? A stone that fell into the water?It’s not enough for him to be sorry. Larry didn’t kill himself to makeyou and Dad sorry.Mother : What more can we be!Chris : You can be better! Once and for all you can know there’s auniverse of people outside and you’re responsible to it, and unless youknow that, you threw away your son because that’s why he died.

A shot is heard in the house. They stand frozen for a briefsecond. Chris starts for porch, pauses at step, turns to Ann.Chris : Find Jim! (He goes on into the house and Ann runs updriveway. Mother stands alone, transfixed.Mother : (softly, almost moaning) Joe…. Joe…. Joe…. Joe…. (Chriscomes out of house, down to Mother’s arms.)Chris : (almost crying) Mother, I didn’t mean to…Mother : Don’t dear. Don’t take in on yourself. Forget now. Live.

Chris stirs as if to answer. Shhh…… she puts his arms downgently and moves toward porch. Shhh… As she reaches porch stepsshe begins sobbing.

CURTAIN

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About the text : All my sons is a play which represents man as acomplex product of the modern world where he finds its difficulties, ifnot impossible to identify himself with society his lives in. the play ‘Allmy sons’ is a realistic play with tragic over tunes. Joe Keller the chiefcharacter of the play committed a guild, anti socialist in allowingdefective cylinder heads to be sent from his factory for use in the warplanes. The plans crashed thereby killing a nature of polish. Millerslowly unravels part events to reveal a moral wrong deed or diaboliccrime. Joe is a happy man with a loyal life, Kate, and a devoted son,Chris, who will inherit his father Joe’s business. Larry, Joe’s son, wasmissing in action in world War II. After three years, he is presumeddeath, yet Kate rejects to accept his death. As son, brother, lover,Larry’s haunting presence over shadows the entire plot of the play.Anne, Larry’s old girl friend, is staying in his room, which still containsLarry’s clothes and other memories. Chris wants to marry Anne, buthe is not sure that she has accepted Larry’s death. Kate, Larry’smother will also not accept Larry’s death. Chris cannot have hismother’s blessing to Marry Anne. Joe Keller, in his consent solddefective engines to the Army resulting the death of pilots. Howeverin the court. Joe Keller escapes punishment by passing the wholeblame to Steeve Deeves, his partner in the business. But he knows heis guilty, his life, neighbours, two other guests all holds him entirelyresponsible for death of 21 pilots. Kate will not accept Larry’s deathbecause the death will point to Joe as murderer of his own son. Anne,reveals a letter from Larry in which Larry condemns his father forthe deaths of the pilots and declances his intent to fly a suicide journey.Joe, who bears responsibility for his son own son Larry’s death aswell as for the deaths of the other Pilots, out of sheer frestationcommits suicide.

All My sons, a tragedy, the root of which lies in the conflictbetween family and society. Joe Keller thinks that nothing is abovethe family happiness. He tries to defend himself that all that he haddone was only in pursuit of his family happiness and comfort. Chrisconsiders his father Joe Keller as a ‘threat of society’. His father hasfallen from power to ignominy. But Joe Keller claims that if he is to go

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to jail for his offence then half of the country population should go tothe jail because all make money through dishonest method. Throughthe character of Joe Keller, dramatist gives a picture of modernAmerican society where consideration of individual prospects is aboveanything else. Joe Keller is a kind of American everyman andembodiment of the typical American spirit.

Throughout the play, the dramatist desire to declare the objectiveabout man and society, social reality, to Miller is more than a mechanismof the honestly and righteousness. Its deeper significance in hisconception of humanity and brotherhood and loyalty to one’s self andconvictions. What he reaches at the end is the impossibility of thefunctionality of the social system in a world that is infested with a‘crisis of conscience’. Like most modern tragedies, Miller, in All mysons has attempted at a new explanation of the human situation withits tragic aspects.

Word Meanings :

Possible question :1. Would you call Arthur Miller a humanist or a misanthrope? That is,does he believe people are fundamentally good or bad?

2. Sketch the character of Joe Keller?

3. Do you think Larry’s suicide was an act of courage? What aboutJoe’s? is suicide ever an act of courage?

4. ‘Arthur Miller’ is a critic or contemporary American society –Discuss with reference to All my sons.

5. All my sons is often described as a critique of the American Dream.Discuss this proposition with reference to the Miller’s play.

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SHOOTING AN ELEPHANT

– George Orwell

About the Author : George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair) was an Englishnovelist and essayist, journalist and critic, whose work is characterisedby lucid prose, awareness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianismand outspoken support of democratic socialism. He was born in 25june 1903 in Motihari, Bihar, British India. He spent first fauil years ofhis life in India. they he was sent to England for schooling. He wasthe second child of Richard Walmesley Blair and Ida Mabel Limouzine.His father worked as an agent in the opium Department of the IndianCivil Service.

George Orwell was the Pen-name used by Eric Arthur Blair in hislitarary works.

He served in the Indian Imperial police in Burma for five yearsfrom 1922 to 1927. He returned to Europe and lived in extreme poverty.He also lived in Paris and London during this period. We can have avivid description of this period in his first book "Down and out in Parisand London" and in "The Road to Wigan Pier".

His dislike for the colonial rule can be witnessed in his works lifeBurmese Days (1934) and essays like shooting and Elephant and AHanging.

George Orwell was a very eminent novelist. He made clearexpressions of his anguish, dissatisfaction at things in and around him.His novels include Burmese Days (1934), A cleargyman Daughter(1935) keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), coming up for Air (1938),Animal Farm (1945), Nineteen Eighty four (1945). Among theseNovel's. Animal farm and Nineteen Eighty four are the most widelyread and appreciated of George Orwell.

George Orwell died in 21st January 1950.

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TEXT :In Moulmein, in Lower Durma, I was hated by large numbers of

people-the only time in my life that I have been important enough forthis to happen to me. I was sub-divisional police officer of the town,and in an aimless, petty kind of way anti-European feeling was verybitter. No one had the guts to raise a riot, but if a European womanwent through the bazaars alone somebody woruld probably spit beteljuice over her dress. As a police ofticer I was an obvious target andwas baited whenever it seemed safe to do so. When a nimble Burmantripped me up on the football field and the referee (Another Burman)looked the other way, the crowd yelled with hideous latughter. Thishappened more than once. In the end the sneering yellow faces ofyoung men that met me everywhere, the insults hooted after me whenI was at a safe distance, got badly on my nerves. The young Buddhistpriests were the worst of all. There were several thousands of themin the town and none of them seemed to have anything to do exceptstand on street comers and jeer at Europeans.

All this was perplexing and upsetting. For at that time I had alreadymade up my mind that imperisalism was an evil thing and the soonerI chucked up my job and got out of it the better. Theoretically-andsecretly, of course I was all for the Burmese and all against theiroppressors, the British. As for the job I was doing, I hated it morebitterly than I can perhaps. As for the job I was doing, I hated it morebitterly than I can perhaps make clear. In a job like that you see thedirty work of Empire at close quarters. The wretched prisoners huddlingin the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the grey, cowed faces of thelong-term convicts, the searred buttocks of the men who had beenflogged with bamboos-all these oppressed me with an intolerable senseof guilt. But I could get nothing into perspective. I was young and illeducated and I had to think out my problems in the utter silence that isimposed on every Englishman in the East. I did not evern know thatthe British Empire is dying, still less did I know that it is a great dealbetter than the younger empires that are going to supplant it. All Iknew was that I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I servedand my rage against the evilspirited little beasts who tried to make my

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job imposible. With one part of my mind I thought of the British Raj asan unbreakable tyranny, as something clamped down, in saeculasaeculorum, upon the will of prostrate people; with another part Ithought that the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonetinto a Buddhist priest's guts. Feelings like these are the normal byproducts of imperialism; ask any Anglo-Indian official, if you can catchhim off duty.

One day something happened with in a roundabout way wasenlifhtening. It was a tiny incident in itself, but it gave me a betterglimpse than I had before of the real nature of imperialism the realmotives for which despotic governments act. Early one morning thesubinspector at a police station the other end of the town rang me upon the phone and said that an elephant was ravaging the bazaar. WouldI please come and do something about it? I did not know what I coulddo, but I wanted to see what ws happening and I got on to a pony andstarted out, I took my rifle, and old 44 Winchester and much too smallto kill an elephant, but I thought the noise might be useful in terrorem.Various Burmans stopped me on the way and told me about theelephant's doings. It was not, of course, a wild elephant, but a tameone which had gone "must." It has been chained up, as tame elephant'salways are when their attack of "must" is due, but on the previousnight it had broken its chain and escaped. Its mahout, the only personwho could manage it when it was in that state, had set out in pursuit,but had taken the wrong direction and was now twelve hours'journeyaway, and in the morning the elephant had suddenly reappeared in thetown. The Burmese population had no weapons and were quitehelpless against it. It had already destroyed someboy's bamboo hut,killed a cow and raided some fruit-stalls and devoured the stock; alsoit had met the municipal rubbish van and, when the driver jumped outand took to his heels, had turned the van over and inflicted violancesupon it.

The Burmese sub-inspector and some Indian constables werewaiting for me in the quarter where the elephant had been seen. Itwas a very poor quarter, a labyrinth of squalied bamboo huts, thatchedwith palmleaf, stuuffy morning at the beginning of the rains. Webegan questioning the people as to where the elephant had gone and,

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as usual, failed to get any definite information. That is invariably thecase in the East; a story always sounds clear enough at a distance butthe nearer you get to the scene of events the vaguer it becomes.Some of the people said that the elephant had gone in one directio,some said that he had gone in another, some professed not even tohave heard of any elephant. I had almost made up my mind that thewhole story was a pack of lies, when we heard yells a little distanceaway. There was a loud, scandalized cry of "Go away, child Go awaythis instant!" and an old woman with a switch in her had came roundthe corner of a hur, violently shooing away a crowd of naked children.Some more women followed, clicking their tongues and exclaiming;evidently there was something that the children ought not to haveseen. I rounded the hut and saw a man's dead body sprawling in themud. He was an Indian, a black Dravidian coolie, almost naked, andhe could not have been dead many minutes. They people said that theelephant had come suddenly upon him round the corner of the hut,caught him with its trunk, put its foot on his back and ground him intothe earth. This was the rainy season and the ground was soft, and hisface had scored a trench a foot deep and a couple of yards long. Hewas lying on his belly with arms crucified and head sharply twisted toone side. His face was coated with mud, the eyes wide open, theteeth bared and grinning with and expression of unendurable agony.(Never tell me, by the way, that the dead look peaceful. Most of thecorpses I have seen looked devilish) The friction of the great beat'sfoot had stripped the skin from his back as neatly as one skins arabbit. As soon as I saw the dead man I sent an orderly to a friend'shouse nearby to borrow and elephant rifle. I had already sent backthe pony, not wanting it to go mad with fright and throw me if it smeltthe elephant.

The orderly came back in a few minutes with a rifle and fivecartridges, and meanwhile some Burmans had arrived and told usthat the elephant was in the paddy fields below, only a few hundredyards away. As I started forward practically the whole population ofthe quarter flocked out of the houses and followed me. They hadseen the rifle and were all shouting excitedly that I was going to shoot

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the elephant. They had not shown much interest in the elephant whenhe was merely ravaging their homes, but it was different now that hewas going to be shot. It was a bit of fun to them, as it would be to anEnglish crowd; besides they wanted the meat. It made me vaguelyuneasy. I had no intention of shooting the elephant I had merely sentfor the rifle to defend myself if necessary and it is always unnervingto have a crowd following you. I arched down the hill, looking andfeeling a fool, with the rifle over my shoulder and an ever-growingarmy of people jostling at my heels. At the bottom, when you gotaway from the huts, there was a metalled road and beyond that amiry waste of paddy fields a thousand yards across, not yet ploughedbut soggy from the first rains and dotted with coarse grass. The elephantwas standing eight yerds from the road, his left side towards us. Hetook not the slightest notice of the crowd's approach. He was tearingup bunches of grass, beating them against his knees to clean themand stuffing them into his mouth.

I had halted on the road. As soon as I saw the elephant I knewwith perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him. It is a seriousmatter to shoot a working elephant-it is comparable to destroying ahuge and costly piece of machinery and obviously one ought not to doit if it can possibly be avoided. And at that distance, peacefully eating,the elephant looked no more dangerous than a cow. I thought thenand I think now that his attack of "must" was already passing off; inwhich case he would merely wander harmlessly about until the machoutcame back and caught him. Moreover, I did not in the least want toshoot him. I decided that I would watch him for a little while to makesure that he did not turn savage again, and then go home.

But at that moment I glanced round at the crowd that had followedme. It was an immense crowd, two thousand at the least and growingevery minute. It blocked the road for a long distance on either side. Ilooked at the sea of yellow faces above the garish clothes-faces allhappy and excited over this bit of fun, all certain that the elephant wasgoing to be shot. They were watching me as they would watch aconjurer about to perform a trick. They did not like me, but with themagical rifle in my hands I was momentarily worth watching. AndsuddenlyI realized that I should have to shoot the elephant after all.

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The people expected it of me and I had got to do it; I could feel theirtwo thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly. And it was at thismoment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first graspedthe hollowness, the futility of the white man's dominion in the East.Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmednative crowd-seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality Iwas only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of thoseyellow faces behind. I perceived in this moment that when the whiteman turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomesa sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib.For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying toimpress the "natives" expect of him. He wears a mask, and his facegrows to fit it. I had got to shoot the elephant. I had committed myselfto doing it when I sent for the rifle. a sahiv has got to act like a sahib;he has got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and do definitethings. To come all that way, rifle in hand, with two thousand peoplemarching at my heels, and then to trail feebly away, having done nothingno, that was impossible. The crowd would laugh at me. And my wholelife, every white man's life in the East, was one long struggle not to belaughed at.

But I did not want to shoot the elephant. I watched him beating hisbunch of grass against his knees, with that preoccupied grandmotherlyair that elephants have. It seemed to me that it would be murder toshoot him. At that age I was not squeamish about killing animals, butI had never shot an elephant and never wanted to. (Somehow it alwaysseems worse to kill a large animal.) Besides, there was the beast'sowner to be considered. Alive, the elephant was worth at least ahundred pounds; dead, he would only be worth the value of his tusks,five pounds, possibly. But I had got to act quickly. I turned to someexperienced-looking Burmans who had been there when we arrived,and asked them how the elephant had been behaving. They all saidthe same thing; he took no notice of you if you left him alone, but hemight charge if you went too close to him.

It was perfectly clear to me what I outght to do. I ought to walk upto within, say, twenty-five yards of the elephant and test his behaviour.If he charged, I could shoot; if he took no notice of me, it would be

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safe to leave him until the mahout came back. But also I knew that Iwas going to do no such thing. I was a poor shot with a rifle and theground was soft mud into which one would sink at every step. If theelephant charged and I missed him, I should have about as muchchance as a toad under a steam-roller. But even then I was not thinkingparticularly of my own skin, only of the watchful yellow faces behind.For at that moment, with the crowd watching me, I was not afraid inthe ordinary sense, as I would have been if I had been alone. A whiteman mustn't be frightened in front of "natives", and so, in general, heisn't frightened. The sole thought in my mind was that if anythingwent wrong those two thousand Burmans would see me pursued,caught, trampled on and reduced to a grinning corpse like that Indianup the hill. And if that happened it was quite probable that some ofthem would laugh. That would never do. There was only onealternative. I shoved the cartridges into the magazine and lay downon the road to get a better aim.

The crowd grew very still, and deep, low, happy sigh, as of peoplewho see the theatre curtain go up at last, breathed from innumerablethroats. They were going to have their bit of fun after all. The riflewas a beautiful German thing with cross hair sights. I did not thenknow that in shooting an elephant one should shoot to cut an imaginarybar running from ear-hole to earhole. I ought, therefore, as the elephantwas sideways on, to have aimed straight at his ear-hole; actually Iaimed several inches in front of this, thinking the brain would be furtherforward.

When I pulled the trigger I did not hear the bang or feel the kick-one never does when a shot goes home but I heard the devilish roarof glee that went up from the crowd. In that instant, in too short atime, one would have thought, even for the bullet to get there, amysterious, terrible change had come over the elephant. He neitherstirred nor feel, but every line of his body had altered. He lookedsuddenly strickedn, shrunkedn, immensely old, as though the frightfulimpact of the bullet had paralysed him without knocking him down. Atlast, after what seemed a long time-it might have been five seconds, Idare say-he sagged flabbily to his knees. HIs mouth slobbered. Anenormous senility seemed to have settled upon him. One could have

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imagined him thousands of years old. I fired a third time. That wasthe shot that did for him. You could see the agony of it jolt his wholebody and knock the last remnant to rise, for as his hind legs collapsedbeneath him he seemed to tower upward like a huge rock toppling, histrunk reaching skywards like a tree. He trumpeted, for the first andonly time. And then down he came, his belly towards me, with a crashthat seemed to shake the ground even where I lay.

I got up. The Burmans were already racing past me across themud. It was obvious that the elephant would never rise again, but hewas not dead. He was breathing very rhythmically with long rattlinggasps, his great mound of a side painfully rising and falling. His mouthwas wide open-I could see far down into caverns of pale pink throat.I waited a long time for him to die, but his breathing did not weaken.Finally I fired my two remaining shots into the spot where I thoughthis heart must be. The thick blood welled out of him like red velvet,but still he did not die. HIs body did not even jerk when the shots hithim, the tourtured breathing continued without a pause. He was dying,very slowly and in great agony, but in some world remote from mewhere not even a bullet could damage him further. I felt that I had gotto put an end to that dreadful noise. It seemed dreadful to see thegreat beast lying there, powerless to move and yet powerless to die,and not even to be able to finish him. I sent back for my small rifle andpoured shot after shot into his heart and down his throat. They seemedto make no impression. The tortured gasps continued as steadily asthe ticking of a clock.

In the end I could not stand it any longer and went away. I heardlater that it took him half an hour to die. Burmans were bringing dahsand baskets even before I left, and I was told they had stripped hisbody almost to the bones by the afternoon.

Afterwards, of course, there were endless discussions about theshooting of the elephant. The owner was furious, but he was only anIndian and could do nothing. Besides, legally I had done the rightthing, for a mad elephant has to be killed, like a mad dog, if its ownerfails to control it. Among the Europeans opinion was divided. Theolder men said I was right, the younger men said it was a damn shame

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to shoot an elephant for killing a coolie, because an elephant wasworth more than any damn Coringhee coolie. And afterwards I wasvery glad that the coolie had been killed; it put me legally in the rightand it gave me a sufficient pretext for shooting the elephant. I oftenwondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solelyto avoid looking a fool.

About the Text : The essay was first published in 1936 in a literarymagazine ‘New Writing’ ‘Shooting an Elephant’ starts with acontemplative introduction to the action through which Orwellcomments on his experiences of being a colonial policeman in Pritishcolony of Burma. As a military occupier, he is like the rest of theEnglish, hated by the local Burmere people. The abuse he suffer fromBurmese confuses Orwell, as he is ‘theoretically and secretly’ ontheir side and against to the oppressive British empire he serves.

One early morning, an incident takes place that gives Orwellinsight in to the real nature of imperialism and the reasons behind it. Apolice sub-inspector calls him informing his that an aggressive elephanthad been causing havoc in the town. Orwell arrives the spot andlearns from the locals that the elephant was not wild but rather adomesticated one that has had a periodic condition i.e. attack of ‘nust’ravaging the town. The elephant had killed a ‘coolie’ a laborer, a cowdestroyed some huts. Taking the rible, Orwell moved towards thepaddy field where the elephant, busy eating grass peacefully. Hedecides in his mind not to harm the elephant and simply watch thesame to make sure it does not become aggressive again. Orwell lookback at the crowd behind him, over two thousand people, all of whoare excitedly expecting to the elephant’s killing. Despite hisunwillingness to shoot the beast Orwell was compelled to submit underthe pressure of the natives – the condition of Orwell rightly establishesthe problem of hegemony, so he write ‘when the white man turnstyrant it is his own feedom that he destroys.’ Keeping aside all moraland ethical consideration, Orwell loads the rifle, lies on the road andfixed five shots at it. The crowd roars in excitement and the elephanttook a half hour to die. Unable to see the elephant suffering in pain.Orwell left the place. The Burmere stripped the meat off its bones.

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The essay may be analysed as Orwell’s sitre on British imperialpolicies which apparently intended to sustain their dominion. In thecrucial moment of the story, the author articulates the paradox ofcolonialism. If we go dey into the situation, it reveals that white man,the cloniser at the some time has lost freedom. Only to restore theprestige before the natives Orwell against his will shot the elephant.As an advocate of anti imperialism Orwell promotes the idea that,through imperialism both conqueror and conquered are destroyed.Word Meaning :

Ravaging -- Causing vast destruction

Pony -- it is a small size tough horse.

Impersuit -- followed in search of it.

Raided -- attacked

Rubbish van -- van used to collect and carry refuses.

Inflicted -- imposed

Labyrinth -- winding and misleading path.

Squalid -- very and unclean

professed -- declared

Invariably -- without any exception

Yells -- laud crises out of fear or delight.

Seandalished -- blamed, here raugh samding or bitter.

Instant -- moment

Sprawling -- lying flat

Arms crucified -- arms extended as in a cross.

Violently -- forcefully

Evidently -- clearly

Ground him -- trampled

Coated -- covered.

Grinning -- Crying in pain

Frution -- powerful rubbing

Flocked -- gathered

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Hnnerving -- frightening

Jostling -- pushing one another with their clbow's to be near.

Miry -- Muddy

Stuffing -- anyry

Obviously -- evidently

Yellow faces -- the burmese people have yellow face likethe chinese and the Japanese. The burmese are of Mango laid origin

Conjurers -- magician

Srresistibly -- no power to resist or withs lands.

Grasped -- fully realised.

Dominion -- imperialistic rule

Absurd -- illogical, here ridiculous.

Hollowness -- uselessness

Perceived -- realised fully

Grandmotherly air-calm appearame of agrandmother. The elephantwas calm and patient like a grandmothrs.

Squcamish -- easily shoked

Toad -- failless amphibian

Corpse -- dead body

Glee -- merriment

Wondered -- astonished

Resolute -- determined

Pursued -- chased

Magazine -- Chamber for bullets

Shrunken -- dried

Collapse -- falldown unconsciaus

Rattling -- Making a harsh sound

Covern -- Caves, here interiors

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Coringhee Coolie-- coringhee is the name of a south Indiantribe

Shoved -- Pushed

Sagged -- bent

Possible question :1. (i) When did the shooting an elephant first appear?

(ii) What is the origine name of George Orwell?

(iii) What is must?

(iv) Who shot the elephant?

(v) Who borrowed the elephant shooting rifle?

2. Write a short note on the treatment meted out to the Europeans bythe native Burmese GU 2012.

3. Describe under British rule, the mentality of the Burmese towardsthe Equropeans following the story Shooting an Elephant by GeorgeOrwell ?

4) The crowd grew very still and a deep low happy sigh as of peoplewho see the theatre curtain go up ?

– Clearify the idea contained in the lines quoted above.

5) There were endles discussion about the 'Shooting of the elephant',Explain what the author means to say ?

6) "And it was at this moment, as stood there with the rifles in myhands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the furtility of the whiteman'sdomination in the East."

(a) Where do you find these lines?

(b) Write what the author means to say in the quoted lines?

(c) What can you know from this ?

7. How did George Orwell shoot the elephant at last? What troubledid he face in shooting the elephant ?

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8. Describe Orwell's feelings towards the Burmeses and theImperialists British as he worked as a police Officer in Burma?

Or

What are Orwell's views on imperialism and his job?

Or

Do you think the essay, Shooting an Elephant lays hare the ills ofimperialism ? Give a reasoned answer ?

9. (a) Who was George Orwell?

(b) What did Orwell come to know going to the spot?

(c) What did Orwell see going to the hut of the old woman?

(d) What was the mentality of the Burmese crowd.

(e) What did Orwell thing about it?

10.Discuss under what circumstances Orwell decided to shoot theelephant?

Or

On what ground is the shooting of a working elephant a seriousmatter ? Why did the speaker kill it then ?

11.I perceiued in this moment that when the white men turns tyrant itis his own freedom that he destroys.

Which 'moment' is reffered to here? How does a white men destroyhis freedomly turning tyrant?

12."It made me vaguely unesay

Who made this remark ? What made him uneasy? What did heultimately do due to this uneasiness?

13.Describe the shooting of the elephant till died ?

14."It was perfectly clear to me what I ought to do."

15.Why did Orwell not want to shoo the elephant ?

16. What does the writer say about his days in Moulmein?

17. Write a critical appreciation of the story 'Shooting an Elephant' byGeorge Orwell ?

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18. "And suddenly I realized that I should have to shoot the elephantafter all."

What made the author suddently realize that he would have toshoot the elephant ?

Why does he use the expression "after all"?

Explain how Orwell came to realize what course of action he shouldtake ?

19. How did Orwel shoot the elephant to death ? What trouble did heface in shooting the animal ?

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THE WOMAN WHO RODE AWAY- D. H. Lawrence

About the Author : David Herbert Lawrence an English novelist,short story write, critic, poet and painter, one of the greatest literaryfigures in the 20th century English literature. He was born on September11, 1885, in East wood, Nottinghamshire, central England. He wasthe fourth child of a struggling coal miner who was heavy drinker. Hismother was a school teacher superior in education to her husband.Lawrence’s childhood was completely grief stricken by poverty. Therelationship between his parents were not happy. Both of them alwayswas conflict mood. He was educated at Nottingham High School, towhich he had won a scholarship. He started his carcer as a clerk in asurgical appliance factory and then for four years as a pupil-teacher.After completing his studies at Nottingham University, Lawrencematriculated at (teaching certificate course) 22nd briefly pursued ateaching career. His mother died in 1910 due to illness and over doseof sleeping medicine. Lawrence mother who sought to keep him outof the mines and encouraged him in his study.

In 1909, a number of Lawrence’s poems were published by FordMax Ford in the English Review. His debut novel the white peacock(1911) launched Lawrence into a writing career followed by TheTrespasser (1912). In the same year (1912) he met Frieda VonRichthofen, the professor Ernest Weekly’s wife and fell in love withher. Frieda left her husband and three children, and they eloped toBavaria, Germany. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers appeared in 1913and was a faithful autobiographical account of his childhoodexperiences. Marrying Frieda Von Richthofen, Lawrence travelledwith her in several countries. Lawrence’s fourth novel, the Rainbow(1915) was about two sisters growing up in the north of England. Hestarted to write the last girl in Italy. He dropped the novel for someyears and rewrote the story in an old Sicilian form house near Taorminain 1920. As in the field of novel Lawrence reputation as a short story

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writer has also been high. The several stories published in smallcollections such as The Prussian Officer (1914), England my England(1922), The Woman who Rode Away (1928), The Virgin and the Gipsy(1930), The plumed Serpent (1926), The man who died (1929) and ina complete edition in three volumes (1955). His poetic collectionsinclude Love Poems (1913), Amores (1916), Look! We Have comethrough (1917), Birds Beasts and Flowers (1923) and complete poems(1957). His non-fiction works include Movements in European History(1921). Psychoanalysis and The Unconscious (1922) and Studies inclassic American Literature (1923). His first play The Daughter-in-law (1912) and the other plays are the Windowing of Mrs. Holroyd,touch and go.

Lawrence best known work is prominent novels are Lover (1928)and some other prominent novels are Women in Love (1920) , theBey in the Busls (1924), St. Mawr (1925), Twiight in Italy, The whitepeacock.

While on avisit to Old Mexico, Lawrence fell ill and was sufferingfrom tuberculosis. Lawrence settled down at the Villa Mirenda, Italy.He dies in Vence, France on March 2, 1930.

A master craftman and profound thinker D.H. Lawrencesometimes criticized for his controversial themes like the celebrationof sensuality, man-woman relationship, focusing their sexualityemotional attachment, vitality, spontaneity and basic instinct. However,he is the first novelist who very rightly showing the reality Englishprovincial family life. So he will be remembered forever as a novelist.

Text :

I

She had thought that this marriage, of all marriages, would be anadventure. Not that the man himself was exactly magical to her. Alittle, wiry, twisted fellow, twenty years older than herself, with browneyes and graying hair, who had come to America a scrap of a wastrel,*from Holland, years ago, as tiny boy, and from the gold mines of the

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west had been kicked south into Mexico, and now was more or lessrich, owning silver mines in the wilds of the Sierra Madre*: it wasobvious that the adventure lay in the circumstances, rather than hisperson. But he was still a little dynamo of energy, in spite of accidentssurvived, and what he had accomplished he had accomplished alone.One of those human oddments there is no accounting for.

When she actually saw what he had accomplished, her heartquailed. Great green covered, unbroken mountain hills, and in the midstof the lifeless isolation, the sharp pinkish mounds of the dried mudfrom the silver works. Under the nakedness of the works, the walledin, one storey adobe house, with its garden inside, and its deep innerverandah with tropical climbers on the sides. And when you lookedup from this shut in flowered patio, you saw the huge pink cone of thesilver mud refuse, and the machinery of the extracting plant againstheaven above. No more.

To be sure, the great wooden doors were often open. And thenshe could stand outside, in the vast open world. And see great, void,tree clad hills piling behind one another, from nowhere into nowhere.They were green in autumn time. For the rest, pinkish, stark dry andabstract.

And in his battered Ford car her husband would take her into thedead, thrice dead little Spanish town forgotten among the mountains.The great, sundried dead church, the dead portales, the hopelesscovered market place, where the first time she went, she saw a deaddog lying between the meat stalls and the vegetable array, stretchedout as if forever, nobody troubling to throw it away. Deadness withindeadness.

Everybody feebly talking silver, and showing bits of ore. Butsilver was at a standstill. The great war came and went. Silver was adead market. Her husband’s mines were closed down. But she andhe lived on in the adobe house under the works, among the flowersthat were never very flowery to her.

She had two children, a boy and a girl. And her eldest, the boy,was nearly ten years old before she aroused from her stupor of

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subjected amazement. She was now thirty three, a large, blue eyed,dazed woman, beginning to grow stout. Her little, wiry, tough, twisted,brown eyed husband was fifty three, a man as tough as wire, tenaciousas wire, still full of energy, but dimmed by the laps of silver from themarket, and by some curious inaccessibility on his wife’s part.

He was a man of principles, and a good husband. In a way, hedoted on her. He never quite got over his dazzled admiration of her.But essentially, he was still a bachelor. He had been thrown out on theworld, a little bachelor, at the age of ten. When he married he wasover forty, and had enough money to marry on. But his capital was alla bachelor’s. he was boss of his own works, and marriage was thelast and most intimate bit of his own works.

He admired his wife to extinction, he admired her body, all herpoints. And she was to him always the rather dazzling Californian girlfrom Berkeley, whom he had first known. Like any sheik, he kept herguarded among those mountains of Chihuahua. He was jealous of heras he was of hi silver mine: and that is saying a lot.

At thirty three she really was still the girl from Berkeley, in allbut physique. Her conscious development had stopped mysteriouslywith her marriage, completely arrested. Her husband had never becomereal to her, neither mentally nor physically. In spite of his late sort ofpassion for her, he never meant anything to her, physically. Only morallyhe swayed her, downed her, kept her in an invincible slavery.

So the years went by, in the adobe house strung round the sunnypatio, with the silver works overhead. Her husband was never still.When the silver went dead, he ran a ranch lower down, some twentymiles away, and raised pure-bred hogs, splendid creatures. At thesame time, he hated pigs. He was a squeamish waif of an idealist, andreally hated the physical side of life. He loved work, work, work, andmaking things. His marriage, his children were something he wasmaking, part of his business, but with a sentimental income this time.

Gradually, her nerves began to go wrong: she must get out. Shemust get out. So he took her to EI Paso for three months. And at leastit was the United States.

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But he kept his spell over her. The three months ended: back shewas, just the same, in her adobe house among those eternal green orpinky brown hills, void as only the undiscovered is void. She taughther children, she supervised the Mexican boys who were her servants.And sometimes her husband brought visitors, Spaniards or Mexicansor occasionally white men.

He really loved to have white men staying on the place. Yet hehad not a moment’s peace when they were there. It was as if his wifewere some peculiar secret vein of ore in his mines, which no onemust be aware of except himself. And she was fascinated by theyoung gentlemen, mining engineers, who were his guests at times.He, too, was fascinated by a real gentleman. But he was an old timerminer with a wife, and if a gentleman looked at his wife, he felt as ifhis mine were being looted, the secrets of it pryed out.

It was one of these young gentlemen who put the idea into hermind. They were all standing outside the great wooden doors of thepatio, looking at the outer world. The eternal, motionless hills were allgreen, it was September, after the rains. There was no sign of anything,save the deserted mine, the deserted works, and a bunch of halfdeserted miner’s dwellings.

“I wonder,” said the young man, ‘what there is behind thosegreat blank hills.’

‘More hills,’ said Lederman. ‘If you go that way, Sonora and thecoast. This way is the desert- you came from there – And the otherway, hills and mountains.’

‘Yes, but the LIVES in the hills and mountains? SURELY thereis something wonderful? It looks SO like nowhere on earth: like beingon the moon.’

‘there’s plenty of game, if you want to shoot. And Indians, if youcall THEM wonderful.’

‘Wild ones?’

‘Wild enough.’

‘But friendly?’

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‘It depends. Some of them are quite wild, and they don’t letanybody near. They kill a missionary at sight. And where a missionarycan’t get, nobody can.’

‘But what does the Government say?’

‘They’re so far from everywhere, the Government leaves ‘emalone. And they’re wily, if they think there’ll be trouble, they send adelegation to Chihuahua and make a formal submission. TheGovernment is glad to leave it at that.’

‘And do they live quite wild, with their own savage customs andreligion?’

‘Oh, yes. They use nothing but bows and arrows. I’ve seenthem in town, in the Plaza, with funny sort of hats with flowers roundthem, and a bow in one hand, quite naked except for a sort of shirt,even in cold weather- striding round with their savage’s bare legs.’

‘But don’t you suppose it’s wonderful, up there in their secretvillages?’

‘No. What would there be wonderful about it? Savages aresavages, and all savages behave more or less alike: rather low-downand dirty, unsanitary, with a few cunning tricks, and struggling to getenough to eat.’

‘But surely they have old, old religions and mysteries – it MUSTbe wonderful, surely it must.’

‘I don’t know about mysteries – howling and heathen practices,more or less indecent. No, I see nothing wonderful in that kind ofstuff. And I wonder that you should, when you have lived in Londonor Paris or New York.’

‘Ah, EVERYBODY lives in London or Paris or New York’-said the young man, as if this were an argument.

And this peculiar vague enthusiasm for unknown Indians founda full echo in the woman’s heart. She was overcome by a foolishromanticism more unreal than a girl’s. She felt it was her destiny towander into the secret haunts of these timeless, mysterious, marvelousIndians of the mountains.

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She kept her secret. The young man was departing, her husbandwas going with him down to Torreon, on business:- would be awayfor some days. But before the departure, she made her husband talkabout the Indians: about the wandering tribes, resembling the Navajo,who were still wandering free, and the Yaquis of Sonora: and thedifferent groups in the different valleys of Chihuahua state.

There was supposed to be one tribe, the Chilchuis, living in ahigh valley to the south, who were the sacred tribe of all the Indians.The descendants of Montezuma and of the old Aztec or Totonac kingsstill lived among them, and the old priests still kept up the ancientreligion, and offered human sacrifices - so it was said. Some scientistshad been to the Chilchui country, and had come back gaunt andexhausted with hunger and bitter privation, bringing various curious,barbaric objects of worship, but having seen nothing extraordinary inthe hungry, stark village of savages.

Though Lederman talked in this off hand way, it was obvious hefelt some of the vulgar excitement at the idea of ancient and mysterioussavages.

‘How far away are they?’ – she asked.

‘Oh- three days on horseback- past Cuchitee and a little lakethere is up there.’

Her husband and the young man departed. The woman madeher crazy plans. Of late, to break the monotony of her life, she hadharassed her husband into letting her go riding with him, occasionally,on horseback. She was never allowed to go out alone. The countrytruly was not safe, lawless and crude.

But she had her own horse, and she dreamed of being free asshe had been as a girl, among the hills of California.

Her daughter, nine years old, was now in a tiny convent in thelittle half deserted Spanish mining town five mile away.

‘Manuel,’ said the woman to her house servant, ‘I’m going toride to the convent to see Margarit, and tae her a few things. PerhapsI shall stay the night in the convent. You look after Freddy and seeanything is all right till I come back.’

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‘Shall I ride with you on the master’s horse, or shall Juan?’ askedthe servant.

‘Neither of you. I shall go alone.’

The young man looked her in the eyes, in protest. Absolutelyimpossible that the woman should ride alone!

‘I shall go alone,’ repeated the large, placid seeming, fair-complexioned woman, with peculiar overbearing emphasis. And theman silently, unhappily yielded.

‘Why are you going alone, mother?’ asked her son, as she madeup parcels of food.

‘Am I NEVER to be let alone? Not one moment of my life?’ shecried, with sudden explosion of energy. And the child, like the servant,shrank into silence.

She set off without a qualm, riding astride on her strong roanhorse, and wearing a riding suit of coarse linen, a riding skirt over herlinen breeches, a scarlet neck tie over her white blouse, and a blackfelt hat on her head. She had food in her saddle bags, and army canteenwith water, and a large, native blanket tied on behind the saddle. Peeringinto the distance, she set off from her home. Manuel and the little boystood in the gateway to watch her go. She did not even turn to wavethem farewell.

But when she had ridden about a mile, she left the wild road andtook a small trail to the right, that led into another valley, over steepplaces and past great trees and through another deserted miningsettlement. It was September, the water was running freely in thelittle stream that had fed the now abandoned mine. She got down todrink, and let the horse drink too.

She saw natives coming through the trees, away up the slope.They had seen her, and were watching her closely. She watched inturn. The three people, two women and a youth, were making a widedetour, so as not to come too close to her. She did not care. Mounting,she trotted ahead up the silent valley, beyond the silver works, beyondany trace of mining. There was still a rough trail, that led over rocksand loose stones into the valley beyond. This trail she had alreadyridden, with her husband. Beyond that she knew she must go south.

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Curiously she was not afraid, although it was a frightening country,the silent, fatal seeming mountain slopes, the occasional distant,suspicious, elusive natives among the trees, the great carrion birdsoccasionally hovering, like great files, in the distance, over somecarrion or some ranch house or some group of huts.

As she climbed, the trees shrank and the trail ran through athorny scrub, that was trailed over with blue convolvulus and anoccasional pink creeper. Then these flowers lapsed. She was nearingthe pine trees.

She was over the crest, and before her another silent, void, greenclad valley. It was past midday. Her horse turned to a little runlet ofwater, so she got down to eat her midday meal. She sat in silencelooking at the motionless unloving valley, and at the sharp peaked hills,rising higher to rock and pine trees, southwards. She rested two hoursin the heat of the day, while the horse cropped around her.

Curious that she was neither afraid not lonely. Indeed, theloneliness was like a drink of cold water to one who is very thirsty.And a strange elation sustained her from within.

She travelled on, and camped at night in a valley beside a stream,deep among the bushes. She had seen cattle and had crossed severaltrails. There must be a ranch not far off. She heard the strange wailingshriek of a mountain lion, and the answer of dogs. But she sat by hersmall camp fire in a secret hollow place and was not really afraid.She was buoyed up always by the curios, bubbling elation within her.

It was very cold before dawn. She lay wrapped in her blanketlooking at the stars, listening to her horse shivering, and feeling like awoman who has died and passed beyond. She was not sure that shehad not heard, during the night, a great crash at the centre of herself,which was the crash of her own death. Or else it was a crash at thecentre of the earth, and meant something big and mysterious.

With the first peep of light she got up, numb with cold, and madea fire. She ate hastily, gave her horse some pieces of oil seed cake,and set off again. She avoided any meeting –and since she met nobody,it was evident that she in turn was avoided. She came at last in sightof the village of Cuchitee, with its black houses with their reddishroofs, a somber, dreary little cluster below another silent, long

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abandoned mine. And beyond, a long, a great mountain side, rising upgreen and light to the darker, shaggier green of pine trees. And beyondthe pine trees stretches of naked rock against the sky, rock slashedalready and brindled with white strips of snow. High up, the newsnow had already begun to fall.

And now, as she neared, more or less, her destination, she beganto go vague and disheartened. She had passed the little lake amongyellowing aspen trees whose white trunks were round and suave likethe white round arms of some woman. What a lovely like the whiteround arms of some woman. What a lovely place! In California shewould have raved about it. But here she looked and saw that it waslovely, but she didn’t care. She was weary and spent with her twonights in the open, and afraid of the coming night. She didn’t knowwhere she was going, or what she was going for. Her horse ploddeddejectedly on, towards that immense and forbidding mountain slope,following a stony little trail. And if she had any will of her own left,she would have turned back, to the village, to be protected and senthome to her husband.

But she had no will of her own. Her horse splashed through abrook, and turned up a valley, under immense yellowing cotton woodtrees. She must have been near nine thousand feet above sea level,and her head was light with the altitude and with weariness. Beyondthe cotton wood trees she could see, on each side, the steep sides ofmountain slopes hemming her in, sharp plumged with overlappingaspen, and higher up, with sprouting, pointed spruce and pine tree.Her horse went on automatically. In this tight valley, on this slight trail,there was nowhere to go but ahead, climging.

Suddenly her horse jumped, and three men in dark blankets wereon the trail before her.

‘Adios!’ came the greeting, in the full, restrained Indian voice.

‘Adios!’ she replied, in her assured, American woman’s voice.

‘Where are you going?’ came the quiet question, in Spanish.

The men in the dark sarapes had come closer, and were lookingup at her.

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‘Oh ahead,’ she replied coolly, in her hard, Saxon Spanish.

These were just natives to her: dark faced, strongly built men indark sarapes and straw hats. They would have been the same as themen who worked for her husband, except, strangely, for the long blackhair that fell over their shoulders. She noted this long black hair with acertain distaste. These must be the wild Indians she had come to see.

‘Where do you come from?’ the same man asked. It was alwaysthe one man who spoke. He was young, with quick, large, bright blackeyes that glanced sideways at her. He had a soft black moustache onhis dark face, and a sparse tuft of beard, loose hairs on his chin. Hislong black hair, full of life, hung unrestrained on his shoulders. Darkas he was, he did not look as if he had washed lately.

His two companions were the same, but older men, powerfuland silent. One had a thin black line of moustache, but was beardless.The other had the smooth cheeks and the sparse dark hairs markingthe lines of his chin with the beard characteristic of the Indians.

‘I come from far away,’ she replied, with half jocular evasion.

This was received in silence.

‘But where do you live?’ asked the young man, with that samequiet insistence.

‘In the north,’ she replied airily.Again there was a moment’s silence. The young man conversed

quietly, in Indian, with his two companios.‘Where do you want to go, up this way?’ he asked suddenly,

with challenge and authority, pointing briefly up the trail.‘To the Chilchui Indians,’ answered the woman laconically.The young man looked at her. His eyes were quick and black,

and inhuman. He saw, in the full evening light, the faint sub smile ofassurance on her rather large, calm, fresh complexioned face, theweary, bluish lines under her large blue eyes, and in her eyes, as shelooked down at him, a half childish, half arrogant confidence in herown female power. But in her eyes also, a curious look of trance.

‘Ustedes Senora? You are a lady?’ the Indian asked her.‘Yes, I am a lady,’ she replied complacently.

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‘With a husband and two children, boy and girl,’ she said.

The Indian turned to his companions and translated, in the low,gurgling speech, like hidden water running. They were evidently at aloss.

‘where is your husband?’ asked the young man.

‘Who knows?’ she replied airily? ‘He has gone away on businessfor a week.’

The black eyes watched her shrewdly. She, for all her weariness,smiled faintly in the pride of her own adventure and the assurance ofher own womanhood, and the spell of the madness that was on her.

‘And what do YOU want to do?’ the Indian asked her. Housesand to know their gods,’ she replied.

The young man turned and translated quickly, and there was asilence almost of consternation. The grave elder men were glancingat her sideways, with strange looks, from under their decorated hats.And they said something to the young man, in deep chest voices.

The latter still hesitated. Then he turned to the woman.

‘Good!’ she said, ‘I can make a camp.’

Without more ado, they set off at a good speed up the stony trail.The young Indian ran alongside her horse’s head, the other two ranbehind. One of them had taken a thick stick, and occasionally hestruck her horse a resounding blow on the haunch, to urge him forward.This made the horse jump, and threw her back in the saddle, which,tired as she was, made her angry.

‘Don’t do that!’ she cried, looking round angrily at the fellow.She met his black, large, bright eyes, and for the first time her spiritreally quailed. The man’s eyes were not human to her, and they didnot see her as a beautiful white woman. He looked at her with ablack, bright inhuman look, and saw no woman in her at all. As if shewere some strange, unaccountable THING, incomprehensible to him,but inimical. She sat in her saddle in wonder, feeling once more as ifshe had died. And again he struck her horse, and jerked her badly inthe saddle.

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All the passionate anger of the spoilt white woman rose in her.She pulled her horse to a standrill, and turned with blazing eyes to theman at her bridle.

‘Tell that fellow not to touch my horse again,’ she cried. She metthe eyes of the young man, and in their bright black inscrutability shesaw a fine spark, as in a snake’s eye, of derision. He spoke to hiscompanion I the rear, in the low tones of the Indian. The man with thestick listened without looking. Then, giving a strange low cry to thehorse, he struck it again on the rear, so that it leaped forwardspasmodically up the stony trail, scattering the stones, pitching theweary woman in her seat.

The anger flew like a madness into her eyes, she went white atthe gills. Fiercely she reined in her horse. But before she could turn,the young Indian had caught the reins under the horse’s throat, jerkedthem forward, and was trotting ahead rapidly, leading the horse.

The woman was powerless. And along with her supreme angerthere came a slight thrill of exultation. She knew was dead.

The sun was setting, a great yellow light flooded the last of theaspens, flared on the trunks of the pine trees, the pine needles bristledand stood out with dark luster, the rocks glowed with unearthly glamour.And through this effulgence the Indian at her horse’s head trottedunweariedly on his dark blanket swinging, his bare legs glowing witha strange transfigured ruddiness in the powerful light, and his strawhat with its half absurd decorations of flowers and feathers shinningshowily above his river of long black hair. At times he would utter alow call to the horse, and then the other Indian, behind, would fetchthe beast a whack with the stick.

The wonder light faded off the mountains, the world began togrow dark, a cold air breathed down. In the sky, half a moon wasstruggling against the glow in the west. Huge shadows came downfrom steep rocky slopes. Water was rushing. The woman wasconscious only of her fatigue, her unspeakable fatigue, and the coldwind from the heights. She was not aware how moonlight replaceddaylight. It happened while she travelled unconscious with weariness.

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For some hours they travelled by moonlight. Then suddenly theycame to a standstill. The men conversed in low tones for a moment.

‘We camp here,’ said the young man.

She waited for him to help her down. He merely stood holdingthe horse’s bridle. She almost fell from the saddle, so fatigued.

They had chosen a place at the foot of rocks that still gave off alittle warmth of the sun. one man cut pine boughs, another erectedlittle screens of pine boughs against the rock for shelter, and put boughsof balsam pine for beds. The third made a small fire, to heat tortillas.They worked in silence.

The woman drank water. She did not want to eat – only to liedown.

‘Where do I sleep?’ she asked.

The young man pointed to one of the shelters. She crept in andlay inert. She did not care what happened to her, she was so weary,and so beyond everything. Through the twigs of spruce she could seethe three men squatting round the fire on their hams, chewing thetortillas they picked from the ashes with their dark fingers, and drinkingwater from a gourd. They talked in low, muttering tones, with longintervals of silence. Her saddle and saddle bags lay not far from thefire, unopened, untouched. The men were not interested in her norher belongings. There they squatted with their hats on their heads,eating, eating mechanically, like animals, the dark sarape with its fringefalling to the ground before and behind, the powerful dark legs nakedand squatting like an animal’s, showing the dirty white shirt and thesort of loin cloth which was the only other garment, underneath. Andthey showed no more sign of interest in her than if she had been apiece of venison they were bringing home from the hunt, and hadhung inside a shelter.

After a while they carefully extinguished the fire, and went insidetheir own shelter. Watching through the screen of boughs, she had amoment’s thrill of fear and anxiety, seeing the dark forms cross andpass silently in the moonlight. Would they attack her now?

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But no! they were as if oblivious of her. Her horse was hobbled,she could hear it hopping wearily. All was silent, mountain silent, cold,deathly. She slept and wok and slept in a semi – conscious numbnessof cold and fatigue. A long, long night, icy and eternal, and she awarethat she had died.

II

Yet when there was a stirring, and a clink of flint and steel, andthe form of a man crouching like a dog over a bone, at a red splutterof fire, and she knew it was morning coming, it seemed to her thenight had passed too soon.

When the fire was going, she came out of her shelter with onereal desire left: for coffee. The men were warming more tortillas.

‘Can we make coffee?’ she asked.

The young man looked at her, and she imagined the same faintspark of derision in his eyes. He shook his head.

‘We don’t take it,’ he said. ‘There is no time.’

And the elder men, squatting on their haunches, looked up at herin the terrible paling dawn, and there was not ever derision in theireyes. Only that intense, yet remote, inhuman glitter which was terribleto her. They were inaccessible. They could not see her as a womanat all. As if she WERE not a woman. As if, perhaps, her whitenesstook away all her womanhood, and left her as some giant, femalewhite ant. That was all they could see in her.

Before the sun was up, she was in the saddle again, and theywere climbing steeply, in the icy air. The sun came, and soon she wasvery hot, exposed to the glare in the bare places. It seemed to herthey were climbing to the roof of the world. Beyond against heavenwere slashes of snow.

During the course of the morning, they came to a place wherethe horse could not go father. They rested for a time with a great slantof living rock in front of them, like the glossy breast of some earth

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beast. Across this rock, along a wavering crack, they had to go. Itseemed to her that for hours she went in torment, on her hands andknees, from crack to crevice, along the slanting face of this pure rockmountain, and Indian in front and an Indian behind walked slowlyerect, shod with sandals of braided leather. But she in her riding bootsdared not stand erect.

Yet what she wondered, all the time, was why she persisted inclinging and crawling along these mile long sheets of rock. Why shedid not hurl herself down and have done! The world was below her.

When they emerged at last on a stony slope, she looked back,and saw the third Indian coming carrying her saddle and saddle bagson his back, the whole hung from a band across his forehead. And hehad his hat in his hand, as he stepped slowly, with the slow, soft, heavytread of the Indian, unwavering in the chinks of rock, as if along ascratch in the mountain’s iron shield.

The stony slope led downwards. The Indians seemed to growexcited. One ran ahead at a slow trot, disappearing round the curveof stones. And the track curved round and down, till at last in the fullblaze of the mid morning sun, they could see a valley below them,between walls of rock, as in a great wide chasm let in the mountains.A green valley, with a river, and trees, and clusters of low flat sparklinghouses. It was all tiny and perfect, three thousand feet below. Eventhe flat bridge over the stream, and the square with the houses aroundit, the bigger buildings piled up at opposite ends of the square, the tallcotton wood trees, the pastures and stretches of yellow sere maize,the patches of brown sheep or goats in the distance, on the slopes, therailed enclosures by the stream side. There it was, al small and perfect,looking magical, as any place will look magical, see from the mountainsabove. The unusual thing was that the low houses glittered white,whitewashed, looking like crystals of salt, or silver. This frightenedher.

They began the long, winding descent at the head of the barranca,following the stream that rushed and fell. At first it was all rocks: thenthe pine trees began, and soon, the silver limbed aspens. The flowersof autumn, big pink daisy like flowers, and white ones, and many

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yellow flowers, were in profusion. But she had to sit down and rest,she was so weary. And she saw the bright flowers shadowily, as paleshadows hovering, as one who is deal must see them.

At length came grass and pasture slopes between mingled aspenand pine trees. A shephered, naked in the sun save for his hat and hiscotton loin cloth, was driving his brown sheep away. In a grove oftrees they sat and waited, she and the young Indian. The one with thesaddle had also gone forward.

They heard a sound of someone coming. It was three men, infine sarapes of red and orange and yellow and back, and with brilliantfeather headdresses. The oldest had his grey hair braided with fur,and his red and orange yellow sarape was covered with curious blackmarkings, like a leopard skin. The other two were not grey haired, butthey were elders too. Their blankets were in stripes, and their headdresses not so elaborate.

The young Indian addressed the elders in a few quiet words.They listened without answering or looking at him or at the woman,keeping their faces averted and their eyes turned to the ground, onlylistening. And at length they turned and looked at the woman.

The old chief, or medicine man, whatever he was, had a deeplywrinkled and lined face of dark bronze, with a few sparse grey hairsround the mouth. Two long braids of grey hair, braided with fur andcoloured feathers, hung on his shoulders. And yet, it was only his eyesthat mattered. They were black and of extraordinary piercing strength,without a qualm of misgiving in their demonish, dauntless power. Helooked into the eyes of the white woman with a long, piercing look,seeking she knew not what. She summoned all her strength to meethis eyes and keep up her guard. But it was no good. He was notlooking at her as one human being looks at another. He never evenperceived her resistance or her challenge, but looked past them both,into she knew not what.

She could see it was hopeless to expect any human communicationwith this old being.

He turned and said a few words to the young Indian.

‘He asks what do you seek here?’ said the young man in Spanish.

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‘I? Nothing! I only came to see what it was like.’

This was again translated, and the old man turned his eyes onher once more. Then he spoke again, in his low muttering tone, to theyoung Indian.

‘He says, why does she leave her house with the white men?Does she want to bring the white man’s God to the Chilchui?’

‘No,’ she replied, foolhardly. ‘I came away from the white man’sGod myself. I came to look for the God of Chilchui.’

Profound silence followed, when this was translated. Then theold man spoke again, in a small voice almost of weariness.

‘Does the white woman seek the gods of the Chilchui becauseshe is weary of her own God?’ came the question.

‘yes, she does. She is tired of the white man’s God.’ She replied,thinking that was what they wanted her to say. She would like toserve the gods of the Chilchui.

She was aware of an extraordinary thrill of triumph and exultancepassing through the Indians, in the tense silence that followed whenthis was translated. Then they all looked at her with piercing blackeyes, in which a steely covetous intent glittered incomprehensible.She was the more puzzled, as there was nothing sensual or sexual inthe look. It had a terrible glittering purity that was beyond her. Shewas afraid, she would have been paralysed with fear, had not somethingdied within her, leaving her with a cold, watchful wonder only.

The elders talked a little while, then the two went away, leavingher with the young man and the oldest chief. The old man now lookedat her with a certain solicitude.

‘He says are you tired?’ asked the young man.

‘Very tired,’ she said.

‘The men will bring you a carriage,’ said the young Indian.

The carriage, when it came, proved to be a litter consisting of asort of hammock of dark woolen frieze, slung on to a pole which wasborne on the shoulders of two long haired Indians. The woolenhammock was spread on the ground, she sat down on it, and the two

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men raised the pole to their shoulders. Swinging rather as if she werein a sack, she was carried out of the grove of trees, following the oldchief, whose leopard spotted blanket moved curiously in the sunlight.

They had emerged in the valley head. Just in front were themaize fields, with ripe ears of maize. The corn was not very tall, inthis high altitude. The well worn path went between it, and all shecould see was the erect form of the old chief, in the flame and blacksarape, stepping soft and heavy and swift, his head forward, lookingto neither to right nor left. Her bearers followed, stepping rhythmically,the long blue black hair glistening like a river down the naked shouldersof the man in front.

They passed the maize, and came to a big wall or earthworkmade of earth and adobe bricks. The wooden doors were open. Passingon, they were in a network of small gardens, full of flowers and herbsand fruit trees, each garden watered by a tiny ditch of running water.Among each cluster of trees and flowers was a small, glittering whitehouse, windowless, and with closed door. The place was a networkof little paths, small streams and little bridges among square, floweringgardens.

Following the broadcast path – a soft narrow track betweenleaves and grass, a path worn smooth by centuries of human feet, nohoof of horse nor any wheel to disfigure it – they came to the littleriver of swift bright water, and crossed on a log bridge. Everythingwas silent – there was no human being anywhere. The road went onunder magnificent cotton wood trees. It emerged suddenly outsidethe central plaza or square of the village.

This was a long oblong of low white houses with flat roofs, andtwo bigger buildings, having as it were little square huts piled on top ofbigger long huts, stood at either end of the oblong, facing each otherrather askew. Every little house was a dazzling white, save for thegreat round beam ends which projected the flat eaves, and for the flatroofs. Round each of the bigger buildings, on the outside of the square,was a stockyard fence, inside which was garden with trees andflowers, and various small houses.

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Not a soul was in sight. They passed silently between the housesinto the central square. This was quite bare and arid, the earth troddensmooth by endless generations of passing feet, passing across fromdoor to door. All the doors of the windowless houses gave on to thisblank square, but all the doors were closed. The firewood lay near thethreshold, a clay oven was still smoking, but there was no sign ofmoving life.

The old man walked straight across the square to the big houseat the end, where the two upper storeys, as in a house of toy bricks,stood each on smaller than the lower one. A stone staircase, outside,led up to the roof of the first storey.

At the foot of this staircase the little bearers stood still, and loweredthe woman to the ground.

‘You will come up,’ said the young Indian who spoke Spanish.

She mounted the stone stairs to the earthen roof of the firsthouse, which formed a platform round the wall of the second storey.She followed around this platform to the back of the big house. Therethey descended again, into the garden at the rear.

So far they had seen no one. But now two men appeared, bareheaded, with long braided hair, and wearing a sort of white shirtgathered into a loin cloth. These went along with the three newcomers,across the garden where red flowers and yellow flowers wereblooming, to a long, low white house. There they entered withoutknocking.

It was dark inside. There was a low murmur of men’s voices.Several men were present, their white shirts showing in the gloom,their dark faces invisible. They were sitting on a great log of smoothold wood, that lay along the far wall. And save for this log, the roomseemed empty. But no, in the dark at one end was a couch, a sort ofbed, and someone lying there, covered with furs.

The old Indian in the spotted sarape, who had accompanied thewoman, now took off his hat and his blanket and his sandals. Layingthem aside, he approached the couch, and spoke in a low voice. Forsome moments there was no answer. Then an old man with the snow

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white hair hanging round his darkly visible face, roused himself like avision, and leaned on one elbow, looking vaguely at the company, intense silence.

The grey haired Indian spoke again, and then the young Indian,taking the woman’s hand, led her forward. In her linen riding habit,and black boots and hat, and her pathetic bit of a red tie, she stoodthere beside the fur-covered bed of the old, old man, who sat rearedup, leaning on one elbow, remote as a ghost, his white hair streamingin disorder, his face almost black, yet with a far-off intentness, not ofthis world, leaning forward to look at her.

His face was so old, it was lie dark glass, and the few curlinghairs that sprang white from his lips and chin were quite incredible.The long white locks fell unbraided and disorderly on either side ofthe glassy dark face. And under a faint powder of white eyebrows,the black eyes of the old chief looked at her as if from the far, fardead, seeing something that was never to be seen.

At last he spoke a few deep, hollow words, as if to the dark air.

‘He says, do you bring your heart to the god of the Chilchul?’translated the young Indian.

‘Tell him yes,’ she said, automatically.

There was a pause. The old Indian spoke again, as if to the air.One of the men present went out. There was a silence as if of eternity,in the dim room that was lighted only through the open door.

The woman looked round. Four old men with grey hair sat onthe log by the wall facing the door. Two other men, powerful andimpassive, stood near the door. They all had long hair, and wore whiteshirts gathered into a loin cloth. Their powerful legs were naked anddark. There was a silence like eternity.

At length the man returned, with white and dark clothing on hisarm. The young Indian took them, and holding them in front of thewoman, said:

‘You must take off your clothes, and put these on.’

‘If all you men will go out,’ she said.

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‘No one will hurt you,’ he said quietly.

‘Not while you men are here,’ she said.

He looked at the two men by the door. They came quicklyforward, and suddenly gripped her arms as she stood, without hurtingher, but with great power. Then two of the old men came, and withcurious skill slit her boots down with keen knives, and drew them off,and slit her clothing so that it came away from her. In a few momentsshe stood there white and uncovered. The old man on the bed spoke,and they turned her round for him to see. He spoke again, and theyoung Indian deftly too the pins and comb from her fair hair, so that itfell over her shoulders in a bunchy tangle.

Then the old man spoke again. The Indian led her to the bedside.The white haired, glassy dar old man moistened his finger tips at hismouth and most delicately touched her on the breasts and on thebody, then on the back. And she winced strangely each time, as thefingertips drew along her skin, as if Death itself were touching her.

And she wondered, almost sadly, why she did not feel shamed inher nakedness. She only felt sad and lost. Because nobody feltashamed. The elder men were all dark and tense with some otherdeep, gloomy, incomprehensible emotion, which suspended all heragitation, while the young Indian had a strange look of ecstasy on hisface. And she, she was only utterly strange and beyond herself, as ifher body were not her own.

They gave her the new clothing: a long white cotton shift, thatcame to her knees: then a tunic of thick blue woolen stuff, embroideredwith scarlet and green flowers. It was fastened over one shoulderonly, and belted with a braid sash of scarlet and black wool.

When she was thus dressed, they took her away, barefoot, to alittle house in the stockade garden. The young Indian told her shemight have what she wanted. She asked for water to wash herself.He brought it in a jar, together with a long wooden bowl. Then hefastened the gate door of her house, and left her a prisoner. She couldsee through the bars of the gate door of her house, the red flowers ofthe garden, and humming bird. Then from the roof of the big houseshe heard the long, heavy sound of a drum, unearthly to her in its

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summons, and an uplifted voice calling from the house top in a strangelanguage, with a far away emotionless intonation, delivering somespeech or message. And she listened as if from the dead.

But she was very tired. She lay down on a couch of skins, pullingover her the blanket of dark wool, and she slept, giving up everything.

When she woke it was late afternoon, and the young Indian wasentering with a basket tray containing food, tortillas and corn mushwith bits of meat, probably mutton, and a drink made of honey, andsome fresh plums. He brought her also a long garland of red andyellow flowers with knots of blue buds at the end. He sprinkled thegarland with water from a jar, then offered it to her, with a smile. Heseemed very gentle and thoughtful, and on his face and in his darkeyes was a curious look of triumph and ecstasy, that frightened her alittle. The glitter had gone from the black eyes, with their curving darklashes, and he would look at her with this strange soft glow of ecstasythat was not quite human, and terribly impersonal, and which madeher uneasy.

‘Is there anything you want?’ he said, in his low, slow, melodiousvoice, that always seemed withheld, as if he were speaking aside tosomebody else, or as if he did not want to let the sound come out toher.

‘Am I going to be kept a prisoner here?’ she asked.

‘No, you can walk in the garden tomorrow, ‘ he said softly. Alwaysthis curious solicitude.

‘Do you like that drink?’ he said, offering her a little earthenwarecup. ‘It is very refreshing.’

She sipped the liquor curiously. It was made with herbs andsweetened with hone, and had a strange, lingering flavor. The youngman watched her with gratification.

‘It has a peculiar taste,’ she said.

‘it is very refreshing,’ he replied, his black eyes resting on heralways with that look of gratified ecstasy. Then he went away. Andpresently she began to be sick, and to vomit violently, as if she had nocontrol over herself.

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Afterwards she felt a great soothing languor steel over her, herlimbs felt strong and loose and full of languor, and she lay on hercouch listening to the sounds of the village, watching the yellowingsky, smelling the scent of burning cedar wood, or pine wood. Sodistinctly she heard the yapping of tiny dogs, the shuffle of far offfeet, the murmur of voices, so keenly she detected the smell of smoke,and flowers, and evening falling, so vividly she saw the one bright starinfinitely remote, stirring above the sunset, that she felt as if all hersenses were diffused on the air, that she could distinguish the soundof evening flowers unfolding, and the actual crystal sound of theheavens, as the vast belts of the world atmosphere slid past of oneanother, and as if the moisture ascending and the moisture descendingin the air resounded like some harp in the cosmos.

She was a prisoner in her house and in the stockade garden, butshe scarcely minded. And it was days before she realized that shenever saw another woman. Only the men, the elderly men of the bighouse, that she imagined must be some sort of temple, and the menpriests of some sort. For they always had the same colours, red, orange,yellow, and black, and the same grave, abstracted demeanour.

Sometimes an old man would come and sit in her room with her,in absolute silence. None spoke any language but Indian, save the oneyounger man. The older men would smile at her, and sit with her foran hour at a time, sometimes smiling at her when she spoke in Spanish,but never answering save with this slow, benevolent seeming smile.And they gave off a feeling of almost fatherly solicitude. Yet theirdark eyes, brooding over her, had something away in their depths thatwas awesomely ferocious and relentless. They would cover it with asmile, at once, if they felt her looking. But she had seen it.

Always they treated her with this curious impersonal solicitude,this utterly impersonal gentleness, as an old man treats child. Butunderneath it she felt there was something else, something terrible.When her old visitor had gone away, in his silent, insidious, fatherlyfashion, a shock of fear would come over her, though of what sheknew not.

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The young Indian would sit and talk with her freely, as if withgreat candour. But with him, too, she felt that everything real wasunsaid. Perhaps it was unspeakable. His big dark eyes would rest onher almost cherishingly, touched with ecstasy, and his beautiful, slow,languorous voice would trail out its simple, ungrammatical Spanish.He told her he was the grandson of the old, old man, son of the man inthe spotted sarape: and they were caciques, kings from the old, olddays, before even the Spaniards came. But he himself had been inMexico city, and also in the United States. He had worked as a labourer,building the roads in Los Angeles. He had travelled as far as Chicago.

‘Don’t you speak English, then?’ she asked.

His eyes rested on her with a curious look of duplicity and conflict,and he mutely shook his head.

‘What did you do with your long hair, when you were in theUnited States?’ she asked. ‘Did you cut it off?’

Again, with the look of torment in his eyes, he shook his head.

‘No,’ he said, in a low, subdued voice, ‘I wore a hat, and ahandkerchief tied round my head.’

And he relapsed into silence, as if of tormented memories.

‘Are you the only man of your people who has been to the UnitedStates?’ she asked him.

‘Yes. I am the only one who has been away from here for a longtime. The others come back soon, in one week. They don’t stay away.The old men don’t let them.’

‘And why did you go?’

‘The old men want me to go – because I shall be the Cacique ’

He talked always with the same naïveté, and almost childishcandour. But she felt that this was perhaps just the effect of his Spanish.Or perhaps speech altogether was unreal to him. Anyhow, she feltthat all the real things were kept back.

He came and sat with her a good deal – sometimes more thanshe wished – as if he wanted to be near her. She asked him if he wasmarried. He said he was – with two children.

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‘I should like to see your children,’ she said.

But he answered only with that smile, a sweet, almost ecstaticsmile above which the dark eyes hardly changed from their enigmaticabstraction.

It was curious, he would sit with her by the hour, without evenmaking herself conscious, or sex-conscious. He seemed to have nosex, as he sat there so still and gentle and apparently submissive, withhis head bent a little forward, and the river of glistening black hairstreaming maidenly over his shoulders.

Yet when she looked again, she saw his shoulders broad andpowerful, his eyebrows black and level, the short, curved, obstinateblack lashes over his lowered eyes, the small, fur like line of moustacheabove his blackish, heavy lips, and the strong chin, and she knew thatin some other mysterious way he was darkly and powerfully male.And he, feeling her watching him, would glance up at her swiftly witha dark, lurking look in his eyes, which immediately he veiled with thathalf sad smile.

The days and the weeks went by, in a vague kind of contentment.She was uneasy sometimes, feelings she had lost the power overherself. She was not in her own power, she was under the spell ofsome other control. And at times she had moments of terror and horror.But then these Indians would come and sit with her, casting theirinsidious spell over her by their very silent presence, their silent, sexless,powerful physical presence. As they sat they seemed to take her willaway, leaving her will less and victim to her own indifference. Andthe young man would bring her sweetened drink, often the same emeticdrink, but sometimes other kinds. And after drinking, the languor filledher heavy limbs, her senses seemed to float in the air, listening, hearing.They had brought her a little female dog, which she called Flora. Andonce, in the trance of her senses, she felt she heard the little dogconceive, in her tiny womb, and begin to be complex, with young. Andanother day she could hear the vast sound of the earth going round,like some immense arrow-string booming.

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But as the days grew shorter and colder, when she was cold,she would get a sudden revival of her will, and a desire to go out, to goaway. And she insisted to the young man, she wanted to go out.

So one day, they let her climb to the topmost roof of the bighouse where she was, and look down the square. It was the day ofthe big dance, but not everybody was dancing. Women with babies intheir arms stood in their doorways, watching. Opposite, at the otherend of the square, there was a throng before the other big house, anda small, brilliant group on the terrace roof of the first storey, in front ofwide open doors of the upper storey. Through these wide open doorsshe could see fire glinting in darkness and priests in head dresses ofblack and yellow and scarlet feathers, wearing robe like blankets ofblack and red and yellow, with long green fringes, were moving about.A big drum was beating slowly and regularly, in the dense, Indiansilence. The crowd below waited –

Then a drum started on a high beat, and there came the deep,powerful burst of men singing a heavy, savage music, like a windroaring in some timeless forest, many mature men singing in one breath,like the wind, and long lines of dancers walked out from under the bighouse. Men with naked, golden bronze bodies and streaming blackhair, tufts of red and yellow feathers on their arms, and kilts of whitefrieze with a bat of heavy red and black and green embroidery roundtheir waists, bending slightly forward and stamping the earth in theirabsorbed, monotonous stamp of the dance, a fox fur, hung by the nosefrom their belt behind, swaying with the sumptuous swaying of abeautiful for fur, the tip of the tail writhing above the dancer’s heels.And after each man, a woman with a strange elaborate headdress offeathers and seashells, and wearing a short black tunic, moving erect,holding up tufts of feathers in each hand, swaying her wristsrhythmically and subtly beating the earth with her bare feet.

So, the long line of the dance unfurling from the big house opposite.And from the big house beneath her, strange scent of incense, strangetense silence, then the answering burst of inhuman male singing, andthe long line of the dance unfurling.

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It went on all day, the insistence of the drum, the cavernous,roaring, storm like sound of male singing, the incessant swinging ofthe fox skins behind the powerful, gold bronze, stamping legs of themen, the autumn sun from a perfect blue heaven pouring on the riversof black hair, men’s and women’s, the valley all still, the walls of rocbeyond, the awful huge bulking of the mountain against the pure sky,its snow seething with sheer whiteness.

For hours and hours she watched, spell bound, and as if drugged.And in all the terrible persistence of the drumming and the primeval,rushing deep singing, and the endless stamping of the dance of foxtailed men, the tread of heavy, bird erect women in their black tunics,she seemed at last to feel her own death, her own obliteration. As ifshe were to be obliterated from the field of life again. In the strangetowering symbols on the heads of the changeless, absorbed womenshe seemed to read once more the Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin. Herkind of woman hood, intensely personal and individual, was to beobliterated again, and the great primeval symbols were to tower oncemore over the fallen individual independence of woman. The sharpnessand the quivering nervous consciousness of the highly bred whitewoman was to be destroyed again, womanhood was to be cast oncemore into the great stream of impersonal sex and impersonal passion.Strangely, as if clairvoyant, she saw the immense sacrifice prepared.And she went back to her little house in a trance of agony.

After this, there was always a certain agony when she heardthe drums at evening, and the strange uplifted savage sound of mensinging round the drum, like wild creatures howling to the invisiblegods of the moon and the vanished sun. something of the chuckling,sobbing cry of the coyote, something of the exultant bark of the fox,the far off wild melancholy exultance of the howling wolf, the tormentof the puma’s scream, and the insistence of the ancient fierce humanmale, with his lapses of tenderness and his abiding ferocity.

Sometimes she would climb the high roof after nightfall, andlisten to the dim cluster of young men round the drum on the bridgejust beyond the square, singing by the hour. Sometimes there wouldbe a fire, and in the fire glow, men in their white shirts or naked save

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for a loin cloth, would be dancing and stamping like specters, hourafter hour in the dark cold air, within the fire glow, forever dancingand stamping like turkeys, or dropping squatting by the fire to rest,throwing their blankets round them.

‘Why do you all have the same colours?’ she asked the youngIndian. ‘Why do you all have red and yellow and black, over yourwhite shirts? And the women have black tunics?’

He looked into her eyes, curiously, and the faint, evasive smilecame on to his face. Behind the smile lay a soft, strange malignancy.

‘Because our men are the fire and the daytime, and our womenare the spaces between the stars at night,’ he said.

‘Aren’t the women even stars?’ she said.‘No. We say they are the spaces between the stars, that keep

the stars apart.’He looked at her oddly, and again the touch of derision came into

his eyes.‘White people,’ he said, ‘they know nothing. They are like

children, always with toys. We now the sun, and we know the moon.And we say, when a white woman sacrifice herself to our gods, thenour gods will begin to make the would again, and the white man’sgods will fall to pieces.’

‘How sacrifice herself?’ she asked quickly.And he, as quickly covered, covered himself with a subtle smile.

‘She sacrifice her own gods and come to our gods, I mean that,’he said, soothingly.

But she was not reassured. An icy pang of fear and certaintywas at her heart.

‘The sun he is alive at one end of the sky,’ he continued, ‘and themoon lives at the other end. And the man all the time have to keep thesun happy in his side of the sky, and the woman have to keep themoon quiet at her side of the sky. All the time she have to work at this.And the sun can’t ever go into the house of the sun, in the sky. So thewoman, she asks the moon to come into her cave, inside her. And theman, he draws the sun down till he has the power of the sun. all the

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time he do this. Then when the man gets a woman, the sun goes intothe cave of the moon, and that is how everything is the world starts.’

She listened, watching him closely, as one enemy watches anotherwho is speaking with double meaning.

‘Then, ‘ she said, ‘why aren’t you Indians masters of the whitemen?’

‘Because,’ he said, ‘the Indian got weak, and lost his power withthe sun, so the white men stole the sun. But they can’t keep him –they don’t know how. They got him, but they don’t know what to dowith him, like a boy who catch a big grizzly bear, and can’t kill him,and can’t run away from him. The grizzly bear eats the boy that catchhim, when he want to run away from him. White men don’t knowwhat they are doing with the sun, and white women don’t know whatthey do with the moon. The moon she got angry with white women,like a puma when someone kills her little ones. The moon, she biteswhite women –here inside,’ and he pressed his side. ‘The moon, sheis angry in a white woman’s cave. The Indian, can see it – And soon,’he added, ‘the Indian women get the moon back and keep her quiet intheir house. And the Indian men get the sun, and the power over allthe world. White men don’t know what the sun is. They never know.’

He subsided into a curious exultant silence.

‘But,’ she faltered, ‘why do you hate us so? Why do you hateme?’

He looked up suddenly with a light on his face, and a startlingflame of a smile.

‘No, we don’t hate,’ he said softly, looking with a curious glitterinto her face.

‘You do,’ she said, forlorn and hopeless.

And after a moment’s silence, he rose and went away.

IIIWinter had now come, in the high valley, with snow that melted

in the day’s sun, and nights that were bitter cold. She lived on, in a

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kind of daze, feeling her power ebbing more and more away from her,as if her will were leaving her. She felt always in the same relaxed,confused, victimized state, unless the sweetened herb drink wouldnumb her mind altogether, and release her senses into a sort ofheightened, mystic acuteness and a feeling as if she were diffusingout deliciously into the harmony of things. This at length became theonly state of consciousness she really recognized: this exquisite senseof bleeding out into the higher beauty and harmony of things. Thenshe could actually hear the great stars in heaven, which she sawthrough her door, speaking from their motion and brightness, sayingthings perfectly to the cosmos, as they trod in perfect ripples, likebells on the floor of heaven, passing one another and grouping in thetimeless dance, with the spaces of dark between. And she could hearthe snow on a cold, cloudy day twittering and faintly whistling in thesky, like birds that flock and fly away in autumn, suddenly callingfarewell to the invisible moon, and slipping out of the plains of the air,releasing peaceful warmth. She herself would call to the arrestedsnow to fall from the upper air. She would call to the unseen moon tocease to be angry, to make peace again with the unseen sun like awoman who ceases to be angry in her house. And she would smellthe sweetness of the moon relaxing to the sun in the wintry heaven,when the snow fell in a faint, cold perfumed relaxation, as the peaceof the sun mingled again in a sort of unison with the peace of themoon.

She was aware too of the sort of shadow that was on the Indiansof the valley, a deep, stoical disconsolation, almost religious in its depth.

‘We have lost our power over the sun, and we are trying to gethim back. But he is wild with us, and shy like a horse that has gotaway. We have to go through a lot.’ So the young Indian said to her,looking into her eyes with a strained meaning. And she, as if bewitched,replied:

‘I hope you will get him back.’

The smile of triumph flew over his face.

‘Do you hope it?’ he said.

‘I do,’ she answered fatally.

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‘Then all right,’ he said. ‘We shall get him.’

And he went away in exultance.

She felt she was drifting on some consummation, which she hadno will to avoid, yet which seemed heavy and finally terrible to her.

It must have been almost December, for the days were short,when she was taken again before the aged man, and stripped of herclothing, and touched with the old finger trips.

The aged cacique looked her in the eyes, with his eyes of lonely,far off, black intentness, and murmured something to her.

‘He wants you to make the sign of peace,’ the young mantranslated, showing her the gesture. ‘Peace and farewell to him.’

She was fascinated by the black, glass like, intent eyes of the oldcacique, that watched her without blinking, like a basilisk’s, overpowering her. In their depths also she saw a certain fatherlycompassion, and pleading. She put her hand before her face, in therequired manner, making the sign of peace and farewell. He madethe sign of peace back again to her, then sank among his furs. Shethought he was going to die, and that he knew it.

There followed a day of ceremonial, when she was brought outbefore all the people, in a blue blanket with white fringe, and holdingblue feathers in her hands. Before an altar of one house, she wasperfumed with incense and sprinkled with ash. Before the altar of theopposite house she was fumigated again with incense by the gorgeous,terrifying priests in yellow and scarlet and black, their faces paintedwith scarlet paint. And then they threw water on her. Meanwhile shewas faintly aware of the fire on the altar, the heavy, heavy sound of adrum, the heavy sound of men beginning powerfully, deeply, savagelyto sing, the swaying of the crowd of faces in the plaza below, and theformation for a sacred dance.

But at this time her commonplace consciousness was numb, shewas aware of her immediate surroundings as shadows, almostimmaterial. With refined and heightened senses she could hear thesound of the earth winging on its journey, like a shot arrow, the ripple

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rustling of the air, and the boom of the great arrow string. And itseemed to her there were two great influences in the upper air, onegolden towards the sun, and one invisible silver, the first travelling likerain ascending to the gold presence sunwards, the second like rainsilverily descending the ladders of space towards the hovering, lurkingclouds over the snowy mountain top. Then between them, anotherpresence, waiting to shake himself free of moisture, of heavy whitesnow that had mysteriously collected about him. And in summer, likea scorched eagle, he would wait to shake himself clear of the weightof heavy sunbeams. And he was coloured like fire. And he was alwaysshaking himself clear, of snow or of heavy heat, like an eagle rustling.

Then there was a still stranger presence, standing watching fromthe blue distance, always watching. Sometimes running in upon thewind, or shimmering in the heat waves. The blue wind itself, rushingas it were out of the holes in the earth into the sky, rushing out of thesky down upon the earth. The blue wind, the go between, the invisibleghost that belonged to two worlds, that played upon the ascendingand the descending chords of the rains.

More and more her ordinary personal consciousness had lefther, she had gone into that other state of passional cosmicconsciousness, like one who is drugged. The Indians, with their heavilyreligious natures, had made her succumb to their vision.

Only one personal question she asked the young Indian:

‘Why am I the only one that wears blue?’

‘It is the colour of the wind. It is the colour of what goes awayand is never coming back, but which is always here, waiting like deathamong us. It is the colour of the dead. And it is the colour that standsaway off, looking at us from the distance, that cannot come near tous. When we go near, it goes farther. It can’t be near. We are brownand yellow and black hair, and white teeth and red blood. We are theones that are here. You with blue eyes, you are the messengers fromthe far away, you cannot stay, and now it is time for you to go back.’

‘where to?’ she asked.

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‘To the way off things like the sun and the blue mother of rain,and tell them that we are the people on the world again, and we canbring the sun to the moon again, like a red horse to a blue mare, weare the people. The white women have driven back the moon in thesky, won’t let her come to the sun. so the sun is angry. And the Indianmust give the moon to the sun.’

‘How?’ she said.

“The white woman got to die and go like a wind to the sun, tellhim the Indians will open the gate to him. And the Indian women willopen the gate to the moon. The white women don’t let the mooncome down out of the blue coral. The moon used to come downamong the Indian women, like a white goat among the flowers. Andthe sun want to come down to the Indian men, like an eagle to thepine trees. The sun, he is shut out behind the white man, and the moonshe is shut out behind the white woman, and they can’t get away.They are angry, everything in the world gets angrier. The Indian says,he will give the white woman to the sun, so the sun will leap over thewhite man and come to the Indian again. And the moon will besurprised, she will see the gate open, and she not know which way togo. But the Indian woman will call to the moon, Come! Come! Comeback into my grasslands. The wicked white woman can’t harm youany more. Then the sun will look over the heads f the white men, andsee the moon in the pastures of our women, with the Red Men standingaround like pine trees. Then he will leap over the heads of the whitemen, and come running past to the Indians through the spruce trees.And we, who are red and black and yellow, we who stay, we shallhave the sun on our right hand and the moon on our left. So we canbring the rain down out of the blue meadows, and up out of the black,and we can call the wind that tells the corn to grow, when we ask him,and we shall make the clouds to break, and the sheep to have twinlambs. And we shall be full of power, like a spring day. But the whitepeople will be a hard winter, without snow –‘

‘But,’ said the white woman, ‘I don’t shut out the moon – howcan i?’

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‘Yes,’ he said, ‘you shut the gate, and then laugh, think you haveit all your own way.’

She could never quite understand the way he looked at her. Hewas always so curiously gentle, and his smile was so soft. Yet therewas such glitter in his eyes, and an unrelenting sort of hate came outof his words, a strange, profound, impersonal hate. Personally he likedher, she was sure. He was gentle with her, attracted by her in somestrange, soft, passionless way. But impersonally he hated her with amystic hatred. He would smile at her, winningly. Yet if, the nextmoment, she glanced round at him unawares, she would catch thatgleam of pure after hate in his eyes.

‘Have I got to die and be given to the sun?’ she asked.

‘Sometimes,’ he said, laughing evasively. ‘Sometime we all die.’

They were gentle with her, and very considerate with her. Strangemen, the old priests and the young cacique alike, they watched overher and cared for her like women. In their soft, insidious understanding,there was something womanly. Yet their eyes, with that strange glitter,and their dark, shut mouths that would open to the broad jaw, thesmall, strong, white teeth, had something very primitively male andcruel.

One wintry day, when snow was falling, they took her to a greatdark chamber in the big house. The fire was burning in a corner on ahigh raised dais under a sort of hood or canopy of adobe work. Shesaw in the fire glow, the glowing bodies of the almost naked priests,and strange symbols on the roof and walls of the chamber. There wasno door or window in the chamber, they had descended by a ladderfrom the roof. And the fire of pinewood danced continually, showingwalls painted with strange devices, which she could not understand,and a ceiling of poles making a curious pattern of black and red andyellow, and alcoves or niches in which were curious objects she couldnot discern.

The older priests were going through some ceremony near thefire, in silence, intense Indian silence. She was seated on a lowprojection of the wall, opposite the fire, two men seated beside her.

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Presently they gave her a drink from a cup, which she took gladly,because of the semi trance it would induce.

In the darkness and in the silence she was accurately aware ofeverything that happened to her: how they took off her clothes, and,standing her before a great, weird device on the wall, coloured blueand white and black, washed her all over with water and the amoleinfusion, washed even her hair, softly, carefully, and dried it on whitecloths, till it was soft and glistening. Then they laid for on a couchunder another great indecipherable image of red and black and yellow,and now rubbed all her body with sweet scented oil, and massaged allher limbs, and her back, and her sides, with a long, strange, hypnoticmassage. Their dark hands were incredibly powerful, yet soft with awatery softness she could not understand. And the dark faces, leaningnear her white body, she saw were darkened with red pigment, withlines of yellow round the cheeks. And the dark eyes glittered absorbed,as the hands worked upon the soft white body of the woman.

They were so impersonal; absorbed in something that was beyondher. They never saw her as a personal woman: she could tell that.She was some mystic object to them, some vehicle of passions tooremote for her to grasp. Herself in a state of trance, she watchedtheir faces bending over her, dark, strangely glistening with thetransparent red paint, and lined with bars of yellow. And in this weird,luminous dark mask of living face, the eyes were fixed with anunchanging stead fast gleam, and the purplish pigmented lips wereclosed in a full, sinister, sad grimness. The immense fundamentalsadness, the grimness of ultimate decision, the fixity of revenge, andthe nascent exultance of those that are going to triumph – these thingsshe could read in their faces, as she lay and was rubbed into a mistyglow, by their uncanny dark hands. Her limbs, her flesh, her verybones at last seemed to be diffusing into a roseate sort of mist, inwhich her consciousness hovered like some sun gleam in a flushedcloud.

She knew the gleam would fade, the cloud would go grey. But apresent she did not believe it. She knew she was a victim, that all this

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elaborate work upon her was the work of victimizing her. But she didnot mind. She wanted it.

Later, they put a short blue tunic on her and took her to the upperterrace, and presented her to the people. She saw the plaza below herfull of dark faces and of glittering eyes. There was no pity: only thecurious hard exultance. The people gave a subdued cry when theysaw her, and she shuddered. But she hardly cared.

Next day was the last. She slept in a chamber of the big house.At dawn they put on her a big blue blanket with fringe, and led her outinto the plaza, among the throng of silent, dark blanketed people. Therewas pure white snow on the ground, and the dark people in their darkdown blankets looked like inhabitants of another world.

A large drum was slowly pounding, and an old priest was declaringfrom a housetop. But it was not till noon that a litter came forth, andthe people gave that low, animal cry which was so moving. In thesack like litter sat the old, old cacique, his white hair braided withblack braid and large turquoise stones. His face was like a piece ofobsidian. He lifted his hand in token, and the litter stopped in front ofher. Fixing her with his old eyes, he spoke to her for a few moments,in his hollow voice. No one translated.

Another litter came, and she was placed in it. Four priests movedahead, in their scarlet and yellow and black, with plumed head dresses.Then came the litter of the old cacique. Then the light drums began,and two groups of singers burst simultaneously into song, male andwild. And the golden red, almost naked men, adorned with ceremonialfeathers and kilts, the rivers of black hair down their backs, formedinto two files and began to tread the dance. So they threaded out ofthe snowy plaza, in two long, sumptuous lines of dark red gold andblack and fur, swaying with a faint tinkle of bits of shell and flint,winding over the snow between the two bee clusters of men whosang around the drum.

Slowly they moved out, and her litter, with its attendance offeathered, lurid, dancing priests, moved after. Everybody danced thetread of the dance step, even, subtly, the litter bearers. And out of the

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plaza they went, past smoking ovens, on the trail to the great cottonwood trees, that stood like grey-silver lace against the blue sky, bareand exquisite above the snow. The river, diminished, rushed amongfangs of ice. The chequer squares of gardens within fences were allsnowy, and the white houses now looked yellowish.

The whole valley glittered intolerably with pure snow, away tothe walls of the standing rock. And across the flat cradle of snow bedwound the long thread of the dance, shaking slowly and sumptuouslyin its orange and black motion. The high drums thudded quickly, andon the crystalline frozen air the swell and roar of the chant of savageswas like an obsession.

She sat looking out of her litter with big, transfixed blue eyes,under which were the wan markings of her drugged weariness. Sheknew she was going to die, among the glisten of this snow, at thehands of this savage, sumptuous people. And as she stared at theblaze of blue sky above the slashed and ponderous mountain, shethought: ‘I am dead already. What difference does it make, the transitionfrom the dead I am to the dead I shall be, very soon!’ Yet her soulsickened and felt wan.

The strange procession trailed on, in perpetual dance, slowlyacross the plain of snow, and then entered the slopes between thepine trees. She saw the copper dark men dancing the dance tread,onwards, between the copper pale tree trunks. And at last she, too, inher swaying litter, entered the pine trees.

They were travelling on and on, upwards, across the snow underthe trees, past the superb shafts of pale, flaked copper, the rustle andshake and tread of the threading dance, penetrating into the forest,into the mountain. They were following a stream bed: but the streamwas dry, like summer, dried up by the frozennesss of the head waters.There were dark, red bronze willow bushes with wattles like wildhair, and pallid aspen trees looking like cold flesh against the snow.Then jutting dark rocks.

At last she could tell that the dances were moving forward nomore. Nearer and nearer she came upon the drums, as to a lair ofmysterious animals. Then through the bushes she emerged into a

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strange amphitheatre. Facing was a great wall of hollow rock, downthe front of which hung a great, dripping, fang like spoke of ice. Theice came pouring over the rock from the precipice above, and thenstood arrested, dripping out of high heaven, almost down to the hollowstones where the stream pool should be below. But the pool was dry.

On either side the dry pool, the lines of dancers had formed, andthe dance was continuing without intermission, against a backgroundof bushes.

But what she felt was that fanged inverted pinnacle of ice, hangingfrom the lip of the dark precipice above. And behind the great rope ofice, she saw the leopard like figures of priests climbing the hollowcliff face, to the cave that, like a dark socket, bored a cavity, an orifice,half way up the crag.

Before she could realize, climbing the rock. She, too, was behindthe ice. There it hung, like a curtain that is not spread, but hangs likea great fang. And near above her was the orifice of the cave sinkingdark into the rock. She watched it as she swayed upwards.

On the platform of the cave stood the priests, waiting in all theirgorgeousness of feathers and fringed robes, watching her ascent.Two of them stooped to help her litter bearer. And at length she wason the platform of the cave, far in behind the shaft of ice, above thehollow amphitheatre among the bushes below, where men weredancing, and the whole populace of the village was clustered in silence.

The sun was sloping down the afternoon sky, on the left. Sheknew that this was the shortest day of the year, and the last day of herlife. They stood her facing the iridescent column of ice, which felldown marvelously arrested, away in front of her.

Some signal was given, and the dance below stopped. Therewas now absolute silence. She was given a little to drink, then twopriests took off her mantle and her tunic, and in her strange pallor shestood there, between the lurid robes of the priests, beyond the pillar ofice, beyond and above the dark faced people. The throng below gavethe low, wild cry. Then the priests turned her round, so she stood withher back to the open world, her long blond hair to the people below.And they cried again.

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She was facing the cave, inwards. A fire was burning andflickering in the depths. Four priests had taken off their robes, andwere almost as naked as she was. They were powerful men in theprime of life, and they kept their dark, painted faces lowered.

From the fire came the old, old priest, with an incense pan. Hewas naked and in a state of barbaric ecstasy. He fumigated his victim,reciting at the same time in a hollow voice. Behind him came anotherrobeless priest, with two flint knives.

When she was fumigated, they laid her on a large flat stone, thefour powerful men holding her by the outstretched arms and legs.Behind stood the aged man, like a skeleton covered with dark glass,holding a knife and transfixedly watching the sun, and behind himagain was another naked priest, with a knife.

She felt little sensation, though she knew all that was happening.Turning to the sky, she looked at the yellow sun. It was sinking. Theshaft of ice was like a shadow between her and it. And she realizedthat the yellow rays were filling half the cave, though they had notreached the altar where the fire was, at the far end of the funnelshaped cavity.

Yes, the rays were creeping round slowly. As they grew ruddier,they penetrated farther. When the red sun was about to sink, he wouldshine full through the shaft of ice deep into the hollow of the cave, tothe innermost.

She understood now that this was what the men were waitingfor. Even those that held her down were bent and twisted round, theirblack eyes watching the sun with a glittering eagerness, and awe, andcraving. The black eyes of the aged cacique were fixed like blackmirrors on the sun, as if sightless, yet containing some terrible answerto the reddening winter planet. And all the eyes of the priests werefixed and glittering on the sinking orb, in the reddening, icy silence ofthe winter afternoon.

They were anxious, terribly anxious, and fierce. Their ferocitywanted something, and they were waiting the moment. And theirferocity was ready to leap out into a mystic exultance, of triumph. Butstill they were anxious.

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Only the eyes of that oldest man were not anxious. Black andfixed, and as if sightless, they watched the sun, seeing beyond thesun. and in their black, empty concentration there was power, powerintensely abstract and remote, but deep, deep to the heart of the earth,and the heart of the sun. in absolute motionlessness he watched tillthe red sun should send his ray through the column of ice. Then theold man would strike, and strike home, accomplish the sacrifice andachieve the power.

The mastery that man must hold, and that passes from race torace.

About The Text : ‘The Woman who Rode Away’ is a story thatdeals with an unnamed white American women of 33 years of age,mother of two children, not satisfied with her husband, Lederman, astrong wiled rancher, twenty years senior to her longs for an adventureaway from the routine activities of her life. Her husband who ownedsilver mines in The Siera Madre mountain ranges of Mexico. But hismines were closed down after the Great War. Their married lifegradually become annoying as her husband had never become real toher. Neither mentally no physically he can satisfy her. He swayed hermorally, downed her, and kept her in an unpredictable slavery. Shewanted to break the monotonous life and felt that it was her destiny towander about into the seret domains of the mysterious and marvelousChilchui Indians tribes lived with their own custome and religion.

So she started her journey riding on her stout roan horse. Shetravelled across a valley over sleep places and past green trees anddeserted mining settlements. Finally she finds them and they lead herto their village, where she become prisoner and regularly drugged. Atlast, they with her consent, begin the ceremony to sacrifice her, believingit will bring sun and moon back to them (they left them and are knownmisunderstood by white people). The story ends with old shamanholding a knife over her, ready to strike. The story ends when thewoman is sacrificially killed by the Indian community for taking revengeupon the white colonizers who have taken away their land. The Indianbelieve that by sacrificing a white woman to the sun, they will be thebeneficiaries of their solar good. Through the story Lawrence focus

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on psychological and spiritual initiation into the mysteries of primitivereligion. It explore religious values distinct from those common toWestern cultures. Spiritual enlightenment – a mystic attainment ofpure vital spirit or anima – is always greater to any fulfillment ofemotional satisfaction through erotic bonding.

Word Meanings :

Possible question :1. Discuss the circumstances why was the woman dissatisfied withher married life?

2. Give detailed description of the unnamed woman’s journey fromher home to the land of the Chilchui Indians.

3. Write a note on the character of the unnamed woman in thestory, ‘The Woman who Rode Away’?

4. Give a brief account of the ritualistic sacrifice of the woman bythe Chilchui Indians?

5. Write an account of the racial and cultural differences from yourreading of the story, ‘the Woman who Rode Away’.

6. Discuss in detail hero the woman was treated by the ChilchusIndians?

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THE MISTY HOUR– Manoj Das

About the Author :

Manoj Das is an eminent author who writes in both Odiya andEnglish and also recipient of several awards including Sahity AkademyFellowship. Born on 27th February, 1934 in aremote coastal village ofOdisha. He grew up in a rural system seeting but had the traumaticexperience of devastating cyclone followed by famine resulting deathof several thousands people. Presides natural calamities, he at theage of eight witness to his affluent home on the sea being plunderedby savage gangs of bndits. These incidences. Probably shape his youngmind to face hurdle and enriched his imaginative powers.

During his high school days writing came to him spontaneouslyand his first book in his mother tongue in Odiya was published whenhe was fourteen. At fifteen he started Diganta, which in due courseof time, become a significant journal in the state. Roopwati after somepanaca of human suffering he became a revolutionary leader while incollege, becoming unconstested President of the University LawCollege Union, General secretary of the student federation. Afterserving as a lecturer in English at Cuttack for four years, he alongwith his wife, Pratijna Devi joined the Sri Aurobindo Ashram atPandichery in 1963 which became their permanent settlement. He iswidely acclaimed as one of the best loved and sessions among Indianwriting in English, he is one of the successful bilingual writer in thecountry. He had been a regular columnist in some of the leadingnewspaper in English and Odiya. The numerous accolades he hasreceived Saraswati Sanman, Utkal Sahitya Samaj’s prestigious UtkalRatna Award, five Universities have bestowed on him D.4H and manymore. His short stories, around three hundred, represent his poignantunderstanding of the rural Indian sylvan beauty. His writings have

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been inspiring the countless readers in Odiya and English for the faithin life and also open up hiding horizons of confidence and compassionin humanity which is a utmost need of the hour.

‘The Misty Hour’ is one of his best stories.

TEXT :In a provincial town of the third decade of the twentieth century,

dogs still barked at motor cars, spectators kept sitting for hours gapingat silent movies, and signs of love were as simple as a rainbow: ayoung lady blushing violently at a fluttering look from a young man inthe college corridors was evidence enough of her responding to hislove. Thereafter the hero could safely take to versifying and the heroineto gazing at the sky when the sun was mellow and continuing to sigh,till her friends had hit upon the mystery of her mood and taken theroutine initiative to bring the situation to its logical culmination. Ninetimes out of ten he and she belonged to the same caste. After a ritualfuss by their parents over horoscopes, dowry and date, they got marriedand lived happily ever after.

At seventy, Aunty Roopwati had enough bloom left in her cheeksto give the impression of blushing while reminiscing about thosewonderful days when modernity meant a newlywed lady, almost halfher face revealed to the public, sharing a hand-pulled rickshaw withher husband, and when a monthly magazine highlighted thephenomenon of progress on its cover by showing a young lady cyclingby (though the artist had forgotten to give a touch of motion to thespokes). Hence the storm that must have been caused by the beautifulAunty Roopwati joining he freedom struggle can be easily visualized.And she came of a well-know family and was a graduate. She claimedthat she could even sing like a shehnai.

In fact she referred to a number of poems that had becomeimmoral in our literature saying that their poets, her contemporaries,had composed them for the sole satisfaction of having them sung orrecited by her.

No doubt, quite a few ladies from respectable families had comeout to join the freedom struggle around that time. But none of themwas as smart and dashing as Roopwati, none as fluent a speaker asshe. Thus, endowed as she was with a rich assortment of virtues-

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anyone of which could have brought renown to a lady in those days-Roopwati, her admirers thought, was destined to conquer great heightsof glory. Roopwati herself had neither any doubt nor any false humilityin that regard. She was sure no position was too high for her and shemade no secret of it.

Those who had some knowledge about the intrinsic worth ofmost of the people in high places were not likely to dispute Roopwati’sassertion. If there was anything wrong with her, it was her habit ofextolling herself. Her colleagues in politics disliked this, though theclever ones among them were adept in using others’ lungs-power tobroadcast their own glory. As a result, although inferior to Roopwatiin many respects, they bypassed her.

Roopwati asserted that all the budding leaders of the time hadbeen dying to marry her. A little flattery and show of credulousnessinduced her to come out with a volume of anecdotes narrating howthey had tried to woo her. Although Roopwati appreciated their idealismand patriotism, she had no faith in their personal integrity. There wasonly one young man who combined in this character both the virtues.He was Jagdishji. Roopwati at last condescended to marry him.

But the fact that she had highly underestimated Jagdishji’scharacter became evident on the wedding night itself. This episodewas not revealed by her but by her confidants among her compatriots,who were now becoming rare. Jagdishji, who was always clad inspotless white and spoke equally spotless prose, received his bride intheir bedroom with a profound show of love and respect. After hehad made her recline comfortably on the bed, what he opened with noless love and respect was a canvas bag containing three essaysauthored by himself, in a handwriting as distinct as his pronunciation.

A little past midnight, he finished reading his first essay, a profoundtreatise on the socio-economic benefits of the proposed prohibition onthe trade in liquor.

By two a.m. he finished ‘Reflections on the Gains of AdultEducation’.

He had just read out the title of his third composition, ‘The Roleof Celibacy in Married Life’, when the bride exclaimed, ‘What a pity,the lamp is running out of oil!’

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‘Let me fetch some more oil,’ said Jagdishji enthusiastically.

‘Is that really necessary? Why not let your knowledge light usas long as possible?’ Observed Roopwati gravely. She snatched awaythe essays and burned them leaf by leaf.

In the spurting flames, her face must have looked as ominous asmassed clouds lit up by lightning at night. In silence, the couple absorbedthe realization that the fate of the essays was symbolic of the futureof their relationship.

Also, the silence of the dawn seemed to have left an indelibleimpact on Jagdishji. Rarely did he talk for the rest of his life, which, inany case, was not very long. And when he did, he forgot his grammar.He died at thirty- five.

India won freedom. Roopwati’s togue, which till then was oneof the main weapons wielded by the state unit of the party against theBritish Raj, was now active against her colleaf,rues. Most of themhad captured chunks of power, but they knew how ineffective theirpowers and positions were against Roopwati. she could strip layer oftheir reputation with incredible ease, like peeling an onion, leavingnothing at the end. The younger generation of political aspirants, whotried to buffet their way to power partly through demagogy and partlythrough terrorizing or blackmailing their seniors, without the obligationto risk a thing, found it great fun to provoke Roopwati into her tirades.They flattered her by calling her Aunty, However, we pressmen feltthat she had a soft corner for only one man, Chinmoy Babu-the lonegentleman in the politics of the state. No doubt Chinmoy Babu wasdifferent from the rest of this tribe. He had had a promising youth asan artist and a classical singer, and had published a couple of books onliterary and cultural topics. His writings has origniality. But he was soreserved and humble that only those coming in close contact with himknew that he was not only talented but also intelligent.

He had made more sacrifices for the freedom struggle thananybody else, but he hardly commanded any influence in the party.He lived shy and aloof. But a time came when people began to getdisillusioned with theri loudmouth leaders. The party realized that itssurvival warranted the resurrection of some ignored heroes ofyesterday. It was at this juncture-our town had lately been declared acity-when almost all the city fathers made a beeline for the mayoral

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chair, each doing his utmost to thwart the others and in the process allrunning, so to say, naked, that some of the old freedom-fighters madeit possible for Chinmoy Babu to emerge from oblivion. He becamethe mayor, uncontested.

Chinmoy Babu symbolized a new hope. Although such hopescame to nothing much-and the people had already come to realize thisbitter truth-they needed the illusions from time to time.

Chinmoy Babu was accorded a grand reception. The mammothpublic meeting was about to begin when Aunty Roopwati was seenelbowing her way to the dais. Chinmoy Babu felt happy to meet anold colleague and received her with a show of courtesy.

‘Would you like to say a few words say for five minutes?’ theleader presiding over the meeting was obliged to ask Aunty, but ignoringwhat he thought was a clever hint that she was expected to be brief-she spoke for a full hour, heaping abuses on nearly all the leaders,drawing frequent cheers from the audience, but praising ChinmoyBabu to the skies. While doing so, it appeared to us who were closerto the dais, that she blushed more than Chinmoy Babu.

And she continued to blush till long after the meeting had endedand Chinmoy Babu had left the venue, while we sat surrounding herin a nearby restaurant and she gradually warmed up. She gave us afull dozen poignant anecdotes and, at last, over the third coup of tea,disclosed that even Chinmoy Babu had once been her lover.

A fortnight later, while Chinmoy Babu was presiding over afunction held on the occasion of a foreign cultural troupe’s visit to ourcity, Aunty pushed her way to the dais again and made for the chairby chance lying vacant by the president’s side, her broad smile glitteringin the floodlight.

Chinmoy Babu suffered her to sit near him, but was not as cordialas on the previous occasion. Someone had probably reported to himAunty’s latest claim.

It is difficult to say whether or not Aunty took note of ChinmoyBabu’s indifference, but we observed that thereafter, on the slightestprovocation, she asserted that Chinmoy Babu indeed loved her.

Six months later, when Chinmoy Babu abdicated his mayoraltyin favour of his deputy and was elected to the Rajya Sabha, and

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chances of his induction into the ministry at the centre looked bright,Aunty began saying impatiently, ‘Had I responded to his love andwedded him, he would have become a far greater man and that toomuch earlier!’

‘Well, Aunty, what made you reject as brilliant a suitor as ChinmoyBabu?’ we made bold to ask her with our tongues in our cheeks.

What Aunty said in reply in many words came to this : Not onlyhad all the eligible youths of the time either fallen or come close tofalling in love with her, but also a much revered leader of her father’sage, at an opportune moment, had bared his bleary eyes of his thickspectacles and made a pass at her! Aunty, after all, could havebestowed her favours only on one. Forty years after the death of herchoice, Jagdishji, Aunty was eloquent in his praise. Jagdishji emergedlike a figure of mythical proportions-a Leonardo da Vinci in genius, acaesar in courage and a Rama in character.

Aunty’s presence at meetings, we felt, proved more and moreembarrassing to Chinmoy Babu. There were whispers and exchangeof knowing looks among us. No that Aunty was insensitive to ChinmoyBabu’s discomfiture or to our amusement, but she just did not care.She always reached for Chinmoy Babu with the display of a smilethat she kept in reserve only for him.

A merry floor- crossing by a group of members of the legislaturebrought the state ministry crashing down. Chinmoy Babu had alreadybeen caught in the maelstorm of politics. His reputation as anincorruptible leader was the only hope for his party’s return to power.Her was incluced to come down from parliament to steer his party tovictory in his home state. Needless to say, he was to be the chiefminister.

We learnt confidentially that Aunty met Chinmoy Babu and offerdto manage his election capaign. Chinmoy Babu obviously did not thinkthat to be a wise strategy. He spoke to her of other laudable misssionsthat awaited her stewardship. But Aunty was too shrews to bebamboozled. She returned fuming and cursing.

Within hours she had become the prize star in the opposite camp.

‘Chinmoy for chief ministership? Pooh! This is what happened

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forty years ago. The party’s working committee was in session. Wewent on till it was dusk. Suddenly, the lights went out. But we were ina spirit to defy every hurdle. Our president called upon us to continuethe proceedings without bothering over the darkness. Chinmoy wasby my side. He brought his hand close to mine. We sat like that for afull hour during which he succeeded in spreading his hand over onlyhalf of my palm, ‘Aunty declared.

Nobody asked how a dusky hour of four decades ago wasrelevant to Chinmoy Babu’s claim to cheif ministers hip today. Had thecountry not seen cheif ministers unfazed by formidable records ofscandals?

It was strange that Aunty’s statement became the talk of the town.Most probably it was because Chinmoy Babu was looked upon as aman above the propensities of an ordinary mortal.

However, nobody believed that the ‘scandal’ would affect themargin of votes by which he was expected to win, although it saddenedChinmoy Babu most certainly.

Just then there was a bolt from the blue. Old DhaniChowdhury, out of the political scene for over two decades, came tous limping and groaned out a confession. He believed that his gesture,apart from serving the lofty cause of truth and of history, would heplChinmoy Babu regain whatever loss of face he had suffered.

Dhani Chowdhury took us back to the working comitee meetingof the early thirties. It is true, he said, that Chinmoy Babu was seatedbeside Roopwati when the lights went out. But what Roopwati didnot know was that Chinmoy Babu soon had to go out of the room toattend to some urgent work. The one to advance his amorous hand atRoopwati’s was none other than Dhani Chowdhury, then the youthfultreasurer of the party. The lights did not return before the meetingwas over and hence Roopwati never found out who owned thoseaudaciously crawling figers.

Dhani Chowdhury became a victim of a kind of arthritis soonafter and was deprived of all the fruits of freedom.

The remarkable gusto with which Dhani Chowdhury poured outhis confession gave me the impression that he was not as remorsefulas he declared he was, and that a secret sense of pride enlivened his

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narration. He was willing to donate a photograp of his own shouldChinmoy Babu’s election commitee choose to print on leaflets carryinghis confession and distribute them liberally.

But before the election commitee could take a decision on theconscientious offer and before we had any time to ascertain Aunty’sreaction to the confession, she came down with high fever. Thediagnosis that it was pneumonia came only hours before she died.

Frankly, we, the genuine well-wishers of Chinmoy Babu, had afeelig of relief for an unguarded moment. Indeed, how easily prospectsof puny gains reduce mortals like us to utter meanness!

Aunty was cremated near the ruins of a temple by the lake onthe city’s outskirts.

Next day, we were on or way to Chinmoy Babu’s constituency.While driving by the lake, I pointed out the deserted pyre to ChinmoyBabu. He nodded.

Five days of hectic campaigning, and a day more of silent anxietyduring which no canvassing was allowed, preceded the poling. Therewas no room for any doubt regarding Chinmoy Babu’s landslide victory.But he was totally exhausted. As his confidant, which I had becomeby that time, I arranged for his other close companions to return to thecity by vans and made a comfortable car available to him. I sat besidethe chauffeur.

It was evening, and cloudy and cool by the time we reached thelake. The breeze was growing erratic. I was dozing.

Will you please halt for a while? I wish to have a stroll in solitude.I last few days have been so suffocating! Chinmoy Babu muttered

from the back seat.I appreciated his desire and let him go out alone and resumed

dozing. But, after fifteen minutes, when I noticed dark clouds closingin on the patch of sky over the lake and anticipated a shower, I steppedout to call him back.

There were only three or four men scattered around the lakeand I did not see Chinmoy Babu among them. I climbed the ebankmentand looked towards the cremation ground lying below it on the otherside. I located him near the ruins of the temple. He had gathered abunch of flowers and was pruning them. I was going to call out to himbut stopped.

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He advanced towards the pile of ashes-the remains of Aunty’spyre. He knelt down and placed his bouquet on the pile. He sat quietand wiped his eyes again and again. Then it began to drizzle. Whenhe was about to get up, I took a swift turn and reached the car in afew rapid strides.

It rained soon after Chinmoy Babu got into the car. We droveon in silence. The swaying trees along the road looked like phantomswhisking us away.

But the silence of that dusky hour had brewed a disturbing questionin my mind : was the confession of the former treasurer DhaniChowdhury true?

About the TextThe Misty Hour is a story more political than a love story. The

story is interwoven into two lead characters Chinmoy Babu and AuntyRoopwati. Chinmoy Babu is an incorruptible, dynamic political leaderon the other hand aunty Roopwati a beautiful, well educated andversatile lady. Chinmoy Babu and aunty Roopwati is set against thebackdrop of Indian freedom struggle. The story progresses as theaunty Roopwati, the heroine of the story, proclaim her seventy yearold present condition with her surprisingly pompous beauty during heryouth. How she had been admired by duding leaders of the time andsought to marry her. However she adores Jagdishji, a brilliantintellectual and best regarded interms of idealism and patriolism. Therelationship of the newly married couple were not favourable. Thefirst wedding night Jagdishji, and erudite schola, invites his bridge tolisten to his reading of his three bride essays. Roopwati retains patiencetill the reading of first two essay but at last she snatches away theessays from his hand and burns them. This is a shocking incident forher scholar husband. Jagdishji died at an early age. Aunty Roopwatiwho boasts about her beauty which attracted many of the youth ofthose days. Not only youth but revered leader of her father’s age alsothrows eyes on her beauty.

The twist of story begins when Chinmoy Babu when he isconsidered to be an outstanding leader to be the chief of party Roopwatipropose herself to manage the election campaign. But chinmoy Babu

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rejects her offers as he becomes self conscious by Aunty’s publicrevealation of affection towards him. Disappointed with ChinmoyBabu’s decision anuty Roopwati joins opposition and tries to belittleChinmoy Babu. In election campaign meeting, Roopwati claims thatonce Chinmoy Babu happened to be her lover. Dhani choudhury,another politician and treasurer of the party comes forward withconvincing statements to defend the personality of Chinmoy Babu.After winning the election Chinmoy Babu went to the cremation groundwhere Aunty Roopwati was cremated in the darkness of the evening.He offered a bouquet of flowers to the departed soul on the remainsof aunty’s pyre and weep silently.

The story remain misty that does not provide a transparentconclusion to justify Chinmoy Babu’s gesture in the end.

Word-Meanings :

Possible question :1. Give a brief character portrayal of Aunty Roopwati.

2. Describe the Aunty Roopwati’s married life with Jagdish.

3. Critically examine the relationship between Aunty Roopwati andChinmoy Babu.

4. Sketch the character of Chinmoy Babu.

5. Who was Dhawani Choudhury? How he is involved in the story?

6. Write a note on the reaction of Chinmoy Babu to that of Roopwati.

7. Describe Roopwati’s experience on her first wedding night. (GU :2013)

8. Discuss Aunty Roopwati’s feelings about budding leaders of hertime.

9. Write about the relationship between Chinmoy Babu and Roopwati.(GU : 2013)

10. Describe Chinmoy Babu’s journey to chief ministership.

11. Who is Aunty? Why did she join the opposite camp?

12. Write a note on Aunty Roopwati’s presence in the meetings withChinmoy Babu.

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13. “ Within hours she had become the prize star in the opposite camp.”-Explain.

14.Who was Chinmoy Babu ? Describe his relationship with Roopwati?

or

Chinmoy Babu was looked upon as a man above the propensitiesof an ordinery mortal.- Explain. (GU : 2013)

15. Give a character portrayal of Aunty Roopwati. (GU : 2012)

16. Do you think Chinmoy Babu really care or feelings for AuntyRoopwati? Give a reasoned answer.

17. Who was Dhani Chowdhury? How is he involved in the story?

18. Describe Aunty Roopwati’s share in politics after India’s freedom.

19. How did Chinmoy Babu reached to death of Roopwati?

20. Write about the relation of Roopwati and Jagadishji.

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K. K. HANDIQUI: SCHOLAR PAREXCELLENCE

- Munin Barkotoki

About the Author : Munin Barkotoki (1915-1993) was a man ofwide intellectual interests and polymathic knowledge across manyfields. His courtesy, kindness and impressively wide ranging interestin literature, journalism, film, theatre, music, painting, sports and politics,made a lasting impression on the people in general. His contribution inthe field of literature though limited, exerted a quiet but stronginfluenced on later developments in Assamese literature. His writingsinclude twelve stories and sketches, five poems, a one act play, sundryessays, notes, belles letters, reviews, letters to editor and a book ofbiographical studies (Bismrita Byatikram which won him the covetedAssam Publication Board Award in 1983).

Born in Jorhat, Barkotoki spent most of his life in Guwahati withstints in Kolkata, Dacca and Shillong. He was the younger son ofRaisaheb Durgadhar Barkotoki, a Divisional Inspector of Schools.Anandaram Dhekial Phukan (1829-59), One of the architects of thenineteenth century Assamese renaissance, was his maternal greatgrand father. Munin Barkotoki married Renuka Devi Barkotoki, wellknown politician and social worker of the state.

Barkotoki began his professional career in the PublicityDepartment, Government of Assam and later become InformationOfficer in the Press Information Bureau, Govt. of India. Hesuperannuated as News Editor of AIR in 1970. He also taught in theJournalism Department of Gauhati University for several years.Barkotoki breathed his last on 6th November 1993 at his residence atPanchabati, Guwahati.

Deeply contemplative, kind-hearted and generous, Barkotoki liveda simple life not tempted by mundane quest for glory, power and profit.This is admirable and a model for us all in a world where the narrowing

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of interests is more the norm than the pursuit of knowledge beyondsafe cultural and intellectual 'comport zones'.

Text :Krishnakanta Handiqui needs no introduction to any in Assam,

though all his life he lived a cloistered life among books away fromthe public gaze, never craving for honours or encomiums. Even now,after his death, his name still rings a bell and all and sundry revere thisnoble man’s memory. We consider ourselves fortunate to have hadsuch a redoubtable scholar in our midst.

Every time I remember Krishnakanta Handiqui, that distinguishedsavant of Assam whose death anniversary falls today, I am invariablyreminded also of that remarkable book on the great German Orientalistand bibliophile Max Mueller by Nirad C. Chaudhuri, that yet supremelyreadable Indo-Anglian author. Chaudhuri called Max Mueller the‘Scholar Extraordinary’. To my mind to few others in our time nearerhome would that epithet fit more closely than to the late Handiqui.And between ‘scholar par excellence’ of our protection and ‘Scholarextraordinary’ there could be some distinction without a substantialdifference. It needs saying, however, that while ‘Scholar Extraordinary’carries the hint of much more besides scholarship, ‘scholar parexcellence’ somewhat straitjackets the accomplishments of amultifaceted, extremely human personality like that of KrishnakantaHandiqui’s. which, however, is beyond our immediate concern.

What are the criteria by which to judge scholarship or, moreunderstandably, what are the sine qua non of a true scholar? No twoopinions are likely to agree. The popular notion is that the more thebooks (or treatise as they are called in scholarly parlance) there areto one’s credit, the bigger the scholar, prima facie, KrishnakantaHandiqui, who has authored not more than three major works in hisfairly long lifetime would hardly qualify for being described as a scholar,far lessa scholar par excellence, if the number of books written wasall that mattered. Indeed, we do not in fact lack people in our midstwho tend to look askance and wonder how Handiqui managed toacquire a nearly world-wide reputation as an Indologist and Sanskritist

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on the strength of only three expository and analytical books, none ofwhich really was a tome as tomes go.

Was there anything fortuitous about it? No, and thereby hangs atale as they say: It is true that a scholar is best assessed by anotherscholar. I am no scholar, not even an academic, and as far as Handiqui’sspecialty or jurisdiction in the Sanskrit language and literature isconcerned, my ignorance is frankly abysmal. Yet if I still dare to rushinto such forbidden territory, I do so under two alibis if you will. Oneis, what does he know of Sanskrit or even Scholarship, who onlySanskrit and Scholarship knows? Secondly, although Handiqui wasan erudite Sanskrit scholar, perhaps second only to our own venerableAnundoram Borooah, he expressed himself mainly in English, in whichhe excelled in lucidity and clarity. Besides, did not Handiqui take hisMaster’s degree at Oxford in Modern History and not in Sanskritwhich he made life’s work? If that be so, there is no harm if a non-academic mere admirer and nondescript literary practitioner dares toattempts a layman’s essay on Handiqui’s stature as a scholar.

Incidentlly, it is worth remembering that K.K. Handiqui was nota professor, though he was referred to as such by every other scholarfrom outside, nor strictly an academic as he came to be universallyregarded. Still more, although any number of DLitts honoris causacame to be conferred on him by several universities, while he wasVice Chancellor, he ever remained simple Mr. Handiqui and becamenor Doctor. And history knows about the many original insights andexpositions on educational philosophy and educational administrationof this founding Vice Chancellor of Gauhati University.

Though Handiqui produced a large variety of highly scholarlydissertations and surveys, wrote numerous articles and learned reviewsof journals, contributed greatly prized introductions and prefaces tomany prestigious publications at home and abroad, in English as wellas in other European languages, delivered a number of very valuablekeyone addresses and orations as chairman of various oriental andeducational conferences and institutions like the Research Instituteand The Bhandarkar Oriental Institute, and provided invaluablechapters in several Indological and cultural anthologies andencyclopedias of India and other Asian and foreign bodies, K.K.

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Handiqui’s reputation as a classical scholar rests principally, as I havementioned earlier, on his three main publications, namely theNaisadhacarita (1934) Yasastilaka and Indian Culture (1949) and theSetubandha (1976), in that order.

While the first and the third of the three are model specimens oftranslation of ancient Sanskrit and Prakrit texts, the second Yasastilaka-is a rare example of what one classicist has called a culturalcommentary. Mind out, the translations which Handiqui undertookwere pathbreaking and trail-blazing works of its kind, although onlytranslations. So inaccessible and intractable had both Naisadha andSetubandha remained till his time that scholars had chosen to leavethem alone till then. They were as though waiting to be tackled by ascholar of Handiqui’s caliber. The mastery over literacy nuances andphilosophical intricacies embedded in the classics which Handiquidisplayed in this obscure terrain immediately landed him in the forefrontof the classical scholars of his time and simultaneously raised his statusfrom just a scholar to a scholar par excellence. But Handiqui’sscholarship would not have been half as remarkable as it came to bein fact, had he been content only to translate those two recondite yetmost ancient treatises which had long remained unattempted for theirdaunting character. Ancient yes, classical yes, yet in Handiqui’shandling they almost became present-day masterpieces to be savouredpleasurably for generations to come.

But he was not a Sanskrit scholar alone. His Yasastilaka andIndian culture, within its moderate limits, bore witness to the fact thatK.K. Handiqui was more than a scholar. He was a polymath who,grounded in the bedrock of Sanskrit and Indian culture, could not onlyrender abstruse ancient lore into luminous present day idiom, but alsodistil the quintessential wisdom of the ages in simple unclutteredlanguae.

It will be wrong, however, to suppose that Handiqui’s wideranging studies and research were confined to Sanskrit and ancientlore alone. Knowing proficiently nearly a dozen classical and modernIndian and European languages as he did, the range of his studies was

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as vast as it was deep. Moulding his scholarship on his most cherishedGerman, he was nothing if not thorough-going and penetrating in hisstudies, sparing no pains to delve deep into whatever he learned. Andit was amazing how with this characteristic itch for Germanthoroughness and comprehensiveness he could at the same time extendhis horizon to embrace art and archaeology, painting and sculpture,philosophy and religion, doctrinal Buddhism and Jainism in his stride.If he acquired mastery over the literary nuances and lexicographicalintricate of Sanskrit and Prakrit, he was equally at home in estimatingthe artistic excellences of medieval illuminated manuscripts, calligraphyas well as stylized paintings of the Rajput and Kangra schools.

Yet most of us feel at the same time that such a person and suchoutstanding scholarship deserved better recognition and greaterappreciation from the rest of the country and the outside world. TheGovernment of India was tardy and niggardly in giving Handiqui hisdue in his lifetime offering him a measly Padma Bhushan when fewdeserved a Padma Bibhushan more than him. For Handiqui’s life andwork was never limited to the confines of his own state and as ascholar his contribution, in quality if not in quantity, did much more forIndian classical scholarship and the world than for Assam or Assameselanguage and letters. A venerable rishi and jnanayogin throughout hislife, in his lifestyle and personal bearing and Oxford graduate of theearly twenties, his identity as an Assamese was almost lost andsubsumed in his Indianness.

Here was a scholar from the backwaters of Assam who couldmake a point or two on art or aesthetics with the versatie AnandaCoomaraswamy or seek clarification on some knotty problem ofphilosophy or ontology from Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. Not for nothingdid the great linguist Suniti Kumar Chatterji say ‘Handiqui was a scholarof whom India could be proud.’ And did not that great IndophileAustralian historian of the East A.L. Basham remark that Handiquiwas a ‘venerable scholar for whom he had the utmost respect’ andwish Handiqui could follow the great saint Sankardeva’s example andlive upto the age of one hundred and twenty years? Alas that was,however, not to be, and the venerable Orientalist passed away in 1982.When comes such another?

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ABOUT THE TEXT

Krishna Kanta Handiqui : Scholar Par Excellence', abiographical essay by Munin Barkotoki is about the great personalitya stalwart of Indology in India. Krishna Kanta Handiqui, a name thatdoes not need an introduction to a scholar of Indology and Sanskrit.Barkotoki has honoured the excellent academician through his essay.The man who aspired to do something that was really beyond thecapacity of a young scholar from a remote corner of India withoutsupport from technological advancements unlike today, but succeededin doing that,and consequently authored three major works. He waseducated at Cotton College (Now Cotton University) Guwahati,Sanskrit College, Calcutta, Calcutta University. It is indeed surprisingthat ‘how Handiqui managed to acquire a nearly worldwide reputationas an Indologist and Sanskritist on the strength of only three expositoryand analytical books, none of which really was a ‘tome as tomes go.’Krishna Kanta Handiqui was an erudite Sanskrit Scholar who tookMaster’s degree at Oxford in Modern History and finally become thefounding Vice Chancellor of Gauhati University, K K Handiqui, whohave presented seminal thesis in the field of Sanskrit, scholarlydissertations and surveys, wrote number of articles and learned reviewsof journals, highly prized introductions, preface to many standardpublications at home and abroad provide immense contribution to thisdomain of knowledge. Munin Barkotoki very rightly representsHandiqui interms of pedigree and upbringing is meticulously broughtto direct the outstanding mind of the man he takes as the main themeof this essay. Handiqui was himself a man of wide intellectual intereststhat comment in detail about his significant publication output the rangeof which is well-illustrated just by attending his three books theNaisadhacarita of Sriharsa a (1934), Yasastilaka and Indian culture(1944) and the Setubandha of Pravarasan (1978). These volumeshave all the hallmarks of Handiqui’s ambition, vision and intellectualcuriosity. Handiqui’s wide ranging scholarship not only confined toSanskrit and ancient lore alone but his studies was vast and knewnearly a dozen modern Indian and European languages.

Handiqui had something for more enterprising in mind. Far widerexperience at Oxford University, Paris University and Berlin University.

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After residing seven years in Europe, he returned to his home stateAssam and joined J.B. College, Jorhat as its founder Principal beforejoining Gauhati University as the founder vice-chancellor. He knownthirteen languages, eight European and five Indian languages.

Handiqui had something for more enterprising in mind, far widerin scope and of course far more interesting, he offered sections on artand archaeology, painting and sculpture, philosophy and religion,doctrinal Buddhism and Jainism and equally excellent in "medievalilluminated manuscripts, calligraphy as well as stylised paintings ofthe Rajput and Kangra schools." Barkotoki regards that such a toweringpersonality has not been given deserved recongnition and greaterappreciation from the rest of the country and the outside world. Buthe was elected as the President of Classical Sanskrit Section, XVIAll India Oriental Conference of Lucknow session and in the year1961 he was elected as the general President of the Srinagar session.The Government of India conferred him ‘Padma Bhusan’ in 1967although a scholar of his caliber deserved no less than a PadmaBibhusan. On 7th June 1982 the reputed scholar of great distinction, apioneer Indologist and a Philanthropist passed away. Barkotoki veryrightly wind up the essay posing a question ‘when comes another’?indeed Handiqui in the best sense was an administrator andphilanthropist because his writing opened new possibilities for thinking,while encouraging audiences to adopt to the broadest possible viewof the various phenomena his imagination encountered, Krishna KantaHandiqui’s account of his life by Munin Barkotoki is an interestingexample thought provoking and encouraging ‘prose’ where the variousaspects of the life of the literary doyenne is celebrated.

Word Meanings :Cloistered : Kept away from out side world,

secluded, confined

Economiums : a speech or writing with praise,recognition

All and sundry : everyone

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Savant : a learned person

Orientalist : researcher who studies the languageand culture of the east. (compareoccidentalist)

Bibliophile : a person who loves or collets booksPar excellence : best of its kindStrait jackets : restricts, limitsAccomplishment : achievementSive qua non : essential condition, absolutelynecessaryParlance : idiom, manner of speaking, way of

using words while speakingPrima facie : at first sight, based on the firstimpressionAskance : to look at with doubtIndologist : a student or scholar of Indian

philosophy, literature and history etc.Sanskritist : the one who knows SanskritExpository : serving to explain or describe

something, relating to expositionAtome : a large heavy scholarly bookFortuitous : happening by chance, co incidentalJurisdiction : authority, control, commandAbysmal : terrible, extremely bad,

immeasurableAlibis : excuses or pretext, reasonErudite : learned, know ledgeableVenerable : respected, esteemed, someone

deserving respectNondescript : very ordinary, unremarkableDissertation : a long piece of writing on a particular

sulgect to receive a formal degreethesis.

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Lucidity : fluency, eloquence

Honoris cause : awarding of a degree withoutexamination as a mark of admiration

Insight : the capacity to gain an accurate anddeep understanding of someone orsomething

Exposition : exhibition

Orations : a formal speech, lecture

Oriental : relating to Asia, especially East Asia

Path breaking : innovating, pioneering

Trail blazing : introducing new ideas

Nuances : variations

Recondite : obscure, absurd

Treatise : thesis, discourse

Daunting : something difficult to deal with

Savour : enjoy

Bedrock : fundamental principles

Abstruse : difficult to understand

Uncluttered : simple, without unnecessary things

Polymath : a person of wide knowledge orlearning

Proficiently : skillfully, effectively

Archaeology : study of ancient cultures andcivilizations

Doctrinal : concerned with a set of belief

Penetrating : having or showing clear insight,sharp

Lexicographical intricacies: relating to the detail analyzing ofword meaning and sentencestructure

Illuminated : light up, help to classify or explain

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Calligraphy : art of decorating handwriting orhand written lettering

Tardy : delayed, late, beyond the

Niggardly : ungenerously, miserly

Subsumed : absorbed in something else.

Measly : inadequate, ridiculously small

Rishi : sages or saints

Jnanayogin : one who takes the spiritual path ofwisdom

Subsumed : in clued

Backwaters : a place or situation with nodevelopment, an isolated place,remote place

Knotty : complicated, difficult

Ontology : the branch of metaphysics dealingwith the nature of being.

Possible question :1. Examine the position of K. K. Handiqui as an erudite Sanskritscholar.

2. What does Mumin Barkotoki mean by ‘Scholar par excellence’?how does the author establish K.K. Handiqui as the ‘Scholar ParExcellence’?

3. How does the author compare K.K. Handiqui with Max Muller?

4. Name the three books of K. K. Handiqui. How do they establishhis excellence as a great scholar?

5. He was a scholar from backwaters of Assam who could make apoint or two on art or aesthetics……’ . Elucidate.

6. Why does the author say that K. K. Handiqui was deprivedfrom due recognition?

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7. ‘As per popular notian, Krishnakanta Handiqui would hardlyqualify for being described as a scholar.’ Explain your understandingof the statement.

8. Give, after Munin Barkotoki, an assessment of K.K. Handiquias a scholar.

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RUNNING WATER– Rohinton Mistry

About the Author :

Rohinton Mistry is one of the most outstanding literary figures ofthe twentieth century. He is an Indian form writer belonging to theParsi community. He was born in Bombay in 1952. He developed akeen interest in the social and cultural issues of his time. RohintonMistry migrated to Canada in 1975. When Indira Gandhi declared astate of emergency in India, he settled with his family in Toronto. In1974 he took graduation from University of Bombay in Mathematics.

Setting down in Toronto, Mistry continued his literary writings.‘One Sunday’ was his first short story that brought his Prize in 1983and immediately he earned both name and fame. This led Mistry toan established literary career and after a few years, he published hismost celebrated eleven short stories entitled Tales From Firoza Baagin 1987. R. Mistry wrote tree novels- Such a Long Journey (1991), AFine Balance (1996) and Family Matters (2002). All these three novelswere so widely appreciated that brought awards. ‘Such a LongJourney’ won the Commonwealth writers Award for best book.

As an Indian writers in Canada, Mistry tried to deal with thecontemporary socio-economic issues of Indian society where a cleanpicture of diversed communities was present. In some description,Mistry is seen nostalgic of his early in Bombay.

‘Running water’ is one of his beautiful story which gives us avivid picture of the life of the people living in the remote mountainhamlet in the Himalayas of Kangra district.

TEXT :

It was still raining when we stopped outside Hotel Bhagsu. Itook my socks off the taxi’s corroded chrome door handles, wherethey had been hung to dry for almost four hours, and pulled them over

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my clammy feet. The socks were still soggy. Little rivulets ran out myshoulder bag as I squelched in to the lobby. The desk clerk watchedwith interest while I fastidiously avoided a trail of water that ran fromthe leaky umbrella stand to the door. Why, with the shoes alreadysopping wet? He must have wondered. I was not sure myself- perhapsto emphasize that I did not generally go about dripping water.

As I signed the register, shaking raindrops from my hands, thedesk clerk said that candles would be sent to my room before dark.Candles, I asked?

He had assumed I would know: “ There is a small problem.Electricity workers are on strike. “Worse, the strikers were sabotagingthe power lines. No electricity anywhere, he emphasized, in case Iwas considering another hotel : not in Upper Dharamsala, not in LowerDharamsala, nowhere in Kangra District.

I nodded, putting out my hand for the room key. But he held onto it. With that circular motion of the head which can mean almostanything, he said, “ There is one more problem.” He continued after asuitable pause : “There is no water. Because of heavy rains. Rocksfell from the mountains and broke all of the water pipes.”

He seemed surprised by the lack of emotion with which I greetedhis news. But I had already glimpsed the handiwork of the pipe-breaking avalanches during my four-hour taxi ride. The car hadlaboured hard to reach McLeod Gun), up the winding, rock-strewnmountain roads, grinding gears painfully, screeching and wheezing,negotiating segment that had become all but impassable.

Perhaps a bit disappointed by my stolidity, once again the deskclerk assured me it was the same in Upper and Lower Dharamsala,and in all of Kangra District; but management would supply two bucketsof water a day.

So there was no choice, the hotel would have to do. I requestedthe day’s quota hot, as soon as possible, for a bath. He relinquishedmy room key at last. Its brass tag had Hotel Bhagsu engraved on oneside. “ What is Bhagsu?” I asked him, picking up my bag.

“In local language, means Running Water.” he said.

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The room had an enormous picture window. The curtains, whenthrown open, revealed a spectacular view of Kangra Valley. But Icould not linger long over it, urgent matters were at hand. I unzippedthe bag and wrung out my clothes, spreading them everywhere : overthe bed, the chair, the desk, the doorknob. Wet and wretched, I satshivering on the edge of the bed, waiting for the hot water andremembering the warnings to stay away from Dharamsala while itwas in the clutches of the dreaded monsoon.

When the Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959, just hours before theChinese conducted a murderous raid on his palace in Lhasa andoccupied the country, he found refuge in India. For months afterwards,other Tibetans followed him, anxious to be with their beloved spiritualleader. The pathetic bands of refugees arrived, starving and frostbitten-the ones lucky enough to survive the gauntlet of treacherous mountainpasses, the killing cold, and, of course, chou En- Lai’s soldiers. Eacharriving group narrated events more horrific than the previous one :how the Chinese had pillaged the monasteries, crucified the Buddhistmonks, forced nuns to publicly copulate with monks before executingthem, and were now systematically engaged in wiping out all tracesof Tibetan culture.

The Dalai Lama (whose many wonderfully lyrical, euphoniousnames include Precious Protector, Gentle Glory, and Ocean of Wisdom)spent his first months of exile in anguish and uncertainty. Faced withunabating news of the endless atrocities upon the body and soul ofTibet, he eventually decided that Dharamsala was where he wouldestablish a government-in-exile. Perhaps this quiet mountain hamletin the Himalayas reminded him of his own land a ice and snow. Soon,a Tibetan colony evolved in Dharamsala, a virtual country-within-acountry. Visitors began arriving from all over the world to see Namgyal,Monastery. Tibetan Children’s Village, the Dalai Lama’s new temple.or to stud at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives.

As a child, it always struck me with wonderment and incredulitythat I should have an uncle who lived in Dharmsala. In this remotemountain hamlet he ran the business which has been in the Nowrojeefamily for five generations. To me, a thousand miles away in Bombay,

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this land of mountains and snow had seemed miraculously foreign.Photographs would arrive from time to time, of uncle and aunt andcousins wrapped in heavy woollens, standing beside three-foot-deepsnow drifts outside their home, the snow on the roof like thick icing ona cake, and the tree branches delicately lined with more of the gloriouswhite substance. And in my hot and sticky coastal city, gazing withlonging and fascination at the photograph, I would find it difficult tobelieve that such a magical place could exist in this torrid country.Now there, somewhere in the mountains, was a place of escape fromheat and dust and grime. So, to visit Dharamsala became the dream.

But for one reason or another, the trip was never taken. Thoseold photographs: snow-covered mountains and mountain trails; mycousins playing with their huge black Labrador; uncle and aunty posingin the gaddi dress of native hill people, a large hookah between them;those old black and white photographs curled and faded to brown andyellow. Years passed, the dog died, my cousins got married and settledelsewhere, and my uncle and aunt grew old. Somehow, the thousandmiles between Bombay and Dharamsala were never covered. Therewas always some logistical or financial problem, and travelling thirdclass on Indian trains was only for the foolish or the desperate.

Then, by a quirk of fate I undertook a different journey, a journeyten thousand miles long, to Canada, and I often thought about theirony of it. So this time, back in Bombay to visit family and friends,not monsoon rain nor ticket queues nor diarrhoea nor avalanches couldkeep me away from Dharamsala.

Thus twenty-eight hours by train first class brought me to ChakkiBank, in Punjab. It was pouring relentlessly as the first leg of the longjourney ended. “Rickshaw, seth, rickshaw?” said a voice a I steppedoff the train. I quickly calculated; there could be a big demand fortransportation in this weather, it might be prudent to say yes. “Yes,” Isaid, and settled the price to Pathankot bus station.

Outside, auto-rickshaws-three wheelers-were parked along thestation building in long line. Enough for everyone, I thought. They hadblack vinyl tops, and plastic flaps at the side which could be fastenedshut, I noted approvingly. I followed my man.

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And we came to the end of the line. There, he placed my bag ina pitiful cycle rickshaw, the only one amidst that reassuringly formidablesquadron of auto rickshaws. The cycle rickshaw had open sides; andold gunny sacks tied to the top of the frame formed a feeble canopy.I watched in disbelief, appalled by my bad luck, No, stupidity, I correctedmyself, for it was clear now why he had come inside the station tosolicit a fare. That should have made me suspicious. Once upon atime it would have.

The cycle rickshawalla saw my reaction. He pointed pleadinglyat the seat, and I looked him in the face, something I never shouldhave done. I am trusting you, his eyes said, not to break our contract.The auto rickshaws taunted me with their waterproof interiors as Istared longingly after them. Their owners were watching amused,certain I would cave in. And that settled it for me.

Within seconds of setting off, I was ruing my pride. The gunnysacks were as effective as a broken sieve in keeping out the rain, anddespite my raincoat I was soon drenched. The downpour saturatedmy bag and its contents-I could almost feel its weight increasing, minuteby minute. The cycle ricksawalla struggled to pedal as fast as hecould streets ankle-deep in water. His calf muscles contracted andrippled, knotting with the strain, and a mixture of pity and angerconfused my feelings. I wished the ride would end quickly.

In Pathankot, he convinced me a taxi was better than a bus inthis weather. Afterwards, I was glad I took his advice: on the mountains,buses had pulled over because the avalanches, the pipe- breakingavalanches, had made the roads far too narrow. Meanwhile, I waitedas the rickshawall and the taxi driver haggled over the former’scommission.

And four hours later I was draping my underwear, socks, shirts,and pants over the doorknob, armchair, lampshade, and window. Therewas a knock. The houseboy (who doubled as waiter, I discoveredlater in the restaurant) staggered in with two steaming plastic buckets,one red and the other blue. He looked around disbelievingly at myimpromtu haberdashery. “All wet,” I explained. He smiled and noddedto humour the eccentric occupant.

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I wondered briefly where the water in the buckets came from ifthe pipes were broken. My guess was a well. In the bathroom, Isplashed the hot water over me with a mug.

Dharamsala in a collection of settlements perched across thelower ridges of the Dhauladur range. The Dhauladur range itself is asouthern spur of the Himalaya and surrounds the Kangra Valley like asnow-capped fence. McLeod Gunj, at seven thousand feet, is one ofthe highest settlements. I had passed others on my way up by taxi;Lower Dharamsala and Kotwali Bazaar, the main commercial centrecrowded with hotels, shops, and restaurants; Forsyth Gunj, a one-street village; and, of course, the huge military cantonment, whichwas the beginning of everything, back in the British days.

Early in this century, the British were considering makingDharamsala their summer capital; they found the plains unbearable inthe hot season. But an earthquake badly damaged the place in 1905,and they chose another hill station, Simla, a bit farther south. (Later,my uncle would describe it differently: the official in charge of selectingthe capital was travelling from Dalhousie to Dharmsala when he caughtdysentery on the way, reached Dharmsala, and died. The idea ofDharmsala as summer capital was promptly abandoned.)

I wanted to see more of McLeod Gunj and Upper Dharmsala.But first I was anxious to meet my aunt and uncle. Next morning, Itelephoned them at their general store, and they thought I was callingfrom Bombay. No, I said, Hotel Bhagsu, and they insisted I comeimmediately, their place was only a five-minute walk away.

It was still drizzling. Along the side of the hotel, under every rainspout, was a plastic bucket. My red and blue were there as well. Thehouseboy was standing guard over them, watching them fill with therun-off from the roof He looked away guiltily at first when he sawme. Then he must have decided to put the best face on things, for heacknowledged me by smiling and waving. He seemed like a childcaught red-handed at mischief.

My uncle and aunty were sorry for the way my visit hand begun.“But didn’t anyone tell you? This is not a good season for Dharamsala,”

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they said, I had been warned, I admitted, but had decided to comeanyway. They found this touching, and also confusing. Never mind,Uncle said, perhaps half our troubles would soon be over: the militarycantonment had dispatched its men to find and repair the sabotagedpower lines. The only snag was, as soon as they one, the strikerssnipped through some more.

As for water, said my aunt, not to worry, their supply had notbeen affected, I could shower there.

Not affected? How? Just then, customer arrived, asking for candles.My aunt went to serve them and my uncle told the story.

During the devastation of the 1905 earthquake, the Nowrojeestore was practically the only structure that survived. Uncle’sgrandfather had handed out food and clothing and blankets from storesupplies till proper relief was organized by the British districtCommissioner wanted to show his gratitude to the family. He gifted amountain spring to them, and arranged for direct water supply fromthe spring to their house. That private pipeline was still operating aftereighty-odd years and had survived the present avalanches.

I promised I would use their shower in the evening. Then morecustomers entered, and he had to assist my aunt. Local people wereiquiring if the newspaper delivery was expected to get through toDharmsala. Foreign tourists in designer raincoats were seeking outthe study black umbrella which, locally, was the staple defense againstthe rains. The tourists were also laying in a stock of Bisleri mineralwater.

There was lull in business after his surge. My aunt suggestedthat Uncle take me around Dharmsala for a bit, she could hold thefort alone. So we set out for a walk.

At first the going was slow. Almost every person we passedstopped to exchange a few words, mainly about the weather, and whichroads were closed and which were still passable. But it was hearteningto see the Tibetan monks, in their crimson robes, always smiling joyfully.For a people who had suffered such hardships and upheavals, strugglingto start life over again in a strange land, they were remarkably cheerful

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and happy. Perhaps this, and their Buddhist faith, is what sustainedthem. They had the most wonderful beaming, smiling faces. Just liketheir spiritual leader, whom I had watched some time ago on 60 Minutes,whose countenance seems to radiate an inner well-being.

Exchanging namaskaars with everyone we met (the folded-handsgreeting, which translates into: I greet the God in you, common toHindus and Buddhists), we arrived at a tall gold, crowned structure atthe centre of a group of buildings. It was a chorten, a religiousmonument, dedicated to memory of all those suffering under Chineseoccupation in Tibet. The faithful were circling round it, spinning tworows of prayer wheels and reciting mantras.

We left the little square and the buildings which housed Tibetanhandicraft shops, restaurants, and hotels. Farther down were theTibetan homes: shacks and shanties of tin and stone, and every windowwas adorned with flowers in rusty tin cans. Faded prayer flags flutteredin the trees overhead.

The road climbed steeply. Before I knew it, the buildings and thechorten were below us. My uncle turned and pointed. There used tobe a beautiful park there, he said, at the centre of McLeod Gunj, butit had to go when the refugees came.

During our walk I gathered the idea that he loved the Tibetanpeople, and had done much to aid them. I could hear the respect andadmiration in his voice when he talked about the Dalai Lama, whomhe had helped back in 1959 to acquire suitable houses and propertieswhere the Tibetans could start rebuilding their lives. But now as myuncle told the story of Dharmsala and the arrival of refugees, I couldnot help feeling that there was also some resentment toward thesepeople who had so radically changed and remade in their own imagethe place where he was born, the place he loved so dearly. My aunt,who likes the hustle and bustle to big cities and gets her share of it byvisiting relatives periodically, said he would pine away if she everinsisted they leave Dharmsala.

We continued to climb, and on the mountain spur that dominatesthe valley rose the golden pinnacles of Thekchen Choeling, the Island

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of Mahayana Teaching, the complex which was the new residence ofthe Dalai Lama. His cottage had a green corrugated roof, and thetemple was a three-story lemon-yellow hall topped by gold spires. Ona low verandah surrounding the temple, a woman as performingrepeated prostrations. She was making a circuits of the temple,measuring her progress with her height.

We removed our shoes and went inside. The main hall had ahigh throne at one end: the Dalai Lama’s throne, on which he satwhen he gave audiences and preached. There would be no audiencesfor the next few days, though, because he was away in Ladakh todeliver the Kalachakra- Wheel of Time-Initiation. Behind the thronewas a larger-than-life statue of the Buddha in the lotus position. TheBuddha was locked in huge glass case. Myriads of precious and semi-precious stones formed a halo around the Buddha’s solid gold head.and hence the locked glass: things had changed in Dharmsala; theincrease in population and the tourist traffic forced the monks to takeprecautions.

The changes were having other effects, too. The mountain slopeswere being rapidly deforested by the poverty-stricken population’shunger for firewood. And, as elsewhere in the world, the disappearanceof trees was followed by soil erosion. My uncle had pointed out thegashed and scarred hills on our climb up. He said that so manymudslides and rockfalls were unheard of in the old days: and therewas less and less snow each year.

I thought of those photographs from my childhood. Their memorysuddenly seemed more precious than ever. The pristine place theyhad once captured was disappearing.

In side the temple, at the throne’s right, more statues weredisplayed. One of them had multiple heads and arms: Chenrezi, theawareness-being who symbolized compassion in the Tibetan pantheon.The legend went that Chenrezi was contemplating how best to workfor the happiness of all living things, when his head burst into a thousandpieces as he realized the awesome nature of the task. The Buddha ofLimitless Light restored him to life, giving him a thousand heads torepresent the all-seeing nature of his compassion, and a thousand

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arms to symbolize the omnipresence of his help. But now Chenrezi,along with other statues bedecked with gold and jewels, was lockedbehind a floor-to-ceiling collapsible steel gate.

The rain finally ceased. My uncle wished the mist would clearso he could show me Pong Lake in the distance. When the moonshone upon the water, he said, it took one’s breath away. But the mistsat over the valley, unmoving.

Descending the temple road, we saw several monks, prayerbeads in hand, walking a circular path around the complex. They weresimulating the Ligkhor, the Holy Walk circumscribing the Potala, TheDalai Lama’s palace in Tibet. Round and round they walked, praying,perhaps, for a time when he would be back in his palace, and theytreading the original Lingkhor.

Inside: the woman, making a mandala of her prostrations aroundthe temple. Outside: the monks, creating circles of prayer around theirbeloved leader’s residence. Circles within circles. The Wheel of Time.

Back at the general store, bad news awaited: the taps were dry.The Tibetan refugees (everyone, Tibetans included, used that word,despite their having lived here thirty years; perhaps clinging to thisword kept alive the hope of returning to their Land of Snows) haddiscovered that he Nowrojee pipeline still held water. They had cut itopen to fill their buckets. Strangely, my uncle and aunt were not tooupset. It had happened before. They just wished the people wouldcome to the house and fill their buckets from the taps instead of cuttingthe pipe.

Later that night, I found my way back to Hotel Bhagsu with aborrowed flashlight. My uncle accompanied me part of the way. Nearthe incline that led to the hotel, where the road forked, there was alittle lamp in an earthen pot, sitting at the very Point of divergence.How quaint, I thought. A friendly light to guide the traveller throughthe pitch-black night. But my uncle grabbed my arm and pulled meaway. He said to tread carefully to the right of the lamp, by no meansto step over it.

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What was it? Something to do with Tibetan exorcism rites, heanswered. Did he believe in such things? He had lived here too long,he said, and seen to much, to be able to disbelieve it completely. Despitemy skepticism, he succeeded in sending a shiver down my spine. Itwas only the setting, I explained to myself: a pitch-dark mountainroad, the rustling of leaves, swirling mists.

Back at the hotel, the desk clerk apologetically handed me thestubs of two candles. Dharmsala was out of candles, what remainedhad to be strictly rationed. I asked for water.

One more day, I decided, then I would leave. There was notmuch to do. The avalanches had closed the roads farther north, andthe side trips I had planned to Dalhousie, Kulu, and Manali were notfeasible. The houseboy knocked.

He was carrying the red bucket. “Where is the blue?” He shookhis head: “Sorry, not enough rain. Today only one bucket.”

The electricity was back next morning, I discovered thankfully.Around nine, I went to, the empty restaurant and ordered tea andtoast. Afflicted with a bad stomach, I had been virtually living on toastfor the past three days. The houseboy in the persona of waiter tookmy order cheerfully and left.

Thirty minutes later I was still waiting. The door markedEMPLOYEES ONLY was ajai, and I peered into the kitchen. It wasempty. The backyard beyond the kitchen window was deserted too. Iwent to the front desk. No one. Finally, I ran into the night watchman,who had jut woken. “What is going on?” I asked him with manufacturedtestiness, remembering long-forgotten roles and poses. “Waiter hasdisappeared, no one in the kitchen, no one on duty. What has happened?Is this a hotel or a joke?”

He studied his watch and thought for a moment: “Sunday today?Oh yes. Everyone is watching Ramayan. But they will come back.Only five minutes left.”

The Ramayana is one of the two great Sanskrit epics of ancientIndia. The other is the Mahabharata, which recently found its way intranslation onto Western stages in Peter Brook’s production. But when

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the Ramayana, the story of the god Rama, was made into a Hindi TVserial, Sixty million homes began tuning in every Sunday morning, andthose who did not own TVs went to friends who did. In the countryside,entire villages gathered around the community set. Before theprogramme started, people would garland the TV with fresh flowersand burn incense beside it. Classified ads in newspapers would read:Car For Sale-But Call After Ramayan. Interstate buses would makeunscheduled stops when the auspicious time neared, and woe betidethe bus driver who refused. Ministerial swearing-in ceremonies werealso known to be postponed.

The series ended after seventy-eight episodes, which, however,were not sufficient to cover the entire epic. In protest, street sweeperswent on strike and there were demonstrations in several cities. TheMinistry of Information and Broadcasting then sanctioned a furthertwenty-six episodes in order in bring Ramayan and the strike to theirproper conclusions.

But the story does not end there. Not satisfied with burningincense and garlanding their television sets on Sunday mornings, peoplebegan mobbing the actor who played the role of Rama, genuflectingwherever he appeared in public, touching his feet, asking for hisblessing. To capitalize on the phenomenon, Rajiv Gandhi’s CongressParty enlisted the actor-god to campaign for their candidate in anupcoming election. The actor-god went around telling people that Ramawould give them blessings if they voted for the Congress Party, andhow it was the one sure way to usher in the golden age of Rama’smythical kingdom of Ayodhya.

At this point, the intellectuals and political pundits sadly shooktheir sage heads, lamenting the ill-prepared state of the masses fordemocracy. Suspension of disbelief was all very well when watchingtelevision. But to extend it to real life? It showed, they said, the needfor education as a prerequisite if democracy was to work successfully.

When it was time to vote, however, the masses, despite the actor-god and the shaking heads of the intellectuals, knew exactly what to do.The Congress candidate went down in a resounding defeat, and theactor-god became sadly human again.

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My waiter returned, promising immediate delivery of my tea andtoast. I threw my hands in the air and pretended to be upset: Howlong was a person supposed to wait? Was this a hotel or a joke? Inresponse to my spurious annoyance, he affected a contrite look. Butlike me, his heart was not in it. Like the voters and the actor-god, weplayed out our roles, and we both knew what was what.

In Bombay, at the beginning of the trip, I had listened amusedlywhen told about the power of the serial. Intriguing me was the factthat what was, by all accounts, a barely passable hle production lackingany kind of depth, with embarrassingly wooden acting, could, forseventyeight weeks, hold a captive audience made up to only of Hindusbut also Muslims, Sikhs, Parsis, Christians-cutting right across thereligious spectrum. Could it be that under the pernicious currents ofcommunalism and prejudice, there were traces of something moresignificant, a yearning, perhaps, which transcended these nasty things,so that the great Sanskrit epic of ancient India, a national heritage,could belong to all Indians?

I had not expected to receive a personal demonstration of theSunday morning power that Ramayan wielded. Least of all in this faraway mountain hamlet. In a way, though, it was fitting. Everywhere,Ramayan brought diverse communities together for a short while, toshare an experience. But in Dharamsala, the native population andthe refugees have been sharing and living together for many years.Even the electricity saboteurs cooperated with the show. Of course,shortly after Ramayan the region was once again powerless.

About The Text : ‘Running water’ is short travelogue that publishedin Worst Journey : The Picador Book Travel (1991), a story storycollection edited by Keath Fraser. The narrative begins with an accountof journey to Dharamshala, the beautiful scenic hill station of KangraDistrict of Himachal Pradesh. The author in a nostalgic mood recountinghis of ascination for the hill station Dharamsala, where his uncle Mr.Nowrojee, aunt and cousins were living. The essay ‘Running water’projects its writer Rohinton Mishy as a tourist in the hill town ofDharamsala. The author narrates has he started from Delhi and

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reached Dharamsala in a rainy season. Mishy had to undertake atedious journey to travel about one thousand miles from Bombay toDharamsala via Delhi. He stayed in a Hotel named Bhogsu atDharamsala. When he boarded in the Hotel Bhagsu it was still raingingincessantly. The front office assistant of the hotel informed him thatthere would be no running water as there was no electricity and watersupply pipes were damaged by avatanches.

The desk attendant also informed for his curiosity that it was thesame condition everywhere in the city and in all of Kangra district.Moreover, the electricity workers were on strike. Mistry acceptedthe situation and confirmed in his room in the hotel. He was given twocandles and two buckets of water on everyday in the hotel.

Next day, Mistry visited his uncle’s home and M/s Nowrojeestore, the only departmental store in the locality. Mistry narrates indetail about his uncle and their contribution to the Dharamsalacommunity since the British days. They had also helped the Tibetanrefugees in establishing colony in the town. It has become the hometo numerous Tibetan refugees along with their religious head the DalaiLama. Mr. Nowrojee informed the writer that in order to escape fromChinese atrocities. Dalai Lama fled to India for shelter and settled inDharamsala in 1959. Consequently, the Tibbetan colony transformedDharamsala into a hub of Tibetan art, culture and philosophy. Mistrygave a vivid description of various temples and monasteries as wellas Tibetan exorcism rites that he witnessed during his visit. He returnedto the hotel Bhagsu late night. Power supply was restored in nextcouple of days.

On Sunday morning, the author ordered his tea, but it did notarrive even after half an hour. He came out from the room and to hisutter surprise no one in around. The night chonokida informed himthat all were busy watohing the T.V. srial ‘Ramayan’ and would beback very soon. Mistry discussed the severse impact of Ramayanaamong all sections of people in all over the country. He was littledisappointed with the whole Sunday morning episode that hasRamayan exerted the power on the people. But at the same time, heexplained that how it was successful in fostering communal harmony

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and brotherhood in the Indian society. The audience were so obsessedwith the charismatic effect of the serial that they started thinking thatthe cinematic hero were the real Rama and Sita. Few political partyeven used the actors in their political campaign but their ogjective wrenot fulfilled. Mistry, in this way indirectly put forward his sentimentthat Indian democracy is quite mature in its nature as well as dignity.Mistry’s personal experience in Dharamsala- his first journey by cyclerickshaw and his stay in the hotel Bhagsu impressed the reader ouingto the ease and realism were reflected in the manner of narration.

Word-Meanings :Linger : Hang around, loiter

Gauntlet : series of dangerous mountains.

Corroded : Something slowly being damaged bywater or rust or by chemical action.

Chrome : shard shinny metal.

Clammy : unpleasantly damp and sticky

Soggy : wet and soft

Squelched : soft sucking sound like the one producedwhile walking on soft wet ground.

Fastidiously : carefully, meticulously

Sabotage : deliberately destroy or damage somethingespecially for political or militaryadvantage.

Avalanches : a mass of snow, ice and rocks fallingrapidly down mountain side.

Handiwork : effect of any action (mostly negative)

Rock strewn : covered with scattering of rocks

Solidity : unexcitabe, lack of emotional reaction,being calm

Relinguish : give up something to others voluntarily

Enormous : very big, huge, massive

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Refugees : a person forcefully leave their owncountry in order to get rid of war, poverty,per section or natural disaster

Gauntlet : challenge, to undergo the militarypunishment of receiving blows whilerunning between two rows of men.

Pillaged : to rob a place using violence, especiallyin wartime.

Monasteries : building in which monks live and worship.

Treacherous : ground with pidden or unpredictabledanger

Copulate : have sexual inter course

Incredulity : the state of being unwilling or unable tobelieve something

Atrocities : cruel act involving physical violence orinjury

Euphonious : pleasing the ear.

Torrid : very hat and dry

Ajagmish : severe mental pain or suffering

Grime : dirt ingrained on the surface of something

Squadrom : a group of division of an admired orcavalry regiment

Casopy : a cover like a roof for shelter ordecoration, especially held up over a cyclerickshaw.

Government in Exide : in the context it refers to a politicalgroup of Tibetan which claim to be acountry. But unable to exercise its legalpower and instead in another country(India). Such a government generally plansto return to their native state one day andrestore or regain formal power.

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Taunted : provoked someone with insulting remarks

Haggled : bargained persistently, especially over thecost of something.

Impromptu : done without being planned or rehearsed

Haber dasher : men’s clothing and accessories

Wonderment : great and pleasant surprise

Hamlet : a small settlement, smaller than a village

Contorment : a military barracks or camp

Fascination : extreme interest

Dime : ten cent coin, small amount of money

Quirk : an unsual halit, something that is strangeand unexpected

Gunny : coarse sacking typically made of jute fibre

Snag : an unexpected obstacle or drawback

Sturdy : strong and peaceful

Lull : quiet and calm, gertile, lack of activity

Surge : rush forward, a sudden powerful forwardor upward movement.

Upheavals : a sudden violent movement, disturbance,commotion, sudden change

Countenance : a person’s of ace or facial expression

Crimpson : rich deep red edour

Pinnacle : highest point

Preached : deliver sermons or religious lectures to anassembled group of people

Chenreti : embodiment of compassion in Buddhism

Pantheon : al gods of a religion.

Pristine : in its original condition, unspoilt

Circumscribing : restricting something within limits

Exorcism : the expolsion of an evil spirit from a personor place through rights and rituals.

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Skepticism : disbelieve, doubts as to the truth ofsomething

Contrite : remorseful, rengretful

Possible question : 1. Who is Dalai Lama? Describe the new residence of Dalai Lamaand the temple of Buddha.

2. What are the problems that the author (Rohinton Mistry) facedafter he reached Dharamsala. GU : 2011-

3. Discuss after Rohinton Mistry, how Dharamsala was affected bythe arrival Tibetan fefuges. GU : 2012

4. How according to the author of 'Running Water', did the televisionserial 'Ramayana' affect life? GU: 2011

Or

What response did the author playing the role of Rama get fromthe public and voters?

Or

Describe a briefly 'Ramayana's effect on the people? GU : 2011-2013

5. Write the description of the author's Journey to Dharmsala

6. What the problems that the Rohinton Mistry faced after he reachedDharamsala? GU : 2011-

Or

Describing the author's experience at Dharamsala.

7. Describe the story before the author met his uncle and aunt.

8. Describe the meeting between his Uncle and Aunt.

9. Describe what the author saw in the Dharmsala.

10. Why as the author attracted by Dharamsala? Did it remain samewhen he went there?

11. Describe Rohinton Mistry's experiences in his journey fromBombay till he reaches Hotel Bhagsu. GU: 2013

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Or

Narrate the experience of Rohintone Mistry in Hotel Bhagus.GU : 2012

Briefly describe the author's stay at Hotel Bhagsu.

Or

Describe the meeting between the author and the desk clerk ofthe Hotel Bhagsu. GU : 2012-2013

12. Discuss the title of the Story Running Water by Rohinton Mistry.

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ANGULIMALA– Michael Ondaatje

About the Author : Michael Ondaatje is one of the reputed writersin the current century. He was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka 1943,when the world war II had been keeping its undaunted place. At theage of ten, he had to move to England with his mother, brother andsister in the year 1952. He took his B.A. degree from the Universityof Toronto, Canada, in 1965 and ten received his M.A. from Queens’University in 1967.

Ondaatje literary career started with poetry. He published hispoetry book entitled “Daisy Monsters” in 1967. He was successfulpoet in his exquisite style, fragmented consciousness and juxtapositionof unlike image. His another poetry collection the Collected Works ofBilly the Kid” was published in 1970. Making a shift to the work offiction, his first novel Comin Through Slaughter was published in 1976.This was followed by In the skin of a Lion (1987). Ondaatje wroteseveral Hollywood screen plays which include “The Clinton Special”,“Son of Captain Poetry” and “Carry on Crime and Punishment”.

Ondaatje won many prestigious prizes and awards for his bestliterary activities. The awards include the “Ralph Gustafson Awards”.The ‘Epstein Award’. “The Canadian Governor General’s Award”for literature and above all the booker Prize.

TEXT :The fletcher trims the arrow shaft.

Water carriers guide a river through gardens

and through places of drought.

The carpenter shapes wood.

The wise one tames the self.

The Buddha was teaching in Savatthi-that great grey city with a

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hundred gates and a hundred guards. In the region at that time therewere known to be two rulers: there was the King, and there was thethief-Angulimala-a vicious robber, a murderer without mercy, whomade villages into non-villages, families into non-families, slaughteringthem and cutting off and wearing their fingers in wreaths round hisneck. (Angulimala means “a garland of fingers.”)

Each day the Buddha taught in the town and slept on the outskirtsoverlooking the plain. One day he decided to travel through the countrythat he saw every morning when he wakened. As he was leaving,people kept stopping him-cowherders, cigarette makers, localpublishers, municipal guards, goatherders, bandicoot trappers, someloose women some loose men.

“No. No no. No no, sir, not this way, dear Holy One, down theroad is the bloody-handed thief, the murderer. He has made villagesinto non-villages, turned towns into non-towns, and families intononfamilies. He murders them all and wears their fingers around hisneck. If people travel they travel in large groups. And sometimeseven these ones fall into his hands.”But the Holy One ignored them.

Later stilt-walkers, potters, lime-burners, out-of-work politicians,other goatherders warned him.

“He has made villages into non-villages, he has-”

“Yes, yes,” the Holy One said and went on.

He carried his bowl. He was wearing just his robe. And no onewent with him. When he left the edge of the plain and stepped into theforest he was approached by ancient hermits as he passed their caves.Some recluses who disliked sunlight and stepping on roads cametowards him with difficulty.

“He has turned families into non-families.....,” they moaned,vaguely remembering their families with sentiment. “He even wearstheir fingers has sewn them into a coat! A coat of fingers! Excuseme, Your Holiness. But Angulimala means ‘a garland of fingers!’ ”

“Ah yes,” the Holy One said and persuaded them away andwent on.

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As the Buddha crested the hill above the plain of Kosala,Angulimala saw him. He stood in the shadow of his trees.

He thought to himself, “Usually I am approached by armed groupswho think they can protect each other. Twenty, even forty, traveltogether, and even then I overpower them and murder them one byone. Just last week I murdered the Completely stupid Teacher and hisFour Foolish Disciples. But this foolish monk ambles alone, bravely,as if he were a conqueror in disguise, a king, a planetary stranger. Ithink I’ll kill him.”

He took a sword, a bow and arrow, and began to follow him.

But the monk seemed to always stay ahead, magically. He couldnot be overtaken, no matter how fast the murderer walked or evenran. He seemed to be just ambling along, carrying his bowl, holdingthe hem of his robe to avoid the dust.

“Remarkable!” said Angulimala to himself, feeling suddenly veryalone. “I have caught elephants, deer, horses, even that group ofacrobats from the circus, but I cannot overtake this damn monk!”

So he gave up. He stood there and yelled. “STAND STILLWILL YOU! STAND STILL. I WANT TO TALK TO YOU!”

The monk turned.

“I am standing still, Angulimala, so why don’t you stand still.”

“But that monk is walking,” Angulimala thought to himself. “He’swalking and he says he’s standing still. What the hell is he up to?These monks are supposed to be truth tellers.”

He yelled back, “What the hell do you mean?”

“I am standing still, Angulimala. I’ve abandoned the use of forceagainst living things. You act against the living without any restraint,racing after this, racing after that. You are always trying to catch upand turn living things into ghosts. You never stop. I am standing stilland you are not. You chase and kill even in your dreams while theworld around you moves at a quarter of the speed you do, and so youwill die far sooner than the world around you.”

The words pierced Angulimala and he was still. At last a speaker

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of truth had entered his forest. This was a great and sudden journey,surrounded by silence, like a stone falling and falling into a well.

“I will bury my evil,” he said quietly to himself.

He dug a pit and covered his sword and all the other weapons.Then he approached the Holy One he bowed low to him and touchedhis feet.

He asked how he could serve him and how he could some daybecome a disciple. And Buddha, the Compassionate One, the teacherof the visible and the invisible worlds, said, “Come then.... monk.”

And so the slayer of villagers and pilgrims and families becamea monk. The tow or them travelled on together, Angulimalaaccompanying the Master. When they returned to the outskirts of thetown of Savatthi, Angulimala said farewell.

He returned to the forest and lived there alone. He had an oldrobe and a bowl and sometimes he would enter the city to beg foraims. He becomes aware for the first time of the suffering aroundhim. He witnessed the poor and those without homes, those in pain,the fear in young children. He saw the victims of political wars andbrutality. He was discovering how tormented we are.

The next time he entered the town for alms he was recognized.A thrown rock hit him in the chest. Someone else flung a piece ofmetal at him. Then others were throwing sharp flakes a piece ofpottery towards him so his, face and feet were badly cut. They rushedat him and beat him and tore the robe he wore into pieces. Theysmashed his bowl and then they began to break his fingers until hefainted there on the street. They threw dead animals over him andtried to bury him in the corpses of dogs and birds. They spat at himand pissed on him and left him there like that.

He woke up in the darkness with a crow’s beak jammed againsthis mouth. It was hours later. There was no one in sight, no light. Hecould sense the still pulses of the animals that covered him. He pulledhimself out of the mire of bodies, unburied himself, and he walked outof the city.

As he entered the forest he saw the Holy One and he half crepttowards him in pain and humiliation. He was embarrassed to approach

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him like this. He sat some yards away from him, bleeding, his robes inrags, facing his Master. His Master smiled at him. And then evenchuckled with him. And finally spoke.

“Endure it, Noble One. Your past evils which would have drivenyou towards hundreds of years in dark and airless hells have beenbriefly experienced by you, here and now.”

Then the Holy One the man who had been a murderer to hisfeet and walked with him till they found a river and he bathed him. Hegave the murderer his own robe and his begging bowl and he left himthere. Angulimala came in this way to understand the joy of freedom.And, in the stillness that surrounded him, these verses came to him.And he began to sing.

The fletcher trims the arrow shaft.Water carriers guide a river through gardensand through places of drought.The carpenter shapes wood.The wise one tames the self.Some control with sticks,some with money and guile,but with none of theseWas I tamed by Him.I was a thief.I was the Violent One.notorious as “Garland of Fingers.”I was the Great Flood.I had a future of a thousand evil rebirthswhen I came to the Buddha for refuge.I had performed acts of such terror.But now I move in the freedomof spiritual carefulness.So we completethe Buddha’s teaching.

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About the Text :

Word-meaning :Vicious – faulty, unruly

Mercy – kindness

Sloughtering – killing ruthlessly

Wreath – garland, wreathe

Out skirts – the borders

Bloody – handed

Ignored – neglected

Warned – cautioned

Tame – control

Holy one – almighty

Persuaded – caused to believe

Crested – to adorn with a crest

Usually – generally

Kosala – name of a countr

Thought – think, Protect

stupid – non-sense

Ambling – to move at easy pace

Over power – subdue

Conqueror – one who conquers

Remarkable – strange

Still – quiet

Truth teller – astrologer

Suddenly – allone a sudden

Yelled – loudly, Compassionate

Bawed low – proved, Pilgrim, Victim;

Pulled out – drew

Rags – worn out cloth, Clucked

Verses – lines of poetry

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Guile – deceit

Notorious – wicked

Evil – not good

Evil rebirth – opposite to good rebirth

Refuge – shelter

Great flood – big flood

Brutality – cruel

Rought – want to rain over a prolonged period

Trims – to make neat and tidy

Bowl – a deep round hollow dish, Robe

Shaft – edge

Ancient – old

Recluse – monk, Alms

Witness – saw

Tormented – tortured, Burg

Corpses – dead bodies

Spat – past tense of spit

Slayer– killer

Humiliation – feeling disrespect

Possible question :1. Narrate the way Angulimala was consoled by Buddha.GU: 2013

2. (i) What did the people of the city of Savatthi tell Buddha?

(ii) What did the hermits and recluses tell the Buddha?

3. (i) Who was Angulimala ? Why was he called so ?

(ii) Describe the feelings of Angulimala when he became thedisciple of Buddha.

4. Write a brief note on the trasformation of Angulimala from arobber to a pious man.GU: 2011

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5. Write what happened when the Buddha entered into the forest.

6. “Stand still. Will you? I stand still. I want to talk to you”.

(i) Who said this:

(ii) Who is ‘you’ referred to here?

(iii) Why did the speaker say so?

7. He has made villages into non-villages, turned towns into non-towns and families into non-families. Elucidate.

8. What is the source of the story? Briefly describe how the viciousrobber Angulimala came to understand to joy of freedom.

9. Give a description of how Angulimala was transformed into amonk. Write down the changes in his character. GU: 2012

Or

How did Buddha succeed in converting Angulimala?

10. Narrate the story ‘Angulimala’ in your own word.

11. Describe how the Buddha succeeded in transforming Angulimalafrom robber to a piousman.

12. Describe how the Buddha encounters the murderer in the woods.

13. “I am standing still, Angulimala so why don’t you stand still? Butthat monk is walking”– Explain.

14. “I will bury my evil.”

(a) Who said this and to whom”

(b) Describe in which circumstances the speaker said so.

15. Describe how Angulimala’s mind changed and he wanted tobecome the disciple of the Buddha.

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GOOD ADVICE IS RARER THAN RUBIES- Salman Rushdie

About the Author : Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie FRSL was born on19th June, 1947 in Mumbai into a Kashmir Muslim family permanentlysettled in United Kingdom and got citizenship of United States too.His father Anis Rushdie a Cambridge educated lawyer turnedbusinessman formally an Indian Civil Services (ICS) officer and motherNegin Bhatt, a school teacher. Salman Rushdie was educated atCathedral and John Cannon School in Bombay, Rugby school inWarwickshire and Kings college, University of Cambridge where hestudied history. Before becoming a full time writer Rushdie workedas a copy writer for the advertising agency ‘Ogilvy & Mother’. Hisfirst novel, Grinus (1975) a science fiction had got less attention butthe second one Midnights children (1981) was a major success as thework won the 1981 Booker Prize. Rushdie’s other novels are Shame(1983). The Moor’s Last Sigh (1995) The Giround Beneath her feet(1999), Fury (2001), Shalimar and Clown (2005), The Enthentesessof Florounce (2008), Two years Eight months and twenty eight nights(2015), The Golden house (2017), Collection East west (1994),Marriwork : 50 years of Indian writing 1947-1997 (Editor, with Elizabethwest), The best American shat stories (2005, Guest editor), His childrenbooks are Haroun and the Sea of stories (1990). Luka and the Five ofLive (2010), Essays and non fiction includes the Jaguar smile : ANicaraguan journey (1987). The Good faith, granta (1990), ImaginaryHomelands : Essays and criticism, 1981-1991 (1992), The Wizard ofOz : BFI film classics, BFI, (1992), Mohandas Gandhi (1998), ImagineThere Is no heaven (1999), Step across his line (2002), The east isBhu (2004), A five pickle, the guardian (2009), In the South ‘Booktrack’(2012) Joseph antan : A memoir (2012). . His works of post colonialliterature are characterized by literacy style of magic realism andimmigrant sensibility as member of the Kashmiri diaspora. He wrotenon fiction Nicarogua (1987) and most controversial work The Satanic

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Verses (1988) created immediate controversy in the Islamic worldcharged with irreverent depiction of Muhammad. On February, 14,1989 a ‘fatwa’ ordering Rushdie’s execution was proclaimed/ declaredon Radio Tehran by Ayatollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of Iran atthe time referring the book ‘blasphemous against Islam’. Rushdie wasawarded knighthood for contribution to literature in the Queen’sbirthday honours on 16th June, 2007. In 1989, in an interview followingthe fatwa. He said that he was in a sense a lapsed Muslim, though‘Shaped by Muslim culture more than any other’, and a student ofIslam. He added, ‘My point of view is that of a secular human being.I donot believe in supernatural entites, whether Christian, Jewish,Muslim or Hindu.’

Text :On the last Tuesday of the month, the dawn bus, its headlamps

still shining, brought Miss Rehana to the gets of the British Consulate.It arrived pushing a cloud of dust, veiling her beauty from the eyes ofstrangers until she descended. The bus was brightly painted inmulticoloured arabesques, and on the front it said‘MOVE OVERDARLING’ in green and gold letters, on the back it added ‘TATA-BATA’ and also ‘O.K. GOOD-LIFE’. Miss Rehana told the driver itwas a beautiful bus, and he jumped down and held the door open forher, bowing theatrically as she descended.

Miss Rehana’s eyes were large and black and bright enough notto need the help of antimony, and when the advice expert MuhammadAli saw them he felt himself becoming young again. He watched herapproaching the Consulate gates as the light strengthened and askingthe bearded lala who guarded them in a gold-buttoned khaki uniformwith a cockaded turban when they would open. The lala, usually sorude to the Consulate’s Tuesday women, answered Miss Rehana willsomething like courtesy.

The dusty compound between the bus stop and the Consulatewas already full of Tuesday women, some veiled, a few barefacedlike Miss Rehana. They all looked frightened, and leaned heavily onthe arms of uncles or brothers, who were trying to look confident. Butmiss Rehana and come on her own, and did not seem at all alarmed.

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Muhammad Ali, who specialized in advising the most vulnerablelooking of these weekly supplicants, found his fee leading him towardsthe strange, big-eyed, independent girl.

‘Miss,’ he began. ‘You have come for permit to London, I thinkso?’

She was standing at a hot snack stall in the little shanty town bythe edge of the compound, munching chilli-pakoras contentedly. Sheturned to look at him, and at close range those eyes did bad things tohis digestive tract.

‘Yes, I have.’

‘Then, please, you allow me to give some advice? Small costonly.’

Miss Rehana smiled. ‘Good advice is rarer than rubies,’ shesaid. But alas, I cannot pay. I am an orphan, not one of your wealthyladies.’

‘Trust my grey hairs,’ Muhammad Ali urged her.

‘My advice is well tempered by experience. You will certainlyfind it good.’

She shook her said. ‘I tell you I am a poor potato. There arewomen here with male family members, all earning good wages. Goto them. Good advice should find good money.’

I am going crazy, Muhammad Ali thought, because he heard hisvoice telling her of its own volition. ‘Miss I have been drawn to youby Fate. What to do? Our meeting was written. I also am a poor manonly, but for you my advice comes free.’

She smiled again. ‘Then I must surely listen. When Fate sends agift, one receives good fortune.’

He led her to the low wooden desk in his own special corner ofthe shanty town. She followed, continuing to eat pakoras from a littlenewspaper packet. She did not offer him any.

Muhammad Ali put a cushion on the duty ground. ‘Please to sit.’She did as he asked. He sat cross-legged across the desk from her,conscious that two or three dozen pairs of male eyes were watching

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him enviously, that all the other shanty-town men were ogling thelatest young lovely to be charged by the old grey –hair fraud. He tooka deep breath to settle himself.

‘Name, please.’

‘Miss Rehana, she told him. ‘Finance of Mustafa Dar ofBradford, London.’

‘Bradford, England,’ he corrected her gently. London is a townonly, like Multan or Bhawalpur. England is a great nation full of thecoldest fish in the world.’

‘I see. Thank you,’ she responded gravely, so that he was unsureif she was making fun of him.

‘You have filled application form? Then let me see, please.’

She passed him a neatly folded document in a brown envelope.

‘Is it OK?’ for the first time there was a note of anxiety in hervoice.

He patted the desk quite near the place where her hand rested.‘I am certain,’ he said. ‘Wait on and I will check.’

She finished the pakoras while he scanned her papers.

‘Tip-top’ he pronounced at length. ‘All in order’.

‘Thank you for your advice,’ she said, making as if to rise, ‘I’llgo now and wait by the gate.’

‘What are you thinking?’ he cried loudly, smiting his forehead.‘You consider this is easy business? Just give the form and proof,with a big smile they hand over the permit? Miss Rehana, I tell you,you are entering a worse place than any police station.’

‘Is it so, truly?’ his oratory had done the trick. She was a captiveaudience now, and he would be able to look at her for a few momentslonger.

Drawingn another calming breath, he launched into his set speech.He told her that the sahibs thought that all the women who came onTuesdays, claiming to be dependents of bus drivers in Luton orchartered accountants in Manchester, were crooks and liars andcheats.

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She protested, ‘But then I will simply tell them that I, for one, amno such thing.’

Her innocence made him shiver with fear for her. She was asparrow, he told her, and they were men with hooded eyes, like hawks.He explained that they would ask her questions, personal questions,questions such as a lady’s own brother would be too shy to ask. Theywould ask if she was virgin, and, if not, what her finance’s love makinghabits were, and what secret nicknames they had invented for oneanother.

Muhammad Ali spoke brutally, on purpose, to lessen the shockshe would feel when it, or something like it, actually happened. Hereyes remained steady, but her hands began to flutter at the edges ofthe desk.

He went on :

‘They will ask you how many rooms are in your family homeand what colour are the walls, and days do you empty the rubbish.They will ask your man’s mother’s third cousin’s aunt’s step-daughter’smiddle name. and these things they have already asked your MustafaDar in his Bradford. And if you make one mistake, you are finished.’

‘Yes,’ she said, and he could hear her disciplining her voice.‘And what is your advice old man?’

It was at this point that Muhammad Ali usually began to whisperurgently, to mention that he knew a man, a very good type, who workedin the Consulate, and through him for a fee, the necessary paperscould be delivered, with all the proper authenticating seals. Businesswas good, because the women would often pay him five hundredrupees or give him a gold bracelet for his pains, and go away happy.

They came from hundreds of miles away- he normally madesure of this before beginning to trick them- so even when theydiscovered they had been swindled they were unlikely to return. Theywent away to Sargodha or Lalukhet and began to pack, and whoknows at what point they found out they had been gulled, but it was atoo-late point, anyway.

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Life is hard, and an old man must live by his wits. It was not upto Muhammad Ali to have compassion for these Tuesday women.

But once again his voice betrayed him, and instead of startinghis customary speech it began to reveal to her his greatest secret.

‘Miss Rehana,’ his voice said, and he listened to it in amazement,‘you are a rare person, a jewel, and for you I will do what I would notdo for my own daughter, perhaps.

Once document has come into my possession that can solve allyour worries at one stroke.’

‘And what is this sorcerer’s paper?’ she asked, her eyesunquestionably laughing at him now.

His voice fell low as low.

‘Miss Rehana, it is a British passport. Completely genuine andpukka goods. I have a good friend who will put your name and photo,and then, hey presto, England there you come!’

He had said it!

Anything was possible now, on this day of this insanity. Probablyhe would give her the thing free gratis, and then kick himself for ayear afterwards.

Old fool, he berated himself. The oldest fools are bewitched bythe youngest girls.

‘Let me understand you,’ she was saying. ‘You are proposing Ishould commit a crime….’

‘Not crime,’ he interposed,. ‘Facilitation.’

‘…. And go to Bradford, Londong, illegally and therefore justifythe low opinion the Consulate sahibs have of us all. Old babuji, this isnot good advice.’

‘Bradford, England, he corrected her mournfully. ‘You shouldnot take my gift in such a spirit.’

‘Then how?’

“Bibi, I am a poor fellow, and I have offered this prize becauseyou are so beautiful. Do not spit on my generosity. Take the thing. Or

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else don’t take, go home, forget England, only do not go into thatbuilding andlose your dignity.’

But she was on her feet, turning away from him, walking towardsthe gates, where the women had begun to cluster and the lala wasswearing at them to be patient or none of them would be admitted toall.

‘So be a fool, Muhammad Ali should after her.’ ‘What goes ofmy father’s if you are?’ (Meaning, what was it to him.)

She did not turn.‘It is the curse of our people,’ he yelled. ‘We are poor, we are

ignorant, and we completely refuse to learn.’‘Hey, Muhammad Ali,’ the woman at the betel-nut stall called

across to him. ‘She likes them young.’That day Muhammad Ali did nothing but stand around near the

Consulate gates. Many times he scolded himself, Go from here, oldgoof, lady does not desire tospeak with you any further. But when shecame out, she found him waiting.

‘Salaam, advice wallah,’ she greeted him.She seemed calm, and at peace with him again, and he thought,

My God, ya Allah, she has pulled it off. The British sahibs also havebeen drowning in her eyes and she has got her passage to England.

He smiled at her hopefully. She smiled back with no trouble atall.

‘Miss Rehana Begun,’ and said, ‘felicitations, daughter, on whatis obviously your hour of triumph.’

Impulsively, she took his forearm in her hand.‘Come,’ she said, ‘Let me buy you a pakora to thank you for

your advice and to apologise for my rudeness, too.’They stood in the dust of the afternoon compound near the bus,

which was getting ready to leave. Coolies were tying bedding rolls tothe roof. A hawker shouted at the passengers, trying to sell them lovestories and green medicines, both of which cured unhappiness. MissRehana and a happy Muhammad Ali are their pakoras sitting on thebus’s front mudguard,’ that is, the bumper. The old advice expert begansoftly to hum a tune from a movie soundtrack. The day’s heat wasgone.

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‘It was an arranged engagement,’ Miss Rehana said all at once.‘I was nine years old when my parents fixed it. Mustafa Dar wasalready thirty at that time, but my father wanted someone who couldlook after me as he had done himself and Mustafa was a man knownto Daddyji as a solid type. Then my parents died and Mustafa Darwent to England and said he would send for me. That was manyyears ago. I have his photo, but he is like a stranger to me. Even hisvoice, I do not recognize it on the phone.’

The confession took Muhammad Ali by surprise, but he noddedwith what he hoped looked like wisdom.

‘Still and after all,’ he said, ‘one’s parents act in one’s bestinterests. They found you a good and honest man who has kept hisword and sent for you. And how you have a lifetime to get to knowhim, and to love.’

He was puzzled, now, by the bitterness that had infected hersmile.

‘But, old man,’ she asked him, ‘why have you already packedme and posted me off to England?’

He stood up, shocked.

‘You looked happy – so I just assumed… excuse me, but theyturned you down or what?’

‘I got all their questions wrong,’ she replied ‘Distinguishing marksI put on the wrong cheeks, bathroom décor I completely redecorated,all absolutely tapsy-turvy, you see.’

‘But what to do? How will you go?’

‘Now I will go back to Lahore and my job. I work in a greathouse, as ayah to three good boys. They would have been said to seeme leave.’

‘But this is tragedy!’ Muhammad Ali lamented. ‘Oh, how I praythat you had taken up my offer! Now, but, it is not possible, I regret toinform. Now they have your form on file, cross check can be made,even the passport will not suffice.

‘It is spoilt, all spoilt, and it could have been so easy if advice hadbeen accepted in good time.’

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‘I do not think,’ she told him, ‘I truly do not think you should besad.’

Her last smile, which he watched from the compound until thebus concealed it in a dust-cloud, was the happiest thing he had seen inhis long, hot, hard, unloving life.

About the text : Good advice is Rarer than Rubies’ is taken fromRushdies anthology of shant stories East West (1994) where the authorindicates the central Ivory in the story. The story is set in a traditionalPakistani society. The main characters poses some challenges totraditional custom. The story reflects on cultural differences betweenScandinavian culture and that of Pakistan as explained in the text.The text starts with Miss Rehana, a beautiful woman who has arrivedat the British consulate in Pakistan, to apply for a visa to the UK. Herbeauty attracts everybody’s attention. There she encounters a mannamed Muhammed Ali who convience naïve women who seek visasthat he has links inside the embarsy, and that, for a free he can ensureVisa illegally. Fascinated by his beauty, Muhammad Ali cheeks herpapers and finds out that she is at the Embassy to get a permit to go toher finance in Bradford, England. Finding her papers are in order, hewarns her that the clerks in the Embassy will ask her private sensitivequestion about her relationship. Miss Rehana might be ashamed toanswer and one mistake will disqualify her. Rehana appears to benervous when she learns about the questioning. However Muhammedis so enchanted by Miss Rehana that he forces his usual scam andoffers her one genuine British passport for free. However, Miss Rehanareproaches him for his kindness. Although he insists that without thepassport she won’t be able to visit to England, Miss Rehana movesaway and back towards the entrance of the Embassy.

Muhammed Ali spends the whole day waiting for her, when shecomes out of the Embassy, she seems calm. He guess that she got apermit Rehana shakes Muhammed Ali’ s hand and offers to buy him apakora to apologise for her abnormal behavior. Rehana tells the storyof her engagement. It was taken place when she was nine years oldand her finance Mustafa Dar thirty. Mustafa went to England just

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after the engagement promising to send for her finance. Rehana doesnot know anything about Mustafa. Mustafa is a stronger to Rehanaand the arrangement is circumstancial not of her choice.

Miss Rehana answered all the questions wrong at the Embassy.Muhammed Ali starts to lament what he thinks is a tragedy but MissRehana comments that he shouldn’t feel sorry about it. the story dealswith various themes such as postcolonialism, migration, gender, traditionand power. Miss Rehana, the protagonist of the story represents themarginal character of the society. She is a poor woman. The title isironical. The word rubies situates the story in the East which in Westernimagination is full of exotic riches. The story questions on thesuperiority of the West over the East. Rushdie conveys that living inEngland doesn’t necessarily mean the liberation from narrowtraditions. Living with her finance in England whom she never metbefore would relegate her to an inferior status. Rushdie very prignantlysubverts our preconceptions of the west as free and liberal and theeast as conservative and narrow.

Miss Rehana is happy because she did not get her passage toEngland on the other hand Muhammed Ali completely misunderstandher. Even the reader is also not clear and befooled into believing thatshe wants to go to England until the very end of the story. Rushdieswith his sparkling unit, conveys through Rehana’s expression abouther arranged engagement with Mustafa Dar, a relatively aged finance.Rushdie very succinctly brings to the force questions of identity, politicsand corruption in a degraded environment and shows that neither thewest nor the east are comparatively better it all depends on thecircumstances. The doctrine that knowledge, truth and morality existsin relation to culture, society or historical context, and are not absolutewhich flies in the face of both colonialism and nationalism.

Word Meanings :Rare - not occurring very often, infrequent

Arabesques - an ornamental design originally found inancient Islamic ast.

Gruffly - rough or surly in manner, speech.

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Shanty - a small, endely build shack.

Volition - the faculty or power of using one’s will, thepower of taking one’s own decisions.

Ogling - in a lecherous manner

Crooks - a dishonest man or a criminal.

Fopsy turby - upside down.

Possible question :1. Attempts a character sketch of Miss Rehana.

2. How Rushdie represent the identity, politics and corruption inthe society through the short story ‘Good advice is Rare than Rubies’.

3. Sketch the character of Muhammed ali.

4. Discuss how the story portrays the cultural differences of bothEast and west.

5. Comment on the common understanding of the people of theeast that superiority of the west over the east with reference to thestory.