Kim

“ Kim drew a deep breath and hugged himself all over. The nickel-plated revolver he could feel in the bosom of his sad-coloured robe, the amulet was on his neck; begging-gourd, rosary, and ghost-dagger (Mr. Lurgan had forgotten nothing) were all to hand, with medicine, paint-box, and compass, and in a worn old purse-belt embroidered with porcupine quill-patterns lay a month's pay. Kings could be no richer. He bought sweetmeats in a leaf-cup from a Hindu trader, and ate them with glad rapture till a policeman ordered him off the steps. ”

“ The stupid body is spent, and we are far from the Plains.'
'Behold!' she said simply, and drew aside to let Kim see his own utter helplessness. 'Curse me. May be it will give him strength. Make a charm! Call on thy great God. Thou art a priest.' She turned away.
The lama had squatted limply, still holding by the door-post. One cannot strike down an old man that he recovers again like a boy in a night. Weakness bowed him to the earth, but his eyes that hung on Kim were alive and imploring.
'It is all well,' said Kim. 'It is the thin air that weakens thee. In a little while we go! ”

“ After long, sweet sleep under the dry stars came the lordly, leisurely passage through a waking village—begging-bowl held forth in silence, but eyes roving in defiance of the Law from sky's edge to sky's edge. Then would Kim return soft-footed through the soft dust to his master under the shadow of a mango tree or the thinner shade of a white Doon siris, to eat and drink at ease. At mid-day, after talk and a little wayfaring, they slept; meeting the world refreshed when the air was cooler. ”

“ Kim lit a rank cigarette—he had been careful to buy a stock in the bazar—and lay down to think. This solitary passage was very different from that joyful down-journey in the third-class with the lama. “Sahibs get little pleasure of travel,” he reflected. “Hai mai! I go from one place to another as it might be a kickball. It is my Kismet. No man can escape his Kismet. But I am to pray to Bibi Miriam, and I am a Sahib.” He looked at his boots ruefully. “No; I am Kim. This is the great world, and I am only Kim. Who is Kim?” ”

“ Half an hour later, as the creaking litter jolted up the hill path that leads south-easterly from Shamlegh, Kim saw a tiny figure at the hut door waving a white rag.
'She has acquired merit beyond all others,' said the lama. 'For to set a man upon the way to Freedom is half as great as though she had herself found it.'
'Umm,' said Kim thoughtfully, considering the past. 'It may be that I have acquired merit also. ”

“ It was equally beautiful to watch the people, little clumps of red and blue and pink and white and saffron, turning aside to go to their own villages, dispersing and growing small by twos and threes across the level plain. Kim felt these things, though he could not give tongue to his feelings, and so contented himself with buying peeled sugar-cane and spitting the pith generously about his path. From time to time the lama took snuff, and at last Kim could stand the silence no longer.
'This is a good land—the land of the South!' said he. 'The air is good; the water is good. ”

“ Kim had had many dealings with Mahbub in his little life,—especially between his tenth and his thirteenth year,—and the big burly Afghan, his beard dyed scarlet with lime (for he was elderly and did not wish his gray hairs to show) , knew the boy's value as a gossip. Sometimes he would tell Kim to watch a man who had nothing whatever to do with horses: to follow him for one whole day and report every soul with whom he talked. ”

“ I am Kim. And what is Kim?' His soul repeated it again and again.
He did not want to cry,—had never felt less like crying in his life,—but of a sudden easy, stupid tears trickled down his nose, and with an almost audible click he felt the wheels of his being lock up anew on the world without. Things that rode meaningless on the eyeball an instant before slid into proper proportion. Roads were meant to be walked upon, houses to be lived in, cattle to be driven, fields to be tilled, and men and women to be talked to. ”

“ Hai mai! But I love thee ... and it is all too late ... I was a child ... Oh, why was I not a man? ...” Overborne by strain, fatigue, and the weight beyond his years, Kim broke down and sobbed at the lama’s feet.
“What a to-do is here!” said the old man gently. “Thou hast never stepped a hair’s breadth from the Way of Obedience. Neglect me? Child, I have lived on thy strength as an old tree lives on the lime of a new wall. Day by day, since Shamlegh down, I have stolen strength from thee. Therefore, not through any sin of thine, art thou weakened. ”

“ He will then say: "What proof hast thou?" and thou wilt answer: "Mahbub All has given me the proof."'
'And all for the sake of a white stallion,' said Kim, with a giggle, his eyes aflame.
'And that pedigree I will give thee now—in my own fashion—with some hard words as well.' A shadow passed behind Kim, and a feeding camel. Mahbub Ali raised his voice.
'Allah! Art thou the only beggar in the city? Thy mother is dead. Thy father is dead. So is it with all of them. ”

“ The Lama and Kim walked a little to one side; Kim chewing his stick of sugar-cane, and making way for no one under the status of a priest.
The life of the parao was very like that of the Kashmir Serai on a small scale. Kim dived into the happy Asiatic disorder which, if you only allow time, will bring you everything that a simple man needs. ”

“ Most men had eaten and pulled deep at their gurgling, grunting hookahs, which in full blast sound like bull-frogs.
At last the lama returned. A hillman walked behind him with a wadded cotton-quilt and spread it carefully by the fire.
“She deserves ten thousand grandchildren,” thought Kim. “None the less, but for me, those gifts would not have come.”
“A virtuous woman—and a wise one.” The lama slackened off, joint by joint, like a slow camel. “The world is full of charity to those who follow the Way.” He flung a fair half of the quilt over Kim. ”

“ He is upon the Wheel as we are—a life ascending or descending—very far from deliverance. Great evil must the soul have done that is cast into this shape.'
'I hate all snakes,' said Kim. No native training can quench the white man's horror of the Serpent.
'Let him live out his life.' The coiled thing hissed and half opened his hood. 'May thy release come soon, brother,' the lama continued placidly. 'Hast thou knowledge, by chance, of my river?'
'Never have I seen such a man as thou art,' Kim whispered, overwhelmed. ”

“ Kim coughed a little as he put down the empty glass, and considered. This seemed a time for caution and fancy. Small boys who prowl about camps are generally turned out after a whipping. But he had received no stripes; the amulet was evidently working in his favour, and it looked as though the Umballa horoscope and the few words that he could remember of his father's maunderings fitted in most miraculously. Else why did the fat padre seem so impressed, and why the glass of hot yellow wine from the lean one? ”

“ Kim was careful not to irritate that man; for the Akali's temper is short and his arm quick. Here and there they met or were overtaken by the gaily dressed crowds of whole villages turning out to some local fair; the women, with their babes on their hips, walking behind the men, the older boys prancing on sticks of sugar-cane, dragging rude brass models of locomotives such as they sell for a halfpenny, or flashing the sun into the eyes of their betters from cheap toy mirrors. ”

“ The hillmen would be of her own people—Kulu or Kangra folk. It was quite clear that she was not taking her daughter down to be wedded, or the curtains would have been laced home and the guard would have allowed no one near the car. A merry and a high-spirited dame, thought Kim, balancing the dung-cake in one hand, the cooked food in the other, and piloting the lama with a nudging shoulder. Something might be made out of the meeting. The lama would give him no help, but, as a conscientious chela, Kim was delighted to beg for two. ”

“ The old lady is, after all, intensely human, and lives to look upon life.
Kim marked down a gaily ornamented ruth or family bullock-cart, with a broidered canopy of two domes, like a double-humped camel, which had just been drawn into the parao. Eight men made its retinue, and two of the eight were armed with rusty sabres—sure signs that they followed a person of distinction, for the common folk do not bear arms. An increasing cackle of complaints orders, and jests, and what to a European would have been bad language, came from behind the curtains. ”

“ I had heard the Jains would eat nothing that they had not cooked, but truly'—he looked away politely over the broad river—'where there is no eye there is no caste.'
'And we,' said Kim, turning his back and heaping a leaf-platter for the lama, 'are beyond all castes.'
They gorged themselves on the good food in silence. Nor till he had licked the last of the sticky sweet-stuff from his little finger did Kim note that the Kamboh too was girt for travel.
'If our roads lie together,' he said roughly, 'I go with thee. One does not often find a worker of miracles, and the child is still weak. ”

“ Kim had been trained by Lurgan Sahib; and E.23, by virtue of his business, was no bad actor. In place of the tremulous, shrinking trader there lolled against the corner an all but naked, ash-smeared, ochre-barred, dusty-haired Saddhu, his swollen eyes—opium takes quick effect on an empty stomach—luminous with insolence and bestial lust, his legs crossed under him, Kim's brown rosary round his neck, and a scant yard of worn, flowered chintz on his shoulders. The child buried his face in his amazed father's arms.
'Look up, Princeling! We travel with warlocks, but they will not hurt thee. ”

“ The Oorya grunted and held his peace.
'So then we go with her, Holy One?'
'Is there any reason against? I can still step aside and try all the rivers that the road overpasses. She desires that I should come. She very greatly desires it.'
Kim stifled a laugh in the quilt. When once that imperious old lady had recovered from her natural awe of a lama he thought it probable that she would be worth listening to.
He was nearly asleep when the lama suddenly quoted a proverb: 'The husbands of the talkative have a great reward hereafter.' Then Kim heard him snuff thrice, and dozed off, still laughing. ”

“ It was the usual collection of small oddments: bits of cloth, quack medicines, cheap fairings, a clothful of atta—greyish, rough-ground native flour—twists of down-country tobacco, tawdry pipe-stems, and a packet of curry-stuff, all wrapped in a quilt. Kim turned it over with the air of a wise warlock, muttering a Mohammedan invocation.
“This is wisdom I learned from the Sahibs,” he whispered to the lama; and here, when one thinks of his training at Lurgan’s, he spoke no more than the truth. “There is a great evil in this man’s fortune, as shown by the Stars, which—which troubles him. ”

“ This time Kim thought in the vernacular as he waxed down the oilskin edges of the packets.
'How can a man follow the Way or the Great Game when he is eternally pestered by women? There was that girl at Akrola by the Ford; and there was the scullion's wife behind the dovecot—not counting the others—and now comes this one! When I was a child it was well enough, but now I am a man and they will not regard me as a man. Walnuts indeed! Ho! ho! It is almonds in the Plains!'
He went out to levy on the village—not with a begging-bowl, which might do for down-country, but in the manner of a prince. ”

“ There was a sound of stumbling feet, and Kim hurried upward through the gloom, swearing like a cat—or a country-bred.
'Did they wound thee, chela?' called the lama above him.
'No. And thou?' He dived into a clump of stunted firs.
'Unhurt. Come away. We go with these folk to Shamlegh-under-the-Snow.'
'But not before we have done justice,' a voice cried. 'I have got the Sahibs' guns—all four. Let us go down.'
'He struck the Holy One—we saw it! Our cattle will be barren—our wives will cease to bear! The snows will slide upon us as we go home. . . . ”

“ He was old, and his woollen gaberdine still reeked of the stinking artemisia of the mountain passes.
'O Children, what is that big house?' he said in very fair Urdu.
'The Ajaib-Gher, the Wonder House!' Kim gave him no title—such as Lala or Mian. He could not divine the man's creed.
'Ah! The Wonder House! Can any enter?'
'It is written above the door—all can enter.'
'Without payment?'
'I go in and out. I am no banker,' laughed Kim.
'Alas! I am an old man. I did not know.' Then, fingering his rosary, he turned toward the Museum.
'What is your caste? Where is your house? ”

“ Who art thou?' [23]
'Thy chela,' said Kim simply, sitting on his heels. 'I have never seen any one like to thee in all this my life. I go with thee to Benares. And, too, I think that so old a man as thou, speaking the truth to chance-met people at dusk, is in great need of a disciple.'
'But the River—the River of the Arrow?'
'Oh, that I heard when thou wast speaking to the Englishman. I lay against the door.'
The lama sighed. 'I thought thou hadst been a guide permitted. Such things fall sometimes—but I am not worthy. Thou dost not, then, know of the River?'
'Not I.' Kim laughed uneasily. ”

“ This was not Ceylon, nor Buddh Gaya, nor Bombay, nor some grass-tangled ruins that he seemed to have stumbled upon two years ago. He spoke of those places as a scholar removed from vanity, as a Seeker walking in humility, as an old man, wise and temperate, illumining knowledge with brilliant insight. Bit by bit, disconnectedly, each tale called up by some wayside thing, he spoke of all his wanderings up and down Hind; till Kim, who had loved him without reason, now loved him for fifty good reasons. ”