Datasets:

gj1997

/

trial3

like 0

Why did the peddler sign himself as Captain von Stahle?

<answer> The ironmaster has invited the peddler to his house mistaking him for Captain von Stahle. He was welcomed there and looked after as captain even after the reality became known. The peddler got a chance to redeem himself from dishonest ways by acting as an honourable Captain. <context> Once upon a time there was a man who went around selling small rattraps of wire. He made them himself at odd moments, from the material he got by begging in the stores or at the big farms. But even so, the business was not especially profitable, so he had to resort to both begging and petty thievery to keep body and soul together. Even so, his clothes were in rags, his cheeks were sunken, and hunger gleamed in his eyes. No one can imagine how sad and monotonous life can appear to such a vagabond, who plods along the road, left to his own meditations. But one day this man had fallen into a line of thought, which really seemed to him entertaining. He had naturally been thinking of his rattraps when suddenly he was struck by the idea that the whole world about him — the whole world with its lands and seas, its cities and villages — was nothing but a big rattrap. It had never existed for any other purpose than to set baits for people. It offered riches and joys, shelter and food, heat and clothing, exactly as the rattrap offered cheese and pork, and as soon as anyone let himself be tempted to touch the bait, it closed in on him, and then everything came to an end. The world had, of course, never been very kind to him, so it gave him unwonted joy to think ill of it in this way. It became a cherished pastime of his, during many dreary ploddings, to think of people he knew who had let themselves be caught in the dangerous snare, and of others who were still circling around the bait. One dark evening as he was trudging along the road he caught sight of a little gray cottage by the roadside, and he knocked on the door to ask shelter for the night. Nor was he refused. Instead of the sour faces which ordinarily met him, the owner, who was an old man without wife or child, was happy to get someone to talk to in his loneliness. Immediately he put the porridge pot on the fire and gave him supper; then he carved off such a big slice from his tobacco roll that it was enough both for the stranger’s pipe and his own. Finally he got out an old pack of cards and played ‘mjolis’ with his guest until bedtime. The old man was just as generous with his confidences as with his porridge and tobacco. The guest was informed at once that in his days of prosperity his host had been a crofter at Ramsjo Ironworks and had worked on the land. Now that he was no longer able to do day labour, it was his cow which supported him. Yes, that bossy was extraordinary. She could give milk for the creamery every day, and last month he had received all of thirty kronor in payment. The stranger must have seemed incredulous, for the old man got up and went to the window, took down a leather pouch which hung on a nail in the very window frame, and picked out three wrinkled ten-kronor bills. These he held up before the eyes of his guest, nodding knowingly, and then stuffed them back into the pouch. The next day both men got up in good season. The crofter was in a hurry to milk his cow, and the other man probably thought he should not stay in bed when the head of the house had gotten up. They left the cottage at the same time. The crofter locked the door and put the key in his pocket. The man with the rattraps said good bye and thank you, and thereupon each went his own way. But half an hour later the rattrap peddler stood again before the door. He did not try to get in, however. He only went up to the window, smashed a pane, stuck in his hand, and got hold of the pouch with the thirty kronor. He took the money and thrust it into his own pocket. Then he hung the leather pouch very carefully back in its place and went away. As he walked along with the money in his pocket he felt quite pleased with his smartness. He realised, of course, that at first he dared not continue on the public highway, but must turn off the road, into the woods. During the first hours this caused him no difficulty. Later in the day it became worse, for it was a big and confusing forest which he had gotten into. He tried, to be sure, to walk in a definite direction, but the paths twisted back and forth so strangely! He walked and walked without coming to the end of the wood, and finally he realised that he had only been walking around in the same part of the forest. All at once he recalled his thoughts about the world and the rattrap. Now his own turn had come. He had let himself be fooled by a bait and had been caught. The whole forest, with its trunks and branches, its thickets and fallen logs, closed in upon him like an impenetrable prison from which he could never escape. It was late in December. Darkness was already descending over the forest. This increased the danger, and increased also his gloom and despair. Finally he saw no way out, and he sank down on the ground, tired to death, thinking that his last moment had come. But just as he laid his head on the ground, he heard a sound—a hard regular thumping. There was no doubt as to what that was. He raised himself. ‘‘Those are the hammer strokes from an iron mill’’, he thought. ‘‘There must be people near by’’. He summoned all his strength, got up, and staggered in the direction of the sound. The Ramsjo Ironworks, which are now closed down, were, not so long ago, a large plant, with smelter, rolling mill, and forge. In the summertime long lines of heavily loaded barges and scows slid down the canal, which led to a large inland lake, and in the wintertime the roads near the mill were black from all the coal dust which sifted down from the big charcoal crates. During one of the long dark evenings just before Christmas, the master smith and his helper sat in the dark forge near the furnace waiting for the pig iron, which had been put in the fire, to be ready to put on the anvil. Every now and then one of them got up to stir the glowing mass with a long iron bar, returning in a few moments, dripping with perspiration, though, as was the custom, he wore nothing but a long shirt and a pair of wooden shoes. All the time there were many sounds to be heard in the forge. The big bellows groaned and the burning coal cracked. The fire boy shovelled charcoal into the maw of the furnace with a great deal of clatter. Outside roared the waterfall, and a sharp north wind whipped the rain against the brick-tiled roof. It was probably on account of all this noise that the blacksmith did not notice that a man had opened the gate and entered the forge, until he stood close up to the furnace. Surely it was nothing unusual for poor vagabonds without any better shelter for the night to be attracted to the forge by the glow of light which escaped through the sooty panes, and to come in to warm themselves in front of the fire. The blacksmiths glanced only casually and indifferently at the intruder. He looked the way people of his type usually did, with a long beard, dirty, ragged, and with a bunch of rattraps dangling on his chest. He asked permission to stay, and the master blacksmith nodded a haughty consent without honouring him with a single word. The tramp did not say anything, either. He had not come there to talk but only to warm himself and sleep. In those days the Ramsjo iron mill was owned by a very prominent ironmaster, whose greatest ambition was to ship out good iron to the market. He watched both night and day to see that the work was done as well as possible, and at this very moment he came into the forge on one of his nightly rounds of inspection. Naturally the first thing he saw was the tall ragamuffin who had eased his way so close to the furnace that steam rose from his wet rags. The ironmaster did not follow the example of the blacksmiths, who had hardly deigned to look at the stranger. He walked close up to him, looked him over very carefully, then tore off his slouch hat to get a better view of his face. ‘‘But of course it is you, Nils Olof!’’ he said. “How you do look!” The man with the rattraps had never before seen the ironmaster at Ramsjo and did not even know what his name was. But it occurred to him that if the fine gentleman thought he was an old acquaintance, he might perhaps throw him a couple of kronor. Therefore he did not want to undeceive him all at once. ‘‘Yes, God knows things have gone downhill with me’’, he said. ‘‘You should not have resigned from the regiment’’, said the ironmaster. ‘‘That was the mistake. If only I had still been in the service at the time, it never would have happened. Well, now of course you will come home with me.’’ To go along up to the manor house and be received by the owner like an old regimental comrade — that, however, did not please the tramp. ‘‘No, I couldn’t think of it!’’ he said, looking quite alarmed. He thought of the thirty kronor. To go up to the manor house would be like throwing himself voluntarily into the lion’s den. He only wanted a chance to sleep here in the forge and then sneak away as inconspicuously as possible. The ironmaster assumed that he felt embarrassed because of his miserable clothing. ‘‘Please don’t think that I have such a fine home that you cannot show yourself there’’, He said... ‘‘Elizabeth is dead, as you may already have heard. My boys are abroad, and there is no one at home except my oldest daughter and myself. We were just saying that it was too bad we didn’t have any company for Christmas. Now come along with me and help us make the Christmas food disappear a little faster.” But the stranger said no, and no, and again no, and the ironmaster saw that he must give in. ‘‘It looks as though Captain von Stahle preferred to stay with you tonight, Stjernstrom’’, he said to the master blacksmith, and turned on his heel. But he laughed to himself as he went away, and the blacksmith, who knew him, understood very well that he had not said his last word. It was not more than half an hour before they heard the sound of carriage wheels outside the forge, and a new guest came in, but this time it was not the ironmaster. He had sent his daughter, apparently hoping that she would have better powers of persuasion than he himself. She entered, followed by a valet, carrying on his arm a big fur coat. She was not at all pretty, but seemed modest and quite shy. In the forge everything was just as it had been earlier in the evening. The master blacksmith and his apprentice still sat on their bench, and iron and charcoal still glowed in the furnace. The stranger had stretched himself out on the floor and lay with a piece of pig iron under his head and his hat pulled down over his eyes. As soon as the young girl caught sight of him, she went up and lifted his hat. The man was evidently used to sleeping with one eye open. He jumped up abruptly and seemed to be quite frightened. ‘‘My name is Edla Willmansson,’’ said the young girl. ‘‘My father came home and said that you wanted to sleep here in the forge tonight, and then I asked permission to come and bring you home to us. I am so sorry, Captain, that you are having such a hard time.’’ She looked at him compassionately, with her heavy eyes, and then she noticed that the man was afraid. ‘‘Either he has stolen something or else he has escaped from, jail’’, she thought, and added quickly, “You may be sure, Captain, that you will be allowed to leave us just as freely as you came. Only please stay with us over Christmas Eve.’’ She said this in such a friendly manner that the rattrap peddler must have felt confidence in her. ‘‘It would never have occurred to me that you would bother with me yourself, miss,’’ he said. ‘’I will come at once.’’ He accepted the fur coat, which the valet handed him with a deep bow, threw it over his rags, and followed the young lady out to the carriage, without granting the astonished blacksmiths so much as a glance. But while he was riding up to the manor house he had evil forebodings. ‘‘Why the devil did I take that fellow’s money?’’ he thought. ‘‘Now I am sitting in the trap and will never get out of it.’’ The next day was Christmas Eve, and when the ironmaster came into the dining room for breakfast he probably thought with satisfaction of his old regimental comrade whom he had run across so unexpectedly. “First of all we must see to it that he gets a little flesh on his bones,” he said to his daughter, who was busy at the table. “And then we must see that he gets something else to do than to run around the country selling rattraps.” “It is queer that things have gone downhill with him as badly as that,” said the daughter. “Last night I did not think there was anything about him to show that he had once been an educated man.” “You must have patience, my little girl,” said the father. “As soon as he gets clean and dressed up, you will see something different. Last night he was naturally embarrassed. The tramp manners will fall away from him with the tramp clothes.” Just as he said this the door opened and the stranger entered. Yes, now he was truly clean and well dressed. The valet had bathed him, cut his hair, and shaved him. Moreover he was dressed in a good-looking suit of clothes which belonged to the ironmaster. He wore a white shirt and a starched collar and whole shoes. But although his guest was now so well groomed, the ironmaster did not seem pleased. He looked at him with puckered brow, and it was easy to understand that when he had seen the strange fellow in the uncertain reflection from the furnace he might have made a mistake, but that now, when he stood there in broad daylight, it was impossible to mistake him for an old acquaintance. “What does this mean?” he thundered. The stranger made no attempt to dissimulate. He saw at once that the splendour had come to an end. “It is not my fault, sir,” he said. “I never pretended to be anything but a poor trader, and I pleaded and begged to be allowed to stay in the forge. But no harm has been done. At worst I can put on my rags again and go away”. “Well,” said the ironmaster, hesitating a little, “it was not quite honest, either. You must admit that, and I should not be surprised if the sheriff would like to have something to say in the matter.” The tramp took a step forward and struck the table with his fist. “Now I am going to tell you, Mr Ironmaster, how things are,” he said. “This whole world is nothing but a big rattrap. All the good things that are offered to you are nothing but cheese rinds and bits of pork, set out to drag a poor fellow into trouble. And if the sheriff comes now and locks me up for this, then you, Mr Ironmaster, must remember that a day may come when you yourself may want to get a big piece of pork, and then you will get caught in the trap.” The ironmaster began to laugh. “That was not so badly said, my good fellow. Perhaps we should let the sheriff alone on Christmas Eve. But now get out of here as fast as you can.” But just as the man was opening the door, the daughter said, “I think he ought to stay with us today. I don’t want him to go.” And with that she went and closed the door. “What in the world are you doing?” said the father. The daughter stood there quite embarrassed and hardly knew what to answer. That morning she had felt so happy when she thought how homelike and Christmassy she was going to make things for the poor hungry wretch. She could not get away from the idea all at once, and that was why she had interceded for the vagabond. “I am thinking of this stranger here,” said the young girl. “He walks and walks the whole year long, and there is probably not a single place in the whole country where he is welcome and can feel at home. Wherever he turns he is chased away. Always he is afraid of being arrested and cross-examined. I should like to have him enjoy a day of peace with us here — just one in the whole year.” The ironmaster mumbled something in his beard. He could not bring himself to oppose her. “It was all a mistake, of course,” she continued. “But anyway I don’t think we ought to chase away a human being whom we have asked to come here, and to whom we have promised Christmas cheer.” “You do preach worse than a parson,” said the ironmaster. “I only hope you won’t have to regret this.” The young girl took the stranger by the hand and led him up to the table. “Now sit down and eat,” she said, for she could see that her father had given in. The man with the rattraps said not a word; he only sat down and helped himself to the food. Time after time he looked at the young girl who had interceded for him. Why had she done it? What could the crazy idea be? After that, Christmas Eve at Ramsjo passed just as it always had. The stranger did not cause any trouble because he did nothing but sleep. The whole forenoon he lay on the sofa in one of the guest rooms and slept at one stretch. At noon they woke him up so that he could have his share of the good Christmas fare, but after that he slept again. It seemed as though for many years he had not been able to sleep as quietly and safely as here at Ramsjo. In the evening, when the Christmas tree was lighted, they woke him up again, and he stood for a while in the drawing room, blinking as though the candlelight hurt him, but after that he disappeared again. Two hours later he was aroused once more. He then had to go down into the dining room and eat the Christmas fish and porridge. As soon as they got up from the table he went around to each one present and said thank you and good night, but when he came to the young girl she gave him to understand that it was her father’s intention that the suit which he wore was to be a Christmas present — he did not have to return it; and if he wanted to spend next Christmas Eve in a place where he could rest in peace, and be sure that no evil would befall him, he would be welcomed back again. The man with the rattraps did not answer anything to this. He only stared at the young girl in boundless amazement. The next morning the ironmaster and his daughter got up in good season to go to the early Christmas service. Their guest was still asleep, and they did not disturb him. When, at about ten o’clock, they drove back from the church, the young girl sat and hung her head even more dejectedly than usual. At church she had learned that one of the old crofters of the ironworks had been robbed by a man who went around selling rattraps. “Yes, that was a fine fellow you let into the house,” said her father. “I only wonder how many silver spoons are left in the cupboard by this time.” The wagon had hardly stopped at the front steps when the ironmaster asked the valet whether the stranger was still there. He added that he had heard at church that the man was a thief. The valet answered that the fellow had gone and that he had not taken anything with him at all. On the contrary, he had left behind a little package which Miss Willmansson was to be kind enough to accept as a Christmas present. The young girl opened the package, which was so badly done up that the contents came into view at once. She gave a little cry of joy. She found a small rattrap, and in it lay three wrinkled ten kronor notes. But that was not all. In the rattrap lay also a letter written in large, jagged characters — “Honoured and noble Miss, “Since you have been so nice to me all day long, as if I was a captain, I want to be nice to you, in return, as if I was a real captain — for I do not want you to be embarrassed at this Christmas season by a thief; but you can give back the money to the old man on the roadside, who has the money pouch hanging on the window frame as a bait for poor wanderers. “The rattrap is a Christmas present from a rat who would have been caught in this world’s rattrap if he had not been raised to captain, because in that way he got power to clear himself. “Written with friendship and high regard, “Captain von Stahle.”

Why is Antarctica the place to go to, to understand the earth’s present, past and future?

<answer> The author states that to understand the earth’s present, past and future, Antarctica is the right place to go. Antarctica is relatively untouched in this respect as it has never had human population. It is relatively pristine. It holds in its ice cores half a million-year-old carbon records, trapped in the layers of ice. It embodies all that is pre-historic: cordilleran folds, pre-Cambrian granite shields ozone and carbon: evolution and extinction. The simple eco system and lack of biodiversity indicate how little changes in the environment can have big repercussions. A visit to Antarctica and witnessing the geological phenomena, such as the drifting of land masses, glaciers receding and ice shelves collapsing makes us understand that global warming is a real threat. Hence, to study the earth’s past, present and future, these factors make Antarctica the best place to go. <context> EARLY this year, I found myself aboard a Russian research vessel — the Akademik Shokalskiy — heading towards the coldest, driest, windiest continent in the world: Antarctica. My journey began 13.09 degrees north of the Equator in Madras, and involved crossing nine time zones, six checkpoints, three bodies of water, and at least as many ecospheres. By the time I actually set foot on the Antarctic continent I had been travelling over 100 hours in combination of a car, an aeroplane and a ship; so, my first emotion on facing Antarctica’s expansive white landscape and uninterrupted blue horizon was relief, followed up with an immediate and profound wonder. Wonder at its immensity, its isolation, but mainly at how there could ever have been a time when India and Antarctica were part of the same landmass. Six hundred and fifty million years ago, a giant amalgamated southern supercontinent — Gondwana — did indeed exist, centred roughly around the present-day Antarctica. Things were quite different then: humans hadn’t arrived on the global scene, and the climate was much warmer, hosting a huge variety of flora and fauna. For 500 million years Gondwana thrived, but around the time when the dinosaurs were wiped out and the age of the mammals got under way, the landmass was forced to separate into countries, shaping the globe much as we know it today. To visit Antarctica now is to be a part of that history; to get a grasp of where we’ve come from and where we could possibly be heading. It’s to understand the significance of Cordilleran folds and pre-Cambrian granite shields; ozone and carbon; evolution and extinction. When you think about all that can happen in a million years, it can get pretty mind-boggling. Imagine: India pushing northwards, jamming against Asia to buckle its crust and form the Himalayas; South America drifting off to join North America, opening up the Drake Passage to create a cold circumpolar current, keeping Antarctica frigid, desolate, and at the bottom of the world. For a sun-worshipping South Indian like myself, two weeks in a place where 90 per cent of the Earth’s total ice volumes are stored is a chilling prospect (not just for circulatory and metabolic functions, but also for the imagination). It’s like walking into a giant ping-pong ball devoid of any human markers — no trees, billboards, buildings. You lose all earthly sense of perspective and time here. The visual scale ranges from the microscopic to the mighty: midges and mites to blue whales and icebergs as big as countries (the largest recorded was the size of Belgium). Days go on and on and on in surreal 24-hour austral summer light, and a ubiquitous silence, interrupted only by the occasional avalanche or calving ice sheet, consecrates the place. It’s an immersion that will force you to place yourself in the context of the earth’s geological history. And for humans, the prognosis isn’t good. Human civilisations have been around for a paltry 12,000 years — barely a few seconds on the geological clock. In that short amount of time, we’ve managed to create quite a ruckus, etching our dominance over Nature with our villages, towns, cities, megacities. The rapid increase of human populations has left us battling with other species for limited resources, and the unmitigated burning of fossil fuels has now created a blanket of carbon dioxide around the world, which is slowly but surely increasing the average global temperature. Climate change is one of the most hotly contested environmental debates of our time. Will the West Antarctic ice sheet melt entirely? Will the Gulf Stream ocean current be disrupted? Will it be the end of the world as we know it? Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, Antarctica is a crucial element in this debate — not just because it’s the only place in the world, which has never sustained a human population and therefore remains relatively ‘pristine’ in this respect; but more importantly, because it holds in its ice-cores half-million-year-old carbon records trapped in its layers of ice. If we want to study and examine the Earth’s past, present and future, Antarctica is the place Students on Ice, the programme I was working with on the Shokalskiy, aims to do exactly this by taking high school students to the ends of the world and providing them with inspiring educational opportunities which will help them foster a new understanding and respect for our planet. It’s been in operation for six years now, headed by Canadian Geoff Green, who got tired of carting celebrities and retired, rich, curiosity-seekers who could only ‘give’ back in a limited way. With Students on Ice, he offers the future generation of policy-makers a life-changing experience at an age when they’re ready to absorb, learn, and most importantly, act. The reason the programme has been so successful is because it’s impossible to go anywhere near the South Pole and not be affected by it. It’s easy to be blasé about polar ice-caps melting while sitting in the comfort zone of our respective latitude and longitude, but when you can visibly see glaciers retreating and ice shelves collapsing, you begin to realise that the threat of global warming is very real. Antarctica, because of her simple ecosystem and lack of biodiversity, is the perfect place to study how little changes in the environment can have big repercussions. Take the microscopic phytoplankton — those grasses of the sea that nourish and sustain the entire Southern Ocean’s food chain. These single-celled plants use the sun’s energy to assimilate carbon and synthesise organic compounds in that wondrous and most important of processes called photosynthesis. Scientists warn that a further depletion in the ozone layer will affect the activities of phytoplankton, which in turn will affect the lives of all the marine animals and birds of the region, and the global carbon cycle. In the parable of the phytoplankton, there is a great metaphor for existence: take care of the small things and the big things will fall into place.  My Antarctic experience was full of such epiphanies, but the best occurred just short of the Antarctic Circle at 65.55 degrees south. The Shokalskiy had managed to wedge herself into a thick white stretch of ice between the peninsula and Tadpole Island which was preventing us from going any further. The Captain decided we were going to turn around and head back north, but before we did, we were all instructed to climb down the gangplank and walk on the ocean. So there we were, all 52 of us, kitted out in Gore-Tex and glares, walking on a stark whiteness that seemed to spread out forever. Underneath our feet was a metre-thick ice pack, and underneath that, 180 metres of living, breathing, salt water. In the periphery Crabeater seals were stretching and sunning themselves on ice floes much like stray dogs will do under the shade of a banyan tree. It was nothing short of a revelation: everything does indeed connect. Nine time zones, six checkpoints, three bodies of water and many ecospheres later, I was still wondering about the beauty of balance in play on our planet. How would it be if Antarctica were to become the warm place that it once used to be? Will we be around to see it, or would we have gone the way of the dinosaurs, mammoths and woolly rhinos? Who’s to say? But after spending two weeks with a bunch of teenagers who still have the idealism to save the world, all I can say is that a lot can happen in a million years, but what a difference a day makes!

What does the poet say the wind god winnows?

<answer> The wind god winnows homes, doors, rafters, wood, bodies, lives and hearts. <context> RUSH hour crowds jostle for position on the underground train platform. A slight girl, looking younger than her seventeen years, was nervous yet excited as she felt the vibrations of the approaching train. It was her first day at the prestigious Royal Academy of Music in London and daunting enough for any teenager fresh from a Scottish farm. But this aspiring musician faced a bigger challenge than most: she was profoundly deaf. 2. Evelyn Glennie’s loss of hearing had been gradual. Her mother remembers noticing something was wrong when the eight-year-old Evelyn was waiting to play the piano. “They called her name and she didn’t move. I suddenly realised she hadn’t heard,” says Isabel Glennie. For quite a while Evelyn managed to conceal her growing deafness from friends and teachers. But by the time she was eleven her marks had deteriorated and her headmistress urged her parents to take her to a specialist. It was then discovered that her hearing was severely impaired as a result of gradual nerve damage. They were advised that she should be fitted with hearing aids and sent to a school for the deaf. “Everything suddenly looked black,” says Evelyn. 3. But Evelyn was not going to give up. She was determined to lead a normal life and pursue her interest in music. One day she noticed a girl playing a xylophone and decided that she wanted to play it too. Most of the teachers discouraged her but percussionist Ron Forbes spotted her potential. He began by tuning two large drums to different notes. “Don’t listen through your ears,” he would say, “try to sense it some other way.” Says Evelyn, “Suddenly I realised I could feel the higher drum from the waist up and the lower one from the waist down.” Forbes repeated the exercise, and soon Evelyn discovered that she could sense certain notes in different parts of her body. “I had learnt to open my mind and body to sounds and vibrations.” The rest was sheer determination and hard work. 4. She never looked back from that point onwards. She toured the United Kingdom with a youth orchestra and by the time she was sixteen, she had decided to make music her life. She auditioned for the Royal Academy of Music and scored one of the highest marks in the history of the academy. She gradually moved from orchestral work to solo performances. At the end of her three-year course, she had captured most of the top awards. 5. And for all this, Evelyn won’t accept any hint of heroic achievement. “If you work hard and know where you are going, you’ll get there.” And she got right to the top, the world’s most sought-after multipercussionist with a mastery of some thousand instruments, and hectic international schedule. 6. It is intriguing to watch Evelyn function so effortlessly without hearing. In our two-hour discussion she never missed a word. “Men with bushy beards give me trouble,” she laughed. “It is not just watching the lips, it’s the whole face, especially the eyes.” She speaks flawlessly with a Scottish lilt. “My speech is clear because I could hear till I was eleven,” she says. But that doesn’t explain how she managed to learn French and master basic Japanese. 7. As for music, she explains, “It pours in through every part of my body. It tingles in the skin, my cheekbones and even in my hair.” When she plays the xylophone, she can sense the sound passing up the stick into her fingertips. By leaning against the drums, she can feel the resonances flowing into her body. On a wooden platform she removes her shoes so that the vibrations pass through her bare feet and up her legs. Not surprisingly, Evelyn delights her audiences. In 1991 she was presented with the Royal Philharmonic Society’s prestigious Soloist of the Year Award. Says master percussionist James Blades, “God may have taken her hearing but he has given her back something extraordinary. What we hear, she feels — far more deeply than any of us. That is why she expresses music so beautifully.” 9. Evelyn confesses that she is something of a workaholic. “I’ve just got to work . . . often harder than classical musicians. But the rewards are enormous.” Apart from the regular concerts, Evelyn also gives free concerts in prisons and hospitals. She also gives high priority to classes for young musicians. Ann Richlin of the Beethoven Fund for Deaf Children says, “She is a shining inspiration for deaf children. They see that there is nowhere that they cannot go.” 10. Evelyn Glennie has already accomplished more than most people twice her age. She has brought percussion to the front of the orchestra, and demonstrated that it can be very moving. She has given inspiration to those who are handicapped, people who look to her and say, ‘If she can do it, I can.’ And, not the least, she has given enormous pleasure to millions. The Shehnai of Bismillah Khan 1. EMPEROR Aurangzeb banned the playing of a musical instrument called pungi in the royal residence for it had a shrill unpleasant sound. Pungi became the generic name for reeded noisemakers. Few had thought that it would one day be revived. A barber of a family of professional musicians, who had access to the royal palace, decided to improve the tonal quality of the pungi. He chose a pipe with a natural hollow stem that was longer and broader than the pungi, and made seven holes on the body of the pipe. When he played on it, closing and opening some of these holes, soft and melodious sounds were produced. He played the instrument before royalty and everyone was impressed. The instrument so different from the pungi had to be given a new name. As the story goes, since it was first played in the Shah’s chambers and was played by a nai (barber), the instrument was named the ‘shehnai’. 2. The sound of the shehnai began to be considered auspicious. And for this reason it is still played in temples and is an indispensable component of any North Indian wedding. In the past, the shehnai was part of the naubat or traditional ensemble of nine instruments found at royal courts. Till recently it was used only in temples and weddings. The credit for bringing this instrument onto the classical stage goes to Ustad Bismillah Khan. 3. As a five-year old, Bismillah Khan played gilli-danda near a pond in the ancient estate of Dumraon in Bihar. He would regularly go to the nearby Bihariji temple to sing the Bhojpuri ‘Chaita’, at the end of which he would earn a big laddu weighing 1.25 kg, a prize given by the local Maharaja. This happened 80 years ago, and the little boy has travelled far to earn the highest civilian award in India — the Bharat Ratna. 4. Born on 21 March 1916, Bismillah belongs to a well-known family of musicians from Bihar. His grandfather, Rasool Bux Khan, was the shehnainawaz of the Bhojpur king’s court. His father, Paigambar Bux, and other paternal ancestors were also great shehnai players. 5. The young boy took to music early in life. At the age of three when his mother took him to his maternal uncle’s house in Benaras (now Varanasi), Bismillah was fascinated watching his uncles practise the shehnai. Soon Bismillah started accompanying his uncle, Ali Bux, to the Vishnu temple of Benaras where Bux was employed to play the shehnai. Ali Bux would play the shehnai and Bismillah would sit captivated for hours on end. Slowly, he started getting lessons in playing the instrument and would sit practising throughout the day. For years to come the temple of Balaji and Mangala Maiya and the banks of the Ganga became the young apprentice’s favourite haunts where he could practise in solitude. The flowing waters of the Ganga inspired him to improvise and invent raagas that were earlier considered to be beyond the range of the shehnai. 6. At the age of 14, Bismillah accompanied his uncle to the Allahabad Music Conference. At the end of his recital, Ustad Faiyaz Khan patted the young boy’s back and said, “Work hard and you shall make it.” With the opening of the All India Radio in Lucknow in 1938 came Bismillah’s big break. He soon became an often-heard shehnai player on radio. 7. When India gained independence on 15 August 1947, Bismillah Khan became the first Indian to greet the nation with his shehnai. He poured his heart out into Raag Kafi from the Red Fort to an audience which included Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who later gave his famous ‘Tryst with Destiny’ speech. 8. Bismillah Khan has given many memorable performances both in India and abroad. His first trip abroad was to Afghanistan where King Zahir Shah was so taken in by the maestro that he gifted him priceless Persian carpets and other souvenirs. The King of Afghanistan was not the only one to be fascinated with Bismillah’s music. Film director Vijay Bhatt was so impressed after hearing Bismillah play at a festival that he named a film after the instrument called Gunj Uthi Shehnai. The film was a hit, and one of Bismillah Khan’s compositions, “Dil ka khilona hai toot gaya...,” turned out to be a nationwide chartbuster! Despite this huge success in the celluloid world, Bismillah Khan’s ventures in film music were limited to two: Vijay Bhatt’s Gunj Uthi Shehnai and Vikram Srinivas’s Kannada venture, Sanadhi Apanna. “I just can’t come to terms with the artificiality and glamour of the film world,” he says with emphasis. 9. Awards and recognition came thick and fast. Bismillah Khan became the first Indian to be invited to perform at the prestigious Lincoln Centre Hall in the United States of America. He also took part in the World Exposition in Montreal, in the Cannes Art Festival and in the Osaka Trade Fair. So well known did he become internationally that an auditorium in Teheran was named after him — Tahar Mosiquee Ustaad Bismillah Khan. 10. National awards like the Padmashri, the Padma Bhushan and the Padma Vibhushan were conferred on him. 11. In 2001, Ustad Bismillah Khan was awarded India’s highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna. With the coveted award resting on his chest and his eyes glinting with rare happiness he said, “All I would like to say is: Teach your children music, this is Hindustan’s richest tradition; even the West is now coming to learn our music.’’ 12. In spite of having travelled all over the world — Khansaab as he is fondly called — is exceedingly fond of Benaras and Dumraon and they remain for him the most wonderful towns of the world. A student of his once wanted him to head a shehnai school in the U.S.A., and the student promised to recreate the atmosphere of Benaras by replicating the temples there. But Khansaab asked him if he would be able to transport River Ganga as well. Later he is remembered to have said, “That is why whenever I am in a foreign country, I keep yearning to see Hindustan. While in Mumbai, I think of only Benaras and the holy Ganga. And while in Benaras, I miss the unique mattha of Dumraon.” 13. Ustad Bismillah Khan’s life is a perfect example of the rich, cultural heritage of India, one that effortlessly accepts that a devout Muslim like him can very naturally play the shehnai every morning at the Kashi Vishwanath temple. [Ustad Bismillah Khan passed away on 21 August 2006 at the age of ninety after a prolonged illness. He was given a state funeral and the Government of India declared one day of national mourning.

What do you think was Jo’s problem?

<answer> Little Jo had been accustomed to the happy ending of the stories of Roger, where the wizard was helpful to him in fulfilling his wish. At the request of Roger Skunk, the wizard had changed his awful smell to that of the roses. Other small animals liked it and played with Roger Skunk happily. She could not digest the ending of the extended story where Roger Skunk’s mother hit the wizard on the head and forced him to change Skunk’s smell to the earlier foul one. Jo could not accept Skunk’s mother’s stubbornness e.g. hitting the wellwisher of her son, Roger Skunk. Jo insisted that her father should tell her the same story again the next day with changed ending. The wizard should hit that unreasonable mommy on the head and leave Roger Skunk emitting the pleasant smell of roses. In the beautiful world of a child’s imagination, fairies and wizard’s are more real than reality itself. She could not digest the harsh realities of life. She did not like the rude mother who hit the benefactor of her own son. <context> In the evenings and for Saturday naps like today’s, Jack told his daughter Jo a story out of his head. This custom, begun when she was two, was itself now nearly two years old, and his head felt empty. Each new story was a slight variation of a basic tale: a small creature, usually named Roger (Roger Fish, Roger Squirrel, Roger Chipmunk), had some problem and went with it to the wise old owl. The owl told him to go to the wizard, and the wizard performed a magic spell that solved the problem, demanding in payment a number of pennies greater than the number that Roger Creature had, but in the same breath directing the animal to a place where the extra pennies could be found. Then Roger was so happy he played many games with other creatures, and went home to his mother just in time to hear the train whistle that brought his daddy home from Boston. Jack described their supper, and the story was over. Working his way through this scheme was especially fatiguing on Saturday, because Jo never fell asleep in naps any more, and knowing this made the rite seem futile. The little girl (not so little any more; the bumps her feet made under the covers were halfway down the bed, their big double bed that they let her be in for naps and when she was sick) had at last arranged herself, and from the way her fat face deep in the pillow shone in the sunlight sifting through the drawn shades, it did not seem fantastic that some magic would occur, and she would take her nap like an infant of two. Her brother, Bobby, was two, and already asleep with his bottle. Jack asked, “Who shall the story be about today?” “Roger...” Jo squeezed her eyes shut and smiled to be thinking she was thinking. Her eyes opened, her mother’s blue. “Skunk,” she said firmly. A new animal; they must talk about skunks at nursery school. Having a fresh hero momentarily stirred Jack to creative enthusiasm. “All right,” he said. “Once upon a time, in the deep dark woods, there was a tiny little creature by the name of Roger Skunk. And he smelled very bad.” “Yes,” Jo said. “He smelled so bad that none of the other little woodland creatures would play with him.” Jo looked at him solemnly; she hadn’t foreseen this. “Whenever he would go out to play,” Jack continued with zest, remembering certain humiliations of his own childhood, “all of the other tiny animals would cry, “Uh-oh, here comes Roger Stinky Skunk,” and they would run away, and Roger Skunk would stand there all alone, and two little round tears would fall from his eyes.” The corners of Jo’s mouth drooped down and her lower lip bent forward as he traced with a forefinger along the side of her nose the course of one of Roger Skunk’s tears. “Won’t he see the owl?” she asked in a high and faintly roughened voice. Sitting on the bed beside her, Jack felt the covers tug as her legs switched tensely. He was pleased with this moment — he was telling her something true, something she must know — and had no wish to hurry on. But downstairs a chair scraped, and he realised he must get down to help Clare paint the living-room woodwork. “Well, he walked along very sadly and came to a very big tree, and in the tiptop of the tree was an enormous wise old owl.” “Good.” “Mr Owl,” Roger Skunk said, “all the other little animals run away from me because I smell so bad.” “So you do,” the owl said. “Very, very bad.” “What can I do?” Roger Skunk said, and he cried very hard. “The wizard, the wizard,” Jo shouted, and sat right up, and a Little Golden Book spilled from the bed. “Now, Jo. Daddy’s telling the story. Do you want to tell Daddy the story?” “No. You me.” “Then lie down and be sleepy.” Her head relapsed onto the pillow and she said, “Out of your head.” “Well. The owl thought and thought. At last he said, “Why don’t you go see the wizard?” “Daddy?” “What?” “Are magic spells real?” This was a new phase, just this last month, a reality phase. When he told her spiders eat bugs, she turned to her mother and asked, “Do they really?” and when Clare told her God was in the sky and all around them, she turned to her father and insisted, with a sly yet eager smile, “Is He really?” “They’re real in stories,” Jack answered curtly. She had made him miss a beat in the narrative. “The owl said, “Go through the dark woods, under the apple trees, into the swamp, over the crick —” “What’s a crick?” A little river. “Over the crick, and there will be the wizard’s house.” And that’s the way Roger Skunk went, and pretty soon he came to a little white house, and he rapped on the door.” Jack rapped on the window sill, and under the covers Jo’s tall figure clenched in an infantile thrill. “And then a tiny little old man came out, with a long white beard and a pointed blue hat, and said, “Eh? Whatzis? Whatcher want? You smell awful.” The wizard’s voice was one of Jack’s own favourite effects; he did it by scrunching up his face and somehow whining through his eyes, which felt for the interval rheumy. He felt being an old man suited him. “I know it,” Roger Skunk said, “and all the little animals run away from me. The enormous wise owl said you could help me.” “Eh? Well, maybe. Come on in. Don’t get too close.” Now, inside, Jo, there were all these magic things, all jumbled together in a big dusty heap, because the wizard did not have any cleaning lady.” “Why?” “Why? Because he was a wizard, and a very old man.” “Will he die?” “No. Wizards don’t die. Well, he rummaged around and found an old stick called a magic wand and asked Roger Skunk what he wanted to smell like. Roger thought and thought and said, “Roses.” “Yes. Good,” Jo said smugly. Jack fixed her with a trance like gaze and chanted in the wizard’s elderly irritable voice: He paused as a rapt expression widened out from his daughter’s nostrils, forcing her eyebrows up and her lower lip down in a wide noiseless grin, an expression in which Jack was startled to recognise his wife feigning pleasure at cocktail parties. “And all of a sudden,” he whispered, “the whole inside of the wizard’s house was full of the smell of — roses! ‘Roses!’ Roger Fish cried. And the wizard said, very cranky, “That’ll be seven pennies.” “Daddy.” “What?” “Roger Skunk. You said Roger Fish.” “Yes. Skunk.” “You said Roger Fish. Wasn’t that silly?” “Very silly of your stupid old daddy. Where was I? Well, you know about the pennies.” “Say it.” “O.K. Roger Skunk said, ‘But all I have is four pennies,’ and he began to cry.” Jo made the crying face again, but this time without a trace of sincerity. This annoyed Jack. Downstairs some more furniture rumbled. Clare shouldn’t move heavy things; she was six months pregnant. It would be their third. “So the wizard said, ‘Oh, very well. Go to the end of the lane and turn around three times and look down the magic well and there you will find three pennies. Hurry up.’ So Roger Skunk went to the end of the lane and turned around three times and there in the magic well were three pennies! So he took them back to the wizard and was very happy and ran out into the woods and all the other little animals gathered around him because he smelled so good. And they played tag, baseball, football, basketball, lacrosse, hockey, soccer, and pick-up-sticks.” “What’s pick-up-sticks?” “It’s a game you play with sticks.” “Like the wizard’s magic wand?” “Kind of. And they played games and laughed all afternoon and then it began to get dark and they all ran home to their mommies.” Jo was starting to fuss with her hands and look out of the window, at the crack of day that showed under the shade. She thought the story was all over. Jack didn’t like women when they took anything for granted; he liked them apprehensive, hanging on his words. “Now, Jo, are you listening?” “Yes.” “Because this is very interesting. Roger Skunk’s mommy said, ‘What’s that awful smell?’ “Wha-at?” “And, Roger Skunk said, ‘It’s me, Mommy. I smell like roses.’ And she said, ‘Who made you smell like that?’ And he said, ‘The wizard,’ and she said, ‘Well, of all the nerve. You come with me and we’re going right back to that very awful wizard.” Jo sat up, her hands dabbling in the air with genuine fright. “But Daddy, then he said about the other little animals run away!” Her hands skittered off, into the underbrush. “All right. He said, ‘But Mommy, all the other little animals run away,’ and she said, ‘I don’t care. You smelled the way a little skunk should have and I’m going to take you right back to that wizard,’ and she took an umbrella and went back with Roger Skunk and hit that wizard right over the head.” “No,” Jo said, and put her hand out to touch his lips, yet even in her agitation did not quite dare to stop the source of truth. Inspiration came to her. “Then the wizard hit her on the head and did not change that little skunk back.” “No,” he said. “The wizard said ‘O.K.’ and Roger Skunk did not smell of roses any more. He smelled very bad again.” “But the other little amum — oh! — amum — ” “Joanne. It’s Daddy’s story. Shall Daddy not tell you any more stories?” Her broad face looked at him through sifted light, astounded. “This is what happened, then. Roger Skunk and his mommy went home and they heard Woo-oo, woooo-oo and it was the choo-choo train bringing Daddy Skunk home from Boston. And they had lima beans, celery, liver, mashed potatoes, and Pie-Oh-My for dessert. And when Roger Skunk was in bed Mommy Skunk came up and hugged him and said he smelled like her little baby skunk again and she loved him very much. And that’s the end of the story.” “But Daddy.” “What?” “Then did the other little animals run away?” “No, because eventually they got used to the way he was and did not mind it at all.” “What’s evenshiladee?” “In a little while.” “That was a stupid mommy.” “It was not,” he said with rare emphasis, and believed, from her expression, that she realised he was defending his own mother to her, or something as odd. “Now I want you to put your big heavy head in the pillow and have a good long nap.” He adjusted the shade so not even a crack of day showed, and tiptoed to the door, in the pretense that she was already asleep. But when he turned, she was crouching on top of the covers and staring at him. “Hey. Get under the covers and fall faaast asleep. Bobby’s asleep.” She stood up and bounced gingerly on the springs. “Daddy.” “What?” “Tomorrow, I want you to tell me the story that that wizard took that magic wand and hit that mommy” — her plump arms chopped forcefully — “right over the head.” “No. That’s not the story. The point is that the little skunk loved his mommy more than he loved all the other little animals and she knew what was right.” “No. Tomorrow you say he hit that mommy. Do it.” She kicked her legs up and sat down on the bed with a great heave and complaint of springs, as she had done hundreds of times before, except that this time she did not laugh. “Say it, Daddy.” “Well, we’ll see. Now at least have a rest. Stay on the bed. You’re a good girl.” He closed the door and went downstairs. Clare had spread the newspapers and opened the paint can and, wearing an old shirt of his on top of her maternity smock, was stroking the chair rail with a dipped brush. Above him footsteps vibrated and he called, “Joanne! Shall I come up there and spank you?” The footsteps hesitated. “That was a long story,” Clare said. “The poor kid,” he answered, and with utter weariness watched his wife labour. The woodwork, a cage of moldings and rails and baseboards all around them, was half old tan and half new ivory and he felt caught in an ugly middle position, and though he as well felt his wife’s presence in the cage with him, he did not want to speak with her, work with her, touch her, anything.

What is the example of national integration that the author refers to?

<answer> The make-up division of the Gemini Studios was an example of national integration. According to the author, this is so because people from different regions and religious groups worked together in the same department. The department was headed by a Bengali who was succeeded by a Maharashtrian. The other helpers included a Dharwar Kannadiga, an Andhra, a Madras Indian Christian, an Anglo-Burmese and the local Tamils. <context> Pancake was the brand name of the make-up material that Gemini Studios bought in truck-loads. Greta Garbo1 must have used it, Miss Gohar must have used it, Vyjayantimala2 must also have used it but Rati Agnihotri may not have even heard of it. The make-up department of the Gemini Studios was in the upstairs of a building that was believed to have been Robert Clive’s stables. A dozen other buildings in the city are said to have been his residence. For his brief life and an even briefer stay in Madras, Robert Clive seems to have done a lot of moving, besides fighting some impossible battles in remote corners of India and marrying a maiden in St. Mary’s Church in Fort St. George in Madras. The make-up room had the look of a hair-cutting salon with lights at all angles around half a dozen large mirrors. They were all incandescent lights, so you can imagine the fiery misery of those subjected to make-up. The make-up department was first headed by a Bengali who became too big for a studio and left. He was succeeded by a Maharashtrian who was assisted by a Dharwar Kannadiga, an Andhra, a Madras Indian Christian, an Anglo-Burmese and the usual local Tamils. All this shows that there was a great deal of national integration long before A.I.R. and Doordarshan began broadcasting programmes on national integration. This gang of nationally integrated make-up men could turn any decent-looking person into a hideous crimson hued monster with the help of truck-loads of pancake and a number of other locally made potions and lotions. Those were the days of mainly indoor shooting, and only five per cent of the film was shot outdoors. I suppose the sets and studio lights needed the girls and boys to be made to look ugly in order to look presentable in the movie. A strict hierarchy was maintained in the make-up department. The chief make-up man made the chief actors and actresses ugly, his senior assistant the ‘second’ hero and heroine, the junior assistant the main comedian, and so forth. The players who played the crowd were the responsibility of the office boy. (Even the make-up department of the Gemini Studio had an ‘office boy’!) On the days when there was a crowdshooting, you could see him mixing his paint in a giant vessel and slapping it on the crowd players. The idea was to close every pore on the surface of the face in the process of applying make-up. He wasn’t exactly a ‘boy’; he was in his early forties, having entered the studios years ago in the hope of becoming a star actor or a top screen writer, director or lyrics writer. He was a bit of a poet. In those days I worked in a cubicle, two whole sides of which were French windows. (I didn’t know at that time they were called French windows.) Seeing me sitting at my desk tearing up newspapers day in and day out, most people thought I was doing next to nothing. It is likely that the Boss thought likewise too. So anyone who felt I should be given some occupation would barge into my cubicle and deliver an extended lecture. The ‘boy’ in the make-up department had decided I should be enlightened on how great literary talent was being allowed to go waste in a department fit only for barbers and perverts. Soon I was praying for crowd-shooting all the time. Nothing short of it could save me from his epics. In all instances of frustration, you will always find the anger directed towards a single person openly or covertly and this man of the make-up department was convinced that all his woes, ignominy and neglect were due to Kothamangalam Subbu. Subbu was the No. 2 at Gemini Studios. He couldn’t have had a more encouraging opening in films than our grown-up make-up boy had. On the contrary he must have had to face more uncertain and difficult times, for when he began his career, there were no firmly established film producing companies or studios. Even in the matter of education, specially formal education, Subbu couldn’t have had an appreciable lead over our boy. But by virtue of being born a Brahmin — a virtue, indeed! — he must have had exposure to more affluent situations and people. He had the ability to look cheerful at all times even after having had a hand in a flop film. He always had work for somebody — he could never do things on his own — but his sense of loyalty made him identify himself with his principal completely and turn his entire creativity to his principal’s advantage. He was tailor-made for films. Here was a man who could be inspired when commanded. “The rat fights the tigress underwater and kills her but takes pity on the cubs and tends them lovingly — I don’t know how to do the scene,” the producer would say and Subbu would come out with four ways of the rat pouring affection on its victim’s offspring. “Good, but I am not sure it is effective enough,” the producer would say and in a minute Subbu would come out with fourteen more alternatives. Film-making must have been and was so easy with a man like Subbu around and if ever there was a man who gave direction and definition to Gemini Studios during its golden years, it was Subbu. Subbu had a separate identity as a poet and though he was certainly capable of more complex and higher forms, he deliberately chose to address his poetry to the masses. His success in films overshadowed and dwarfed his literary achievements — or so his critics felt. He composed several truly original ‘story poems’ in folk refrain and diction and also wrote a sprawling novel Thillana Mohanambal with dozens of very deftly etched characters. He quite successfully recreated the mood and manner of the Devadasis of the early 20th century. He was an amazing actor — he never aspired to the lead roles — but whatever subsidiary role he played in any of the films, he performed better than the supposed main players. He had a genuine love for anyone he came across and his house was a permanent residence for dozens of near and far relations and acquaintances. It seemed against Subbu’s nature to be even conscious that he was feeding and supporting so many of them. Such a charitable and improvident man, and yet he had enemies! Was it because he seemed so close and intimate with The Boss? Or was it his general demeanour that resembled a sycophant’s? Or his readiness to say nice things about everything? In any case, there was this man in the make-up department who would wish the direst things for Subbu. You saw Subbu always with The Boss but in the attendance rolls, he was grouped under a department called the Story Department comprising a lawyer and an assembly of writers and poets. The lawyer was also officially known as the legal adviser, but everybody referred to him as the opposite. An extremely talented actress, who was also extremely temperamental, once blew over on the sets. While everyone stood stunned, the lawyer quietly switched on the recording equipment. When the actress paused for breath, the lawyer said to her, “One minute, please,” and played back the recording. There was nothing incriminating or unmentionably foul about the actress’s tirade against the producer. But when she heard her voice again through the sound equipment, she was struck dumb. A girl from the countryside, she hadn’t gone through all the stages of worldly experience that generally precede a position of importance and sophistication that she had found herself catapulted into. She never quite recovered from the terror she felt that day. That was the end of a brief and brilliant acting career — the legal adviser, who was also a member of the Story Department, had unwittingly brought about that sad end. While every other member of the Department wore a kind of uniform — khadi dhoti with a slightly oversized and clumsily tailored white khadi shirt — the legal adviser wore pants and a tie and sometimes a coat that looked like a coat of mail. Often he looked alone and helpless — a man of cold logic in a crowd of dreamers — a neutral man in an assembly of Gandhiites and khadiites. Like so many of those who were close to The Boss, he was allowed to produce a film and though a lot of raw stock and pancake were used on it, not much came of the film. Then one day The Boss closed down the Story Department and this was perhaps the only instance in all human history where a lawyer lost his job because the poets were asked to go home. Gemini Studios was the favourite haunt of poets like S.D.S.Yogiar3, Sangu Subramanyam, Krishna Sastry and Harindranath Chattopadhyaya4. It had an excellent mess which supplied good coffee at all times of the day and for most part of the night. Those were the days when Congress rule meant Prohibition and meeting over a cup of coffee was rather satisfying entertainment. Barring the office boys and a couple of clerks, everybody else at the Studios radiated leisure, a pre-requisite for poetry. Most of them wore khadi and worshipped Gandhiji but beyond that they had not the faintest appreciation for political thought of any kind. Naturally, they were all averse to the term ‘Communism’. A Communist was a godless man — he had no filial or conjugal love; he had no compunction about killing his own parents or his children; he was always out to cause and spread unrest and violence among innocent and ignorant people. Such notions which prevailed everywhere else in South India at that time also, naturally, floated about vaguely among the khadi-clad poets of Gemini Studios. Evidence of it was soon forthcoming. When Frank Buchman’s Moral Re-Armament army, some two hundred strong, visited Madras sometime in 1952, they could not have found a warmer host in India than the Gemini Studios. Someone called the group an international circus. They weren’t very good on the trapeze and their acquaintance with animals was only at the dinner table, but they presented two plays in a most professional manner. Their ‘Jotham Valley’ and ‘The Forgotten Factor’ ran several shows in Madras and along with the other citizens of the city, the Gemini family of six hundred saw the plays over and over again. The message of the plays were usually plain and simple homilies, but the sets and costumes were first-rate. Madras and the Tamil drama community were terribly impressed and for some years almost all Tamil plays had a scene of sunrise and sunset in the manner of ‘Jotham Valley’ with a bare stage, a white background curtain and a tune played on the flute. It was some years later that I learnt that the MRA was a kind of countermovement to international Communism and the big bosses of Madras like Mr. Vasan simply played into their hands. I am not sure however, that this was indeed the case, for the unchangeable aspects of these big bosses and their enterprises remained the same, MRA or no MRA, international Communism or no international Communism. The staff of Gemini Studios had a nice time hosting two hundred people of all hues and sizes of at least twenty nationalities. It was such a change from the usual collection of crowd players waiting to be slapped with thick layers of make-up by the office-boy in the make-up department. A few months later, the telephone lines of the big bosses of Madras buzzed and once again we at Gemini Studios cleared a whole shooting stage to welcome another visitor. All they said was that he was a poet from England. The only poets from England the simple Gemini staff knew or heard of were Wordsworth and Tennyson; the more literate ones knew of Keats, Shelley and Byron; and one or two might have faintly come to know of someone by the name Eliot. Who was the poet visiting the Gemini Studios now? “He is not a poet. He is an editor. That’s why The Boss is giving him a big reception.” Vasan was also the editor of the popular Tamil weekly Ananda Vikatan. He wasn’t the editor of any of the known names of British publications in Madras, that is, those known at the Gemini Studios. Since the top men of The Hindu were taking the initiative, the surmise was that the poet was the editor of a daily — but not from The Manchester Guardian or the London Times. That was all that even the most wellinformed among us knew. At last, around four in the afternoon, the poet (or the editor) arrived. He was a tall man, very English, very serious and of course very unknown to all of us. Battling with half a dozen pedestal fans on the shooting stage, The Boss read out a long speech. It was obvious that he too knew precious little about the poet (or the editor). The speech was all in the most general terms but here and there it was peppered with words like ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’. Then the poet spoke. He couldn’t have addressed a more dazed and silent audience — no one knew what he was talking about and his accent defeated any attempt to understand what he was saying. The whole thing lasted about an hour; then the poet left and we all dispersed in utter bafflement — what are we doing? What is an English poet doing in a film studio which makes Tamil films for the simplest sort of people? People whose lives least afforded them the possibility of cultivating a taste for English poetry? The poet looked pretty baffled too, for he too must have felt the sheer incongruity of his talk about the thrills and travails of an English poet. His visit remained an unexplained mystery. The great prose-writers of the world may not admit it, but my conviction grows stronger day after day that prosewriting is not and cannot be the true pursuit of a genius. It is for the patient, persistent, persevering drudge with a heart so shrunken that nothing can break it; rejection slips don’t mean a thing to him; he at once sets about making a fresh copy of the long prose piece and sends it on to another editor enclosing postage for the return of the manuscript. It was for such people that The Hindu had published a tiny announcement in an insignificant corner of an unimportant page — a short story contest organised by a British periodical by the name The Encounter. Of course, The Encounter wasn’t a known commodity among the Gemini literati. I wanted to get an idea of the periodical before I spent a considerable sum in postage sending a manuscript to England. In those days, the British Council Library had an entrance with no long winded signboards and notices to make you feel you were sneaking into a forbidden area. And there were copies of The Encounter lying about in various degrees of freshness, almost untouched by readers. When I read the editor’s name, I heard a bell ringing in my shrunken heart. It was the poet who had visited the Gemini Studios — I felt like I had found a long lost brother and I sang as I sealed the envelope and wrote out his address. I felt that he too would be singing the same song at the same time — long lost brothers of Indian films discover each other by singing the same song in the first reel and in the final reel of the film. Stephen Spender5. Stephen — that was his name. And years later, when I was out of Gemini Studios and I had much time but not much money, anything at a reduced price attracted my attention. On the footpath in front of the Madras Mount Road Post Office, there was a pile of brand new books for fifty paise each. Actually they were copies of the same book, an elegant paperback of American origin. ‘Special low-priced student edition, in connection with the 50th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution’, I paid fifty paise and picked up a copy of the book, The God That Failed. Six eminent men of letters in six separate essays described ‘their journeys into Communism and their disillusioned return’; Andre Gide6, Richard Wright7, Ignazio Silone8, Arthur Koestler9, Louis Fischer10 and Stephen Spender. Stephen Spender! Suddenly the book assumed tremendous significance. Stephen Spender, the poet who had visited Gemini Studios! In a moment I felt a dark chamber of my mind lit up by a hazy illumination. The reaction to Stephen Spender at Gemini Studios was no longer a mystery. The Boss of the Gemini Studios may not have much to do with Spender’s poetry. But not with his god that failed.

Subbu is described as a many-sided genius. List four of his special abilities

<answer> Subbu was a many-sided genius. He was born a Brahmin. It is a virtue in itself as it exposed him to more affluent situations and people. Second, he had the ability to look cheerful at all times. Third, he always had work for somebody. Fourth, he had great loyalty to his principal, S.S. Vasan, the Boss. <context> Pancake was the brand name of the make-up material that Gemini Studios bought in truck-loads. Greta Garbo1 must have used it, Miss Gohar must have used it, Vyjayantimala2 must also have used it but Rati Agnihotri may not have even heard of it. The make-up department of the Gemini Studios was in the upstairs of a building that was believed to have been Robert Clive’s stables. A dozen other buildings in the city are said to have been his residence. For his brief life and an even briefer stay in Madras, Robert Clive seems to have done a lot of moving, besides fighting some impossible battles in remote corners of India and marrying a maiden in St. Mary’s Church in Fort St. George in Madras. The make-up room had the look of a hair-cutting salon with lights at all angles around half a dozen large mirrors. They were all incandescent lights, so you can imagine the fiery misery of those subjected to make-up. The make-up department was first headed by a Bengali who became too big for a studio and left. He was succeeded by a Maharashtrian who was assisted by a Dharwar Kannadiga, an Andhra, a Madras Indian Christian, an Anglo-Burmese and the usual local Tamils. All this shows that there was a great deal of national integration long before A.I.R. and Doordarshan began broadcasting programmes on national integration. This gang of nationally integrated make-up men could turn any decent-looking person into a hideous crimson hued monster with the help of truck-loads of pancake and a number of other locally made potions and lotions. Those were the days of mainly indoor shooting, and only five per cent of the film was shot outdoors. I suppose the sets and studio lights needed the girls and boys to be made to look ugly in order to look presentable in the movie. A strict hierarchy was maintained in the make-up department. The chief make-up man made the chief actors and actresses ugly, his senior assistant the ‘second’ hero and heroine, the junior assistant the main comedian, and so forth. The players who played the crowd were the responsibility of the office boy. (Even the make-up department of the Gemini Studio had an ‘office boy’!) On the days when there was a crowdshooting, you could see him mixing his paint in a giant vessel and slapping it on the crowd players. The idea was to close every pore on the surface of the face in the process of applying make-up. He wasn’t exactly a ‘boy’; he was in his early forties, having entered the studios years ago in the hope of becoming a star actor or a top screen writer, director or lyrics writer. He was a bit of a poet. In those days I worked in a cubicle, two whole sides of which were French windows. (I didn’t know at that time they were called French windows.) Seeing me sitting at my desk tearing up newspapers day in and day out, most people thought I was doing next to nothing. It is likely that the Boss thought likewise too. So anyone who felt I should be given some occupation would barge into my cubicle and deliver an extended lecture. The ‘boy’ in the make-up department had decided I should be enlightened on how great literary talent was being allowed to go waste in a department fit only for barbers and perverts. Soon I was praying for crowd-shooting all the time. Nothing short of it could save me from his epics. In all instances of frustration, you will always find the anger directed towards a single person openly or covertly and this man of the make-up department was convinced that all his woes, ignominy and neglect were due to Kothamangalam Subbu. Subbu was the No. 2 at Gemini Studios. He couldn’t have had a more encouraging opening in films than our grown-up make-up boy had. On the contrary he must have had to face more uncertain and difficult times, for when he began his career, there were no firmly established film producing companies or studios. Even in the matter of education, specially formal education, Subbu couldn’t have had an appreciable lead over our boy. But by virtue of being born a Brahmin — a virtue, indeed! — he must have had exposure to more affluent situations and people. He had the ability to look cheerful at all times even after having had a hand in a flop film. He always had work for somebody — he could never do things on his own — but his sense of loyalty made him identify himself with his principal completely and turn his entire creativity to his principal’s advantage. He was tailor-made for films. Here was a man who could be inspired when commanded. “The rat fights the tigress underwater and kills her but takes pity on the cubs and tends them lovingly — I don’t know how to do the scene,” the producer would say and Subbu would come out with four ways of the rat pouring affection on its victim’s offspring. “Good, but I am not sure it is effective enough,” the producer would say and in a minute Subbu would come out with fourteen more alternatives. Film-making must have been and was so easy with a man like Subbu around and if ever there was a man who gave direction and definition to Gemini Studios during its golden years, it was Subbu. Subbu had a separate identity as a poet and though he was certainly capable of more complex and higher forms, he deliberately chose to address his poetry to the masses. His success in films overshadowed and dwarfed his literary achievements — or so his critics felt. He composed several truly original ‘story poems’ in folk refrain and diction and also wrote a sprawling novel Thillana Mohanambal with dozens of very deftly etched characters. He quite successfully recreated the mood and manner of the Devadasis of the early 20th century. He was an amazing actor — he never aspired to the lead roles — but whatever subsidiary role he played in any of the films, he performed better than the supposed main players. He had a genuine love for anyone he came across and his house was a permanent residence for dozens of near and far relations and acquaintances. It seemed against Subbu’s nature to be even conscious that he was feeding and supporting so many of them. Such a charitable and improvident man, and yet he had enemies! Was it because he seemed so close and intimate with The Boss? Or was it his general demeanour that resembled a sycophant’s? Or his readiness to say nice things about everything? In any case, there was this man in the make-up department who would wish the direst things for Subbu. You saw Subbu always with The Boss but in the attendance rolls, he was grouped under a department called the Story Department comprising a lawyer and an assembly of writers and poets. The lawyer was also officially known as the legal adviser, but everybody referred to him as the opposite. An extremely talented actress, who was also extremely temperamental, once blew over on the sets. While everyone stood stunned, the lawyer quietly switched on the recording equipment. When the actress paused for breath, the lawyer said to her, “One minute, please,” and played back the recording. There was nothing incriminating or unmentionably foul about the actress’s tirade against the producer. But when she heard her voice again through the sound equipment, she was struck dumb. A girl from the countryside, she hadn’t gone through all the stages of worldly experience that generally precede a position of importance and sophistication that she had found herself catapulted into. She never quite recovered from the terror she felt that day. That was the end of a brief and brilliant acting career — the legal adviser, who was also a member of the Story Department, had unwittingly brought about that sad end. While every other member of the Department wore a kind of uniform — khadi dhoti with a slightly oversized and clumsily tailored white khadi shirt — the legal adviser wore pants and a tie and sometimes a coat that looked like a coat of mail. Often he looked alone and helpless — a man of cold logic in a crowd of dreamers — a neutral man in an assembly of Gandhiites and khadiites. Like so many of those who were close to The Boss, he was allowed to produce a film and though a lot of raw stock and pancake were used on it, not much came of the film. Then one day The Boss closed down the Story Department and this was perhaps the only instance in all human history where a lawyer lost his job because the poets were asked to go home. Gemini Studios was the favourite haunt of poets like S.D.S.Yogiar3, Sangu Subramanyam, Krishna Sastry and Harindranath Chattopadhyaya4. It had an excellent mess which supplied good coffee at all times of the day and for most part of the night. Those were the days when Congress rule meant Prohibition and meeting over a cup of coffee was rather satisfying entertainment. Barring the office boys and a couple of clerks, everybody else at the Studios radiated leisure, a pre-requisite for poetry. Most of them wore khadi and worshipped Gandhiji but beyond that they had not the faintest appreciation for political thought of any kind. Naturally, they were all averse to the term ‘Communism’. A Communist was a godless man — he had no filial or conjugal love; he had no compunction about killing his own parents or his children; he was always out to cause and spread unrest and violence among innocent and ignorant people. Such notions which prevailed everywhere else in South India at that time also, naturally, floated about vaguely among the khadi-clad poets of Gemini Studios. Evidence of it was soon forthcoming. When Frank Buchman’s Moral Re-Armament army, some two hundred strong, visited Madras sometime in 1952, they could not have found a warmer host in India than the Gemini Studios. Someone called the group an international circus. They weren’t very good on the trapeze and their acquaintance with animals was only at the dinner table, but they presented two plays in a most professional manner. Their ‘Jotham Valley’ and ‘The Forgotten Factor’ ran several shows in Madras and along with the other citizens of the city, the Gemini family of six hundred saw the plays over and over again. The message of the plays were usually plain and simple homilies, but the sets and costumes were first-rate. Madras and the Tamil drama community were terribly impressed and for some years almost all Tamil plays had a scene of sunrise and sunset in the manner of ‘Jotham Valley’ with a bare stage, a white background curtain and a tune played on the flute. It was some years later that I learnt that the MRA was a kind of countermovement to international Communism and the big bosses of Madras like Mr. Vasan simply played into their hands. I am not sure however, that this was indeed the case, for the unchangeable aspects of these big bosses and their enterprises remained the same, MRA or no MRA, international Communism or no international Communism. The staff of Gemini Studios had a nice time hosting two hundred people of all hues and sizes of at least twenty nationalities. It was such a change from the usual collection of crowd players waiting to be slapped with thick layers of make-up by the office-boy in the make-up department. A few months later, the telephone lines of the big bosses of Madras buzzed and once again we at Gemini Studios cleared a whole shooting stage to welcome another visitor. All they said was that he was a poet from England. The only poets from England the simple Gemini staff knew or heard of were Wordsworth and Tennyson; the more literate ones knew of Keats, Shelley and Byron; and one or two might have faintly come to know of someone by the name Eliot. Who was the poet visiting the Gemini Studios now? “He is not a poet. He is an editor. That’s why The Boss is giving him a big reception.” Vasan was also the editor of the popular Tamil weekly Ananda Vikatan. He wasn’t the editor of any of the known names of British publications in Madras, that is, those known at the Gemini Studios. Since the top men of The Hindu were taking the initiative, the surmise was that the poet was the editor of a daily — but not from The Manchester Guardian or the London Times. That was all that even the most wellinformed among us knew. At last, around four in the afternoon, the poet (or the editor) arrived. He was a tall man, very English, very serious and of course very unknown to all of us. Battling with half a dozen pedestal fans on the shooting stage, The Boss read out a long speech. It was obvious that he too knew precious little about the poet (or the editor). The speech was all in the most general terms but here and there it was peppered with words like ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’. Then the poet spoke. He couldn’t have addressed a more dazed and silent audience — no one knew what he was talking about and his accent defeated any attempt to understand what he was saying. The whole thing lasted about an hour; then the poet left and we all dispersed in utter bafflement — what are we doing? What is an English poet doing in a film studio which makes Tamil films for the simplest sort of people? People whose lives least afforded them the possibility of cultivating a taste for English poetry? The poet looked pretty baffled too, for he too must have felt the sheer incongruity of his talk about the thrills and travails of an English poet. His visit remained an unexplained mystery. The great prose-writers of the world may not admit it, but my conviction grows stronger day after day that prosewriting is not and cannot be the true pursuit of a genius. It is for the patient, persistent, persevering drudge with a heart so shrunken that nothing can break it; rejection slips don’t mean a thing to him; he at once sets about making a fresh copy of the long prose piece and sends it on to another editor enclosing postage for the return of the manuscript. It was for such people that The Hindu had published a tiny announcement in an insignificant corner of an unimportant page — a short story contest organised by a British periodical by the name The Encounter. Of course, The Encounter wasn’t a known commodity among the Gemini literati. I wanted to get an idea of the periodical before I spent a considerable sum in postage sending a manuscript to England. In those days, the British Council Library had an entrance with no long winded signboards and notices to make you feel you were sneaking into a forbidden area. And there were copies of The Encounter lying about in various degrees of freshness, almost untouched by readers. When I read the editor’s name, I heard a bell ringing in my shrunken heart. It was the poet who had visited the Gemini Studios — I felt like I had found a long lost brother and I sang as I sealed the envelope and wrote out his address. I felt that he too would be singing the same song at the same time — long lost brothers of Indian films discover each other by singing the same song in the first reel and in the final reel of the film. Stephen Spender5. Stephen — that was his name. And years later, when I was out of Gemini Studios and I had much time but not much money, anything at a reduced price attracted my attention. On the footpath in front of the Madras Mount Road Post Office, there was a pile of brand new books for fifty paise each. Actually they were copies of the same book, an elegant paperback of American origin. ‘Special low-priced student edition, in connection with the 50th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution’, I paid fifty paise and picked up a copy of the book, The God That Failed. Six eminent men of letters in six separate essays described ‘their journeys into Communism and their disillusioned return’; Andre Gide6, Richard Wright7, Ignazio Silone8, Arthur Koestler9, Louis Fischer10 and Stephen Spender. Stephen Spender! Suddenly the book assumed tremendous significance. Stephen Spender, the poet who had visited Gemini Studios! In a moment I felt a dark chamber of my mind lit up by a hazy illumination. The reaction to Stephen Spender at Gemini Studios was no longer a mystery. The Boss of the Gemini Studios may not have much to do with Spender’s poetry. But not with his god that failed.

Who says this sentence “At last a sympathetic audience.”?

<answer> Gerrand says this. <context> When the curtain rises Gerrard is standing by the table making a phone call. He is of medium height, and wearing horn-rimmed glasses . . . He is dressed in a lounge suit and a great coat. His voice is cultured.) GERRARD : ... Well, tell him to phone up directly. I must know... Yes, I expect I’ll still be here, but you mustn’t count on that ... In about ten minutes’ time. Right-ho. Goodbye. (He puts down the phone and goes to the divan on the left, where there is a travelling bag, and starts packing. Whilst he is thus engaged, another man, similar in build to Gerrard enters from the right silently — revolver in hand. He is flashily dressed in an overcoat and a soft hat. He bumps accidentally against the table, and at the sound Gerrard turns quickly.) GERRARD : (pleasantly) Why, this is a surprise, Mr— er— INTRUDER : I’m glad you’re pleased to see me. I don’t think you’ll be pleased for long. Put those paws up! GERRARD : This is all very melodramatic, not very original, perhaps, but… INTRUDER : Trying to be calm and —er— GERRARD : ‘Nonchalant’ is your word, I think. INTRUDER : Thanks a lot. You’ll soon stop being smart. I’ll make you crawl. I want to know a few things, see. GERRARD : Anything you like. I know all the answers. But before we begin I should like to change my position; you may be comfortable, but I am not. INTRUDER : Sit down there, and no funny business. (Motions to a chair, and seats himself on the divan by the bag.) Now then, we’ll have a nice little talk about yourself! GERRARD : At last a sympathetic audience! I’ll tell you the story of my life. How as a child I was stolen by the gypsies, and why at the age of thirty-two, I find myself in my lonely Essex cottage, how... INTRUDER : Keep it to yourself, and just answer my questions. You live here alone? Well, do you? GERRARD : I’m sorry. I thought you were telling me, not asking me. A question of inflection; your voice is unfamiliar. INTRUDER : (with emphasis) Do you live here alone? GERRARD : And if I don’t answer? INTRUDER : You’ve got enough sense not to want to get hurt. GERRARD : I think good sense is shown more in the ability to avoid pain than in the mere desire to do so. What do you think, Mr— er— INTRUDER : Never mind my name. I like yours better, Mr Gerrard. What are your Christian names? GERRARD : Vincent Charles. INTRUDER : Do you run a car? GERRARD : No. INTRUDER : That’s a lie. You’re not dealing with a fool. I’m as smart as you and smarter, and I know you run a car. Better be careful, wise guy! GERRARD : Are you American, or is that merely a clever imitation? INTRUDER : Listen, this gun’s no toy. I can hurt you without killing you, and still get my answers. GERRARD : Of course, if you put it like that, I’ll be glad to assist you. I do possess a car, and it’s in the garage round the corner. INTRUDER : That’s better. Do people often come out here? GERRARD : Very rarely. Surprisingly few people take the trouble to visit me. There’s the baker and the greengrocer, of course; and then there’s the milkman — quite charming, but no one so interesting as yourself. INTRUDER : I happen to know that you never see tradespeople. 2 GERRARD : You seem to have taken a considerable amount of trouble. Since you know so much about me, won’t you say something about yourself? You have been so modest. INTRUDER : I could tell you plenty. You think you’re smart, but I’m the top of the class round here. I’ve got brains and I use them. That’s how I’ve got where I have. GERRARD : And where precisely have you got? It didn’t require a great brain to break into my little cottage. INTRUDER : When you know why I’ve broken into your little cottage, you’ll be surprised, and it won’t be a pleasant surprise. GERRARD : With you figuring so largely in it, that is understandable. By the way, what particular line of crime do you embrace, or aren’t you a specialist? INTRUDER : My speciality’s jewel robbery. Your car will do me a treat. It’s certainly a dandy bus. GERRARD : I’m afraid jewels are few and far between in the wilds of Essex. INTRUDER : So are the cops. I can retire here nicely for a little while. GERRARD : You mean to live with me? A trifle sudden isn’t it; you’ve not been invited. INTRUDER : You won’t be here long; so I didn’t trouble to ask. GERRARD : What do you mean? INTRUDER : This is your big surprise. I’m going to kill you. GERRARD : A little harsh, isn’t it? INTRUDER : (with heavy sarcasm) Yeah, I’ll be sorry to do it. I’ve taken a fancy to you, but it’s just got to be done. GERRARD : Why add murder to your other crimes? It’s a grave step you’re taking. INTRUDER : I’m not taking it for fun. I’ve been hunted long enough. I’m wanted for murder already, and they can’t hang me twice. GERRARD : You’re planning a gratuitous double, so to speak. Admitted you’ve nothing to lose, but what have you to gain? INTRUDER : I’ve got freedom to gain. As for myself, I’m a poor hunted rat. As Vincent Charles Gerrard I’m free to go places and do nothing. I can eat well and sleep and without having to be ready to beat it at the sight of a cop. GERRARD : In most melodramas the villain is foolish enough to delay his killing long enough to be frustrated. You are much luckier. INTRUDER : I’m O.K. I’ve got a reason for everything. I’m going to be Vincent Charles Gerrard, see. I’ve got to know what he talks like. Now I know. That posh stuff comes easy. This is Mr V.C. Gerrard speaking. (Pantomime of phoning, in imitation cultured voice.) And that’s not all. (He stands up.) Get up a minute (Gerrard stands.) Now take a look at me. GERRARD : You’re not particularly decorative. INTRUDER : No! Well, that goes for you, too. I’ve only got to wear specs and I’ll be enough like you to get away with it. GERRARD : What about your clothes? They’ll let you down if you’re not careful. INTRUDER : That’ll be all right. Yours will fit me fine. GERRARD : That is extremely interesting, but you seem to miss the point of my remark. I said, you were luckier than most melodramatic villains. It was not a tribute to your intelligence. You won’t kill me for a very good reason. INTRUDER : So that’s what you think. GERRARD : You’ll let me go, and thank God you didn’t shoot sooner. INTRUDER : Come on. What’s on your mind! Better be quick. This conversation bores me. GERRARD : Your idea is to elude the police by killing me and taking on my identity? INTRUDER : Yes, I like the idea. GERRARD : But are you sure it’s going to help you? INTRUDER : Now listen here. I’ve got this all planned. I did a job in town. Things went wrong and I killed a cop. Since then I’ve done nothing but dodge. GERRARD : And this is where dodging has brought you? INTRUDER : It brought me to Aylesbury. That’s where I saw you in the car. Two other people saw you and started to talk. I listened. It looks like you’re a bit queer — kind of a mystery man. GERRARD : A mystery which I propose to explain. INTRUDER : (disregarding him) You phone your orders and sometimes you go away suddenly and come back just the same. Those are just the things I want to do. Hearing about you was one of my luckiest breaks. GERRARD : Apparently you haven’t the intelligence to ask why I am invested in this cloak of mystery. INTRUDER : (preparing to shoot) As I said before, this conversation bores me. GERRARD : Don’t be a fool. If you shoot, you’ll hang for sure. If not as yourself, then as Vincent Charles Gerrard. INTRUDER : What is this? GERRARD : This is your big surprise. I said you wouldn’t kill me and I was right. Why do you think I am here today and gone tomorrow, never see tradespeople? You say my habits would suit you. You are a crook. Do you think I am a Sunday-school teacher? The game’s up as far as I’m concerned. Things went wrong with me. I said it with bullets and got away. Unfortunately they got one of my men, and found things the fool should have burnt. Tonight I’m expecting trouble. My bag’s packed ready to clear off. There it is. INTRUDER : It’s a bag all right and this is a gun all right. What’s all this? GERRARD : That’s a disguise outfit; false moustaches and what not. Now do you believe me? INTRUDER : (musingly) I don’t know. GERRARD : For God’s sake clear that muddled head of yours and let’s go. Come with me in the car. I can use you. If you find it’s a frame, you’ve got me in the car, and you’ve still got your gun. INTRUDER : May be you’re right. GERRARD : Then don’t waste time. (Goes and picks up hat and bag.) INTRUDER : Careful, boss, I’m watching you. GERRARD : I have got a man posted on the main road. He’ll ring up if he sees the police, but I don’t want to leave ... (telephone bell rings) Come on! They’re after us. Through here straight to the garage. INTRUDER : How do I know that you are telling the truth? GERRARD : Oh, don’t be a fool. Look for yourself. (Gerrard opens door and steps away. Intruder leans forward to inspect it, with his side towards Gerrard, but with the revolver ready. As he turns his head, Gerrard gives him a push into the cupboard, knocking the revolver out of his hand. He slams the door and locks it, picks up the revolver and goes to the phone, where he stands with the gun pointed at the cupboard door.) INTRUDER : (rattles door and shouts) Let me out of here! GERRARD : Hello. Yes, speaking. Sorry I can’t let you have the props in time for rehearsal, I’ve had a spot of bother — quite amusing. I think I’ll put it in my next play. Listen, can you tell our friend the Sergeant to come up here at once? You’ll probably find him in the Public Bar.

Do you think Umberto Eco likes being interviewed? Give reasons for your opinion.

<answer> Umberto Eco does not think highly of interviewers who he thinks are a puzzled bunch of people. He has reasons for thinking so as they have often interpreted him as a novelist and clubbed him with Pen Clubs and writers, while he considers himself an academic scholar who attends academic conferences and writes novels on Sundays. <context> Since its invention a little over 130 years ago, the interview has become a commonplace of journalism. Today, almost everybody who is literate will have read an interview at some point in their lives, while from the other point of view, several thousand celebrities have been interviewed over the years, some of them repeatedly. So it is hardly surprising that opinions of the interview — of its functions, methods and merits — vary considerably. Some might make quite extravagant claims for it as being, in its highest form, a source of truth, and, in its practice, an art. Others, usually celebrities who see themselves as its victims, might despise the interview as an unwarranted intrusion into their lives, or feel that it somehow diminishes them, just as in some primitive cultures it is believed that if one takes a photographic portrait of somebody then one is stealing that person’s soul. V. S. Naipaul1 ‘feels that some people are wounded by interviews and lose a part of themselves,’ Lewis Carroll, the creator of Alice in Wonderland, was said to have had ‘a just horror of the interviewer’ and he never consented to be interviewed — It was his horror of being lionized which made him thus repel would be acquaintances, interviewers, and the persistent petitioners for his autograph and he would afterwards relate the stories of his success in silencing all such people with much satisfaction and amusement. Rudyard Kipling2 expressed an even more condemnatory attitude towards the interviewer. His wife, Caroline, writes in her diary for 14 October 1892 that their day was ‘wrecked by two reporters from Boston’. She reports her husband as saying to the reporters, “Why do I refuse to be interviewed? Because it is immoral! It is a crime, just as much of a crime as an offence against my person, as an assault, and just as much merits punishment. It is cowardly and vile. No respectable man would ask it, much less give it,” Yet Kipling had himself perpetrated such an ‘assault’ on Mark Twain only a few years before. H. G. Wells3 in an interview in 1894 referred to ‘the interviewing ordeal’, but was a fairly frequent interviewee and forty years later found himself interviewing Joseph Stalin4. Saul Bellow5, who has consented to be interviewed on several occasions, nevertheless once described interviews as being like thumbprints on his windpipe. Yet despite the drawbacks of the interview, it is a supremely serviceable medium of communication. “These days, more than at any other time, our most vivid impressions of our contemporaries are through interviews,” Denis Brian has written. “Almost everything of moment reaches us through one man asking questions of another. Because of this, the interviewer holds a position of unprecedented power and influence.” The following is an extract from an interview of Umberto Eco. The interviewer is Mukund Padmanabhan from The Hindu. Umberto Eco, a professor at the University of Bologna in Italy had already acquired a formidable reputation as a scholar for his ideas on semiotics (the study of signs), literary interpretation, and medieval aesthetics before he turned to writing fiction. Literary fiction, academic texts, essays, children’s books, newspaper articles—his written output is staggeringly large and wide-ranging, In 1980, he acquired the equivalent of intellectual superstardom with the publication of The Name of the Rose, which sold more than 10 million copies. Mukund: The English novelist and academic David Lodge once remarked, “I can’t understand how one man can do all the things he [Eco] does.” Umberto Eco: Maybe I give the impression of doing many things. But in the end, I am convinced I am always doing the same thing. Mukund: Which is? Umberto Eco: Aah, now that is more difficult to explain. I have some philosophical interests and I pursue them through my academic work and my novels. Even my books for children are about non-violence and peace...you see, the same bunch of ethical, philosophical interests. And then I have a secret. Did you know what will happen if you eliminate the empty spaces from the universe, eliminate the empty spaces in all the atoms? The universe will become as big as my fist. Similarly, we have a lot of empty spaces in our lives. I call them interstices. Say you are coming over to my place. You are in an elevator and while you are coming up, I am waiting for you. This is an interstice, an empty space. I work in empty spaces. While waiting for your elevator to come up from the first to the third floor, I have already written an article! (Laughs). Mukund: Not everyone can do that of course. Your non-fictional writing, your scholarly work has a certain playful and personal quality about it. It is a marked departure from a regular academic style — which is invariably depersonalised and often dry and boring. Have you consciously adopted an informal approach or is it something that just came naturally to you? Umberto Eco: When I presented my first Doctoral dissertation in Italy, one of the Professors said, “Scholars learn a lot of a certain subject, then they make a lot of false hypotheses, then they correct them and at the end, they put the conclusions. You, on the contrary, told the story of your research. Even including your trials and errors.” At the same time, he recognised I was right and went on to publish my dissertation as a book, which meant he appreciated it. At that point, at the age of 22, I understood scholarly books should be written the way I had done — by telling the story of the research. This is why my essays always have a narrative aspect. And this is why probably I started writing narratives [novels] so late — at the age of 50, more or less. I remember that my dear friend Roland Barthes was always frustrated that he was an essayist and not a novelist. He wanted to do creative writing one day or another but he died before he could do so. I never felt this kind of frustration. I started writing novels by accident. I had nothing to do one day and so I started. Novels probably satisfied my taste for narration. Mukund: Talking about novels, from being a famous academic you went on to becoming spectacularly famous after the publication of The Name of the Rose. You’ve written five novels against many more scholarly works of non-fiction, at least more than 20 of them... Umberto Eco: Over 40. Mukund: Over 40! Among them a seminal piece of work on semiotics. But ask most people about Umberto Eco and they will say, “Oh, he’s the novelist.” Does that bother you? Umberto Eco: Yes. Because I consider myself a university professor who writes novels on Sundays. It’s not a joke. I participate in academic conferences and not meetings of Pen Clubs and writers. I identify myself with the academic community. But okay, if they [most people] have read only the novels... (laughs and shrugs). I know that by writing novels, I reach a larger audience. I cannot expect to have one million readers with stuff on semiotics. Mukund: Which brings me to my next question. The Name of the Rose is a very serious novel. It’s a detective yarn at one level but it also delves into metaphysics, theology, and medieval history. Yet it enjoyed a huge mass audience. Were you puzzled at all by this? Umberto Eco: No. Journalists are puzzled. And sometimes publishers. And this is because journalists and publishers believe that people like trash and don’t like difficult reading experiences. Consider there are six billion people on this planet. The Name of the Rose sold between 10 and 15 million copies. So in a way I reached only a small percentage of readers. But it is exactly these kinds of readers who don’t want easy experiences. Or at least don’t always want this. I myself, at 9 pm after dinner, watch television and want to see either ‘Miami Vice’ or ‘Emergency Room’. I enjoy it and I need it. But not all day. Mukund: Could the huge success of the novel have anything to do with the fact that it dealt with a period of medieval history that... Umberto Eco: That’s possible. But let me tell you another story, because I often tell stories like a Chinese wise man. My American publisher said while she loved my book, she didn’t expect to sell more than 3,000 copies in a country where nobody has seen a cathedral or studies Latin. So I was given an advance for 3,000 copies, but in the end it sold two or three million in the U.S. A lot of books have been written about the medieval past far before mine. I think the success of the book is a mystery. Nobody can predict it. I think if I had written The Name of the Rose ten years earlier or ten years later, it wouldn’t have been the same. Why it worked at that time is a mystery.

Dr Sadao was compelled by his duty as a doctor to help the enemy soldier. What made Hana, his wife, sympathetic to him in the face of open defiance from the domestic staff?

<answer> When Sadao and Hana saw the prisoner of war, they were confronted with a dilemma, but the doctor in Sadao knew he had to save him. Hana, too, knew that if they left the American there, he would certainly die. She could not put him back in the sea. In the bedroom, Hana covered him with a flowered silk quilt and also washed him when Yumi refused. She also helped Sadao operate on the American. She was afraid lest the servants report them, yet she had the courage to assist her husband in saving the American’s life. When the soldier regained consciousness, he was terrified, but Hana reassured him. Hana’s pride and self-respect held her back even when her servants deserted her. The servants felt, that their master’s stay in America had tempered his attitude towards the Americans. Though Hana comes across as patriotic, advising her husband to give up the prisoner, her sympathy and humanity towards the wounded ‘enemy’ raises her beyond petty parochialism. <context> Dr Sadao Hoki’s house was built on a spot of the Japanese coast where as a little boy he had often played. The low, square stone house was set upon rocks well above a narrow beach that was outlined with bent pines. As a boy Sadao had climbed the pines, supporting himself on his bare feet, as he had seen men do in the South Seas when they climbed for coconuts. His father had taken him often to the islands of those seas, and never had he failed to say to the little brave boy at his side, ‘‘Those islands yonder, they are the stepping stones to the future for Japan.’’ ‘‘Where shall we step from them?’’ Sadao had asked seriously. ‘‘Who knows?’’ his father had answered. ‘‘Who can limit our future? It depends on what we make it.’’ Sadao had taken this into his mind as he did everything his father said, his father who never joked or played with him but who spent infinite pains upon him who was his only son. Sadao knew that his education was his father’s chief concern. For this reason he had been sent at twenty-two to America to learn all that could be learned of surgery and medicine. He had come back at thirty, and before his father died he had seen Sadao become famous not only as a surgeon but as a scientist. Because he was perfecting a discovery which would render wounds entirely clean, he had not been sent abroad with the troops. Also, he knew, there was some slight danger that the old General might need an operation for a condition for which he was now being treated medically, and for this possibility Sadao was being kept in Japan. Clouds were rising from the ocean now. The unexpected warmth of the past few days had at night drawn heavy fog from the cold waves. Sadao watched mists hide outlines of a little island near the shore and then come creeping up the beach below the house, wreathing around the pines. In a few minutes fog would be wrapped about the house too. Then he would go into the room where Hana, his wife, would be waiting for him with the two children. But at this moment the door opened and she looked out, a dark-blue woollen haori1 over her kimono. She came to him affectionately and put her arm through his as he stood, smiled and said nothing. He had met Hana in America, but he had waited to fall in love with her until he was sure she was Japanese. His father would never have received her unless she had been pure in her race. He wondered often whom he would have married if he had not met Hana, and by what luck he had found her in the most casual way, by chance literally, at an American professor’s house. The professor and his wife had been kind people anxious to do something for their few foreign students, and the students, though bored, had accepted this kindness. Sadao had often told Hana how nearly he had not gone to Professor Harley’s house that night — the rooms were so small, the food so bad, the professor’s wife so voluble. But he had gone and there he had found Hana, a new student, and had felt he would love her if it were at all possible. Now he felt her hand on his arm and was aware of the pleasure it gave him, even though they had been married years enough to have the two children. For they had not married heedlessly in America. They had finished their work at school and had come home to Japan, and when his father had seen her the marriage had been arranged in the old Japanese way, although Sadao and Hana had talked everything over beforehand. They were perfectly happy. She laid her cheek against his arm. It was at this moment that both of them saw something black come out of the mists. It was a man. He was flung up out of the ocean — flung, it seemed, to his feet by a breaker. He staggered a few steps, his body outlined against the mist, his arms above his head. Then the curled mists hid him again. ‘‘Who is that?’’ Hana cried. She dropped Sadao’s arm and they both leaned over the railing of the veranda. Now they saw him again. The man was on his hands and knees crawling. Then they saw him fall on his face and lie there. ‘‘A fisherman perhaps,’’ Sadao said, ‘‘washed from his boat.’’ He ran quickly down the steps and behind him Hana came, her wide sleeves flying. A mile or two away on either side there were fishing villages, but here was only the bare and lonely coast, dangerous with rocks. The surf beyond the beach was spiked with rocks. Somehow the man had managed to come through them — he must be badly torn. They saw when they came toward him that indeed it was so. The sand on one side of him had already a stain of red soaking through. ‘‘He is wounded,’’ Sadao exclaimed. He made haste to the man, who lay motionless, his face in the sand. An old cap stuck to his head soaked with sea water. He was in wet rags of garments. Sadao stopped, Hana at his side, and turned the man’s head. They saw the face. “A white man!” Hana whispered. Yes, it was a white man. The wet cap fell away and there was his wet yellow hair, long, as though for many weeks it had not been cut, and upon his young and tortured face was a rough yellow beard. He was unconscious and knew nothing that they did for him. Now Sadao remembered the wound, and with his expert fingers he began to search for it. Blood flowed freshly at his touch. On the right side of his lower back Sadao saw that a gun wound had been reopened. The flesh was blackened with powder. Sometime, not many days ago, the man had been shot and had not been tended. It was bad chance that the rock had struck the wound. ‘‘Oh, how he is bleeding!’’ Hana whispered again in a solemn voice. The mists screened them now completely, and at this time of day no one came by. The fishermen had gone home and even the chance beachcombers would have considered the day at an end. ‘‘What shall we do with this man?’’ Sadao muttered. But his trained hands seemed of their own will to be doing what they could to stanch the fearful bleeding. He packed the wound with the sea moss that strewed the beach. The man moaned with pain in his stupor but he did not awaken. ‘‘The best thing that we could do would be to put him back in the sea,’’ Sadao said, answering himself. Now that the bleeding was stopped for the moment he stood up and dusted the sand from his hands. ‘‘Yes, undoubtedly that would be best,’’ Hana said steadily. But she continued to stare down at the motionless man. ‘‘If we sheltered a white man in our house we should be arrested and if we turned him over as a prisoner, he would certainly die,’’ Sadao said. ‘‘The kindest thing would be to put him back into the sea,’’ Hana said. But neither of them moved. They were staring with a curious repulsion upon the inert figure. ‘‘What is he?’’ Hana whispered. ‘‘There is something about him that looks American,’’ Sadao said. He took up the battered cap. Yes, there, almost gone, was the faint lettering. ‘‘A sailor,’’ he said, ‘‘from an American warship.’’ He spelled it out: ‘‘U.S. Navy.’’ The man was a prisoner of war! ‘‘He has escaped.’’ Hana cried softly, ‘‘and that is why he is wounded.’’ ‘‘In the back,’’ Sadao agreed. They hesitated, looking at each other. Then Hana said with resolution: “Come, are we able to put him back into the sea?” “If I am able, are you?” Sadao asked. “No,” Hana said, “But if you can do it alone...” Sadao hesitated again. “The strange thing is,” he said, “that if the man were whole I could turn him over to the police without difficulty. I care nothing for him. He is my enemy. All Americans are my enemy. And he is only a common fellow. You see how foolish his face is. But since he is wounded…” “You also cannot throw him back to the sea,” Hana said. “Then there is only one thing to do. We must carry him into the house.” “But the servants?” Sadao inquired. “We must simply tell them that we intend to give him to the police — as indeed we must, Sadao. We must think of the children and your position. It would endanger all of us if we did not give this man over as a prisoner of war.” “Certainly,” Sadao agreed. “I would not think of doing anything else.” Thus agreed, together they lifted the man. He was very light, like a fowl that had been half-starved for a long time until it is only feathers and skeleton. So, his arms hanging, they carried him up the steps and into the side door of the house. This door opened into a passage, and down the passage they carried the man towards an empty bedroom. It had been the bedroom of Sadao’s father, and since his death it had not been used. They laid the man on the deeply matted floor. Everything here had been Japanese to please the old man, who would never in his own home sit on a chair or sleep in a foreign bed. Hana went to the wall cupboards and slid back a door and took out a soft quilt. She hesitated. The quilt was covered with flowered silk and the lining was pure white silk. “He is so dirty,” she murmured in distress. “Yes, he had better be washed,” Sadao agreed. “If you will fetch hot water I will wash him.” “I cannot bear for you to touch him,” she said. “We shall have to tell the servants he is here. I will tell Yumi now. She can leave the children for a few minutes and she can wash him.” Sadao considered a moment. “Let it be so,” he agreed. “You tell Yumi and I will tell the others.” But the utter pallor of the man’s unconscious face moved him first to stoop and feel his pulse. It was faint but it was there. He put his hand against the man’s cold breast. The heart too was yet alive. “He will die unless he is operated on,” Sadao said, considering. “The question is whether he will not die anyway.” Hana cried out in fear. “Don’t try to save him! What if he should live?” “What if he should die?” Sadao replied. He stood gazing down on the motionless man. This man must have extraordinary vitality or he would have been dead by now. But then he was very young — perhaps not yet twentyfive. “You mean die from the operation?” Hana asked. “Yes,” Sadao said. Hana considered this doubtfully, and when she did not answer Sadao turned away. “At any rate something must be done with him,” he said, “and first he must be washed.” He went quickly out of the room and Hana came behind him. She did not wish to be left alone with the white man. He was the first she had seen since she left America and now he seemed to have nothing to do with those whom she had known there. Here he was her enemy, a menace, living or dead. She turned to the nursery and called, “Yumi!” But the children heard her voice and she had to go in for a moment and smile at them and play with the baby boy, now nearly three months old. Over the baby’s soft black hair she motioned with her mouth, “Yumi — come with me!” “I will put the baby to bed,” Yumi replied. “He is ready.” She went with Yumi into the bedroom next to the nursery and stood with the boy in her arms while Yumi spread the sleeping quilts on the floor and laid the baby between them. Then Hana led the way quickly and softly to the kitchen. The two servants were frightened at what their master had just told them. The old gardener, who was also a house servant, pulled the few hairs on his upper lip. “The master ought not to heal the wound of this white man,” he said bluntly to Hana. “The white man ought to die. First he was shot. Then the sea caught him and wounded him with her rocks. If the master heals what the gun did and what the sea did they will take revenge on us.” “I will tell him what you say,” Hana replied courteously. But she herself was also frightened, although she was not superstitious as the old man was. Could it ever be well to help an enemy? Nevertheless she told Yumi to fetch the hot water and bring it to the room where the white man was. She went ahead and slid back the partitions. Sadao was not yet there. Yumi, following, put down her wooden bucket. Then she went over to the white man. When she saw him her thick lips folded themselves into stubbornness. “I have never washed a white man,” she said, “and I will not wash so dirty a one now.” Hana cried at her severely. “You will do what your master commands you!” There was so fierce a look of resistance upon Yumi’s round dull face that Hana felt unreasonably afraid. After all, if the servants should report something that was not as it happened? “Very well,” she said with dignity. “You understand we only want to bring him to his senses so that we can turn him over as a prisoner?” “I will have nothing to do with it,” Yumi said, “I am a poor person and it is not my business.” “Then please,” Hana said gently, “return to your own work.” At once Yumi left the room. But this left Hana with the white man alone. She might have been too afraid to stay had not her anger at Yumi’s stubbornness now sustained her. “Stupid Yumi,” she muttered fiercely. “Is this anything but a man? And a wounded helpless man!” In the conviction of her own superiority she bent impulsively and untied the knotted rugs that kept the white man covered. When she had his breast bare she dipped the small clean towel that Yumi had brought into the steaming hot water and washed his face carefully. The man’s skin, though rough with exposure, was of a fine texture and must have been very blond when he was a child. While she was thinking these thoughts, though not really liking the man better now that he was no longer a child, she kept on washing him until his upper body was quite clean. But she dared not turn him over. Where was Sadao? Now her anger was ebbing, and she was anxious again and she rose, wiping her hands on the wrong towel. Then lest the man be chilled, she put the quilt over him. “Sadao!” she called softly. He had been about to come in when she called. His hand had been on the door and now he opened it. She saw that he had brought his surgeon’s emergency bag and that he wore his surgeon’s coat. “You have decided to operate!” she cried. “Yes,” he said shortly. He turned his back to her and unfolded a sterilized towel upon the floor of the tokonoma2 alcove, and put his instruments out upon it. “Fetch towels,” he said. She went obediently, but how anxious now, to the linen shelves and took out the towels. There ought also to be old pieces of matting so that the blood would not ruin the fine floor covering. She went out to the back veranda where the gardener kept strips of matting with which to protect delicate shrubs on cold nights and took an armful of them. But when she went back into the room, she saw this was useless. The blood had already soaked through the packing in the man’s wound and had ruined the mat under him. “Oh, the mat!” she cried. “Yes, it is ruined,” Sadao replied, as though he did not care. “Help me to turn him,” he commanded her. She obeyed him without a word, and he began to wash the man’s back carefully. “Yumi would not wash him,” she said. “Did you wash him then?” Sadao asked, not stopping for a moment his swift concise movements. “Yes,” she said. He did not seem to hear her. But she was used to his absorption when he was at work. She wondered for a moment if it mattered to him what was the body upon which he worked so long as it was for the work he did so excellently. “You will have to give the anesthetic if he needs it,” he said. “I?” she repeated blankly. “But never have I!” “It is easy enough,” he said impatiently. He was taking out the packing now, and the blood began to flow more quickly. He peered into the wound with the bright surgeon’s light fastened on his forehead. “The bullet is still there,” he said with cool interest. “Now I wonder how deep this rock wound is. If it is not too deep it may be that I can get the bullet. But the bleeding is not superficial. He has lost much blood.” At this moment Hana choked. He looked up and saw her face the colour of sulphur. “Don’t faint,” he said sharply. He did not put down his exploring instrument. “If I stop now the man will surely die.” She clapped her hands to her mouth and leaped up and ran out of the room. Outside in the garden he heard her retching. But he went on with his work. “It will be better for her to empty her stomach,” he thought. He had forgotten that of course she had never seen an operation. But her distress and his inability to go to her at once made him impatient and irritable with this man who lay like dead under his knife. “This man.” he thought, “there is no reason under heaven why he should live.” Unconsciously this thought made him ruthless and he proceeded swiftly. In his dream the man moaned but Sadao paid no heed except to mutter at him. “Groan,” he muttered, “groan if you like. I am not doing this for my own pleasure. In fact, I do not know why I am doing it.” The door opened and there was Hana again. “Where is the anesthetic?” she asked in a clear voice. Sadao motioned with his chin. “It is as well that you came back,” he said. “This fellow is beginning to stir.” She had the bottle and some cotton in her hand. “But how shall I do it?” she asked. “Simply saturate the cotton and hold it near his nostrils,” Sadao replied without delaying for one moment the intricate detail of his work. “When he breathes badly move it away a little.” She crouched close to the sleeping face of the young American. It was a piteously thin face, she thought, and the lips were twisted. The man was suffering whether he knew it or not. Watching him, she wondered if the stories they heard sometimes of the sufferings of prisoners were true. They came like flickers of rumour, told by word of mouth and always contradicted. In the newspapers the reports were always that wherever the Japanese armies went the people received them gladly, with cries of joy at their liberation. But sometimes she remembered such men as General Takima, who at home beat his wife cruelly, though no one mentioned it now that he had fought so victorious a battle in Manchuria. If a man like that could be so cruel to a woman in his power, would he not be cruel to one like this for instance? She hoped anxiously that this young man had not been tortured. It was at this moment that she observed deep red scars on his neck, just under the ear. “Those scars,” she murmured, lifting her eyes to Sadao. But he did not answer. At this moment he felt the tip of his instrument strike against something hard, dangerously near the kidney. All thought left him. He felt only the purest pleasure. He probed with his fingers, delicately, familiar with every atom of this human body. His old American professor of anatomy had seen to that knowledge. “Ignorance of the human body is the surgeon’s cardinal sin, sirs!” he had thundered at his classes year after year. “To operate without as complete knowledge of the body as if you had made it — anything less than that is murder.” “It is not quite at the kidney, my friend,” Sadao murmured. It was his habit to murmur to the patient when he forgot himself in an operation. “My friend,” he always called his patients and so now he did, forgetting that this was his enemy. Then quickly, with the cleanest and most precise of incisions, the bullet was out. The man quivered but he was still unconscious. Nevertheless he muttered a few English words. “Guts,” he muttered, choking. “They got...my guts...” “Sadao!” Hana cried sharply. “Hush,” Sadao said. The man sank again into silence so profound that Sadao took up his wrist, hating the touch of it. Yes, there was still a pulse so faint, so feeble, but enough, if he wanted the man to live, to give hope. “But certainly I do not want this man to live,” he thought. “No more anesthetic,” he told Hana. He turned as swiftly as though he had never paused and from his medicines he chose a small vial and from it filled a hypodermic and thrust it into the patient’s left arm. Then putting down the needle, he took the man’s wrist again. The pulse under his fingers fluttered once or twice and then grew stronger. “This man will live in spite of all,” he said to Hana and sighed. The young man woke, so weak, his blue eyes so terrified when he perceived where he was, that Hana felt compelled to apologise. She herself served him, for none of the servants would enter the room. When she came in the first time, she saw him summon his small strength to be prepared for some fearful thing. “Don’t be afraid,” she begged him softly. “How come... you speak English…” he gasped. “I was a long time in America,” she replied. She saw that he wanted to reply to that but he could not, and so she knelt and fed him gently from the porcelain spoon. He ate unwillingly, but still he ate. “Now you will soon be strong,” she said, not liking him and yet moved to comfort him. He did not answer. When Sadao came in the third day after the operation, he found the young man sitting up, his face bloodless with the effort. “Lie down,” Sadao cried. “Do you want to die?” He forced the man down gently and strongly and examined the wound. “You may kill yourself if you do this sort of thing,” he scolded. “What are you going to do with me?” the boy muttered. He looked just now barely seventeen. “Are you going to hand me over?” For a moment Sadao did not answer. He finished his examination and then pulled the silk quilt over the man. “I do not know myself what I shall do with you,” he said. “I ought of course to give you to the police. You are a prisoner of war — no, do not tell me anything.” He put up his hand as he saw the young man was about to speak. “Do not even tell me your name unless I ask it.” They looked at each other for a moment, and then the young man closed his eyes and turned his face to the wall. “Okay,” he whispered, his mouth a bitter line. Outside the door Hana was waiting for Sadao. He saw at once that she was in trouble. “Sadao, Yumi tells me the servants feel they cannot stay if we hide this man here any more,” she said. “She tells me that they are saying that you and I were so long in America that we have forgotten to think of our own country first. They think we like Americans.” “It is not true,” Sadao said harshly “Americans are our enemies. But I have been trained not to let a man die if I can help it.” “The servants cannot understand that,” she said anxiously. “No,” he agreed. Neither seemed able to say more, and somehow the household dragged on. The servants grew more watchful. Their courtesy was as careful as ever, but their eyes were cold upon the pair to whom they were hired. “It is clear what our master ought to do,” the old gardener said one morning. He had worked with flowers all his life, and had been a specialist too in moss. For Sadao’s father he had made one of the finest moss gardens in Japan, sweeping the bright green carpet constantly so that not a leaf or a pine needle marred the velvet of its surface. “My old master’s son knows very well what he ought to do,” he now said, pinching a bud from a bush as he spoke. “When the man was so near death why did he not let him bleed?” “That young master is so proud of his skill to save life that he saves any life,” the cook said contemptuously. She split a fowl’s neck skillfully and held the fluttering bird and let its blood flow into the roots of a wistaria vine. Blood is the best of fertilisers, and the old gardener would not let her waste a drop of it. “It is the children of whom we must think,” Yumi said sadly. “What will be their fate if their father is condemned as a traitor?” They did not try to hide what they said from the ears of Hana as she stood arranging the day’s flowers in the veranda near by, and she knew they spoke on purpose that she might hear. That they were right she knew too in most of her being. But there was another part of her which she herself could not understand. It was not sentimental liking of the prisoner. She had come to think of him as a prisoner. She had not liked him even yesterday when he had said in his impulsive way, “Anyway, let me tell you that my name is Tom.” She had only bowed her little distant bow. She saw hurt in his eyes but she did not wish to assuage it. Indeed, he was a great trouble in this house. As for Sadao, every day he examined the wound carefully. The last stitches had been pulled out this morning, and the young man would, in a fortnight be nearly as well as ever. Sadao went back to his office and carefully typed a letter to the Chief of police reporting the whole matter. “On the twenty-first day of February an escaped prisoner was washed up on the shore in front of my house.” So far he typed and then he opened a secret drawer of his desk and put the unfinished report into it. On the seventh day after that, two things happened. In the morning the servants left together, their belongings tied in large square cotton kerchiefs. When Hana got up in the morning nothing was done, the house not cleaned and the food not prepared, and she knew what it meant. She was dismayed and even terrified, but her pride as a mistress would not allow her to show it. Instead, she inclined her head gracefully when they appeared before her in the kitchen, and she paid them off and thanked them for all that they had done for her. They were crying, but she did not cry. The cook and the gardener had served Sadao since he was a little boy in his father’s house, and Yumi cried because of the children. She was so grieving that after she had gone she ran back to Hana. “If the baby misses me too much tonight, send for me. I am going to my own house and you know where it is.” “Thank you,” Hana said smiling. But she told herself she would not send for Yumi however the baby cried. She made the breakfast and Sadao helped with the children. Neither of them spoke of the servants beyond the fact that they were gone. But after Hana had taken morning food to the prisoner, she came back to Sadao. “Why is it we cannot see clearly what we ought to do?” she asked him. “Even the servants see more clearly than we do. Why are we different from other Japanese?” Sadao did not answer. But a little later he went into the room where the prisoner was and said brusquely, “Today you may get up on your feet. I want you to stay up only five minutes at a time. Tomorrow you may try it twice as long. It would be well that you get back your strength as quickly as possible.” He saw the flicker of terror on the young face that was still very pale. “Okay,” the boy murmured. Evidently he was determined to say more. “I feel I ought to thank you, Doctor, for having saved my life.” “Don’t thank me too early,” Sadao said coldly. He saw the flicker of terror again in the boy’s eyes — terror as unmistakable as an animal’s. The scars on his neck were crimson for a moment. Those scars! What were they? Sadao did not ask. In the afternoon the second thing happened. Hana, working hard on unaccustomed labour, saw a messenger come to the door in official uniform. Her hands went weak and she could not draw her breath. The servants must have told already. She ran to Sadao, gasping, unable to utter a word. But by then the messenger had simply followed her through the garden and there he stood. She pointed at him helplessly. Sadao looked up from his book. He was in his office, the other partition of which was thrown open to the garden for the southern sunshine. “What is it?” he asked the messenger and then he rose, seeing the man’s uniform. “You are to come to the palace,” the man said. “The old General is in pain again.” “Oh,” Hana breathed, “is that all?” “All?” the messenger exclaimed. “Is it not enough?” “Indeed it is,” she replied. “I am very sorry.” When Sadao came to say goodbye, she was in the kitchen, but doing nothing. The children were asleep and she sat merely resting for a moment, more exhausted from her fright than from work. “I thought they had come to arrest you”, she said. He gazed down into her anxious eyes. “I must get rid of this man for your sake,” he said in distress. “Somehow I must get rid of him.” (Sadao goes to see the General) “Of course,” the General said weakly, “I understand fully. But that is because, I once took a degree in Princeton. So few Japanese have.” “I care nothing for the man, Excellency,” Sadao said, “but having operated on him with such success…” “Yes, yes” the General said. “It only makes me feel you more indispensable to me. Evidently you can save anyone — you are so skilled. You say you think I can stand one more such attack as I have had today?” “Not more than one,” Sadao said. “Then certainly I can allow nothing to happen to you,” the General said with anxiety. His long pale Japanese face became expressionless, which meant that he was in deep thought. “You cannot be arrested,” the General said, closing his eyes. “Suppose you were condemned to death and the next day I had to have my operation?” “There are other surgeons, Excellency,” Sadao suggested. “None I trust,” the General replied. “The best ones have been trained by Germans and would consider the operation successful even if I died. I do not care for their point of view.” He sighed. “It seems a pity that we cannot better combine the German ruthlessness with the American sentimentality. Then you could turn your prisoner over to execution and yet I could be sure you would not murder me while I was unconscious.” The General laughed. He had an unusual sense of humour. “As a Japanese, could you not combine these two foreign elements?” he asked. Sadao smiled. “I am not quite sure,” he said, “but for your sake I would be willing to try, Excellency.” The General shook his head. “I had rather not be the test case,” he said. He felt suddenly weak and overwhelmed with the cares of his life as an official in times such as these when repeated victory brought great responsibilities all over the south Pacific. “It is very unfortunate that this man should have washed up on your doorstep,” he said irritably. “I feel it so myself,” Sadao said gently. “It would be best if he could be quietly killed,” the General said. “Not by you, but by someone who does not know him. I have my own private assassins. Suppose I send two of them to your house tonight or better, any night. You need know nothing about it. It is now warm — what would be more natural than that you should leave the outer partition of the white man’s room open to the garden while he sleeps?” “Certainly it would be very natural,” Sadao agreed. “In fact, it is so left open every night.” “Good,” the General said, yawning. “They are very capable assassins — they make no noise and they know the trick of inward bleeding. If you like I can even have them remove the body.” Sadao considered. “That perhaps would be best, Excellency,” he agreed, thinking of Hana. He left the General’s presence then and went home, thinking over the plan. In this way the whole thing would be taken out of his hands. He would tell Hana nothing, since she would be timid at the idea of assassins in the house, and yet certainly such persons were essential in an absolute state such as Japan was. How else could rulers deal with those who opposed them? He refused to allow anything but reason to be the atmosphere of his mind as he went into the room where the American was in bed. But as he opened the door, to his surprise he found the young man out of bed, and preparing to go into the garden. “What is this!” he exclaimed. “Who gave you permission to leave your room?” “I’m not used to waiting for permission,” Tom said gaily. “Gosh, I feel pretty good again! But will the muscles on this side always feel stiff?” “Is it so?” Sadao inquired, surprised. He forgot all else. “Now I thought I had provided against that,” he murmured. He lifted the edge of the man’s shirt and gazed at the healing scar. “Massage may do it,” he said, “if exercise does not.” “It won’t bother me much,” the young man said. His young face was gaunt under the stubbly blond beard. “Say, Doctor, I’ve got something I want to say to you. If I hadn’t met a Jap like you — well, I wouldn’t be alive today. I know that.” Sadao bowed but he could not speak. “Sure, I know that,” Tom went on warmly. His big thin hands gripping a chair were white at the knuckles. “I guess if all the Japs were like you there wouldn’t have been a war.” “Perhaps,” Sadao said with difficulty. “And now I think you had better go back to bed.” He helped the boy back into bed and then bowed. “Good night,” he said. Sadao slept badly that night. Time and time again he woke, thinking he heard the rustling of footsteps, the sound of a twig broken or a stone displaced in the garden — a noise such as men might make who carried a burden. The next morning he made the excuse to go first into the guest room. If the American were gone he then could simply tell Hana that so the General had directed. But when he opened the door he saw at once that there on the pillow was the shaggy blond head. He could hear the peaceful breathing of sleep and he closed the door again quietly. “He is asleep,” he told Hana. “He is almost well to sleep like that.” “What shall we do with him?” Hana whispered her old refrain. Sadao shook his head. “I must decide in a day or two,” he promised. But certainly, he thought, the second night must be the night. There rose a wind that night, and he listened to the sounds of bending boughs and whistling partitions. Hana woke too. “Ought we not to go and close the sick man’s partition?” she asked. “No,” Sadao said. “He is able now to do it for himself.” But the next morning the American was still there. Then the third night of course must be the night. The wind changed to quiet rain and the garden was full of the sound of dripping eaves and running springs. Sadao slept a little better, but he woke at the sound of a crash and leaped to his feet. “What was that?” Hana cried. The baby woke at her voice and began to wail. “I must go and see,” But he held her and would not let her move. “Sadao,” she cried, “what is the matter with you?” “Don’t go,” he muttered, “don’t go!” His terror infected her and she stood breathless, waiting. There was only silence. Together they crept back into the bed, the baby between them. Yet when he opened the door of the guest room in the morning there was the young man. He was very gay and had already washed and was now on his feet. He had asked for a razor yesterday and had shaved himself and today there was a faint colour in his cheeks. “I am well,” he said joyously. Sadao drew his kimono round his weary body. He could not, he decided suddenly, go through another night. It was not that he cared for this young man’s life. No, simply it was not worth the strain. “You are well,” Sadao agreed. He lowered his voice. “You are so well that I think if I put my boat on the shore tonight, with food and extra clothing in it, you might be able to row to that little island not far from the coast. It is so near the coast that it has not been worth fortifying. Nobody lives on it because in storm it is submerged. But this is not the season of storm. You could live there until you saw a Korean fishing boat pass by. They pass quite near the island because the water is many fathoms deep there.” The young man stared at him, slowly comprehending. “Do I have to?” he asked. “I think so,” Sadao said gently. “You understand — it is not hidden that you are here.” The young man nodded in perfect comprehension. “Okay,” he said simply. Sadao did not see him again until evening. As soon as it was dark he had dragged the stout boat down to the shore and in it he put food and bottled water that he had bought secretly during the day, as well as two quilts he had bought at a pawnshop. The boat he tied to a post in the water, for the tide was high. There was no moon and he worked without a flashlight. When he came to the house he entered as though he were just back from his work, and so Hana knew nothing. “Yumi was here today,” she said as she served his supper. Though she was so modern, still she did not eat with him. “Yumi cried over the baby,” she went on with a sigh. “She misses him so.” “The servants will come back as soon as the foreigner is gone,” Sadao said. He went into the guest room that night before he went to bed himself and checked carefully the American’s temperature, the state of the wound, and his heart and pulse. The pulse was irregular but that was perhaps because of excitement. The young man’s pale lips were pressed together and his eyes burned. Only the scars on his neck were red. “I realise you are saving my life again,” he told Sadao. “Not at all,” Sadao said. “It is only inconvenient to have you here any longer.” He had hesitated a good deal about giving the man a flashlight. But he had decided to give it to him after all. It was a small one, his own, which he used at night when he was called. “If your food runs out before you catch a boat,” he said, “signal me two flashes at the same instant the sun drops over the horizon. Do not signal in darkness, for it will be seen. If you are all right but still there, signal me once. You will find fresh fish easy to catch but you must eat them raw. A fire would be seen.” “Okay,” the young man breathed. He was dressed now in the Japanese clothes which Sadao had given him, and at the last moment Sadao wrapped a black cloth about his blond head. “Now,” Sadao said. The young American, without a word, shook Sadao’s hand warmly, and then walked quite well across the floor and down the step into the darkness of the garden. Once — twice... Sadao saw his light flash to find his way. But that would not be suspected. He waited until from the shore there was one more flash. Then he closed the partition. That night he slept. “You say the man escaped?” the General asked faintly. He had been operated upon a week before, an emergency operation to which Sadao had been called in the night. For twelve hours Sadao had not been sure the General would live. The gall bladder was much involved. Then the old man had begun to breathe deeply again and to demand food. Sadao had not been able to ask about the assassins. So far as he knew they had never come. The servants had returned and Yumi had cleaned the guest room thoroughly and had burned sulphur in it to get the white man’s smell out of it. Nobody said anything. Only the gardener was cross because he had got behind with his chrysanthemums. But after a week Sadao felt the General was well enough to be spoken to about the prisoner. “Yes, Excellency, he escaped,” Sadao now said. He coughed, signifying that he had not said all he might have said, but was unwilling to disturb the General further. But the old man opened his eyes suddenly. “That prisoner,” he said with some energy, “did I not promise you I would kill him for you?” “You did, Excellency,” Sadao said. “Well, well!” the old man said in a tone of amazement, “so I did! But you see, I was suffering a good deal. The truth is, I thought of nothing but myself. In short, I forgot my promise to you.” “I wondered, Your Excellency,” Sadao murmured. “It was certainly very careless of me,” the General said. “But you understand it was not lack of patriotism or dereliction of duty.” He looked anxiously at his doctor. “If the matter should come out you would understand that, wouldn’t you?” “Certainly, Your Excellency,” Sadao said. He suddenly comprehended that the General was in the palm of his hand and that as a consequence he himself was perfectly safe. “I can swear to your loyalty, Excellency,” he said to the old General, “and to your zeal against the enemy.” “You are a good man,” the General murmured and closed his eyes.” “You will be rewarded.” But Sadao, searching the spot of black in the twilighted sea that night, had his reward. There was no prick of light in the dusk. No one was on the island. His prisoner was gone — safe, doubtless, for he had warned him to wait only for a Korean fishing boat. He stood for a moment on the veranda, gazing out to the sea from whence the young man had come that other night. And into his mind, although without reason, there came other white faces he had known — the professor at whose house he had met Hana, a dull man, and his wife had been a silly talkative woman, in spite of her wish to be kind. He remembered his old teacher of anatomy, who had been so insistent on mercy with the knife, and then he remembered the face of his fat and slatternly landlady. He had had great difficulty in finding a place to live in America because he was a Japanese. The Americans were full of prejudice and it had been bitter to live in it, knowing himself their superior. How he had despised the ignorant and dirty old woman who had at last consented to house him in her miserable home! He had once tried to be grateful to her because she had in his last year nursed him through influenza, but it was difficult, for she was no less repulsive to him in her kindness. Now he remembered the youthful, haggard face of his prisoner — white and repulsive. “Strange,” he thought. “I wonder why I could not kill him?”

In what way was Wanda different from the other children?

<answer> Wanda Petronski was a polish girl whose parents had settled down in America. She was a source of fun because of her last name which made her different from others, because Americans did not have such names and it was difficult to pronounce. She came to school alone and her feet were covered with mud. She preferred to sit alone in the last in the class. She had only one blue dress which was faded but claimed of having a hundred dresses. These qualities make her different from other children. <context> The first Polish immigrants arrived in America in 1608, but the largest wave of Polish immigration occurred in the early twentieth century, when more than one million Poles migrated to the United States. The Polish State did not exist at that time, and the immigrants were identified according to their country of origin rather than to ethnicity. They were identified as Russian Poles, German Poles and Austrian Poles. One of the most notable Polish-American communities is in Chicago and its suburbs; so Chicago is sometimes called the second largest ‘Polish’ city in the world, next only to Warsaw, the capital of Poland. Polish-Americans were sometimes discriminated against in the United States, as were the Irish, Italians, and Jews. According to the United States 2000 Census, 667,414 Americans of age five years and older reported Polish as the language spoken at home, which is about 1.4 per cent of the people who speak languages other than English, or 0.25 per cent of the U.S. population. TODAY, Monday, Wanda Petronski was not in her seat. But nobody, not even Peggy and Madeline, the girls who started all the fun, noticed her absence. Usually Wanda sat in the seat next to the last seat in the last row in Room Thirteen. She sat in the corner of the room where the rough boys who did not make good marks sat, the corner of the room where there was most scuffling of feet, most roars of laughter when anything funny was said, and most mud and dirt on the floor. Wanda did not sit there because she was rough and noisy. On the contrary, she was very quiet and rarely said anything at all. And nobody had ever heard her laugh out loud. Sometimes she twisted her mouth into a crooked sort of smile, but that was all. Nobody knew exactly why Wanda sat in that seat, unless it was because she came all the way from Boggins Heights and her feet were usually caked with dry mud. But no one really thought much about Wanda Petronski, once she sat in the corner of the room. The time when they thought about Wanda was outside of school hours — at noon-time when they were coming back to school or in the morning early before school began, when groups of two or three, or even more, would be talking and laughing on their way to the school yard. Then, sometimes, they waited for Wanda — to have fun with her. The next day, Tuesday, Wanda was not in school, either. And nobody noticed her absence again. But on Wednesday, Peggy and Maddie, who sat down front with other children who got good marks and who didn’t track in a whole lot of mud, did notice that Wanda wasn’t there. Peggy was the most popular girl in school. She was pretty, she had many pretty clothes and her hair was curly. Maddie was her closest friend. The reason Peggy and Maddie noticed Wanda’s absence was because Wanda had made them late to school. They had waited and waited for Wanda, to have some fun with her, and she just hadn’t come. They often waited for Wanda Petronski — to have fun with her. Wanda Petronski. Most of the children in Room Thirteen didn’t have names like that. They had names easy to say, like Thomas, Smith or Allen. There was one boy named Bounce, Willie Bounce, and people thought that was funny, but not funny in the same way that Petronski was. Wanda didn’t have any friends. She came to school alone and went home alone. She always wore a faded blue dress that didn’t hang right. It was clean, but it looked as though it had never been ironed properly. She didn’t have any friends, but a lot of girls talked to her. Sometimes, they surrounded her in the school yard as she stood watching the little girls play hopscotch on the worn hard ground. “Wanda,” Peggy would say in a most courteous manner as though she were talking to Miss Mason. “Wanda,” she’d say, giving one of her friends a nudge, “tell us. How many dresses did you say you had hanging up in your closet?” “A hundred,” Wanda would say. “A hundred!” exclaimed all the little girls incredulously, and the little ones would stop playing hopscotch and listen. “Yeah, a hundred, all lined up,” said Wanda. Then her thin lips drew together in silence. “What are they like? All silk, I bet,” said Peggy. “Yeah, all silk, all colours.” “Velvet, too?” “Yeah, velvet too. A hundred dresses,” Wanda would repeat stolidly. “All lined up in my closet.” Then they’d let her go. And then before she’d gone very far, they couldn’t help bursting into shrieks and peals of laughter. A hundred dresses! Obviously, the only dress Wanda had was the blue one she wore every day. So why did she say she had a hundred? What a story! “How many shoes did you say you had?” “Sixty pairs. All lined up in my closet.” Cries of exaggerated politeness greeted this. “All alike?” “Oh, no. Every pair is different. All colours. All lined up.” Peggy, who had thought up this game, and Maddie, her inseparable friend, were always the last to leave. Finally Wanda would move up the street, her eyes dull and her mouth closed, hitching her left shoulder every now and then in the funny way she had, finishing the walk to school alone. Peggy was not really cruel. She protected small children from bullies. And she cried for hours if she saw an animal mistreated. If anybody had said to her, “Don’t you think that is a cruel way to treat Wanda?” she would have been very surprised. Cruel? Why did the girl say she had a hundred dresses? Anybody could tell that that was a lie. Why did she want to lie? And she wasn’t just an ordinary person, else why did she have a name like that? Anyway, they never made her cry. As for Maddie, this business of asking Wanda every day how many dresses and how many hats, and how many this and that she had was bothering her. Maddie was poor herself. She usually wore somebody’s hand-me-down clothes. Thank goodness, she didn’t live up on Boggins Heights or have a funny name. Sometimes, when Peggy was asking Wanda those questions in that mocking polite voice, Maddie felt embarrassed and studied the marbles in the palm of her hand, rolling them around and saying nothing herself. Not that she felt sorry for Wanda, exactly. She would never have paid any attention to Wanda if Peggy hadn’t invented the dresses game. But suppose Peggy and all the others started in on her next? She wasn’t as poor as Wanda, perhaps, but she was poor. Of course she would have more sense than to say she had a hundred dresses. Still she would not like for them to begin on her. She wished Peggy would stop teasing Wanda Petronski. Today, even though they had been late to school, Maddie was glad she had not had to make fun of Wanda. She worked her arithmetic problems absentmindedly. “Eight times eight — let’s see…” She wished she had the nerve to write Peggy a note, because she knew she never would have the courage to speak right out to Peggy, to say, “Hey, Peg, let’s stop asking Wanda how many dresses she has.” When she finished her arithmetic she did start a note to Peggy. Suddenly she paused and shuddered. She pictured herself in the school yard, a new target for Peggy and the girls. Peggy might ask her where she got the dress that she had on, and Maddie would have to say it was one of Peggy’s old ones that Maddie’s mother had tried to disguise with new trimmings so no one in Room Thirteen would recognise it. If only Peggy would decide of her own accord to stop having fun with Wanda. Oh, well! Maddie ran her hand through her short blonde hair as though to push the uncomfortable thoughts away. What difference did it make? Slowly Maddie tore into bits the note she had started. She was Peggy’s best friend, and Peggy was the best-liked girl in the whole room. Peggy could not possibly do anything that was really wrong, she thought. As for Wanda, she was just some girl who lived up on Boggins Heights and stood alone in the school yard. She scarcely ever said anything to anybody. The only time she talked was in the school yard about her hundred dresses. Maddie remembered her telling about one of her dresses, pale blue with coloured trimmings. And she remembered another that was brilliant jungle green with a red sash. “You’d look like a Christmas tree in that,” the girls had said in pretended admiration. Thinking about Wanda and her hundred dresses all lined up in the closet, Maddie began to wonder who was going to win the drawing and colouring contest. For girls, this contest consisted of designing dresses and for boys, of designing motorboats. Probably Peggy would win the girls’ medal. Peggy drew better than anyone else in the room. At least, that’s what everybody thought. She could copy a picture in a magazine or some film star’s head so that you could almost tell who it was. Oh, Maddie was sure Peggy would win. Well, tomorrow the teacher was going to announce the winners. Then they’d know. The next day it was drizzling. Maddie and Peggy hurried to school under Peggy’s umbrella. Naturally, on a day like this, they didn’t wait for Wanda Petronski on the corner of Oliver Street, the street that far, far away, under the railroad tracks and up the hill, led to Boggins Heights. Anyway, they weren’t taking chances on being late today, because today was important. “Do you think Miss Mason will announce the winners today?” asked Peggy. “Oh, I hope so, the minute we get in,” said Maddie. “Of course, you’ll win, Peg.” “Hope so,” said Peggy eagerly. The minute they entered the classroom, they stopped short and gasped. There were drawings all over the room, on every ledge and windowsill, dazzling colours and brilliant, lavish designs, all drawn on great sheets of wrapping paper. There must have been a hundred of them, all lined up. These must be the drawings for the contest. They were! Everybody stopped and whistled or murmured admiringly. As soon as the class had assembled, Miss Mason announced the winners. Jack Beggles had won for the boys, she said, and his design for an outboard motor was on exhibition in Room Twelve, along with the sketches by all the other boys. “As for the girls,” she said, “although just one or two sketches were submitted by most, one girl — and Room Thirteen should be proud of her — this one girl actually drew one hundred designs — all different and all beautiful. In the opinion of the judges, any one of the drawings is worthy of winning the prize. I am very happy to say that Wanda Petronski is the winner of the girls’ medal. Unfortunately, Wanda has been absent from school for some days and is not here to receive the applause that is due to her. Let us hope she will be back tomorrow. Now class, you may file around the room quietly and look at her exquisite drawings.” The children burst into applause, and even the boys were glad to have a chance to stamp on the floor, put their fingers in their mouths and whistle, though they were not interested in dresses. “Look, Peg,” whispered Maddie. “There’s that blue one she told us about. Isn’t it beautiful?” “Yes,” said Peggy, “And here’s that green one. Boy, and I thought I could draw.”

Why was the office boy frustrated? Who did he show his anger on?

<answer> The office boy was frustrated because his hopes of making big in the movie world failed. He vent his anger and frustration on Kothamangalam Subbu, the No. 2 in the studios, whom he held responsible for his dishonour and neglecTt <context> Pancake was the brand name of the make-up material that Gemini Studios bought in truck-loads. Greta Garbo1 must have used it, Miss Gohar must have used it, Vyjayantimala2 must also have used it but Rati Agnihotri may not have even heard of it. The make-up department of the Gemini Studios was in the upstairs of a building that was believed to have been Robert Clive’s stables. A dozen other buildings in the city are said to have been his residence. For his brief life and an even briefer stay in Madras, Robert Clive seems to have done a lot of moving, besides fighting some impossible battles in remote corners of India and marrying a maiden in St. Mary’s Church in Fort St. George in Madras. The make-up room had the look of a hair-cutting salon with lights at all angles around half a dozen large mirrors. They were all incandescent lights, so you can imagine the fiery misery of those subjected to make-up. The make-up department was first headed by a Bengali who became too big for a studio and left. He was succeeded by a Maharashtrian who was assisted by a Dharwar Kannadiga, an Andhra, a Madras Indian Christian, an Anglo-Burmese and the usual local Tamils. All this shows that there was a great deal of national integration long before A.I.R. and Doordarshan began broadcasting programmes on national integration. This gang of nationally integrated make-up men could turn any decent-looking person into a hideous crimson hued monster with the help of truck-loads of pancake and a number of other locally made potions and lotions. Those were the days of mainly indoor shooting, and only five per cent of the film was shot outdoors. I suppose the sets and studio lights needed the girls and boys to be made to look ugly in order to look presentable in the movie. A strict hierarchy was maintained in the make-up department. The chief make-up man made the chief actors and actresses ugly, his senior assistant the ‘second’ hero and heroine, the junior assistant the main comedian, and so forth. The players who played the crowd were the responsibility of the office boy. (Even the make-up department of the Gemini Studio had an ‘office boy’!) On the days when there was a crowdshooting, you could see him mixing his paint in a giant vessel and slapping it on the crowd players. The idea was to close every pore on the surface of the face in the process of applying make-up. He wasn’t exactly a ‘boy’; he was in his early forties, having entered the studios years ago in the hope of becoming a star actor or a top screen writer, director or lyrics writer. He was a bit of a poet. In those days I worked in a cubicle, two whole sides of which were French windows. (I didn’t know at that time they were called French windows.) Seeing me sitting at my desk tearing up newspapers day in and day out, most people thought I was doing next to nothing. It is likely that the Boss thought likewise too. So anyone who felt I should be given some occupation would barge into my cubicle and deliver an extended lecture. The ‘boy’ in the make-up department had decided I should be enlightened on how great literary talent was being allowed to go waste in a department fit only for barbers and perverts. Soon I was praying for crowd-shooting all the time. Nothing short of it could save me from his epics. In all instances of frustration, you will always find the anger directed towards a single person openly or covertly and this man of the make-up department was convinced that all his woes, ignominy and neglect were due to Kothamangalam Subbu. Subbu was the No. 2 at Gemini Studios. He couldn’t have had a more encouraging opening in films than our grown-up make-up boy had. On the contrary he must have had to face more uncertain and difficult times, for when he began his career, there were no firmly established film producing companies or studios. Even in the matter of education, specially formal education, Subbu couldn’t have had an appreciable lead over our boy. But by virtue of being born a Brahmin — a virtue, indeed! — he must have had exposure to more affluent situations and people. He had the ability to look cheerful at all times even after having had a hand in a flop film. He always had work for somebody — he could never do things on his own — but his sense of loyalty made him identify himself with his principal completely and turn his entire creativity to his principal’s advantage. He was tailor-made for films. Here was a man who could be inspired when commanded. “The rat fights the tigress underwater and kills her but takes pity on the cubs and tends them lovingly — I don’t know how to do the scene,” the producer would say and Subbu would come out with four ways of the rat pouring affection on its victim’s offspring. “Good, but I am not sure it is effective enough,” the producer would say and in a minute Subbu would come out with fourteen more alternatives. Film-making must have been and was so easy with a man like Subbu around and if ever there was a man who gave direction and definition to Gemini Studios during its golden years, it was Subbu. Subbu had a separate identity as a poet and though he was certainly capable of more complex and higher forms, he deliberately chose to address his poetry to the masses. His success in films overshadowed and dwarfed his literary achievements — or so his critics felt. He composed several truly original ‘story poems’ in folk refrain and diction and also wrote a sprawling novel Thillana Mohanambal with dozens of very deftly etched characters. He quite successfully recreated the mood and manner of the Devadasis of the early 20th century. He was an amazing actor — he never aspired to the lead roles — but whatever subsidiary role he played in any of the films, he performed better than the supposed main players. He had a genuine love for anyone he came across and his house was a permanent residence for dozens of near and far relations and acquaintances. It seemed against Subbu’s nature to be even conscious that he was feeding and supporting so many of them. Such a charitable and improvident man, and yet he had enemies! Was it because he seemed so close and intimate with The Boss? Or was it his general demeanour that resembled a sycophant’s? Or his readiness to say nice things about everything? In any case, there was this man in the make-up department who would wish the direst things for Subbu. You saw Subbu always with The Boss but in the attendance rolls, he was grouped under a department called the Story Department comprising a lawyer and an assembly of writers and poets. The lawyer was also officially known as the legal adviser, but everybody referred to him as the opposite. An extremely talented actress, who was also extremely temperamental, once blew over on the sets. While everyone stood stunned, the lawyer quietly switched on the recording equipment. When the actress paused for breath, the lawyer said to her, “One minute, please,” and played back the recording. There was nothing incriminating or unmentionably foul about the actress’s tirade against the producer. But when she heard her voice again through the sound equipment, she was struck dumb. A girl from the countryside, she hadn’t gone through all the stages of worldly experience that generally precede a position of importance and sophistication that she had found herself catapulted into. She never quite recovered from the terror she felt that day. That was the end of a brief and brilliant acting career — the legal adviser, who was also a member of the Story Department, had unwittingly brought about that sad end. While every other member of the Department wore a kind of uniform — khadi dhoti with a slightly oversized and clumsily tailored white khadi shirt — the legal adviser wore pants and a tie and sometimes a coat that looked like a coat of mail. Often he looked alone and helpless — a man of cold logic in a crowd of dreamers — a neutral man in an assembly of Gandhiites and khadiites. Like so many of those who were close to The Boss, he was allowed to produce a film and though a lot of raw stock and pancake were used on it, not much came of the film. Then one day The Boss closed down the Story Department and this was perhaps the only instance in all human history where a lawyer lost his job because the poets were asked to go home. Gemini Studios was the favourite haunt of poets like S.D.S.Yogiar3, Sangu Subramanyam, Krishna Sastry and Harindranath Chattopadhyaya4. It had an excellent mess which supplied good coffee at all times of the day and for most part of the night. Those were the days when Congress rule meant Prohibition and meeting over a cup of coffee was rather satisfying entertainment. Barring the office boys and a couple of clerks, everybody else at the Studios radiated leisure, a pre-requisite for poetry. Most of them wore khadi and worshipped Gandhiji but beyond that they had not the faintest appreciation for political thought of any kind. Naturally, they were all averse to the term ‘Communism’. A Communist was a godless man — he had no filial or conjugal love; he had no compunction about killing his own parents or his children; he was always out to cause and spread unrest and violence among innocent and ignorant people. Such notions which prevailed everywhere else in South India at that time also, naturally, floated about vaguely among the khadi-clad poets of Gemini Studios. Evidence of it was soon forthcoming. When Frank Buchman’s Moral Re-Armament army, some two hundred strong, visited Madras sometime in 1952, they could not have found a warmer host in India than the Gemini Studios. Someone called the group an international circus. They weren’t very good on the trapeze and their acquaintance with animals was only at the dinner table, but they presented two plays in a most professional manner. Their ‘Jotham Valley’ and ‘The Forgotten Factor’ ran several shows in Madras and along with the other citizens of the city, the Gemini family of six hundred saw the plays over and over again. The message of the plays were usually plain and simple homilies, but the sets and costumes were first-rate. Madras and the Tamil drama community were terribly impressed and for some years almost all Tamil plays had a scene of sunrise and sunset in the manner of ‘Jotham Valley’ with a bare stage, a white background curtain and a tune played on the flute. It was some years later that I learnt that the MRA was a kind of countermovement to international Communism and the big bosses of Madras like Mr. Vasan simply played into their hands. I am not sure however, that this was indeed the case, for the unchangeable aspects of these big bosses and their enterprises remained the same, MRA or no MRA, international Communism or no international Communism. The staff of Gemini Studios had a nice time hosting two hundred people of all hues and sizes of at least twenty nationalities. It was such a change from the usual collection of crowd players waiting to be slapped with thick layers of make-up by the office-boy in the make-up department. A few months later, the telephone lines of the big bosses of Madras buzzed and once again we at Gemini Studios cleared a whole shooting stage to welcome another visitor. All they said was that he was a poet from England. The only poets from England the simple Gemini staff knew or heard of were Wordsworth and Tennyson; the more literate ones knew of Keats, Shelley and Byron; and one or two might have faintly come to know of someone by the name Eliot. Who was the poet visiting the Gemini Studios now? “He is not a poet. He is an editor. That’s why The Boss is giving him a big reception.” Vasan was also the editor of the popular Tamil weekly Ananda Vikatan. He wasn’t the editor of any of the known names of British publications in Madras, that is, those known at the Gemini Studios. Since the top men of The Hindu were taking the initiative, the surmise was that the poet was the editor of a daily — but not from The Manchester Guardian or the London Times. That was all that even the most wellinformed among us knew. At last, around four in the afternoon, the poet (or the editor) arrived. He was a tall man, very English, very serious and of course very unknown to all of us. Battling with half a dozen pedestal fans on the shooting stage, The Boss read out a long speech. It was obvious that he too knew precious little about the poet (or the editor). The speech was all in the most general terms but here and there it was peppered with words like ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’. Then the poet spoke. He couldn’t have addressed a more dazed and silent audience — no one knew what he was talking about and his accent defeated any attempt to understand what he was saying. The whole thing lasted about an hour; then the poet left and we all dispersed in utter bafflement — what are we doing? What is an English poet doing in a film studio which makes Tamil films for the simplest sort of people? People whose lives least afforded them the possibility of cultivating a taste for English poetry? The poet looked pretty baffled too, for he too must have felt the sheer incongruity of his talk about the thrills and travails of an English poet. His visit remained an unexplained mystery. The great prose-writers of the world may not admit it, but my conviction grows stronger day after day that prosewriting is not and cannot be the true pursuit of a genius. It is for the patient, persistent, persevering drudge with a heart so shrunken that nothing can break it; rejection slips don’t mean a thing to him; he at once sets about making a fresh copy of the long prose piece and sends it on to another editor enclosing postage for the return of the manuscript. It was for such people that The Hindu had published a tiny announcement in an insignificant corner of an unimportant page — a short story contest organised by a British periodical by the name The Encounter. Of course, The Encounter wasn’t a known commodity among the Gemini literati. I wanted to get an idea of the periodical before I spent a considerable sum in postage sending a manuscript to England. In those days, the British Council Library had an entrance with no long winded signboards and notices to make you feel you were sneaking into a forbidden area. And there were copies of The Encounter lying about in various degrees of freshness, almost untouched by readers. When I read the editor’s name, I heard a bell ringing in my shrunken heart. It was the poet who had visited the Gemini Studios — I felt like I had found a long lost brother and I sang as I sealed the envelope and wrote out his address. I felt that he too would be singing the same song at the same time — long lost brothers of Indian films discover each other by singing the same song in the first reel and in the final reel of the film. Stephen Spender5. Stephen — that was his name. And years later, when I was out of Gemini Studios and I had much time but not much money, anything at a reduced price attracted my attention. On the footpath in front of the Madras Mount Road Post Office, there was a pile of brand new books for fifty paise each. Actually they were copies of the same book, an elegant paperback of American origin. ‘Special low-priced student edition, in connection with the 50th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution’, I paid fifty paise and picked up a copy of the book, The God That Failed. Six eminent men of letters in six separate essays described ‘their journeys into Communism and their disillusioned return’; Andre Gide6, Richard Wright7, Ignazio Silone8, Arthur Koestler9, Louis Fischer10 and Stephen Spender. Stephen Spender! Suddenly the book assumed tremendous significance. Stephen Spender, the poet who had visited Gemini Studios! In a moment I felt a dark chamber of my mind lit up by a hazy illumination. The reaction to Stephen Spender at Gemini Studios was no longer a mystery. The Boss of the Gemini Studios may not have much to do with Spender’s poetry. But not with his god that failed.

“Are we to leave our successors a scorched planet of advancing deserts, impoverished landscapes and an ailing environment?”

<answer> The earth's four principal biological systems fisheries, forests, grasslands, and croplands from the foundation of the global economic system. In large areas of the world, human claims on these systems are reaching an unsustainable level, a point where their productivity is being impaired. According to Dr Myres, the tropical forests that are the powerhouses of evolution, as they house innumberable species, are facing extinction. It has been said that forests pave the way for man's survival while deserts come after the annihiliation of life. The world's tropical forests are now wearing away at the rate of forty to fifty million acres a year. Expressing his concern, Mr L.K. Jha, raised this question in the first Brandt report. He felt it was unfair to leave for our future generations a seared planet with a growing number of deserts, a landscape deprived of nutrients and natural beauty. <context> ONE cannot recall any movement in world history which has gripped the imagination of the entire human race so completely and so rapidly as the Green Movement which started nearly twenty-five years ago. In 1972 the world’s first nationwide Green party was founded in New Zealand. Since then, the movement has not looked back. We have shifted — one hopes, irrevocably — from the mechanistic view to a holistic and ecological view of the world. It is a shift in human perceptions as revolutionary as that introduced by Copernicus who taught mankind in the sixteenth century that the earth and the other planets revolved round the sun. For the first time in human history, there is a growing worldwide consciousness that the earth itself is a living organism — an enormous being of which we are parts. It has its own metabolic needs and vital processes which need to be respected and preserved. The earth’s vital signs reveal a patient in declining health. We have begun to realise our ethical obligations to be good stewards of the planet and responsible trustees of the legacy to future generations. The concept of sustainable development was popularised in 1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development. In its report it defined the idea as “Development that meets the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs”, i.e., without stripping the natural world of resources future generations would need. In the zoo at Lusaka, Zambia, there is a cage where the notice reads, ‘The world’s most dangerous animal’. Inside the cage there is no animal but a mirror where you see yourself. Thanks to the efforts of a number of agencies in different countries, a new awareness has now dawned upon the most dangerous animal in the world. He has realised the wisdom of shifting from a system based on domination to one based on partnership. Scientists have catalogued about 1.4 million living species with which mankind shares the earth. Estimates vary widely as regards the still-uncatalogued living species — biologists reckon that about three to a hundred million other living species still languish unnamed in ignominious darkness. One of the early international commissions which dealt, inter alia, with the question of ecology and environment was the Brandt Commission which had a distinguished Indian as one of its members — Mr L.K. Jha. The First Brandt Report raised the question — “Are we to leave our successors a scorched planet of advancing deserts, impoverished landscapes and ailing environment?” Mr Lester R. Brown in his thoughtful book, The Global Economic Prospect, points out that the earth’s principal biological systems are four — fisheries, forests, grasslands, and croplands — and they form the foundation of the global economic system. In addition to supplying our food, these four systems provide virtually all the raw materials for industry except minerals and petroleum-derived synthetics. In large areas of the world, human claims on these systems are reaching an unsustainable level, a point where their productivity is being impaired. When this happens, fisheries collapse, forests disappear, grasslands are converted into barren wastelands, and croplands deteriorate. In a protein-conscious and proteinhungry world, over -fishing is common every day. In poor countries, local forests are being decimated in order to procure firewood for cooking. In some places, firewood has become so expensive that “what goes under the pot now costs more than what goes inside it”. Since the tropical forest is, in the words of Dr Myers, “the powerhouse of evolution”, several species of life face extinction as a result of its destruction. It has been well said that forests precede mankind; deserts follow. The world’s ancient patrimony of tropical forests is now eroding at the rate of forty to fifty million acres a year, and the growing use of dung for burning deprives the soil of an important natural fertiliser. The World Bank estimates that a five-fold increase in the rate of forest planting is needed to cope with the expected fuelwood demand in the year 2000. James Speth, the President of the World Resources Institute, said the other day, “We were saying that we are losing the forests at an acre a second, but it is much closer to an acre-and-a-half to a second”. Article 48A of the Constitution of India provides that “the State shall endeavour to protect and improve the environment and to safeguard the forests and wildlife of the country”. But what causes endless anguish is the fact that laws are never respected nor enforced in India. (For instance, the Constitution says that casteism, untouchability and bonded labour shall be abolished, but they flourish shamelessly even after forty-four years of the operation of the Constitution.) A recent report of our Parliament’s Estimates Committee has highlighted the near catastrophic depletion of India’s forests over the last four decades. India, according to reliable data, is losing its forests at the rate of 3.7 million acres a year. Large areas, officially designated as forest land, “are already virtually treeless”. The actual loss of forests is estimated to be about eight times the rate indicated by government statistics. A three-year study using satellites and aerial photography conducted by the United Nations, warns that the environment has deteriorated so badly that it is ‘critical’ in many of the eightyeight countries investigated. There can be no doubt that the growth of world population is one of the strongest factors distorting the future of human society. It took mankind more than a million years to reach the first billion. That was the world population around the year 1800. By the year 1900, a second billion was added, and the twentieth century has added another 3.7 billion. The present world population is estimated at 5.7 billion. Every four days the world population increases by one million. Fertility falls as incomes rise, education spreads, and health improves. Thus development is the best contraceptive. But development itself may not be possible if the present increase in numbers continues. The rich get richer, and the poor beget children which condemns them to remain poor. More children does not mean more workers, merely more people without work. It is not suggested that human beings be treated like cattle and compulsorily sterilised. But there is no alternative to voluntary family planning without introducing an element of coercion. The choice is really between control of population and perpetuation of poverty. The population of India is estimated to be 920 million today — more than the entire populations of Africa and South America put together. No one familiar with the conditions in India would doubt that the hope of the people would die in their hungry hutments unless population control is given topmost priority. For the first time in human history we see a transcending concern — the survival not just of the people but of the planet. We have begun to take a holistic view of the very basis of our existence. The environmental problem does not necessarily signal our demise, it is our passport for the future. The emerging new world vision has ushered in the Era of Responsibility. It is a holistic view, an ecological view, seeing the world as an integrated whole rather than a dissociated collection of parts. Industry has a most crucial role to play in this new Era of Responsibility. What a transformation would be effected if more businessmen shared the view of the Chairman of Du Pont, Mr Edgar S. Woolard who, five years ago, declared himself to be the Company’s “Chief Environmental Officer”. He said, “Our continued existence as a leading manufacturer requires that we excel in environmental performance.” Of all the statements made by Margaret Thatcher during the years of her Prime Ministership, none has passed so decisively into the current coin of English usage as her felicitous words: “No generation has a freehold on this earth. All we have is a life tenancy — with a full repairing lease”. In the words of Mr Lester Brown, “We have not inherited this earth from our forefathers; we have borrowed it from our children.”

Kezia’s efforts to please her father resulted in displeasing him very much. How did this happen?

<answer> Kezia used to be afraid of her father because her father talked to her harshly. One day her grandmother told her to make a pin-cushion to gift him on his birthday which was approaching. Kezia took it an opportunity to please him. So, she stitched cotton cloth three sides and looked for the things that could be stuffed into the stitched cloth. Soon she found out many sheets of paper. Actually they contained her father's speech for the Port Authority. She tore them into pieces and stuffed her case. One day when her father looked for the papers, he did not find them. After some time, he came to know that Kezia had tom them into pieces to make a pin-cushion. He got infuriated and beat her with a ruler. Thus, her efforts to please her father resulted in displeasing him very much. <context> 1. TO the little girl he was a figure to be feared and avoided. Every morning before going to work he came into her room and gave her a casual kiss, to which she responded with “Goodbye, Father”. And oh, there was a glad sense of relief when she heard the noise of the carriage growing fainter and fainter down the long road! In the evening when he came home she stood near the staircase and heard his loud voice in the hall. “Bring my tea into the drawing-room... Hasn’t the paper come yet? Mother, go and see if my paper’s out there — and bring me my slippers.” 2. “Kezia,” Mother would call to her, “if you’re a good girl you can come down and take off father’s boots.” Slowly the girl would slip down the stairs, more slowly still across the hall, and push open the drawing-room door. By that time he had his spectacles on and looked at her over them in a way that was terrifying to the little girl. “Well, Kezia, hurry up and pull off these boots and take them outside. Have you been a good girl today?” “I d-d-don’t know, Father. “You d-d-don’t know? If you stutter like that Mother will have to take you to the doctor.” 3. She never stuttered with other people — had quite given it up — but only with Father, because then she was trying so hard to say the words properly. “What’s the matter? What are you looking so wretched about? Mother, I wish you taught this child not to appear on the brink of suicide... Here, Kezia, carry my teacup back to the table carefully.” He was so big — his hands and his neck, especially his mouth when he yawned. Thinking about him alone was like thinking about a giant. 4. On Sunday afternoons Grandmother sent her down to the drawing-room to have a “nice talk with Father and Mother”. But the little girl always found Mother reading and Father stretched out on the sofa, his handkerchief on his face, his feet on one of the best cushions, sleeping soundly and snoring. She sat on a stool, gravely watched him until he woke and stretched, and asked the time — then looked at her. “Don’t stare so, Kezia. You look like a little brown owl.” One day, when she was kept indoors with a cold, her grandmother told her that father’s birthday was next week, and suggested she should make him a pin-cushion for a gift out of a beautiful piece of yellow silk. 5. Laboriously, with a double cotton, the little girl stitched three sides. But what to fill it with? That was the question. The grandmother was out in the garden, and she wandered into Mother’s bedroom to look for scraps. On the bed-table she discovered a great many sheets of fine paper, gathered them up, tore them into tiny pieces, and stuffed her case, then sewed up the fourth side. That night there was a hue and cry in the house. Father’s great speech for the Port Authority had been lost. Rooms were searched; servants questioned. Finally Mother came into Kezia’s room. “Kezia, I suppose you didn’t see some papers on a table in our room?” “Oh yes,” she said, “I tore them up for my surprise.” “What!” screamed Mother. “Come straight down to the dining-room this instant.” 6. And she was dragged down to where Father was pacing to and fro, hands behind his back. “Well?” he said sharply. Mother explained. He stopped and stared at the child. “Did you do that?” “N-n-no”, she whispered. “Mother, go up to her room and fetch down the damned thing — see that the child’s put to bed this instant.” 7. Crying too much to explain, she lay in the shadowed room watching the evening light make a sad little pattern on the floor. Then Father came into the room with a ruler in his hands. “I am going to beat you for this,” he said. “Oh, no, no”, she screamed, hiding under the bedclothes. He pulled them aside. “Sit up,” he ordered, “and hold out your hands. You must be taught once and for all not to touch what does not belong to you.” “But it was for your b-b-birthday.” Down came the ruler on her little, pink palms. 8. Hours later, when Grandmother had wrapped her in a shawl and rocked her in the rocking-chair, the child clung to her soft body. “What did God make fathers for?” she sobbed. “Here’s a clean hanky, darling. Blow your nose. Go to sleep, pet; you’ll forget all about it in the morning. I tried to explain to Father but he was too upset to listen tonight.” But the child never forgot. Next time she saw him she quickly put both hands behind her back and a red colour flew into her cheeks. 9. The Macdonalds lived next door. They had five children. Looking through a gap in the fence the little girl saw them playing ‘tag’ in the evening. The father with the baby, Mao, on his shoulders, two little girls hanging on to his coat pockets ran round and round the flower-beds, shaking with laughter. Once she saw the boys turn the hose on him—and he tried to catch them laughing all the time. Then it was she decided there were different sorts of fathers. Suddenly, one day, Mother became ill, and she and Grandmother went to hospital. The little girl was left alone in the house with Alice, the cook. That was all right in the daytime, but while Alice was putting her to bed she grew suddenly afraid. 10. “What’ll I do if I have a nightmare?” she asked. “I often have nightmares and then Grannie takes me into her bed—I can’t stay in the dark—it all gets ‘whispery’…” “You just go to sleep, child,” said Alice, pulling off her socks, “and don’t you scream and wake your poor Pa.” But the same old nightmare came — the butcher with a knife and a rope, who came nearer and nearer, smiling that dreadful smile, while she could not move, could only stand still, crying out, “Grandma! Grandma!” She woke shivering to see Father beside her bed, a candle in his hand. “What’s the matter?” he said. 11. “Oh, a butcher — a knife — I want Grannie.” He blew out the candle, bent down and caught up the child in his arms, carrying her along the passage to the big bedroom. A newspaper was on the bed. He put away the paper, then carefully tucked up the child. He lay down beside her. Half asleep still, still with the butcher’s smile all about her it seemed, she crept close to him, snuggled her head under his arm, held tightly to his shirt. Then the dark did not matter; she lay still. “Here, rub your feet against my legs and get them warm,” said Father. 12. Tired out, he slept before the little girl. A funny feeling came over her. Poor Father, not so big, after all — and with no one to look after him. He was harder than Grandmother, but it was a nice hardness. And every day he had to work and was too tired to be a Mr Macdonald… She had torn up all his beautiful writing… She stirred suddenly, and sighed. “What’s the matter?” asked her father. “Another dream?” “Oh,” said the little girl, “my head’s on your heart. I can hear it going. What a big heart you’ve got, Father dear.”

How did Einstein react to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

<answer> The atomic bomb devastated the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was deeply shaken by the extent of the destruction and wrote a public missive to the United Nations. <context> 1. ALBERT Einstein was born on 14 March 1879 in the German city of Ulm, without any indication that he was destined for greatness. On the contrary, his mother thought Albert was a freak. To her, his head seemed much too large. 2. At the age of two-and-a-half, Einstein still wasn’t talking. When he finally did learn to speak, he uttered everything twice. Einstein did not know what to do with other children, and his playmates called him “Brother Boring.” So the youngster played by himself Otto Neugebauer, the historian of ancient mathematics, told a story about the boy Einstein that he characterises as a “legend”, but that seems fairly authentic. As he was a late talker, his parents were worried. At last, at the supper table one night, he broke his silence to say, “The soup is too hot.” Greatly relieved, his parents asked why he had never said a word before. Albert replied, “Because up to now everything was in order.” much of the time. He especially loved mechanical toys. Looking at his newborn sister, Maja, he is said to have said: “Fine, but where are her wheels?” 3. A headmaster once told his father that what Einstein chose as a profession wouldn’t matter, because “he’ll never make a success at anything.” Einstein began learning to play the violin at the age of six, because his mother wanted him to; he later became a gifted amateur violinist, maintaining this skill throughout his life. 4. But Albert Einstein was not a bad pupil. He went to high school in Munich, where Einstein’s family had moved when he was 15 months old, and scored good marks in almost every subject. Einstein hated the school’s regimentation, and often clashed with his teachers. At the age of 15, Einstein felt so stifled there that he left the school for good. 5. The previous year, Albert’s parents had moved to Milan, and left their son with relatives. After prolonged discussion, Einstein got his wish to continue his education in German-speaking Switzerland, in a city which was more liberal than Munich. 6. Einstein was highly gifted in mathematics and interested in physics, and after finishing school, he decided to study at a university in Zurich. But science wasn’t the only thing that appealed to the dashing young man with the walrus moustache. 7. He also felt a special interest in a fellow student, Mileva Maric, whom he found to be a “clever creature.” This young Serb had come to Switzerland because the University in Zurich was one of the few in Europe where women could get degrees. Einstein saw in her an ally against the “philistines”— those people in his family and at the university with whom he was constantly at odds. The couple fell in love. Letters survive in which they put their affection into words, mixing science with tenderness. Wrote Einstein: “How happy and proud I shall be when we both have brought our work on relativity to a victorious conclusion.” In 1900, at the age of 21, Albert Einstein was a university graduate and unemployed. He worked as a teaching assistant, gave private lessons and finally secured a job in 1902 as a technical expert in the patent office in Bern. While he was supposed to be assessing other people’s inventions, Einstein was actually developing his own ideas in secret. He is said to have jokingly called his desk drawer at work the “bureau of theoretical physics.” 9. One of the famous papers of 1905 was Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity, according to which time and distance are not absolute. Indeed, two perfectly accurate clocks will not continue to show the same time if they come together again after a journey if one of them has been moving very fast relative to the other. From this followed the world’s most famous formula which describes the relationship between mass and energy: E = mc2 10. While Einstein was solving the most difficult problems in physics, his private life was unravelling. Albert had wanted to marry Mileva right after finishing his studies, but his mother was against it. She thought Mileva, who was three years older than her son, was too old for him. She was also bothered by Mileva’s intelligence. “She is a book like you,” his mother said. Einstein put the wedding off. 11. The pair finally married in January 1903, and had two sons. But a few years later, the marriage faltered. Mileva, meanwhile, was losing her intellectual ambition and becoming an unhappy housewife. After years of constant fighting, the couple finally divorced in 1919. Einstein married his cousin Elsa the same year. 12.Einstein’s new personal chapter coincided with his rise to world fame. In 1915, he had published his General Theory of Relativity, which provided a new interpretation of gravity. An eclipse of the sun in 1919 brought proof that it was accurate. Einstein had correctly calculated in advance the extent to which the light from fixed stars would be deflected through the sun’s gravitational field. The newspapers proclaimed his work as “a scientific revolution.” 13. Einstein received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921. He was showered with honours and invitations from all over the world, and lauded by the press. 14. When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, Einstein emigrated to the United States. Five years later, the discovery of nuclear fission in Berlin had American physicists in an uproar. Many of them had fled from Fascism, just as Einstein had, and now they were afraid the Nazis could build and use an atomic bomb. 15. At the urging of a colleague, Einstein wrote a letter to the American President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, on 2 August 1939, in which he warned: “A single bomb of this type . . . exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory.” His words did not fail to have an effect. The Americans developed the atomic bomb in a secret project of their own, and dropped it on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. 16. Einstein was deeply shaken by the extent of the destruction. This time he wrote a public missive to the United Nations. In it he proposed the formation of a world government. Unlike the letter to Roosevelt, this one made no impact. But over the next decade, Einstein got ever more involved in politics — agitating for an end to the arms buildup and using his popularity to campaign for peace and democracy. 17. When Einstein died in 1955 at the age of 76, he was celebrated as a visionary and world citizen as much as a scientific genius.

When would the baker come everyday? Why did the children run to meet him?

<answer> The baker would come twice a day-once early in the morning and the second time when he returned after selling his stuff. The children would run to meet him as they wanted to have bread-bangles. <context> A Baker from Goa This is a pen-portrait of a traditional Goan village baker who still has an important place in his society. OUR elders are often heard reminiscing nostalgically about those good old Portuguese days, the Portuguese and their famous loaves of bread. Those eaters of loaves might have vanished but the makers are still there. We still have amongst us the mixers, the moulders and those who bake the loaves. Those age-old, timetested furnaces still exist. The fire in the furnaces has not yet been extinguished. The thud and jingle of the traditional baker’s bamboo, heralding his arrival in the morning, can still be heard in some places. Maybe the father is not alive but the son still carries on the family profession. These bakers are, even today, known as pader in Goa. During our childhood in Goa, the baker used to be our friend, companion and guide. He used to come at least twice a day. Once, when he set out in the morning on his selling round, and then again, when he returned after emptying his huge basket. The jingling thud of his bamboo woke us up from sleep and we ran to meet and greet him. Why was it so? Was it for the love of the loaf? Not at all. The loaves were bought by some Paskine or Bastine, the maid-servant of the house! What we longed for were those bread-bangles which we chose carefully. Sometimes it was sweet bread of special make. The baker made his musical entry on the scene with the ‘jhang, jhang’ sound of his specially made bamboo staff. One hand supported the basket on his head and the other banged the bamboo on the ground. He would greet the lady of the house with “Good morning” and then place his basket on the vertical bamboo. We kids would be pushed aside with a mild rebuke and the loaves would be delivered to the servant. But we would not give up. We would climb a bench or the parapet and peep into the basket, somehow. I can still recall the typical fragrance of those loaves. Loaves for the elders and the bangles for the children. Then we did not even care to brush our teeth or wash our mouths properly. And why should we? Who would take the trouble of plucking the mango-leaf for the toothbrush? And why was it necessary at all? The tiger never brushed his teeth. Hot tea could wash and clean up everything so nicely, after all! Marriage gifts are meaningless without the sweet bread known as the bol, just as a party or a feast loses its charm without bread. Not enough can be said to show how important a baker can be for a village. The lady of the house must prepare sandwiches on the occasion of her daughter’s engagement. Cakes and bolinhas are a must for Christmas as well as other festivals. Thus, the presence of the baker’s furnace in the village is absolutely essential. The baker or bread-seller of those days had a peculiar dress known as the kabai. It was a singlepiece long frock reaching down to the knees. In our childhood we saw bakers wearing a shirt and trousers which were shorter than full-length ones and longer than half pants. Even today, anyone who wears a half pant which reaches just below the knees invites the comment that he is dressed like a pader! The baker usually collected his bills at the end of the month. Monthly accounts used to be recorded on some wall in pencil. Baking was indeed a profitable profession in the old days. The baker and his family never starved. He, his family and his servants always looked happy and prosperous. Their plump physique was an open testimony to this. Even today any person with a jackfruit-like physical appearance is easily compared to a baker.

What does it mean by “I said it with bullets.”?

<answer> It means that he is not an ordinary person. He is very dangerous. <context> When the curtain rises Gerrard is standing by the table making a phone call. He is of medium height, and wearing horn-rimmed glasses . . . He is dressed in a lounge suit and a great coat. His voice is cultured.) GERRARD : ... Well, tell him to phone up directly. I must know... Yes, I expect I’ll still be here, but you mustn’t count on that ... In about ten minutes’ time. Right-ho. Goodbye. (He puts down the phone and goes to the divan on the left, where there is a travelling bag, and starts packing. Whilst he is thus engaged, another man, similar in build to Gerrard enters from the right silently — revolver in hand. He is flashily dressed in an overcoat and a soft hat. He bumps accidentally against the table, and at the sound Gerrard turns quickly.) GERRARD : (pleasantly) Why, this is a surprise, Mr— er— INTRUDER : I’m glad you’re pleased to see me. I don’t think you’ll be pleased for long. Put those paws up! GERRARD : This is all very melodramatic, not very original, perhaps, but… INTRUDER : Trying to be calm and —er— GERRARD : ‘Nonchalant’ is your word, I think. INTRUDER : Thanks a lot. You’ll soon stop being smart. I’ll make you crawl. I want to know a few things, see. GERRARD : Anything you like. I know all the answers. But before we begin I should like to change my position; you may be comfortable, but I am not. INTRUDER : Sit down there, and no funny business. (Motions to a chair, and seats himself on the divan by the bag.) Now then, we’ll have a nice little talk about yourself! GERRARD : At last a sympathetic audience! I’ll tell you the story of my life. How as a child I was stolen by the gypsies, and why at the age of thirty-two, I find myself in my lonely Essex cottage, how... INTRUDER : Keep it to yourself, and just answer my questions. You live here alone? Well, do you? GERRARD : I’m sorry. I thought you were telling me, not asking me. A question of inflection; your voice is unfamiliar. INTRUDER : (with emphasis) Do you live here alone? GERRARD : And if I don’t answer? INTRUDER : You’ve got enough sense not to want to get hurt. GERRARD : I think good sense is shown more in the ability to avoid pain than in the mere desire to do so. What do you think, Mr— er— INTRUDER : Never mind my name. I like yours better, Mr Gerrard. What are your Christian names? GERRARD : Vincent Charles. INTRUDER : Do you run a car? GERRARD : No. INTRUDER : That’s a lie. You’re not dealing with a fool. I’m as smart as you and smarter, and I know you run a car. Better be careful, wise guy! GERRARD : Are you American, or is that merely a clever imitation? INTRUDER : Listen, this gun’s no toy. I can hurt you without killing you, and still get my answers. GERRARD : Of course, if you put it like that, I’ll be glad to assist you. I do possess a car, and it’s in the garage round the corner. INTRUDER : That’s better. Do people often come out here? GERRARD : Very rarely. Surprisingly few people take the trouble to visit me. There’s the baker and the greengrocer, of course; and then there’s the milkman — quite charming, but no one so interesting as yourself. INTRUDER : I happen to know that you never see tradespeople. 2 GERRARD : You seem to have taken a considerable amount of trouble. Since you know so much about me, won’t you say something about yourself? You have been so modest. INTRUDER : I could tell you plenty. You think you’re smart, but I’m the top of the class round here. I’ve got brains and I use them. That’s how I’ve got where I have. GERRARD : And where precisely have you got? It didn’t require a great brain to break into my little cottage. INTRUDER : When you know why I’ve broken into your little cottage, you’ll be surprised, and it won’t be a pleasant surprise. GERRARD : With you figuring so largely in it, that is understandable. By the way, what particular line of crime do you embrace, or aren’t you a specialist? INTRUDER : My speciality’s jewel robbery. Your car will do me a treat. It’s certainly a dandy bus. GERRARD : I’m afraid jewels are few and far between in the wilds of Essex. INTRUDER : So are the cops. I can retire here nicely for a little while. GERRARD : You mean to live with me? A trifle sudden isn’t it; you’ve not been invited. INTRUDER : You won’t be here long; so I didn’t trouble to ask. GERRARD : What do you mean? INTRUDER : This is your big surprise. I’m going to kill you. GERRARD : A little harsh, isn’t it? INTRUDER : (with heavy sarcasm) Yeah, I’ll be sorry to do it. I’ve taken a fancy to you, but it’s just got to be done. GERRARD : Why add murder to your other crimes? It’s a grave step you’re taking. INTRUDER : I’m not taking it for fun. I’ve been hunted long enough. I’m wanted for murder already, and they can’t hang me twice. GERRARD : You’re planning a gratuitous double, so to speak. Admitted you’ve nothing to lose, but what have you to gain? INTRUDER : I’ve got freedom to gain. As for myself, I’m a poor hunted rat. As Vincent Charles Gerrard I’m free to go places and do nothing. I can eat well and sleep and without having to be ready to beat it at the sight of a cop. GERRARD : In most melodramas the villain is foolish enough to delay his killing long enough to be frustrated. You are much luckier. INTRUDER : I’m O.K. I’ve got a reason for everything. I’m going to be Vincent Charles Gerrard, see. I’ve got to know what he talks like. Now I know. That posh stuff comes easy. This is Mr V.C. Gerrard speaking. (Pantomime of phoning, in imitation cultured voice.) And that’s not all. (He stands up.) Get up a minute (Gerrard stands.) Now take a look at me. GERRARD : You’re not particularly decorative. INTRUDER : No! Well, that goes for you, too. I’ve only got to wear specs and I’ll be enough like you to get away with it. GERRARD : What about your clothes? They’ll let you down if you’re not careful. INTRUDER : That’ll be all right. Yours will fit me fine. GERRARD : That is extremely interesting, but you seem to miss the point of my remark. I said, you were luckier than most melodramatic villains. It was not a tribute to your intelligence. You won’t kill me for a very good reason. INTRUDER : So that’s what you think. GERRARD : You’ll let me go, and thank God you didn’t shoot sooner. INTRUDER : Come on. What’s on your mind! Better be quick. This conversation bores me. GERRARD : Your idea is to elude the police by killing me and taking on my identity? INTRUDER : Yes, I like the idea. GERRARD : But are you sure it’s going to help you? INTRUDER : Now listen here. I’ve got this all planned. I did a job in town. Things went wrong and I killed a cop. Since then I’ve done nothing but dodge. GERRARD : And this is where dodging has brought you? INTRUDER : It brought me to Aylesbury. That’s where I saw you in the car. Two other people saw you and started to talk. I listened. It looks like you’re a bit queer — kind of a mystery man. GERRARD : A mystery which I propose to explain. INTRUDER : (disregarding him) You phone your orders and sometimes you go away suddenly and come back just the same. Those are just the things I want to do. Hearing about you was one of my luckiest breaks. GERRARD : Apparently you haven’t the intelligence to ask why I am invested in this cloak of mystery. INTRUDER : (preparing to shoot) As I said before, this conversation bores me. GERRARD : Don’t be a fool. If you shoot, you’ll hang for sure. If not as yourself, then as Vincent Charles Gerrard. INTRUDER : What is this? GERRARD : This is your big surprise. I said you wouldn’t kill me and I was right. Why do you think I am here today and gone tomorrow, never see tradespeople? You say my habits would suit you. You are a crook. Do you think I am a Sunday-school teacher? The game’s up as far as I’m concerned. Things went wrong with me. I said it with bullets and got away. Unfortunately they got one of my men, and found things the fool should have burnt. Tonight I’m expecting trouble. My bag’s packed ready to clear off. There it is. INTRUDER : It’s a bag all right and this is a gun all right. What’s all this? GERRARD : That’s a disguise outfit; false moustaches and what not. Now do you believe me? INTRUDER : (musingly) I don’t know. GERRARD : For God’s sake clear that muddled head of yours and let’s go. Come with me in the car. I can use you. If you find it’s a frame, you’ve got me in the car, and you’ve still got your gun. INTRUDER : May be you’re right. GERRARD : Then don’t waste time. (Goes and picks up hat and bag.) INTRUDER : Careful, boss, I’m watching you. GERRARD : I have got a man posted on the main road. He’ll ring up if he sees the police, but I don’t want to leave ... (telephone bell rings) Come on! They’re after us. Through here straight to the garage. INTRUDER : How do I know that you are telling the truth? GERRARD : Oh, don’t be a fool. Look for yourself. (Gerrard opens door and steps away. Intruder leans forward to inspect it, with his side towards Gerrard, but with the revolver ready. As he turns his head, Gerrard gives him a push into the cupboard, knocking the revolver out of his hand. He slams the door and locks it, picks up the revolver and goes to the phone, where he stands with the gun pointed at the cupboard door.) INTRUDER : (rattles door and shouts) Let me out of here! GERRARD : Hello. Yes, speaking. Sorry I can’t let you have the props in time for rehearsal, I’ve had a spot of bother — quite amusing. I think I’ll put it in my next play. Listen, can you tell our friend the Sergeant to come up here at once? You’ll probably find him in the Public Bar.

Apparent illogicality sometimes turns out to be a futuristic projection? Discuss.

<answer> It is true that apparent illogicality sometimes turns out to be a futuristic projection. A good number of scientific inventions sounded ridiculous and absurd till some brilliant minds gave them a concrete shape. Before the Wright Brothers invented the first aeroplane, nobody could have dared to believe that man could fly. There are many other examples of inventions which were conceived in dreams but now are part of our everyday reality. All this emphasizes that fantasies of one point of time that seem illogical may turn out to be revolutionary things that change the future of the mankind. It would not be far-fetched to think about railway stations fitted with time-machine devices from one era to another. It is just a matter of time. <context> THE presidents of the New York Central and the New York, New Haven and Hartford railroads will swear on a stack of timetables that there are only two. But I say there are three, because I’ve been on the third level of the Grand Central Station. Yes, I’ve taken the obvious step: I talked to a psychiatrist friend of mine, among others. I told him about the third level at Grand Central Station, and he said it was a wakingdream wish fulfillment. He said I was unhappy. That made my wife kind of mad, but he explained that he meant the modern world is full of insecurity, fear, war, worry and all the rest of it, and that I just want to escape. Well, who doesn’t? Everybody I know wants to escape, but they don’t wander down into any third level at Grand Central Station. But that’s the reason, he said, and my friends all agreed. Everything points to it, they claimed. My stamp collecting, for example; that’s a ‘temporary refuge from reality.’ Well, maybe, but my grandfather didn’t need any refuge from reality; things were pretty nice and peaceful in his day, from all I hear, and he started my collection. It’s a nice collection too, blocks of four of practically every U.S. issue, first-day covers, and so on. President Roosevelt collected stamps too, you know. Anyway, here’s what happened at Grand Central. One night last summer I worked late at the office. I was in a hurry to get uptown to my apartment so I decided to take the subway from Grand Central because it’s faster than the bus. Now, I don’t know why this should have happened to me. I’m just an ordinary guy named Charley, thirty-one years old, and I was wearing a tan gabardine suit and a straw hat with a fancy band; I passed a dozen men who looked just like me. And I wasn’t trying to escape from anything; I just wanted to get home to Louisa, my wife. I turned into Grand Central from Vanderbilt Avenue, and went down the steps to the first level, where you take trains like the Twentieth Century. Then I walked down another flight to the second level, where the suburban trains leave from, ducked into an arched doorway heading for the subway — and got lost. That’s easy to do. I’ve been in and out of Grand Central hundreds of times, but I’m always bumping into new doorways and stairs and corridors. Once I got into a tunnel about a mile long and came out in the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel. Another time I came up in an office building on Forty-sixth Street, three blocks away. Sometimes I think Grand Central is growing like a tree, pushing out new corridors and staircases like roots. There’s probably a long tunnel that nobody knows about feeling its way under the city right now, on its way to Times Square, and maybe another to Central Park. And maybe — because for so many people through the years Grand Central has been an exit, a way of escape — maybe that’s how the tunnel I got into... But I never told my psychiatrist friend about that idea. The corridor I was in began angling left and slanting downward and I thought that was wrong, but I kept on walking. All I could hear was the empty sound of my own footsteps and I didn’t pass a soul. Then I heard that sort of hollow roar ahead that means open space and people talking. The tunnel turned sharp left; I went down a short flight of stairs and came out on the third level at Grand Central Station. For just a moment I thought I was back on the second level, but I saw the room was smaller, there were fewer ticket windows and train gates, and the information booth in the centre was wood and oldlooking. And the man in the booth wore a green eyeshade and long black sleeve protectors. The lights were dim and sort of flickering. Then I saw why; they were open-flame gaslights. There were brass spittoons on the floor, and across the station a glint of light caught my eye; a man was pulling a gold watch from his vest pocket. He snapped open the cover, glanced at his watch and frowned. He wore a derby hat, a black four-button suit with tiny lapels, and he had a big, black, handlebar mustache. Then I looked around and saw that everyone in the station was dressed like eighteen-ninety-something; I never saw so many beards, sideburns and fancy mustaches in my life. A woman walked in through the train gate; she wore a dress with leg-ofmutton sleeves and skirts to the top of her high-buttoned shoes. Back of her, out on the tracks, I caught a glimpse of a locomotive, a very small Currier & Ives locomotive with a funnel-shaped stack. And then I knew. To make sure, I walked over to a newsboy and glanced at the stack of papers at his feet. It was The World; and The World hasn’t been published for years. The lead story said something about President Cleveland. I’ve found that front page since, in the Public Library files, and it was printed June 11, 1894. I turned toward the ticket windows knowing that here — on the third level at Grand Central — I could buy tickets that would take Louisa and me anywhere in the United States we wanted to go. In the year 1894. And I wanted two tickets to Galesburg, Illinois. Have you ever been there? It’s a wonderful town still, with big old frame houses, huge lawns, and tremendous trees whose branches meet overhead and roof the streets. And in 1894, summer evenings were twice as long, and people sat out on their lawns, the men smoking cigars and talking quietly, the women waving palm-leaf fans, with the fire-flies all around, in a peaceful world. To be back there with the First World War still twenty years off, and World War II over forty years in the future... I wanted two The clerk figured the fare — he glanced at my fancy hatband, but he figured the fare — and I had enough for two coach tickets, one way. But when I counted out the money and looked up, the clerk was staring at me. He nodded at the bills. ‘‘That ain’t money, mister,’’ he said, ‘‘and if you’re trying to skin me, you won’t get very far,’’ and he glanced at the cash drawer beside him. Of course the money was old-style bills, half again as big as the money we use nowadays, and different-looking. I turned away and got out fast. There’s nothing nice about jail, even in 1894. And that was that. I left the same way I came, I suppose. Next day, during lunch hour, I drew three hundred dollars out of the bank, nearly all we had, and bought old-style currency (that really worried my psychiatrist friend). You can buy old money at almost any coin dealer’s, but you have to pay a premium. My three hundred dollars bought less than two hundred in old-style bills, but I didn’t care; eggs were thirteen cents a dozen in 1894. But I’ve never again found the corridor that leads to the third level at Grand Central Station, although I’ve tried often enough. Louisa was pretty worried when I told her all this, and didn’t want me to look for the third level any more, and after a while I stopped; I went back to my stamps. But now we’re both looking, every weekend, because now we have proof that the third level is still there. My friend Sam Weiner disappeared! Nobody knew where, but I sort of suspected because Sam’s a city boy, and I used to tell him about Galesburg — I went to school there — and he always said he liked the sound of the place. And that’s where he is, all right. In 1894. Because one night, fussing with my stamp collection, I found — Well, do you know what a first-day cover is? When a new stamp is issued, stamp collectors buy some and use them to mail envelopes to themselves on the very first day of sale; and the postmark proves the date. The envelope is called a first-day cover. They’re never opened; you just put blank paper in the envelope. That night, among my oldest first-day covers, I found one that shouldn’t have been there. But there it was. It was there because someone had mailed it to my grandfather at his home in Galesburg; that’s what the address on the envelope said. And it had been there since July 18, 1894 — the postmark showed that — yet I didn’t remember it at all. The stamp was a six-cent, dull brown, with a picture of President Garfield. Naturally, when the envelope came to Granddad in the mail, it went right into his collection and stayed there — till I took it out and opened it. At the stamp and coin store I go to, I found out that Sam bought eight hundred dollars’ worth of old-style currency. That ought to set him up in a nice little hay, feed and grain business; he always said that’s what he really wished he could do, and he certainly can’t go back to his old business. Not in Galesburg, Illinois, in 1894. His old business? Why, Sam was my psychiatrist.

What difference did you notice between the reaction of the adults and the children when faced with danger?

<answer> There is a lot of difference between the way in which the adults and the children reacted when faced with danger. The adults felt the stress of the circumstances but prepared themselves to face the dangers. They took sufficient precautions to protect the ship when the rough weather began. They equipped everyone with lifelines, water proof clothes, and life jackets. Larry and Herb worked cheerfully and optimistically for three days continuously to pump out water from the ship. Mary replaced the narrator at the wheel when the deck was smashed, and steered the ship. She also served them meal after two days of struggle against odds. The narrator perfomed his role as captain with courage, determination, resourcefulness and full responsibility. He undertook repair work and provided apparatus and directions needed to protect the ship. He also helped in steering the ship towards the island. The children suffered silently and patiently. Sue did not want to bother her father with her troubles. Jon acted courageously. He was not afraid to die if all of them perished together. <context> IN July 1976, my wife Mary, son Jonathan, 6, daughter Suzanne, 7, and I set sail from Plymouth, England, to duplicate the roundtheworld voyage made 200 years earlier by Captain James Cook. For the longest time, Mary and I — a 37yearold businessman — had dreamt of sailing in the wake of the famous explorer, and for the past 16 years we had spent all our leisure time honing our seafaring skills in British waters. Our boat Wavewalker, a 23 metre, 30 ton woodenhulled beauty, had been professionally built, and we had spent months fitting it out and testing it in the roughest weather we could find. The first leg of our planned threeyear, 105,000 kilometre journey passed pleasantly as we sailed down the west coast of Africa to Cape Town. There, before heading east, we took on two crewmen — American Larry Vigil and Swiss Herb Seigler — to help us tackle one of the world’s roughest seas, the southern Indian Ocean. On our second day out of Cape Town, we began to encounter strong gales. For the next few weeks, they blew continuously. Gales did not worry me; but the size of the waves was alarming — up to 15 metres, as high as our main mast. December 25 found us 3,500 kilometres east of Cape Town. Despite atrocious weather, we had a wonderful holiday complete with a Christmas tree. New Year’s Day saw no improvement in the weather, but we reasoned that it had to change soon. And it did change — for the worse. At dawn on January 2, the waves were gigantic. We were sailing with only a small storm jib and were still making eight knots. As the ship rose to the top of each wave we could see endless enormous seas rolling towards us, and the screaming of the wind and spray was painful to the ears. To slow the boat down, we dropped the storm jib and lashed a heavy mooring rope in a loop across the stern. Then we doublelashed everything, went through our liferaft drill, attached lifelines, donned oilskins and life jackets — and waited. The first indication of impending disaster came at about 6 p.m., with an ominous silence. The wind dropped, and the sky immediately grew dark. Then came a growing roar, and an enormous cloud towered aft of the ship. With horror, I realised that it was not a cloud, but a wave like no other I had ever seen. It appeared perfectly vertical and almost twice the height of the other waves, with a frightful breaking crest. The roar increased to a thunder as the stern moved up the face of the wave, and for a moment I thought we might ride over it. But then a tremendous explosion shook the deck. A torrent of green and white water broke over the ship, my head smashed into the wheel and I was aware of flying overboard and sinking below the waves. I accepted my approaching death, and as I was losing consciousness, I felt quite peaceful. Unexpectedly, my head popped out of the water. A few metres away, Wavewalker was near capsizing, her masts almost horizontal. Then a wave hurled her upright, my lifeline jerked taut, I grabbed the guard rails and sailed through the air into Wavewalker’s main boom. Subsequent waves tossed me around the deck like a rag doll. My left ribs cracked; my mouth filled with blood and broken teeth. Somehow, I found the wheel, lined up the stern for the next wave and hung on. Water, Water, Everywhere. I could feel that the ship had water below, but I dared not abandon the wheel to investigate. Suddenly, the front hatch was thrown open and Mary appeared. “We’re sinking!” she screamed. “The decks are smashed; we’re full of water.” “Take the wheel”, I shouted as I scrambled for the hatch. Larry and Herb were pumping like madmen. Broken timbers hung at crazy angles, the whole starboard side bulged inwards; clothes, crockery, charts, tins and toys sloshed about in deep water. I halfswam, halfcrawled into the children’s cabin. “Are you all right?” I asked. “Yes,” they answered from an upper bunk. “But my head hurts a bit,” said Sue, pointing to a big bump above her eyes. I had no time to worry about bumped heads. After finding a hammer, screws and canvas, I struggled back on deck. With the starboard side bashed open, we were taking water with each wave that broke over us. If I couldn’t make some repairs, we would surely sink. Somehow I managed to stretch canvas and secure waterproof hatch covers across the gaping holes. Some water continued to stream below, but most of it was now being deflected over the side. More problems arose when our hand pumps started to block up with the debris floating around the cabins and the electric pump shortcircuited. The water level rose threateningly. Back on deck I found that our two spare hand pumps had been wrenched overboard — along with the forestay sail, the jib, the dinghies and the main anchor. Then I remembered we had another electric pump under the chartroom floor. I connected it to an outpipe, and was thankful to find that it worked. The night dragged on with an endless, bitterly cold routine of pumping, steering and working the radio. We were getting no replies to our Mayday calls — which was not surprising in this remote corner of the world. Sue’s head had swollen alarmingly; she had two enormous black eyes, and now she showed us a deep cut on her arm. When I asked why she hadn’t made more of her injuries before this, she replied, “I didn’t want to worry you when you were trying to save us all.” ____________ By morning on January 3, the pumps had the water level sufficiently under control for us to take two hours’ rest in rotation. But we still had a tremendous leak somewhere below the waterline and, on checking, I found that nearly all the boat’s main rib frames were smashed down to the keel. In fact, there was nothing holding up a whole section of the starboard hull except a few cupboard partitions. We had survived for 15 hours since the wave hit, but Wavewalker wouldn’t hold together long enough for us to reach Australia. I checked our charts and calculated that there were two small islands a few hundred kilometres to the east. One of them, Ile Amsterdam, was a French scientific base. Our only hope was to reach these pinpricks in the vast ocean. But unless the wind and seas abated so we could hoist sail, our chances would be slim indeed. The great wave had put our auxilliary engine out of action. On January 4, after 36 hours of continuous pumping, we reached the last few centimetres of water. Now, we had only to keep pace with the water still coming in. We could not set any sail on the main mast. Pressure on the rigging would simply pull the damaged section of the hull apart, so we hoisted the storm jib and headed for where I thought the two islands were. Mary found some corned beef and cracker biscuits, and we ate our first meal in almost two days. But our respite was shortlived. At 4 p.m. black clouds began building up behind us; within the hour the wind was back to 40 knots and the seas were getting higher. The weather continued to deteriorate throughout the night, and by dawn on January 5, our situation was again desperate. When I went in to comfort the children, Jon asked, “Daddy, are we going to die?” I tried to assure him that we could make it. “But, Daddy,” he went on, “we aren’t afraid of dying if we can all be together — you and Mummy, Sue and I.” I could find no words with which to respond, but I left the children’s cabin determined to fight the sea with everything I had. To protect the weakened starboard side, I decided to heaveto — with the undamaged port hull facing the oncoming waves, using an improvised sea anchor of heavy nylon rope and two 22 litre plastic barrels of paraffin. That evening, Mary and I sat together holding hands, as the motion of the ship brought more and more water in through the broken planks. We both felt the end was very near. But Wavewalker rode out the storm and by the morning of January 6, with the wind easing, I tried to get a reading on the sextant. Back in the chartroom, I worked on wind speeds, changes of course, drift and current in an effort to calculate our position. The best I could determine was that we were somewhere in 150,000 kilometres of ocean looking for a 65 kilometrewide island. While I was thinking, Sue, moving painfully, joined me. The left side of her head was now very swollen and her blackened eyes narrowed to slits. She gave me a card she had made. On the front she had drawn caricatures of Mary and me with the words: “Here are some funny people. Did they make you laugh? I laughed a lot as well.” Inside was a message: “Oh, how I love you both. So this card is to say thank you and let’s hope for the best.” Somehow we had to make it. ____________ I checked and rechecked my calculations. We had lost our main compass and I was using a spare which had not been corrected for magnetic variation. I made an allowance for this and another estimate of the influence of the westerly currents which flow through this part of the Indian Ocean. About 2 p.m., I went on deck and asked Larry to steer a course of 185 degrees. If we were lucky, I told him with a conviction I did not feel, he could expect to see the island at about 5 p.m. Then with a heavy heart, I went below, climbed on my bunk and amazingly, dozed off. When I woke it was 6 p.m., and growing dark. I knew we must have missed the island, and with the sail we had left, we couldn’t hope to beat back into the westerly winds. At that moment, a tousled head appeared by my bunk. “Can I have a hug?” Jonathan asked. Sue was right behind him. “Why am I getting a hug now?” I asked. “Because you are the best daddy in the whole world — and the best captain,” my son replied. “Not today, Jon, I’m afraid.” “Why, you must be,” said Sue in a matteroffact voice. “You found the island.” “What!” I shouted. “It’s out there in front of us,” they chorused, “as big as a battleship.” I rushed on deck and gazed with relief at the stark outline of Ile Amsterdam. It was only a bleak piece of volcanic rock, with little vegetation — the most beautiful island in the world! We anchored offshore for the night, and the next morning all 28 inhabitants of the island cheered as they helped us ashore. With land under my feet again, my thoughts were full of Larry and Herbie, cheerful and optimistic under the direst stress, and of Mary, who stayed at the wheel for all those crucial hours. Most of all, I thought of a sevenyearold girl, who did not want us to worry about a head injury (which subsequently took six minor operations to remove a recurring blood clot between skin and skull), and of a sixyearold boy who was not afraid to die.

Did Lencho try to find out who had sent the money to him? Why/Why not?

<answer> Lencho did not try to find out who had sent the money to him because he never suspected the presence of God and had complete faith in God. He could not beileve that it could be- anybody else other than him who would send him the money. His faith in God was so strong that he beileved that he had sent money to him for his help in his problem. <context> THE house — the only one in the entire valley — sat on the crest of a low hill. From this height one could see the river and the field of ripe corn dotted with the flowers that always promised a good harvest. The only thing the earth needed was a downpour or at least a shower. Throughout the morning Lencho — who knew his fields intimately — had done nothing else but see the sky towards the north-east. “Now we’re really going to get some water, woman.” The woman who was preparing supper, replied, “Yes, God willing”. The older boys were working in the field, while the smaller ones were playing near the house until the woman called to them all, “Come for dinner”. It was during the meal that, just as Lencho had predicted, big drops of rain began to fall. In the north-east huge mountains of clouds could be seen approaching. The air was fresh and sweet. The man went out for no other reason than to have the pleasure of feeling the rain on his body, and when he returned he exclaimed, ‘‘These aren’t raindrops falling from the sky, they are new coins. The big drops are ten cent pieces and the little ones are fives.’’ With a satisfied expression he regarded the field of ripe corn with its flowers, draped in a curtain of rain. But suddenly a strong wind began to blow and along with the rain very large hailstones began to fall. These truly did resemble new silver coins. The boys, exposing themselves to the rain, ran out to collect the frozen pearls. ‘‘It’s really getting bad now,’’ exclaimed the man. “I hope it passes quickly.” It did not pass quickly. For an hour the hail rained on the house, the garden, the hillside, the cornfield, on the whole valley. The field was white, as if covered with salt. Not a leaf remained on the trees. The corn was totally destroyed. The flowers were gone from the plants. Lencho’s soul was filled with sadness. When the storm had passed, he stood in the middle of the field and said to his sons, “A plague of locusts would have left more than this. The hail has left nothing. This year we will have no corn.’’ That night was a sorrowful one. “All our work, for nothing.” ‘‘There’s no one who can help us.” “We’ll all go hungry this year.” But in the hearts of all who lived in that solitary house in the middle of the valley, there was a single hope: help from God. “Don’t be so upset, even though this seems like a total loss. Remember, no one dies of hunger.” “That’s what they say: no one dies of hunger.” All through the night, Lencho thought only of his one hope: the help of God, whose eyes, as he had been instructed, see everything, even what is deep in one’s conscience. Lencho was an ox of a man, working like an animal in the fields, but still he knew how to write. The following Sunday, at daybreak, he began to write a letter which he himself would carry to town and place in the mail. It was nothing less than a letter to God. “God,” he wrote, “if you don’t help me, my family and I will go hungry this year. I need a hundred pesos in order to sow my field again and to live until the crop comes, because the hailstorm... .” He wrote ‘To God’ on the envelope, put the letter inside and, still troubled, went to town. At the post office, he placed a stamp on the letter and dropped it into the mailbox. One of the employees, who was a postman and also helped at the post office, went to his boss laughing heartily and showed him the letter to God. Never in his career as a postman had he known that address. The postmaster — a fat, amiable fellow — also broke out laughing, but almost immediately he turned serious and, tapping the letter on his desk, commented, “What faith! I wish I had the faith of the man who wrote this letter. Starting up a correspondence with God!” So, in order not to shake the writer’s faith in God, the postmaster came up with an idea: answer the letter. But when he opened it, it was evident that to answer it he needed something more than goodwill, ink and paper. But he stuck to his resolution: he asked for money from his employees, he himself gave part of his salary, and several friends of his were obliged to give something ‘for an act of charity’. It was impossible for him to gather together the hundred pesos, so he was able to send the farmer only a little more than half. He put the money in an envelope addressed to Lencho and with it a letter containing only a single word as a signature: God. The following Sunday Lencho came a bit earlier than usual to ask if there was a letter for him. It was the postman himself who handed the letter to him while the postmaster, experiencing the contentment of a man who has performed a good deed, looked on from his office. Lencho showed not the slightest surprise on seeing the money; such was his confidence — but he became angry when he counted the money. God could not have made a mistake, nor could he have denied Lencho what he had requested. Immediately, Lencho went up to the window to ask for paper and ink. On the public writing-table, he started to write, with much wrinkling of his brow, caused by the effort he had to make to express his ideas. When he finished, he went to the window to buy a stamp which he licked and then affixed to the envelope with a blow of his fist. The moment the letter fell into the mailbox the postmaster went to open it. It said: “God: Of the money that I asked for, only seventy pesos reached me. Send me the rest, since I need it very much. But don’t send it to me through the mail because the post office employees are a bunch of crooks. Lencho.”

What are some of the positive views on interviews?

<answer> The positive views on interviews are that it is a medium of communication and a source of truth and information. Some even look at it as an art. These days we know about the celebrities and others through their interviews. <context> Since its invention a little over 130 years ago, the interview has become a commonplace of journalism. Today, almost everybody who is literate will have read an interview at some point in their lives, while from the other point of view, several thousand celebrities have been interviewed over the years, some of them repeatedly. So it is hardly surprising that opinions of the interview — of its functions, methods and merits — vary considerably. Some might make quite extravagant claims for it as being, in its highest form, a source of truth, and, in its practice, an art. Others, usually celebrities who see themselves as its victims, might despise the interview as an unwarranted intrusion into their lives, or feel that it somehow diminishes them, just as in some primitive cultures it is believed that if one takes a photographic portrait of somebody then one is stealing that person’s soul. V. S. Naipaul1 ‘feels that some people are wounded by interviews and lose a part of themselves,’ Lewis Carroll, the creator of Alice in Wonderland, was said to have had ‘a just horror of the interviewer’ and he never consented to be interviewed — It was his horror of being lionized which made him thus repel would be acquaintances, interviewers, and the persistent petitioners for his autograph and he would afterwards relate the stories of his success in silencing all such people with much satisfaction and amusement. Rudyard Kipling2 expressed an even more condemnatory attitude towards the interviewer. His wife, Caroline, writes in her diary for 14 October 1892 that their day was ‘wrecked by two reporters from Boston’. She reports her husband as saying to the reporters, “Why do I refuse to be interviewed? Because it is immoral! It is a crime, just as much of a crime as an offence against my person, as an assault, and just as much merits punishment. It is cowardly and vile. No respectable man would ask it, much less give it,” Yet Kipling had himself perpetrated such an ‘assault’ on Mark Twain only a few years before. H. G. Wells3 in an interview in 1894 referred to ‘the interviewing ordeal’, but was a fairly frequent interviewee and forty years later found himself interviewing Joseph Stalin4. Saul Bellow5, who has consented to be interviewed on several occasions, nevertheless once described interviews as being like thumbprints on his windpipe. Yet despite the drawbacks of the interview, it is a supremely serviceable medium of communication. “These days, more than at any other time, our most vivid impressions of our contemporaries are through interviews,” Denis Brian has written. “Almost everything of moment reaches us through one man asking questions of another. Because of this, the interviewer holds a position of unprecedented power and influence.” The following is an extract from an interview of Umberto Eco. The interviewer is Mukund Padmanabhan from The Hindu. Umberto Eco, a professor at the University of Bologna in Italy had already acquired a formidable reputation as a scholar for his ideas on semiotics (the study of signs), literary interpretation, and medieval aesthetics before he turned to writing fiction. Literary fiction, academic texts, essays, children’s books, newspaper articles—his written output is staggeringly large and wide-ranging, In 1980, he acquired the equivalent of intellectual superstardom with the publication of The Name of the Rose, which sold more than 10 million copies. Mukund: The English novelist and academic David Lodge once remarked, “I can’t understand how one man can do all the things he [Eco] does.” Umberto Eco: Maybe I give the impression of doing many things. But in the end, I am convinced I am always doing the same thing. Mukund: Which is? Umberto Eco: Aah, now that is more difficult to explain. I have some philosophical interests and I pursue them through my academic work and my novels. Even my books for children are about non-violence and peace...you see, the same bunch of ethical, philosophical interests. And then I have a secret. Did you know what will happen if you eliminate the empty spaces from the universe, eliminate the empty spaces in all the atoms? The universe will become as big as my fist. Similarly, we have a lot of empty spaces in our lives. I call them interstices. Say you are coming over to my place. You are in an elevator and while you are coming up, I am waiting for you. This is an interstice, an empty space. I work in empty spaces. While waiting for your elevator to come up from the first to the third floor, I have already written an article! (Laughs). Mukund: Not everyone can do that of course. Your non-fictional writing, your scholarly work has a certain playful and personal quality about it. It is a marked departure from a regular academic style — which is invariably depersonalised and often dry and boring. Have you consciously adopted an informal approach or is it something that just came naturally to you? Umberto Eco: When I presented my first Doctoral dissertation in Italy, one of the Professors said, “Scholars learn a lot of a certain subject, then they make a lot of false hypotheses, then they correct them and at the end, they put the conclusions. You, on the contrary, told the story of your research. Even including your trials and errors.” At the same time, he recognised I was right and went on to publish my dissertation as a book, which meant he appreciated it. At that point, at the age of 22, I understood scholarly books should be written the way I had done — by telling the story of the research. This is why my essays always have a narrative aspect. And this is why probably I started writing narratives [novels] so late — at the age of 50, more or less. I remember that my dear friend Roland Barthes was always frustrated that he was an essayist and not a novelist. He wanted to do creative writing one day or another but he died before he could do so. I never felt this kind of frustration. I started writing novels by accident. I had nothing to do one day and so I started. Novels probably satisfied my taste for narration. Mukund: Talking about novels, from being a famous academic you went on to becoming spectacularly famous after the publication of The Name of the Rose. You’ve written five novels against many more scholarly works of non-fiction, at least more than 20 of them... Umberto Eco: Over 40. Mukund: Over 40! Among them a seminal piece of work on semiotics. But ask most people about Umberto Eco and they will say, “Oh, he’s the novelist.” Does that bother you? Umberto Eco: Yes. Because I consider myself a university professor who writes novels on Sundays. It’s not a joke. I participate in academic conferences and not meetings of Pen Clubs and writers. I identify myself with the academic community. But okay, if they [most people] have read only the novels... (laughs and shrugs). I know that by writing novels, I reach a larger audience. I cannot expect to have one million readers with stuff on semiotics. Mukund: Which brings me to my next question. The Name of the Rose is a very serious novel. It’s a detective yarn at one level but it also delves into metaphysics, theology, and medieval history. Yet it enjoyed a huge mass audience. Were you puzzled at all by this? Umberto Eco: No. Journalists are puzzled. And sometimes publishers. And this is because journalists and publishers believe that people like trash and don’t like difficult reading experiences. Consider there are six billion people on this planet. The Name of the Rose sold between 10 and 15 million copies. So in a way I reached only a small percentage of readers. But it is exactly these kinds of readers who don’t want easy experiences. Or at least don’t always want this. I myself, at 9 pm after dinner, watch television and want to see either ‘Miami Vice’ or ‘Emergency Room’. I enjoy it and I need it. But not all day. Mukund: Could the huge success of the novel have anything to do with the fact that it dealt with a period of medieval history that... Umberto Eco: That’s possible. But let me tell you another story, because I often tell stories like a Chinese wise man. My American publisher said while she loved my book, she didn’t expect to sell more than 3,000 copies in a country where nobody has seen a cathedral or studies Latin. So I was given an advance for 3,000 copies, but in the end it sold two or three million in the U.S. A lot of books have been written about the medieval past far before mine. I think the success of the book is a mystery. Nobody can predict it. I think if I had written The Name of the Rose ten years earlier or ten years later, it wouldn’t have been the same. Why it worked at that time is a mystery.

What doubts did Edla have about the peddler?

<answer> As Edla lifted the peddler’s hat, he jumped up abruptly and seemed to be quite frightened. Even her kind looks, disclosure of her name and purpose of visit failed to calm him. From his fear, she thought that either he had stolen something or he had escaped from jail. <context> Once upon a time there was a man who went around selling small rattraps of wire. He made them himself at odd moments, from the material he got by begging in the stores or at the big farms. But even so, the business was not especially profitable, so he had to resort to both begging and petty thievery to keep body and soul together. Even so, his clothes were in rags, his cheeks were sunken, and hunger gleamed in his eyes. No one can imagine how sad and monotonous life can appear to such a vagabond, who plods along the road, left to his own meditations. But one day this man had fallen into a line of thought, which really seemed to him entertaining. He had naturally been thinking of his rattraps when suddenly he was struck by the idea that the whole world about him — the whole world with its lands and seas, its cities and villages — was nothing but a big rattrap. It had never existed for any other purpose than to set baits for people. It offered riches and joys, shelter and food, heat and clothing, exactly as the rattrap offered cheese and pork, and as soon as anyone let himself be tempted to touch the bait, it closed in on him, and then everything came to an end. The world had, of course, never been very kind to him, so it gave him unwonted joy to think ill of it in this way. It became a cherished pastime of his, during many dreary ploddings, to think of people he knew who had let themselves be caught in the dangerous snare, and of others who were still circling around the bait. One dark evening as he was trudging along the road he caught sight of a little gray cottage by the roadside, and he knocked on the door to ask shelter for the night. Nor was he refused. Instead of the sour faces which ordinarily met him, the owner, who was an old man without wife or child, was happy to get someone to talk to in his loneliness. Immediately he put the porridge pot on the fire and gave him supper; then he carved off such a big slice from his tobacco roll that it was enough both for the stranger’s pipe and his own. Finally he got out an old pack of cards and played ‘mjolis’ with his guest until bedtime. The old man was just as generous with his confidences as with his porridge and tobacco. The guest was informed at once that in his days of prosperity his host had been a crofter at Ramsjo Ironworks and had worked on the land. Now that he was no longer able to do day labour, it was his cow which supported him. Yes, that bossy was extraordinary. She could give milk for the creamery every day, and last month he had received all of thirty kronor in payment. The stranger must have seemed incredulous, for the old man got up and went to the window, took down a leather pouch which hung on a nail in the very window frame, and picked out three wrinkled ten-kronor bills. These he held up before the eyes of his guest, nodding knowingly, and then stuffed them back into the pouch. The next day both men got up in good season. The crofter was in a hurry to milk his cow, and the other man probably thought he should not stay in bed when the head of the house had gotten up. They left the cottage at the same time. The crofter locked the door and put the key in his pocket. The man with the rattraps said good bye and thank you, and thereupon each went his own way. But half an hour later the rattrap peddler stood again before the door. He did not try to get in, however. He only went up to the window, smashed a pane, stuck in his hand, and got hold of the pouch with the thirty kronor. He took the money and thrust it into his own pocket. Then he hung the leather pouch very carefully back in its place and went away. As he walked along with the money in his pocket he felt quite pleased with his smartness. He realised, of course, that at first he dared not continue on the public highway, but must turn off the road, into the woods. During the first hours this caused him no difficulty. Later in the day it became worse, for it was a big and confusing forest which he had gotten into. He tried, to be sure, to walk in a definite direction, but the paths twisted back and forth so strangely! He walked and walked without coming to the end of the wood, and finally he realised that he had only been walking around in the same part of the forest. All at once he recalled his thoughts about the world and the rattrap. Now his own turn had come. He had let himself be fooled by a bait and had been caught. The whole forest, with its trunks and branches, its thickets and fallen logs, closed in upon him like an impenetrable prison from which he could never escape. It was late in December. Darkness was already descending over the forest. This increased the danger, and increased also his gloom and despair. Finally he saw no way out, and he sank down on the ground, tired to death, thinking that his last moment had come. But just as he laid his head on the ground, he heard a sound—a hard regular thumping. There was no doubt as to what that was. He raised himself. ‘‘Those are the hammer strokes from an iron mill’’, he thought. ‘‘There must be people near by’’. He summoned all his strength, got up, and staggered in the direction of the sound. The Ramsjo Ironworks, which are now closed down, were, not so long ago, a large plant, with smelter, rolling mill, and forge. In the summertime long lines of heavily loaded barges and scows slid down the canal, which led to a large inland lake, and in the wintertime the roads near the mill were black from all the coal dust which sifted down from the big charcoal crates. During one of the long dark evenings just before Christmas, the master smith and his helper sat in the dark forge near the furnace waiting for the pig iron, which had been put in the fire, to be ready to put on the anvil. Every now and then one of them got up to stir the glowing mass with a long iron bar, returning in a few moments, dripping with perspiration, though, as was the custom, he wore nothing but a long shirt and a pair of wooden shoes. All the time there were many sounds to be heard in the forge. The big bellows groaned and the burning coal cracked. The fire boy shovelled charcoal into the maw of the furnace with a great deal of clatter. Outside roared the waterfall, and a sharp north wind whipped the rain against the brick-tiled roof. It was probably on account of all this noise that the blacksmith did not notice that a man had opened the gate and entered the forge, until he stood close up to the furnace. Surely it was nothing unusual for poor vagabonds without any better shelter for the night to be attracted to the forge by the glow of light which escaped through the sooty panes, and to come in to warm themselves in front of the fire. The blacksmiths glanced only casually and indifferently at the intruder. He looked the way people of his type usually did, with a long beard, dirty, ragged, and with a bunch of rattraps dangling on his chest. He asked permission to stay, and the master blacksmith nodded a haughty consent without honouring him with a single word. The tramp did not say anything, either. He had not come there to talk but only to warm himself and sleep. In those days the Ramsjo iron mill was owned by a very prominent ironmaster, whose greatest ambition was to ship out good iron to the market. He watched both night and day to see that the work was done as well as possible, and at this very moment he came into the forge on one of his nightly rounds of inspection. Naturally the first thing he saw was the tall ragamuffin who had eased his way so close to the furnace that steam rose from his wet rags. The ironmaster did not follow the example of the blacksmiths, who had hardly deigned to look at the stranger. He walked close up to him, looked him over very carefully, then tore off his slouch hat to get a better view of his face. ‘‘But of course it is you, Nils Olof!’’ he said. “How you do look!” The man with the rattraps had never before seen the ironmaster at Ramsjo and did not even know what his name was. But it occurred to him that if the fine gentleman thought he was an old acquaintance, he might perhaps throw him a couple of kronor. Therefore he did not want to undeceive him all at once. ‘‘Yes, God knows things have gone downhill with me’’, he said. ‘‘You should not have resigned from the regiment’’, said the ironmaster. ‘‘That was the mistake. If only I had still been in the service at the time, it never would have happened. Well, now of course you will come home with me.’’ To go along up to the manor house and be received by the owner like an old regimental comrade — that, however, did not please the tramp. ‘‘No, I couldn’t think of it!’’ he said, looking quite alarmed. He thought of the thirty kronor. To go up to the manor house would be like throwing himself voluntarily into the lion’s den. He only wanted a chance to sleep here in the forge and then sneak away as inconspicuously as possible. The ironmaster assumed that he felt embarrassed because of his miserable clothing. ‘‘Please don’t think that I have such a fine home that you cannot show yourself there’’, He said... ‘‘Elizabeth is dead, as you may already have heard. My boys are abroad, and there is no one at home except my oldest daughter and myself. We were just saying that it was too bad we didn’t have any company for Christmas. Now come along with me and help us make the Christmas food disappear a little faster.” But the stranger said no, and no, and again no, and the ironmaster saw that he must give in. ‘‘It looks as though Captain von Stahle preferred to stay with you tonight, Stjernstrom’’, he said to the master blacksmith, and turned on his heel. But he laughed to himself as he went away, and the blacksmith, who knew him, understood very well that he had not said his last word. It was not more than half an hour before they heard the sound of carriage wheels outside the forge, and a new guest came in, but this time it was not the ironmaster. He had sent his daughter, apparently hoping that she would have better powers of persuasion than he himself. She entered, followed by a valet, carrying on his arm a big fur coat. She was not at all pretty, but seemed modest and quite shy. In the forge everything was just as it had been earlier in the evening. The master blacksmith and his apprentice still sat on their bench, and iron and charcoal still glowed in the furnace. The stranger had stretched himself out on the floor and lay with a piece of pig iron under his head and his hat pulled down over his eyes. As soon as the young girl caught sight of him, she went up and lifted his hat. The man was evidently used to sleeping with one eye open. He jumped up abruptly and seemed to be quite frightened. ‘‘My name is Edla Willmansson,’’ said the young girl. ‘‘My father came home and said that you wanted to sleep here in the forge tonight, and then I asked permission to come and bring you home to us. I am so sorry, Captain, that you are having such a hard time.’’ She looked at him compassionately, with her heavy eyes, and then she noticed that the man was afraid. ‘‘Either he has stolen something or else he has escaped from, jail’’, she thought, and added quickly, “You may be sure, Captain, that you will be allowed to leave us just as freely as you came. Only please stay with us over Christmas Eve.’’ She said this in such a friendly manner that the rattrap peddler must have felt confidence in her. ‘‘It would never have occurred to me that you would bother with me yourself, miss,’’ he said. ‘’I will come at once.’’ He accepted the fur coat, which the valet handed him with a deep bow, threw it over his rags, and followed the young lady out to the carriage, without granting the astonished blacksmiths so much as a glance. But while he was riding up to the manor house he had evil forebodings. ‘‘Why the devil did I take that fellow’s money?’’ he thought. ‘‘Now I am sitting in the trap and will never get out of it.’’ The next day was Christmas Eve, and when the ironmaster came into the dining room for breakfast he probably thought with satisfaction of his old regimental comrade whom he had run across so unexpectedly. “First of all we must see to it that he gets a little flesh on his bones,” he said to his daughter, who was busy at the table. “And then we must see that he gets something else to do than to run around the country selling rattraps.” “It is queer that things have gone downhill with him as badly as that,” said the daughter. “Last night I did not think there was anything about him to show that he had once been an educated man.” “You must have patience, my little girl,” said the father. “As soon as he gets clean and dressed up, you will see something different. Last night he was naturally embarrassed. The tramp manners will fall away from him with the tramp clothes.” Just as he said this the door opened and the stranger entered. Yes, now he was truly clean and well dressed. The valet had bathed him, cut his hair, and shaved him. Moreover he was dressed in a good-looking suit of clothes which belonged to the ironmaster. He wore a white shirt and a starched collar and whole shoes. But although his guest was now so well groomed, the ironmaster did not seem pleased. He looked at him with puckered brow, and it was easy to understand that when he had seen the strange fellow in the uncertain reflection from the furnace he might have made a mistake, but that now, when he stood there in broad daylight, it was impossible to mistake him for an old acquaintance. “What does this mean?” he thundered. The stranger made no attempt to dissimulate. He saw at once that the splendour had come to an end. “It is not my fault, sir,” he said. “I never pretended to be anything but a poor trader, and I pleaded and begged to be allowed to stay in the forge. But no harm has been done. At worst I can put on my rags again and go away”. “Well,” said the ironmaster, hesitating a little, “it was not quite honest, either. You must admit that, and I should not be surprised if the sheriff would like to have something to say in the matter.” The tramp took a step forward and struck the table with his fist. “Now I am going to tell you, Mr Ironmaster, how things are,” he said. “This whole world is nothing but a big rattrap. All the good things that are offered to you are nothing but cheese rinds and bits of pork, set out to drag a poor fellow into trouble. And if the sheriff comes now and locks me up for this, then you, Mr Ironmaster, must remember that a day may come when you yourself may want to get a big piece of pork, and then you will get caught in the trap.” The ironmaster began to laugh. “That was not so badly said, my good fellow. Perhaps we should let the sheriff alone on Christmas Eve. But now get out of here as fast as you can.” But just as the man was opening the door, the daughter said, “I think he ought to stay with us today. I don’t want him to go.” And with that she went and closed the door. “What in the world are you doing?” said the father. The daughter stood there quite embarrassed and hardly knew what to answer. That morning she had felt so happy when she thought how homelike and Christmassy she was going to make things for the poor hungry wretch. She could not get away from the idea all at once, and that was why she had interceded for the vagabond. “I am thinking of this stranger here,” said the young girl. “He walks and walks the whole year long, and there is probably not a single place in the whole country where he is welcome and can feel at home. Wherever he turns he is chased away. Always he is afraid of being arrested and cross-examined. I should like to have him enjoy a day of peace with us here — just one in the whole year.” The ironmaster mumbled something in his beard. He could not bring himself to oppose her. “It was all a mistake, of course,” she continued. “But anyway I don’t think we ought to chase away a human being whom we have asked to come here, and to whom we have promised Christmas cheer.” “You do preach worse than a parson,” said the ironmaster. “I only hope you won’t have to regret this.” The young girl took the stranger by the hand and led him up to the table. “Now sit down and eat,” she said, for she could see that her father had given in. The man with the rattraps said not a word; he only sat down and helped himself to the food. Time after time he looked at the young girl who had interceded for him. Why had she done it? What could the crazy idea be? After that, Christmas Eve at Ramsjo passed just as it always had. The stranger did not cause any trouble because he did nothing but sleep. The whole forenoon he lay on the sofa in one of the guest rooms and slept at one stretch. At noon they woke him up so that he could have his share of the good Christmas fare, but after that he slept again. It seemed as though for many years he had not been able to sleep as quietly and safely as here at Ramsjo. In the evening, when the Christmas tree was lighted, they woke him up again, and he stood for a while in the drawing room, blinking as though the candlelight hurt him, but after that he disappeared again. Two hours later he was aroused once more. He then had to go down into the dining room and eat the Christmas fish and porridge. As soon as they got up from the table he went around to each one present and said thank you and good night, but when he came to the young girl she gave him to understand that it was her father’s intention that the suit which he wore was to be a Christmas present — he did not have to return it; and if he wanted to spend next Christmas Eve in a place where he could rest in peace, and be sure that no evil would befall him, he would be welcomed back again. The man with the rattraps did not answer anything to this. He only stared at the young girl in boundless amazement. The next morning the ironmaster and his daughter got up in good season to go to the early Christmas service. Their guest was still asleep, and they did not disturb him. When, at about ten o’clock, they drove back from the church, the young girl sat and hung her head even more dejectedly than usual. At church she had learned that one of the old crofters of the ironworks had been robbed by a man who went around selling rattraps. “Yes, that was a fine fellow you let into the house,” said her father. “I only wonder how many silver spoons are left in the cupboard by this time.” The wagon had hardly stopped at the front steps when the ironmaster asked the valet whether the stranger was still there. He added that he had heard at church that the man was a thief. The valet answered that the fellow had gone and that he had not taken anything with him at all. On the contrary, he had left behind a little package which Miss Willmansson was to be kind enough to accept as a Christmas present. The young girl opened the package, which was so badly done up that the contents came into view at once. She gave a little cry of joy. She found a small rattrap, and in it lay three wrinkled ten kronor notes. But that was not all. In the rattrap lay also a letter written in large, jagged characters — “Honoured and noble Miss, “Since you have been so nice to me all day long, as if I was a captain, I want to be nice to you, in return, as if I was a real captain — for I do not want you to be embarrassed at this Christmas season by a thief; but you can give back the money to the old man on the roadside, who has the money pouch hanging on the window frame as a bait for poor wanderers. “The rattrap is a Christmas present from a rat who would have been caught in this world’s rattrap if he had not been raised to captain, because in that way he got power to clear himself. “Written with friendship and high regard, “Captain von Stahle.”

How does the story suggest that optimism helps to endure “the direst stress”?

<answer> The story suggests that optimism certainly helps to endure the direst stess. The behaviour of the four adults during crisis bears it out. Larry Vigil and Herb Seigler were two crewmen. As the mighty waves smashed the deck, water entered the ship through many holes and openings. Right from the evening of January 2, Larry and Herb started pumping out water. They worked continuously, excitedly and feverishly for 36 hours. It was a results of their continuous pumping that they reached the last few centimeters of water on January 4. They remained cheerful and optimistic while facing extremely dangerous situations. The narrator did not lose his courage, hope or presence of mind while facing problems. He did not worry about the loss of equipment. He used whatever was available there. His self confidence and practical knowledge helped them to steer out of storm and reach the lie Amsterdam island. Mary stayed at the wheel for all those crucial hours. She did not lose hope or courage either. <context> IN July 1976, my wife Mary, son Jonathan, 6, daughter Suzanne, 7, and I set sail from Plymouth, England, to duplicate the roundtheworld voyage made 200 years earlier by Captain James Cook. For the longest time, Mary and I — a 37yearold businessman — had dreamt of sailing in the wake of the famous explorer, and for the past 16 years we had spent all our leisure time honing our seafaring skills in British waters. Our boat Wavewalker, a 23 metre, 30 ton woodenhulled beauty, had been professionally built, and we had spent months fitting it out and testing it in the roughest weather we could find. The first leg of our planned threeyear, 105,000 kilometre journey passed pleasantly as we sailed down the west coast of Africa to Cape Town. There, before heading east, we took on two crewmen — American Larry Vigil and Swiss Herb Seigler — to help us tackle one of the world’s roughest seas, the southern Indian Ocean. On our second day out of Cape Town, we began to encounter strong gales. For the next few weeks, they blew continuously. Gales did not worry me; but the size of the waves was alarming — up to 15 metres, as high as our main mast. December 25 found us 3,500 kilometres east of Cape Town. Despite atrocious weather, we had a wonderful holiday complete with a Christmas tree. New Year’s Day saw no improvement in the weather, but we reasoned that it had to change soon. And it did change — for the worse. At dawn on January 2, the waves were gigantic. We were sailing with only a small storm jib and were still making eight knots. As the ship rose to the top of each wave we could see endless enormous seas rolling towards us, and the screaming of the wind and spray was painful to the ears. To slow the boat down, we dropped the storm jib and lashed a heavy mooring rope in a loop across the stern. Then we doublelashed everything, went through our liferaft drill, attached lifelines, donned oilskins and life jackets — and waited. The first indication of impending disaster came at about 6 p.m., with an ominous silence. The wind dropped, and the sky immediately grew dark. Then came a growing roar, and an enormous cloud towered aft of the ship. With horror, I realised that it was not a cloud, but a wave like no other I had ever seen. It appeared perfectly vertical and almost twice the height of the other waves, with a frightful breaking crest. The roar increased to a thunder as the stern moved up the face of the wave, and for a moment I thought we might ride over it. But then a tremendous explosion shook the deck. A torrent of green and white water broke over the ship, my head smashed into the wheel and I was aware of flying overboard and sinking below the waves. I accepted my approaching death, and as I was losing consciousness, I felt quite peaceful. Unexpectedly, my head popped out of the water. A few metres away, Wavewalker was near capsizing, her masts almost horizontal. Then a wave hurled her upright, my lifeline jerked taut, I grabbed the guard rails and sailed through the air into Wavewalker’s main boom. Subsequent waves tossed me around the deck like a rag doll. My left ribs cracked; my mouth filled with blood and broken teeth. Somehow, I found the wheel, lined up the stern for the next wave and hung on. Water, Water, Everywhere. I could feel that the ship had water below, but I dared not abandon the wheel to investigate. Suddenly, the front hatch was thrown open and Mary appeared. “We’re sinking!” she screamed. “The decks are smashed; we’re full of water.” “Take the wheel”, I shouted as I scrambled for the hatch. Larry and Herb were pumping like madmen. Broken timbers hung at crazy angles, the whole starboard side bulged inwards; clothes, crockery, charts, tins and toys sloshed about in deep water. I halfswam, halfcrawled into the children’s cabin. “Are you all right?” I asked. “Yes,” they answered from an upper bunk. “But my head hurts a bit,” said Sue, pointing to a big bump above her eyes. I had no time to worry about bumped heads. After finding a hammer, screws and canvas, I struggled back on deck. With the starboard side bashed open, we were taking water with each wave that broke over us. If I couldn’t make some repairs, we would surely sink. Somehow I managed to stretch canvas and secure waterproof hatch covers across the gaping holes. Some water continued to stream below, but most of it was now being deflected over the side. More problems arose when our hand pumps started to block up with the debris floating around the cabins and the electric pump shortcircuited. The water level rose threateningly. Back on deck I found that our two spare hand pumps had been wrenched overboard — along with the forestay sail, the jib, the dinghies and the main anchor. Then I remembered we had another electric pump under the chartroom floor. I connected it to an outpipe, and was thankful to find that it worked. The night dragged on with an endless, bitterly cold routine of pumping, steering and working the radio. We were getting no replies to our Mayday calls — which was not surprising in this remote corner of the world. Sue’s head had swollen alarmingly; she had two enormous black eyes, and now she showed us a deep cut on her arm. When I asked why she hadn’t made more of her injuries before this, she replied, “I didn’t want to worry you when you were trying to save us all.” ____________ By morning on January 3, the pumps had the water level sufficiently under control for us to take two hours’ rest in rotation. But we still had a tremendous leak somewhere below the waterline and, on checking, I found that nearly all the boat’s main rib frames were smashed down to the keel. In fact, there was nothing holding up a whole section of the starboard hull except a few cupboard partitions. We had survived for 15 hours since the wave hit, but Wavewalker wouldn’t hold together long enough for us to reach Australia. I checked our charts and calculated that there were two small islands a few hundred kilometres to the east. One of them, Ile Amsterdam, was a French scientific base. Our only hope was to reach these pinpricks in the vast ocean. But unless the wind and seas abated so we could hoist sail, our chances would be slim indeed. The great wave had put our auxilliary engine out of action. On January 4, after 36 hours of continuous pumping, we reached the last few centimetres of water. Now, we had only to keep pace with the water still coming in. We could not set any sail on the main mast. Pressure on the rigging would simply pull the damaged section of the hull apart, so we hoisted the storm jib and headed for where I thought the two islands were. Mary found some corned beef and cracker biscuits, and we ate our first meal in almost two days. But our respite was shortlived. At 4 p.m. black clouds began building up behind us; within the hour the wind was back to 40 knots and the seas were getting higher. The weather continued to deteriorate throughout the night, and by dawn on January 5, our situation was again desperate. When I went in to comfort the children, Jon asked, “Daddy, are we going to die?” I tried to assure him that we could make it. “But, Daddy,” he went on, “we aren’t afraid of dying if we can all be together — you and Mummy, Sue and I.” I could find no words with which to respond, but I left the children’s cabin determined to fight the sea with everything I had. To protect the weakened starboard side, I decided to heaveto — with the undamaged port hull facing the oncoming waves, using an improvised sea anchor of heavy nylon rope and two 22 litre plastic barrels of paraffin. That evening, Mary and I sat together holding hands, as the motion of the ship brought more and more water in through the broken planks. We both felt the end was very near. But Wavewalker rode out the storm and by the morning of January 6, with the wind easing, I tried to get a reading on the sextant. Back in the chartroom, I worked on wind speeds, changes of course, drift and current in an effort to calculate our position. The best I could determine was that we were somewhere in 150,000 kilometres of ocean looking for a 65 kilometrewide island. While I was thinking, Sue, moving painfully, joined me. The left side of her head was now very swollen and her blackened eyes narrowed to slits. She gave me a card she had made. On the front she had drawn caricatures of Mary and me with the words: “Here are some funny people. Did they make you laugh? I laughed a lot as well.” Inside was a message: “Oh, how I love you both. So this card is to say thank you and let’s hope for the best.” Somehow we had to make it. ____________ I checked and rechecked my calculations. We had lost our main compass and I was using a spare which had not been corrected for magnetic variation. I made an allowance for this and another estimate of the influence of the westerly currents which flow through this part of the Indian Ocean. About 2 p.m., I went on deck and asked Larry to steer a course of 185 degrees. If we were lucky, I told him with a conviction I did not feel, he could expect to see the island at about 5 p.m. Then with a heavy heart, I went below, climbed on my bunk and amazingly, dozed off. When I woke it was 6 p.m., and growing dark. I knew we must have missed the island, and with the sail we had left, we couldn’t hope to beat back into the westerly winds. At that moment, a tousled head appeared by my bunk. “Can I have a hug?” Jonathan asked. Sue was right behind him. “Why am I getting a hug now?” I asked. “Because you are the best daddy in the whole world — and the best captain,” my son replied. “Not today, Jon, I’m afraid.” “Why, you must be,” said Sue in a matteroffact voice. “You found the island.” “What!” I shouted. “It’s out there in front of us,” they chorused, “as big as a battleship.” I rushed on deck and gazed with relief at the stark outline of Ile Amsterdam. It was only a bleak piece of volcanic rock, with little vegetation — the most beautiful island in the world! We anchored offshore for the night, and the next morning all 28 inhabitants of the island cheered as they helped us ashore. With land under my feet again, my thoughts were full of Larry and Herbie, cheerful and optimistic under the direst stress, and of Mary, who stayed at the wheel for all those crucial hours. Most of all, I thought of a sevenyearold girl, who did not want us to worry about a head injury (which subsequently took six minor operations to remove a recurring blood clot between skin and skull), and of a sixyearold boy who was not afraid to die.

How does the bond of affection between Mrs Croft and the narrator evolve?

<answer> The bond of affection evolve between Mrs Croft and the narrator as every evening they started spending time together. It was when the narrator returned from the library, Mrs Croft would call him, tap on the empty space on the bench, talk about the flag on the moon and declare that he was splendid. That was the everyday routine that they both followed that developed into an affectionate bond as the same attention was not given by Mrs Croft's daughter, so where she received attention from, she was inclined towards that. <context> I left India in 1964 with a certificate in commerce and the equivalent, in those days, of ten dollars to my name. For three weeks I sailed on the SS Roma, an Italian cargo vessel, in a third-class cabin next to the ship’s engine, across the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean and, finally, to England. I lived in north London, in Finsbury Park, in a house occupied entirely by penniless Bengali bachelors like myself, at least a dozen and sometimes more, all struggling to educate and establish ourselves abroad. I attended lectures at the LSE and worked at the university library to get by. We lived three or four to a room, shared a single, icy toilet, and took turns cooking pots of egg curry, which we ate with our hands on a table covered with newspapers. Apart from our jobs we had few responsibilities. On weekends we lounged barefoot in drawstring pyjamas, drinking tea and smoking Rothmans, or set out to watch cricket at Lord’s. Some weekends the house was crammed with still more Bengalis to whom we had introduced ourselves at the greengrocer or on the Tube, and we made yet more egg curry, and played Mukesh on a Grundig reel-to-reel, and soaked our dirty dishes in the bathtub. Every now and then someone in the house moved out to live with a woman whom his family back in Calcutta had determined he was to wed. In 1969, when I was thirty- six years old, my own marriage was arranged. Around the same time, I was offered a full-time job in America, in the processing department of a library at MIT. The salary was generous enough to support a wife, and I was honoured to be hired by a world-famous university, and so I obtained a sixth-preference green card and prepared to travel farther still. By now I had enough money to go by plane. I flew first to Calcutta, to attend my wedding, and a week later I flew first to Boston, to begin my new job. During the flight I read The Student Guide to North America, a paperback volume that I’d bought before leaving London, for seven shillings six pence on Tottenham Court Road for, although I was no longer a student, I was on a budget all the same. I learned that Americans drove on the right side of the road, not the left, and that they called a lift an elevator and an engaged phone busy. ‘The pace of life in North America is different from Britain as you will soon discover,’ the guidebook informed me. ‘Everybody feels he must get to the top. Don’t expect an English cup of tea.’ As the plane began its descent over Boston Harbour, the pilot announced the weather and time, and that President Nixon had declared a national holiday: two American men had landed on the moon. Several passengers cheered. ‘God bless America!’ one of them hollered. Across the aisle, I saw a woman praying. I spent my first night at the YMCA in Central Square, Cambridge, an inexpensive accommodation recommended by my guidebook. It was walking distance from MIT, and steps away from the post office and a supermarket called Purity Supreme. The room contained a cot, a desk and a small wooden cross on one wall. A sign on the door said cooking was strictly forbidden. A bare window overlooked Massachusetts Avenue, a major thoroughfare with traffic in both directions. Car horns, shrill and prolonged, blared one after another. Flashing sirens heralded endless emergencies and a fleet of buses rumbled past, their doors opening and closing with a powerful hiss, throughout the night. The noise was constantly distracting, at times suffocating. I felt it deep in my ribs, just as I had felt the furious drone of the engine on the SS Roma. But there was no ship’s deck to escape to, no glittering ocean to thrill my soul, no breeze to cool my face, no one to talk to. I was too tired to pace the gloomy corridors of the YMCA in my drawstring pyjamas. Instead I sat at the desk and stared out the window, at the city hall of Cambridge and a row of small shops. In the morning I reported to my job at the Dewey Library, a beige fortlike building by Memorial Drive. I also opened a bank account, rented a post office box, and bought a plastic bowl and a spoon at Woolworth’s, a store whose name I recognised from London. I went to Purity Supreme, wandering up and down the aisles, converting ounces to grams and comparing prices to things in England. In the end I bought a small carton of milk and a box of cornflakes. This was my first meal in America. I ate it at my desk. I preferred it to hamburgers or hot dogs, the only alternative I could afford in the coffee shops on Massachusetts Avenue, and, besides, at the time I had yet to consume any beef. Even the simple chore of buying milk was new to me; in London we’d had bottles delivered each morning to our door. In a week I had adjusted, more or less. I ate cornflakes and milk, morning and night, and bought some bananas for variety, slicing them into the bowl with the edge of my spoon. In addition I bought tea bags and a flask, which the salesman in Woolworth’s referred to as a thermos (a flask, he informed me, was used to store whiskey, another thing I had never consumed). For the price of one cup of tea at a coffee shop, I filled the flask with boiling water on my way to work each morning, and brewed the four cups I drank in the course of a day. I bought a larger carton of milk, and learned to leave it on the shaded part of the windowsill, as I had seen another resident at the YMCA do. To pass the time in the evenings I read the Boston Globe downstairs, in a spacious room with stained glass windows. I read every article and advertisement so that I would grow familiar with things and, when my eyes grew tired, I slept. Only I did not sleep well. Each night I had to keep the window wide open; it was the only source of air in the stifling room, and the noise was intolerable. I would lie on the cot with my fingers pressed into my ears but when I drifted off to sleep, my hands fell away and the noise of the traffic would wake me up again. Pigeon feathers drifted onto the windowsill and, one evening, when I poured milk over my cornflakes, I saw that it had soured. Nevertheless I resolved to stay at the YMCA for six weeks, until my wife’s passport and green card were ready. Once she arrived I would have to rent a proper apartment and so, from time to time, I studied the classified section of the newspaper, or stopped in at the housing office at MIT during my lunch-break, to see what was available in my price range. It was in this manner that I discovered a room, for immediate occupancy, in a house on a quiet street, the listing said, for eight dollars per week. I copied the number into my guidebook and dialled from a pay telephone, sorting through the coins with which I was still unfamiliar, smaller and lighter than shillings, heavier and brighter than paisas. ‘Who is speaking?’ a woman demanded. Her voice was bold and clamorous. ‘Yes, good afternoon, madame. I am calling about the room, for rent.’ ‘Harvard or Tech?’ ‘I beg your pardon?’ ‘Are you from Harvard or Tech?’ Gathering that Tech referred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, I replied, ‘I work at Dewey Library’, adding tentatively, ‘at Tech’. I was given an address and an appointment for seven o’clock that evening. Thirty minutes before the hour I set out, my guidebook in my pocket, my breath fresh with Listerine. I turned down a street shaded with trees, perpendicular to Massachusetts Avenue. Stray blades of grass poked between the cracks of the footpath. In spite of the heat I wore a coat and a tie, regarding the event as I would any other interview; I had never lived in the home of a person who was not Indian. The house, surrounded by a chain-link fence, was off-white with dark brown trim. Unlike the stucco row house I’d lived in, in London, this house, fully detached, was covered with wooded shingles, with a tangle of forsythia bushes plastered against the front and sides. When I pressed the calling bell, the woman with whom I had spoken on the phone hollered from what seemed to be just the other side of the door, ‘One minute please!’ Several minutes later the door was opened by a tiny, extremely old woman. A mass of snowy hair was arranged like a small sack on top of her head. As I stepped into the house, she sat down on a wooden bench positioned at the bottom of a narrow carpeted staircase. Once she was settled on the bench, in a small pool of light, she peered up at me with undivided attention. She wore a long black skirt that spread like a stiff tent to the floor, and a starched white shirt edged with ruffles at the throat and cuffs. Her hands, folded together in her lap, had long pallid fingers, with swollen knuckles and tough yellow nails. Age had battered her features so that she almost resembled a man, with sharp, shrunken eyes and prominent creases on either side of her nose. Her lips, chapped and faded, had nearly disappeared, and her eyebrows were missing altogether. Nevertheless she looked fierce. ‘Look up!’ she commanded. She shouted even though I stood only a few feet away. ‘Fasten the chain and firmly press that button on the knob! This is the first thing you shall do when you enter, is that clear?’ I locked the door as directed and examined the house. Next to the bench on which the woman sat was a small round table, its legs fully concealed, much like the woman’s, by a skirt of lace. The table held a lamp, a transistor radio, a leather change purse with a silver clasp and a telephone. A thick wooden cane coated with a layer of dust was propped against one side. There was a parlour to my right, lined with bookcases and filled with shabby claw-footed furniture. In the corner of the parlour I saw a grand piano with its top down, piled with papers. The piano’s bench was missing; it seemed to be the one on which the woman was sitting. Somewhere in the house a clock chimed seven times. ‘You’re punctual!’ the woman proclaimed. ‘ I expect you shall be so with the rent!’ ‘I have a letter, madame.’ In my jacket pocket was a letter confirming my employment from MIT, which I had brought along to prove that I was indeed from Tech. She stared at the letter, then handed it back to me carefully, gripping it with her fingers as if it were a dinner plate heaped with food instead of a sheet of paper. She did not wear glasses and I wondered if she’d read a word of it. ‘The last boy was always late! Still owes me eight dollars! Harvard boys aren’t what they used to be! Only Harvard and Tech in this house! How’s Tech, boy?’ ‘It is very well.’ ‘You checked the lock?’ ‘Yes, madame.’ She slapped the space beside her on the bench with one hand and told me to sit down. For a moment she was silent. Then she intoned, as if she alone possessed this knowledge: ‘There is an American flag on the moon!’ ‘Yes, madame.’ Until then I had not thought very much about the moon shot. It was in the newspaper, of course, article upon article. The astronauts had landed on the shores of the Sea of Tranquillity, I had read, travelling farther than anyone in the history of civilization. For a few hours they explored the moon’s surface. They gathered rocks in their pockets, described their surroundings (a magnificent desolation, according to one astronaut), spoke by phone to the President and planted a flag in lunar soil. The voyage was hailed as man’s most awesome achievement. I had seen full-page photographs in the Globe, of the astronauts in their inflated costumes, and read about what certain people in Boston had been doing at the exact moment the astronauts landed, on a Sunday afternoon. A man said that he was operating a swan boat with a radio pressed to his ear; a woman had been baking rolls for her grandchildren. The woman bellowed, ‘A flag on the moon, boy! I heard it on the radio! Isn’t that splendid?’ ‘Yes, madame.’ But she was not satisfied with my reply. Instead she commanded, ‘Say ‘splendid’!’ I was both baffled and somewhat insulted by the request. It reminded me of the way I was taught multiplication tables as a child, repeating after the master, sitting cross-legged, without shoes or pencils, on the floor of my one-room Tollygunge school. It also reminded me of my wedding when I had repeated endless Sanskrit verses after the priest, verses I barely understood, which joined me to my wife. I said nothing. ‘Say ‘splendid’!’ the woman bellowed once again. ‘Splendid,’ I murmured. I had to repeat the word a second time at the top of my lungs so she could hear. I am soft-spoken by nature and was especially reluctant to raise my voice to an elderly woman whom I had met only moments ago, but she did not appear to be offended. If anything the reply pleased her because her next command was: ‘Go see the room!’ I rose from the bench and mounted the narrow carpeted staircase. There were five doors, two on either side of an equally narrow hallway and one at the opposite end. Only one door was partly open. The room contained a twin bed under a sloping ceiling, a brown oval rug, a basin with an exposed pipe, and a chest of drawers. One door, painted white, led to a closet, another to a toilet and a tub. The walls were covered with gray and ivory striped paper. The window was open; net curtains stirred in the breeze. I lifted them away and inspected the view: a small backyard, with a few fruit trees and an empty clothesline. I was satisfied. From the bottom of the stairs I heard the woman demand, ‘What is your decision?’ When I returned to the foyer and told her, she picked up the leather change purse on the table, opened the clasp, fished about with her fingers, and produced a key on a thin wire hoop. She informed me that there was a kitchen at the back of the house, accessible through the parlour. I was welcome to use the stove as long as I left it as I found it. Sheets and towels were provided but keeping them clean was my own responsibility. The rent was due Friday mornings on the ledge above the piano keys. ‘And no lady visitors!’ ‘I am a married man, madame.’ It was the first time I had announced this fact to anyone. But she had not heard. ‘No lady visitors!’ she insisted. She introduced herself as Mrs Croft. My wife’s name was Mala. The marriage had been arranged by my older brother and his wife. I regarded the proposition with neither objection nor enthusiasm. It was a duty expected of me as it was expected of every man. She was the daughter of a school teacher in Beleghata. I was told that she could cook, knot, embroider, sketch landscapes and recite poems by Tagore, but these talents could not make up for the fact that she did not possess a fair complexion and so a string of men had rejected her to her face. She was twenty-seven, an age when her parents had begun to fear that she would never marry, and so they were willing to ship their only child halfway across the world in order to save her from spinsterhood. For five nights we shared a bed. Each of those nights, after applying cold cream and braiding her hair, which she tied up at the end with a black cotton string, she turned from me and wept; she missed her parents. Although I would be leaving the country in a few days, custom dictated that she was now a part of my household, and for the next six weeks she was to live with my brother and his wife, cooking, cleaning, serving tea and sweets to guests. I did nothing to console her. I lay on my own side of the bed, reading my guidebook by flashlight and anticipating my journey. At times I thought of the tiny room on the other side of the wall which had belonged to my mother. Now the room was practically empty; the wooden pallet on which she’d once slept was piled with trunks and old bedding. Nearly six years ago, before leaving for London, I had watched her die on that bed, had found her playing with her excrement in her final days. Before we cremated her I had cleaned each of her fingernails with a hairpin and then, because my brother could not bear it, I had assumed the role of eldest son, and had touched the flame to her temple, to release her tormented soul to heaven. The next morning I moved into the room in Mrs Croft’s house. When I unlocked the door, I saw that she was sitting on the piano bench, on the same side as the previous evening. She wore the same black skirt, the same starched white blouse and had her hands folded together the same way in her lap. She looked so much the same that I wondered if she’d spent the whole night on the bench. I put my suitcase upstairs, filled my flask with boiling water in the kitchen, and headed off to work. That evening when I came home from the university, she was still there. ‘Sit down, boy!’ She slapped the space beside her. I perched beside her on the bench. I had a bag of groceries with me—more milk, more cornflakes and more bananas, for, my inspection of the kitchen earlier in the day had revealed no spare pots, pans, or cooking utensils. There were only two saucepans in the refrigerator, both containing some orange broth, and a copper kettle on the stove. ‘Good evening, madame.’ She asked me if I had checked the lock. I told her I had. For a moment she was silent. Then suddenly she declared, with equal measures of disbelief and delight as the night before, ‘There’s an American flag on the moon, boy!’ ‘Yes, madame.’ ‘A flag on the moon! Isn’t that splendid?’ I nodded, dreading what I knew was coming. ‘Yes, madame.’ ‘Say ‘splendid’!’ This time I paused, looking to either side in case anyone were there to overhear me, though I knew perfectly well that the house was empty. I felt like an idiot. But is was a small enough thing to ask. ‘splendid!’ I cried out. Within days it became our routine. In the mornings, when I left for the library, Mrs Croft was either hidden away in her bedroom, on the other side of the staircase, or she was sitting on the bench, oblivious to my presence, listening to the news or classical music on the radio. But each evening when I returned the same thing happened: she slapped the bench, ordered me to sit down, declared that there was a flag on the moon, and declared that it was splendid. I said it was splendid, too, and then we sat in silence. As awkward as it was, and as endless as it felt to me then, the nightly encounter lasted only about ten minutes; inevitably she would drift off to sleep, her head falling abruptly toward her chest, leaving me free to retire to my room. By then, of course, there was no flag on the moon. The astronauts, I had read in the paper, had taken it down before flying back to earth. But I did not have the heart to tell her. Friday morning, when my first week’s rent was due, I went to the piano in the parlour to place my money on the ledge. The piano keys were dull and discoloured. When I pressed one, it made no sound at all. I had put eight onedollar bills in an envelope and written Mrs Croft’s name on the front of it; I was not in the habit of leaving money unmarked and unattended. From where I stood I could see the profile of her tent-shaped skirt. She was sitting on the bench, listening to the radio. It seemed unnecessary to make her get up and walk all the way to the piano. I never saw her walking about and assumed, from the cane always propped against the round table at her side, that she did so with difficulty. When I approached the bench, she peered up at me and demanded: ‘What is your business?’ ‘The rent, madame.’ ‘On the ledge above the piano keys!’ ‘I have it here.’ I extended the envelope toward her, but her fingers, folded together in her lap, did not budge. I bowed slightly and lowered the envelope, so that it hovered just above her hands. After a moment she accepted, and nodded her head. That night when I came home, she did not slap the bench but out of habit I sat beside her as usual. She asked me if I had checked the lock but she mentioned nothing about the flag on the moon. Instead she said: ‘It was very kind of you!’ ‘I beg your pardon, madame?’ ‘Very kind of you!’ She was still holding the envelope in her hands. On Sunday there was a knock on my door. An elderly woman introduced herself: she was Mrs Croft’s daughter, Helen. She walked into the room and looked at each of the walls as if for signs of change, glancing at the shirts that hung in the closet, the neckties draped over the doorknob, the box of cornflakes on the chest of drawers, the dirty bowl and spoon in the basin. She was short and thickwaisted, with cropped silver hair and bright pink lipstick. She wore a sleeveless summer dress, a row of white plastic beads and spectacles on a chain that hung like a swing against her chest. The backs of her legs were mapped with dark blue veins and her upper arms sagged like the flesh of a roasted eggplant. She told me she lived in Arlington, a town farther up Massachusetts Avenue. ‘I come once a week to bring Mother groceries. Has she sent you packing yet?’ ‘It is very well, madame.’ ‘Some of the boys run screaming. But I think she likes you. You’re the first boarder she’s ever referred to as a gentleman.’ ‘Not at all, madame.’ She looked at me, noticing my bare feet (I still felt strange wearing shoes indoors, and always removed them before entering my room). ‘Are you new to Boston?’ ‘New to America, madame.’ ‘From?’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘I am from Calcutta, India.’ ‘Is that right? We had a Brazilian fellow, about a year ago. You’ll find Cambridge a very international city.’ I nodded, and began to wonder how long our conversation would last. But at that moment we heard Mrs Croft’s electrifying voice rising up the stairs. When we stepped into the hallway we heard her hollering: ‘You are to come downstairs immediately!’ ‘What is it?’ Helen hollered back. ‘Immediately!’ I put on my shoes at once. Helen sighed. We walked down the staircase. It was too narrow for us to descend side by side, so I followed Helen, who seemed to be in no hurry, and complained at one point that she had a bad knee. ‘Have you been walking without your cane?’ Helen called out. ‘You know you’re not supposed to walk without that cane.’ She paused, resting her hand on the banister, and looked back at me. ‘She slips sometimes.’ For the first time Mrs Croft seemed vulnerable. I pictured her on the floor in front of the bench, flat on her back, staring at the ceiling, her feet pointing in opposite directions. But when we reached the bottom of the staircase she was sitting there as usual, her hands folded together in her lap. Two grocery bags were at her feet. When we stood before her she did not slap the bench, or ask us to sit down. She glared. ‘What is it, Mother?’ ‘It’s improper!’ ‘What’s improper?’ ‘It is improper for a lady and gentleman who are not married to one another to hold a private conversation without a chaperone!’ Helen said she was sixty-eight years old, old enough to be my mother, but Mrs Croft insisted that Helen and I speak to each other downstairs, in the parlour. She added that it was also improper for a lady of Helen’s station to reveal her age, and to wear a dress so high above the ankle. ‘For your information, Mother, it’s 1969. What would you do if you actually left the house one day and saw a girl in a miniskirt?’ Mrs Croft sniffed, ‘I’d have her arrested.’ Helen shook her head and picked up one of the grocery bags. I picked up the other one and followed her through the parlour and into the kitchen. The bags were filled with cans of soup, which Helen opened up one by one with a few cranks of a can opener. She tossed the old soup in the saucepans into the sink, rinsed the pans under the tap, filled them with soup from the newly opened cans, and put them back in the refrigerator. ‘A few years ago she could still open the cans herself,’ Helen said. ‘She hates that I do it for her now. But the piano killed her hands.’ She put on her spectacles, glanced at the cupboards, and spotted my tea bags. ‘Shall we have a cup?’ I filled the kettle on the stove. ‘ I beg your pardon, madame. The piano?’ ‘She used to give lessons. For forty years. It was how she raised us after my father died.’ Helen put her hands on her hips, staring at the open refrigerator. She reached into the back, pulled out a wrapped stick of butter, frowned, and tossed it into the garbage. ‘That ought to do it,’ she said, and put the unopened cans of soup in the cupboard. I sat at the table and watched as Helen washed the dirty dishes, tied up the garbage bag, watered a spider plant over the sink, and poured boiling water into two cups. She handed one to me without milk, the string of the tea bag trailing over the side, and sat down at the table. ‘Excuse me, madame, but is it enough?’ Helen took a sip of her tea. Her lipstick left a smiling pink stain on the inside rim of the cup. ‘Is what enough?’ ‘The soup in the pans. Is it enough food for Mrs Croft?’ ‘She won’t eat anything else. She stopped eating solids after she turned one hundred. That was, let’s see, three years ago.’ I was mortified. I had assumed Mrs Croft was in her eighties, perhaps as old as ninety. I had never known a person who had lived for over a century. That this person was a widow who lived alone mortified me further still. It was widowhood that had driven my own mother insane. My father, who worked as a clerk at the General Post Office of Calcutta, died of encephalitis when I was sixteen. My mother refused to adjust to life without him; instead, she sank deeper into a world of darkness from which neither I, nor my brother, nor concerned relatives, nor psychiatric clinics on Rashbihari Avenue could save her. What pained me most was to see her so unguarded, to hear her burp after meals or expel gas in front of company without the slightest embarrassment. After my father’s death my brother abandoned his schooling and began to work in the jute mill he would eventually manage, in order to keep the household running. And so it was my job to sit by my mother’s feet and study for my exams as she counted and recounted the bracelets on her arm as if they were the beads of an abacus. We tried to keep an eye on her. Once she had wandered half naked to the tram depot before we were able to bring her inside again. ‘I am happy to warm Mrs Croft’s soup in the evenings,’ I suggested, removing the tea bag from my cup and squeezing out the liquor. ‘It is no trouble.’ Helen looked at her watch, stood up, and poured the rest of her tea into the sink. ‘I wouldn’t if I were you. That’s the sort of thing that would kill her altogether.’ That evening, when Helen had gone back to Arlington and Mrs Croft and I were alone again, I began to worry. Now that I knew how very old she was, I worried that something would happen to her in the middle of the night, or when I was out during the day. As vigorous as her voice was, and imperious as she seemed, I knew that even a scratch or a cough could kill a person that old; each day she lived, I knew, was something of a miracle. Although Helen had seemed friendly enough, a small part of me worried that she might accuse me of negligence if anything were to happen. Helen didn’t seem worried. She came and went, bringing soup for Mrs Croft, one Sunday after the next. In this manner the six weeks of that summer passed. I came home each evening, after my hours at the library, and spent a few minutes on the piano bench with Mrs Croft. I gave her a bit of my company, and assured her that I had checked the lock, and told her that the flag on the moon was splendid. Some evenings I sat beside her long after she had drifted off to sleep, still in awe of how many years she had spent on this earth. At times I tried to picture the world she had been born into, in 1866—a world, I imagined, filled with women in long black skirts and chaste conversations in the parlour. Now when I looked at her hands with their swollen knuckles folded together in her lap, I imagined them smooth and slim, striking the piano keys. At times I came downstairs, before going to sleep, to make sure that she was sitting upright on the bench, or was safe in her bedroom. On Fridays I made sure to put the rent in her hands. There was nothing I could do for her beyond these simple gestures. I was not her son and apart from those eight dollars, I owed her nothing. At the end of August, Mala’s passport and green card were ready. I received a telegram with her flight information; my brother’s house in Calcutta had no telephone. Around that time I also received a letter from her, written only a few days after we had parted. There was no salutation; addressing me by name would have assumed an intimacy we had not yet discovered. It contained only a few lines. ‘I write in English in preparation for the journey. Here I am very much lonely. Is it very cold there. Is there snow. Yours, Mala.’ I was not touched by her words. We had spent only a handful of days in each other’s company. And yet we were bound together; for six weeks she had worn an iron bangle on her wrist, and applied vermilion powder to the part in her hair, to signify to the world that she was a bride. In those six weeks I regarded her arrival as I would the arrival of a coming month, or season—something inevitable but meaningless at the time. So little did I know her that, while details of her face sometimes rose to my memory, I could not conjure up the whole of it. A few days after receiving the letter, as I was walking to work in the morning, I saw an Indian woman on the other side of Massachusetts Avenue, wearing a sari with its free end nearly dragging on the footpath, and pushing a child in a stroller. An American woman with a small black dog on a leash was walking to one side of her. Suddenly the dog began barking. From the other side of the street I watched as the Indian woman, startled, stopped in her path, at which point the dog leapt up and seized the end of the sari between its teeth. The American woman scolded the dog, appeared to apologise, and walked quickly away, leaving the Indian woman to fix her sari in the middle of the footpath, and quiet her crying child. She did not see me standing there and eventually she continued on her way. Such a mishap, I realised that morning, would soon be my concern. It was my duty to take care of Mala, to welcome her and protect her. I would have to buy her her first pair of snow boots, her first winter coat. I would have to tell her which streets to avoid, which way the traffic came, tell her to wear her sari so that the free end did not drag on the footpath. A five-mile separation from her parents, I recalled with some irritation, had caused her to weep. Unlike Mala, I was used to it all by then: used to cornflakes and milk, used to Helen’s visits, used to sitting on the bench with Mrs Croft. The only thing I was not used to was Mala. Nevertheless I did what I had to do. I went to the housing office at MIT and found a furnished apartment a few blocks away, with a double bed and a private kitchen and bath, for forty dollars a week. One last Friday I handed Mrs Croft eight one-dollar bills in an envelope, brought my suitcase downstairs, and informed her that I was moving. She put my key into her change purse. The last thing she asked me to do was to hand her the cane propped against the table so that she could walk to the door and lock it behind me. ‘Good-bye, then,’ she said, and retreated back into the house. I did not expect any display of emotion but I was disappointed all the same. I was only a boarder, a man who paid her a bit of money and passed in and out of her home for six weeks. Compared to a century, it was no time at all. At the airport I recognised Mala immediately. The free end of her sari did not drag on the floor but was draped in a sign of bridal modesty over her head, just as it had draped my mother until the day my father died. Her thin brown arms were stacked with gold bracelets, a small red circle was painted on her forehead and the edges of her feet were tinted with a decorative red dye. I did not embrace her, or kiss her, or take her hand. Instead I asked her, speaking Bengali for the first time in America, if she was hungry. I told her I had prepared some egg curry at home. ‘What did they give you to eat on the plane?’ ‘I didn’t eat.’ ‘All the way from Calcutta?’ ‘The menu said oxtail soup.’ ‘But surely there were other items.’ ‘The thought of eating an ox’s tail made me lose my appetite.’ When we arrived home, Mala opened up one of her suitcases and presented me with two pullover sweaters, both made with bright blue wool, which she had knitted in the course of our separation, one with a V neck, the other covered with cables. I tried them on; both were tight under the arms. She had also brought me two new pairs of drawstring pyjamas, a letter from my brother and a packet of loose Darjeeling tea. I had no present for her apart from the egg curry. We sat at a bare table, each of us staring at our plates. We ate with our hands, another thing I had not yet done in America. ‘The house is nice,’ she said, ‘also the egg curry’. With her left hand she held the end of her sari to her chest, so it would not slip off her head. ‘I don’t know many recipes.’ She nodded, peeling the skin off each of her potatoes before eating them. At one point the sari slipped to her shoulders. She readjusted it at once. ‘There is no need to cover your head,’ I said. ‘I don’t mind. It doesn’t matter here.’ She kept it covered anyway. I waited to get used to her, to her presence at my side, at my table and in my bed, but a week later we were still strangers. I still was not used to coming home to an apartment that smelled of steamed rice, and finding that the basin in the bathroom was always wiped clean, our two toothbrushes lying side by side, a cake of Pears soap from India resting in the soap dish. I was not used to the fragrance of the coconut oil she rubbed every other night into her scalp, or the delicate sound her bracelets made as she moved about the apartment. In the mornings she was always awake before I was. The first morning when I came into the kitchen she had heated up the leftovers and set a plate with a spoonful of salt on its edge on the table, assuming I would eat rice for breakfast, as most Bengali husbands did. I told her cereal would do and the next morning when I came into the kitchen she had already poured the cornflakes into my bowl. One morning she walked with me down Massachusetts Avenue to MIT, where I gave her a short tour of the campus. On the way we stopped at a hardware store and I made a copy of the key, so that she could let herself into the apartment. The next morning before I left for work she asked me for a few dollars. I parted with them reluctantly but I knew that this, too, was now normal. When I came home from work there was a potato peeler in the kitchen drawer, and a tablecloth on the table, and chicken curry made with fresh garlic and ginger on the stove. We did not have a television in those days. After dinner I read the newspaper, while Mala sat at the kitchen table, working on a cardigan for herself with more of the bright blue wool, or writing letters home. At the end of our first week, on Friday, I suggested going out. Mala set down her knitting and disappeared into the bathroom. When she emerged I regretted the suggestion; she had put on a clean silk sari and extra bracelets, and coiled her hair with a flattering side part on top of her head. She was prepared as if for a party, or at the very least for the cinema, but I had no such destination in mind. The evening air was balmy. We walked several blocks down Massachusetts Avenue, looking into the windows of restaurants and shops. Then, without thinking, I led her down the quiet street where for so many nights I had walked alone. ‘This is where I lived before you came,’ I said, stopping at Mrs Croft’s chain-link fence. ‘In such a big house?’ ‘I had a small room upstairs. At the back.’ ‘Who else lives there?’ ‘A very old woman.’ ‘With her family?’ ‘Alone.’ ‘But who takes care of her?’ I opened the gate. ‘For the most part she takes care of herself.’ I wondered if Mrs Croft would remember me; I wondered if she had a new boarder to sit with her on the bench each evening. When I pressed the bell I expected the same long wait as that day of our first meeting, when I did not have a key. But this time the door was opened almost immediately, by Helen. Mrs Croft was not sitting on the bench. The bench was gone. ‘Hello there,’ Helen said, smiling with her bright pink lips at Mala. ‘Mother’s in the parlour. Will you be visiting awhile?’ ‘As you wish, madame.’ ‘Then I think I’ll run to the store, if you don’t mind. She had a little accident. We can’t leave her alone these days, not even for a minute.’ I locked the door after Helen and walked into the parlour. Mrs Croft was lying flat on her back, her head on a peach-coloured cushion, a thin white quilt spread over her body. Her hands were folded together on top of her chest. When she saw me she pointed at the sofa and told me to sit down. I took my place as directed but Mala wandered over to the piano and sat on the bench which was now positioned where it belonged. ‘I broke my hip! ’ Mrs Croft announced, as if no time had passed. ‘Oh dear, madame.’ ‘I fell off the bench!’ ‘I am so sorry, madame.’ ‘It was the middle of the night! Do you know what I did, boy?’ I shook my head. ‘I called the police!’ She stared up at the ceiling and grinned sedately, exposing a crowded row of long grey teeth. Not one was missing. ‘What do you say to that, boy?’ As stunned as I was, I knew what I had to say.With no hesitation at all, I cried out, ‘Splendid!’ Mala laughed then. Her voice was full of kindness, her eyes bright with amusement. I had never heard her laugh before, and it was loud enough so that Mrs Croft had heard, too. She turned to Mala and glared. ‘Who is she, boy?’ ‘She is my wife, madame.’ Mrs Croft pressed her head at an angle against the cushion to get a better look, ‘Can you play the piano?’ ‘No, madame,’ Mala replied. ‘Then stand up!’ Mala rose to her feet, adjusting the end of her sari over her head and holding it to her chest, and, for the first time since her arrival, I felt sympathy. I remembered my first days in London, learning how to take the tube to Russell Square, riding an escalator for the first time, being unable to understand that when the man cried ‘piper’ it meant ‘paper’, being unable to decipher, for a whole year, that the conductor said ‘mind the gap’ as the train pulled away from each station. Like me, Mala had travelled far from home. Not knowing where she was going, or what she would find, for no reason other than to be my wife. As strange as it seemed, I knew in my heart that one day her death would affect me and, stranger still, that mine would affect her. I wanted somehow to explain this to Mrs Croft, who was still scrutinising Mala from top to toe with what seemed to be placid disdain. I wondered if Mrs Croft had ever seen a woman in a sari, with a dot painted on her forehead and bracelets stacked on her wrists. I wondered what she would object to. I wondered if she could see the red dye still vivid on Mala’s feet, all but obscured by the bottom edge of her sari. At last Mrs Croft declared, with equal measures of disbelief and delight I knew well: ‘She is a perfect lady!’ Now it was I who laughed. I did so quietly and Mrs Croft did not hear me. But Mala had heard, and, for the first time, we looked at each other and smiled. I like to think of that moment in Mrs Croft’s parlour as the moment when the distance between Mala and me began to lessen. Although we were not yet fully in love, I like to think of the months that followed as a honeymoon of sorts. Together we explored the city and met other Bengalis, some of whom are still friends today. We discovered that a man named Bill sold fresh fish on Prospect Street, and that a shop in Harvard Square, called Cardullo’s, sold bay leaves and cloves. In the evenings we walked to the Charles River to watch sailboats drift across the water, or had ice cream cones in Harvard Yard. We bought an Instamatic camera with which to document our life together, and I took pictures of her posing in front of the Prudential building so that she could send them to her parents. At night we kissed, shy at first but quickly bold, and discovered pleasure and solace in each other’s arms. I told her about my voyage on the SS Roma, and about Finsbury Park and the YMCA, and my evenings on the bench with Mrs Croft. When I told her stories about my mother, she wept. It was Mala who consoled me when, reading the Globe one evening, I came across Mrs Croft’s obituary. I had not thought of her in several months—by then those six weeks of the summer were already a remote interlude in my past—but when I learned of her death I was stricken, so much so that when Mala looked up from her knitting she found me staring at the wall, the newspaper neglected in my lap, unable to speak. Mrs Croft’s was the first death I mourned in America, for, hers was the first life I had admired; she had left this world at last, ancient and alone, never to return. As for me, I have not strayed much farther: Mala and I live in a town about twenty miles from Boston, on a treelined street much like Mrs Croft’s, in a house we own, with a garden that saves us from buying tomatoes in summer, and room for guests. We are American citizens now so that we can collect social security when it is time. Though we visit Calcutta every few years, and bring back more drawstring pyjamas and Darjeeling tea, we have decided to grow old here. I work in a small college library. We have a son who attends Harvard University. Mala no longer drapes the end of her sari over her head, or weeps at night for her parents but, occasionally, she weeps for our son. So we drive to Cambridge to visit him, or bring him home for a weekend, so that he can eat rice with us with his hands and speak in Bengali, things we sometimes worry he will no longer do after we die. Whenever we make that drive, I always make it a point to take Massachusetts Avenue, in spite of the traffic. I barely recognise the buildings now but each time I am there I return instantly to those six weeks as if they were only the other day, and I slow down and point to Mrs Croft’s street, saying to my son, here was my first home in America where I lived with a woman who was 103. ‘Remember?’ Mala says, and smiles, amazed, as I am, that there was ever a time that we were strangers. My son always expresses his astonishment, not at Mrs Croft’s age, but at how little I paid in rent, a nearly inconceivable amount to him as a flag on the moon was to a woman born in 1866. In my son’s eyes I see the ambition that had first hurled me across the world. In a few years he will graduate and pave his way, alone and unprotected. But I remind myself that he has a father who is still living, a mother who is happy and strong. Whenever he is discouraged, I tell him that if I can survive on three continents, then there is no obstacle he cannot 2021-22 The Third and Final Continent 83 conquer. While the astronauts, heroes forever, spent mere hours on the moon, I have remained in this new world for nearly thirty years. I know that my achievement is quite ordinary. I am not the only man to seek his fortune far from home and certainly I am not the first. Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have travelled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination.

The manner you adopt when you talk about a teacher to other teachers.

<answer> We should be respectful and polite when we talk about a teacher to other teachers. Normal courtesy requires that we should be quite formal. The dignity of a teacher should not be lowered before another, even if the person being talked about lacks some qualities you like most. Our remarks should never be derogatory or rude. It is bad manners to run down our teachers and specially so if it is done in the presence of other teachers. We are judged by our actions as well as words. The other teachers may form a very low and unfavourable opinion about us on the basis of a lapse on our part. Hence we must be extra cautions during our interactions with our teachers. <context> This is an excerpt from The Browning Version*. The scene is set in a school. Frank is young and Crocker-Harris, middle-aged. Both are masters. Taplow is a boy of sixteen who has come in to do extra work for Crocker-Harris. But the latter has not yet arrived, and Frank finds Taplow waiting. FRANK: Do I know you? TAPLOW: No, sir. FRANK: What’s your name? TAPLOW: Taplow. FRANK: Taplow! No, I don’t. You’re not a scientist I gather? TAPLOW: No, sir, I’m still in the lower fifth. I can’t specialise until next term — that’s to say, if I’ve got my remove all right. FRANK: Don’t you know if you’ve got your remove? TAPLOW: No sir, Mr Crocker-Harris doesn’t tell us the results like the other masters. FRANK: Why not? TAPLOW: Well, you know what he’s like, sir. FRANK: I believe there is a rule that form results should only be announced by the headmaster on the last day of term. TAPLOW: Yes — but who else pays attention to it — except Mr Crocker-Harris? FRANK: I don’t, I admit — but that’s no criterion. So you’ve got to wait until tomorrow to know your fate, have you? TAPLOW: Yes, sir. FRANK: Supposing the answer is favourable — what then? TAPLOW: Oh — science, sir, of course. FRANK: (sadly) Yes. We get all the slackers. TAPLOW: (protestingly) I’m extremely interested in science, sir. FRANK: Are you? I’m not. Not, at least, in the science I have to teach. TAPLOW: Well, anyway, sir, it’s a good deal more exciting than this muck (indicating his book). FRANK: What is this muck? TAPLOW: Aeschylus, sir. The Agamemnon. FRANK: And your considered view is that the Agamemnon is muck? TAPLOW: Well, no, sir. I don’t think the play is muck — exactly. I suppose, in a way, it’s rather a good plot, really, a wife murdering her husband and all that. I only meant the way it’s taught to us — just a lot of Greek words strung together and fifty lines if you get them wrong. FRANK: You sound a little bitter, Taplow. TAPLOW: I am rather, sir. FRANK: Kept in, eh? TAPLOW: No, sir. Extra work. FRANK: Extra work — on the last day of school? TAPLOW: Yes, sir, and I might be playing golf. You’d think he’d have enough to do anyway himself, considering he’s leaving tomorrow for good — but oh no, I missed a day last week when I was ill — so here I am — and look at the weather, sir. FRANK: Bad luck. Still there’s one comfort. You’re pretty well certain to get your remove tomorrow for being a good boy in taking extra work. TAPLOW: Well, I’m not so sure, sir. That would be true of the ordinary masters, all right. They just wouldn’t dare not to give a chap a remove after his taking extra work. But those sort of rules don’t apply to the Crock — Mr Crocker-Harris. I asked him yesterday outright if he’d given me a remove and do you know what he said, sir? FRANK: No. What? TAPLOW: (imitating a very gentle, rather throaty voice) “My dear Taplow, I have given you exactly what you deserve. No less; and certainly no more.” Do you know sir, I think he may have marked me down, rather than up, for taking extra work. I mean, the man’s hardly human. (He breaks off quickly.) Sorry, sir. Have I gone too far? FRANK: Yes. Much too far. TAPLOW: Sorry, sir. I got carried away. FRANK: Evidently. (He picks up a newspaper and opens it) — Er Taplow. TAPLOW: Yes, sir? FRANK: What was that Crocker-Harris said to you? Just — er — repeat it, would you? TAPLOW: (imitating again) “My dear Taplow, I have given you exactly what you deserve. No less; and certainly no more.” FRANK: (looking severe) Not in the least like him. Read your nice Aeschylus and be quiet. TAPLOW: (with dislike) Aeschylus. FRANK: Look, what time did Mr Crocker-Harris tell you to be here? TAPLOW: Six-thirty, sir. FRANK: Well, he’s ten minutes late. Why don’t you cut? You could still play golf before lock-up. TAPLOW: (really shocked) Oh, no, I couldn’t cut. Cut the Crock — Mr Crocker-Harris? I shouldn’t think it’s ever been done in the whole time he’s been here. God knows what would happen if I did. He’d probably follow me home, or something ... FRANK: I must admit I envy him the effect he seems to have on you boys in the form. You all seem scared to death of him. What does he do — beat you all, or something? TAPLOW: Good Lord, no. He’s not a sadist, like one or two of the others. FRANK: I beg your pardon? TAPLOW: A sadist, sir, is someone who gets pleasure out of giving pain. FRANK: Indeed? But I think you went on to say that some other masters ... TAPLOW: Well, of course, they are, sir. I won’t mention names, but you know them as well as I do. Of course I know most masters think we boys don’t understand a thing — but, sir, you’re different. You’re young — well, comparatively, anyway — and you’re science. You must know what sadism is. FRANK: (after a pause) Good Lord! What are our schools coming to? TAPLOW: Anyway, the Crock isn’t a sadist. That’s what I’m saying. He wouldn’t be so frightening if he were — because at least it would show he had some feelings. But he hasn’t. He’s all shrivelled up inside like a nut and he seems to hate people to like him. It’s funny, that. I don’t know any other master who doesn’t like being liked FRANK: And I don’t know any boy who doesn’t use that for his own purposes. TAPLOW: Well, it’s natural sir. But not with the Crock — FRANK: Mr Crocker-Harris. TAPLOW: Mr Crocker-Harris. The funny thing is that in spite of everything, I do rather like him. I can’t help it. And sometimes I think he sees it and that seems to shrivel him up even more — FRANK: I’m sure you’re exaggerating. TAPLOW: No, sir. I’m not. In form the other day he made one of his classical jokes. Of course nobody laughed because nobody understood it, myself included. Still, I knew he’d meant it as funny, so I laughed. Out of ordinary common politeness, and feeling a bit sorry for him for having made a poor joke. Now I can’t remember what the joke was, but suppose I make it. Now you laugh, sir. (Frank laughs.) TAPLOW: (in a gentle, throaty voice) “Taplow — you laughed at my little joke, I noticed. I must confess that I am pleased at the advance your Latin has made since you so readily have understood what the rest of the form did not. Perhaps, now, you would be good enough to explain it to them, so that they too can share your pleasure”. The door up right is pushed open and Millie Crocker-Harris enters. She is a thin woman in her late thirties, rather more smartly dressed than the general run of schoolmasters’ wives. She is wearing a cape and carries a shopping basket. She closes the door and then stands by the screen watching Taplow and Frank. It is a few seconds before they notice her. FRANK: Come along, Taplow (moves slowly above the desk). Do not be so selfish as to keep a good joke to yourself. Tell the others… (He breaks off suddenly, noticing Millie.) Oh Lord! Frank turns quickly, and seems infinitely relieved at seeing Millie. FRANK: Oh, hullo. MILLIE: (without expression) Hullo. (She comes down to the sideboard and puts her basket on it.) TAPLOW: (moving up to left of Frank; whispering frantically) Do you think she heard? FRANK: (shakes his head comfortingly. Millie takes off her cape and hangs it on the hall-stand.) I think she did. She was standing there quite a time. TAPLOW: If she did and she tells him, there goes my remove. FRANK: Nonsense. (He crosses to the fireplace.) Millie takes the basket from the sideboard, moves above the table and puts the basket on it. MILLIE: (to Taplow) Waiting for my husband? TAPLOW: (moving down left of the table) Er-yes. MILLIE: He’s at the Bursar’s and might be there quite a time. If I were you I’d go. TAPLOW: (doubtfully) He said most particularly I was to come. MILLIE: Well, why don’t you run away for a quarter of an hour and come back? (She unpacks some things from the basket.) TAPLOW: Supposing he gets here before me? MILLIE: (smiling) I’ll take the blame. (She takes a prescription out of the basket.) I tell you what — you can do a job for him. Take this prescription to the chemist and get it made up. TAPLOW: All right, Mrs Crocker-Harris. (He crosses towards the door up right.)

What does Valli mean when she says, “I was just agreeing with what you said about things happening without our knowledge.”

<answer> While making this statement, Valli was trying to hide the fact about her bus ride. She was also feeling elated at making a successful attempt at her plan. <context> THERE was a girl named Valliammai who was called Valli for short. She was eight years old and very curious about things. Her favourite pastime was standing in the front doorway of her house, watching what was happening in the street outside. There were no playmates of her own age on her street, and this was about all she had to do. But for Valli, standing at the front door was every bit as enjoyable as any of the elaborate games other children played. Watching the street gave her many new unusual experiences. The most fascinating thing of all was the bus that travelled between her village and the nearest town. It passed through her street each hour, once going to the town and once coming back. The sight of the bus, filled each time with a new set of passengers, was a source of unending joy for Valli. Day after day she watched the bus, and gradually a tiny wish crept into her head and grew there: she wanted to ride on that bus, even if just once. This wish became stronger and stronger, until it was an overwhelming desire. Valli would stare wistfully at the people who got on or off the bus when it stopped at the street corner. Their faces would kindle in her longings, dreams, and hopes. If one of her friends happened to ride the bus and tried to describe the sights of the town to her, Valli would be too jealous to listen and would shout, in English: “Proud! proud!” Neither she nor her friends really understood the meaning of the word, but they used it often as a slang expression of disapproval. Over many days and months Valli listened carefully to conversations between her neighbours and people who regularly used the bus, and she also asked a few discreet questions here and there. This way she picked up various small details about the bus journey. The town was six miles from her village. The fare was thirty paise one way — “which is almost nothing at all,” she heard one well-dressed man say, but to Valli, who scarcely saw that much money from one month to the next, it seemed a fortune. The trip to the town took forty-five minutes. On reaching town, if she stayed in her seat and paid another thirty paise, she could return home on the same bus. This meant that she could take the one-o’clock afternoon bus, reach the town at one forty-five, and be back home by about two forty-five... On and on went her thoughts as she calculated and recalculated, planned and replanned. Well, one fine spring day the afternoon bus was just on the point of leaving the village and turning into the main highway when a small voice was heard shouting: “Stop the bus! Stop the bus!” And a tiny hand was raised commandingly. The bus slowed down to a crawl, and the conductor, sticking his head out the door, said, “Hurry then! Tell whoever it is to come quickly.” “It’s me,” shouted Valli. “I’m the one who has to get on.” By now the bus had come to a stop, and the conductor said, “Oh, really! You don’t say so!” “Yes, I simply have to go to town,” said Valli, still standing outside the bus, “and here’s my money.” She showed him some coins. “Okay, okay, but first you must get on the bus,” said the conductor, and he stretched out a hand to help her up. “Never mind,” she said, “I can get on by myself. You don’t have to help me.” The conductor was a jolly sort, fond of joking. “Oh, please don’t be angry with me, my fine madam,” he said. “Here, have a seat right up there in front. Everybody move aside please — make way for madam.” It was the slack time of day, and there were only six or seven passengers on the bus. They were all looking at Valli and laughing with the conductor. Valli was overcome with shyness. Avoiding everyone’s eyes, she walked quickly to an empty seat and sat down. “May we start now, madam?” the conductor asked, smiling. Then he blew his whistle twice, and the bus moved forward with a roar. It was a new bus, its outside painted a gleaming white with some green stripes along the sides. Inside, the overhead bars shone like silver. Directly in front of Valli, above the windshield, there was a beautiful clock. The seats were soft and luxurious. Valli devoured everything with her eyes. But when she started to look outside, she found her view cut off by a canvas blind that covered the lower part of her window. So she stood up on the seat and peered over the blind. The bus was now going along the bank of a canal. The road was very narrow. On one side there was the canal and, beyond it, palm trees, grassland, distant mountains, and the blue, blue sky. On the other side was a deep ditch and then acres and acres of green fields — green, green, green, as far as the eye could see. Oh, it was all so wonderful! Suddenly she was startled by a voice. “Listen, child,” said the voice, “you shouldn’t stand like that. Sit down.” Sitting down, she looked to see who had spoken. It was an elderly man who had honestly been concerned for her, but she was annoyed by his attention. “There’s nobody here who’s a child,” she said haughtily. “I’ve paid my thirty paise like everyone else.” The conductor chimed in. “Oh, sir, but this is a very grown-up madam. Do you think a mere girl could pay her own fare and travel to the city all alone?” Valli shot an angry glance at the conductor and said, “I am not a madam. Please remember that. And you’ve not yet given me my ticket.” “I’ll remember,” the conductor said, mimicking her tone. Everyone laughed, and gradually Valli too joined in the laughter. The conductor punched a ticket and handed it to her. “Just sit back and make yourself comfortable. Why should you stand when you’ve paid for a seat?” “Because I want to,” she answered, standing up again. “But if you stand on the seat, you may fall and hurt yourself when the bus makes a sharp turn or hits a bump. That’s why we want you to sit down, child.” “I’m not a child, I tell you,” she said irritably. “I’m eight years old.” “Of course, of course. How stupid of me! Eight years — my!” The bus stopped, some new passengers got on, and the conductor got busy for a time. Afraid of losing her seat, Valli finally sat down. An elderly woman came and sat beside her. “Are you all alone, dear?” she asked Valli as the bus started again. Valli found the woman absolutely repulsive — such big holes she had in her ear lobes, and such ugly earrings in them! And she could smell the betel nut the woman was chewing and see the betel juice that was threatening to spill over her lips at any moment. Ugh! — who could be sociable with such a person? “Yes, I’m travelling alone,” she answered curtly. “And I’ve got a ticket too.” “Yes, she’s on her way to town,” said the conductor. “With a thirty-paise ticket.” “Oh, why don’t you mind your own business,” said Valli. But she laughed all the same, and the conductor laughed too. But the old woman went on with her drivel. “Is it proper for such a young person to travel alone? Do you know exactly where you’re going in town? What’s the street? What’s the house number?” “You needn’t bother about me. I can take care of myself,” Valli said, turning her face towards the window and staring out. Her first journey — what careful, painstaking, elaborate plans she had had to make for it! She had thriftily saved whatever stray coins came her way, resisting every temptation to buy peppermints, toys, balloons, and the like, and finally she had saved a total of sixty paise. How difficult it had been, particularly that day at the village fair, but she had resolutely stifled a strong desire to ride the merrygo- round, even though she had the money. After she had enough money saved, her next problem was how to slip out of the house without her mother’s knowledge. But she managed this without too much difficulty. Every day after lunch her mother would nap from about one to four or so. Valli always used these hours for her ‘excursions’ as she stood looking from the doorway of her house or sometimes even ventured out into the village; today, these same hours could be used for her first excursion outside the village. The bus rolled on now cutting across a bare landscape, now rushing through a tiny hamlet or past an odd wayside shop. Sometimes the bus seemed on the point of gobbling up another vehicle that was coming towards them or a pedestrian crossing the road. But lo! somehow it passed on smoothly, leaving all obstacles safely behind. Trees came running towards them but then stopped as the bus reached them and simply stood there helpless for a moment by the side of the road before rushing away in the other direction. Suddenly Valli clapped her hands with glee. A young cow, tail high in the air, was running very fast, right in the middle of the road, right in front of the bus. The bus slowed to a crawl, and the driver sounded his horn loudly again and again. But the more he honked, the more frightened the animal became and the faster it galloped — always right in front of the bus. Somehow this was very funny to Valli. She laughed and laughed until there were tears in her eyes. “Hey, lady, haven’t you laughed enough?” called, the conductor. “Better save some for tomorrow.” At last the cow moved off the road. And soon the bus came to a railroad crossing. A speck of a train could be seen in the distance, growing bigger and bigger as it drew near. Then it rushed past the crossing gate with a tremendous roar and rattle, shaking the bus. Then the bus went on and passed the train station. From there it traversed a busy, well-laid-out shopping street and, turning, entered a wider thoroughfare. Such big, bright-looking shops! What glittering displays of clothes and other merchandise! Such big crowds! Struck dumb with wonder, Valli gaped at everything. Then the bus stopped and everyone got off except Valli. “Hey, lady,” said the conductor, “aren’t you ready to get off? This is as far as your thirty paise takes you.” “No,” Valli said, “I’m going back on this same bus.” She took another thirty paise from her pocket and handed the coins to the conductor. “Why, is something the matter?” “No, nothing’s the matter. I just felt like having a bus ride, that’s all.” “Don’t you want to have a look at the sights, now that you’re here?” “All by myself? Oh, I’d be much too afraid.” Greatly amused by the girl’s way of speaking, the conductor said, “But you weren’t afraid to come in the bus.” “Nothing to be afraid of about that,” she answered. “Well, then, why not go to that stall over there and have something to drink? Nothing to be afraid of about that either." “Oh, no, I couldn’t do that.” “Well, then, let me bring you a cold drink.” “No, I don’t have enough money. Just give me my ticket, that’s all.” “It’ll be my treat and not cost you anything.” “No, no,” she said firmly, “please, no.” The conductor shrugged, and they waited until it was time for the bus to begin the return journey. Again there weren’t many passengers.

What forces conspire to keep the workers in the bangle industry of Firozabad in poverty?

<answer> Certain forces conspire to keep the workers in bangle industry of Firozabad in poverty. These include the moneylenders, the middlemen, the policemen, the keepers of law, the bureaucrats and the politicians. Together they impose a heavy burden on the child. <context> ‘Sometimes I find a Rupee in the garbage’ “Why do you do this?” I ask Saheb whom I encounter every morning scrounging for gold in the garbage dumps of my neighbourhood. Saheb left his home long ago. Set amidst the green fields of Dhaka, his home is not even a distant memory. There were many storms that swept away their fields and homes, his mother tells him. That’s why they left, looking for gold in the big city where he now lives. “I have nothing else to do,” he mutters, looking away. “Go to school,” I say glibly, realising immediately how hollow the advice must sound. “There is no school in my neighbourhood. When they build one, I will go.” “If I start a school, will you come?” I ask, half-joking. “Yes,” he says, smiling broadly. A few days later I see him running up to me. “Is your school ready?” “It takes longer to build a school,” I say, embarrassed at having made a promise that was not meant. But promises like mine abound in every corner of his bleak world. After months of knowing him, I ask him his name. “Saheb-e-Alam,” he announces. He does not know what it means. If he knew its meaning — lord of the universe — he would have a hard time believing it. Unaware of what his name represents, he roams the streets with his friends, an army of barefoot boys who appear like the morning birds and disappear at noon. Over the months, I have come to recognise each of them. “Why aren’t you wearing chappals?” I ask one. “My mother did not bring them down from the shelf,” he answers simply. “Even if she did he will throw them off,” adds another who is wearing shoes that do not match. When I comment on it, he shuffles his feet and says nothing. “I want shoes,” says a third boy who has never owned a pair all his life. Travelling across the country I have seen children walking barefoot, in cities, on village roads. It is not lack of money but a tradition to stay barefoot, is one explanation. I wonder if this is only an excuse to explain away a perpetual state of poverty. I remember a story a man from Udipi once told me. As a young boy he would go to school past an old temple, where his father was a priest. He would stop briefly at the temple and pray for a pair of shoes. Thirty years later I visited his town and the temple, which was now drowned in an air of desolation. In the backyard, where lived the new priest, there were red and white plastic chairs. A young boy dressed in a grey uniform, wearing socks and shoes, arrived panting and threw his school bag on a folding bed. Looking at the boy, I remembered the prayer another boy had made to the goddess when he had finally got a pair of shoes, “Let me never lose them.” The goddess had granted his prayer. Young boys like the son of the priest now wore shoes. But many others like the ragpickers in my neighbourhood remain shoeless. My acquaintance with the barefoot ragpickers leads me to Seemapuri, a place on the periphery of Delhi yet miles away from it, metaphorically. Those who live here are squatters who came from Bangladesh back in 1971. Saheb’s family is among them. Seemapuri was then a wilderness. It still is, but it is no longer empty. In structures of mud, with roofs of tin and tarpaulin, devoid of sewage, drainage or running water, live 10,000 ragpickers. They have lived here for more than thirty years without an identity, without permits but with ration cards that get their names on voters’ lists and enable them to buy grain. Food is more important for survival than an identity. “If at the end of the day we can feed our families and go to bed without an aching stomach, we would rather live here than in the fields that gave us no grain,” say a group of women in tattered saris when I ask them why they left their beautiful land of green fields and rivers. Wherever they find food, they pitch their tents that become transit homes. Children grow up in them, becoming partners in survival. And survival in Seemapuri means rag-picking. Through the years, it has acquired the proportions of a fine art. Garbage to them is gold. It is their daily bread, a roof over their heads, even if it is a leaking roof. But for a child it is even more. “I sometimes find a rupee, even a ten-rupee note,” Saheb says, his eyes lighting up. When you can find a silver coin in a heap of garbage, you don’t stop scrounging, for there is hope of finding more. It seems that for children, garbage has a meaning different from what it means to their parents. For the children it is wrapped in wonder, for the elders it is a means of survival. One winter morning I see Saheb standing by the fenced gate of the neighbourhood club, watching two young men dressed in white, playing tennis. “I like the game,” he hums, content to watch it standing behind the fence. “I go inside when no one is around,” he admits. “The gatekeeper lets me use the swing.” Saheb too is wearing tennis shoes that look strange over his discoloured shirt and shorts. “Someone gave them to me,” he says in the manner of an explanation. The fact that they are discarded shoes of some rich boy, who perhaps refused to wear them because of a hole in one of them, does not bother him. For one who has walked barefoot, even shoes with a hole is a dream come true. But the game he is watching so intently is out of his reach. This morning, Saheb is on his way to the milk booth. In his hand is a steel canister. “I now work in a tea stall down the road,” he says, pointing in the distance. “I am paid 800 rupees and all my meals.” Does he like the job? I ask. His face, I see, has lost the carefree look. The steel canister seems heavier than the plastic bag he would carry so lightly over his shoulder. The bag was his. The canister belongs to the man who owns the tea shop. Saheb is no longer his own master! “I want to drive a car” Mukesh insists on being his own master. “I will be a motor mechanic,” he announces. “Do you know anything about cars?” I ask. “I will learn to drive a car,” he answers, looking straight into my eyes. His dream looms like a mirage amidst the dust of streets that fill his town Firozabad, famous for its bangles. Every other family in Firozabad is engaged in making bangles. It is the centre of India’s glass-blowing industry where families have spent generations working around furnaces, welding glass, making bangles for all the women in the land it seems. Mukesh’s family is among them. None of them know that it is illegal for children like him to work in the glass furnaces with high temperatures, in dingy cells without air and light; that the law, if enforced, could get him and all those 20,000 children out of the hot furnaces where they slog their daylight hours, often losing the brightness of their eyes. Mukesh’s eyes beam as he volunteers to take me home, which he proudly says is being rebuilt. We walk down stinking lanes choked with garbage, past homes that remain hovels with crumbling walls, wobbly doors, no windows, crowded with families of humans and animals coexisting in a primeval state. He stops at the door of one such house, bangs a wobbly iron door with his foot, and pushes it open. We enter a half-built shack. In one part of it, thatched with dead grass, is a firewood stove over which sits a large vessel of sizzling spinach leaves. On the ground, in large aluminium platters, are more chopped vegetables. A frail young woman is cooking the evening meal for the whole family. Through eyes filled with smoke she smiles. She is the wife of Mukesh’s elder brother. Not much older in years, she has begun to command respect as the bahu, the daughter-in-law of the house, already in charge of three men — her husband, Mukesh and their father. When the older man enters, she gently withdraws behind the broken wall and brings her veil closer to her face. As custom demands, daughters-inlaw must veil their faces before male elders. In this case the elder is an impoverished bangle maker. Despite long years of hard labour, first as a tailor, then a bangle maker, he has failed to renovate a house, send his two sons to school. All he has managed to do is teach them what he knows — the art of making bangles. “It is his karam, his destiny,” says Mukesh’s grandmother, who has watched her own husband go blind with the dust from polishing the glass of bangles. “Can a god-given lineage ever be broken?” she implies. Born in the caste of bangle makers, they have seen nothing but bangles — in the house, in the yard, in every other house, every other yard, every street in Firozabad. Spirals of bangles — sunny gold, paddy green, royal blue, pink, purple, every colour born out of the seven colours of the rainbow — lie in mounds in unkempt yards, are piled on four-wheeled handcarts, pushed by young men along the narrow lanes of the shanty town. And in dark hutments, next to lines of flames of flickering oil lamps, sit boys and girls with their fathers and mothers, welding pieces of coloured glass into circles of bangles. Their eyes are more adjusted to the dark than to the light outside. That is why they often end up losing their eyesight before they become adults. Savita, a young girl in a drab pink dress, sits alongside an elderly woman, soldering pieces of glass. As her hands move mechanically like the tongs of a machine, I wonder if she knows the sanctity of the bangles she helps make. It symbolises an Indian woman’s suhaag, auspiciousness in marriage. It will dawn on her suddenly one day when her head is draped with a red veil, her hands dyed red with henna, and red bangles rolled onto her wrists. She will then become a bride. Like the old woman beside her who became one many years ago. She still has bangles on her wrist, but no light in her eyes. “Ek waqt ser bhar khana bhi nahin khaya,” she says, in a voice drained of joy. She has not enjoyed even one full meal in her entire lifetime — that’s what she has reaped! Her husband, an old man with a flowing beard, says, “I know nothing except bangles. All I have done is make a house for the family to live in.” Hearing him, one wonders if he has achieved what many have failed in their lifetime. He has a roof over his head! The cry of not having money to do anything except carry on the business of making bangles, not even enough to eat, rings in every home. The young men echo the lament of their elders. Little has moved with time, it seems, in Firozabad. Years of mind-numbing toil have killed all initiative and the ability to dream. “Why not organise yourselves into a cooperative?” I ask a group of young men who have fallen into the vicious circle of middlemen who trapped their fathers and forefathers. “Even if we get organised, we are the ones who will be hauled up by the police, beaten and dragged to jail for doing something illegal,” they say. There is no leader among them, no one who could help them see things differently. Their fathers are as tired as they are. They talk endlessly in a spiral that moves from poverty to apathy to greed and to injustice. Listening to them, I see two distinct worlds— one of the family, caught in a web of poverty, burdened by the stigma of caste in which they are born; the other a vicious circle of the sahukars, the middlemen, the policemen, the keepers of law, the bureaucrats and the politicians. Together they have imposed the baggage on the child that he cannot put down. Before he is aware, he accepts it as naturally as his father. To do anything else would mean to dare. And daring is not part of his growing up. When I sense a flash of it in Mukesh I am cheered. “I want to be a motor mechanic,’ he repeats. He will go to a garage and learn. But the garage is a long way from his home. “I will walk,” he insists. “Do you also dream of flying a plane?” He is suddenly silent. “No,” he says, staring at the ground. In his small murmur there is an embarrassment that has not yet turned into regret. He is content to dream of cars that he sees hurtling down the streets of his town. Few airplanes fly over Firozaba

Why is Mij’s species now known to the world as Maxwell’s otter?

<answer> Maxwell's otter was of a race previously unknown to science and was at length named by zoologist Lutrogale Perspicillata Maxwelli, hence, it is known as Maxwell's otter in short. <context> EARLY in the New Year of 1956 I travelled to Southern Iraq. By then it had crossed my mind that I should like to keep an otter instead of a dog, and that Camusfearna, ringed by water a stone’s throw from its door, would be an eminently suitable spot for this experiment. When I casually mentioned this to a friend, he as casually replied that I had better get one in the Tigris marshes, for there they were as common as mosquitoes, and were often tamed by the Arabs. We were going to Basra to the Consulate-General to collect and answer our mail from Europe. At the Consulate-General we found that my friend’s mail had arrived but that mine had not. I cabled to England, and when, three days later, nothing had happened, I tried to telephone. The call had to be booked twenty-four hours in advance. On the first day the line was out of order; on the second the exchange was closed for a religious holiday. On the third day there was another breakdown. My friend left, and I arranged to meet him in a week’s time. Five days later, my mail arrived. I carried it to my bedroom to read, and there, squatting on the floor, were two Arabs; beside them lay a sack that squirmed from time to time. They handed me a note from my friend: “Here is your otter...” II With the opening of that sack began a phase of my life that has not yet ended, and may, for all I know, not end before I do. It is, in effect, a thraldom to otters, an otter fixation, that I have since found to be shared by most other people, who have ever owned one. The creature that emerged from this sack on to the spacious tiled floor of the Consulate bedroom resembled most of all a very small, medievallyconceived, dragon. From the head to the tip of the tail he was coated with symmetrical pointed scales of mud armour, between whose tips was visible a soft velvet fur like that of a chocolate-brown mole. He shook himself, and I half expected a cloud of dust, but in fact it was not for another month that I managed to remove the last of the mud and see the otter, as it were, in his true colours. Mijbil, as I called the otter, was, in fact, of a race previously unknown to science, and was at length christened by zoologists Lutrogale perspicillata maxwelli, or Maxwell’s otter. For the first twentyfour hours Mijbil was neither hostile nor friendly; he was simply aloof and indifferent, choosing to sleep on the floor as far from my bed as possible. The second night Mijbil came on to my bed in the small hours and remained asleep in the crook of my knees until the servant brought tea in the morning, and during the day he began to lose his apathy and take a keen, much too keen, interest in his surroundings. I made a body-belt for him and took him on a lead to the bathroom, where for half an hour he went wild with joy in the water, plunging and rolling in it, shooting up and down the length of the bathtub underwater, and making enough slosh and splash for a hippo. This, I was to learn, is a characteristic of otters; every drop of water must be, so to speak, extended and spread about the place; a bowl must at once be overturned, or, if it will not be overturned, be sat in and sploshed in until it overflows. Water must be kept on the move and made to do things; when static it is wasted and provoking. Two days later, Mijbil escaped from my bedroom as I entered it, and I turned to see his tail disappearing round the bend of the corridor that led to the bathroom. By the time I got there he was up on the end of the bathtub and fumbling at the chromium taps with his paws. I watched, amazed; in less than a minute he had turned the tap far enough to produce a trickle of water, and after a moment or two achieved the full flow. (He had been lucky to turn the tap the right way; on later occasions he would sometimes screw it up still tighter, chittering with irritation and disappointment at the tap’s failure to cooperate.) Very soon Mij would follow me without a lead and come to me when I called his name. He spent most of his time in play. He spent hours shuffling a rubber ball round the room like a four-footed soccer player using all four feet to dribble the ball, and he could also throw it, with a powerful flick of the neck, to a surprising height and distance. But the real play of an otter is when he lies on his back and juggles with small objects between his paws. Marbles were Mij’s favourite toys for this pastime: he would lie on his back rolling two or more of them up and down his wide, flat belly without ever dropping one to the floor. The days passed peacefully at Basra, but I dreaded the prospect of transporting Mij to England, and to Camusfearna. The British airline to London would not fly animals, so I booked a flight to Paris on another airline, and from there to London. The airline insisted that Mij should be packed into a box not more than eighteen inches square, to be carried on the floor at my feet. I had a box made, and an hour before we started, I put Mij into the box so that he would become accustomed to it, and left for a hurried meal. When I returned, there was an appalling spectacle. There was complete silence from the box, but from its airholes and chinks around the lid, blood had trickled and dried. I whipped off the lock and tore open the lid, and Mij, exhausted and bloodspattered, whimpered and caught at my leg. He had torn the lining of the box to shreds; when I removed the last of it so that there were no cutting edges left, it was just ten minutes until the time of the flight, and the airport was five miles distant. I put the miserable Mij back into the box, holding down the lid with my hand. I sat in the back of the car with the box beside me as the driver tore through the streets of Basra like a ricochetting bullet. The aircraft was waiting to take off; I was rushed through to it by infuriated officials. Luckily, the seat booked for me was at the extreme front. I covered the floor around my feet with newspapers, rang for the air hostess, and gave her a parcel of fish (for Mij) to keep in a cool place. I took her into my confidence about the events of the last half hour. I have retained the most profound admiration for that air hostess; she was the very queen of her kind. She suggested that I might prefer to have my pet on my knee, and I could have kissed her hand in the depth of my gratitude. But, not knowing otters, I was quite unprepared for what followed. Mij was out of the box in a flash. He disappeared at high speed down the aircraft. There were squawks and shrieks, and a woman stood up on her seat screaming out, “A rat! A rat!” I caught sight of Mij’s tail disappearing beneath the legs of a portly whiteturbaned Indian. Diving for it, I missed, but found my face covered in curry. “Perhaps,” said the air hostess with the most charming smile, “it would be better if you resumed your seat, and I will find the animal and bring it to you.” I returned to my seat. I was craning my neck trying to follow the hunt when suddenly I heard from my feet a distressed chitter of recognition and welcome, and Mij bounded on to my knee and began to nuzzle my face and my neck. Mij and I remained in London for nearly a month. He would play for hours with a selection of toys, ping-pong balls, marbles, rubber fruit, and a terrapin shell that I had brought back from his native marshes. With the ping-pong ball he invented a game of his own which could keep him engrossed for up to half an hour at a time. A suitcase that I had taken to Iraq had become damaged on the journey home, so that the lid, when closed, remained at a slope from one end to the other. Mij discovered that if he placed the ball on the high end it would run down the length of the suitcase. He would dash around to the other end to ambush its arrival, hide from it, crouching, to spring up and take it by surprise, grab it and trot off with it to the high end once more. Outside the house I exercised him on a lead, precisely as if he had been a dog. Mij quickly developed certain compulsive habits on these walks in the London streets, like the rituals of children who on their way to and from school must place their feet squarely on the centre of each paving block; must touch every seventh upright of the iron railings, or pass to the outside of every second lamp post. Opposite to my flat was a single-storied primary school, along whose frontage ran a low wall some two feet high. On his way home, but never on his way out, Mij would tug me to this wall, jump on to it, and gallop the full length of its thirty yards, to the hopeless distraction both of pupils and of staff within. It is not, I suppose, in any way strange that the average Londoner should not recognise an otter, but the variety of guesses as to what kind of animal this might be came as a surprise to me. Otters belong to a comparatively small group of animals called Mustellines, shared by the badger, mongoose, weasel, stoat, mink and others. I faced a continuous barrage of conjectural questions that sprayed all the Mustellines but the otter; more random guesses hit on ‘a baby seal’ and ‘a squirrel.’ ‘Is that a walrus, mister?’ reduced me to giggles, and outside a dog show I heard ‘a hippo’. A beaver, a bear cub, a leopard — one, apparently, that had changed its spots — and a ‘brontosaur’; Mij was anything but an otter. But the question for which I awarded the highest score came from a labourer digging a hole in the street. I was still far from him when he laid down his tool, put his hands on his hips, and began to stare. As I drew nearer I saw his expression of surprise and affront, as though he would have me know that he was not one upon whom to play jokes. I came abreast of him; he spat, glared, and then growled out, “Here, Mister — what is that supposed to be?”

Give reasons for Satyajit attending the village wedding.

<answer> Satyajit attending the village wedding was a mere fact of pride and self-realisation. He was nobody in his younger days. Thus, when he gained some prestige and became a recognised person, he enjoyed the attention and fame that he got. The village people gave him looks of wonder and amazement. He appreciated the homage which people offered. When Satyajit became open-handed in the flush of prosperity, he started attaining on air of pride and stature. Satyajit knew one thing for sure that it was his benediction which would pave Srinath's way through the present daughter crisis. <context> The slow, narrow-gauge Indian train with its awkward freak of an engine had a way of making unauthorised stops for no good reason, between fields of corn or at the foot of a village—it was said that the guard signalled a halt to pluck a pumpkin or ripe melons from its stem or to buy fistfuls of green gram from a peasant. Some of the passengers grumbled and sat with drawn brows, composing in their minds angry letters to Authority, or to the Press, but others seized the chance to slip merrily out of doors for a breath of air and a view of the green fields. Satyajit, languid on the cushioned bench now vacated by the other occupants, reached out for his cigarettes but, on second thought, withdrew his hand brusquely. That won’t do, he told himself with a stern shake of his head. His smoke was rationed. He had attuned himself in the past month to a fast-growing list of denials, large and small, and this was one. How can he afford the unrestricted luxury of chain smoking? Life lay sharpening to realities that still had the semblance of an undreamable dream. He winced, the turning wheel of fortune in his unhappy eye, as always. Along the orbit of reminiscence he went round and round, pulled by a force beyond his will. The banking establishment of which he had attained control. The amazing tempo of it all. Luck had come his way, undeniably, but behind it was his mind, his initiative, grit, energy. Starting as a mere clerk he had become Managing Director. And now? What now? Tall, thin, near forty, he had sharp features, the hair receding on his temple in wide shiny smooth patches. His eyes hated glare and he wore smart eye-glasses to shield them. His mouth, thin-lipped, would tighten in repose to a line that suggested strength of will but might have been only pride. ‘What now?’ he said to himself in an underbreath. Those words had become his obsession. ‘What now?’ He had no business to be on this wretched train on a neglected railroad, travelling away from the city where he must look for work, for the means of living. With the sudden collapse of his bank, all his private assets were gone overnight; the equities; the house on Tagore Street; even the two cars, his and his wife’s. A mercy that she was away from the scene, with her parents at Delhi, and unaware of the full extent of the ruin. A telegram had come last Tuesday announcing the safe birth of her child. Their first-born, for he had married late in life. His son, his heir. And he had sold off his diamond ring to send his young wife a remittance for the name-giving rites. She had married a man of fortune—that made it harder for him in this crisis. True, she knew all about his earlier life. But that was story-book stuff. It could be narrated happily to their first-born when he grew older. The story lay killed by its sequel—failure. Glory was all overlaid with dark shame. Glory was dead. It would be easy enough today if there were none else to think of except himself. Born in a humble village home, self-educated, struggle had been his life-breath. How grateful he was for the clerkship he secured. A turning of the wheel of fortune? he had wondered. The next turning, a year after, was more dramatic. What made him give a fixed look to the man beyond the brass grille of the counter? The cheque presented for encashment was not a large sum. 2021-22 Glory at Twilight 87 Eye upon eye. Alarm vivid in the face and the hand on the counter shaking curiously. Surprised, stirred by a quick impulse, he took the cheque to the accounts desk, compared the signature with the one on record. It tallied. But that face, that hand. A hundred reasons, none connected with the cheque, could explain the face and hand. Even so, the impulse led him to the telephone. ‘Sir, have you signed a bearer cheque for Rs 2,000? It has yesterday’s date...’ ‘Rs 2,000? No.’ His heart felt pain for lack of air. ‘Sir, are you sure? The signature seems okay.’ In the next instance he was back to his counter in a rush. Where was the man? There, close to the exit, and the face turning back for a moment wore stark fear. He was going away. Feet bounded up the counter. The bank clerk hunted down his prey on the gravel path, twenty paces from the front door. There was no struggle. The man crumpled down in a heap. He squatted with head between his hands, looking down, tears rolling down. ‘Why did you have to commit forgery?’ ‘She has TB.’ ‘She?’ ‘She is dying for want of medicine.’ ‘Who?’ ‘My wife. I saw no other means. I give lessons in Maths to the rich man’s son. That money...’ The head between the hands wagged from side to side in a queer rhythmic frenzy. That was the way the clerk grew into an accountant. He deserved what he had gained. He was not made to be a mere clerk. Lost in the thrill, he had honest contempt for his stepping-stone, the forgerer. You could not commit such a crime even to save your dying wife. But today, as he sat on his lone bench on the train, he saw mind-pictures and felt troubled. The crouched figure on the gravel path wrapped in mute grieving. The prisoner at the bar, face frozen, as though he had died within himself. Had he anything to say to the Court? the Judge had asked. ‘Punish me.’ ‘Is that all?’ ‘Punish me as a killer.’ ‘Killer?’ ‘I have put my wife to shame. Shame kills as fast as TB.’ Yes, that wretched one had turned the wheel for him with his trembling hand. From that point the wheel attained a volition of its own, moving continuously. He had every reason to be grateful to the forgerer. Too late now to seek him out, give him a chance to live? 2021-22 88 Woven Words Too late. He himself sorely needed a chance to live. The banking business lay around him in a broken mass and there was he, prostrate on his face in the wreckage, sucking its dust. All his fault. He had tried to overreach himself. Each wrong step was now clear in time’s perspective. The run on the bank had come all too suddenly though. Failure had a tempo far faster than success. He had great need to fly from himself—that was why he was on this train. A letter had come in the nick of time offering him an excuse, a temporary relief from the wrenching within. ‘The wedding of my fifth daughter, Beena, is to take place on the twentieth of this month. I have kept you posted with the progress of negotiations. I seek your benediction as in the case of my second, third and fourth daughters— Kamini, Damini and Suhashi. With Beena wedded, there will be only Aruna left, and she is in her tenth year. Your benediction alone can pull me through the present daughter crisis. That is all I have to say—Your helpless Uncle Srinath.’ Daughter crisis, indeed! mused Satyajit with a dim smile. Uncle Srinath, a neighbour at Shantipur village but no blood relation, seemed to have been producing his numerous daughters secure in the faith that others would bear the brunt of the repeated crises of their marriage needs. And Satyajit, in the flush of prosperity, had been more than open-handed. It was a matter of pride, selfsatisfaction. In his younger days, the village people had not thought much of him, had not seen in him any special gift or brilliance. One of the common herd. That was all the more reason why he enjoyed success. He needed the wide-eyed wonder and eager homage of Uncle Srinath and the like while they had use and longing for his money. It was plain give-and-take. All that was over. Fallen from his castle in the clouds, Satyajit must tread the earthly ways of humble folk. But he could not deny the old man altogether. He must send some help. He had pondered over the amount. He had to ponder over each rupee before he spent it. Then, all at once, he had come to a decision. He would go to Shantipur and attend the marriage. This would be a 2021-22 Glory at Twilight 89 welcome relief—the city was suffocating him. His mind would be freshened, his strength renewed for the coming struggle by a return to the physical scene which had been his starting point in life. Let that be his starting point once more, outwardly as much as in the spirit. He would also take this chance to look at his ancestral house and fishpond, both leased out, bits of property still intact amid the vast demolition. Those he must pass on to his wife as his last gift. And he had sent word to Uncle Srinath about his arrival on the marriage day. The engine came to life with a shrill of warning. The passenger hurried back. Another half-hour and it was Shantipur. Satyajit leaned out of the door, his eyes looking for Uncle Srinath on the station platform, where many people stood crowded together, alert and apparently excited, one of them holding aloft the national flag on a bamboo pole. A political celebrity on the train? Strange that Uncle Srinath, who had always feared politics, was leading the group. Suddenly, there was a rush of legs towards Satyajit as he stepped down. The legs stopped and a booming chorus followed. Swagatam! Welcome!’ A small girl with an awestruck face stepped up with a jasmine garland in her hand. Satyajit stood in a daze of bewilderment as the girl rose on tiptoe to place the chain of flowers around his neck. He bent mechanically to receive the offer, not knowing what it meant. It was obviously a mistake, a very curious one. ‘Welcome!’ the voices rang again. Then, an expectant hush. Uncle Srinath turned round to the group. On the high cheekbones and grey stubble of his face was a clear coating of strong elation. ‘Friends and brothers! Bengal has seen greatness in almost every field of action. I shall not belittle your knowledge by citing names. It is only in trade and industry that Bengal has lagged behind sadly—the plums of business have gone to people from upcountry or from overseas. That is why our hearts grow big with pride at the sight of a son of Bengal, a son of our own Shantipur village, who has attained great success in that field, that 2021-22 90 Woven Words forbidden field, and become the glory of the motherland, Swagatam! Welcome!’ ‘Swagatam!’ the combined voices roared while the tricolour flag on its tall pole nodded approvingly. When Satyajit slipped down from the ox cart at the door of a mud-brick house, a knot of women waiting tensely with brass water-bowls rushed up and stooped over his feet, scrambling for the privilege to wash his feet with cool water. Satyajit shrank back, embarrassed. ‘It’s my Beena’s privilege,’ cried Srinath, smiling. ‘This is her day. Let Beena alone wash and wipe the reverent feet. All her life she will remember this honour befalling her on the auspicious day of her marriage.’ Satyajit looked at the girl who stepped forward, shy, slender with large pensive eyes in a graceful face. ‘So this is the bride,’ he smiled at her and touched her hair in the gesture of blessing. ‘I hope the groom is worthy of this girl,’ he said as she knelt down to unlace his shoes. She slipped off his socks and poured cool water to freshen his feet, washing them with keen care. As her slim fingers went between his toes, he wiggled them, for he felt ticklish. Presently he sat on a carpet in the inner verandah with a plateful of sweets and a glass of whey while Kamini, Damini and Suhashi sat near him on their haunches and waved palm leaf fans with all their energy, as though each passing minute had to be fully used before their hands were deprived of the privilege. Sweat 2021-22 Glory at Twilight 91 broke out on their faces and they shifted their fans from right hand to left and again to the right. Their mother, who stood by, now spoke in a murmur, husky with emotion. ‘You have been more of a father to these girls than he,’ jerking her head at her invisible husband. ‘But for the bigness of your heart, they would still be maids under this room, shooting up in years and in height with no chance of having husband and home.’ She lifted her sari fringes to her eyes, wiping off two grateful tears. The meal over, Uncle Srinath, who had been shuttling between the inner verandah and the outer quarters, now stopped, leaning over his guest. ‘Beena has been given the old jewellery of her mother,’ he confided. ‘So, that part of the dowry problem has been met. Her three married sisters, whom you see before you and who owe all their bliss in life to your benediction, have given her the marriage gifts she must have: sari, jacket, chemise. Also brass utensils for her new household.’ ‘Good! Good!’ Satyajit cried happily. He had Rs 200 in his purse and had wondered how much of it had to go into the marriage pool. May be Rs 100; or, rather, Rs 101, since a figure ending with zero was not propitious. During the meal he had been slowly adding to that figure: ten, twenty, finally stopping at an additional fifty. Now that Beena had got all she needed, he could just as well slice a goodly bit off the amount. Let it be Rs 101. The fifty rupees saved would buy a perambulator for his newborn son. ‘Your benediction is our blind-man’s staff,’ Srinath went on. ‘Do I have to say more?’ He apparently decided that he did not, for he changed the topic abruptly. ‘My house has become a place of pilgrimage. You are the pride of the village, its strength. In you the people see their own inmost dream fulfilled. Will you now show yourself for a minute to the devotees who sit waiting—’ Satyajit followed his host. His devotees were seated on a floor mat, talking animatedly, and at the sight of him there was an instant hush. Hands joined to his chest, Satyajit made salutation to all. He caught sight of the schoolmaster who had taught him as a boy and made a 2021-22 92 Woven Words deep obeisance. Swelled with pride, the old man swept the floor mat group with a superior glance before he spoke: ‘Didn’t I say? Didn’t I say a hundred and one times in those far off days that the light of genius blazed on the face of my young pupil? That he stood apart from every other young pig—’ He broke short and yielded to a violent fit of coughing to cover up the slip. Presently he resumed: ‘That he with the light of genius on his face was afar from the world where the other youngsters dwelt? Why, I predicted that he would be a High Court Judge—’ Satyajit burst into a laugh. ‘Alas, I am no High Court Judge’. ‘Even more, much more!’ counted the old man. His good memory reached back to the boy with whom he had been on terms of a perpetual feud. Always bent on some kind of mischief—he did have an inventive mind that way! Arithmetic was his bogey. How does he count all his pile of money? He owns a million, if Srinath is to be believed. A million? And the old man hastened to add a brushful of colour to the drab picture presented by memory. ‘Even in those far-off days I could see two shadow forms about him, clear as life—Saraswati at his left, Lakshmi at his right. And I knew even then that the twin goddesses of knowledge and wealth, though hating the sight of each other, had for once united, stayed together, drawn by their common love.’ He lifted joined palms to his forehead, offering salutation— perhaps to those goddesses. Satyajit was determined to enjoy himself. He felt a twinge of regret that he had not thought of coming to Shantipur and basking in the people’s homage when it was truly his due. Now he was an impostor. He impersonated the man he had been a few weeks before. He made an angry jerk of his hand about his face, waving off a sandfly— and the regret. Let him be happy for the day even with a false echo, let him be wrapped a while in the lingering twilight splendour of departed glory. Tommorow he would be in the full fury of a stream, tugged under water, fighting for life. Today he would have his last breath of peace, freedom, content. Through the rest of the day he went round the village, meeting the elders, sipping the proffered milk of green 2021-22 Glory at Twilight 93 coconuts. He visited his house occupied by a tenant. His house—and he touched the walls possessively. This small house gave him a feeling of security which had not come to him even from his huge city mansion. He spent an hour by the fish pond. His pond—and he sprinkled a palmful of its water on his head. A good-sized carp landed at the end of his hook. When he came home with the catch, Uncle Srinath gazed at it raptly—one would have thought he had never before seen such fish. ‘What gills!’ he breathed in apparent ecstasy. He patted the head of the fish with an affectionate hand. ‘Bride and groom shall eat curried portions of this auspicious one when they break their marriage fast at midnight. That will bring them all the blessings that life can give’. It was near twilight when the groom’s party arrived in ox carts and palanquins. Conches blew welcome. Young women gathered at the dooryard and gave the shrill traditional greeting expressive of great joy; Ulu-ulu-uluulu- ulu! When the bridal party was well settled, chewing betel leaf and waiting for the marriage hour as prescribed by the almanac, Satyajit felt for his purse. Time now to part with Rs 101. Srinath, reading his thoughts, took him to the secluded darkness under a fig-tree in the backyard ‘My begging bowl is ready,’ he announced happily. ‘Yes, yes,’ Satyajit nodded. ‘The cash dowry stands fixed. Only Rs 2001.’ ‘What!’ Satyajit felt a hard blow in the pit of his stomach. ‘That is all.’ ‘Rs 2001?’ Srinath smiled. ‘Everything else is provided for, even the cost of the marriage feast. Only this last item awaits your benediction.’ Benediction—Srinath’s favourite word. Nothing abstract in its meaning. It could be interpreted only in terms of money. Satyajit felt a burning inside him. He had stretched his leg right into the snare of benediction, unthinkingly. How could he be so very stupid? Srinath broke the silence with a half laugh. ‘This drop in the ocean of your fortune. It shames me to mention the petty figure.’ 2021-22 94 Woven Words ‘Why didn’t you write and tell me?’ The voice was harsh. The half laugh repeated itself. ‘Have I no sense? I am not such a big ass as I look. What! Mention money to a millionaire! And such a pittance. A drop in the ocean.’ ‘A drop,’ echoed Satyajit, his mouth dry. This was the moment for confession. He was even worse off than Srinath. Hard struggle lay ahead of him for bare survival. Srinath would understand. ‘Millionaire!’ Rhapsody in the voice. Plain worship on the face. A devotee, prayerful before his god. ‘ We bask in your benediction. Our life-spark itself is held in your fist; you can destroy it just by closing your fingers tight. Words cannot say what I feel —’ Yes, the god had been a millionaire, truly. That was yesterday. Today... Confession stuck in his throat, clutched by the millionaire’s dead hand. Better give an excuse. He had come rushing in the midst of heavy work and had not thought of equipping himself with adequate cash. That would sound plausible. Later—it wouldn’t matter if Srinath discovered the terrible truth later, as he must. Something stronger than he spoke with his tongue. ‘I had to catch the morning train—there was no time to go to the bank. Maybe someone in the village—’ The words ‘cash a cheque’ were almost on his lips. ‘Someone in the village will advance a loan—’ Uncle Srinath rushed out of the house, panic on his face. He had been under the impression that a millionaire always had his pockets stuffed with money. Satyajit returned to the assembled guests. Instantly the groom, on his foothigh satin-draped platform, fat round cushions on three sides of him, was forgotten. Silence. All eyes took their fill of the rich man. A god on the pedestal of fortune. He too sat quiet, the tiredness within him heavier than even before. The peace he had attained erstwhile was gone. He longed to see the face of his new-born son. The rich man’s son who would never ride in a perambulator. Srinath returned in half an hour. His face looked angry. Satyajit saw his beckoning hand, rose heavily to his feet, and stepped outside, away from the people. 2021-22 Glory at Twilight 95 ‘Only one person in Shantipur can produce so much cash at this late hour,’ said Srinath, ‘Harish, the moneylender. That shark refuses to make an advance though.’ The swift flood of relief! ‘Harish does not trust me?’ Moneylenders did have a sixth sense. There was no knowing when Harish would have got his money back—perhaps never. ‘Preposterous! Not to trust the word and signature of a millionaire! Harish is off his senses; or, is it malice?’ The voice collected anger. ‘I could drag him to you and make him grovel at your feet and rub his fat nose on the ground.’ Satyajit could be generous. ‘No need, no need. Trust is out of date in these cynical times.’ The wonder of it—his leg was off the snare of benediction! ‘Where will our India be if such things are tolerated? What is Nehru doing about it? Is there no one to tell him how things stand in the country?’ Satyajit patted the excited man on the shoulder, soothingly. Srinath controlled himself with visible effort. His face saddened. ‘What is to be done?’ he moaned. ‘The groom’s father is a man of stone. He will break off the marriage unless cash is paid to him before the ceremony starts. Who will ever marry Beena after such dishonour?’ Satyajit wagged his head in befitting sympathy. ‘If only you had written to me. Just two words or three. Anyway, do not be worried. You will find another suitable match, a better one maybe. Who can foresee the ways of destiny?’ He felt for his purse the second time. He ought to restore the fifty rupees he had cut. Let it be Rs 151. Even if there would be no perambulator for his son— Srinath cleared his throat twice. ‘It shames me to tell you the full story.’ ‘Yes?’ ‘Harish is willing to pay.’ ‘What! you have just said—’ ‘He will pay against security. He wants security, that evil-eyed shark. Your house and fish-pond. The madness! To think that house and pond have more weight than a millionaire’s signature!’ Satyajit trembled within him. ‘House and pond,’ he murmurmed to himself. The only possessions that had not 2021-22 96 Woven Words toppled into the deluge. They were all he could give to his wife— ‘All the old values destroyed, where will our India be? Has Nehru no sense to understand this? What! A pond weighs more than a millionaire’s word, a house is better security than the signature of his hand! Yet, what else is to be done?’ Palms folded together made supplication. ‘What else is to be done in the daughter crisis?’ Satyajit had a queer drugged look. And the dead voice of the millionaire came from his throat. ‘Let the moneylender pay on those terms.’ ‘The insult, what about the insult?’ Srinath’s wrathful hand cleaved the air. ‘When the thing is done, I will make the shark rub his fat nose on the ground at your feet; I will do that, be sure. You will also see the whole village spit at the shark, thoo!’ The deed was signed, the house was gay with marriage music. Satyajit walked off to the deep dark under the fig tree, all by himself. ‘What now,’ he said under his breath, and a dim smile pinched the corners of his lips as he stuck between them the cork tip of a cigarette, the last one in the tin, and lifted a lit match with slow tremulous deliberation.

Who read the letter?

<answer> Postmaster read the letter. <context> THE house — the only one in the entire valley — sat on the crest of a low hill. From this height one could see the river and the field of ripe corn dotted with the flowers that always promised a good harvest. The only thing the earth needed was a downpour or at least a shower. Throughout the morning Lencho — who knew his fields intimately — had done nothing else but see the sky towards the north-east. “Now we’re really going to get some water, woman.” The woman who was preparing supper, replied, “Yes, God willing”. The older boys were working in the field, while the smaller ones were playing near the house until the woman called to them all, “Come for dinner”. It was during the meal that, just as Lencho had predicted, big drops of rain began to fall. In the north-east huge mountains of clouds could be seen approaching. The air was fresh and sweet. The man went out for no other reason than to have the pleasure of feeling the rain on his body, and when he returned he exclaimed, ‘‘These aren’t raindrops falling from the sky, they are new coins. The big drops are ten cent pieces and the little ones are fives.’’ With a satisfied expression he regarded the field of ripe corn with its flowers, draped in a curtain of rain. But suddenly a strong wind began to blow and along with the rain very large hailstones began to fall. These truly did resemble new silver coins. The boys, exposing themselves to the rain, ran out to collect the frozen pearls. ‘‘It’s really getting bad now,’’ exclaimed the man. “I hope it passes quickly.” It did not pass quickly. For an hour the hail rained on the house, the garden, the hillside, the cornfield, on the whole valley. The field was white, as if covered with salt. Not a leaf remained on the trees. The corn was totally destroyed. The flowers were gone from the plants. Lencho’s soul was filled with sadness. When the storm had passed, he stood in the middle of the field and said to his sons, “A plague of locusts would have left more than this. The hail has left nothing. This year we will have no corn.’’ That night was a sorrowful one. “All our work, for nothing.” ‘‘There’s no one who can help us.” “We’ll all go hungry this year.” But in the hearts of all who lived in that solitary house in the middle of the valley, there was a single hope: help from God. “Don’t be so upset, even though this seems like a total loss. Remember, no one dies of hunger.” “That’s what they say: no one dies of hunger.” All through the night, Lencho thought only of his one hope: the help of God, whose eyes, as he had been instructed, see everything, even what is deep in one’s conscience. Lencho was an ox of a man, working like an animal in the fields, but still he knew how to write. The following Sunday, at daybreak, he began to write a letter which he himself would carry to town and place in the mail. It was nothing less than a letter to God. “God,” he wrote, “if you don’t help me, my family and I will go hungry this year. I need a hundred pesos in order to sow my field again and to live until the crop comes, because the hailstorm... .” He wrote ‘To God’ on the envelope, put the letter inside and, still troubled, went to town. At the post office, he placed a stamp on the letter and dropped it into the mailbox. One of the employees, who was a postman and also helped at the post office, went to his boss laughing heartily and showed him the letter to God. Never in his career as a postman had he known that address. The postmaster — a fat, amiable fellow — also broke out laughing, but almost immediately he turned serious and, tapping the letter on his desk, commented, “What faith! I wish I had the faith of the man who wrote this letter. Starting up a correspondence with God!” So, in order not to shake the writer’s faith in God, the postmaster came up with an idea: answer the letter. But when he opened it, it was evident that to answer it he needed something more than goodwill, ink and paper. But he stuck to his resolution: he asked for money from his employees, he himself gave part of his salary, and several friends of his were obliged to give something ‘for an act of charity’. It was impossible for him to gather together the hundred pesos, so he was able to send the farmer only a little more than half. He put the money in an envelope addressed to Lencho and with it a letter containing only a single word as a signature: God. The following Sunday Lencho came a bit earlier than usual to ask if there was a letter for him. It was the postman himself who handed the letter to him while the postmaster, experiencing the contentment of a man who has performed a good deed, looked on from his office. Lencho showed not the slightest surprise on seeing the money; such was his confidence — but he became angry when he counted the money. God could not have made a mistake, nor could he have denied Lencho what he had requested. Immediately, Lencho went up to the window to ask for paper and ink. On the public writing-table, he started to write, with much wrinkling of his brow, caused by the effort he had to make to express his ideas. When he finished, he went to the window to buy a stamp which he licked and then affixed to the envelope with a blow of his fist. The moment the letter fell into the mailbox the postmaster went to open it. It said: “God: Of the money that I asked for, only seventy pesos reached me. Send me the rest, since I need it very much. But don’t send it to me through the mail because the post office employees are a bunch of crooks. Lencho.”

Will the injured McLeery be able to help the prison officers track Evans?

<answer> Injured McLeery spoke slowly and in broken phrases that he knew where Evans was. He asked the prison officers to get the police and not to worry about the ambulance. He found the German question paper on the table. He told Jackson to get the Governor. He drew the attention of the Governor to the German text on photocopied sheet on the last page. The Governor slowly translated it. The words ‘From Elsfied Way drive to the Headington roundabout’ caught his attention. The Examination Board was in Elsfield Way. Meanwhile, the police arrived. Before the Governor could explain anything, McLeery told the officer to go Elsfield Way. The Governor told Detective Superintendent Carter to take injured McLeery with him. McLeery was helped inside the car. He helped the police to follow the direction indicated in the German text. <context> The Secretary of the Examinations Board The Governor of HM Prison, Oxford James Evans, a prisoner Mr Jackson, a prison officer Mr Stephens, a prison officer The Reverend S. McLeery, an invigilator Mr Carter, Detective Superintendent Mr Bell, Detective Chief Inspector All precautions have been taken to see to it that the O-level German examination arranged in the prison for Evans does not provide him with any means of escape. It was in early March when the Secretary of the Examinations Board received the call from Oxford Prison. “It’s a slightly unusual request, Governor, but I don’t see why we shouldn’t try to help. Just the one fellow, you say?” “That’s it. Chap called Evans. Started night classes in O-level German last September. Says he’s dead keen to get some sort of academic qualification.” “Is he any good?” “He was the only one in the class, so you can say he’s had individual tuition all the time, really. Would have cost him a packet if he’d been outside.” “Well, let’s give him a chance, shall we?” “That’s jolly kind of you. What exactly’s the procedure now?” “Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ll be sending you all the forms and stuff. What’s his name, you say? Evans?” “James Roderick Evans.” It sounded rather grand. “Just one thing, Governor. He’s not a violent sort of fellow, is he? I don’t want to know his criminal record or anything like that, but — ” “No. There’s no record of violence. Quite a pleasant sort of chap, they tell me. Bit of a card, really. One of the stars at the Christmas concert. Imitations, you know the sort of thing: Mike Yarwood stuff. No, he’s just a congenital kleptomaniac, that’s all.” The Governor was tempted to add something else, but he thought better of it. He’d look after that particular side of things himself. “Presumably,” said the Secretary, “you can arrange a room where — ” “No problem. He’s in a cell on his own. If you’ve no objections, he can sit the exam in there.” “That’s fine.” “And we could easily get one of the parsons from St. Mary Mags to invigilate, if that’s — ” “Fine, yes. They seem to have a lot of parsons there, don’t they?” The two men chuckled good-naturedly, and the Secretary had a final thought. “At least there’s one thing. You shouldn’t have much trouble keeping him incommunicado, should you?” The Governor chuckled politely once more, reiterated his thanks, and slowly cradled the phone. Evans! “Evans the Break” as the prison officers called him. Thrice he’d escaped from prison, and but for the recent wave of unrest in the maximum-security establishments up north, he wouldn’t now be gracing the Governor’s premises in Oxford; and the Governor was going to make absolutely certain that he wouldn’t be disgracing them. Not that Evans was a real burden: just a persistent, nagging presence. He’d be all right in Oxford, though: the Governor would see to that — would see to it personally. And besides, there was just a possibility that Evans was genuinely interested in O-level German. Just a slight possibility. Just a very slight possibility. At 8.30 p.m. on Monday 7 June, Evans’s German teacher shook him by the hand in the heavily guarded Recreational Block, just across from D Wing. “Guten Gluck, Herr Evans.” “Pardon?” “I said, “Good luck”. Good luck for tomorrow.” “Oh. Thanks, er, I mean, er, Danke Schon.” “You haven’t a cat in hell’s chance of getting through, of course, but — ” “I may surprise everybody,” said Evans. At 8.30 the following morning, Evans had a visitor. Two visitors, in fact. He tucked his grubby string-vest into his equally grubby trousers, and stood up from his bunk, smiling cheerfully. “Mornin”, Mr Jackson. This is indeed an honour.” Jackson was the senior prison officer on D Wing, and he and Evans had already become warm enemies. At Jackson’s side stood Officer Stephens, a burly, surly-looking man, only recently recruited to the profession. Jackson nodded curtly. “And how’s our little Einstein this morning, then?” “Wasn’t ’e a mathematician, Mr Jackson?” “I think ’e was a Jew, Mr. Jackson.” Evans’s face was unshaven, and he wore a filthy-looking red-and-white bobble hat upon his head. “Give me a chance, Mr Jackson. I was just goin’ to shave when you bust in.” “Which reminds me.” Jackson turned his eyes on Stephens. “Make sure you take his razor out of the cell when he’s finished scraping that ugly mug of his. Clear? One of these days he’ll do us all a favour and cut his bloody throat.” For a few seconds Evans looked thoughtfully at the man standing ramrod straight in front of him, a string of Second World War medals proudly paraded over his left breast-pocket. “Mr Jackson? Was it you who took my nail-scissors away?” Evans had always worried about his hands. “And your nail-file, too.” “Look!’ For a moment Evans’s eyes smouldered dangerously, but Jackson was ready for him. “Orders of the Governor, Evans.” He leaned forward and leered, his voice dropping to a harsh, contemptuous whisper. “You want to complain?” Evans shrugged his shoulders lightly. The crisis was over. “You’ve got half an hour to smarten yourself up, Evans — and take that bloody hat off!” “Me ’at? Huh!” Evans put his right hand lovingly on top of the filthy woollen, and smiled sadly. “D’you know, Mr Jackson, it’s the only thing that’s ever brought me any sort o’ luck in life. Kind o’ lucky charm, if you know what I mean. And today I thought — well, with me exam and all that...” Buried somewhere in Jackson, was a tiny core of compassion; and Evans knew it. “Just this once, then, Shirley Temple.” (If there was one thing that Jackson genuinely loathed about Evans it was his long, wavy hair.) “And get shaving!” At 8.45 the same morning the Reverend Stuart McLeery left his bachelor flat in Broad Street and stepped out briskly towards Carfax. The weatherman reported temperatures considerably below the normal for early June, and a long black overcoat and a shallow-crowned clerical hat provided welcome protection from the steady drizzle which had set in half an hour earlier and which now spattered the thick lenses of his spectacles. In his right hand he was carrying a small brown suitcase, which contained all that he would need for his morning duties, including a sealed question paper envelope, a yellow invigilation form, a special “authentication” card from the Examinations Board, a paper knife, a Bible (he was to speak to the Women’s Guild that afternoon on the Book of Ruth), and a current copy of The Church Times. The two-hour examination was scheduled to start at 9.15 a.m. Evans was lathering his face vigorously when Stephens brought in two small square tables, and set them opposite each other in the narrow space between the bunk on the one side and on the other a distempered stone wall. Next, Stephens brought in two hard chairs, the slightly less battered of which he placed in front of the table which stood nearer the cell door. Jackson put in a brief final appearance. “Behave yourself, laddy!” Evans turned and nodded. “And these” — (Jackson pointed to the pin-ups) — “off!” Evans turned and nodded again. “I was goin’ to take “em down anyway. A minister, isn’t ’e? The chap comin’ to sit in, I mean.” “And how did you know that?” asked Jackson quietly. “Well, I ’ad to sign some forms, didn’t I? And I couldn’t ’elp — ” Evans drew the razor carefully down his left cheek, and left a neat swath in the white lather. “Can I ask you something, Mr. Jackson? Why did they ’ave to bug me in this cell?” He nodded his head vaguely to a point above the door. “Not a very neat job,” conceded Jackson. “They’re not — they don’t honestly think I’m goin’ to try to — ” “They’re taking no chances, Evans. Nobody in his senses would take any chance with you.” “Who’s goin’ to listen in?” “I’ll tell you who’s going to listen in, laddy. It’s the Governor himself, see? He don’t trust you a bloody inch — and nor do I. I’ll be watching you like a hawk, Evans, so keep your nose clean. Clear?” He walked towards the door. Evans nodded. He’d already thought of that, and Number Two Handkerchief was lying ready on the bunk — a neatly folded square of off-white linen. “Just one more thing, Einstein.” “Ya? Wha’s ‘at?” “Good luck, old son.” In the little lodge just inside the prison’s main gates, the Reverend S. McLeery signed his name neatly in the visitors’ book, and thence walked side by side with a silent prison officer across the exercise yard to D Wing, where he was greeted by Jackson. The Wing’s heavy outer door was unlocked, and locked behind them, the heavy inner door the same, and McLeery was handed into Stephens’s keeping. “Get the razor?” murmured Jackson. Stephens nodded. “Well, keep your eyes skinned. Clear?” Stephens nodded again; and McLeery, his feet clanging up the iron stairs, followed his new guide, and finally stood before a cell door, where Stephens opened the peep-hole and looked through. “That’s him, sir.” Evans, facing the door, sat quietly at the farther of the two tables, his whole attention riveted to a textbook of elementary German grammar. Stephens took the key from its ring, and the cell lock sprang back with a thudded, metallic twang. It was 9.10 a.m. when the Governor switched on the receiver. He had instructed Jackson to tell Evans of the temporary little precaution — that was only fair. (As if Evans wouldn’t spot it!) But wasn’t it all a bit theatrical? Schoolboyish, almost? How on earth was Evans going to try anything on today? If he was so anxious to make another break, why in heaven’s name hadn’t he tried it from the Recreational Block? Much easier. But he hadn’t. And there he was now — sitting in a locked cell, all the prison officers on the alert, two more locked doors between his cell and the yard, and a yard with a wall as high as a haystack. Yes, Evans was as safe as houses... Anyway, it wouldn’t be any trouble at all to have the receiver turned on for the next couple of hours or so. It wasn’t as if there was going to be anything to listen to, was it? Amongst other things, an invigilator’s duty was to ensure that the strictest silence was observed. But... but still that little nagging doubt! Might Evans try to take advantage of McLeery? Get him to smuggle in a chisel or two, or a rope ladder, or — The Governor sat up sharply. It was all very well getting rid of any potential weapon that Evans could have used; but what about McLeery? What if, quite unwittingly, the innocent McLeery had brought in something himself? A jack-knife, perhaps? And what if Evans held him hostage with such a weapon? The Governor reached for the phone. It was 9.12 a.m. The examinee and the invigilator had already been introduced by Stephens when Jackson came back and shouted to McLeery through the cell door. “Can you come outside a minute, sir? You too, Stephens.” Jackson quickly explained the Governor’s worries, and McLeery patiently held out his arms at shoulder level whilst Jackson lightly frisked his clothes. “Something hard here, sir.” “Ma reading glasses,” replied McLeery, looking down at the spectacle case. Jackson quickly reassured him, and bending down on the landing thumb-flicked the catches on the suitcase. He picked up each envelope in turn, carefully passed his palms along their surfaces — and seemed satisfied. He riffled cursorily through a few pages of Holy Writ, and vaguely shook The Church Times. All right, so far. But one of the objects in McLeery’s suitcase was puzzling him sorely. “Do you mind telling me why you’ve brought this, sir?” He held up a smallish semi-inflated rubber ring, such as a young child with a waist of about twelve inches might have struggled into. “You thinking of going for a swim, sir?” McLeery’s hitherto amiable demeanour was slightly ruffled by this tasteless little pleasantry, and he answered Jackson somewhat sourly. “If ye must know, I suffer from haemorrhoids, and when I’m sitting down for any length o’ time —” “Very sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to, er...” The embarrassment was still reddening Jackson’s cheeks when he found the paper-knife at the bottom of the case. “I think I’d better keep this though, if you don’t mind, that is, sir.” It was 9.18 a.m. before the Governor heard their voices again, and it was clear that the examination was going to be more than a little late in getting under way. MCLEERY: “Ye’ve got a watch?” EVANS: “Yes, sir.” MCLEERY: “I’ll be telling ye when to start, and again when ye’ve five minutes left. A’ right?” Silence. MCLEERY: “There’s plenty more o’ this writing paper should ye need it.” Silence. MCLEERY: “Now. Write the name of the paper, 021-1, in the top left-hand corner.” Silence. MCLEERY: “In the top right-hand corner write your index number-313. And in the box just below that, write your centre number-271. A’ right?” Silence. 9.20 a.m. MCLEERY: “I’m now going to — ” EVANS: “E’s not goin’ to stay ’ere, is ’e?” MCLEERY: “I don’t know about that. I — ” STEPHENS: “Mr Jackson’s given me strict instructions to — ” EVANS: “How am I suppose to concentrate on my exam... with someone breathin’ down my neck? Christ! Sorry, sir, I didn’t mean — ” The Governor reached for the phone. “Jackson? Ah, good. Get Stephens out of that cell, will you? I think we’re perhaps overdoing things.” “As you wish, sir.” The Governor heard the exchanges in the cell, heard the door clang once more, and heard McLeery announce that the examination had begun at last. It was 9.25 a.m.; and there was a great calm. At 9.40 a.m. the Examinations Board rang through, and the Assistant Secretary with special responsibility for modern languages asked to speak to the Governor. The examination had already started, no doubt? Ah, a quarter of an hour ago. Yes. Well, there was a correction slip which some fool had forgotten to place in the examination package. Very brief. “Could the Governor please...? “Yes, of course. I’ll put you straight through to Mr Jackson in D Wing. Hold the line a minute.” Was this the sort of thing the Governor had feared? Was the phone call a fake? Some signal? Some secret message...? But he could check on that immediately. He dialled the number of the Examinations Board, but heard only the staccato bleeps of a line engaged. But then the line was engaged, wasn’t it? Yes. Not very intelligent, that... Two minutes later he heard some whispered communications in the cell, and then McLeery’s broad Scots voice: “Will ye please stop writing a wee while, Mr Evans, and listen carefully. Candidates offering German, 021-1, should note the following correction. ‘On page three, line fifteen, the fourth word should read goldenen, not, goldene; and the whole phrase will therefore read zum goldenen Lowen, not zum goldene Lowen.’ I will repeat that...” The Governor listened and smiled. He had taken German in the sixth form himself, and he remembered all about the agreements of adjectives. And so did McLeery, by the sound of things, for the minister’s pronunciation was most impressive. But what about Evans? He probably didn’t know what an adjective was. The phone rang again. The Magistrates’ Court. They needed a prison van and a couple of prison officers. Remand case. And within two minutes the Governor was wondering whether that could be a hoax. He told himself not to be so silly. His imagination was beginning to run riot. Evans! For the first quarter of an hour Stephens had dutifully peered through the peep-hole at intervals of one minute or so; and after that, every two minutes. At 10.45 a.m. everything was still all right as he looked through the peephole once more. It took four or five seconds — no more. What was the point? It was always more or less the same. Evans, his pen between his lips, sat staring straight in front of him towards the door, seeking — it seemed — some sorely needed inspiration from somewhere. And opposite him McLeery, seated slightly askew from the table now: his face in semi-profile; his hair (as Stephens had noticed earlier) amateurishly clipped pretty closely to the scalp; his eyes behind the pebble lenses peering short-sightedly at The Church Times; his right index finger hooked beneath the narrow clerical collar; and the fingers of the left hand, the nails meticulously manicured, slowly stroking the short black beard. At 10.50 a.m. the receiver crackled to life and the Governor realised he’d almost forgotten Evans for a few minutes. EVANS: “Please, sir!” (A whisper) EVANS: “Please, sir!” (Louder) EVANS: “Would you mind if I put a blanket round me shoulders, sir? It’s a bit parky in ’ere, isn’t it?” Silence. EVANS: “There’s one on me bunk ’ere, sir.” MCLEERY: “Be quick about it.” Silence. At 10.51 a.m. Stephens was more than a little surprised to see a grey regulation blanket draped round Evans’s shoulders, and he frowned slightly and looked at the examinee more closely. But Evans, the pen still between his teeth, was staring just as vacantly as before. Blankly beneath a blanket... Should Stephens report the slight irregularity? Anything at all fishy, hadn’t Jackson said? He looked through the peep-hole once again, and even as he did so Evans pulled the dirty blanket more closely to himself. Was he planning a sudden batman leap to suffocate McLeery in the blanket? Don’t be daft! There was never any sun on this side of the prison; no heating, either, during the summer months, and it could get quite chilly in some of the cells. Stephens decided to revert to his earlier every minute observation. At 11.20 a.m. the receiver once more crackled across the silence of the Governor’s office, and McLeery informed Evans that only five minutes remained. The examination was almost over now, but something still gnawed away quietly in the Governor’s mind. He reached for the phone once more. At 11.22 a.m. Jackson shouted along the corridor to Stephens. The Governor wanted to speak with him — “Hurry, man!” Stephens picked up the phone apprehensively and listened to the rapidly spoken orders. Stephens himself was to accompany McLeery to the main prison gates. Understood? Stephens personally was to make absolutely sure that the door was locked on Evans after McLeery had left the cell. Understood? Understood. At 11.25 a.m. the Governor heard the final exchanges. MCLEERY: “Stop writing, please.” Silence. MCLEERY: “Put your sheets in order and see they’re correctly numbered.” Silence. Scraping of chairs and tables. EVANS: “Thank you very much, sir.” MCLEERY: “A’ right, was it?” EVANS: “Not too bad.” MCLEERY: “Good... Mr Stephens!” (Very loud) The Governor heard the door clang for the last time. The examination was over. “How did he get on, do you think?” asked Stephens as he walked beside McLeery to the main gates. “Och. I canna think he’s distinguished himself, I’m afraid.” His Scots accent seemed broader than ever, and his long black overcoat, reaching almost to his knees, fostered the illusion that he had suddenly grown slimmer. Stephens felt pleased that the Governor had asked him, and not Jackson, to see McLeery off the premises, and all in all the morning had gone pretty well. But something stopped him from making his way directly to the canteen for a belated cup of coffee. He wanted to take just one last look at Evans. It was like a programme he’d seen on TV — about a woman who could never really convince herself that she’d locked the front door when she’d gone to bed: often she’d got up twelve, fifteen, sometimes twenty times to check the bolts. He re-entered D Wing, made his way along to Evans’s cell, and opened the peep-hole once more. Oh, no! CHRIST, NO! There, sprawled back in Evans’s chair was a man (for a semi second Stephens thought it must be Evans), a grey regulation blanket slipping from his shoulders, the front of his closely cropped, irregularly tufted hair awash with fierce red blood which had dripped already through the small black beard, and was even now spreading horribly over the white clerical collar and down into the black clerical front. Stephens shouted wildly for Jackson: and the words appeared to penetrate the curtain of blood that veiled McLeery’s ears, for the minister’s hand felt feebly for a handkerchief from his pocket, and held it to his bleeding head, the blood seeping slowly through the white linen. He gave a long low moan, and tried to speak. But his voice trailed away, and by the time Jackson had arrived and despatched Stephens to ring the police and the ambulance, the handkerchief was a sticky, squelchy wodge of cloth. McLeery slowly raised himself, his face twisted tightly with pain. “Dinna worry about the ambulance, man! I’m a’ right... I’m a’ right... Get the police! I know...I know where... he...” He closed his eyes and another drip of blood splashed like a huge red raindrop on the wooden floor. His hand felt along the table, found the German question paper, and grasped it tightly in his bloodstained hand. “Get the Governor! I know... I know where Evans...” Almost immediately sirens were sounding, prison officers barked orders, puzzled prisoners pushed their way along the corridors, doors were banged and bolted, and phones were ringing everywhere. And within a minute McLeery, with Jackson and Stephens supporting him on either side, his face now streaked and caked with drying blood, was greeted in the prison yard by the Governor, perplexed and grim. “We must get you to hospital immediately. I just don’t — ” “Ye’ve called the police?” “Yes, yes. They’re on their way. But — ” “I’m a’ right. I’m a’ right. Look! Look here!” Awkwardly he opened the German question paper and thrust it before the Governor’s face. “It’s there! D’ye see what I mean?” The Governor looked down and realised what McLeery was trying to tell him. A photocopied sheet had been carefully and cleverly superimposed over the last (originally blank) page of the question paper. “Ye see what they’ve done, Governor. Ye see...” His voice trailed off again, as the Governor, dredging the layers of long neglected learning, willed himself to translate the German text before him: Sie sollen dem schon verabredeten Plan genau folgen. Der wichtige Zeitpunkt ist drei Minuten vor Ende des Examens... “You must follow the plan already somethinged. The vital point in time is three minutes before the end of the examination but something something — something something... Don’t hit him too hard — remember, he’s a minister! And don’t overdo the Scots accent when...” A fast-approaching siren wailed to its crescendo, the great doors of the prison yard were pushed back, and a white police car squealed to a jerky halt beside them. Detective Superintendent Carter swung himself out of the passenger seat and saluted the Governor. “What the hell’s happening, sir?” And, turning to McLeery: “Christ! Who’s hit him?” But McLeery cut across whatever explanation the Governor might have given. “Elsfield Way, officer! I know where Evans...” He was breathing heavily, and leaned for support against the side of the car, where the imprint of his hand was left in tarnished crimson. In bewilderment Carter looked to the Governor for guidance. “What — ?” “Take him with you, if you think he’ll be all right. He’s the only one who seems to know what’s happening.” Carter opened the back door and helped McLeery inside; and within a few seconds the car leaped away in a spurt of gravel. “Elsfield Way”, McLeery had said; and there it was staring up at the Governor from the last few lines of the German text: “From Elsfield Way drive to the Headington roundabout, where...” Yes, of course. The Examinations Board was in Elsfield Way, and someone from the Board must have been involved in the escape plan from the very beginning: the question paper itself, the correction slip... The Governor turned to Jackson and Stephens. “I don’t need to tell you what’s happened, do I?” His voice sounded almost calm in its scathing contempt. “And which one of you two morons was it who took Evans for a nice little walk to the main gates and waved him bye-bye?” “It was me, sir,” stammered Stephens. “Just like you told me, sir. I could have sworn — ” “What? Just like I told you, you say? What the hell — ?” “When you rang, sir, and told me to — ” “When was that?” The Governor’s voice was a whiplash now. “You know, sir. About twenty past eleven just before — ” “You blithering idiot, man! It wasn’t me who rang you. Don’t you realise — ” But what was the use? He had used the telephone at that time, but only to try (unsuccessfully, once more) to get through to the Examinations Board. He shook his head in growing despair and turned on the senior prison officer. “As for you, Jackson! How long have you been pretending you’ve got a brain, eh? Well, I’ll tell you something, Jackson. Your skull’s empty. Absolutely empty!” It was Jackson who had spent two hours in Evans’s cell the previous evening; and it was Jackson who had confidently reported that there was nothing hidden away there — nothing at all. And yet Evans had somehow managed to conceal not only a false beard, a pair of spectacles, a dogcollar and all the rest of his clerical paraphernalia, but also some sort of weapon with which he’d given McLeery such a terrible blow across the head. Aurrgh! A prison van backed alongside, but the Governor made no immediate move. He looked down again at the last line of the German: “...to the Headington roundabout, where you go straight over and make your way to...to Neugraben.” “Neugraben”? Where on earth — ? “New” something. “Newgrave”? Never heard of it: There was a “Wargrave”, somewhere near Reading, but... No, it was probably a code word, or — And then it hit him. Newbury! God, yes! Newbury was a pretty big sort of place but He rapped out his orders to the driver. “St Aldates Police Station, and step on it! Take Jackson and Stephens here, and when you get there ask for Bell. Chief Inspector Bell. Got that?” He leaped the stairs to his office three at a time, got Bell on the phone immediately, and put the facts before him. “We’ll get him, sir,” said Bell. “We’ll get him, with a bit o’luck.” The Governor sat back, and lit a cigarette. Ye gods! What a beautifully laid plan it had all been! What a clever fellow Evans was! Careless leaving that question paper behind; but then, they all made their mistakes somewhere along the line. Well, almost all of them. And that’s why very very shortly Mr clever-clever Evans would be back inside doing his once more. The phone on his desk erupted in a strident burst, and Superintendent Carter informed him that McLeery had spotted Evans driving off along Elsfield Way; they’d got the number of the car all right and had given chase immediately, but had lost him at the Headington roundabout; he must have doubled back into the city. “No,” said the Governor quietly. “No, he’s on his way to Newbury.” He explained his reasons for believing so, and left it at that. It was a police job now — not his. He was just another good-for-a-giggle, gullible governor, that was all. “By the way, Carter. I hope you managed to get McLeery to the hospital all right?” “Yes. He’s in the Radcliffe now. Really groggy, he was, when we got to the Examination offices, and they rang for the ambulance from there.” The Governor rang the Radcliffe a few minutes later and asked for the accident department. “McLeery, you say?” “Yes. He’s a parson.” “I don’t think there’s anyone — ” “Yes, there is. You’ll find one of your ambulances picked him up from Elsfield Way about — ” “Oh, that. Yes, we sent an ambulance all right, but when we got there, the fellow had gone. No one seemed to know where he was. Just vanished! Not a sign — ” But the Governor was no longer listening, and the truth seemed to hit him with an almost physical impact somewhere in the back of his neck. A quarter of an hour later they found the Reverend S. McLeery, securely bound and gagged, in his study in Broad Street. He’d been there, he said, since 8.15 a.m., when two men had called and... Enquiries in Newbury throughout the afternoon produced nothing. Nothing at all. And by tea-time everyone in the prison knew what had happened. It had not been Evans, impersonating McLeery, who had walked out; it had been Evans, impersonating McLeery, who had stayed in. The fish and chips were delicious, and after a gentle stroll round the centre of Chipping Norton, Evans decided to return to the hotel and have an early night. A smart new hat concealed the wreckage of his closely cropped hair, and he kept it on as he walked up to the reception desk of the Golden Lion. It would take a good while for his hair to regain its former glories — but what the hell did that matter. He was out again, wasn’t he? A bit of bad luck, that, when Jackson had pinched his scissors, for it had meant a long and tricky operation with his only razor blade the previous night. Ah! But he’d had his good luck, too. Just think! If Jackson had made him take his bobble hat off! Phew! That really had been a close call. Still, old Jackson wasn’t such a bad fellow... One of the worst things — funny, really! — had been the beard. He’d always been allergic to sticking plaster, and even now his chin was irritatingly sore and red. The receptionist wasn’t the same girl who’d booked him in, but the change was definitely for the better. As he collected his key, he gave her his best smile, told her he wouldn’t be bothering with breakfast, ordered the Daily Express, and asked for an early-morning call at 6.45 a.m. Tomorrow was going to be another busy day. He whistled softly to himself as he walked up the broad stairs... He’d sort of liked the idea of being dressed up as a minister dog collar and everything. Yes, it had been a jolly good idea for “McLeery’ to wear two black fronts, two collars. But that top collar! Phew! It had kept on slipping off the back stud; and there’d been that one panicky moment when “McLeery’ had only just got his hand up to his neck in time to stop the collars springing apart before Stephens... Ah! They’d got that little problem worked out all right, though: a pen stuck in the mouth whenever the evil eye had appeared at the peep-hole. Easy! But all that fiddling about under the blanket with the black front and the stud at the back of the collar — that had been far more difficult than they’d ever bargained for... Everything else had gone beautifully smoothly, though. In the car he’d found everything they’d promised him: soap and water, clothes, the map — yes, the map, of course. The Ordnance Survey Map of Oxfordshire... He’d got some good friends; some very clever friends. Christ, ah! He unlocked his bedroom door and closed it quietly behind him — and then stood frozen to the spot, like a man who has just caught a glimpse of the Gorgon. Sitting on the narrow bed was the very last man in the world that Evans had expected — or wanted — to see. “It’s not worth trying anything,” said the Governor quietly, as Evans’s eyes darted desperately around the room. “I’ve got men all round the place.” (Well, there were only two, really: but Evans needn’t know that.) He let the words sink in. “Women, too. Didn’t you think the blonde girl in reception was rather sweet?” Evans was visibly shaken. He sat down slowly in the only chair the small room could offer, and held his head between his hands. For several minutes there was utter silence. Finally, he spoke. “It was that bloody correction slip, I s’pose.” “We-ell” (the Governor failed to mask the deep satisfaction in his voice) “there are a few people who know a little German.” Slowly, very slowly, Evans relaxed. He was beaten — and he knew it. He sat up at last, and managed to smile ruefully. “You know, it wasn’t really a mistake. You see, we ‘adn’t been able to fix up any ‘otel, but we could’ve worked that some other way. No. The really important thing was for the phone to ring just before the exam finished — to get everyone out of the way for a couple of minutes. So we ‘ad to know exactly when the exam started, didn’t we?” “And, like a fool, I presented you with that little piece of information on a plate.” “Well, somebody did. So, you see, sir, that correction slip killed two little birds with a single stone, didn’t it? The name of the ‘otel for me, and the exact time the exam started for, er, for, er...” The Governor nodded. “It’s a pretty common word.” “Good job it is pretty common, sir, or I’d never ‘ave known where to come to, would I?” “Nice name, though: zum goldenen Lowen.” “How did you know which Golden Lion it was? There’s ‘undreds of ‘em.” “Same as you, Evans. Index number 313; Centre number 271. Remember? Six figures? And if you take an Ordnance Survey Map for Oxfordshire, you find that the six-figure reference 313/271 lands you bang in the middle of Chipping Norton.” “Yea, you’re right. Huh! We’d ‘oped you’d run off to Newbury.” “We did.” “Well, that’s something, I s’pose.” “That question paper, Evans. Could you really understand all that German? I could hardly — ” “Nah! Course I couldn’t. I knew roughly what it was all about, but we just ‘oped it’d throw a few spanners in the works — you know, sort of muddle everybody a bit.’ The Governor stood up. “Tell me one thing before we go. How on earth did you get all that blood to pour over your head?” Evans suddenly looked a little happier. “Clever, sir. Very clever, that was — ‘ow to get a couple o’ pints of blood into a cell, eh? When there’s none there to start off with, and when, er, and when the “invigilator”, shall we say, gets, searched before ‘e comes in. Yes, sir. You can well ask about that, and I dunno if I ought to tell you. After all, I might want to use that particular — ” “Anything to do with a little rubber ring for piles, perhaps?” Evans grinned feebly. “Clever, though, wasn’t it?” “Must have been a tricky job sticking a couple of pints “Nah! You’ve got it wrong, sir. No problem about that.” “No?” “Nah! It’s the clotting, you see. That’s the big trouble. We got the blood easy enough. Pig’s blood, it was — from the slaughter’ouse in Kidlington. But to stop it clotting you’ve got to mix yer actual blood” (Evans took a breath) “with one tenth of its own volume of 3.8 per cent trisodium citrate! Didn’t know that, did you, sir?” The Governor shook his head in a token of reluctant admiration. “We learn something new every day, they tell me. Come on, m’lad.” Evans made no show of resistance, and side by side the two men walked slowly down the stairs. “Tell me, Evans. How did you manage to plan all this business? You’ve had no visitors — I’ve seen to that. You’ve had no letters — ” “I’ve got lots of friends, though.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” “Me German teacher, for a start.” “You mean — ? But he was from the Technical College.” “Was ‘e?’ Evans was almost enjoying it all now. “Ever check up on ‘im, sir?” “God Almighty! There’s far more going on than I — ” “Always will be, sir.” “Everything ready?” asked the Governor as they stood by the reception desk. “The van’s out the front, sir,” said the pretty blonde receptionist. Evans winked at her; and she winked back at him. It almost made his day. A silent prison officer handcuffed the recaptured Evans, and together the two men clambered awkwardly into the back seat of the prison van. “See you soon, Evans.” It was almost as if the Governor were saying farewell to an old friend after a cocktail party. “Cheerio, sir. I, er, I was just wonderin’. I know your German’s pretty good, sir, but do you know any more o’ these modern languages?” “Not very well. Why?” Evans settled himself comfortably on the back seat, and grinned happily. ‘Nothin’, really. I just ‘appened to notice that you’ve got some O-level Italian classes comin’ up next September, that’s all.’ “Perhaps you won’t be with us next September, Evans.” James Roderick Evans appeared to ponder the Governor’s words deeply. “No. P’r’aps I won’t,” he said. As the prison van turned right from Chipping Norton on to the Oxford road, the hitherto silent prison officer unlocked the handcuffs and leaned forward towards the driver, “For Christ’s sake get a move on! It won’t take ‘em long to find out —’ “Where do ye suggest we make for?” asked the driver, in a broad Scots accent.. “What about Newbury?” suggested Evans.

What does Chubukov at first suspect that Lomov has come for?

<answer> At first Chubukov suspected that Lomov had come to borrow money as he was in his evening dress. <context> A drawing-room in Chubukov‘s house. Lomov enters, wearing a dress-jacket and white gloves. Chubukov rises to meet him. CHUBUKOV : My dear fellow, whom do I see! Ivan Vassilevitch! I am extremely glad! [Squeezes his hand] Now this is a surprise, my darling... How are you? LOMOV : Thank you. And how may you be getting on? CHUBUKOV : We just get along somehow, my angel, thanks to your prayers, and so on. Sit down, please do... Now, you know, you shouldn’t forget all about your neighbours, my darling. My dear fellow, why are you so formal in your get-up! Evening dress, gloves, and so on. Can you be going anywhere, my treasure? LOMOV : No. I’ve come only to see you, honoured Stepan Stepanovitch. CHUBUKOV : Then why are you in evening dress, my precious? As if you’re paying a New Year’s Eve visit! LOMOV : Well, you see, it’s like this. [Takes his arm] I’ve come to you, honoured Stepan Stepanovitch, to trouble you with a request. Not once or twice have I already had the privilege of applying to you for help, and you have always, so to speak... I must ask your pardon, I am getting excited. I shall drink some water, honoured Stepan Stepanovitch. [Drinks.] CHUBUKOV : [aside] He’s come to borrow money. Shan’t give him any! [aloud] What is it, my beauty? LOMOV : You see, Honoured Stepanitch... I beg pardon Stepan Honouritch... I mean, I’m awfully excited, as you will please notice... In short, you alone can help me, though I don’t deserve it, of course... and haven’t any right to count on your assistance... CHUBUKOV : Oh, don’t go round and round it, darling! Spit it out! Well? LOMOV : One moment... this very minute. The fact is I’ve come to ask the hand of your daughter, Natalya Stepanovna, in marriage. CHUBUKOV : [joyfully] By Jove! Ivan Vassilevitch! Say it again — I didn’t hear it all! LOMOV : I have the honour to ask... CHUBUKOV : [interrupting] My dear fellow... I’m so glad, and so on... Yes, indeed, and all that sort of thing. [Embraces and kisses Lomov] I’ve been hoping for it for a long time. It’s been my continual desire. [Sheds a tear] And I’ve always loved you, my angel, as if you were my own son. May God give you both — His help and His love and so on, and so much hope... What am I behaving in this idiotic way for? I’m off my balance with joy, absolutely off my balance! Oh, with all my soul... I’ll go and call Natasha, and all that. LOMOV : [greatly moved] Honoured Stepan Stepanovitch, do you think I may count on her consent? CHUBUKOV : Why, of course, my darling, and... as if she won’t consent! She’s in love; egad, she’s like a lovesick cat, and so on. Shan’t be long! [Exit.] LOMOV : It’s cold... I’m trembling all over, just as if I’d got an examination before me. The great thing is, I must have my mind made up. If I give myself time to think, to hesitate, to talk a lot, to look for an ideal, or for real love, then I’ll never get married. Brr... It’s cold! Natalya Stepanovna is an excellent housekeeper, not bad-looking, well-educated. What more do I want? But I’m getting a noise in my ears from excitement. [Drinks] And it’s impossible for me not to marry. In the first place, I’m already 35 — a critical age, so to speak. In the second place, I ought to lead a quiet and regular life. I suffer from palpitations, I’m excitable and always getting awfully upset; at this very moment my lips are trembling, and there’s a twitch in my right eyebrow. But the very worst of all is the way I sleep. I no sooner get into bed and begin to go off, when suddenly something in my left side gives a pull, and I can feel it in my shoulder and head... I jump up like a lunatic, walk about a bit and lie down again, but as soon as I begin to get off to sleep there’s another pull! And this may happen twenty times... [Natalya Stepanovna comes in.] NATLYA : Well, there! It’s you, and papa said, “Go; there’s a merchant come for his goods.” How do you do, Ivan Vassilevitch? LOMOV : How do you do, honoured Natalya Stepanovna? NATALYA : You must excuse my apron and neglige. We’re shelling peas for drying. Why haven’t you been here for such a long time? Sit down... [They seat themselves.] Won’t you have some lunch? LOMOV : No, thank you, I’ve had some already. NATALYA : Then smoke. Here are the matches. The weather is splendid now, but yesterday it was so wet that the workmen didn’t do anything all day. How much hay have you stacked? Just think, I felt greedy and had a whole field cut, and now I’m not at all pleased about it because I’m afraid my hay may rot. I ought to have waited a bit. But what’s this? Why, you’re in evening dress! Well, I never! Are you going to a ball or what? Though I must say you look better... Tell me, why are you got up like that? LOMOV : [excited] You see, honoured Natalya Stepanovna... the fact is, I’ve made up my mind to ask you to hear me out... Of course you’ll be surprised and perhaps even angry, but a... [aside] It’s awfully cold! NATALYA : What’s the matter? [pause] Well? LOMOV : I shall try to be brief. You must know, honoured Natalya Stepanovna, that I have long, since my childhood, in fact, had the privilege of knowing your family. My late aunt and her husband, from whom, as you know, I inherited my land, always had the greatest respect for your father and your late mother. The Lomovs and the Chubukovs have always had the most friendly, and I might almost say the most affectionate, regard for each other. And, as you know, my land is a near neighbour of yours. You will remember that my Oxen Meadows touch your birchwoods. NATALYA : Excuse my interrupting you. You say, “my Oxen Meadows”. But are they yours? LOMOV : Yes, mine. NATALYA : What are you talking about? Oxen Meadows are ours, not yours! LOMOV : No, mine, honoured Natalya Stepanovna. NATALYA : Well, I never knew that before. How do you make that out? LOMOV : How? I’m speaking of those Oxen Meadows which are wedged in between your birchwoods and the Burnt Marsh. NATALYA : Yes, yes... they’re ours. LOMOV : No, you’re mistaken, honoured Natalya Stepanovna, they’re mine. NATALYA : Just think, Ivan Vassilevitch! How long have they been yours? LOMOV : How long? As long as I can remember. NATALYA : Really, you won’t get me to believe that! LOMOV : But you can see from the documents, honoured Natalya Stepanovna. Oxen Meadows, it’s true, were once the subject of dispute, but now everybody knows that they are mine. There’s nothing to argue about. You see my aunt’s grandmother gave the free use of these Meadows in perpetuity to the peasants of your father’s grandfather, in return for which they were to make bricks for her. The peasants belonging to your father’s grandfather had the free use of the Meadows for forty years, and had got into the habit of regarding them as their own, when it happened that... NATALYA : No, it isn’t at all like that! Both grandfather and greatgrandfather reckoned that their land extended to Burnt Marsh — which means that Oxen Meadows were ours. I don’t see what there is to argue about. It’s simply silly! LOMOV : I’ll show you the documents, Natalya Stepanovna! NATALYA : No, you’re simply joking, or making fun of me. What a surprise! We’ve had the land for nearly three hundred years, and then we’re suddenly told that it isn’t ours! Ivan Vassilevitch, I can hardly believe my own ears. These Meadows aren’t worth much to me. They only come to five dessiatins, and are worth perhaps 300 roubles, but I can’t stand unfairness. Say what you will, I can’t stand unfairness. LOMOV : Hear me out, I implore you! The peasants of your father’s grandfather, as I have already had the honour of explaining to you, used to bake bricks for my aunt’s grandmother. Now my aunt’s grandmother, wishing to make them a pleasant... NATALYA : I can’t make head or tail of all this about aunts and grandfathers and grandmothers. The Meadows are ours, that’s all. LOMOV : Mine. NATALYA : Ours! You can go on proving it for two days on end, you can go and put on fifteen dress jackets, but I tell you they’re ours, ours, ours! I don’t want anything of yours and I don’t want to give anything of mine. So there! LOMOV : Natalya Stepanovna, I don’t want the Meadows, but I am acting on principle. If you like, I’ll make you a present of them. NATALYA : I can make you a present of them myself, because they’re mine! Your behaviour, Ivan Vassilevitch, is strange, to say the least! Up to this we have always thought of you as a good neighbour, a friend; last year we lent you our threshing-machine, although on that account we had to put off our own threshing till November, but you behave to us as if we were gypsies. Giving me my own land, indeed! No, really, that’s not at all neighbourly! In my opinion, it’s even impudent, if you want to know. LOMOV : Then you make out that I’m a landgrabber? Madam, never in my life have I grabbed anybody else’s land and I shan’t allow anybody to accuse me of having done so. [Quickly steps to the carafe and drinks more water] Oxen Meadows are mine! NATALYA : It’s not true, they’re ours! LOMOV : Mine! NATALYA : It’s not true! I’ll prove it! I’ll send my mowers out to the Meadows this very day! LOMOV : What? NATALYA : My mowers will be there this very day! LOMOV : I’ll give it to them in the neck! NATALYA : You dare! LOMOV : [Clutches at his heart] Oxen Meadows are mine! You understand? Mine! NATALYA : Please don’t shout! You can shout yourself hoarse in your own house but here I must ask you to restrain yourself! LOMOV : If it wasn’t, madam, for this awful, excruciating palpitation, if my whole inside wasn’t upset, I’d talk to you in a different way! [Yells] Oxen Meadows are mine! NATALYA : Ours! LOMOV : Mine! NATALYA : Ours! LOMOV : Mine! [Enter Chubukov] CHUBUKOV : What’s the matter? What are you shouting for? NATALYA : Papa, please tell this gentleman who owns Oxen Meadows, we or he? CHUBUKOV : [to Lomov] Darling, the Meadows are ours! LOMOV : But, please, Stepan Stepanovitch, how can they be yours? Do be a reasonable man! My aunt’s grandmother gave the Meadows for the temporary and free use of your grandfather’s peasants. The peasants used the land for forty years and got accustomed to it as if it was their own, when it happened that... CHUBUKOV : Excuse me, my precious. You forget just this, that the peasants didn’t pay your grandmother and all that, because the Meadows were in dispute, and so on. And now everybody knows that they’re ours. It means that you haven’t seen the plan. LOMOV : I’ll prove to you that they’re mine! CHUBUKOV : You won’t prove it, my darling — LOMOV : I shall CHUBUKOV : Dear one, why yell like that? You won’t prove anything just by yelling. I don’t want anything of yours, and don’t intend to give up what I have. Why should I? And you know, my beloved, that if you propose to go on arguing about it, I’d much sooner give up the Meadows to the peasants than to you. There! LOMOV : I don’t understand! How have you the right to give away somebody else’s property? CHUBUKOV : You may take it that I know whether I have the right or not. Because, young man, I’m not used to being spoken to in that tone of voice, and so on. I, young man, am twice your age, and ask you to speak to me without agitating yourself, and all that. LOMOV : No, you just think I’m a fool and want to have me on! You call my land yours, and then you want me to talk to you calmly and politely! Good neighbours don’t behave like that, Stepan Stepanovitch! You’re not a neighbour, you’re a grabber! CHUBUKOV : What’s that? What did you say? NATALYA : Papa, send the mowers out to the Meadows at once! CHUBUKOV : What did you say, sir? NATALYA : Oxen Meadows are ours, and I shan’t give them up, shan’t give them up, shan’t give them up! LOMOV : We’ll see! I’ll have the matter taken to court, and then I’ll show you! CHUBUKOV : To court? You can take it to court, and all that! You can! I know you; you’re just on the look-out for a chance to go to court, and all that. You pettifogger! All your people were like that! All of them! LOMOV : Never mind about my people! The Lomovs have all been honourable people, and not one has ever been tried for embezzlement, like your grandfather! CHUBUKOV : You Lomovs have had lunacy in your family, all of you! NATALYA : All, all, all! CHUBUKOV : Your grandfather was a drunkard, and your younger aunt, Nastasya Mihailovna, ran away with an architect, and so on... LOMOV : And your mother was hump-backed. [Clutches at his heart] Something pulling in my side... My head.... Help! Water! CHUBUKOV : Your father was a guzzling gambler! NATALYA : And there haven’t been many backbiters to equal your aunt! CHUBUKOV : My left foot has gone to sleep... You’re an intriguer....Oh, my heart! And it’s an open secret that before the last elections you bri... I can see stars... Where’s my hat? NATALYA : It’s low! It’s dishonest! It’s mean! CHUBUKOV : And you’re just a malicious, doublefaced intriguer! Yes! LOMOV : Here’s my hat. My heart! Which way? Where’s the door? Oh I think I’m dying! My foot’s quite numb... [Goes to the door.] CHUBUKOV : [following him] And don’t set foot in my house again! NATALYA : Take it to court! We’ll see! [Lomov staggers out.] CHUBUKOV : Devil take him! [Walks about in excitement.] NATALYA : What a rascal! What trust can one have in one’s neighbours after that! CHUBUKOV : The villain! The scarecrow! NATALYA : The monster! First he takes our land and then he has the impudence to abuse us. CHUBUKOV : And that blind hen, yes, that turnip-ghost has the confounded cheek to make a proposal, and so on! What? A proposal! NATALYA : What proposal? CHUBUKOV : Why, he came here to propose to you. NATALYA : To propose? To me? Why didn’t you tell me so before? CHUBUKOV : So he dresses up in evening clothes. The stuffed sausage! The wizen-faced frump! NATALYA : To propose to me? Ah! [Falls into an easy-chair and wails] Bring him back! Back! Ah! Bring him here. CHUBUKOV : Bring whom here? NATALYA : Quick, quick! I’m ill! Fetch him! [Hysterics.] CHUBUKOV : What’s that? What’s the matter with you? [Clutches at his head] Oh, unhappy man that I am! I’ll shoot myself! I’ll hang myself! We’ve done for her! NATALYA : I’m dying! Fetch him! CHUBUKOV : Tfoo! At once. Don’t yell! [Runs out. A pause.] NATALYA : [Natalya Stepanovna wails.] What have they done to me? Fetch him back! Fetch him! [A pause. Chubukov runs in.] CHUBUKOV : He’s coming, and so on, devil take him! Ouf! Talk to him yourself; I don’t want to... NATALYA : [wails] Fetch him! CHUBUKOV : [yells] He’s coming, I tell you. Oh, what a burden, Lord, to be the father of a grown-up daughter! I’ll cut my throat I will, indeed! We cursed him, abused him, drove him out; and it’s all you... you! NATALYA : No, it was you! CHUBUKOV : I tell you it’s not my fault. [Lomov appears at the door] Now you talk to him yourself. [Exit.] LOMOV : [Lomov enters, exhausted.] My heart’s palpitating awfully. My foot’s gone to sleep. There’s something that keeps pulling in my side.... NATALYA : Forgive us, Ivan Vassilevitch, we were all a little heated. I remember now: Oxen Meadows... really are yours. LOMOV : My heart’s beating awfully. My Meadows... My eyebrows are both twitching.... NATALYA : The Meadows are yours, yes, yours. Do sit down. [They sit] We were wrong. LOMOV : I did it on principle. My land is worth little to me, but the principle... NATALYA : Yes, the principle, just so. Now let’s talk of something else. LOMOV : The more so as I have evidence. My aunt’s grandmother gave the land to your father’s grandfather’s peasants... NATALYA : Yes, yes, let that pass. [aside] I wish I knew how to get him started. [aloud] Are you going to start shooting soon? LOMOV : I’m thinking of having a go at the blackcock, honoured Natalya Stepanovna, after the harvest. Oh, have you heard? Just think, what a misfortune I’ve had! My dog Guess, who you know, has gone lame. NATALYA : What a pity! Why? LOMOV : I don’t know. Must have got his leg twisted or bitten by some other dog. [sighs] My very best dog, to say nothing of the expense. I gave Mironov 125 roubles for him. NATALYA : It was too much, Ivan Vassilevitch. LOMOV : I think it was very cheap. He’s a first-rate dog. NATALYA : Papa gave 85 roubles for his Squeezer, and Squeezer is heaps better than Guess! LOMOV : Squeezer better than Guess? What an idea! [laughs] Squeezer better than Guess! NATALYA : Of course he’s better! Of course, Squeezer is young, he may develop a bit, but on points and pedigree he’s better than anything that even Volchanetsky has got. LOMOV : Excuse me, Natalya Stepanovna, but you forget that he is overshot, and an overshot always means the dog is a bad hunter! NATALYA : Overshot, is he? The first time I hear it! LOMOV : I assure you that his lower jaw is shorter than the upper. NATALYA : Have you measured? LOMOV : Yes. He’s all right at following, of course, but if you want to get hold of anything... NATALYA : In the first place, our Squeezer is a thoroughbred animal, the son of Harness and Chisels while there’s no getting at the pedigree of your dog at all. He’s old and as ugly as a worn-out cab-horse. LOMOV : He is old, but I wouldn’t take five Squeezers for him. Why, how can you? Guess is a dog; as for Squeezer, well, it’s too funny to argue. Anybody you like has a dog as good as Squeezer... you may find them under every bush almost. Twenty-five roubles would be a handsome price to pay for him. NATALYA : There’s some demon of contradition in you today, Ivan Vassilevitch. First you pretend that the Meadows are yours; now, that Guess is better than Squeezer. I don’t like people who don’t say what they mean, because you know perfectly well that Squeezer is a hundred times better than your silly Guess. Why do you want to say he isn’t? LOMOV : I see, Natalya Stepanovna, that you consider me either blind or a fool. You must realise that Squeezer is overshot! NATALYA : It’s not true. LOMOV : He is! NATALYA : It’s not true! LOMOV : Why shout madam? NATALYA : Why talk rot? It’s awful! It’s time your Guess was shot, and you compare him with Squeezer! LOMOV : Excuse me, I cannot continue this discussion, my heart is palpitating. NATALYA : I’ve noticed that those hunters argue most who know least. LOMOV : Madam, please be silent. My heart is going to pieces. [shouts] Shut up! NATALYA : I shan’t shut up until you acknowledge that Squeezer is a hundred times better than your Guess! LOMOV : A hundred times worse! Be hanged to your Squeezer! His head... eyes... shoulder... NATALYA : There’s no need to hang your silly Guess; he’s half-dead already! LOMOV : [weeps] Shut up! My heart’s bursting! NATALYA : I shan’t shut up. [Enter Chubukov.] CHUBUKOV : What’s the matter now? NATALYA : Papa, tell us truly, which is the better dog, our Squeezer or his Guess. LOMOV : Stepan Stepanovitch, I implore you to tell me just one thing: is your Squeezer overshot or not? Yes or no? CHUBUKOV : And suppose he is? What does it matter? He’s the best dog in the district for all that, and so on. LOMOV : But isn’t my Guess better? Really, now? CHUBUKOV : Don’t excite yourself, my precious one. Allow me. Your Guess certainly has his good points. He’s purebred, firm on his feet, has well-sprung ribs, and all that. But, my dear man, if you want to know the truth, that dog has two defects: he’s old and he’s short in the muzzle. LOMOV : Excuse me, my heart... Let’s take the facts. You will remember that on the Marusinsky hunt my Guess ran neck-and-neck with the Count’s dog, while your Squeezer was left a whole verst behind. CHUBUKOV : He got left behind because the Count’s whipper-in hit him with his whip. LOMOV : And with good reason. The dogs are running after a fox, when Squeezer goes and starts worrying a sheep! CHUBUKOV : It’s not true! My dear fellow, I’m very liable to lose my temper, and so, just because of that, let’s stop arguing. You started because everybody is always jealous of everybody else’s dogs. Yes, we’re all like that! You too, sir, aren’t blameless! You no sooner begin with this, that and the other, and all that... I remember everything! LOMOV : I remember too! CHUBUKOV : [teasing him] I remember, too! What do you remember? LOMOV : My heart... my foot’s gone to sleep. I can’t... NATALYA : [teasing] My heart! What sort of a hunter are you? You ought to go and lie on the kitchen oven and catch black beetles, not go after foxes! My heart! CHUBUKOV : Yes really, what sort of a hunter are you, anyway? You ought to sit at home with your palpitations, and not go tracking animals. You could go hunting, but you only go to argue with people and interfere with their dogs and so on. Let’s change the subject in case I lose my temper. You’re not a hunter at all, anyway! LOMOV : And are you a hunter? You only go hunting to get in with the Count and to intrigue. Oh, my heart! You’re an intriguer! CHUBUKOV : What? I am an intriguer? [shouts] Shut up! LOMOV : Intriguer! CHUBUKOV : Boy! Pup! LOMOV : Old rat! Jesuit! CHUBUKOV : Shut up or I’ll shoot you like a partridge! You fool! LOMOV : Everybody knows that — oh, my heart! — your late wife used to beat you... My feet... temples... sparks... I fall, I fall! CHUBUKOV : And you’re under the slipper of your house-keeper! LOMOV : There, there, there... my heart’s burst! My shoulders come off! Where is my shoulder? I die. [Falls into an armchair] A doctor! CHUBUKOV : Boy! Milksop! Fool! I’m sick! [Drinks water] Sick! NATALYA : What sort of a hunter are you? You can’t even sit on a horse! [To her father] Papa, what’s the matter with him? Papa! Look, Papa! [screams] Ivan Vassilevitch! He’s dead! CHUBUKOV : I’m sick! I can’t breathe! Air! NATALYA : He’s dead. [Pulls Lomov’s sleeve] Ivan Vassilevitch! Ivan Vassilevitch! What have you done to me? He’s dead. [Falls into an armchair] A doctor, a doctor! [Hysterics.] CHUBUKOV : Oh! What is it? What’s the matter? NATALYA : [wails] He’s dead... dead! CHUBUKOV : Who’s dead? [Looks at Lomov] So he is! My word! Water! A doctor! [Lifts a tumbler to Lomov’s mouth] Drink this! No, he doesn’t drink. It means he’s dead, and all that. I’m the most unhappy of men! Why don’t I put a bullet into my brain? Why haven’t I cut my throat yet? What am I waiting for? Give me a knife! Give me a pistol! [Lomov moves] He seems to be coming round. Drink some water! That’s right. LOMOV : I see stars... mist... where am I? CHUBUKOV : Hurry up and get married and — well, to the devil with you! She’s willing! [He puts Lomov’s hand into his daughter’s] She’s willing and all that. I give you my blessing and so on. Only leave me in peace! LOMOV : [getting up] Eh? What? To whom? CHUBUKOV : She’s willing! Well? Kiss and be damned to you! NATALYA : [wails] He’s alive... Yes, yes, I’m willing. CHUBUKOV : Kiss each other! LOMOV : Eh? Kiss whom? [They kiss] Very nice, too. Excuse me, what’s it all about? Oh, now I understand ... my heart... stars... I’m happy. Natalya Stepanovna... [Kisses her hand] My foot’s gone to sleep. NATALYA : I... I’m happy too... CHUBUKOV : What a weight off my shoulders, ouf! NATALYA : But, still you will admit now that Guess is worse than Squeezer. LOMOV : Better! NATALYA : Worse! CHUBUKOV : Well, that’s a way to start your family bliss! Have some champagne! LOMOV : He’s better! NATALYA : Worse! Worse! Worse! CHUBUKOV : [trying to shout her down] Champagne! Champagne!

What do you think are the reasons for the references made to the English people and the British monarchy?

<answer> Indian society, unfortunately, is the one that takes pride in the language and culture of their rules and not in their own rich and vibrant history. The nabobs and babus that were in British Raj are still looked up and are respected. Though the truth is that these are the people that ensured English Queen's authority on our land. The reference in the story of Mulk Raj Anand makes it clear. He cites an example of how the nabobs and generals in English army are to wear the prestigious lion moustache, which is worn by resplendent rajas and maharajas of our land. This makes clear how we Indians take pride in being slaves of Britishers. <context> There are various kinds of mustachios worn in my country to mark the boundaries between the various classes of people. Outsiders may think it stupid to lay down, or rather to raise, lines of demarcation of this kind, but we are notorious in the whole world for sticking to our queer old conventions, prides and prejudices, even as the Chinese or the Americans or, for that matter, the English… And, at any rate, some people may think it easier and more convenient to wear permanent boundary-lines, like mustachios, which only need a smear of grease to keep them bright and shiny, rather than to wear frock coats, striped trousers and top hats, which constantly need to be laundered and dry-cleaned, and the maintenance of which is already leading to the bankruptcy of the European ruling classes. With them clothes make the man but, to us, mustachios make the man. So we prefer the various styles of mustachios to mark the differences between the classes. And very unique and poetical symbols they are too. For instance, there is the famous lion moustache, the fearsome upstanding symbol of that great order of resplendent rajas, maharajas, nawabs and English army generals who are so well known for their devotion to the King Emperor. Then there is the tiger moustache, the uncanny, several-pointed moustache worn by the unbending, unchanging survivals from the ranks of the feudal gentry who have nothing left but pride in their greatness and a few mementoes of past glory, scrolls of honour granted by the former emperors, a few gold trinkets, heirlooms and bits of land. Next there is the goat moustache—a rather unsure brand, worn by the nouveau riche, the new commercial bourgeoisie and the shopkeeper class who somehow don’t belong—an indifferent, thin little line of a moustache, worn so that its tips can be turned up or down as the occasion demands—a show of power to some coolie or humility to a prosperous client. There is the Charlie Chaplin moustache worn by the lower middle class, by clerks and professional men, a kind of half-and-half affair, deliberately designed as a compromise between the traditional full moustache and the clean-shaven Curzon cut of the sahibs like them to keep mustachios at all. There is the sheep moustache of the coolies and the lower orders, the mouse moustache of the peasants, and so on. In fact, there are endless styles of mustachios, all appropriate to the wearers and indicative of the various orders, as rigorously adhered to as if they had all been patented by the Government of India or had been sanctioned by special appointment with His Majesty, the King, or Her Majesty, the Queen. And any poaching on the style of one class by members of another is resented, and the rising ratio of murders in my country is interpreted by certain authorities as being indicative of the increasing jealousy with which each class is guarding its rights and privileges in regard to the mark of the mustachio. Of course, the analysis of the expert is rather too abstract and not all the murders can be traced to this cause but, certainly, it is true that the preferences of the people in regard to their mustachios are causing a lot of trouble in our parts. For instance, there was a rumpus in my own village the other day about a pair of mustachios. It so happened that Seth Ramanand, the grocer and moneylender, who had been doing well out of the recent fall in the price of wheat by buying up whole crops cheap from the hard-pressed peasants and then selling them at higher prices, took it into his head to twist the goat moustache, integral to his order and position in society, at the tips, so that it looked nearly like a tiger moustache. Nobody seemed to mind very much because most of the mouse-moustached peasants in our village are beholden to the local moneylender, either because they owe him interest on a loan, or an instalment on a mortgage of jewellery or land. Besides, the Seth had been careful enough to twist his moustache so that it seemed nearly, though not quite, like a tiger moustache. But there lives in the vicinity of our village, in an old dilapidated Moghul style house, a mussulman named Khan Azam Khan, who claims descent from an ancient Afghan family whose heads were noblemen and councillors in the court of the great Moghuls. Khan Azam Khan, a tall, middleaged man, is a handsome and dignified person, and he wears a tiger moustache and remains adorned with the faded remnants of a gold-brocaded waistcoat, though he hasn’t even a patch of land left. Some people, notably the landlord of our village and the moneylender, maliciously say that he is an impostor, and that all his talk about his blue blood is merely the bluff of a rascal. Others, like the priest of the temple, concede that his ancestors were certainly attached to the Court of the Great Moghuls, but as sweepers. The landlord, the moneylender and the priest are manifestly jealous of anyone’s long ancestry, however, because they have all risen from nothing—and it is obvious from the stately ruins around Khan Azam Khan what grace was once his and his forefathers. Only Khan Azam Khan’s pride is greatly in excess of his present possessions and he is inordinately jealous of his old privileges and rather foolish and headstrong in safeguarding every sacred brick of his tottering house against vandalism. Khan Azam Khan happened to go to the moneylender’s shop to pawn his wife’s gold nose-ring one morning and he noticed the upturning tendency of the hair on Ramanand’s upper lip which made the moneylender’s goat moustache look almost like his own tiger moustache. ‘Since when have the lentil-eating shopkeepers become noblemen?’ he asked sourly. ‘I don’t know what you mean, Khan’, Ramanand answered. ‘You know what I mean, seed of a donkey!’ said the Khan. Look at the way you have turned the tips of your moustache upwards. It almost looks like my tiger moustache. Turn the tips down to the style proper to the goat that you are! Fancy the airs of people nowadays!’ ‘Oh, Khan, don’t get so excited,’ said the moneylender, who was nothing if he was not amenable, having built up his business on the maxim that the customer is always right. ‘I tell you, turn the tip of your moustache down if you value your life!’ raged Khan Azam Khan. ‘If that is all the trouble, here you are’, said Ramanand, brushing one end of his moustache with his oily hand so that it dropped like a dead fly. ‘Come, show me the trinkets. How much do you want for them?’ Now that Khan Azam Khan’s pride was appeased, he was like soft wax in the merchant’s sure hand. His need, and the need of his family, for food, was great and he humbly accepted the value which the moneylender put on his wife’s nose-ring. But as he was departing, after negotiating his business, he noticed that though one end of the moneylender’s moustache had come down at his behest, the other end was still up. ‘A strange trick you have played on me, you swine,’ the Khan said. ‘I have paid you the best value for your trinket, Khan, that any moneylender will pay in these parts,’ he said, ‘especially in these days when the sarkars of the whole world are threatening to go off the gold standard.’ ‘It has nothing to do with the trinket,’ said Azam Khan, ‘but one end of your moustache is still up like my tiger moustache though you have brought down the other to your proper goat’s style. Bring that other end down also so that there is no aping by your moustache of mine.’ ‘Now Khan,’ said the moneylender, ‘I humbled myself because you are doing business with me. You can’t expect me to become a mere worm just because you have pawned a trinket with me. If you were pledging some more expensive jewellery I might consider obliging you a little more. Anyhow, my humble milk-skimmer doesn’t look a bit like your valiant tiger moustache.’ ‘Bring that tip down!’ Khan Azam Khan roared, for, the more he had looked at the moneylender’s moustache the more the still upturned tip seemed to him like an effort at an imitation of his own. ‘Now, be sensible, Khan,’ the moneylender said, waving his hand with an imperturbable calm. ‘I tell you, turn that tip down or I shall wring your neck,’ said the Khan. ‘All right, the next time you come to do business with me, I shall bring that tip down,’ answered the moneylender cunningly. ‘That is fair,’ said Chaudhary Chottu Ram, the landlord of the village, who was sitting under the tree opposite. ‘To be sure! To be sure!’ some peasants chimed in sheepishly. Khan Azam Khan managed to control his murderous impulses and walked away. But he could not quell his pride, the pride of generations of his ancestors who had worn the tiger moustache as a mark of their high position. To see the symbol of his honour imitated by a moneylender—this was too much for him. He went home and fetched a necklace which had come down to his family through seven generations and, placing it before the moneylender, said: ‘Now will you bring that tip of your moustache down?’ ‘By all means, Khan,’ said the moneylender. ‘But let us see about this necklace. How much do you want for it?’ ‘Any price will do, so long as you bring the tip of your moustache down,’ answered Azam Khan. After they had settled the business, the moneylender said: ‘Now Khan, I shall carry out your will.’ And he ceremoniously brushed the upturned tip of his moustache down. As Azam Khan was walking away, however, he noticed that the other tip of the moneylender’s moustache had now gone up and stood dubiously like the upturned end of his own exalted tiger moustache. He turned on his feet and shouted: ‘I shall kill you if you don’t brush that moustache into the shape appropriate to your position as a lentil-eating moneylender!’ ‘Now, now, Khan, come to your senses. You know it is only the illusion of a tiger’s moustache and nowhere like your brave and wonderful adornment,’ said the greasy moneylender. ‘I tell you I won’t have you insulting the insignia of my order!’ shouted Azam Khan. ‘You bring that tip down!’ ‘I wouldn’t do it, Khan, even if you pawned all the jewellery you possess to me,’ said the moneylender. ‘I would rather lose all my remaining worldly possessions, my pots and pans, my clothes, even my house, than see the tip of your moustache turned up like that!’ spluttered Azam Khan. ‘Achcha, if you care so little for all your goods and chattels you sell them to me and then I shall turn that tip of my moustache down,’ said the moneylender. ‘And what is more, I shall keep it flat. Now, is that a bargain?’ ‘That seems fair enough,’ said the landlord from under the tree where he was preparing for a siesta. ‘But what proof have I that you will keep your word?’ said Azam Khan. ‘You oily lentil-eaters never keep your promises.’ ‘We shall draw up a deed, here and now,’ said the moneylender. ‘And we shall have it signed by the five elders of the village who are seated under that tree. What more do you want?’ ‘Now, there is no catch in that,’ put in the landlord. ‘I and four other elders will come to court as witnesses on your behalf if he doesn’t keep his moustache to the goat style ever afterwards.’ ‘I shall excommunicate him from religion if he doesn’t keep his word,’ added the priest, who had arrived on the scene on hearing the hubbub. ‘Achcha,’ agreed Azam Khan. And he forthwith had a deed prepared by the petition writer of the village, who sat smoking his hubble-bubble under the tree. And this document, transferring all his household goods and chattels, was signed in the presence of the five elders of the village and sealed. And the moneylender forthwith brought both tips of his moustache down and kept them glued in the goat style appropriate to his order. Only, as soon as Khan Azam Khan’s back was turned he muttered to the peasants seated nearby: ‘My father was a Sultan.’ And they laughed to see the Khan give a special twist to his moustache as he walked away maintaining the valiant uprightness to the symbol of his ancient and noble family, though he had become a pauper.

How does the horse serve as a true friend and companion to Iona?

<answer> When Iona realised that no body was listening to him and that he had no body to go to grieve at his loss, he turned to his horse. He tried to talk to his passengers, the officers, the drunkards and the young cabdriver, about his son; how he fell ill, what did he say before he died. It was about to be a week since the mishap and the Cabby had had no body to talk to so far. Finally, he decided to go to look after his horse. It was unbearably painful to him to picture his son when he was alone. So he tried to keep himself occupied. He offered hay to the little horse as that was all he could as he had no corn as he did not earn much for he had lost his young son, he explained it to the horse. Iona's feelings were too much for him. The driver goes on explaining the whole story of his son to the horse, while the horse listened patiently and breathed over his master's hand like a true mate. <context> It is twilight. A thick wet snow is slowly twirling around the newly lighted street lamps and lying in soft thin layers on roofs, on horses’ backs, on people’s shoulders and hats. The cabdriver, Iona Potapov, is quite white and looks like a phantom: he is bent double as far as a human body can bend double; he is seated on his box; he never makes a move. If a whole snowdrift fell on him, it seems as if he would not find it necessary to shake it off. His little horse is also quite white, and remains motionless; its immobility, its angularity and its straight wooden-looking legs, even close by, give it the appearance of a gingerbread horse worth a kopek. It is, no doubt, plunged in deep thought. If you were snatched from the plough, from your usual gray surroundings, and were thrown into this slough full of monstrous lights, unceasing noise and hurrying people, you too would find it difficult not to think. Iona and his little horse have not moved from their place for a long while. They left their yard before dinner and, up to now, not a fare. The evening mist is descending over the town, the white lights of the lamps are replacing brighter rays, and the hubbub of the street is getting louder. ‘Cabby for Viborg Way!’ suddenly hears Iona. ‘Cabby!’ Iona jumps and, through his snow-covered eyelashes, sees an officer in a greatcoat, with his hood over his head. ‘Viborg way!’ the officer repeats. ‘Are you asleep, eh? Viborg way!’ With a nod of assent Iona picks up the reins, in consequence of which layers of snow slip off the horse’s back and neck. The officer seats himself in the sleigh, the cabdriver smacks his lips to encourage his horse, stretches out his neck like a swan, sits up and, more from habit than necessity, brandishes his whip. The little horse also stretches its neck, bends its wooden-looking legs, and makes a move undecidedly. ‘What are you doing, werewolf!’ is the exclamation Iona hears from the dark mass moving to and fro, as soon as they have started. ‘Where the devil are you going? To the r-r-right!’ ‘You do not know how to drive. Keep to the right!’ calls the officer angrily. A coachman from a private carriage swears at him; a passerby, who has run across the road and rubbed his shoulder against the horse’s nose, looks at him furiously as he sweeps the snow from his sleeve. Iona shifts about on his seat as if he were on needles, moves his elbows as if he were trying to keep his equilibrium, and gasps about like someone suffocating, who does not understand why and wherefore he is there. ‘What scoundrels they all are!’ jokes the officer; ‘one would think they had all entered into an agreement to jostle you or fall under your horse.’ Iona looks around at the officer and moves his lips. He evidently wants to say something but the only sound that issues is a snuffle. ‘What?’ asks the officer. Iona twists his mouth into a smile and, with an effort, says hoarsely: ‘My son, Barin, died this week.’ ‘Hm! What did he die of?’ Iona turns with his whole body towards his fare and says: ‘And who knows! They say high fever. He was three days in the hospital and then died… God’s will be done.’ “Turn round! The devil!’ sounds from the darkness. ‘Have you popped off, old doggie, eh? Use your eyes!’ ‘Go on, go on,’ says the officer, ‘otherwise we shall not get there by tomorrow. Hurry up a bit!’ The cabdriver again stretches his neck, sits up and, with a bad grace, brandishes his whip. Several times again he turns to look at his fare, but the latter has closed his eyes and, apparently, is not disposed to listen. Having deposited the officer in the Viborg, he stops by the tavern, doubles himself up on his seat, and again remains motionless, while the snow once more begins to cover him and his horse. An hour, and another… Then, along the footpath, with a squeak of galoshes, and quarrelling, come three young men, two of them tall and lanky, the third one short and humpbacked. ‘Cabby, to the Police Bridge!’ in a cracked voice calls the humpback. ‘The three of us for two griveniks.’ Iona picks up his reins and smacks his lips. Two griveniks is not a fair price, but he does not mind whether it is a rouble or five kopeks—to him it is all the same now, so long as they are fares. The young men, jostling each other and using bad language, approach the sleigh and all three at once try to get onto the seat; then begins a discussion as to which two shall sit and who shall be the one to stand. After wrangling, abusing each other and much petulance, it is at last decided that the humpback shall stand as he is the smallest. ‘Now then, hurry up!’ says the humpback in a twanging voice, as he takes his place and breathes in Iona’s neck. ‘Old furry! Here, mate, what a cap you have! There is not a worse one to be found in all Petersburg! …’ ‘He-he—he-he’, giggles Iona. ‘Such a …’ ‘Now you, ‘such a’, hurry up, are you going the whole way at this pace? Are you...Do you want it in the neck?’ ‘My head feels like bursting,’ says one of the lanky ones. ‘Last night at the Donkmasoves, Vaska and I drank the whole of four bottles of cognac.’ “I don’t understand what you lie for,’ says the other lanky one angrily; ‘you lie like a brute.’ ‘God strike me, it’s the truth!’ ‘It’s as much the truth as that a louse coughs!’ ‘He-he,’ grins Iona, ‘what gay young gentlemen!’ ‘Pshaw, go to the devil!’ says the humpback indignantly. ‘Are you going to get on or not, you old pest? Is that the way to drive? Use the whip a bit! Go on, devil, go on, give it to him well!’ Iona feels at his back the little man wriggling, and the tremble in his voice. He listens to the insults hurled at him, sees the people, and little by little the feeling of loneliness leaves him. The humpback goes on swearing until he gets mixed up in some elaborate six-foot oath, or chokes with coughing. The lankies begin to talk about a certain Nadejda Petrovna. Iona looks round at them several times; he waits for a temporary silence, then, turning round again, he murmurs: ‘My son… died this week.’ ‘We must all die,’ sighs the humpback, wiping his lips after an attack of coughing. ‘Now, hurry up, hurry up! Gentlemen, I really cannot go any farther like this! When will he get us there?’ ‘Well, just you stimulate him a little in the neck!’ ‘You old pest, do you hear, I’ll bone your neck for you! If one treated the like of you with ceremony, one would have to go on foot! Do you hear, old serpent Gorinytch! Or do you not care a spit!” Iona hears rather than feels the blow they deal him. ‘He-he’ he laughs. ‘They are gay young gentlemen, God bless’em!’ ‘Cabby, are you married?’ asks a lanky one. ‘I? He-he, gay young gentlemen! Now I have only a wife and the moist ground…He, ho, ho, …that is to say, the grave. My son has died, and I am alive…A wonderful thing, death mistook the door…instead of coming to me, it went to my son…’ Iona turns round to tell them how his son died but, at this moment, the humpback, giving a little sigh, announces, ‘Thank God, we have at last reached our destination,’ and Iona watches them disappear through the dark entrance. Once more he is alone, and again surrounded by silence… His grief, which has abated for a short while, returns and rends his heart with greater force. With an anxious and hurried look, he searches among the crowds passing on either side of the street to find whether there may be just one person who will listen to him. But the crowds hurry by without noticing him or his trouble. Yet it is such an immense, illimitable, grief. Should his heart break and the grief pour out, it would flow over the whole earth, so it seems, and yet no one sees it. It has managed to conceal itself in such an insignificant shell that no one can see it even by day and with a light. Iona sees a hall porter with some sacking and decides to talk to him. ‘Friend, what sort of time is it?’ he asks. ‘Past nine. What are you standing here for? Move on.’ Iona moves on a few steps, doubles himself up, and abandons himself to his grief. He sees it is useless to turn to people for help. In less than five minutes he straightens himself, holds up his head as if he felt some sharp pain, and gives a tug at the reins; he can bear it no longer. ‘The stables,’ he thinks, and the little horse, as if it understood, starts off at a trot. About an hour and a half later, Iona is seated by a large dirty stove. Around the stove, on the floor, on the benches, people are snoring; the air is thick and suffocatingly hot. Iona looks at the sleepers, scratches himself, and regrets having returned so early. ‘I have not even earned my fodder,’ he thinks. ‘That’s what’s my trouble. A man who knows his job, who has had enough to eat and his horse too, can always sleep peacefully.’ A young cabdriver, in one of the corners, half gets up, grunts sleepily, and stretches towards a bucket of water. ‘Do you want a drink?’ Iona asks him. ‘Don’t I want a drink!’ ‘That’s so? Your good health. But listen, mate—you know, my son is dead…Did you hear? This week, in the hospital…It’s a long story.’ Iona looks to see what effect his words have, but sees none—the young man has hidden his face and is fast asleep again. The old man sighs and scratches his head. Just as much as the young one wants to drink, the old man wants to talk. It will soon be a week since his son died, and he has not been able to speak about it properly to anyone. One must tell it slowly and carefully; how his son fell ill, how he suffered, what he said before he died, how he died. One must describe every detail of the funeral, and the journey to the hospital to fetch the dead son’s clothes. His daughter, Anissia, has remained in the village—one must talk about her too. It is nothing he has to tell? Surely the listener would gasp and sigh, and sympathise with him? It is better, too, to talk to women; two words are enough to make them sob. ‘I’ll go and look after my horse,’ thinks Iona; ‘there’s always time to sleep. No fear of that!’ He puts on his coat and goes to the stable to his horse; he thinks of the corn, the hay, the weather. When he is alone, he dare not think of his son; he can speak about him to anyone, but to think of him, and picture him to himself, is unbearably painful. ‘Are you tucking in?’ Iona asks his horse, looking at its bright eyes: ‘go on, tuck in, though we’ve not earned our corn, we can eat hay. Yes I am too old to drive—my son could have, not I. He was a first-rate cabdriver. If only he had lived!’ Iona is silent for a moment, then continues: ‘That’s how it is, my old horse. There’s no more Kuzma Ionitch. He has left us to live, and he went off pop. Now let’s say you had a foal, you were the foal’s mother and, suddenly, let’s say, that foal went and left you to live after him. It would be sad, wouldn’t it?’ The little horse munches, listens and breathes over its master’s hand… Iona’s feelings are too much for him and he tells the little horse the whole story.

Who was the English visitor to the studios?

<answer> The English visitor to the studios was poet Stephen Spender, editor of British periodical ‘The Encounter’. <context> Pancake was the brand name of the make-up material that Gemini Studios bought in truck-loads. Greta Garbo1 must have used it, Miss Gohar must have used it, Vyjayantimala2 must also have used it but Rati Agnihotri may not have even heard of it. The make-up department of the Gemini Studios was in the upstairs of a building that was believed to have been Robert Clive’s stables. A dozen other buildings in the city are said to have been his residence. For his brief life and an even briefer stay in Madras, Robert Clive seems to have done a lot of moving, besides fighting some impossible battles in remote corners of India and marrying a maiden in St. Mary’s Church in Fort St. George in Madras. The make-up room had the look of a hair-cutting salon with lights at all angles around half a dozen large mirrors. They were all incandescent lights, so you can imagine the fiery misery of those subjected to make-up. The make-up department was first headed by a Bengali who became too big for a studio and left. He was succeeded by a Maharashtrian who was assisted by a Dharwar Kannadiga, an Andhra, a Madras Indian Christian, an Anglo-Burmese and the usual local Tamils. All this shows that there was a great deal of national integration long before A.I.R. and Doordarshan began broadcasting programmes on national integration. This gang of nationally integrated make-up men could turn any decent-looking person into a hideous crimson hued monster with the help of truck-loads of pancake and a number of other locally made potions and lotions. Those were the days of mainly indoor shooting, and only five per cent of the film was shot outdoors. I suppose the sets and studio lights needed the girls and boys to be made to look ugly in order to look presentable in the movie. A strict hierarchy was maintained in the make-up department. The chief make-up man made the chief actors and actresses ugly, his senior assistant the ‘second’ hero and heroine, the junior assistant the main comedian, and so forth. The players who played the crowd were the responsibility of the office boy. (Even the make-up department of the Gemini Studio had an ‘office boy’!) On the days when there was a crowdshooting, you could see him mixing his paint in a giant vessel and slapping it on the crowd players. The idea was to close every pore on the surface of the face in the process of applying make-up. He wasn’t exactly a ‘boy’; he was in his early forties, having entered the studios years ago in the hope of becoming a star actor or a top screen writer, director or lyrics writer. He was a bit of a poet. In those days I worked in a cubicle, two whole sides of which were French windows. (I didn’t know at that time they were called French windows.) Seeing me sitting at my desk tearing up newspapers day in and day out, most people thought I was doing next to nothing. It is likely that the Boss thought likewise too. So anyone who felt I should be given some occupation would barge into my cubicle and deliver an extended lecture. The ‘boy’ in the make-up department had decided I should be enlightened on how great literary talent was being allowed to go waste in a department fit only for barbers and perverts. Soon I was praying for crowd-shooting all the time. Nothing short of it could save me from his epics. In all instances of frustration, you will always find the anger directed towards a single person openly or covertly and this man of the make-up department was convinced that all his woes, ignominy and neglect were due to Kothamangalam Subbu. Subbu was the No. 2 at Gemini Studios. He couldn’t have had a more encouraging opening in films than our grown-up make-up boy had. On the contrary he must have had to face more uncertain and difficult times, for when he began his career, there were no firmly established film producing companies or studios. Even in the matter of education, specially formal education, Subbu couldn’t have had an appreciable lead over our boy. But by virtue of being born a Brahmin — a virtue, indeed! — he must have had exposure to more affluent situations and people. He had the ability to look cheerful at all times even after having had a hand in a flop film. He always had work for somebody — he could never do things on his own — but his sense of loyalty made him identify himself with his principal completely and turn his entire creativity to his principal’s advantage. He was tailor-made for films. Here was a man who could be inspired when commanded. “The rat fights the tigress underwater and kills her but takes pity on the cubs and tends them lovingly — I don’t know how to do the scene,” the producer would say and Subbu would come out with four ways of the rat pouring affection on its victim’s offspring. “Good, but I am not sure it is effective enough,” the producer would say and in a minute Subbu would come out with fourteen more alternatives. Film-making must have been and was so easy with a man like Subbu around and if ever there was a man who gave direction and definition to Gemini Studios during its golden years, it was Subbu. Subbu had a separate identity as a poet and though he was certainly capable of more complex and higher forms, he deliberately chose to address his poetry to the masses. His success in films overshadowed and dwarfed his literary achievements — or so his critics felt. He composed several truly original ‘story poems’ in folk refrain and diction and also wrote a sprawling novel Thillana Mohanambal with dozens of very deftly etched characters. He quite successfully recreated the mood and manner of the Devadasis of the early 20th century. He was an amazing actor — he never aspired to the lead roles — but whatever subsidiary role he played in any of the films, he performed better than the supposed main players. He had a genuine love for anyone he came across and his house was a permanent residence for dozens of near and far relations and acquaintances. It seemed against Subbu’s nature to be even conscious that he was feeding and supporting so many of them. Such a charitable and improvident man, and yet he had enemies! Was it because he seemed so close and intimate with The Boss? Or was it his general demeanour that resembled a sycophant’s? Or his readiness to say nice things about everything? In any case, there was this man in the make-up department who would wish the direst things for Subbu. You saw Subbu always with The Boss but in the attendance rolls, he was grouped under a department called the Story Department comprising a lawyer and an assembly of writers and poets. The lawyer was also officially known as the legal adviser, but everybody referred to him as the opposite. An extremely talented actress, who was also extremely temperamental, once blew over on the sets. While everyone stood stunned, the lawyer quietly switched on the recording equipment. When the actress paused for breath, the lawyer said to her, “One minute, please,” and played back the recording. There was nothing incriminating or unmentionably foul about the actress’s tirade against the producer. But when she heard her voice again through the sound equipment, she was struck dumb. A girl from the countryside, she hadn’t gone through all the stages of worldly experience that generally precede a position of importance and sophistication that she had found herself catapulted into. She never quite recovered from the terror she felt that day. That was the end of a brief and brilliant acting career — the legal adviser, who was also a member of the Story Department, had unwittingly brought about that sad end. While every other member of the Department wore a kind of uniform — khadi dhoti with a slightly oversized and clumsily tailored white khadi shirt — the legal adviser wore pants and a tie and sometimes a coat that looked like a coat of mail. Often he looked alone and helpless — a man of cold logic in a crowd of dreamers — a neutral man in an assembly of Gandhiites and khadiites. Like so many of those who were close to The Boss, he was allowed to produce a film and though a lot of raw stock and pancake were used on it, not much came of the film. Then one day The Boss closed down the Story Department and this was perhaps the only instance in all human history where a lawyer lost his job because the poets were asked to go home. Gemini Studios was the favourite haunt of poets like S.D.S.Yogiar3, Sangu Subramanyam, Krishna Sastry and Harindranath Chattopadhyaya4. It had an excellent mess which supplied good coffee at all times of the day and for most part of the night. Those were the days when Congress rule meant Prohibition and meeting over a cup of coffee was rather satisfying entertainment. Barring the office boys and a couple of clerks, everybody else at the Studios radiated leisure, a pre-requisite for poetry. Most of them wore khadi and worshipped Gandhiji but beyond that they had not the faintest appreciation for political thought of any kind. Naturally, they were all averse to the term ‘Communism’. A Communist was a godless man — he had no filial or conjugal love; he had no compunction about killing his own parents or his children; he was always out to cause and spread unrest and violence among innocent and ignorant people. Such notions which prevailed everywhere else in South India at that time also, naturally, floated about vaguely among the khadi-clad poets of Gemini Studios. Evidence of it was soon forthcoming. When Frank Buchman’s Moral Re-Armament army, some two hundred strong, visited Madras sometime in 1952, they could not have found a warmer host in India than the Gemini Studios. Someone called the group an international circus. They weren’t very good on the trapeze and their acquaintance with animals was only at the dinner table, but they presented two plays in a most professional manner. Their ‘Jotham Valley’ and ‘The Forgotten Factor’ ran several shows in Madras and along with the other citizens of the city, the Gemini family of six hundred saw the plays over and over again. The message of the plays were usually plain and simple homilies, but the sets and costumes were first-rate. Madras and the Tamil drama community were terribly impressed and for some years almost all Tamil plays had a scene of sunrise and sunset in the manner of ‘Jotham Valley’ with a bare stage, a white background curtain and a tune played on the flute. It was some years later that I learnt that the MRA was a kind of countermovement to international Communism and the big bosses of Madras like Mr. Vasan simply played into their hands. I am not sure however, that this was indeed the case, for the unchangeable aspects of these big bosses and their enterprises remained the same, MRA or no MRA, international Communism or no international Communism. The staff of Gemini Studios had a nice time hosting two hundred people of all hues and sizes of at least twenty nationalities. It was such a change from the usual collection of crowd players waiting to be slapped with thick layers of make-up by the office-boy in the make-up department. A few months later, the telephone lines of the big bosses of Madras buzzed and once again we at Gemini Studios cleared a whole shooting stage to welcome another visitor. All they said was that he was a poet from England. The only poets from England the simple Gemini staff knew or heard of were Wordsworth and Tennyson; the more literate ones knew of Keats, Shelley and Byron; and one or two might have faintly come to know of someone by the name Eliot. Who was the poet visiting the Gemini Studios now? “He is not a poet. He is an editor. That’s why The Boss is giving him a big reception.” Vasan was also the editor of the popular Tamil weekly Ananda Vikatan. He wasn’t the editor of any of the known names of British publications in Madras, that is, those known at the Gemini Studios. Since the top men of The Hindu were taking the initiative, the surmise was that the poet was the editor of a daily — but not from The Manchester Guardian or the London Times. That was all that even the most wellinformed among us knew. At last, around four in the afternoon, the poet (or the editor) arrived. He was a tall man, very English, very serious and of course very unknown to all of us. Battling with half a dozen pedestal fans on the shooting stage, The Boss read out a long speech. It was obvious that he too knew precious little about the poet (or the editor). The speech was all in the most general terms but here and there it was peppered with words like ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’. Then the poet spoke. He couldn’t have addressed a more dazed and silent audience — no one knew what he was talking about and his accent defeated any attempt to understand what he was saying. The whole thing lasted about an hour; then the poet left and we all dispersed in utter bafflement — what are we doing? What is an English poet doing in a film studio which makes Tamil films for the simplest sort of people? People whose lives least afforded them the possibility of cultivating a taste for English poetry? The poet looked pretty baffled too, for he too must have felt the sheer incongruity of his talk about the thrills and travails of an English poet. His visit remained an unexplained mystery. The great prose-writers of the world may not admit it, but my conviction grows stronger day after day that prosewriting is not and cannot be the true pursuit of a genius. It is for the patient, persistent, persevering drudge with a heart so shrunken that nothing can break it; rejection slips don’t mean a thing to him; he at once sets about making a fresh copy of the long prose piece and sends it on to another editor enclosing postage for the return of the manuscript. It was for such people that The Hindu had published a tiny announcement in an insignificant corner of an unimportant page — a short story contest organised by a British periodical by the name The Encounter. Of course, The Encounter wasn’t a known commodity among the Gemini literati. I wanted to get an idea of the periodical before I spent a considerable sum in postage sending a manuscript to England. In those days, the British Council Library had an entrance with no long winded signboards and notices to make you feel you were sneaking into a forbidden area. And there were copies of The Encounter lying about in various degrees of freshness, almost untouched by readers. When I read the editor’s name, I heard a bell ringing in my shrunken heart. It was the poet who had visited the Gemini Studios — I felt like I had found a long lost brother and I sang as I sealed the envelope and wrote out his address. I felt that he too would be singing the same song at the same time — long lost brothers of Indian films discover each other by singing the same song in the first reel and in the final reel of the film. Stephen Spender5. Stephen — that was his name. And years later, when I was out of Gemini Studios and I had much time but not much money, anything at a reduced price attracted my attention. On the footpath in front of the Madras Mount Road Post Office, there was a pile of brand new books for fifty paise each. Actually they were copies of the same book, an elegant paperback of American origin. ‘Special low-priced student edition, in connection with the 50th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution’, I paid fifty paise and picked up a copy of the book, The God That Failed. Six eminent men of letters in six separate essays described ‘their journeys into Communism and their disillusioned return’; Andre Gide6, Richard Wright7, Ignazio Silone8, Arthur Koestler9, Louis Fischer10 and Stephen Spender. Stephen Spender! Suddenly the book assumed tremendous significance. Stephen Spender, the poet who had visited Gemini Studios! In a moment I felt a dark chamber of my mind lit up by a hazy illumination. The reaction to Stephen Spender at Gemini Studios was no longer a mystery. The Boss of the Gemini Studios may not have much to do with Spender’s poetry. But not with his god that failed.

“The Emperor may rule over the territory he has conquered, but only the artist knows the way within.”

<answer> The Tang Emperor Xuanzong may have commissioned Wu Daozi to create a great work of art. The Emperor wields power over his territory and wealth to control the lives of his people. However, the artist who creates a work of art understands his work in a manner that nobody can. In Wu Daozi's case, we see that the Emperor cannot enter the work of art as Wu does, because despite all his power, he can never be a part of the space shared by Wu and his work of art. That relationship is too scared and personal a space for anybody to enter. <context> A WONDERFUL old tale is told about the painter Wu Daozi, who lived in the eighth century. His last painting was a landscape commissioned by the Tang Emperor Xuanzong, to decorate a palace wall. The master had hidden his work behind a screen, so only the Emperor would see it. For a long while, the Emperor admired the wonderful scene, discovering forests, high mountains, waterfalls, clouds floating in an immense sky, men on hilly paths, birds in flight. “Look, Sire”, said the painter, “in this cave, at the foot of the mountain, dwells a spirit.” The painter clapped his hands, and the entrance to the cave opened. “The inside is splendid, beyond anything words can convey. Please let me show Your Majesty the way.” The painter entered the cave; but the entrance closed behind him, and before the astonished Emperor could move or utter a word, the painting had vanished from the wall. Not a trace of Wu Daozi’s brush was left — and the artist was never seen again in this world. Such stories played an important part in China’s classical education. The books of Confucius and Zhuangzi are full of them; they helped the master to guide his disciple in the right direction. Beyond the anecdote, they are deeply revealing of the spirit in which art was considered. Contrast this story — or another famous one about a painter who wouldn’t draw the eye of a dragon he had painted, for fear it would fly out of the painting — with an old story from my native Flanders that I find most representative of Western painting. In fifteenth century Antwerp, a master blacksmith called Quinten Metsys fell in love with a painter’s daughter. The father would not accept a son-in-law in such a profession. So Quinten sneaked into the painter’s studio and painted a fly on his latest panel, with such delicate realism that the master tried to swat it away before he realised what had happened. Quinten was immediately admitted as an apprentice into his studio. He married his beloved and went on to become one of the most famous painters of his age. These two stories illustrate what each form of art is trying to achieve: a perfect, illusionistic likeness in Europe, the essence of inner life and spirit in Asia. In the Chinese story, the Emperor commissions a painting and appreciates its outer appearance. But the artist reveals to him the true meaning of his work. The Emperor may rule over the territory he has conquered, but only the artist knows the way within. “Let me show the Way”, the ‘Dao’, a word that means both the path or the method, and the mysterious works of the Universe. The painting is gone, but the artist has reached his goal — beyond any material appearance. A classical Chinese landscape is not meant to reproduce an actual view, as would a Western figurative painting. Whereas the European painter wants you to borrow his eyes and look at a particular landscape exactly as he saw it, from a specific angle, the Chinese painter does not choose a single viewpoint. His landscape is not a ‘real’ one, and you can enter it from any point, then travel in it; the artist creates a path for your eyes to travel up and down, then back again, in a leisurely movement. This is even more true in the case of the horizontal scroll, in which the action of slowly opening one section of the painting, then rolling it up to move on to the other, adds a dimension of time which is unknown in any other form of painting. It also requires the active participation of the viewer, who decides at what pace he will travel through the painting — a participation which is physical as well as mental. The Chinese painter does not want you to borrow his eyes; he wants you to enter his mind. The landscape is an inner one, a spiritual and conceptual space. This concept is expressed as shanshui, literally ‘mountainwater’ which used together represent the word ‘landscape’. More than two elements of an image, these represent two complementary poles, reflecting the Daoist view of the universe. The mountain is Yang — r eaching vertically towards Heaven, stable, warm, and dry in the sun, while the water is Yin — horizontal and resting on the earth, fluid, moist and cool. The interaction of Yin, the receptive, feminine aspect of universal energy, and its counterpart Yang, active and masculine, is of course a fundamental notion of Daoism. What is often overlooked is an essential third element, the Middle Void where their interaction takes place. This can be compared with the yogic practice of pranayama; breathe in, retain, breathe out — the suspension of breath is the Void where meditation occurs. The Middle Void is essential — nothing can happen without it; hence the importance of the white, unpainted space in Chinese landscape. This is also where Man finds a fundamental role. In that space between Heaven and Earth, he becomes the conduit of communication between both poles of the Universe. His presence is essential, even if it’s only suggested; far from being lost or oppressed by the lofty peaks, he is, in Francois Cheng’s wonderful expression, “the eye of the landscape”. When French painter Jean Dubuffet mooted the concept of ‘art brut’ in the 1940s, the art of the untrained visionary was of minority interest. From its almost veiled beginnings, ‘outsider art’ has gradually become the fastest growing area of interest in contemporary art internationally. This genre is described as the art of those who have ‘no right’ to be artists as they have received no formal training, yet show talent and artistic insight. Their works are a stimulating contrast to a lot of mainstream offerings. Around the time Dubuffet was propounding his concept, in India “an untutored genius was creating paradise”. Years ago the little patch of jungle that he began clearing to make himself a garden sculpted with stone and recycled material is known to the world today as the Rock Garden, at Chandigarh. Its 80-year-old creator– director, Nek Chand, is now hailed as India’s biggest contributor to outsider art. The fiftieth issue (Spring 2005) of Raw Vision, a UK-based magazine pioneer in outsider art publications, features Nek Chand, and his Rock Garden sculpture ‘Women by the Waterfall’ on its anniversary issue’s cover. The notion of ‘art brut’ or ‘raw art’, was of works that were in their raw state as regards cultural and artistic influences. Anything and everything from a tin to a sink to a broken down car could be material for a work of art, something Nek Chand has taken to dizzying heights. Recognising his art as “an outstanding testimony of the difference a single man can make when he lives his dream”, the Swiss Commission for UNESCO will be honouring him by way of a European exposition of his works. The five-month interactive show, ‘Realm of Nek Chand’, beginning October will be held at leading museums in Switzerland, Belgium, France and Italy. “The biggest reward is walking through the garden and seeing people enjoy my creation,” Nek Chand says.

Give an example to show that even as a young girl Santosh was not ready to accept anything unreasonable.

<answer> She wore shorts and not the traidional Indian dress fo girls. <context> 1. The only woman in the world who has scaled Mt Everest twice was born in a society where the birth of a son was regarded as a blessing, and a daughter, though not considered a curse, was not generally welcome. When her mother was expecting Santosh, a travelling ‘holy man’, giving her his blessing, assumed that she wanted a son. But, to everyone’s surprise, the unborn child’s grandmother, who was standing close by, told him that they did not want a son. The ‘holy man’ was also surprised! Nevertheless, he gave the requested blessing . .. and as destiny would have it, the blessing seemed to work. Santosh was born the sixth child in a family with five sons, a sister to five brothers. She was born in the small village of Joniyawas of Rewari District in Haryana. 2. The girl was given the name ‘Santosh’, which means contentment. But Santosh was not always content with her place in a traditional way of life. She began living life on her own terms from the start. Where other girls wore traditional Indian dresses, Santosh preferred shorts. Looking back, she says now, “From the very beginning I was quite determined that if I chose a correct and a rational path, the others around me had to change, not me.” 3. Santosh’s parents were affluent landowners who could afford to send their children to the best schools, even to the country’s capital, New Delhi, which was quite close by. But, in line with the prevailing custom in the family, Santosh had to make do with the local village school. So, she decided to fight the system in her own quiet way when the right moment arrived. And the right moment came when she turned sixteen. At sixteen, most of the girls in her village used to get married. Santosh was also under pressure from her parents to do the same. 4. A marriage as early as that was the last thing on her mind. She threatened her parents that she would never marry if she did not get a proper education. She left home and got herself enrolled in a school in Delhi. When her parents refused to pay for her education, she politely informed them of her plans to earn money by working part time to pay her school fees. Her parents then agreed to pay for her education. 5. Wishing always to study “a bit more” and with her father slowly getting used to her urge for more education, Santosh passed the high school examinations and went to Jaipur. She joined Maharani College and got a room in Kasturba Hostel. Santosh remembers, “Kasturba Hostel faced the Aravalli Hills. I used to watch villagers from my room, going up the hill and suddenly vanishing after a while. One day I decided to check it out myself. I found nobody except a few mountaineers. I asked if I could join them. To my pleasant surprise, they answered in the affirmative and motivated me to take to climbing.” 6. Then there was no looking back for this determined young girl. She saved money and enrolled in a course at Uttarkashi’s Nehru Institute of Mountaineering. “My college semester in Jaipur was to end in April but it ended on the nineteenth of May. And I was supposed to be in Uttarkashi on the twenty-first. So, I did not go back home; instead, I headed straight for the training. I had to write a letter of apology to my father without whose permission I had got myself enrolled at Uttarkashi.” 7. Thereafter, Santosh went on an expedition every year. Her climbing skills matured rapidly. Also, she developed a remarkable resistance to cold and the altitude. Equipped with an iron will, physical endurance and an amazing mental toughness, she proved herself repeatedly. The culmination of her hard work and sincerity came in 1992, just four years after she had shyly asked the Aravalli mountaineers if she could join them. At barely twenty years of age, Santosh Yadav scaled Mt Everest, becoming the youngest woman in the world to achieve the feat. If her climbing skills, physical fitness, and mental strength impressed her seniors, her concern for others and desire to work together with them found her a special place in the hearts of fellow climbers. 8. During the 1992 Everest mission, Santosh Yadav provided special care to a climber who lay dying at the South Col. She was unfortunately unsuccessful in saving him. However, she managed to save another climber, Mohan Singh, who would have met with the same fate had she not shared her oxygen with him. 9. Within twelve months, Santosh found herself a member of an Indo-Nepalese Women’s Expedition that invited her to join them. She then scaled the Everest a second time, thus setting a record as the only woman to have scaled the Everest twice, and securing for herself and India a unique place in the annals of mountaineering. In recognition of her achievements, the Indian government bestowed upon her one of the nation’s top honours, the Padmashri. 10. Describing her feelings when she was literally ‘on top of the world’, Santosh has said, “It took some time for the enormity of the moment to sink in... Then I unfurled the Indian tricolour and held it aloft on the roof of the world. The feeling is indescribable. The Indian flag was flying on top of the world. It was truly a spiritual moment. I felt proud as an Indian.” Also a fervent environmentalist, Santosh collected and brought down 500 kilograms of garbage from the Himalayas.

Does the story remind you of ‘Birth’ by A. J. Cronin that you read in Snapshots last year? What are the similarities?

<answer> "The Enemy” is about an American-trained Japanese surgeon, working in Japan during Second World War, who saves an American POW first by operating on him and then by helping him escape. Sadao realized that the white man in the US navy uniform had a bullet wound. He was in a dilemma for a moment but the doctor in him took over and he treated the bullet wound and saved the soldier. In “Birth”, A J Cronin deals with medical ethics through the protagonist, Andrew Manson. It brings out that medicine is not merely a business whose goal is to enrich its practitioners materially, the essence of being a doctor is the use of one’s senses, knowledge, and experience to reduce suffering and improve people’s lives. Manson overlooks the disappointment caused to him by his relationship, and seeks tremendous satisfaction in saving a mother and child. Both the stories underline the medical ethics—a doctor’s responsibility to the patient is of the greatest importance. In light of this, both Sadao and Andrew are true to their profession and their duty as doctors. <context> Dr Sadao Hoki’s house was built on a spot of the Japanese coast where as a little boy he had often played. The low, square stone house was set upon rocks well above a narrow beach that was outlined with bent pines. As a boy Sadao had climbed the pines, supporting himself on his bare feet, as he had seen men do in the South Seas when they climbed for coconuts. His father had taken him often to the islands of those seas, and never had he failed to say to the little brave boy at his side, ‘‘Those islands yonder, they are the stepping stones to the future for Japan.’’ ‘‘Where shall we step from them?’’ Sadao had asked seriously. ‘‘Who knows?’’ his father had answered. ‘‘Who can limit our future? It depends on what we make it.’’ Sadao had taken this into his mind as he did everything his father said, his father who never joked or played with him but who spent infinite pains upon him who was his only son. Sadao knew that his education was his father’s chief concern. For this reason he had been sent at twenty-two to America to learn all that could be learned of surgery and medicine. He had come back at thirty, and before his father died he had seen Sadao become famous not only as a surgeon but as a scientist. Because he was perfecting a discovery which would render wounds entirely clean, he had not been sent abroad with the troops. Also, he knew, there was some slight danger that the old General might need an operation for a condition for which he was now being treated medically, and for this possibility Sadao was being kept in Japan. Clouds were rising from the ocean now. The unexpected warmth of the past few days had at night drawn heavy fog from the cold waves. Sadao watched mists hide outlines of a little island near the shore and then come creeping up the beach below the house, wreathing around the pines. In a few minutes fog would be wrapped about the house too. Then he would go into the room where Hana, his wife, would be waiting for him with the two children. But at this moment the door opened and she looked out, a dark-blue woollen haori1 over her kimono. She came to him affectionately and put her arm through his as he stood, smiled and said nothing. He had met Hana in America, but he had waited to fall in love with her until he was sure she was Japanese. His father would never have received her unless she had been pure in her race. He wondered often whom he would have married if he had not met Hana, and by what luck he had found her in the most casual way, by chance literally, at an American professor’s house. The professor and his wife had been kind people anxious to do something for their few foreign students, and the students, though bored, had accepted this kindness. Sadao had often told Hana how nearly he had not gone to Professor Harley’s house that night — the rooms were so small, the food so bad, the professor’s wife so voluble. But he had gone and there he had found Hana, a new student, and had felt he would love her if it were at all possible. Now he felt her hand on his arm and was aware of the pleasure it gave him, even though they had been married years enough to have the two children. For they had not married heedlessly in America. They had finished their work at school and had come home to Japan, and when his father had seen her the marriage had been arranged in the old Japanese way, although Sadao and Hana had talked everything over beforehand. They were perfectly happy. She laid her cheek against his arm. It was at this moment that both of them saw something black come out of the mists. It was a man. He was flung up out of the ocean — flung, it seemed, to his feet by a breaker. He staggered a few steps, his body outlined against the mist, his arms above his head. Then the curled mists hid him again. ‘‘Who is that?’’ Hana cried. She dropped Sadao’s arm and they both leaned over the railing of the veranda. Now they saw him again. The man was on his hands and knees crawling. Then they saw him fall on his face and lie there. ‘‘A fisherman perhaps,’’ Sadao said, ‘‘washed from his boat.’’ He ran quickly down the steps and behind him Hana came, her wide sleeves flying. A mile or two away on either side there were fishing villages, but here was only the bare and lonely coast, dangerous with rocks. The surf beyond the beach was spiked with rocks. Somehow the man had managed to come through them — he must be badly torn. They saw when they came toward him that indeed it was so. The sand on one side of him had already a stain of red soaking through. ‘‘He is wounded,’’ Sadao exclaimed. He made haste to the man, who lay motionless, his face in the sand. An old cap stuck to his head soaked with sea water. He was in wet rags of garments. Sadao stopped, Hana at his side, and turned the man’s head. They saw the face. “A white man!” Hana whispered. Yes, it was a white man. The wet cap fell away and there was his wet yellow hair, long, as though for many weeks it had not been cut, and upon his young and tortured face was a rough yellow beard. He was unconscious and knew nothing that they did for him. Now Sadao remembered the wound, and with his expert fingers he began to search for it. Blood flowed freshly at his touch. On the right side of his lower back Sadao saw that a gun wound had been reopened. The flesh was blackened with powder. Sometime, not many days ago, the man had been shot and had not been tended. It was bad chance that the rock had struck the wound. ‘‘Oh, how he is bleeding!’’ Hana whispered again in a solemn voice. The mists screened them now completely, and at this time of day no one came by. The fishermen had gone home and even the chance beachcombers would have considered the day at an end. ‘‘What shall we do with this man?’’ Sadao muttered. But his trained hands seemed of their own will to be doing what they could to stanch the fearful bleeding. He packed the wound with the sea moss that strewed the beach. The man moaned with pain in his stupor but he did not awaken. ‘‘The best thing that we could do would be to put him back in the sea,’’ Sadao said, answering himself. Now that the bleeding was stopped for the moment he stood up and dusted the sand from his hands. ‘‘Yes, undoubtedly that would be best,’’ Hana said steadily. But she continued to stare down at the motionless man. ‘‘If we sheltered a white man in our house we should be arrested and if we turned him over as a prisoner, he would certainly die,’’ Sadao said. ‘‘The kindest thing would be to put him back into the sea,’’ Hana said. But neither of them moved. They were staring with a curious repulsion upon the inert figure. ‘‘What is he?’’ Hana whispered. ‘‘There is something about him that looks American,’’ Sadao said. He took up the battered cap. Yes, there, almost gone, was the faint lettering. ‘‘A sailor,’’ he said, ‘‘from an American warship.’’ He spelled it out: ‘‘U.S. Navy.’’ The man was a prisoner of war! ‘‘He has escaped.’’ Hana cried softly, ‘‘and that is why he is wounded.’’ ‘‘In the back,’’ Sadao agreed. They hesitated, looking at each other. Then Hana said with resolution: “Come, are we able to put him back into the sea?” “If I am able, are you?” Sadao asked. “No,” Hana said, “But if you can do it alone...” Sadao hesitated again. “The strange thing is,” he said, “that if the man were whole I could turn him over to the police without difficulty. I care nothing for him. He is my enemy. All Americans are my enemy. And he is only a common fellow. You see how foolish his face is. But since he is wounded…” “You also cannot throw him back to the sea,” Hana said. “Then there is only one thing to do. We must carry him into the house.” “But the servants?” Sadao inquired. “We must simply tell them that we intend to give him to the police — as indeed we must, Sadao. We must think of the children and your position. It would endanger all of us if we did not give this man over as a prisoner of war.” “Certainly,” Sadao agreed. “I would not think of doing anything else.” Thus agreed, together they lifted the man. He was very light, like a fowl that had been half-starved for a long time until it is only feathers and skeleton. So, his arms hanging, they carried him up the steps and into the side door of the house. This door opened into a passage, and down the passage they carried the man towards an empty bedroom. It had been the bedroom of Sadao’s father, and since his death it had not been used. They laid the man on the deeply matted floor. Everything here had been Japanese to please the old man, who would never in his own home sit on a chair or sleep in a foreign bed. Hana went to the wall cupboards and slid back a door and took out a soft quilt. She hesitated. The quilt was covered with flowered silk and the lining was pure white silk. “He is so dirty,” she murmured in distress. “Yes, he had better be washed,” Sadao agreed. “If you will fetch hot water I will wash him.” “I cannot bear for you to touch him,” she said. “We shall have to tell the servants he is here. I will tell Yumi now. She can leave the children for a few minutes and she can wash him.” Sadao considered a moment. “Let it be so,” he agreed. “You tell Yumi and I will tell the others.” But the utter pallor of the man’s unconscious face moved him first to stoop and feel his pulse. It was faint but it was there. He put his hand against the man’s cold breast. The heart too was yet alive. “He will die unless he is operated on,” Sadao said, considering. “The question is whether he will not die anyway.” Hana cried out in fear. “Don’t try to save him! What if he should live?” “What if he should die?” Sadao replied. He stood gazing down on the motionless man. This man must have extraordinary vitality or he would have been dead by now. But then he was very young — perhaps not yet twentyfive. “You mean die from the operation?” Hana asked. “Yes,” Sadao said. Hana considered this doubtfully, and when she did not answer Sadao turned away. “At any rate something must be done with him,” he said, “and first he must be washed.” He went quickly out of the room and Hana came behind him. She did not wish to be left alone with the white man. He was the first she had seen since she left America and now he seemed to have nothing to do with those whom she had known there. Here he was her enemy, a menace, living or dead. She turned to the nursery and called, “Yumi!” But the children heard her voice and she had to go in for a moment and smile at them and play with the baby boy, now nearly three months old. Over the baby’s soft black hair she motioned with her mouth, “Yumi — come with me!” “I will put the baby to bed,” Yumi replied. “He is ready.” She went with Yumi into the bedroom next to the nursery and stood with the boy in her arms while Yumi spread the sleeping quilts on the floor and laid the baby between them. Then Hana led the way quickly and softly to the kitchen. The two servants were frightened at what their master had just told them. The old gardener, who was also a house servant, pulled the few hairs on his upper lip. “The master ought not to heal the wound of this white man,” he said bluntly to Hana. “The white man ought to die. First he was shot. Then the sea caught him and wounded him with her rocks. If the master heals what the gun did and what the sea did they will take revenge on us.” “I will tell him what you say,” Hana replied courteously. But she herself was also frightened, although she was not superstitious as the old man was. Could it ever be well to help an enemy? Nevertheless she told Yumi to fetch the hot water and bring it to the room where the white man was. She went ahead and slid back the partitions. Sadao was not yet there. Yumi, following, put down her wooden bucket. Then she went over to the white man. When she saw him her thick lips folded themselves into stubbornness. “I have never washed a white man,” she said, “and I will not wash so dirty a one now.” Hana cried at her severely. “You will do what your master commands you!” There was so fierce a look of resistance upon Yumi’s round dull face that Hana felt unreasonably afraid. After all, if the servants should report something that was not as it happened? “Very well,” she said with dignity. “You understand we only want to bring him to his senses so that we can turn him over as a prisoner?” “I will have nothing to do with it,” Yumi said, “I am a poor person and it is not my business.” “Then please,” Hana said gently, “return to your own work.” At once Yumi left the room. But this left Hana with the white man alone. She might have been too afraid to stay had not her anger at Yumi’s stubbornness now sustained her. “Stupid Yumi,” she muttered fiercely. “Is this anything but a man? And a wounded helpless man!” In the conviction of her own superiority she bent impulsively and untied the knotted rugs that kept the white man covered. When she had his breast bare she dipped the small clean towel that Yumi had brought into the steaming hot water and washed his face carefully. The man’s skin, though rough with exposure, was of a fine texture and must have been very blond when he was a child. While she was thinking these thoughts, though not really liking the man better now that he was no longer a child, she kept on washing him until his upper body was quite clean. But she dared not turn him over. Where was Sadao? Now her anger was ebbing, and she was anxious again and she rose, wiping her hands on the wrong towel. Then lest the man be chilled, she put the quilt over him. “Sadao!” she called softly. He had been about to come in when she called. His hand had been on the door and now he opened it. She saw that he had brought his surgeon’s emergency bag and that he wore his surgeon’s coat. “You have decided to operate!” she cried. “Yes,” he said shortly. He turned his back to her and unfolded a sterilized towel upon the floor of the tokonoma2 alcove, and put his instruments out upon it. “Fetch towels,” he said. She went obediently, but how anxious now, to the linen shelves and took out the towels. There ought also to be old pieces of matting so that the blood would not ruin the fine floor covering. She went out to the back veranda where the gardener kept strips of matting with which to protect delicate shrubs on cold nights and took an armful of them. But when she went back into the room, she saw this was useless. The blood had already soaked through the packing in the man’s wound and had ruined the mat under him. “Oh, the mat!” she cried. “Yes, it is ruined,” Sadao replied, as though he did not care. “Help me to turn him,” he commanded her. She obeyed him without a word, and he began to wash the man’s back carefully. “Yumi would not wash him,” she said. “Did you wash him then?” Sadao asked, not stopping for a moment his swift concise movements. “Yes,” she said. He did not seem to hear her. But she was used to his absorption when he was at work. She wondered for a moment if it mattered to him what was the body upon which he worked so long as it was for the work he did so excellently. “You will have to give the anesthetic if he needs it,” he said. “I?” she repeated blankly. “But never have I!” “It is easy enough,” he said impatiently. He was taking out the packing now, and the blood began to flow more quickly. He peered into the wound with the bright surgeon’s light fastened on his forehead. “The bullet is still there,” he said with cool interest. “Now I wonder how deep this rock wound is. If it is not too deep it may be that I can get the bullet. But the bleeding is not superficial. He has lost much blood.” At this moment Hana choked. He looked up and saw her face the colour of sulphur. “Don’t faint,” he said sharply. He did not put down his exploring instrument. “If I stop now the man will surely die.” She clapped her hands to her mouth and leaped up and ran out of the room. Outside in the garden he heard her retching. But he went on with his work. “It will be better for her to empty her stomach,” he thought. He had forgotten that of course she had never seen an operation. But her distress and his inability to go to her at once made him impatient and irritable with this man who lay like dead under his knife. “This man.” he thought, “there is no reason under heaven why he should live.” Unconsciously this thought made him ruthless and he proceeded swiftly. In his dream the man moaned but Sadao paid no heed except to mutter at him. “Groan,” he muttered, “groan if you like. I am not doing this for my own pleasure. In fact, I do not know why I am doing it.” The door opened and there was Hana again. “Where is the anesthetic?” she asked in a clear voice. Sadao motioned with his chin. “It is as well that you came back,” he said. “This fellow is beginning to stir.” She had the bottle and some cotton in her hand. “But how shall I do it?” she asked. “Simply saturate the cotton and hold it near his nostrils,” Sadao replied without delaying for one moment the intricate detail of his work. “When he breathes badly move it away a little.” She crouched close to the sleeping face of the young American. It was a piteously thin face, she thought, and the lips were twisted. The man was suffering whether he knew it or not. Watching him, she wondered if the stories they heard sometimes of the sufferings of prisoners were true. They came like flickers of rumour, told by word of mouth and always contradicted. In the newspapers the reports were always that wherever the Japanese armies went the people received them gladly, with cries of joy at their liberation. But sometimes she remembered such men as General Takima, who at home beat his wife cruelly, though no one mentioned it now that he had fought so victorious a battle in Manchuria. If a man like that could be so cruel to a woman in his power, would he not be cruel to one like this for instance? She hoped anxiously that this young man had not been tortured. It was at this moment that she observed deep red scars on his neck, just under the ear. “Those scars,” she murmured, lifting her eyes to Sadao. But he did not answer. At this moment he felt the tip of his instrument strike against something hard, dangerously near the kidney. All thought left him. He felt only the purest pleasure. He probed with his fingers, delicately, familiar with every atom of this human body. His old American professor of anatomy had seen to that knowledge. “Ignorance of the human body is the surgeon’s cardinal sin, sirs!” he had thundered at his classes year after year. “To operate without as complete knowledge of the body as if you had made it — anything less than that is murder.” “It is not quite at the kidney, my friend,” Sadao murmured. It was his habit to murmur to the patient when he forgot himself in an operation. “My friend,” he always called his patients and so now he did, forgetting that this was his enemy. Then quickly, with the cleanest and most precise of incisions, the bullet was out. The man quivered but he was still unconscious. Nevertheless he muttered a few English words. “Guts,” he muttered, choking. “They got...my guts...” “Sadao!” Hana cried sharply. “Hush,” Sadao said. The man sank again into silence so profound that Sadao took up his wrist, hating the touch of it. Yes, there was still a pulse so faint, so feeble, but enough, if he wanted the man to live, to give hope. “But certainly I do not want this man to live,” he thought. “No more anesthetic,” he told Hana. He turned as swiftly as though he had never paused and from his medicines he chose a small vial and from it filled a hypodermic and thrust it into the patient’s left arm. Then putting down the needle, he took the man’s wrist again. The pulse under his fingers fluttered once or twice and then grew stronger. “This man will live in spite of all,” he said to Hana and sighed. The young man woke, so weak, his blue eyes so terrified when he perceived where he was, that Hana felt compelled to apologise. She herself served him, for none of the servants would enter the room. When she came in the first time, she saw him summon his small strength to be prepared for some fearful thing. “Don’t be afraid,” she begged him softly. “How come... you speak English…” he gasped. “I was a long time in America,” she replied. She saw that he wanted to reply to that but he could not, and so she knelt and fed him gently from the porcelain spoon. He ate unwillingly, but still he ate. “Now you will soon be strong,” she said, not liking him and yet moved to comfort him. He did not answer. When Sadao came in the third day after the operation, he found the young man sitting up, his face bloodless with the effort. “Lie down,” Sadao cried. “Do you want to die?” He forced the man down gently and strongly and examined the wound. “You may kill yourself if you do this sort of thing,” he scolded. “What are you going to do with me?” the boy muttered. He looked just now barely seventeen. “Are you going to hand me over?” For a moment Sadao did not answer. He finished his examination and then pulled the silk quilt over the man. “I do not know myself what I shall do with you,” he said. “I ought of course to give you to the police. You are a prisoner of war — no, do not tell me anything.” He put up his hand as he saw the young man was about to speak. “Do not even tell me your name unless I ask it.” They looked at each other for a moment, and then the young man closed his eyes and turned his face to the wall. “Okay,” he whispered, his mouth a bitter line. Outside the door Hana was waiting for Sadao. He saw at once that she was in trouble. “Sadao, Yumi tells me the servants feel they cannot stay if we hide this man here any more,” she said. “She tells me that they are saying that you and I were so long in America that we have forgotten to think of our own country first. They think we like Americans.” “It is not true,” Sadao said harshly “Americans are our enemies. But I have been trained not to let a man die if I can help it.” “The servants cannot understand that,” she said anxiously. “No,” he agreed. Neither seemed able to say more, and somehow the household dragged on. The servants grew more watchful. Their courtesy was as careful as ever, but their eyes were cold upon the pair to whom they were hired. “It is clear what our master ought to do,” the old gardener said one morning. He had worked with flowers all his life, and had been a specialist too in moss. For Sadao’s father he had made one of the finest moss gardens in Japan, sweeping the bright green carpet constantly so that not a leaf or a pine needle marred the velvet of its surface. “My old master’s son knows very well what he ought to do,” he now said, pinching a bud from a bush as he spoke. “When the man was so near death why did he not let him bleed?” “That young master is so proud of his skill to save life that he saves any life,” the cook said contemptuously. She split a fowl’s neck skillfully and held the fluttering bird and let its blood flow into the roots of a wistaria vine. Blood is the best of fertilisers, and the old gardener would not let her waste a drop of it. “It is the children of whom we must think,” Yumi said sadly. “What will be their fate if their father is condemned as a traitor?” They did not try to hide what they said from the ears of Hana as she stood arranging the day’s flowers in the veranda near by, and she knew they spoke on purpose that she might hear. That they were right she knew too in most of her being. But there was another part of her which she herself could not understand. It was not sentimental liking of the prisoner. She had come to think of him as a prisoner. She had not liked him even yesterday when he had said in his impulsive way, “Anyway, let me tell you that my name is Tom.” She had only bowed her little distant bow. She saw hurt in his eyes but she did not wish to assuage it. Indeed, he was a great trouble in this house. As for Sadao, every day he examined the wound carefully. The last stitches had been pulled out this morning, and the young man would, in a fortnight be nearly as well as ever. Sadao went back to his office and carefully typed a letter to the Chief of police reporting the whole matter. “On the twenty-first day of February an escaped prisoner was washed up on the shore in front of my house.” So far he typed and then he opened a secret drawer of his desk and put the unfinished report into it. On the seventh day after that, two things happened. In the morning the servants left together, their belongings tied in large square cotton kerchiefs. When Hana got up in the morning nothing was done, the house not cleaned and the food not prepared, and she knew what it meant. She was dismayed and even terrified, but her pride as a mistress would not allow her to show it. Instead, she inclined her head gracefully when they appeared before her in the kitchen, and she paid them off and thanked them for all that they had done for her. They were crying, but she did not cry. The cook and the gardener had served Sadao since he was a little boy in his father’s house, and Yumi cried because of the children. She was so grieving that after she had gone she ran back to Hana. “If the baby misses me too much tonight, send for me. I am going to my own house and you know where it is.” “Thank you,” Hana said smiling. But she told herself she would not send for Yumi however the baby cried. She made the breakfast and Sadao helped with the children. Neither of them spoke of the servants beyond the fact that they were gone. But after Hana had taken morning food to the prisoner, she came back to Sadao. “Why is it we cannot see clearly what we ought to do?” she asked him. “Even the servants see more clearly than we do. Why are we different from other Japanese?” Sadao did not answer. But a little later he went into the room where the prisoner was and said brusquely, “Today you may get up on your feet. I want you to stay up only five minutes at a time. Tomorrow you may try it twice as long. It would be well that you get back your strength as quickly as possible.” He saw the flicker of terror on the young face that was still very pale. “Okay,” the boy murmured. Evidently he was determined to say more. “I feel I ought to thank you, Doctor, for having saved my life.” “Don’t thank me too early,” Sadao said coldly. He saw the flicker of terror again in the boy’s eyes — terror as unmistakable as an animal’s. The scars on his neck were crimson for a moment. Those scars! What were they? Sadao did not ask. In the afternoon the second thing happened. Hana, working hard on unaccustomed labour, saw a messenger come to the door in official uniform. Her hands went weak and she could not draw her breath. The servants must have told already. She ran to Sadao, gasping, unable to utter a word. But by then the messenger had simply followed her through the garden and there he stood. She pointed at him helplessly. Sadao looked up from his book. He was in his office, the other partition of which was thrown open to the garden for the southern sunshine. “What is it?” he asked the messenger and then he rose, seeing the man’s uniform. “You are to come to the palace,” the man said. “The old General is in pain again.” “Oh,” Hana breathed, “is that all?” “All?” the messenger exclaimed. “Is it not enough?” “Indeed it is,” she replied. “I am very sorry.” When Sadao came to say goodbye, she was in the kitchen, but doing nothing. The children were asleep and she sat merely resting for a moment, more exhausted from her fright than from work. “I thought they had come to arrest you”, she said. He gazed down into her anxious eyes. “I must get rid of this man for your sake,” he said in distress. “Somehow I must get rid of him.” (Sadao goes to see the General) “Of course,” the General said weakly, “I understand fully. But that is because, I once took a degree in Princeton. So few Japanese have.” “I care nothing for the man, Excellency,” Sadao said, “but having operated on him with such success…” “Yes, yes” the General said. “It only makes me feel you more indispensable to me. Evidently you can save anyone — you are so skilled. You say you think I can stand one more such attack as I have had today?” “Not more than one,” Sadao said. “Then certainly I can allow nothing to happen to you,” the General said with anxiety. His long pale Japanese face became expressionless, which meant that he was in deep thought. “You cannot be arrested,” the General said, closing his eyes. “Suppose you were condemned to death and the next day I had to have my operation?” “There are other surgeons, Excellency,” Sadao suggested. “None I trust,” the General replied. “The best ones have been trained by Germans and would consider the operation successful even if I died. I do not care for their point of view.” He sighed. “It seems a pity that we cannot better combine the German ruthlessness with the American sentimentality. Then you could turn your prisoner over to execution and yet I could be sure you would not murder me while I was unconscious.” The General laughed. He had an unusual sense of humour. “As a Japanese, could you not combine these two foreign elements?” he asked. Sadao smiled. “I am not quite sure,” he said, “but for your sake I would be willing to try, Excellency.” The General shook his head. “I had rather not be the test case,” he said. He felt suddenly weak and overwhelmed with the cares of his life as an official in times such as these when repeated victory brought great responsibilities all over the south Pacific. “It is very unfortunate that this man should have washed up on your doorstep,” he said irritably. “I feel it so myself,” Sadao said gently. “It would be best if he could be quietly killed,” the General said. “Not by you, but by someone who does not know him. I have my own private assassins. Suppose I send two of them to your house tonight or better, any night. You need know nothing about it. It is now warm — what would be more natural than that you should leave the outer partition of the white man’s room open to the garden while he sleeps?” “Certainly it would be very natural,” Sadao agreed. “In fact, it is so left open every night.” “Good,” the General said, yawning. “They are very capable assassins — they make no noise and they know the trick of inward bleeding. If you like I can even have them remove the body.” Sadao considered. “That perhaps would be best, Excellency,” he agreed, thinking of Hana. He left the General’s presence then and went home, thinking over the plan. In this way the whole thing would be taken out of his hands. He would tell Hana nothing, since she would be timid at the idea of assassins in the house, and yet certainly such persons were essential in an absolute state such as Japan was. How else could rulers deal with those who opposed them? He refused to allow anything but reason to be the atmosphere of his mind as he went into the room where the American was in bed. But as he opened the door, to his surprise he found the young man out of bed, and preparing to go into the garden. “What is this!” he exclaimed. “Who gave you permission to leave your room?” “I’m not used to waiting for permission,” Tom said gaily. “Gosh, I feel pretty good again! But will the muscles on this side always feel stiff?” “Is it so?” Sadao inquired, surprised. He forgot all else. “Now I thought I had provided against that,” he murmured. He lifted the edge of the man’s shirt and gazed at the healing scar. “Massage may do it,” he said, “if exercise does not.” “It won’t bother me much,” the young man said. His young face was gaunt under the stubbly blond beard. “Say, Doctor, I’ve got something I want to say to you. If I hadn’t met a Jap like you — well, I wouldn’t be alive today. I know that.” Sadao bowed but he could not speak. “Sure, I know that,” Tom went on warmly. His big thin hands gripping a chair were white at the knuckles. “I guess if all the Japs were like you there wouldn’t have been a war.” “Perhaps,” Sadao said with difficulty. “And now I think you had better go back to bed.” He helped the boy back into bed and then bowed. “Good night,” he said. Sadao slept badly that night. Time and time again he woke, thinking he heard the rustling of footsteps, the sound of a twig broken or a stone displaced in the garden — a noise such as men might make who carried a burden. The next morning he made the excuse to go first into the guest room. If the American were gone he then could simply tell Hana that so the General had directed. But when he opened the door he saw at once that there on the pillow was the shaggy blond head. He could hear the peaceful breathing of sleep and he closed the door again quietly. “He is asleep,” he told Hana. “He is almost well to sleep like that.” “What shall we do with him?” Hana whispered her old refrain. Sadao shook his head. “I must decide in a day or two,” he promised. But certainly, he thought, the second night must be the night. There rose a wind that night, and he listened to the sounds of bending boughs and whistling partitions. Hana woke too. “Ought we not to go and close the sick man’s partition?” she asked. “No,” Sadao said. “He is able now to do it for himself.” But the next morning the American was still there. Then the third night of course must be the night. The wind changed to quiet rain and the garden was full of the sound of dripping eaves and running springs. Sadao slept a little better, but he woke at the sound of a crash and leaped to his feet. “What was that?” Hana cried. The baby woke at her voice and began to wail. “I must go and see,” But he held her and would not let her move. “Sadao,” she cried, “what is the matter with you?” “Don’t go,” he muttered, “don’t go!” His terror infected her and she stood breathless, waiting. There was only silence. Together they crept back into the bed, the baby between them. Yet when he opened the door of the guest room in the morning there was the young man. He was very gay and had already washed and was now on his feet. He had asked for a razor yesterday and had shaved himself and today there was a faint colour in his cheeks. “I am well,” he said joyously. Sadao drew his kimono round his weary body. He could not, he decided suddenly, go through another night. It was not that he cared for this young man’s life. No, simply it was not worth the strain. “You are well,” Sadao agreed. He lowered his voice. “You are so well that I think if I put my boat on the shore tonight, with food and extra clothing in it, you might be able to row to that little island not far from the coast. It is so near the coast that it has not been worth fortifying. Nobody lives on it because in storm it is submerged. But this is not the season of storm. You could live there until you saw a Korean fishing boat pass by. They pass quite near the island because the water is many fathoms deep there.” The young man stared at him, slowly comprehending. “Do I have to?” he asked. “I think so,” Sadao said gently. “You understand — it is not hidden that you are here.” The young man nodded in perfect comprehension. “Okay,” he said simply. Sadao did not see him again until evening. As soon as it was dark he had dragged the stout boat down to the shore and in it he put food and bottled water that he had bought secretly during the day, as well as two quilts he had bought at a pawnshop. The boat he tied to a post in the water, for the tide was high. There was no moon and he worked without a flashlight. When he came to the house he entered as though he were just back from his work, and so Hana knew nothing. “Yumi was here today,” she said as she served his supper. Though she was so modern, still she did not eat with him. “Yumi cried over the baby,” she went on with a sigh. “She misses him so.” “The servants will come back as soon as the foreigner is gone,” Sadao said. He went into the guest room that night before he went to bed himself and checked carefully the American’s temperature, the state of the wound, and his heart and pulse. The pulse was irregular but that was perhaps because of excitement. The young man’s pale lips were pressed together and his eyes burned. Only the scars on his neck were red. “I realise you are saving my life again,” he told Sadao. “Not at all,” Sadao said. “It is only inconvenient to have you here any longer.” He had hesitated a good deal about giving the man a flashlight. But he had decided to give it to him after all. It was a small one, his own, which he used at night when he was called. “If your food runs out before you catch a boat,” he said, “signal me two flashes at the same instant the sun drops over the horizon. Do not signal in darkness, for it will be seen. If you are all right but still there, signal me once. You will find fresh fish easy to catch but you must eat them raw. A fire would be seen.” “Okay,” the young man breathed. He was dressed now in the Japanese clothes which Sadao had given him, and at the last moment Sadao wrapped a black cloth about his blond head. “Now,” Sadao said. The young American, without a word, shook Sadao’s hand warmly, and then walked quite well across the floor and down the step into the darkness of the garden. Once — twice... Sadao saw his light flash to find his way. But that would not be suspected. He waited until from the shore there was one more flash. Then he closed the partition. That night he slept. “You say the man escaped?” the General asked faintly. He had been operated upon a week before, an emergency operation to which Sadao had been called in the night. For twelve hours Sadao had not been sure the General would live. The gall bladder was much involved. Then the old man had begun to breathe deeply again and to demand food. Sadao had not been able to ask about the assassins. So far as he knew they had never come. The servants had returned and Yumi had cleaned the guest room thoroughly and had burned sulphur in it to get the white man’s smell out of it. Nobody said anything. Only the gardener was cross because he had got behind with his chrysanthemums. But after a week Sadao felt the General was well enough to be spoken to about the prisoner. “Yes, Excellency, he escaped,” Sadao now said. He coughed, signifying that he had not said all he might have said, but was unwilling to disturb the General further. But the old man opened his eyes suddenly. “That prisoner,” he said with some energy, “did I not promise you I would kill him for you?” “You did, Excellency,” Sadao said. “Well, well!” the old man said in a tone of amazement, “so I did! But you see, I was suffering a good deal. The truth is, I thought of nothing but myself. In short, I forgot my promise to you.” “I wondered, Your Excellency,” Sadao murmured. “It was certainly very careless of me,” the General said. “But you understand it was not lack of patriotism or dereliction of duty.” He looked anxiously at his doctor. “If the matter should come out you would understand that, wouldn’t you?” “Certainly, Your Excellency,” Sadao said. He suddenly comprehended that the General was in the palm of his hand and that as a consequence he himself was perfectly safe. “I can swear to your loyalty, Excellency,” he said to the old General, “and to your zeal against the enemy.” “You are a good man,” the General murmured and closed his eyes.” “You will be rewarded.” But Sadao, searching the spot of black in the twilighted sea that night, had his reward. There was no prick of light in the dusk. No one was on the island. His prisoner was gone — safe, doubtless, for he had warned him to wait only for a Korean fishing boat. He stood for a moment on the veranda, gazing out to the sea from whence the young man had come that other night. And into his mind, although without reason, there came other white faces he had known — the professor at whose house he had met Hana, a dull man, and his wife had been a silly talkative woman, in spite of her wish to be kind. He remembered his old teacher of anatomy, who had been so insistent on mercy with the knife, and then he remembered the face of his fat and slatternly landlady. He had had great difficulty in finding a place to live in America because he was a Japanese. The Americans were full of prejudice and it had been bitter to live in it, knowing himself their superior. How he had despised the ignorant and dirty old woman who had at last consented to house him in her miserable home! He had once tried to be grateful to her because she had in his last year nursed him through influenza, but it was difficult, for she was no less repulsive to him in her kindness. Now he remembered the youthful, haggard face of his prisoner — white and repulsive. “Strange,” he thought. “I wonder why I could not kill him?”

Kezia decides that there are “different kinds of fathers”. What kind of father was Mr Macdonald, and how was he different from Kezia’s father?

<answer> In Kezia's opinion, her father was very harsh. He did not talk to her affectionately but rather he used to speak to her stringently. So she avoided him. She did not want to be in front of him because she was afraid of him. Moreover, her father never spent time with her. Macdonald family lived next door to her house. One evening she saw him playing tag with his children. A baby was on his shoulders and two little girls were hanging on to his coat pockets. They were laughing. Also, she saw some boys turn the hose on Macdonald and he tried to catch them laughing all the time. She found them feel friendly with their father. So, she wished if her father were like them. <context> 1. TO the little girl he was a figure to be feared and avoided. Every morning before going to work he came into her room and gave her a casual kiss, to which she responded with “Goodbye, Father”. And oh, there was a glad sense of relief when she heard the noise of the carriage growing fainter and fainter down the long road! In the evening when he came home she stood near the staircase and heard his loud voice in the hall. “Bring my tea into the drawing-room... Hasn’t the paper come yet? Mother, go and see if my paper’s out there — and bring me my slippers.” 2. “Kezia,” Mother would call to her, “if you’re a good girl you can come down and take off father’s boots.” Slowly the girl would slip down the stairs, more slowly still across the hall, and push open the drawing-room door. By that time he had his spectacles on and looked at her over them in a way that was terrifying to the little girl. “Well, Kezia, hurry up and pull off these boots and take them outside. Have you been a good girl today?” “I d-d-don’t know, Father. “You d-d-don’t know? If you stutter like that Mother will have to take you to the doctor.” 3. She never stuttered with other people — had quite given it up — but only with Father, because then she was trying so hard to say the words properly. “What’s the matter? What are you looking so wretched about? Mother, I wish you taught this child not to appear on the brink of suicide... Here, Kezia, carry my teacup back to the table carefully.” He was so big — his hands and his neck, especially his mouth when he yawned. Thinking about him alone was like thinking about a giant. 4. On Sunday afternoons Grandmother sent her down to the drawing-room to have a “nice talk with Father and Mother”. But the little girl always found Mother reading and Father stretched out on the sofa, his handkerchief on his face, his feet on one of the best cushions, sleeping soundly and snoring. She sat on a stool, gravely watched him until he woke and stretched, and asked the time — then looked at her. “Don’t stare so, Kezia. You look like a little brown owl.” One day, when she was kept indoors with a cold, her grandmother told her that father’s birthday was next week, and suggested she should make him a pin-cushion for a gift out of a beautiful piece of yellow silk. 5. Laboriously, with a double cotton, the little girl stitched three sides. But what to fill it with? That was the question. The grandmother was out in the garden, and she wandered into Mother’s bedroom to look for scraps. On the bed-table she discovered a great many sheets of fine paper, gathered them up, tore them into tiny pieces, and stuffed her case, then sewed up the fourth side. That night there was a hue and cry in the house. Father’s great speech for the Port Authority had been lost. Rooms were searched; servants questioned. Finally Mother came into Kezia’s room. “Kezia, I suppose you didn’t see some papers on a table in our room?” “Oh yes,” she said, “I tore them up for my surprise.” “What!” screamed Mother. “Come straight down to the dining-room this instant.” 6. And she was dragged down to where Father was pacing to and fro, hands behind his back. “Well?” he said sharply. Mother explained. He stopped and stared at the child. “Did you do that?” “N-n-no”, she whispered. “Mother, go up to her room and fetch down the damned thing — see that the child’s put to bed this instant.” 7. Crying too much to explain, she lay in the shadowed room watching the evening light make a sad little pattern on the floor. Then Father came into the room with a ruler in his hands. “I am going to beat you for this,” he said. “Oh, no, no”, she screamed, hiding under the bedclothes. He pulled them aside. “Sit up,” he ordered, “and hold out your hands. You must be taught once and for all not to touch what does not belong to you.” “But it was for your b-b-birthday.” Down came the ruler on her little, pink palms. 8. Hours later, when Grandmother had wrapped her in a shawl and rocked her in the rocking-chair, the child clung to her soft body. “What did God make fathers for?” she sobbed. “Here’s a clean hanky, darling. Blow your nose. Go to sleep, pet; you’ll forget all about it in the morning. I tried to explain to Father but he was too upset to listen tonight.” But the child never forgot. Next time she saw him she quickly put both hands behind her back and a red colour flew into her cheeks. 9. The Macdonalds lived next door. They had five children. Looking through a gap in the fence the little girl saw them playing ‘tag’ in the evening. The father with the baby, Mao, on his shoulders, two little girls hanging on to his coat pockets ran round and round the flower-beds, shaking with laughter. Once she saw the boys turn the hose on him—and he tried to catch them laughing all the time. Then it was she decided there were different sorts of fathers. Suddenly, one day, Mother became ill, and she and Grandmother went to hospital. The little girl was left alone in the house with Alice, the cook. That was all right in the daytime, but while Alice was putting her to bed she grew suddenly afraid. 10. “What’ll I do if I have a nightmare?” she asked. “I often have nightmares and then Grannie takes me into her bed—I can’t stay in the dark—it all gets ‘whispery’…” “You just go to sleep, child,” said Alice, pulling off her socks, “and don’t you scream and wake your poor Pa.” But the same old nightmare came — the butcher with a knife and a rope, who came nearer and nearer, smiling that dreadful smile, while she could not move, could only stand still, crying out, “Grandma! Grandma!” She woke shivering to see Father beside her bed, a candle in his hand. “What’s the matter?” he said. 11. “Oh, a butcher — a knife — I want Grannie.” He blew out the candle, bent down and caught up the child in his arms, carrying her along the passage to the big bedroom. A newspaper was on the bed. He put away the paper, then carefully tucked up the child. He lay down beside her. Half asleep still, still with the butcher’s smile all about her it seemed, she crept close to him, snuggled her head under his arm, held tightly to his shirt. Then the dark did not matter; she lay still. “Here, rub your feet against my legs and get them warm,” said Father. 12. Tired out, he slept before the little girl. A funny feeling came over her. Poor Father, not so big, after all — and with no one to look after him. He was harder than Grandmother, but it was a nice hardness. And every day he had to work and was too tired to be a Mr Macdonald… She had torn up all his beautiful writing… She stirred suddenly, and sighed. “What’s the matter?” asked her father. “Another dream?” “Oh,” said the little girl, “my head’s on your heart. I can hear it going. What a big heart you’ve got, Father dear.”

Comment on the way in which the story is narrated from Satyajit’s perspective.

<answer> Satyajit has been extremely biased in expressing his opinion in the story. The story could also be presented as a diary entry. The narration seems to be in continuous tone of justification. Satyajit explains himself at every point of the story- may it be feeling regretful for not giving the forgerer another chance of feeling joyous at being considered to be a God by his hosts. His revelation about failure striking faster than success portrays the completely broken condition of his spirit and soul. He very well seems to interpret the fact that the tempo failure occurs to a man faster than success. His moments of epiphany to forgive the man who had committed forgery, to consider himself stupid for coming at an occasion where Srinath and his family memebrs expected benediction from him, and to pull Srinath through the crisis of getting his daughter married rather than gifting the house and the fishpond to his own family. <context> The slow, narrow-gauge Indian train with its awkward freak of an engine had a way of making unauthorised stops for no good reason, between fields of corn or at the foot of a village—it was said that the guard signalled a halt to pluck a pumpkin or ripe melons from its stem or to buy fistfuls of green gram from a peasant. Some of the passengers grumbled and sat with drawn brows, composing in their minds angry letters to Authority, or to the Press, but others seized the chance to slip merrily out of doors for a breath of air and a view of the green fields. Satyajit, languid on the cushioned bench now vacated by the other occupants, reached out for his cigarettes but, on second thought, withdrew his hand brusquely. That won’t do, he told himself with a stern shake of his head. His smoke was rationed. He had attuned himself in the past month to a fast-growing list of denials, large and small, and this was one. How can he afford the unrestricted luxury of chain smoking? Life lay sharpening to realities that still had the semblance of an undreamable dream. He winced, the turning wheel of fortune in his unhappy eye, as always. Along the orbit of reminiscence he went round and round, pulled by a force beyond his will. The banking establishment of which he had attained control. The amazing tempo of it all. Luck had come his way, undeniably, but behind it was his mind, his initiative, grit, energy. Starting as a mere clerk he had become Managing Director. And now? What now? Tall, thin, near forty, he had sharp features, the hair receding on his temple in wide shiny smooth patches. His eyes hated glare and he wore smart eye-glasses to shield them. His mouth, thin-lipped, would tighten in repose to a line that suggested strength of will but might have been only pride. ‘What now?’ he said to himself in an underbreath. Those words had become his obsession. ‘What now?’ He had no business to be on this wretched train on a neglected railroad, travelling away from the city where he must look for work, for the means of living. With the sudden collapse of his bank, all his private assets were gone overnight; the equities; the house on Tagore Street; even the two cars, his and his wife’s. A mercy that she was away from the scene, with her parents at Delhi, and unaware of the full extent of the ruin. A telegram had come last Tuesday announcing the safe birth of her child. Their first-born, for he had married late in life. His son, his heir. And he had sold off his diamond ring to send his young wife a remittance for the name-giving rites. She had married a man of fortune—that made it harder for him in this crisis. True, she knew all about his earlier life. But that was story-book stuff. It could be narrated happily to their first-born when he grew older. The story lay killed by its sequel—failure. Glory was all overlaid with dark shame. Glory was dead. It would be easy enough today if there were none else to think of except himself. Born in a humble village home, self-educated, struggle had been his life-breath. How grateful he was for the clerkship he secured. A turning of the wheel of fortune? he had wondered. The next turning, a year after, was more dramatic. What made him give a fixed look to the man beyond the brass grille of the counter? The cheque presented for encashment was not a large sum. 2021-22 Glory at Twilight 87 Eye upon eye. Alarm vivid in the face and the hand on the counter shaking curiously. Surprised, stirred by a quick impulse, he took the cheque to the accounts desk, compared the signature with the one on record. It tallied. But that face, that hand. A hundred reasons, none connected with the cheque, could explain the face and hand. Even so, the impulse led him to the telephone. ‘Sir, have you signed a bearer cheque for Rs 2,000? It has yesterday’s date...’ ‘Rs 2,000? No.’ His heart felt pain for lack of air. ‘Sir, are you sure? The signature seems okay.’ In the next instance he was back to his counter in a rush. Where was the man? There, close to the exit, and the face turning back for a moment wore stark fear. He was going away. Feet bounded up the counter. The bank clerk hunted down his prey on the gravel path, twenty paces from the front door. There was no struggle. The man crumpled down in a heap. He squatted with head between his hands, looking down, tears rolling down. ‘Why did you have to commit forgery?’ ‘She has TB.’ ‘She?’ ‘She is dying for want of medicine.’ ‘Who?’ ‘My wife. I saw no other means. I give lessons in Maths to the rich man’s son. That money...’ The head between the hands wagged from side to side in a queer rhythmic frenzy. That was the way the clerk grew into an accountant. He deserved what he had gained. He was not made to be a mere clerk. Lost in the thrill, he had honest contempt for his stepping-stone, the forgerer. You could not commit such a crime even to save your dying wife. But today, as he sat on his lone bench on the train, he saw mind-pictures and felt troubled. The crouched figure on the gravel path wrapped in mute grieving. The prisoner at the bar, face frozen, as though he had died within himself. Had he anything to say to the Court? the Judge had asked. ‘Punish me.’ ‘Is that all?’ ‘Punish me as a killer.’ ‘Killer?’ ‘I have put my wife to shame. Shame kills as fast as TB.’ Yes, that wretched one had turned the wheel for him with his trembling hand. From that point the wheel attained a volition of its own, moving continuously. He had every reason to be grateful to the forgerer. Too late now to seek him out, give him a chance to live? 2021-22 88 Woven Words Too late. He himself sorely needed a chance to live. The banking business lay around him in a broken mass and there was he, prostrate on his face in the wreckage, sucking its dust. All his fault. He had tried to overreach himself. Each wrong step was now clear in time’s perspective. The run on the bank had come all too suddenly though. Failure had a tempo far faster than success. He had great need to fly from himself—that was why he was on this train. A letter had come in the nick of time offering him an excuse, a temporary relief from the wrenching within. ‘The wedding of my fifth daughter, Beena, is to take place on the twentieth of this month. I have kept you posted with the progress of negotiations. I seek your benediction as in the case of my second, third and fourth daughters— Kamini, Damini and Suhashi. With Beena wedded, there will be only Aruna left, and she is in her tenth year. Your benediction alone can pull me through the present daughter crisis. That is all I have to say—Your helpless Uncle Srinath.’ Daughter crisis, indeed! mused Satyajit with a dim smile. Uncle Srinath, a neighbour at Shantipur village but no blood relation, seemed to have been producing his numerous daughters secure in the faith that others would bear the brunt of the repeated crises of their marriage needs. And Satyajit, in the flush of prosperity, had been more than open-handed. It was a matter of pride, selfsatisfaction. In his younger days, the village people had not thought much of him, had not seen in him any special gift or brilliance. One of the common herd. That was all the more reason why he enjoyed success. He needed the wide-eyed wonder and eager homage of Uncle Srinath and the like while they had use and longing for his money. It was plain give-and-take. All that was over. Fallen from his castle in the clouds, Satyajit must tread the earthly ways of humble folk. But he could not deny the old man altogether. He must send some help. He had pondered over the amount. He had to ponder over each rupee before he spent it. Then, all at once, he had come to a decision. He would go to Shantipur and attend the marriage. This would be a 2021-22 Glory at Twilight 89 welcome relief—the city was suffocating him. His mind would be freshened, his strength renewed for the coming struggle by a return to the physical scene which had been his starting point in life. Let that be his starting point once more, outwardly as much as in the spirit. He would also take this chance to look at his ancestral house and fishpond, both leased out, bits of property still intact amid the vast demolition. Those he must pass on to his wife as his last gift. And he had sent word to Uncle Srinath about his arrival on the marriage day. The engine came to life with a shrill of warning. The passenger hurried back. Another half-hour and it was Shantipur. Satyajit leaned out of the door, his eyes looking for Uncle Srinath on the station platform, where many people stood crowded together, alert and apparently excited, one of them holding aloft the national flag on a bamboo pole. A political celebrity on the train? Strange that Uncle Srinath, who had always feared politics, was leading the group. Suddenly, there was a rush of legs towards Satyajit as he stepped down. The legs stopped and a booming chorus followed. Swagatam! Welcome!’ A small girl with an awestruck face stepped up with a jasmine garland in her hand. Satyajit stood in a daze of bewilderment as the girl rose on tiptoe to place the chain of flowers around his neck. He bent mechanically to receive the offer, not knowing what it meant. It was obviously a mistake, a very curious one. ‘Welcome!’ the voices rang again. Then, an expectant hush. Uncle Srinath turned round to the group. On the high cheekbones and grey stubble of his face was a clear coating of strong elation. ‘Friends and brothers! Bengal has seen greatness in almost every field of action. I shall not belittle your knowledge by citing names. It is only in trade and industry that Bengal has lagged behind sadly—the plums of business have gone to people from upcountry or from overseas. That is why our hearts grow big with pride at the sight of a son of Bengal, a son of our own Shantipur village, who has attained great success in that field, that 2021-22 90 Woven Words forbidden field, and become the glory of the motherland, Swagatam! Welcome!’ ‘Swagatam!’ the combined voices roared while the tricolour flag on its tall pole nodded approvingly. When Satyajit slipped down from the ox cart at the door of a mud-brick house, a knot of women waiting tensely with brass water-bowls rushed up and stooped over his feet, scrambling for the privilege to wash his feet with cool water. Satyajit shrank back, embarrassed. ‘It’s my Beena’s privilege,’ cried Srinath, smiling. ‘This is her day. Let Beena alone wash and wipe the reverent feet. All her life she will remember this honour befalling her on the auspicious day of her marriage.’ Satyajit looked at the girl who stepped forward, shy, slender with large pensive eyes in a graceful face. ‘So this is the bride,’ he smiled at her and touched her hair in the gesture of blessing. ‘I hope the groom is worthy of this girl,’ he said as she knelt down to unlace his shoes. She slipped off his socks and poured cool water to freshen his feet, washing them with keen care. As her slim fingers went between his toes, he wiggled them, for he felt ticklish. Presently he sat on a carpet in the inner verandah with a plateful of sweets and a glass of whey while Kamini, Damini and Suhashi sat near him on their haunches and waved palm leaf fans with all their energy, as though each passing minute had to be fully used before their hands were deprived of the privilege. Sweat 2021-22 Glory at Twilight 91 broke out on their faces and they shifted their fans from right hand to left and again to the right. Their mother, who stood by, now spoke in a murmur, husky with emotion. ‘You have been more of a father to these girls than he,’ jerking her head at her invisible husband. ‘But for the bigness of your heart, they would still be maids under this room, shooting up in years and in height with no chance of having husband and home.’ She lifted her sari fringes to her eyes, wiping off two grateful tears. The meal over, Uncle Srinath, who had been shuttling between the inner verandah and the outer quarters, now stopped, leaning over his guest. ‘Beena has been given the old jewellery of her mother,’ he confided. ‘So, that part of the dowry problem has been met. Her three married sisters, whom you see before you and who owe all their bliss in life to your benediction, have given her the marriage gifts she must have: sari, jacket, chemise. Also brass utensils for her new household.’ ‘Good! Good!’ Satyajit cried happily. He had Rs 200 in his purse and had wondered how much of it had to go into the marriage pool. May be Rs 100; or, rather, Rs 101, since a figure ending with zero was not propitious. During the meal he had been slowly adding to that figure: ten, twenty, finally stopping at an additional fifty. Now that Beena had got all she needed, he could just as well slice a goodly bit off the amount. Let it be Rs 101. The fifty rupees saved would buy a perambulator for his newborn son. ‘Your benediction is our blind-man’s staff,’ Srinath went on. ‘Do I have to say more?’ He apparently decided that he did not, for he changed the topic abruptly. ‘My house has become a place of pilgrimage. You are the pride of the village, its strength. In you the people see their own inmost dream fulfilled. Will you now show yourself for a minute to the devotees who sit waiting—’ Satyajit followed his host. His devotees were seated on a floor mat, talking animatedly, and at the sight of him there was an instant hush. Hands joined to his chest, Satyajit made salutation to all. He caught sight of the schoolmaster who had taught him as a boy and made a 2021-22 92 Woven Words deep obeisance. Swelled with pride, the old man swept the floor mat group with a superior glance before he spoke: ‘Didn’t I say? Didn’t I say a hundred and one times in those far off days that the light of genius blazed on the face of my young pupil? That he stood apart from every other young pig—’ He broke short and yielded to a violent fit of coughing to cover up the slip. Presently he resumed: ‘That he with the light of genius on his face was afar from the world where the other youngsters dwelt? Why, I predicted that he would be a High Court Judge—’ Satyajit burst into a laugh. ‘Alas, I am no High Court Judge’. ‘Even more, much more!’ counted the old man. His good memory reached back to the boy with whom he had been on terms of a perpetual feud. Always bent on some kind of mischief—he did have an inventive mind that way! Arithmetic was his bogey. How does he count all his pile of money? He owns a million, if Srinath is to be believed. A million? And the old man hastened to add a brushful of colour to the drab picture presented by memory. ‘Even in those far-off days I could see two shadow forms about him, clear as life—Saraswati at his left, Lakshmi at his right. And I knew even then that the twin goddesses of knowledge and wealth, though hating the sight of each other, had for once united, stayed together, drawn by their common love.’ He lifted joined palms to his forehead, offering salutation— perhaps to those goddesses. Satyajit was determined to enjoy himself. He felt a twinge of regret that he had not thought of coming to Shantipur and basking in the people’s homage when it was truly his due. Now he was an impostor. He impersonated the man he had been a few weeks before. He made an angry jerk of his hand about his face, waving off a sandfly— and the regret. Let him be happy for the day even with a false echo, let him be wrapped a while in the lingering twilight splendour of departed glory. Tommorow he would be in the full fury of a stream, tugged under water, fighting for life. Today he would have his last breath of peace, freedom, content. Through the rest of the day he went round the village, meeting the elders, sipping the proffered milk of green 2021-22 Glory at Twilight 93 coconuts. He visited his house occupied by a tenant. His house—and he touched the walls possessively. This small house gave him a feeling of security which had not come to him even from his huge city mansion. He spent an hour by the fish pond. His pond—and he sprinkled a palmful of its water on his head. A good-sized carp landed at the end of his hook. When he came home with the catch, Uncle Srinath gazed at it raptly—one would have thought he had never before seen such fish. ‘What gills!’ he breathed in apparent ecstasy. He patted the head of the fish with an affectionate hand. ‘Bride and groom shall eat curried portions of this auspicious one when they break their marriage fast at midnight. That will bring them all the blessings that life can give’. It was near twilight when the groom’s party arrived in ox carts and palanquins. Conches blew welcome. Young women gathered at the dooryard and gave the shrill traditional greeting expressive of great joy; Ulu-ulu-uluulu- ulu! When the bridal party was well settled, chewing betel leaf and waiting for the marriage hour as prescribed by the almanac, Satyajit felt for his purse. Time now to part with Rs 101. Srinath, reading his thoughts, took him to the secluded darkness under a fig-tree in the backyard ‘My begging bowl is ready,’ he announced happily. ‘Yes, yes,’ Satyajit nodded. ‘The cash dowry stands fixed. Only Rs 2001.’ ‘What!’ Satyajit felt a hard blow in the pit of his stomach. ‘That is all.’ ‘Rs 2001?’ Srinath smiled. ‘Everything else is provided for, even the cost of the marriage feast. Only this last item awaits your benediction.’ Benediction—Srinath’s favourite word. Nothing abstract in its meaning. It could be interpreted only in terms of money. Satyajit felt a burning inside him. He had stretched his leg right into the snare of benediction, unthinkingly. How could he be so very stupid? Srinath broke the silence with a half laugh. ‘This drop in the ocean of your fortune. It shames me to mention the petty figure.’ 2021-22 94 Woven Words ‘Why didn’t you write and tell me?’ The voice was harsh. The half laugh repeated itself. ‘Have I no sense? I am not such a big ass as I look. What! Mention money to a millionaire! And such a pittance. A drop in the ocean.’ ‘A drop,’ echoed Satyajit, his mouth dry. This was the moment for confession. He was even worse off than Srinath. Hard struggle lay ahead of him for bare survival. Srinath would understand. ‘Millionaire!’ Rhapsody in the voice. Plain worship on the face. A devotee, prayerful before his god. ‘ We bask in your benediction. Our life-spark itself is held in your fist; you can destroy it just by closing your fingers tight. Words cannot say what I feel —’ Yes, the god had been a millionaire, truly. That was yesterday. Today... Confession stuck in his throat, clutched by the millionaire’s dead hand. Better give an excuse. He had come rushing in the midst of heavy work and had not thought of equipping himself with adequate cash. That would sound plausible. Later—it wouldn’t matter if Srinath discovered the terrible truth later, as he must. Something stronger than he spoke with his tongue. ‘I had to catch the morning train—there was no time to go to the bank. Maybe someone in the village—’ The words ‘cash a cheque’ were almost on his lips. ‘Someone in the village will advance a loan—’ Uncle Srinath rushed out of the house, panic on his face. He had been under the impression that a millionaire always had his pockets stuffed with money. Satyajit returned to the assembled guests. Instantly the groom, on his foothigh satin-draped platform, fat round cushions on three sides of him, was forgotten. Silence. All eyes took their fill of the rich man. A god on the pedestal of fortune. He too sat quiet, the tiredness within him heavier than even before. The peace he had attained erstwhile was gone. He longed to see the face of his new-born son. The rich man’s son who would never ride in a perambulator. Srinath returned in half an hour. His face looked angry. Satyajit saw his beckoning hand, rose heavily to his feet, and stepped outside, away from the people. 2021-22 Glory at Twilight 95 ‘Only one person in Shantipur can produce so much cash at this late hour,’ said Srinath, ‘Harish, the moneylender. That shark refuses to make an advance though.’ The swift flood of relief! ‘Harish does not trust me?’ Moneylenders did have a sixth sense. There was no knowing when Harish would have got his money back—perhaps never. ‘Preposterous! Not to trust the word and signature of a millionaire! Harish is off his senses; or, is it malice?’ The voice collected anger. ‘I could drag him to you and make him grovel at your feet and rub his fat nose on the ground.’ Satyajit could be generous. ‘No need, no need. Trust is out of date in these cynical times.’ The wonder of it—his leg was off the snare of benediction! ‘Where will our India be if such things are tolerated? What is Nehru doing about it? Is there no one to tell him how things stand in the country?’ Satyajit patted the excited man on the shoulder, soothingly. Srinath controlled himself with visible effort. His face saddened. ‘What is to be done?’ he moaned. ‘The groom’s father is a man of stone. He will break off the marriage unless cash is paid to him before the ceremony starts. Who will ever marry Beena after such dishonour?’ Satyajit wagged his head in befitting sympathy. ‘If only you had written to me. Just two words or three. Anyway, do not be worried. You will find another suitable match, a better one maybe. Who can foresee the ways of destiny?’ He felt for his purse the second time. He ought to restore the fifty rupees he had cut. Let it be Rs 151. Even if there would be no perambulator for his son— Srinath cleared his throat twice. ‘It shames me to tell you the full story.’ ‘Yes?’ ‘Harish is willing to pay.’ ‘What! you have just said—’ ‘He will pay against security. He wants security, that evil-eyed shark. Your house and fish-pond. The madness! To think that house and pond have more weight than a millionaire’s signature!’ Satyajit trembled within him. ‘House and pond,’ he murmurmed to himself. The only possessions that had not 2021-22 96 Woven Words toppled into the deluge. They were all he could give to his wife— ‘All the old values destroyed, where will our India be? Has Nehru no sense to understand this? What! A pond weighs more than a millionaire’s word, a house is better security than the signature of his hand! Yet, what else is to be done?’ Palms folded together made supplication. ‘What else is to be done in the daughter crisis?’ Satyajit had a queer drugged look. And the dead voice of the millionaire came from his throat. ‘Let the moneylender pay on those terms.’ ‘The insult, what about the insult?’ Srinath’s wrathful hand cleaved the air. ‘When the thing is done, I will make the shark rub his fat nose on the ground at your feet; I will do that, be sure. You will also see the whole village spit at the shark, thoo!’ The deed was signed, the house was gay with marriage music. Satyajit walked off to the deep dark under the fig tree, all by himself. ‘What now,’ he said under his breath, and a dim smile pinched the corners of his lips as he stuck between them the cork tip of a cigarette, the last one in the tin, and lifted a lit match with slow tremulous deliberation.

What does Maddie want to do?

<answer> Maddie wants to amend her behaviour towards Wanda. She wants to meet her to apologise. She decides to find Wanda at her house at Boggin's Heights. She also wanted to convey that all was meant in good humour and people really love her. <context> WHILE the class was circling the room, the monitor from the principal’s office brought Miss Mason a note. Miss Mason read it several times and studied it thoughtfully for a while. Then she clapped her hands. “Attention, class. Everyone back to their seat.” When the shuffling of feet had stopped and the room was still and quiet, Miss Mason said, “I have a letter from Wanda’s father that I want to read to you.” Miss Mason stood there a moment and the silence in the room grew tense and expectant. The teacher adjusted her glasses slowly and deliberately. Her manner indicated that what was coming — this letter from Wanda’s father — was a matter of great importance. Everybody listened closely as Miss Mason read the brief note. Dear Teacher: My Wanda will not come to your school any more. Jake also. Now we move away to big city. No more holler ‘Pollack’. No more ask why funny name. Plenty of funny names in the big city. Yours truly, Jan Petronski A deep silence met the reading of this letter. Miss Mason took off her glasses, blew on them and wiped them on her soft white handkerchief. Then she put them on again and looked at the class. When she spoke her voice was very low. “I am sure that none of the boys and girls in Room Thirteen would purposely and deliberately hurt anyone’s feelings because his or her name happened to be a long, unfamiliar one. I prefer to think that what was said was said in thoughtlessness. I know that all of you feel the way I do, that this is a very unfortunate thing to have happened — unfortunate and sad, both. And I want you all to think about it.” The first period was a study period. Maddie tried to prepare her lessons, but she could not put her mind on her work. She had a very sick feeling in the bottom of her stomach. True, she had not enjoyed listening to Peggy ask Wanda how many dresses she had in her closet, but she had said nothing. She had stood by silently, and that was just as bad as what Peggy had done. Worse. She was a coward. At least Peggy hadn’t considered they were being mean but she, Maddie, had thought they were doing wrong. She could put herself in Wanda’s shoes. Goodness! Wasn’t there anything she could do? If only she could tell Wanda she hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings. She turned around and stole a glance at Peggy, but Peggy did not look up. She seemed to be studying hard. Well, whether Peggy felt badly or not, she, Maddie, had to do something. She had to find Wanda Petronski. Maybe she had not yet moved away. Maybe Peggy would climb the Heights with her, and they would tell Wanda she had won the contest, that they thought she was smart and the hundred dresses were beautiful. When school was dismissed in the afternoon, Peggy said, with pretended casualness, “Hey, let’s go and see if that kid has left town or not.” So Peggy had had the same idea! Maddie glowed. Peg was really all right. The two girls hurried out of the building, up the street toward Boggins Heights, the part of town that wore such a forbidding air on this kind of a November afternoon, drizzly, damp and dismal. “Well, at least,” said Peggy gruffly, “I never did call her a foreigner or make fun of her name. I never thought she had the sense to know we were making fun of her anyway. I thought she was too dumb. And gee, look how she can draw!” Maddie could say nothing. All she hoped was that they would find Wanda. She wanted to tell her that they were sorry they had picked on her, and how wonderful the whole school thought she was, and please, not to move away and everybody would be nice. She and Peggy would fight anybody who was not nice. The two girls hurried on. They hoped to get to the top of the hill before dark. “I think that’s where the Petronskis live,” said Maddie, pointing to a little white house. Wisps of old grass stuck up here and there along the pathway like thin kittens. The house and its sparse little yard looked shabby but clean. It reminded Maddie of Wanda’s one dress, her faded blue cotton dress, shabby but clean. There was not a sign of life about the house. Peggy knocked firmly on the door, but there was no answer. She and Maddie went around to the back yard and knocked there. Still there was no answer. There was no doubt about it. The Petronskis were gone. How could they ever make amends? They turned slowly and made their way back down the hill. “Well, anyway,” said Peggy, “she’s gone now, so what can we do? Besides, when I was asking her about all her dresses, she probably was getting good ideas for her drawings. She might not even have won the contest, otherwise.” Maddie turned this idea carefully over in her head, for if there were anything in it she would not have to feel so badly. But that night she could not get to sleep. She thought about Wanda and her faded blue dress and the little house she had lived in. And she thought of the glowing picture those hundred dresses made — all lined up in the classroom. At last Maddie sat up in bed and pressed her forehead tight in her hands and really thought. This was the hardest thinking she had ever done. After a long, long time, she reached an important conclusion. She was never going to stand by and say nothing again. If she ever heard anybody picking on someone because they were funny looking or because they had strange names, she’d speak up. Even if it meant losing Peggy’s friendship. She had no way of making things right with Wanda, but from now on she would never make anybody else that unhappy again. On Saturday Maddie spent the afternoon with Peggy. They were writing a letter to Wanda Petronski. It was just a friendly letter telling about the contest and telling Wanda she had won. They told her how pretty her drawings were. And they asked her if she liked where she was living and if she liked her new teacher. They had meant to say they were sorry, but it ended up with their just writing a friendly letter, the kind they would have written to any good friend, and they signed it with lots of X’s for love. They mailed the letter to Boggins Heights, writing ‘Please Forward’ on the envelope. Days passed and there was no answer, but the letter did not come back, so maybe Wanda had received it. Perhaps she was so hurt and angry she was not going to answer. You could not blame her. Weeks went by and still Wanda did not answer. Peggy had begun to forget the whole business, and Maddie put herself to sleep at night making speeches about Wanda, defending her from great crowds of girls who were trying to tease her with, “How many dresses have you got?” And before Wanda could press her lips together in a tight line, the way she did before answering, Maddie would cry out, “Stop!” Then everybody would feel ashamed the way she used to feel. Now it was Christmas time and there was snow on the ground. Christmas bells and a small tree decorated the classroom. On the last day of school before the holidays, the teacher showed the class a letter she had received that morning. “You remember Wanda Petronski, the gifted little artist who won the drawing contest? Well, she has written me, and I am glad to know where she lives, because now I can send her medal. I want to read her letter to you.” The class sat up with a sudden interest and listened intently. Dear Miss Mason, How are you and Room Thirteen? Please tell the girls they can keep those hundred dresses, because in my new house I have a hundred new ones, all lined up in my closet. I’d like that girl Peggy to have the drawing of the green dress with the red trimming, and her friend Maddie to have the blue one. For Christmas, I miss that school and my new teacher does not equalise with you. Merry Christmas to you and everybody. On the way home from school Maddie and Peggy held their drawings very carefully. All the houses had wreaths and holly in the windows. Outside the grocery store, hundreds of Christmas trees were stacked, and in the window, candy peppermint sticks and cornucopias of shiny transparent paper were strung. The air smelled like Christmas and light shining everywhere reflected different colours on the snow. “Boy!” said Peggy, “this shows she really likes us. It shows she got our letter and this is her way of saying that everything’s all right. And that’s that.” “I hope so,” said Maddie sadly. She felt sad because she knew she would never see the little tight-lipped Polish girl again and couldn’t ever really make things right between them. She went home and she pinned her drawing over a torn place in the pink-flowered wallpaper in the bedroom. The shabby room came alive from the brilliancy of the colours. Maddie sat down on her bed and looked at the drawing. She had stood by and said nothing, but Wanda had been nice to her, anyway. Tears blurred her eyes and she gazed for a long time at the picture. Then hastily she rubbed her eyes and studied it intently. The colours in the dress were so vivid that she had scarcely noticed the face and head of the drawing. But it looked like her, Maddie! It really looked like her own mouth. Why it really looked like her own self! Wanda had really drawn this for her. Excitedly, she ran over to Peggy’s. “Peg!” she said, “let me see your picture.” “What’s the matter?” asked Peggy, as they clattered up to her room where Wanda’s drawing was lying face down on the bed. Maddie carefully raised it. “Look! She drew you. That’s you!” she exclaimed. And the head and face of this picture did look like Peggy. “What did I say!” said Peggy, “She must have really liked us, anyway.” “Yes, she must have,” agreed Maddie, and she blinked away the tears that came every time she thought of Wanda standing alone in that sunny spot in the school yard, looking stolidly over at the group of laughing girls after she had walked off, after she had said, “Sure, a hundred of them, all lined up.”

While we condemn the crime, we are sympathetic to the criminal. Is this the reason why prison staffoften develop a soft corner for those in custody?

<answer> People condemn the crime as it is an evil act against law and society. In the past, punishment was the only way to treat the criminals. The greater the crime, the harsher and harder the punishment, which could go to the extent of life-imprisonment or death sentence. In the modem age, efforts are on to reform the criminals, even the hard core, and bring them back to the mainstream. Hence police, prison officers, judges and other law-enforcing agencies develop a soft comer for the people in custody. While the sufferer should get justice, the innocent must not be punished. This idea too helps the prison staff often develop a soft comer for jthe prisoners. The behaviour of prison officer Jackson amply illustrates the above point. He is very strict in enforcing the rules and regulations of prison as well as the Governor’s orders. Yet somewhere in him we find a tiny core of compassion. Even Evans knew it. Mr Jackson has asked Evans to remove that filthy bobble hat. Evans requested him to allow it to wear it during exam as it brought luck to him. It was kind o’ lucky charm for him. Jackson agreed. <context> The Secretary of the Examinations Board The Governor of HM Prison, Oxford James Evans, a prisoner Mr Jackson, a prison officer Mr Stephens, a prison officer The Reverend S. McLeery, an invigilator Mr Carter, Detective Superintendent Mr Bell, Detective Chief Inspector All precautions have been taken to see to it that the O-level German examination arranged in the prison for Evans does not provide him with any means of escape. It was in early March when the Secretary of the Examinations Board received the call from Oxford Prison. “It’s a slightly unusual request, Governor, but I don’t see why we shouldn’t try to help. Just the one fellow, you say?” “That’s it. Chap called Evans. Started night classes in O-level German last September. Says he’s dead keen to get some sort of academic qualification.” “Is he any good?” “He was the only one in the class, so you can say he’s had individual tuition all the time, really. Would have cost him a packet if he’d been outside.” “Well, let’s give him a chance, shall we?” “That’s jolly kind of you. What exactly’s the procedure now?” “Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ll be sending you all the forms and stuff. What’s his name, you say? Evans?” “James Roderick Evans.” It sounded rather grand. “Just one thing, Governor. He’s not a violent sort of fellow, is he? I don’t want to know his criminal record or anything like that, but — ” “No. There’s no record of violence. Quite a pleasant sort of chap, they tell me. Bit of a card, really. One of the stars at the Christmas concert. Imitations, you know the sort of thing: Mike Yarwood stuff. No, he’s just a congenital kleptomaniac, that’s all.” The Governor was tempted to add something else, but he thought better of it. He’d look after that particular side of things himself. “Presumably,” said the Secretary, “you can arrange a room where — ” “No problem. He’s in a cell on his own. If you’ve no objections, he can sit the exam in there.” “That’s fine.” “And we could easily get one of the parsons from St. Mary Mags to invigilate, if that’s — ” “Fine, yes. They seem to have a lot of parsons there, don’t they?” The two men chuckled good-naturedly, and the Secretary had a final thought. “At least there’s one thing. You shouldn’t have much trouble keeping him incommunicado, should you?” The Governor chuckled politely once more, reiterated his thanks, and slowly cradled the phone. Evans! “Evans the Break” as the prison officers called him. Thrice he’d escaped from prison, and but for the recent wave of unrest in the maximum-security establishments up north, he wouldn’t now be gracing the Governor’s premises in Oxford; and the Governor was going to make absolutely certain that he wouldn’t be disgracing them. Not that Evans was a real burden: just a persistent, nagging presence. He’d be all right in Oxford, though: the Governor would see to that — would see to it personally. And besides, there was just a possibility that Evans was genuinely interested in O-level German. Just a slight possibility. Just a very slight possibility. At 8.30 p.m. on Monday 7 June, Evans’s German teacher shook him by the hand in the heavily guarded Recreational Block, just across from D Wing. “Guten Gluck, Herr Evans.” “Pardon?” “I said, “Good luck”. Good luck for tomorrow.” “Oh. Thanks, er, I mean, er, Danke Schon.” “You haven’t a cat in hell’s chance of getting through, of course, but — ” “I may surprise everybody,” said Evans. At 8.30 the following morning, Evans had a visitor. Two visitors, in fact. He tucked his grubby string-vest into his equally grubby trousers, and stood up from his bunk, smiling cheerfully. “Mornin”, Mr Jackson. This is indeed an honour.” Jackson was the senior prison officer on D Wing, and he and Evans had already become warm enemies. At Jackson’s side stood Officer Stephens, a burly, surly-looking man, only recently recruited to the profession. Jackson nodded curtly. “And how’s our little Einstein this morning, then?” “Wasn’t ’e a mathematician, Mr Jackson?” “I think ’e was a Jew, Mr. Jackson.” Evans’s face was unshaven, and he wore a filthy-looking red-and-white bobble hat upon his head. “Give me a chance, Mr Jackson. I was just goin’ to shave when you bust in.” “Which reminds me.” Jackson turned his eyes on Stephens. “Make sure you take his razor out of the cell when he’s finished scraping that ugly mug of his. Clear? One of these days he’ll do us all a favour and cut his bloody throat.” For a few seconds Evans looked thoughtfully at the man standing ramrod straight in front of him, a string of Second World War medals proudly paraded over his left breast-pocket. “Mr Jackson? Was it you who took my nail-scissors away?” Evans had always worried about his hands. “And your nail-file, too.” “Look!’ For a moment Evans’s eyes smouldered dangerously, but Jackson was ready for him. “Orders of the Governor, Evans.” He leaned forward and leered, his voice dropping to a harsh, contemptuous whisper. “You want to complain?” Evans shrugged his shoulders lightly. The crisis was over. “You’ve got half an hour to smarten yourself up, Evans — and take that bloody hat off!” “Me ’at? Huh!” Evans put his right hand lovingly on top of the filthy woollen, and smiled sadly. “D’you know, Mr Jackson, it’s the only thing that’s ever brought me any sort o’ luck in life. Kind o’ lucky charm, if you know what I mean. And today I thought — well, with me exam and all that...” Buried somewhere in Jackson, was a tiny core of compassion; and Evans knew it. “Just this once, then, Shirley Temple.” (If there was one thing that Jackson genuinely loathed about Evans it was his long, wavy hair.) “And get shaving!” At 8.45 the same morning the Reverend Stuart McLeery left his bachelor flat in Broad Street and stepped out briskly towards Carfax. The weatherman reported temperatures considerably below the normal for early June, and a long black overcoat and a shallow-crowned clerical hat provided welcome protection from the steady drizzle which had set in half an hour earlier and which now spattered the thick lenses of his spectacles. In his right hand he was carrying a small brown suitcase, which contained all that he would need for his morning duties, including a sealed question paper envelope, a yellow invigilation form, a special “authentication” card from the Examinations Board, a paper knife, a Bible (he was to speak to the Women’s Guild that afternoon on the Book of Ruth), and a current copy of The Church Times. The two-hour examination was scheduled to start at 9.15 a.m. Evans was lathering his face vigorously when Stephens brought in two small square tables, and set them opposite each other in the narrow space between the bunk on the one side and on the other a distempered stone wall. Next, Stephens brought in two hard chairs, the slightly less battered of which he placed in front of the table which stood nearer the cell door. Jackson put in a brief final appearance. “Behave yourself, laddy!” Evans turned and nodded. “And these” — (Jackson pointed to the pin-ups) — “off!” Evans turned and nodded again. “I was goin’ to take “em down anyway. A minister, isn’t ’e? The chap comin’ to sit in, I mean.” “And how did you know that?” asked Jackson quietly. “Well, I ’ad to sign some forms, didn’t I? And I couldn’t ’elp — ” Evans drew the razor carefully down his left cheek, and left a neat swath in the white lather. “Can I ask you something, Mr. Jackson? Why did they ’ave to bug me in this cell?” He nodded his head vaguely to a point above the door. “Not a very neat job,” conceded Jackson. “They’re not — they don’t honestly think I’m goin’ to try to — ” “They’re taking no chances, Evans. Nobody in his senses would take any chance with you.” “Who’s goin’ to listen in?” “I’ll tell you who’s going to listen in, laddy. It’s the Governor himself, see? He don’t trust you a bloody inch — and nor do I. I’ll be watching you like a hawk, Evans, so keep your nose clean. Clear?” He walked towards the door. Evans nodded. He’d already thought of that, and Number Two Handkerchief was lying ready on the bunk — a neatly folded square of off-white linen. “Just one more thing, Einstein.” “Ya? Wha’s ‘at?” “Good luck, old son.” In the little lodge just inside the prison’s main gates, the Reverend S. McLeery signed his name neatly in the visitors’ book, and thence walked side by side with a silent prison officer across the exercise yard to D Wing, where he was greeted by Jackson. The Wing’s heavy outer door was unlocked, and locked behind them, the heavy inner door the same, and McLeery was handed into Stephens’s keeping. “Get the razor?” murmured Jackson. Stephens nodded. “Well, keep your eyes skinned. Clear?” Stephens nodded again; and McLeery, his feet clanging up the iron stairs, followed his new guide, and finally stood before a cell door, where Stephens opened the peep-hole and looked through. “That’s him, sir.” Evans, facing the door, sat quietly at the farther of the two tables, his whole attention riveted to a textbook of elementary German grammar. Stephens took the key from its ring, and the cell lock sprang back with a thudded, metallic twang. It was 9.10 a.m. when the Governor switched on the receiver. He had instructed Jackson to tell Evans of the temporary little precaution — that was only fair. (As if Evans wouldn’t spot it!) But wasn’t it all a bit theatrical? Schoolboyish, almost? How on earth was Evans going to try anything on today? If he was so anxious to make another break, why in heaven’s name hadn’t he tried it from the Recreational Block? Much easier. But he hadn’t. And there he was now — sitting in a locked cell, all the prison officers on the alert, two more locked doors between his cell and the yard, and a yard with a wall as high as a haystack. Yes, Evans was as safe as houses... Anyway, it wouldn’t be any trouble at all to have the receiver turned on for the next couple of hours or so. It wasn’t as if there was going to be anything to listen to, was it? Amongst other things, an invigilator’s duty was to ensure that the strictest silence was observed. But... but still that little nagging doubt! Might Evans try to take advantage of McLeery? Get him to smuggle in a chisel or two, or a rope ladder, or — The Governor sat up sharply. It was all very well getting rid of any potential weapon that Evans could have used; but what about McLeery? What if, quite unwittingly, the innocent McLeery had brought in something himself? A jack-knife, perhaps? And what if Evans held him hostage with such a weapon? The Governor reached for the phone. It was 9.12 a.m. The examinee and the invigilator had already been introduced by Stephens when Jackson came back and shouted to McLeery through the cell door. “Can you come outside a minute, sir? You too, Stephens.” Jackson quickly explained the Governor’s worries, and McLeery patiently held out his arms at shoulder level whilst Jackson lightly frisked his clothes. “Something hard here, sir.” “Ma reading glasses,” replied McLeery, looking down at the spectacle case. Jackson quickly reassured him, and bending down on the landing thumb-flicked the catches on the suitcase. He picked up each envelope in turn, carefully passed his palms along their surfaces — and seemed satisfied. He riffled cursorily through a few pages of Holy Writ, and vaguely shook The Church Times. All right, so far. But one of the objects in McLeery’s suitcase was puzzling him sorely. “Do you mind telling me why you’ve brought this, sir?” He held up a smallish semi-inflated rubber ring, such as a young child with a waist of about twelve inches might have struggled into. “You thinking of going for a swim, sir?” McLeery’s hitherto amiable demeanour was slightly ruffled by this tasteless little pleasantry, and he answered Jackson somewhat sourly. “If ye must know, I suffer from haemorrhoids, and when I’m sitting down for any length o’ time —” “Very sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to, er...” The embarrassment was still reddening Jackson’s cheeks when he found the paper-knife at the bottom of the case. “I think I’d better keep this though, if you don’t mind, that is, sir.” It was 9.18 a.m. before the Governor heard their voices again, and it was clear that the examination was going to be more than a little late in getting under way. MCLEERY: “Ye’ve got a watch?” EVANS: “Yes, sir.” MCLEERY: “I’ll be telling ye when to start, and again when ye’ve five minutes left. A’ right?” Silence. MCLEERY: “There’s plenty more o’ this writing paper should ye need it.” Silence. MCLEERY: “Now. Write the name of the paper, 021-1, in the top left-hand corner.” Silence. MCLEERY: “In the top right-hand corner write your index number-313. And in the box just below that, write your centre number-271. A’ right?” Silence. 9.20 a.m. MCLEERY: “I’m now going to — ” EVANS: “E’s not goin’ to stay ’ere, is ’e?” MCLEERY: “I don’t know about that. I — ” STEPHENS: “Mr Jackson’s given me strict instructions to — ” EVANS: “How am I suppose to concentrate on my exam... with someone breathin’ down my neck? Christ! Sorry, sir, I didn’t mean — ” The Governor reached for the phone. “Jackson? Ah, good. Get Stephens out of that cell, will you? I think we’re perhaps overdoing things.” “As you wish, sir.” The Governor heard the exchanges in the cell, heard the door clang once more, and heard McLeery announce that the examination had begun at last. It was 9.25 a.m.; and there was a great calm. At 9.40 a.m. the Examinations Board rang through, and the Assistant Secretary with special responsibility for modern languages asked to speak to the Governor. The examination had already started, no doubt? Ah, a quarter of an hour ago. Yes. Well, there was a correction slip which some fool had forgotten to place in the examination package. Very brief. “Could the Governor please...? “Yes, of course. I’ll put you straight through to Mr Jackson in D Wing. Hold the line a minute.” Was this the sort of thing the Governor had feared? Was the phone call a fake? Some signal? Some secret message...? But he could check on that immediately. He dialled the number of the Examinations Board, but heard only the staccato bleeps of a line engaged. But then the line was engaged, wasn’t it? Yes. Not very intelligent, that... Two minutes later he heard some whispered communications in the cell, and then McLeery’s broad Scots voice: “Will ye please stop writing a wee while, Mr Evans, and listen carefully. Candidates offering German, 021-1, should note the following correction. ‘On page three, line fifteen, the fourth word should read goldenen, not, goldene; and the whole phrase will therefore read zum goldenen Lowen, not zum goldene Lowen.’ I will repeat that...” The Governor listened and smiled. He had taken German in the sixth form himself, and he remembered all about the agreements of adjectives. And so did McLeery, by the sound of things, for the minister’s pronunciation was most impressive. But what about Evans? He probably didn’t know what an adjective was. The phone rang again. The Magistrates’ Court. They needed a prison van and a couple of prison officers. Remand case. And within two minutes the Governor was wondering whether that could be a hoax. He told himself not to be so silly. His imagination was beginning to run riot. Evans! For the first quarter of an hour Stephens had dutifully peered through the peep-hole at intervals of one minute or so; and after that, every two minutes. At 10.45 a.m. everything was still all right as he looked through the peephole once more. It took four or five seconds — no more. What was the point? It was always more or less the same. Evans, his pen between his lips, sat staring straight in front of him towards the door, seeking — it seemed — some sorely needed inspiration from somewhere. And opposite him McLeery, seated slightly askew from the table now: his face in semi-profile; his hair (as Stephens had noticed earlier) amateurishly clipped pretty closely to the scalp; his eyes behind the pebble lenses peering short-sightedly at The Church Times; his right index finger hooked beneath the narrow clerical collar; and the fingers of the left hand, the nails meticulously manicured, slowly stroking the short black beard. At 10.50 a.m. the receiver crackled to life and the Governor realised he’d almost forgotten Evans for a few minutes. EVANS: “Please, sir!” (A whisper) EVANS: “Please, sir!” (Louder) EVANS: “Would you mind if I put a blanket round me shoulders, sir? It’s a bit parky in ’ere, isn’t it?” Silence. EVANS: “There’s one on me bunk ’ere, sir.” MCLEERY: “Be quick about it.” Silence. At 10.51 a.m. Stephens was more than a little surprised to see a grey regulation blanket draped round Evans’s shoulders, and he frowned slightly and looked at the examinee more closely. But Evans, the pen still between his teeth, was staring just as vacantly as before. Blankly beneath a blanket... Should Stephens report the slight irregularity? Anything at all fishy, hadn’t Jackson said? He looked through the peep-hole once again, and even as he did so Evans pulled the dirty blanket more closely to himself. Was he planning a sudden batman leap to suffocate McLeery in the blanket? Don’t be daft! There was never any sun on this side of the prison; no heating, either, during the summer months, and it could get quite chilly in some of the cells. Stephens decided to revert to his earlier every minute observation. At 11.20 a.m. the receiver once more crackled across the silence of the Governor’s office, and McLeery informed Evans that only five minutes remained. The examination was almost over now, but something still gnawed away quietly in the Governor’s mind. He reached for the phone once more. At 11.22 a.m. Jackson shouted along the corridor to Stephens. The Governor wanted to speak with him — “Hurry, man!” Stephens picked up the phone apprehensively and listened to the rapidly spoken orders. Stephens himself was to accompany McLeery to the main prison gates. Understood? Stephens personally was to make absolutely sure that the door was locked on Evans after McLeery had left the cell. Understood? Understood. At 11.25 a.m. the Governor heard the final exchanges. MCLEERY: “Stop writing, please.” Silence. MCLEERY: “Put your sheets in order and see they’re correctly numbered.” Silence. Scraping of chairs and tables. EVANS: “Thank you very much, sir.” MCLEERY: “A’ right, was it?” EVANS: “Not too bad.” MCLEERY: “Good... Mr Stephens!” (Very loud) The Governor heard the door clang for the last time. The examination was over. “How did he get on, do you think?” asked Stephens as he walked beside McLeery to the main gates. “Och. I canna think he’s distinguished himself, I’m afraid.” His Scots accent seemed broader than ever, and his long black overcoat, reaching almost to his knees, fostered the illusion that he had suddenly grown slimmer. Stephens felt pleased that the Governor had asked him, and not Jackson, to see McLeery off the premises, and all in all the morning had gone pretty well. But something stopped him from making his way directly to the canteen for a belated cup of coffee. He wanted to take just one last look at Evans. It was like a programme he’d seen on TV — about a woman who could never really convince herself that she’d locked the front door when she’d gone to bed: often she’d got up twelve, fifteen, sometimes twenty times to check the bolts. He re-entered D Wing, made his way along to Evans’s cell, and opened the peep-hole once more. Oh, no! CHRIST, NO! There, sprawled back in Evans’s chair was a man (for a semi second Stephens thought it must be Evans), a grey regulation blanket slipping from his shoulders, the front of his closely cropped, irregularly tufted hair awash with fierce red blood which had dripped already through the small black beard, and was even now spreading horribly over the white clerical collar and down into the black clerical front. Stephens shouted wildly for Jackson: and the words appeared to penetrate the curtain of blood that veiled McLeery’s ears, for the minister’s hand felt feebly for a handkerchief from his pocket, and held it to his bleeding head, the blood seeping slowly through the white linen. He gave a long low moan, and tried to speak. But his voice trailed away, and by the time Jackson had arrived and despatched Stephens to ring the police and the ambulance, the handkerchief was a sticky, squelchy wodge of cloth. McLeery slowly raised himself, his face twisted tightly with pain. “Dinna worry about the ambulance, man! I’m a’ right... I’m a’ right... Get the police! I know...I know where... he...” He closed his eyes and another drip of blood splashed like a huge red raindrop on the wooden floor. His hand felt along the table, found the German question paper, and grasped it tightly in his bloodstained hand. “Get the Governor! I know... I know where Evans...” Almost immediately sirens were sounding, prison officers barked orders, puzzled prisoners pushed their way along the corridors, doors were banged and bolted, and phones were ringing everywhere. And within a minute McLeery, with Jackson and Stephens supporting him on either side, his face now streaked and caked with drying blood, was greeted in the prison yard by the Governor, perplexed and grim. “We must get you to hospital immediately. I just don’t — ” “Ye’ve called the police?” “Yes, yes. They’re on their way. But — ” “I’m a’ right. I’m a’ right. Look! Look here!” Awkwardly he opened the German question paper and thrust it before the Governor’s face. “It’s there! D’ye see what I mean?” The Governor looked down and realised what McLeery was trying to tell him. A photocopied sheet had been carefully and cleverly superimposed over the last (originally blank) page of the question paper. “Ye see what they’ve done, Governor. Ye see...” His voice trailed off again, as the Governor, dredging the layers of long neglected learning, willed himself to translate the German text before him: Sie sollen dem schon verabredeten Plan genau folgen. Der wichtige Zeitpunkt ist drei Minuten vor Ende des Examens... “You must follow the plan already somethinged. The vital point in time is three minutes before the end of the examination but something something — something something... Don’t hit him too hard — remember, he’s a minister! And don’t overdo the Scots accent when...” A fast-approaching siren wailed to its crescendo, the great doors of the prison yard were pushed back, and a white police car squealed to a jerky halt beside them. Detective Superintendent Carter swung himself out of the passenger seat and saluted the Governor. “What the hell’s happening, sir?” And, turning to McLeery: “Christ! Who’s hit him?” But McLeery cut across whatever explanation the Governor might have given. “Elsfield Way, officer! I know where Evans...” He was breathing heavily, and leaned for support against the side of the car, where the imprint of his hand was left in tarnished crimson. In bewilderment Carter looked to the Governor for guidance. “What — ?” “Take him with you, if you think he’ll be all right. He’s the only one who seems to know what’s happening.” Carter opened the back door and helped McLeery inside; and within a few seconds the car leaped away in a spurt of gravel. “Elsfield Way”, McLeery had said; and there it was staring up at the Governor from the last few lines of the German text: “From Elsfield Way drive to the Headington roundabout, where...” Yes, of course. The Examinations Board was in Elsfield Way, and someone from the Board must have been involved in the escape plan from the very beginning: the question paper itself, the correction slip... The Governor turned to Jackson and Stephens. “I don’t need to tell you what’s happened, do I?” His voice sounded almost calm in its scathing contempt. “And which one of you two morons was it who took Evans for a nice little walk to the main gates and waved him bye-bye?” “It was me, sir,” stammered Stephens. “Just like you told me, sir. I could have sworn — ” “What? Just like I told you, you say? What the hell — ?” “When you rang, sir, and told me to — ” “When was that?” The Governor’s voice was a whiplash now. “You know, sir. About twenty past eleven just before — ” “You blithering idiot, man! It wasn’t me who rang you. Don’t you realise — ” But what was the use? He had used the telephone at that time, but only to try (unsuccessfully, once more) to get through to the Examinations Board. He shook his head in growing despair and turned on the senior prison officer. “As for you, Jackson! How long have you been pretending you’ve got a brain, eh? Well, I’ll tell you something, Jackson. Your skull’s empty. Absolutely empty!” It was Jackson who had spent two hours in Evans’s cell the previous evening; and it was Jackson who had confidently reported that there was nothing hidden away there — nothing at all. And yet Evans had somehow managed to conceal not only a false beard, a pair of spectacles, a dogcollar and all the rest of his clerical paraphernalia, but also some sort of weapon with which he’d given McLeery such a terrible blow across the head. Aurrgh! A prison van backed alongside, but the Governor made no immediate move. He looked down again at the last line of the German: “...to the Headington roundabout, where you go straight over and make your way to...to Neugraben.” “Neugraben”? Where on earth — ? “New” something. “Newgrave”? Never heard of it: There was a “Wargrave”, somewhere near Reading, but... No, it was probably a code word, or — And then it hit him. Newbury! God, yes! Newbury was a pretty big sort of place but He rapped out his orders to the driver. “St Aldates Police Station, and step on it! Take Jackson and Stephens here, and when you get there ask for Bell. Chief Inspector Bell. Got that?” He leaped the stairs to his office three at a time, got Bell on the phone immediately, and put the facts before him. “We’ll get him, sir,” said Bell. “We’ll get him, with a bit o’luck.” The Governor sat back, and lit a cigarette. Ye gods! What a beautifully laid plan it had all been! What a clever fellow Evans was! Careless leaving that question paper behind; but then, they all made their mistakes somewhere along the line. Well, almost all of them. And that’s why very very shortly Mr clever-clever Evans would be back inside doing his once more. The phone on his desk erupted in a strident burst, and Superintendent Carter informed him that McLeery had spotted Evans driving off along Elsfield Way; they’d got the number of the car all right and had given chase immediately, but had lost him at the Headington roundabout; he must have doubled back into the city. “No,” said the Governor quietly. “No, he’s on his way to Newbury.” He explained his reasons for believing so, and left it at that. It was a police job now — not his. He was just another good-for-a-giggle, gullible governor, that was all. “By the way, Carter. I hope you managed to get McLeery to the hospital all right?” “Yes. He’s in the Radcliffe now. Really groggy, he was, when we got to the Examination offices, and they rang for the ambulance from there.” The Governor rang the Radcliffe a few minutes later and asked for the accident department. “McLeery, you say?” “Yes. He’s a parson.” “I don’t think there’s anyone — ” “Yes, there is. You’ll find one of your ambulances picked him up from Elsfield Way about — ” “Oh, that. Yes, we sent an ambulance all right, but when we got there, the fellow had gone. No one seemed to know where he was. Just vanished! Not a sign — ” But the Governor was no longer listening, and the truth seemed to hit him with an almost physical impact somewhere in the back of his neck. A quarter of an hour later they found the Reverend S. McLeery, securely bound and gagged, in his study in Broad Street. He’d been there, he said, since 8.15 a.m., when two men had called and... Enquiries in Newbury throughout the afternoon produced nothing. Nothing at all. And by tea-time everyone in the prison knew what had happened. It had not been Evans, impersonating McLeery, who had walked out; it had been Evans, impersonating McLeery, who had stayed in. The fish and chips were delicious, and after a gentle stroll round the centre of Chipping Norton, Evans decided to return to the hotel and have an early night. A smart new hat concealed the wreckage of his closely cropped hair, and he kept it on as he walked up to the reception desk of the Golden Lion. It would take a good while for his hair to regain its former glories — but what the hell did that matter. He was out again, wasn’t he? A bit of bad luck, that, when Jackson had pinched his scissors, for it had meant a long and tricky operation with his only razor blade the previous night. Ah! But he’d had his good luck, too. Just think! If Jackson had made him take his bobble hat off! Phew! That really had been a close call. Still, old Jackson wasn’t such a bad fellow... One of the worst things — funny, really! — had been the beard. He’d always been allergic to sticking plaster, and even now his chin was irritatingly sore and red. The receptionist wasn’t the same girl who’d booked him in, but the change was definitely for the better. As he collected his key, he gave her his best smile, told her he wouldn’t be bothering with breakfast, ordered the Daily Express, and asked for an early-morning call at 6.45 a.m. Tomorrow was going to be another busy day. He whistled softly to himself as he walked up the broad stairs... He’d sort of liked the idea of being dressed up as a minister dog collar and everything. Yes, it had been a jolly good idea for “McLeery’ to wear two black fronts, two collars. But that top collar! Phew! It had kept on slipping off the back stud; and there’d been that one panicky moment when “McLeery’ had only just got his hand up to his neck in time to stop the collars springing apart before Stephens... Ah! They’d got that little problem worked out all right, though: a pen stuck in the mouth whenever the evil eye had appeared at the peep-hole. Easy! But all that fiddling about under the blanket with the black front and the stud at the back of the collar — that had been far more difficult than they’d ever bargained for... Everything else had gone beautifully smoothly, though. In the car he’d found everything they’d promised him: soap and water, clothes, the map — yes, the map, of course. The Ordnance Survey Map of Oxfordshire... He’d got some good friends; some very clever friends. Christ, ah! He unlocked his bedroom door and closed it quietly behind him — and then stood frozen to the spot, like a man who has just caught a glimpse of the Gorgon. Sitting on the narrow bed was the very last man in the world that Evans had expected — or wanted — to see. “It’s not worth trying anything,” said the Governor quietly, as Evans’s eyes darted desperately around the room. “I’ve got men all round the place.” (Well, there were only two, really: but Evans needn’t know that.) He let the words sink in. “Women, too. Didn’t you think the blonde girl in reception was rather sweet?” Evans was visibly shaken. He sat down slowly in the only chair the small room could offer, and held his head between his hands. For several minutes there was utter silence. Finally, he spoke. “It was that bloody correction slip, I s’pose.” “We-ell” (the Governor failed to mask the deep satisfaction in his voice) “there are a few people who know a little German.” Slowly, very slowly, Evans relaxed. He was beaten — and he knew it. He sat up at last, and managed to smile ruefully. “You know, it wasn’t really a mistake. You see, we ‘adn’t been able to fix up any ‘otel, but we could’ve worked that some other way. No. The really important thing was for the phone to ring just before the exam finished — to get everyone out of the way for a couple of minutes. So we ‘ad to know exactly when the exam started, didn’t we?” “And, like a fool, I presented you with that little piece of information on a plate.” “Well, somebody did. So, you see, sir, that correction slip killed two little birds with a single stone, didn’t it? The name of the ‘otel for me, and the exact time the exam started for, er, for, er...” The Governor nodded. “It’s a pretty common word.” “Good job it is pretty common, sir, or I’d never ‘ave known where to come to, would I?” “Nice name, though: zum goldenen Lowen.” “How did you know which Golden Lion it was? There’s ‘undreds of ‘em.” “Same as you, Evans. Index number 313; Centre number 271. Remember? Six figures? And if you take an Ordnance Survey Map for Oxfordshire, you find that the six-figure reference 313/271 lands you bang in the middle of Chipping Norton.” “Yea, you’re right. Huh! We’d ‘oped you’d run off to Newbury.” “We did.” “Well, that’s something, I s’pose.” “That question paper, Evans. Could you really understand all that German? I could hardly — ” “Nah! Course I couldn’t. I knew roughly what it was all about, but we just ‘oped it’d throw a few spanners in the works — you know, sort of muddle everybody a bit.’ The Governor stood up. “Tell me one thing before we go. How on earth did you get all that blood to pour over your head?” Evans suddenly looked a little happier. “Clever, sir. Very clever, that was — ‘ow to get a couple o’ pints of blood into a cell, eh? When there’s none there to start off with, and when, er, and when the “invigilator”, shall we say, gets, searched before ‘e comes in. Yes, sir. You can well ask about that, and I dunno if I ought to tell you. After all, I might want to use that particular — ” “Anything to do with a little rubber ring for piles, perhaps?” Evans grinned feebly. “Clever, though, wasn’t it?” “Must have been a tricky job sticking a couple of pints “Nah! You’ve got it wrong, sir. No problem about that.” “No?” “Nah! It’s the clotting, you see. That’s the big trouble. We got the blood easy enough. Pig’s blood, it was — from the slaughter’ouse in Kidlington. But to stop it clotting you’ve got to mix yer actual blood” (Evans took a breath) “with one tenth of its own volume of 3.8 per cent trisodium citrate! Didn’t know that, did you, sir?” The Governor shook his head in a token of reluctant admiration. “We learn something new every day, they tell me. Come on, m’lad.” Evans made no show of resistance, and side by side the two men walked slowly down the stairs. “Tell me, Evans. How did you manage to plan all this business? You’ve had no visitors — I’ve seen to that. You’ve had no letters — ” “I’ve got lots of friends, though.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” “Me German teacher, for a start.” “You mean — ? But he was from the Technical College.” “Was ‘e?’ Evans was almost enjoying it all now. “Ever check up on ‘im, sir?” “God Almighty! There’s far more going on than I — ” “Always will be, sir.” “Everything ready?” asked the Governor as they stood by the reception desk. “The van’s out the front, sir,” said the pretty blonde receptionist. Evans winked at her; and she winked back at him. It almost made his day. A silent prison officer handcuffed the recaptured Evans, and together the two men clambered awkwardly into the back seat of the prison van. “See you soon, Evans.” It was almost as if the Governor were saying farewell to an old friend after a cocktail party. “Cheerio, sir. I, er, I was just wonderin’. I know your German’s pretty good, sir, but do you know any more o’ these modern languages?” “Not very well. Why?” Evans settled himself comfortably on the back seat, and grinned happily. ‘Nothin’, really. I just ‘appened to notice that you’ve got some O-level Italian classes comin’ up next September, that’s all.’ “Perhaps you won’t be with us next September, Evans.” James Roderick Evans appeared to ponder the Governor’s words deeply. “No. P’r’aps I won’t,” he said. As the prison van turned right from Chipping Norton on to the Oxford road, the hitherto silent prison officer unlocked the handcuffs and leaned forward towards the driver, “For Christ’s sake get a move on! It won’t take ‘em long to find out —’ “Where do ye suggest we make for?” asked the driver, in a broad Scots accent.. “What about Newbury?” suggested Evans.

What was distinctive about Eco’s academic writing style?

<answer> Umberto’s writings have an ethical and philosophical element underlying them. His non-fictional writing work has a certain playful and personal quality about it. Even his writings for children deal with non-violence and peace. This style of writing makes reading his novels and essays interesting and being like the reading of most academic writings. His works are marked by an informal and narrative aspect. <context> Since its invention a little over 130 years ago, the interview has become a commonplace of journalism. Today, almost everybody who is literate will have read an interview at some point in their lives, while from the other point of view, several thousand celebrities have been interviewed over the years, some of them repeatedly. So it is hardly surprising that opinions of the interview — of its functions, methods and merits — vary considerably. Some might make quite extravagant claims for it as being, in its highest form, a source of truth, and, in its practice, an art. Others, usually celebrities who see themselves as its victims, might despise the interview as an unwarranted intrusion into their lives, or feel that it somehow diminishes them, just as in some primitive cultures it is believed that if one takes a photographic portrait of somebody then one is stealing that person’s soul. V. S. Naipaul1 ‘feels that some people are wounded by interviews and lose a part of themselves,’ Lewis Carroll, the creator of Alice in Wonderland, was said to have had ‘a just horror of the interviewer’ and he never consented to be interviewed — It was his horror of being lionized which made him thus repel would be acquaintances, interviewers, and the persistent petitioners for his autograph and he would afterwards relate the stories of his success in silencing all such people with much satisfaction and amusement. Rudyard Kipling2 expressed an even more condemnatory attitude towards the interviewer. His wife, Caroline, writes in her diary for 14 October 1892 that their day was ‘wrecked by two reporters from Boston’. She reports her husband as saying to the reporters, “Why do I refuse to be interviewed? Because it is immoral! It is a crime, just as much of a crime as an offence against my person, as an assault, and just as much merits punishment. It is cowardly and vile. No respectable man would ask it, much less give it,” Yet Kipling had himself perpetrated such an ‘assault’ on Mark Twain only a few years before. H. G. Wells3 in an interview in 1894 referred to ‘the interviewing ordeal’, but was a fairly frequent interviewee and forty years later found himself interviewing Joseph Stalin4. Saul Bellow5, who has consented to be interviewed on several occasions, nevertheless once described interviews as being like thumbprints on his windpipe. Yet despite the drawbacks of the interview, it is a supremely serviceable medium of communication. “These days, more than at any other time, our most vivid impressions of our contemporaries are through interviews,” Denis Brian has written. “Almost everything of moment reaches us through one man asking questions of another. Because of this, the interviewer holds a position of unprecedented power and influence.” The following is an extract from an interview of Umberto Eco. The interviewer is Mukund Padmanabhan from The Hindu. Umberto Eco, a professor at the University of Bologna in Italy had already acquired a formidable reputation as a scholar for his ideas on semiotics (the study of signs), literary interpretation, and medieval aesthetics before he turned to writing fiction. Literary fiction, academic texts, essays, children’s books, newspaper articles—his written output is staggeringly large and wide-ranging, In 1980, he acquired the equivalent of intellectual superstardom with the publication of The Name of the Rose, which sold more than 10 million copies. Mukund: The English novelist and academic David Lodge once remarked, “I can’t understand how one man can do all the things he [Eco] does.” Umberto Eco: Maybe I give the impression of doing many things. But in the end, I am convinced I am always doing the same thing. Mukund: Which is? Umberto Eco: Aah, now that is more difficult to explain. I have some philosophical interests and I pursue them through my academic work and my novels. Even my books for children are about non-violence and peace...you see, the same bunch of ethical, philosophical interests. And then I have a secret. Did you know what will happen if you eliminate the empty spaces from the universe, eliminate the empty spaces in all the atoms? The universe will become as big as my fist. Similarly, we have a lot of empty spaces in our lives. I call them interstices. Say you are coming over to my place. You are in an elevator and while you are coming up, I am waiting for you. This is an interstice, an empty space. I work in empty spaces. While waiting for your elevator to come up from the first to the third floor, I have already written an article! (Laughs). Mukund: Not everyone can do that of course. Your non-fictional writing, your scholarly work has a certain playful and personal quality about it. It is a marked departure from a regular academic style — which is invariably depersonalised and often dry and boring. Have you consciously adopted an informal approach or is it something that just came naturally to you? Umberto Eco: When I presented my first Doctoral dissertation in Italy, one of the Professors said, “Scholars learn a lot of a certain subject, then they make a lot of false hypotheses, then they correct them and at the end, they put the conclusions. You, on the contrary, told the story of your research. Even including your trials and errors.” At the same time, he recognised I was right and went on to publish my dissertation as a book, which meant he appreciated it. At that point, at the age of 22, I understood scholarly books should be written the way I had done — by telling the story of the research. This is why my essays always have a narrative aspect. And this is why probably I started writing narratives [novels] so late — at the age of 50, more or less. I remember that my dear friend Roland Barthes was always frustrated that he was an essayist and not a novelist. He wanted to do creative writing one day or another but he died before he could do so. I never felt this kind of frustration. I started writing novels by accident. I had nothing to do one day and so I started. Novels probably satisfied my taste for narration. Mukund: Talking about novels, from being a famous academic you went on to becoming spectacularly famous after the publication of The Name of the Rose. You’ve written five novels against many more scholarly works of non-fiction, at least more than 20 of them... Umberto Eco: Over 40. Mukund: Over 40! Among them a seminal piece of work on semiotics. But ask most people about Umberto Eco and they will say, “Oh, he’s the novelist.” Does that bother you? Umberto Eco: Yes. Because I consider myself a university professor who writes novels on Sundays. It’s not a joke. I participate in academic conferences and not meetings of Pen Clubs and writers. I identify myself with the academic community. But okay, if they [most people] have read only the novels... (laughs and shrugs). I know that by writing novels, I reach a larger audience. I cannot expect to have one million readers with stuff on semiotics. Mukund: Which brings me to my next question. The Name of the Rose is a very serious novel. It’s a detective yarn at one level but it also delves into metaphysics, theology, and medieval history. Yet it enjoyed a huge mass audience. Were you puzzled at all by this? Umberto Eco: No. Journalists are puzzled. And sometimes publishers. And this is because journalists and publishers believe that people like trash and don’t like difficult reading experiences. Consider there are six billion people on this planet. The Name of the Rose sold between 10 and 15 million copies. So in a way I reached only a small percentage of readers. But it is exactly these kinds of readers who don’t want easy experiences. Or at least don’t always want this. I myself, at 9 pm after dinner, watch television and want to see either ‘Miami Vice’ or ‘Emergency Room’. I enjoy it and I need it. But not all day. Mukund: Could the huge success of the novel have anything to do with the fact that it dealt with a period of medieval history that... Umberto Eco: That’s possible. But let me tell you another story, because I often tell stories like a Chinese wise man. My American publisher said while she loved my book, she didn’t expect to sell more than 3,000 copies in a country where nobody has seen a cathedral or studies Latin. So I was given an advance for 3,000 copies, but in the end it sold two or three million in the U.S. A lot of books have been written about the medieval past far before mine. I think the success of the book is a mystery. Nobody can predict it. I think if I had written The Name of the Rose ten years earlier or ten years later, it wouldn’t have been the same. Why it worked at that time is a mystery.

Why does Wanda’s house remind Maddie of Wanda’s blue dress?

<answer> Wanda's house was sparse, old and laded but neat and clean like her ble dress that she wore everyday to school. Thus, Maddie was reminded of the same old blue dress. <context> WHILE the class was circling the room, the monitor from the principal’s office brought Miss Mason a note. Miss Mason read it several times and studied it thoughtfully for a while. Then she clapped her hands. “Attention, class. Everyone back to their seat.” When the shuffling of feet had stopped and the room was still and quiet, Miss Mason said, “I have a letter from Wanda’s father that I want to read to you.” Miss Mason stood there a moment and the silence in the room grew tense and expectant. The teacher adjusted her glasses slowly and deliberately. Her manner indicated that what was coming — this letter from Wanda’s father — was a matter of great importance. Everybody listened closely as Miss Mason read the brief note. Dear Teacher: My Wanda will not come to your school any more. Jake also. Now we move away to big city. No more holler ‘Pollack’. No more ask why funny name. Plenty of funny names in the big city. Yours truly, Jan Petronski A deep silence met the reading of this letter. Miss Mason took off her glasses, blew on them and wiped them on her soft white handkerchief. Then she put them on again and looked at the class. When she spoke her voice was very low. “I am sure that none of the boys and girls in Room Thirteen would purposely and deliberately hurt anyone’s feelings because his or her name happened to be a long, unfamiliar one. I prefer to think that what was said was said in thoughtlessness. I know that all of you feel the way I do, that this is a very unfortunate thing to have happened — unfortunate and sad, both. And I want you all to think about it.” The first period was a study period. Maddie tried to prepare her lessons, but she could not put her mind on her work. She had a very sick feeling in the bottom of her stomach. True, she had not enjoyed listening to Peggy ask Wanda how many dresses she had in her closet, but she had said nothing. She had stood by silently, and that was just as bad as what Peggy had done. Worse. She was a coward. At least Peggy hadn’t considered they were being mean but she, Maddie, had thought they were doing wrong. She could put herself in Wanda’s shoes. Goodness! Wasn’t there anything she could do? If only she could tell Wanda she hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings. She turned around and stole a glance at Peggy, but Peggy did not look up. She seemed to be studying hard. Well, whether Peggy felt badly or not, she, Maddie, had to do something. She had to find Wanda Petronski. Maybe she had not yet moved away. Maybe Peggy would climb the Heights with her, and they would tell Wanda she had won the contest, that they thought she was smart and the hundred dresses were beautiful. When school was dismissed in the afternoon, Peggy said, with pretended casualness, “Hey, let’s go and see if that kid has left town or not.” So Peggy had had the same idea! Maddie glowed. Peg was really all right. The two girls hurried out of the building, up the street toward Boggins Heights, the part of town that wore such a forbidding air on this kind of a November afternoon, drizzly, damp and dismal. “Well, at least,” said Peggy gruffly, “I never did call her a foreigner or make fun of her name. I never thought she had the sense to know we were making fun of her anyway. I thought she was too dumb. And gee, look how she can draw!” Maddie could say nothing. All she hoped was that they would find Wanda. She wanted to tell her that they were sorry they had picked on her, and how wonderful the whole school thought she was, and please, not to move away and everybody would be nice. She and Peggy would fight anybody who was not nice. The two girls hurried on. They hoped to get to the top of the hill before dark. “I think that’s where the Petronskis live,” said Maddie, pointing to a little white house. Wisps of old grass stuck up here and there along the pathway like thin kittens. The house and its sparse little yard looked shabby but clean. It reminded Maddie of Wanda’s one dress, her faded blue cotton dress, shabby but clean. There was not a sign of life about the house. Peggy knocked firmly on the door, but there was no answer. She and Maddie went around to the back yard and knocked there. Still there was no answer. There was no doubt about it. The Petronskis were gone. How could they ever make amends? They turned slowly and made their way back down the hill. “Well, anyway,” said Peggy, “she’s gone now, so what can we do? Besides, when I was asking her about all her dresses, she probably was getting good ideas for her drawings. She might not even have won the contest, otherwise.” Maddie turned this idea carefully over in her head, for if there were anything in it she would not have to feel so badly. But that night she could not get to sleep. She thought about Wanda and her faded blue dress and the little house she had lived in. And she thought of the glowing picture those hundred dresses made — all lined up in the classroom. At last Maddie sat up in bed and pressed her forehead tight in her hands and really thought. This was the hardest thinking she had ever done. After a long, long time, she reached an important conclusion. She was never going to stand by and say nothing again. If she ever heard anybody picking on someone because they were funny looking or because they had strange names, she’d speak up. Even if it meant losing Peggy’s friendship. She had no way of making things right with Wanda, but from now on she would never make anybody else that unhappy again. On Saturday Maddie spent the afternoon with Peggy. They were writing a letter to Wanda Petronski. It was just a friendly letter telling about the contest and telling Wanda she had won. They told her how pretty her drawings were. And they asked her if she liked where she was living and if she liked her new teacher. They had meant to say they were sorry, but it ended up with their just writing a friendly letter, the kind they would have written to any good friend, and they signed it with lots of X’s for love. They mailed the letter to Boggins Heights, writing ‘Please Forward’ on the envelope. Days passed and there was no answer, but the letter did not come back, so maybe Wanda had received it. Perhaps she was so hurt and angry she was not going to answer. You could not blame her. Weeks went by and still Wanda did not answer. Peggy had begun to forget the whole business, and Maddie put herself to sleep at night making speeches about Wanda, defending her from great crowds of girls who were trying to tease her with, “How many dresses have you got?” And before Wanda could press her lips together in a tight line, the way she did before answering, Maddie would cry out, “Stop!” Then everybody would feel ashamed the way she used to feel. Now it was Christmas time and there was snow on the ground. Christmas bells and a small tree decorated the classroom. On the last day of school before the holidays, the teacher showed the class a letter she had received that morning. “You remember Wanda Petronski, the gifted little artist who won the drawing contest? Well, she has written me, and I am glad to know where she lives, because now I can send her medal. I want to read her letter to you.” The class sat up with a sudden interest and listened intently. Dear Miss Mason, How are you and Room Thirteen? Please tell the girls they can keep those hundred dresses, because in my new house I have a hundred new ones, all lined up in my closet. I’d like that girl Peggy to have the drawing of the green dress with the red trimming, and her friend Maddie to have the blue one. For Christmas, I miss that school and my new teacher does not equalise with you. Merry Christmas to you and everybody. On the way home from school Maddie and Peggy held their drawings very carefully. All the houses had wreaths and holly in the windows. Outside the grocery store, hundreds of Christmas trees were stacked, and in the window, candy peppermint sticks and cornucopias of shiny transparent paper were strung. The air smelled like Christmas and light shining everywhere reflected different colours on the snow. “Boy!” said Peggy, “this shows she really likes us. It shows she got our letter and this is her way of saying that everything’s all right. And that’s that.” “I hope so,” said Maddie sadly. She felt sad because she knew she would never see the little tight-lipped Polish girl again and couldn’t ever really make things right between them. She went home and she pinned her drawing over a torn place in the pink-flowered wallpaper in the bedroom. The shabby room came alive from the brilliancy of the colours. Maddie sat down on her bed and looked at the drawing. She had stood by and said nothing, but Wanda had been nice to her, anyway. Tears blurred her eyes and she gazed for a long time at the picture. Then hastily she rubbed her eyes and studied it intently. The colours in the dress were so vivid that she had scarcely noticed the face and head of the drawing. But it looked like her, Maddie! It really looked like her own mouth. Why it really looked like her own self! Wanda had really drawn this for her. Excitedly, she ran over to Peggy’s. “Peg!” she said, “let me see your picture.” “What’s the matter?” asked Peggy, as they clattered up to her room where Wanda’s drawing was lying face down on the bed. Maddie carefully raised it. “Look! She drew you. That’s you!” she exclaimed. And the head and face of this picture did look like Peggy. “What did I say!” said Peggy, “She must have really liked us, anyway.” “Yes, she must have,” agreed Maddie, and she blinked away the tears that came every time she thought of Wanda standing alone in that sunny spot in the school yard, looking stolidly over at the group of laughing girls after she had walked off, after she had said, “Sure, a hundred of them, all lined up.”

Philately helps keep the past alive. Discuss other ways in which this is done. What do you think of the human tendency to constantly move between the past, the present and the future?

<answer> Besides philately, there are numerous other ways to keep the past alive. Collecting historical artefacts, paintings and statues in a museum, collecting and reading books, collecting stamps, first day covers, etc. are all a few ways of revisiting history. Fond memories of the past are often kept alive through photographic collections, letters, etc. Man seeks refuge in the nostalgic memories, the happier times of the past. He transports himself to the world by travelling through time to escape the present. In fact, he is constantly moving between past for escape, and present and future. This capacity to oscillate between the past, present and future is a great intellectual gift. This human tendency enables him to plan for the future in the present by reaping benefits from the past. Such a tendency helps in ensuring acceptance of the impact of important decisions taken at any point of time and learning from them. <context> THE presidents of the New York Central and the New York, New Haven and Hartford railroads will swear on a stack of timetables that there are only two. But I say there are three, because I’ve been on the third level of the Grand Central Station. Yes, I’ve taken the obvious step: I talked to a psychiatrist friend of mine, among others. I told him about the third level at Grand Central Station, and he said it was a wakingdream wish fulfillment. He said I was unhappy. That made my wife kind of mad, but he explained that he meant the modern world is full of insecurity, fear, war, worry and all the rest of it, and that I just want to escape. Well, who doesn’t? Everybody I know wants to escape, but they don’t wander down into any third level at Grand Central Station. But that’s the reason, he said, and my friends all agreed. Everything points to it, they claimed. My stamp collecting, for example; that’s a ‘temporary refuge from reality.’ Well, maybe, but my grandfather didn’t need any refuge from reality; things were pretty nice and peaceful in his day, from all I hear, and he started my collection. It’s a nice collection too, blocks of four of practically every U.S. issue, first-day covers, and so on. President Roosevelt collected stamps too, you know. Anyway, here’s what happened at Grand Central. One night last summer I worked late at the office. I was in a hurry to get uptown to my apartment so I decided to take the subway from Grand Central because it’s faster than the bus. Now, I don’t know why this should have happened to me. I’m just an ordinary guy named Charley, thirty-one years old, and I was wearing a tan gabardine suit and a straw hat with a fancy band; I passed a dozen men who looked just like me. And I wasn’t trying to escape from anything; I just wanted to get home to Louisa, my wife. I turned into Grand Central from Vanderbilt Avenue, and went down the steps to the first level, where you take trains like the Twentieth Century. Then I walked down another flight to the second level, where the suburban trains leave from, ducked into an arched doorway heading for the subway — and got lost. That’s easy to do. I’ve been in and out of Grand Central hundreds of times, but I’m always bumping into new doorways and stairs and corridors. Once I got into a tunnel about a mile long and came out in the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel. Another time I came up in an office building on Forty-sixth Street, three blocks away. Sometimes I think Grand Central is growing like a tree, pushing out new corridors and staircases like roots. There’s probably a long tunnel that nobody knows about feeling its way under the city right now, on its way to Times Square, and maybe another to Central Park. And maybe — because for so many people through the years Grand Central has been an exit, a way of escape — maybe that’s how the tunnel I got into... But I never told my psychiatrist friend about that idea. The corridor I was in began angling left and slanting downward and I thought that was wrong, but I kept on walking. All I could hear was the empty sound of my own footsteps and I didn’t pass a soul. Then I heard that sort of hollow roar ahead that means open space and people talking. The tunnel turned sharp left; I went down a short flight of stairs and came out on the third level at Grand Central Station. For just a moment I thought I was back on the second level, but I saw the room was smaller, there were fewer ticket windows and train gates, and the information booth in the centre was wood and oldlooking. And the man in the booth wore a green eyeshade and long black sleeve protectors. The lights were dim and sort of flickering. Then I saw why; they were open-flame gaslights. There were brass spittoons on the floor, and across the station a glint of light caught my eye; a man was pulling a gold watch from his vest pocket. He snapped open the cover, glanced at his watch and frowned. He wore a derby hat, a black four-button suit with tiny lapels, and he had a big, black, handlebar mustache. Then I looked around and saw that everyone in the station was dressed like eighteen-ninety-something; I never saw so many beards, sideburns and fancy mustaches in my life. A woman walked in through the train gate; she wore a dress with leg-ofmutton sleeves and skirts to the top of her high-buttoned shoes. Back of her, out on the tracks, I caught a glimpse of a locomotive, a very small Currier & Ives locomotive with a funnel-shaped stack. And then I knew. To make sure, I walked over to a newsboy and glanced at the stack of papers at his feet. It was The World; and The World hasn’t been published for years. The lead story said something about President Cleveland. I’ve found that front page since, in the Public Library files, and it was printed June 11, 1894. I turned toward the ticket windows knowing that here — on the third level at Grand Central — I could buy tickets that would take Louisa and me anywhere in the United States we wanted to go. In the year 1894. And I wanted two tickets to Galesburg, Illinois. Have you ever been there? It’s a wonderful town still, with big old frame houses, huge lawns, and tremendous trees whose branches meet overhead and roof the streets. And in 1894, summer evenings were twice as long, and people sat out on their lawns, the men smoking cigars and talking quietly, the women waving palm-leaf fans, with the fire-flies all around, in a peaceful world. To be back there with the First World War still twenty years off, and World War II over forty years in the future... I wanted two The clerk figured the fare — he glanced at my fancy hatband, but he figured the fare — and I had enough for two coach tickets, one way. But when I counted out the money and looked up, the clerk was staring at me. He nodded at the bills. ‘‘That ain’t money, mister,’’ he said, ‘‘and if you’re trying to skin me, you won’t get very far,’’ and he glanced at the cash drawer beside him. Of course the money was old-style bills, half again as big as the money we use nowadays, and different-looking. I turned away and got out fast. There’s nothing nice about jail, even in 1894. And that was that. I left the same way I came, I suppose. Next day, during lunch hour, I drew three hundred dollars out of the bank, nearly all we had, and bought old-style currency (that really worried my psychiatrist friend). You can buy old money at almost any coin dealer’s, but you have to pay a premium. My three hundred dollars bought less than two hundred in old-style bills, but I didn’t care; eggs were thirteen cents a dozen in 1894. But I’ve never again found the corridor that leads to the third level at Grand Central Station, although I’ve tried often enough. Louisa was pretty worried when I told her all this, and didn’t want me to look for the third level any more, and after a while I stopped; I went back to my stamps. But now we’re both looking, every weekend, because now we have proof that the third level is still there. My friend Sam Weiner disappeared! Nobody knew where, but I sort of suspected because Sam’s a city boy, and I used to tell him about Galesburg — I went to school there — and he always said he liked the sound of the place. And that’s where he is, all right. In 1894. Because one night, fussing with my stamp collection, I found — Well, do you know what a first-day cover is? When a new stamp is issued, stamp collectors buy some and use them to mail envelopes to themselves on the very first day of sale; and the postmark proves the date. The envelope is called a first-day cover. They’re never opened; you just put blank paper in the envelope. That night, among my oldest first-day covers, I found one that shouldn’t have been there. But there it was. It was there because someone had mailed it to my grandfather at his home in Galesburg; that’s what the address on the envelope said. And it had been there since July 18, 1894 — the postmark showed that — yet I didn’t remember it at all. The stamp was a six-cent, dull brown, with a picture of President Garfield. Naturally, when the envelope came to Granddad in the mail, it went right into his collection and stayed there — till I took it out and opened it. At the stamp and coin store I go to, I found out that Sam bought eight hundred dollars’ worth of old-style currency. That ought to set him up in a nice little hay, feed and grain business; he always said that’s what he really wished he could do, and he certainly can’t go back to his old business. Not in Galesburg, Illinois, in 1894. His old business? Why, Sam was my psychiatrist.

How does the author describe: (i) his father, (ii) his mother, (iii) himself?

<answer> 1) The author describes his father as a wise and generous person. He felt happy when he helped others. He did not have much formal education and riches. He was a man of confidence and great wisdom. He avoided inessential comforts and luxuries. 2) His mother was a noble and kind-hearted woman. She used to feed a large number of people. She had all the attributes of a typical Indian mother. 3) I was born into a middle-class Tamil family. I was a short boy with rather undistinguished looks, born to tall and handsome parents. I studied physics and aerospace engineering and became a scientist. <context> 1. I WAS born into a middle-class Tamil family in the island town of Rameswaram in the erstwhile Madras State. My father, Jainulabdeen, had neither much formal education nor much wealth; despite these disadvantages, he possessed great innate wisdom and a true generosity of spirit. He had an ideal helpmate in my mother, Ashiamma. I do not recall the exact number of people she fed every day, but I am quite certain that far more outsiders ate with us than all the members of our own family put together. 2. I was one of many children — a short boy with rather undistinguished looks, born to tall and handsome parents. We lived in our ancestral house, which was built in the middle of the nineteenth century. It was a fairly large pucca house, made of limestone and brick, on the Mosque Street in Rameswaram. My austere father used to avoid all inessential comforts and luxuries. However, all necessities were provided for, in terms of food, medicine or clothes. In fact, I would say mine was a very secure childhood, both materially and emotionally. 3. The Second World War broke out in 1939, when I was eight years old. For reasons I have never been able to understand, a sudden demand for tamarind seeds erupted in the market. I used to collect the seeds and sell them to a provision shop on Mosque Street. A day’s collection would fetch me the princely sum of one anna. My brother-in-law Jallaluddin would tell me stories about the War which I would later attempt to trace in the headlines in Dinamani. Our area, being isolated, was completely unaffected by the War. But soon India was forced to join the Allied Forces and something like a state of emergency was declared. The first casualty came in the form of the suspension of the train halt at Rameswaram station. The newspapers now had to be bundled and thrown out from the moving train on the Rameswaram Road between Rameswaram and Dhanuskodi. That forced my cousin Samsuddin, who distributed newspapers in Rameswarm, to look for a helping hand to catch the bundles and, as if naturally, I filled the slot. Samsuddin helped me earn my first wages. Half a century later, I can still feel the surge of pride in earning my own money for the first time. 4. Every child is born, with some inherited characteristics, into a specific socio-economic and emotional environment, and trained in certain ways by figures of authority. I inherited honesty and selfdiscipline from my father; from my mother, I inherited faith in goodness and deep kindness and so did my three brothers and sister. I had three close friends in my childhood — Ramanadha Sastry, Aravindan and Sivaprakasan. All these boys were from orthodox Hindu Brahmin families. As children, none of us ever felt any difference amongst ourselves because of our religious differences and upbringing. In fact, Ramanadha Sastry was the son of Pakshi Lakshmana Sastry, the high priest of the Rameswaram temple. Later, he took over the priesthood of the Rameswaram temple from his father; Aravindan went into the business of arranging transport for visiting pilgrims; and Sivaprakasan became a catering contractor for the Southern Railways. 5. During the annual Shri Sita Rama Kalyanam ceremony, our family used to arrange boats with a special platform for carrying idols of the Lord from the temple to the marriage site, situated in the middle of the pond called Rama Tirtha which was near our house. Events from the Ramayana and from the life of the Prophet were the bedtime stories my mother and grandmother would tell the children in our family. 6. One day when I was in the fifth standard at the Rameswaram Elementary School, a new teacher came to our class. I used to wear a cap which marked me as a Muslim, and I always sat in the front row next to Ramanadha Sastry, who wore the Our family used to arrange boats for carrying idols of the Lord from the temple to the marriage site. sacred thread. The new teacher could not stomach a Hindu priest’s son sitting with a Muslim boy. In accordance with our social ranking as the new teacher saw it, I was asked to go and sit on the back bench. I felt very sad, and so did Ramanadha Sastry. He looked utterly downcast as I shifted to my seat in the last row. The image of him weeping when I shifted to the last row left a lasting impression on me. 7. After school, we went home and told our respective parents about the incident. Lakshmana Sastry summoned the teacher, and in our presence, told the teacher that he should not spread the poison of social inequality and communal intolerance in the minds of innocent children. He bluntly asked the teacher to either apologise or quit the school and the island. Not only did the teacher regret his behaviour, but the strong sense of conviction Lakshmana Sastry conveyed ultimately reformed this young teacher. 8. On the whole, the small society of Rameswaram was very rigid in terms of the segregation of different social groups. However, my science teacher Sivasubramania Iyer, though an orthodox Brahmin with a very conservative wife, was something of a rebel. He did his best to break social barriers so that people from varying backgrounds could mingle easily. He used to spend hours with me and would say, “Kalam, I want you to develop so that you are on par with the highly educated people of the big cities.” 9. One day, he invited me to his home for a meal. His wife was horrified at the idea of a Muslim boy being invited to dine in her ritually pure kitchen. She refused to serve me in her kitchen. Sivasubramania Iyer was not perturbed, nor did he get angry with his wife, but instead, served me with his own hands and sat down beside me to eat his meal. His wife watched us from behind the kitchen door. I wondered whether she had observed any difference in the way I ate rice, drank water or cleaned the floor after the meal. When I was leaving his house, Sivasubramania Iyer invited me to join him for dinner again the next weekend. Observing my hesitation, he told me not to get upset, saying, “Once you decide to change the system, such problems have to be confronted.” When I visited his house the next week, Sivasubramania Iyer’s wife took me inside her kitchen and served me food with her own hands. 10. Then the Second World War was over and India’s freedom was imminent. “Indians will build their own India,” declared Gandhiji. The whole country was filled with an unprecedented optimism. I asked my father for permission to leave Rameswaram and study at the district headquarters in Ramanathapuram. 11. He told me as if thinking aloud, “Abul ! I know you have to go away to grow. Does the seagull not fly across the sun, alone and without a nest?” He quoted Khalil Gibran to my hesitant mother, “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts.” A.P.J. ABDUL KALAM

Explain “You have passed through a fantastic experience: or more correctly, a catastrophic experience.”

<answer> In this statement Rajendra Deshpande tries to rationalise Professor Gaitonde's experience of making a transition to another world. According to him, Professor Gaitonde has had a fantastic experience. Here, the word fantastic means both extraordinary and fanciful. However, he immediately finds a better word for the experience and calls it catastrophic. Now, this word is a reference to Catastrophe Theory which is a branch of mathematics and is concerned with abrupt changes. Professor Gaitonde's experience of travelling to a parallel world without moving back or forth in time seems to be an apt example of a catastrophic experience to Rajendra Deshpande. <context> THE Jijamata Express sped along the Pune-Bombay* route considerably faster than the Deccan Queen. There were no industrial townships outside Pune. The first stop, Lonavala, came in 40 minutes. The ghat section that followed was no different from what he knew. The train stopped at Karjat only briefly and went on at even greater speed. It roared through Kalyan. Meanwhile, the racing mind of Professor Gaitonde had arrived at a plan of action in Bombay. Indeed, as a historian he felt he should have thought of it sooner. He would go to a big library and browse through history books. That was the surest way of finding out how the present state of affairs was reached. He also planned eventually to return to Pune and have a long talk with Rajendra Deshpande, who would surely help him understand what had happened. That is, assuming that in this world there existed someone called Rajendra Deshpande! The train stopped beyond the long tunnel. It was a small station called Sarhad. An Anglo-Indian in uniform went through the train checking permits. “This is where the British Raj begins. You are going for the first time, I presume?” Khan Sahib asked. “Yes.” The reply was factually correct. Gangadharpant had not been to this Bombay before. He ventured a question: “And, Khan Sahib, how will you go to Peshawar?” “This train goes to the Victoria Terminus*. I will take the Frontier Mail tonight out of Central.” “How far does it go? By what route?” “Bombay to Delhi, then to Lahore and then Peshawar. A long journey. I will reach Peshawar the day after tomorrow.” Thereafter, Khan Sahib spoke a lot about his business and Gangadharpant was a willing listener. For, in that way, he was able to get some flavour of life in this India that was so different. The train now passed through the suburban rail traffic. The blue carriages carried the letters, GBMR, on the side. “Greater Bombay Metropolitan Railway,” explained Khan Sahib. “See the tiny Union Jack painted on each carriage? A gentle reminder that we are in British territory.” The train began to slow down beyond Dadar and stopped only at its destination, Victoria Terminus. The station looked remarkably neat and clean. The staff was mostly made up of Anglo-Indians and Parsees along with a handful of British officers. As he emerged from the station, Gangadharpant found himself facing an imposing building. The letters on it proclaimed its identity to those who did not know this Bombay landmark: EAST INDIA HOUSE HEADQUARTERS OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY Prepared as he was for many shocks, Professor Gaitonde had not expected this. The East India Company had been wound up shortly after the events of 1857 — at least, that is what history books said. Yet, here it was, not only alive but flourishing. So, history had taken a different turn, perhaps before 1857. How and when had it happened? He had to find out. As he walked along Hornby Road, as it was called, he found a different set of shops and office buildings. There was no Handloom House building. Instead, there were Boots and Woolworth departmental stores, imposing offices of Lloyds, Barclays and other British banks, as in a typical high street of a town in England. He turned right along Home Street and entered Forbes building. “I wish to meet Mr Vinay Gaitonde, please,” he said to the English receptionist. She searched through the telephone list, the staff list and then through the directory of employees of all the branches of the firm. She shook her head and said, “I am afraid I can’t find anyone of that name either here or in any of our branches. Are you sure he works here?” This was a blow, not totally unexpected. If he himself were dead in this world, what guarantee had he that his son would be alive? Indeed, he may not even have been born! He thanked the girl politely and came out. It was characteristic of him not to worry about where he would stay. His main concern was to make his way to the library of the Asiatic Society to solve the riddle of history. Grabbing a quick lunch at a restaurant, he made his way to the Town Hall. _____________ Yes, to his relief, the Town Hall was there, and it did house the library. He entered the reading room and asked for a list of history books including his own. His five volumes duly arrived on his table. He started from the beginning. Volume one took the history up to the period of Ashoka, volume two up to Samudragupta, volume three up to Mohammad Ghori and volume four up to the death of Aurangzeb. Up to this period history was as he knew it. The change evidently had occurred in the last volume. Reading volume five from both ends inwards, Gangadharpant finally converged on the precise moment where history had taken a different turn. That page in the book described the Battle of Panipat, and it mentioned that the Marathas won it handsomely. Abdali was routed and he was chased back to Kabul by the triumphant Maratha army led by Sadashivrao Bhau and his nephew, the young Vishwasrao. The book did not go into a blow-by-blow account of the battle itself. Rather, it elaborated in detail its consequences for the power struggle in India. Gangadharpant read through the account avidly. The style of writing was unmistakably his, yet he was reading the account for the first time! Their victory in the battle was not only a great morale booster to the Marathas but it also established their supremacy in northern India. The East India Company, which had been watching these developments from the sidelines, got the message and temporarily shelved its expansionist programme. For the Peshwas the immediate result was an increase in the influence of Bhausaheb and Vishwasrao who eventfully succeeded his father in 1780 A.D. The trouble-maker, Dadasaheb, was relegated to the background and he eventually retired from state politics. To its dismay, the East India Company met its match in the new Maratha ruler, Vishwasrao. He and his brother, Madhavrao, combined political acumen with valour and systematically expanded their influence all over India. The Company was reduced to pockets of influence near Bombay, Calcutta* and Madras, just like its European rivals, the Portuguese and the French. For political reasons, the Peshwas kept the puppet Mughal regime alive in Delhi. In the nineteenth century these de facto rulers from Pune were astute enough to recognise the importance of the technological age dawning in Europe. They set up their own centres for science and technology. Here, the East India Company saw another opportunity to extend its influence. It offered aid and experts. They were accepted only to make the local centres self-sufficient. The twentieth century brought about further changes inspired by the West. India moved towards a democracy. By then, the Peshwas had lost their enterprise and they were gradually replaced by democratically elected bodies. The Sultanate at Delhi survived even this transition, largely because it wielded no real influence. The Shahenshah of Delhi was no more than a figurehead to rubber-stamp the ‘recommendations’ made by the central parliament. As he read on, Gangadharpant began to appreciate the India he had seen. It was a country that had not been subjected to slavery for the white man; it had learnt to stand on its feet and knew what self-respect was. From a position of strength and for purely commercial reasons, it had allowed the British to retain Bombay as the sole outpost on the subcontinent. That lease was to expire in the year 2001, according to a treaty of 1908. Gangadharpant could not help comparing the country he knew with what he was witnessing around him. But, at the same time, he felt that his investigations were incomplete. How did the Marathas win the battle? To find the answer he must look for accounts of the battle itself. He went through the books and journals before him. At last, among the books he found one that gave him the clue. It was Bhausahebanchi Bakhar. Although he seldom relied on the Bakhars for historical evidence, he found them entertaining to read. Sometimes, buried in the graphic but doctored accounts, he could spot the germ of truth. He found one now in a three-line account of how close Vishwasrao had come to being killed: ... And then Vishwasrao guided his horse to the melee where the elite troops were fighting and he attacked them. And God was merciful. A shot brushed past his ear. Even the difference of a til (sesame) would have led to his death. At eight o’clock the librarian politely reminded the professor that the library was closing for the day. Gangadharpant emerged from his thoughts. Looking around he noticed that he was the only reader left in that magnificent hall. “I beg your pardon, sir! May I request you to keep these books here for my use tomorrow morning? By the way, when do you open?” “At eight o’clock, sir.” The librarian smiled. Here was a user and researcher right after his heart. As the professor left the table he shoved some notes into his right pocket. Absent-mindedly, he also shoved the Bakhar into his left pocket. He found a guest house to stay in and had a frugal meal. He then set out for a stroll towards the Azad Maidan. In the maidan he found a throng moving towards a pandal. So, a lecture was to take place. Force of habit took Professor Gaitonde towards the pandal. The lecture was in progress, although people kept coming and going. But Professor Gaitonde was not looking at the audience. He was staring at the platform as if mesmerised. There was a table and a chair but the latter was unoccupied. The presidential chair unoccupied! The sight stirred him to the depths. Like a piece of iron attracted to a magnet, he swiftly moved towards the chair. The speaker stopped in mid-sentence, too shocked to continue. But the audience soon found voice. “Vacate the chair!” “This lecture series has no chairperson...” “Away from the platform, mister!” “The chair is symbolic, don’t you know?” What nonsense! Whoever heard of a public lecture without a presiding dignitary? Professor Gaitonde went to the mike and gave vent to his views. “Ladies and gentlemen, an unchaired lecture is like Shakespeare’s Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. Let me tell you...” But the audience was in no mood to listen. “Tell us nothing. We are sick of remarks from the chair, of vote of thanks, of long introductions.” “We only want to listen to the speaker...” “We abolished the old customs long ago...” “Keep the platform empty, please...” But Gangadharpant had the experience of speaking at 999 meetings and had faced the Pune audience at its most hostile. He kept on talking. He soon became a target for a shower of tomatoes, eggs and other objects. But he kept on trying valiantly to correct this sacrilege. Finally, the audience swarmed to the stage to eject him bodily. And, in the crowd Gangadharpant was nowhere to be seen. “That is all I have to tell, Rajendra. All I know is that I was found in the Azad Maidan in the morning. But I was back in the world I am familiar with. Now, where exactly did I spend those two days when I was absent from here?” Rajendra was dumbfounded by the narrative. It took him a while to reply. “Professor, before, just prior to your collision with the truck, what were you doing?” Rajendra asked. “I was thinking of the catastrophe theory and its implications for history.” “Right! I thought so!” Rajendra smiled. “Don’t smile smugly. In case you think that it was just my mind playing tricks and my imagination running amok, look at this.” And, triumphantly, Professor Gaitonde produced his vital piece of evidence: a page torn out of a book. Rajendra read the text on the printed page and his face underwent a change. Gone was the smile and in its place came a grave expression. He was visibly moved. Gangadharpant pressed home his advantage. “I had inadvertently slipped the Bakhar in my pocket as I left the library. I discovered my error when I was paying for my meal. I had intended to return it the next morning. But it seems that in the melee of Azad Maidan, the book was lost; only this torn-off page remained. And, luckily for me, the page contains vital evidence.” Rajendra again read the page. It described how Vishwasrao narrowly missed the bullet; and how that event, taken as an omen by the Maratha army, turned the tide in their favour. “Now look at this.” Gangadharpant produced his own copy of Bhausahebanchi Bakhar, opened at the relevant page. The account ran thus: ... And then Vishwasrao guided his horse to the melee where the elite troops were fighting, and he attacked them. And God expressed His displeasure. He was hit by the bullet. “Professor Gaitonde, you have given me food for thought. Until I saw this material evidence, I had simply put your experience down to fantasy. But facts can be stranger than fantasies, as I am beginning to realise.” “Facts? What are the facts? I am dying to know!” Professor Gaitonde said. Rajendra motioned him to silence and started pacing the room, obviously under great mental strain. Finally, he turned around and said, “Professor Gaitonde, I will try to rationalise your experience on the basis of two scientific theories as known today. Whether I succeed or not in convincing you of the facts, only you can judge — for you have indeed passed through a fantastic experience: or, more correctly, a catastrophic experience!” “Please continue, Rajendra! I am all ears,” Professor Gaitonde replied. Rajendra continued pacing as he talked. “You have heard a lot about the catastrophe theory at that seminar. Let us apply it to the Battle of Panipat. Wars fought face to face on open grounds offer excellent examples of this theory. The Maratha army was facing Abdali’s troops on the field of Panipat. There was no great disparity between the latter’s troops and the opposing forces. Their armour was comparable. So, a lot depended on the leadership and the morale of the troops. The juncture at which Vishwasrao, the son of and heir to the Peshwa, was killed proved to be the turning point. As history has it, his uncle, Bhausaheb, rushed into the melee and was never seen again. Whether he was killed in battle or survived is not known. But for the troops at that particular moment, that blow of losing their leaders was crucial. They lost their morale and fighting spirit. There followed an utter rout. “Exactly, Professor! And what you have shown me on that torn page is the course taken by the battle, when the bullet missed Vishwasrao. A crucial event gone the other way. And its effect on the troops was also the opposite. It boosted their morale and provided just that extra impetus that made all the difference,” Rajendra said. “Maybe so. Similar statements are made about the Battle of Waterloo, which Napoleon could have won. But we live in a unique world which has a unique history. This idea of ‘it might have been’ is okay for the sake of speculation but not for reality,” Gangadharpant said. “I take issue with you there. In fact, that brings me to my second point which you may find strange; but please hear me out,” Rajendra said. Gangadharpant listened expectantly as Rajendra continued. “What do we mean by reality? We experience it directly with our senses or indirectly via instruments. But is it limited to what we see? Does it have other manifestations? “That reality may not be unique has been found from experiments on very small systems—of atoms and their constituent particles. When dealing with such systems the physicist discovered something startling. The behaviour of these systems cannot be predicted definitively even if all the physical laws governing those systems are known. “Take an example. I fire an electron from a source. Where will it go? If I fire a bullet from a gun in a given direction at a given speed, I know where it will be at a later time. But I cannot make such an assertion for the electron. It may be here, there, anywhere. I can at best quote odds for it being found in a specified location at a specified time.” “The lack of determinism in quantum theory! Even an ignoramus historian like me has heard of it,” Professor Gaitonde said. “So, imagine many world pictures. In one world the electron is found here, in another it is over there. In yet another it is in a still different location. Once the observer finds where it is, we know which world we are talking about. But all those alternative worlds could exist just the same.” Rajendra paused to marshall his thoughts. “But is there any contact between those many worlds?” Professor Gaitonde asked. “Yes and no! Imagine two worlds, for example. In both an electron is orbiting the nucleus of an atom...” “Like planets around the sun...” Gangadharpant interjected. “Not quite. We know the precise trajectory of the planet. The electron could be orbiting in any of a large number of specified states. These states may be used to identify the world. In state no.1 we have the electron in a state of higher energy. In state no. 2 it is in a state of lower energy. It can make a jump from high to low energy and send out a pulse of radiation. Or a pulse of radiation can knock it out of state no. 2 into state no.1. Such transitions are common in microscopic systems. What if it happened on a macroscopic level?” Rajendra said. “I get you! You are suggesting that I made a transition from one world to another and back again?” Gangadharpant asked. “Fantastic though it seems, this is the only explanation I can offer. My theory is that catastrophic situations offer radically different alternatives for the world to proceed. It seems that so far as reality is concerned all alternatives are viable but the observer can experience only one of them at a time. “By making a transition, you were able to experience two worlds although one at a time. The one you live in now and the one where you spent two days. One has the history we know, the other a different history. The separation or bifurcation took place in the Battle of Panipat. You neither travelled to the past nor to the future. You were in the present but experiencing a different world. Of course, by the same token there must be many more different worlds arising out of bifurcations at different points of time.” As Rajendra concluded, Gangadharpant asked the question that was beginning to bother him most. “But why did I make the transition?” “If I knew the answer I would solve a great problem. Unfortunately, there are many unsolved questions in science and this is one of them. But that does not stop me from guessing.” Rajendra smiled and proceeded, “You need some interaction to cause a transition. Perhaps, at the time of the collision you were thinking about the catastrophe theory and its role in wars. Maybe you were wondering about the Battle of Panipat. Perhaps, the neurons in your brain acted as a trigger.” “A good guess. I was indeed wondering what course history would have taken if the result of the battle had gone the other way,” Professor Gaitonde said. “That was going to be the topic of my thousandth presidential address.” “Now you are in the happy position of recounting your real life experience rather than just speculating,” Rajendra laughed. But Gangadharpant was grave. “No, Rajendra, my thousandth address was made on the Azad Maidan when I was so rudely interrupted. No. The Professor Gaitonde who disappeared while defending his chair on the platform will now never be seen presiding at another meeting — I have conveyed my regrets to the organisers of the Panipat seminar.”

How has the author used the episode of the bank theft to comment on Satyajit’s success in his career?

<answer> The author has very well knit the entire frame of the story. He wanted to show a common man's rise from a mere client to the post of Managing Director. He, in turn, wanted to explain how success earned through short-cut could be shortlived. He introduced this incident in the story making it the key episode, highlighting on how Satyajit managed to get promoted by play of chance. The author elaborates on a situation here on how men rise by occurence of such incidents based on luck. It was just a matter of chance that he got the position and thus, didn't have any rational reasons for the same. Thus, with no solid foundation for him to achieve what he did his success came to an end in a short while. The author wants to exemplify through this story that the tempo of failure is always faster than success. <context> The slow, narrow-gauge Indian train with its awkward freak of an engine had a way of making unauthorised stops for no good reason, between fields of corn or at the foot of a village—it was said that the guard signalled a halt to pluck a pumpkin or ripe melons from its stem or to buy fistfuls of green gram from a peasant. Some of the passengers grumbled and sat with drawn brows, composing in their minds angry letters to Authority, or to the Press, but others seized the chance to slip merrily out of doors for a breath of air and a view of the green fields. Satyajit, languid on the cushioned bench now vacated by the other occupants, reached out for his cigarettes but, on second thought, withdrew his hand brusquely. That won’t do, he told himself with a stern shake of his head. His smoke was rationed. He had attuned himself in the past month to a fast-growing list of denials, large and small, and this was one. How can he afford the unrestricted luxury of chain smoking? Life lay sharpening to realities that still had the semblance of an undreamable dream. He winced, the turning wheel of fortune in his unhappy eye, as always. Along the orbit of reminiscence he went round and round, pulled by a force beyond his will. The banking establishment of which he had attained control. The amazing tempo of it all. Luck had come his way, undeniably, but behind it was his mind, his initiative, grit, energy. Starting as a mere clerk he had become Managing Director. And now? What now? Tall, thin, near forty, he had sharp features, the hair receding on his temple in wide shiny smooth patches. His eyes hated glare and he wore smart eye-glasses to shield them. His mouth, thin-lipped, would tighten in repose to a line that suggested strength of will but might have been only pride. ‘What now?’ he said to himself in an underbreath. Those words had become his obsession. ‘What now?’ He had no business to be on this wretched train on a neglected railroad, travelling away from the city where he must look for work, for the means of living. With the sudden collapse of his bank, all his private assets were gone overnight; the equities; the house on Tagore Street; even the two cars, his and his wife’s. A mercy that she was away from the scene, with her parents at Delhi, and unaware of the full extent of the ruin. A telegram had come last Tuesday announcing the safe birth of her child. Their first-born, for he had married late in life. His son, his heir. And he had sold off his diamond ring to send his young wife a remittance for the name-giving rites. She had married a man of fortune—that made it harder for him in this crisis. True, she knew all about his earlier life. But that was story-book stuff. It could be narrated happily to their first-born when he grew older. The story lay killed by its sequel—failure. Glory was all overlaid with dark shame. Glory was dead. It would be easy enough today if there were none else to think of except himself. Born in a humble village home, self-educated, struggle had been his life-breath. How grateful he was for the clerkship he secured. A turning of the wheel of fortune? he had wondered. The next turning, a year after, was more dramatic. What made him give a fixed look to the man beyond the brass grille of the counter? The cheque presented for encashment was not a large sum. 2021-22 Glory at Twilight 87 Eye upon eye. Alarm vivid in the face and the hand on the counter shaking curiously. Surprised, stirred by a quick impulse, he took the cheque to the accounts desk, compared the signature with the one on record. It tallied. But that face, that hand. A hundred reasons, none connected with the cheque, could explain the face and hand. Even so, the impulse led him to the telephone. ‘Sir, have you signed a bearer cheque for Rs 2,000? It has yesterday’s date...’ ‘Rs 2,000? No.’ His heart felt pain for lack of air. ‘Sir, are you sure? The signature seems okay.’ In the next instance he was back to his counter in a rush. Where was the man? There, close to the exit, and the face turning back for a moment wore stark fear. He was going away. Feet bounded up the counter. The bank clerk hunted down his prey on the gravel path, twenty paces from the front door. There was no struggle. The man crumpled down in a heap. He squatted with head between his hands, looking down, tears rolling down. ‘Why did you have to commit forgery?’ ‘She has TB.’ ‘She?’ ‘She is dying for want of medicine.’ ‘Who?’ ‘My wife. I saw no other means. I give lessons in Maths to the rich man’s son. That money...’ The head between the hands wagged from side to side in a queer rhythmic frenzy. That was the way the clerk grew into an accountant. He deserved what he had gained. He was not made to be a mere clerk. Lost in the thrill, he had honest contempt for his stepping-stone, the forgerer. You could not commit such a crime even to save your dying wife. But today, as he sat on his lone bench on the train, he saw mind-pictures and felt troubled. The crouched figure on the gravel path wrapped in mute grieving. The prisoner at the bar, face frozen, as though he had died within himself. Had he anything to say to the Court? the Judge had asked. ‘Punish me.’ ‘Is that all?’ ‘Punish me as a killer.’ ‘Killer?’ ‘I have put my wife to shame. Shame kills as fast as TB.’ Yes, that wretched one had turned the wheel for him with his trembling hand. From that point the wheel attained a volition of its own, moving continuously. He had every reason to be grateful to the forgerer. Too late now to seek him out, give him a chance to live? 2021-22 88 Woven Words Too late. He himself sorely needed a chance to live. The banking business lay around him in a broken mass and there was he, prostrate on his face in the wreckage, sucking its dust. All his fault. He had tried to overreach himself. Each wrong step was now clear in time’s perspective. The run on the bank had come all too suddenly though. Failure had a tempo far faster than success. He had great need to fly from himself—that was why he was on this train. A letter had come in the nick of time offering him an excuse, a temporary relief from the wrenching within. ‘The wedding of my fifth daughter, Beena, is to take place on the twentieth of this month. I have kept you posted with the progress of negotiations. I seek your benediction as in the case of my second, third and fourth daughters— Kamini, Damini and Suhashi. With Beena wedded, there will be only Aruna left, and she is in her tenth year. Your benediction alone can pull me through the present daughter crisis. That is all I have to say—Your helpless Uncle Srinath.’ Daughter crisis, indeed! mused Satyajit with a dim smile. Uncle Srinath, a neighbour at Shantipur village but no blood relation, seemed to have been producing his numerous daughters secure in the faith that others would bear the brunt of the repeated crises of their marriage needs. And Satyajit, in the flush of prosperity, had been more than open-handed. It was a matter of pride, selfsatisfaction. In his younger days, the village people had not thought much of him, had not seen in him any special gift or brilliance. One of the common herd. That was all the more reason why he enjoyed success. He needed the wide-eyed wonder and eager homage of Uncle Srinath and the like while they had use and longing for his money. It was plain give-and-take. All that was over. Fallen from his castle in the clouds, Satyajit must tread the earthly ways of humble folk. But he could not deny the old man altogether. He must send some help. He had pondered over the amount. He had to ponder over each rupee before he spent it. Then, all at once, he had come to a decision. He would go to Shantipur and attend the marriage. This would be a 2021-22 Glory at Twilight 89 welcome relief—the city was suffocating him. His mind would be freshened, his strength renewed for the coming struggle by a return to the physical scene which had been his starting point in life. Let that be his starting point once more, outwardly as much as in the spirit. He would also take this chance to look at his ancestral house and fishpond, both leased out, bits of property still intact amid the vast demolition. Those he must pass on to his wife as his last gift. And he had sent word to Uncle Srinath about his arrival on the marriage day. The engine came to life with a shrill of warning. The passenger hurried back. Another half-hour and it was Shantipur. Satyajit leaned out of the door, his eyes looking for Uncle Srinath on the station platform, where many people stood crowded together, alert and apparently excited, one of them holding aloft the national flag on a bamboo pole. A political celebrity on the train? Strange that Uncle Srinath, who had always feared politics, was leading the group. Suddenly, there was a rush of legs towards Satyajit as he stepped down. The legs stopped and a booming chorus followed. Swagatam! Welcome!’ A small girl with an awestruck face stepped up with a jasmine garland in her hand. Satyajit stood in a daze of bewilderment as the girl rose on tiptoe to place the chain of flowers around his neck. He bent mechanically to receive the offer, not knowing what it meant. It was obviously a mistake, a very curious one. ‘Welcome!’ the voices rang again. Then, an expectant hush. Uncle Srinath turned round to the group. On the high cheekbones and grey stubble of his face was a clear coating of strong elation. ‘Friends and brothers! Bengal has seen greatness in almost every field of action. I shall not belittle your knowledge by citing names. It is only in trade and industry that Bengal has lagged behind sadly—the plums of business have gone to people from upcountry or from overseas. That is why our hearts grow big with pride at the sight of a son of Bengal, a son of our own Shantipur village, who has attained great success in that field, that 2021-22 90 Woven Words forbidden field, and become the glory of the motherland, Swagatam! Welcome!’ ‘Swagatam!’ the combined voices roared while the tricolour flag on its tall pole nodded approvingly. When Satyajit slipped down from the ox cart at the door of a mud-brick house, a knot of women waiting tensely with brass water-bowls rushed up and stooped over his feet, scrambling for the privilege to wash his feet with cool water. Satyajit shrank back, embarrassed. ‘It’s my Beena’s privilege,’ cried Srinath, smiling. ‘This is her day. Let Beena alone wash and wipe the reverent feet. All her life she will remember this honour befalling her on the auspicious day of her marriage.’ Satyajit looked at the girl who stepped forward, shy, slender with large pensive eyes in a graceful face. ‘So this is the bride,’ he smiled at her and touched her hair in the gesture of blessing. ‘I hope the groom is worthy of this girl,’ he said as she knelt down to unlace his shoes. She slipped off his socks and poured cool water to freshen his feet, washing them with keen care. As her slim fingers went between his toes, he wiggled them, for he felt ticklish. Presently he sat on a carpet in the inner verandah with a plateful of sweets and a glass of whey while Kamini, Damini and Suhashi sat near him on their haunches and waved palm leaf fans with all their energy, as though each passing minute had to be fully used before their hands were deprived of the privilege. Sweat 2021-22 Glory at Twilight 91 broke out on their faces and they shifted their fans from right hand to left and again to the right. Their mother, who stood by, now spoke in a murmur, husky with emotion. ‘You have been more of a father to these girls than he,’ jerking her head at her invisible husband. ‘But for the bigness of your heart, they would still be maids under this room, shooting up in years and in height with no chance of having husband and home.’ She lifted her sari fringes to her eyes, wiping off two grateful tears. The meal over, Uncle Srinath, who had been shuttling between the inner verandah and the outer quarters, now stopped, leaning over his guest. ‘Beena has been given the old jewellery of her mother,’ he confided. ‘So, that part of the dowry problem has been met. Her three married sisters, whom you see before you and who owe all their bliss in life to your benediction, have given her the marriage gifts she must have: sari, jacket, chemise. Also brass utensils for her new household.’ ‘Good! Good!’ Satyajit cried happily. He had Rs 200 in his purse and had wondered how much of it had to go into the marriage pool. May be Rs 100; or, rather, Rs 101, since a figure ending with zero was not propitious. During the meal he had been slowly adding to that figure: ten, twenty, finally stopping at an additional fifty. Now that Beena had got all she needed, he could just as well slice a goodly bit off the amount. Let it be Rs 101. The fifty rupees saved would buy a perambulator for his newborn son. ‘Your benediction is our blind-man’s staff,’ Srinath went on. ‘Do I have to say more?’ He apparently decided that he did not, for he changed the topic abruptly. ‘My house has become a place of pilgrimage. You are the pride of the village, its strength. In you the people see their own inmost dream fulfilled. Will you now show yourself for a minute to the devotees who sit waiting—’ Satyajit followed his host. His devotees were seated on a floor mat, talking animatedly, and at the sight of him there was an instant hush. Hands joined to his chest, Satyajit made salutation to all. He caught sight of the schoolmaster who had taught him as a boy and made a 2021-22 92 Woven Words deep obeisance. Swelled with pride, the old man swept the floor mat group with a superior glance before he spoke: ‘Didn’t I say? Didn’t I say a hundred and one times in those far off days that the light of genius blazed on the face of my young pupil? That he stood apart from every other young pig—’ He broke short and yielded to a violent fit of coughing to cover up the slip. Presently he resumed: ‘That he with the light of genius on his face was afar from the world where the other youngsters dwelt? Why, I predicted that he would be a High Court Judge—’ Satyajit burst into a laugh. ‘Alas, I am no High Court Judge’. ‘Even more, much more!’ counted the old man. His good memory reached back to the boy with whom he had been on terms of a perpetual feud. Always bent on some kind of mischief—he did have an inventive mind that way! Arithmetic was his bogey. How does he count all his pile of money? He owns a million, if Srinath is to be believed. A million? And the old man hastened to add a brushful of colour to the drab picture presented by memory. ‘Even in those far-off days I could see two shadow forms about him, clear as life—Saraswati at his left, Lakshmi at his right. And I knew even then that the twin goddesses of knowledge and wealth, though hating the sight of each other, had for once united, stayed together, drawn by their common love.’ He lifted joined palms to his forehead, offering salutation— perhaps to those goddesses. Satyajit was determined to enjoy himself. He felt a twinge of regret that he had not thought of coming to Shantipur and basking in the people’s homage when it was truly his due. Now he was an impostor. He impersonated the man he had been a few weeks before. He made an angry jerk of his hand about his face, waving off a sandfly— and the regret. Let him be happy for the day even with a false echo, let him be wrapped a while in the lingering twilight splendour of departed glory. Tommorow he would be in the full fury of a stream, tugged under water, fighting for life. Today he would have his last breath of peace, freedom, content. Through the rest of the day he went round the village, meeting the elders, sipping the proffered milk of green 2021-22 Glory at Twilight 93 coconuts. He visited his house occupied by a tenant. His house—and he touched the walls possessively. This small house gave him a feeling of security which had not come to him even from his huge city mansion. He spent an hour by the fish pond. His pond—and he sprinkled a palmful of its water on his head. A good-sized carp landed at the end of his hook. When he came home with the catch, Uncle Srinath gazed at it raptly—one would have thought he had never before seen such fish. ‘What gills!’ he breathed in apparent ecstasy. He patted the head of the fish with an affectionate hand. ‘Bride and groom shall eat curried portions of this auspicious one when they break their marriage fast at midnight. That will bring them all the blessings that life can give’. It was near twilight when the groom’s party arrived in ox carts and palanquins. Conches blew welcome. Young women gathered at the dooryard and gave the shrill traditional greeting expressive of great joy; Ulu-ulu-uluulu- ulu! When the bridal party was well settled, chewing betel leaf and waiting for the marriage hour as prescribed by the almanac, Satyajit felt for his purse. Time now to part with Rs 101. Srinath, reading his thoughts, took him to the secluded darkness under a fig-tree in the backyard ‘My begging bowl is ready,’ he announced happily. ‘Yes, yes,’ Satyajit nodded. ‘The cash dowry stands fixed. Only Rs 2001.’ ‘What!’ Satyajit felt a hard blow in the pit of his stomach. ‘That is all.’ ‘Rs 2001?’ Srinath smiled. ‘Everything else is provided for, even the cost of the marriage feast. Only this last item awaits your benediction.’ Benediction—Srinath’s favourite word. Nothing abstract in its meaning. It could be interpreted only in terms of money. Satyajit felt a burning inside him. He had stretched his leg right into the snare of benediction, unthinkingly. How could he be so very stupid? Srinath broke the silence with a half laugh. ‘This drop in the ocean of your fortune. It shames me to mention the petty figure.’ 2021-22 94 Woven Words ‘Why didn’t you write and tell me?’ The voice was harsh. The half laugh repeated itself. ‘Have I no sense? I am not such a big ass as I look. What! Mention money to a millionaire! And such a pittance. A drop in the ocean.’ ‘A drop,’ echoed Satyajit, his mouth dry. This was the moment for confession. He was even worse off than Srinath. Hard struggle lay ahead of him for bare survival. Srinath would understand. ‘Millionaire!’ Rhapsody in the voice. Plain worship on the face. A devotee, prayerful before his god. ‘ We bask in your benediction. Our life-spark itself is held in your fist; you can destroy it just by closing your fingers tight. Words cannot say what I feel —’ Yes, the god had been a millionaire, truly. That was yesterday. Today... Confession stuck in his throat, clutched by the millionaire’s dead hand. Better give an excuse. He had come rushing in the midst of heavy work and had not thought of equipping himself with adequate cash. That would sound plausible. Later—it wouldn’t matter if Srinath discovered the terrible truth later, as he must. Something stronger than he spoke with his tongue. ‘I had to catch the morning train—there was no time to go to the bank. Maybe someone in the village—’ The words ‘cash a cheque’ were almost on his lips. ‘Someone in the village will advance a loan—’ Uncle Srinath rushed out of the house, panic on his face. He had been under the impression that a millionaire always had his pockets stuffed with money. Satyajit returned to the assembled guests. Instantly the groom, on his foothigh satin-draped platform, fat round cushions on three sides of him, was forgotten. Silence. All eyes took their fill of the rich man. A god on the pedestal of fortune. He too sat quiet, the tiredness within him heavier than even before. The peace he had attained erstwhile was gone. He longed to see the face of his new-born son. The rich man’s son who would never ride in a perambulator. Srinath returned in half an hour. His face looked angry. Satyajit saw his beckoning hand, rose heavily to his feet, and stepped outside, away from the people. 2021-22 Glory at Twilight 95 ‘Only one person in Shantipur can produce so much cash at this late hour,’ said Srinath, ‘Harish, the moneylender. That shark refuses to make an advance though.’ The swift flood of relief! ‘Harish does not trust me?’ Moneylenders did have a sixth sense. There was no knowing when Harish would have got his money back—perhaps never. ‘Preposterous! Not to trust the word and signature of a millionaire! Harish is off his senses; or, is it malice?’ The voice collected anger. ‘I could drag him to you and make him grovel at your feet and rub his fat nose on the ground.’ Satyajit could be generous. ‘No need, no need. Trust is out of date in these cynical times.’ The wonder of it—his leg was off the snare of benediction! ‘Where will our India be if such things are tolerated? What is Nehru doing about it? Is there no one to tell him how things stand in the country?’ Satyajit patted the excited man on the shoulder, soothingly. Srinath controlled himself with visible effort. His face saddened. ‘What is to be done?’ he moaned. ‘The groom’s father is a man of stone. He will break off the marriage unless cash is paid to him before the ceremony starts. Who will ever marry Beena after such dishonour?’ Satyajit wagged his head in befitting sympathy. ‘If only you had written to me. Just two words or three. Anyway, do not be worried. You will find another suitable match, a better one maybe. Who can foresee the ways of destiny?’ He felt for his purse the second time. He ought to restore the fifty rupees he had cut. Let it be Rs 151. Even if there would be no perambulator for his son— Srinath cleared his throat twice. ‘It shames me to tell you the full story.’ ‘Yes?’ ‘Harish is willing to pay.’ ‘What! you have just said—’ ‘He will pay against security. He wants security, that evil-eyed shark. Your house and fish-pond. The madness! To think that house and pond have more weight than a millionaire’s signature!’ Satyajit trembled within him. ‘House and pond,’ he murmurmed to himself. The only possessions that had not 2021-22 96 Woven Words toppled into the deluge. They were all he could give to his wife— ‘All the old values destroyed, where will our India be? Has Nehru no sense to understand this? What! A pond weighs more than a millionaire’s word, a house is better security than the signature of his hand! Yet, what else is to be done?’ Palms folded together made supplication. ‘What else is to be done in the daughter crisis?’ Satyajit had a queer drugged look. And the dead voice of the millionaire came from his throat. ‘Let the moneylender pay on those terms.’ ‘The insult, what about the insult?’ Srinath’s wrathful hand cleaved the air. ‘When the thing is done, I will make the shark rub his fat nose on the ground at your feet; I will do that, be sure. You will also see the whole village spit at the shark, thoo!’ The deed was signed, the house was gay with marriage music. Satyajit walked off to the deep dark under the fig tree, all by himself. ‘What now,’ he said under his breath, and a dim smile pinched the corners of his lips as he stuck between them the cork tip of a cigarette, the last one in the tin, and lifted a lit match with slow tremulous deliberation.

What was the importance of the watch to the author?

<answer> The watch was very important to the author as it showed the correct time and kept him punctual. It was working properly for about 18 months until the author let it run down. He had constant faith in its prediction and judgement. Until then it worked perfectly without losing or gaining any part of it. <context> My beautiful new watch had run eighteen months without losing or gaining, and without breaking any part of its machinery or stopping. I had come to believe it infallible in its judgments about the time of day, and to consider its constitution and its anatomy imperishable. But, at last, one night, I let it run down. I grieved about it as if it were a recognised messenger and forerunner of calamity. But by and by I cheered up, set the watch by guess, and commanded my bodings and superstitions to depart. Next day I stepped into the chief jeweller’s to set it by the exact time, and the head of the establishment took it out of my hand and proceeded to set it for me. Then he said, ‘she is four minutes slow— regulator wants pushing up’. I tried to stop him—tried to make him understand that the watch kept perfect time. But no; all this human cabbage could see was that the watch was four minutes slow and the regulator must be pushed up a little; and so, while I danced around him in anguish, and implored him to let the watch alone, he calmly and cruelly did the shameful deed. My watch began to gain. It gained faster and faster day by day. Within a week it sickened to a raging fever and its pulse went up to a hundred and fifty in the shade. At the end of two months it had left all the timepieces of the town far in the rear and was a fraction over thirteen days ahead of the almanac. It was away into November enjoying the snow, while the October leaves were still turning. It hurried up house rent, bills payable and such things in such a ruinous way that I could not abide it. I took it to the watchmaker to be regulated. He asked me if I had ever had it repaired. I said no, it had never needed any repairing. He looked a look of vicious happiness and eagerly pried the watch open, and then put a small dice-box into his eye and peered into its machinery. He said it wanted cleaning and oiling, besides regulating, and asked me to come in a week. After being cleaned and oiled, and regulated, my watch slowed down to that degree that it ticked all appointments I go to, missing my dinner, I gradually drifted back into yesterday, then the day before, then into last week and by and by the comprehension came upon me that, all solitary and alone, I was lingering alone in week before last and the world was out of sight. I seemed to detect in myself a sort of sneaking fellow-feeling for the mummy in the museum, and a desire to swap news with him. I went to a watchmaker again. He took the watch all to pieces while I waited and then said the barrel was ‘swelled’. He said he could reduce it in three days. After this the watch averaged well, but nothing more. For a half day it would go like the very mischief, and keep up such a barking and wheezing and whooping and sneezing and snorting that I could not hear myself think for the disturbance: and as it held out there was not a watch in the land that stood any chance against it. But the rest of the day it would keep on slowing down and fooling along until all the clocks it had left behind caught up again. It would show a fair and square average, and no man could say it had done more or less than its duty. But a correct average is only a mild virtue in a watch and I took this instrument to another watchmaker. He said the king-bolt was broken. I said I was glad it was nothing more serious. To tell the plain truth, I had no idea what the king-bolt was, but I did not choose to appear ignorant to a stranger. He repaired the king-bolt but what the watch gained in one way it lost in another. It would run a while and then stop a while, and then run a while again, and so on, using its own discretion about the intervals. And every time it went off it kicked back like a musket. I padded my breast for a few days but, finally, took the watch to another watchmaker. He picked it all to pieces and turned the ruin over and over under his glass; and then he said there appeared to be fresh start. It did well now, except that always at ten minutes to ten the hands would shut together like a pair of scissors and from that time forth they would travel together. The oldest man in the world could not make head or tail of the time of day by such a watch, and so I went again to have the thing repaired. This person said that the crystal had got bent and the mainspring was not straight. He made these things all right and then my timepiece performed unexceptionably, save that now and then, after working along quietly for nearly eight hours, everything inside would let go all of a sudden and begin to buzz like a bee, and the hands would straightway begin to spin round and round so fast that their individuality was lost completely, and they simply seemed a delicate spider’s web over the face of the watch. She would reel off the next twenty-four hours in six or seven minutes, and then stop with a bang. I went with a heavy heart to one more watchmaker, and looked on while he took her to pieces. Then I prepared to cross-question him rigidly, for this thing was getting serious. The watch had cost two hundred dollars originally, and I seemed to have paid out two or three thousand for repairs. While I waited and looked on, I presently recognised in this watchmaker an old acquaintance—a steam-boat engineer of other days and not a good engineer, either. He examined all the parts carefully, just as the other watchmakers had done, and then delivered his verdict with the same confidence of manner. He said: ‘She makes too much steam— you want to hang the monkey-wrench on the safety-valve!’ I brained him on the spot and had him buried at my own expense. My uncle William (now deceased, alas!) used to say that a good horse was a good horse until it had run away once, and that a good watch was a good watch until the repairers got a chance at it. And he used to wonder what became of all the unsuccessful tinkers, and gunsmiths, and shoe-makers, and engineers, and blacksmiths; but nobody could ever tell him.

Give reasons for Satyajit’s recollection of the forgerer when he was on the train.

<answer> He was contemplating on how the wheel of fortune keeps turning and never favours the same person. He thought about the forgerer because he knew one thing for sure. If luck leads to attainment of success before one might expect failure would strike faster. If success would come fast, downfall would be faster. Ironically, although catching the forgerer paved his way towards glory, promotion and prosperity, he had all regrets for the man. The thought that came to his mind was the fact that he could have given the forgerer a chance to live. The moment in his life was ironic because it was he who needed a second chance to make a living, now that the had lost everything. <context> The slow, narrow-gauge Indian train with its awkward freak of an engine had a way of making unauthorised stops for no good reason, between fields of corn or at the foot of a village—it was said that the guard signalled a halt to pluck a pumpkin or ripe melons from its stem or to buy fistfuls of green gram from a peasant. Some of the passengers grumbled and sat with drawn brows, composing in their minds angry letters to Authority, or to the Press, but others seized the chance to slip merrily out of doors for a breath of air and a view of the green fields. Satyajit, languid on the cushioned bench now vacated by the other occupants, reached out for his cigarettes but, on second thought, withdrew his hand brusquely. That won’t do, he told himself with a stern shake of his head. His smoke was rationed. He had attuned himself in the past month to a fast-growing list of denials, large and small, and this was one. How can he afford the unrestricted luxury of chain smoking? Life lay sharpening to realities that still had the semblance of an undreamable dream. He winced, the turning wheel of fortune in his unhappy eye, as always. Along the orbit of reminiscence he went round and round, pulled by a force beyond his will. The banking establishment of which he had attained control. The amazing tempo of it all. Luck had come his way, undeniably, but behind it was his mind, his initiative, grit, energy. Starting as a mere clerk he had become Managing Director. And now? What now? Tall, thin, near forty, he had sharp features, the hair receding on his temple in wide shiny smooth patches. His eyes hated glare and he wore smart eye-glasses to shield them. His mouth, thin-lipped, would tighten in repose to a line that suggested strength of will but might have been only pride. ‘What now?’ he said to himself in an underbreath. Those words had become his obsession. ‘What now?’ He had no business to be on this wretched train on a neglected railroad, travelling away from the city where he must look for work, for the means of living. With the sudden collapse of his bank, all his private assets were gone overnight; the equities; the house on Tagore Street; even the two cars, his and his wife’s. A mercy that she was away from the scene, with her parents at Delhi, and unaware of the full extent of the ruin. A telegram had come last Tuesday announcing the safe birth of her child. Their first-born, for he had married late in life. His son, his heir. And he had sold off his diamond ring to send his young wife a remittance for the name-giving rites. She had married a man of fortune—that made it harder for him in this crisis. True, she knew all about his earlier life. But that was story-book stuff. It could be narrated happily to their first-born when he grew older. The story lay killed by its sequel—failure. Glory was all overlaid with dark shame. Glory was dead. It would be easy enough today if there were none else to think of except himself. Born in a humble village home, self-educated, struggle had been his life-breath. How grateful he was for the clerkship he secured. A turning of the wheel of fortune? he had wondered. The next turning, a year after, was more dramatic. What made him give a fixed look to the man beyond the brass grille of the counter? The cheque presented for encashment was not a large sum. 2021-22 Glory at Twilight 87 Eye upon eye. Alarm vivid in the face and the hand on the counter shaking curiously. Surprised, stirred by a quick impulse, he took the cheque to the accounts desk, compared the signature with the one on record. It tallied. But that face, that hand. A hundred reasons, none connected with the cheque, could explain the face and hand. Even so, the impulse led him to the telephone. ‘Sir, have you signed a bearer cheque for Rs 2,000? It has yesterday’s date...’ ‘Rs 2,000? No.’ His heart felt pain for lack of air. ‘Sir, are you sure? The signature seems okay.’ In the next instance he was back to his counter in a rush. Where was the man? There, close to the exit, and the face turning back for a moment wore stark fear. He was going away. Feet bounded up the counter. The bank clerk hunted down his prey on the gravel path, twenty paces from the front door. There was no struggle. The man crumpled down in a heap. He squatted with head between his hands, looking down, tears rolling down. ‘Why did you have to commit forgery?’ ‘She has TB.’ ‘She?’ ‘She is dying for want of medicine.’ ‘Who?’ ‘My wife. I saw no other means. I give lessons in Maths to the rich man’s son. That money...’ The head between the hands wagged from side to side in a queer rhythmic frenzy. That was the way the clerk grew into an accountant. He deserved what he had gained. He was not made to be a mere clerk. Lost in the thrill, he had honest contempt for his stepping-stone, the forgerer. You could not commit such a crime even to save your dying wife. But today, as he sat on his lone bench on the train, he saw mind-pictures and felt troubled. The crouched figure on the gravel path wrapped in mute grieving. The prisoner at the bar, face frozen, as though he had died within himself. Had he anything to say to the Court? the Judge had asked. ‘Punish me.’ ‘Is that all?’ ‘Punish me as a killer.’ ‘Killer?’ ‘I have put my wife to shame. Shame kills as fast as TB.’ Yes, that wretched one had turned the wheel for him with his trembling hand. From that point the wheel attained a volition of its own, moving continuously. He had every reason to be grateful to the forgerer. Too late now to seek him out, give him a chance to live? 2021-22 88 Woven Words Too late. He himself sorely needed a chance to live. The banking business lay around him in a broken mass and there was he, prostrate on his face in the wreckage, sucking its dust. All his fault. He had tried to overreach himself. Each wrong step was now clear in time’s perspective. The run on the bank had come all too suddenly though. Failure had a tempo far faster than success. He had great need to fly from himself—that was why he was on this train. A letter had come in the nick of time offering him an excuse, a temporary relief from the wrenching within. ‘The wedding of my fifth daughter, Beena, is to take place on the twentieth of this month. I have kept you posted with the progress of negotiations. I seek your benediction as in the case of my second, third and fourth daughters— Kamini, Damini and Suhashi. With Beena wedded, there will be only Aruna left, and she is in her tenth year. Your benediction alone can pull me through the present daughter crisis. That is all I have to say—Your helpless Uncle Srinath.’ Daughter crisis, indeed! mused Satyajit with a dim smile. Uncle Srinath, a neighbour at Shantipur village but no blood relation, seemed to have been producing his numerous daughters secure in the faith that others would bear the brunt of the repeated crises of their marriage needs. And Satyajit, in the flush of prosperity, had been more than open-handed. It was a matter of pride, selfsatisfaction. In his younger days, the village people had not thought much of him, had not seen in him any special gift or brilliance. One of the common herd. That was all the more reason why he enjoyed success. He needed the wide-eyed wonder and eager homage of Uncle Srinath and the like while they had use and longing for his money. It was plain give-and-take. All that was over. Fallen from his castle in the clouds, Satyajit must tread the earthly ways of humble folk. But he could not deny the old man altogether. He must send some help. He had pondered over the amount. He had to ponder over each rupee before he spent it. Then, all at once, he had come to a decision. He would go to Shantipur and attend the marriage. This would be a 2021-22 Glory at Twilight 89 welcome relief—the city was suffocating him. His mind would be freshened, his strength renewed for the coming struggle by a return to the physical scene which had been his starting point in life. Let that be his starting point once more, outwardly as much as in the spirit. He would also take this chance to look at his ancestral house and fishpond, both leased out, bits of property still intact amid the vast demolition. Those he must pass on to his wife as his last gift. And he had sent word to Uncle Srinath about his arrival on the marriage day. The engine came to life with a shrill of warning. The passenger hurried back. Another half-hour and it was Shantipur. Satyajit leaned out of the door, his eyes looking for Uncle Srinath on the station platform, where many people stood crowded together, alert and apparently excited, one of them holding aloft the national flag on a bamboo pole. A political celebrity on the train? Strange that Uncle Srinath, who had always feared politics, was leading the group. Suddenly, there was a rush of legs towards Satyajit as he stepped down. The legs stopped and a booming chorus followed. Swagatam! Welcome!’ A small girl with an awestruck face stepped up with a jasmine garland in her hand. Satyajit stood in a daze of bewilderment as the girl rose on tiptoe to place the chain of flowers around his neck. He bent mechanically to receive the offer, not knowing what it meant. It was obviously a mistake, a very curious one. ‘Welcome!’ the voices rang again. Then, an expectant hush. Uncle Srinath turned round to the group. On the high cheekbones and grey stubble of his face was a clear coating of strong elation. ‘Friends and brothers! Bengal has seen greatness in almost every field of action. I shall not belittle your knowledge by citing names. It is only in trade and industry that Bengal has lagged behind sadly—the plums of business have gone to people from upcountry or from overseas. That is why our hearts grow big with pride at the sight of a son of Bengal, a son of our own Shantipur village, who has attained great success in that field, that 2021-22 90 Woven Words forbidden field, and become the glory of the motherland, Swagatam! Welcome!’ ‘Swagatam!’ the combined voices roared while the tricolour flag on its tall pole nodded approvingly. When Satyajit slipped down from the ox cart at the door of a mud-brick house, a knot of women waiting tensely with brass water-bowls rushed up and stooped over his feet, scrambling for the privilege to wash his feet with cool water. Satyajit shrank back, embarrassed. ‘It’s my Beena’s privilege,’ cried Srinath, smiling. ‘This is her day. Let Beena alone wash and wipe the reverent feet. All her life she will remember this honour befalling her on the auspicious day of her marriage.’ Satyajit looked at the girl who stepped forward, shy, slender with large pensive eyes in a graceful face. ‘So this is the bride,’ he smiled at her and touched her hair in the gesture of blessing. ‘I hope the groom is worthy of this girl,’ he said as she knelt down to unlace his shoes. She slipped off his socks and poured cool water to freshen his feet, washing them with keen care. As her slim fingers went between his toes, he wiggled them, for he felt ticklish. Presently he sat on a carpet in the inner verandah with a plateful of sweets and a glass of whey while Kamini, Damini and Suhashi sat near him on their haunches and waved palm leaf fans with all their energy, as though each passing minute had to be fully used before their hands were deprived of the privilege. Sweat 2021-22 Glory at Twilight 91 broke out on their faces and they shifted their fans from right hand to left and again to the right. Their mother, who stood by, now spoke in a murmur, husky with emotion. ‘You have been more of a father to these girls than he,’ jerking her head at her invisible husband. ‘But for the bigness of your heart, they would still be maids under this room, shooting up in years and in height with no chance of having husband and home.’ She lifted her sari fringes to her eyes, wiping off two grateful tears. The meal over, Uncle Srinath, who had been shuttling between the inner verandah and the outer quarters, now stopped, leaning over his guest. ‘Beena has been given the old jewellery of her mother,’ he confided. ‘So, that part of the dowry problem has been met. Her three married sisters, whom you see before you and who owe all their bliss in life to your benediction, have given her the marriage gifts she must have: sari, jacket, chemise. Also brass utensils for her new household.’ ‘Good! Good!’ Satyajit cried happily. He had Rs 200 in his purse and had wondered how much of it had to go into the marriage pool. May be Rs 100; or, rather, Rs 101, since a figure ending with zero was not propitious. During the meal he had been slowly adding to that figure: ten, twenty, finally stopping at an additional fifty. Now that Beena had got all she needed, he could just as well slice a goodly bit off the amount. Let it be Rs 101. The fifty rupees saved would buy a perambulator for his newborn son. ‘Your benediction is our blind-man’s staff,’ Srinath went on. ‘Do I have to say more?’ He apparently decided that he did not, for he changed the topic abruptly. ‘My house has become a place of pilgrimage. You are the pride of the village, its strength. In you the people see their own inmost dream fulfilled. Will you now show yourself for a minute to the devotees who sit waiting—’ Satyajit followed his host. His devotees were seated on a floor mat, talking animatedly, and at the sight of him there was an instant hush. Hands joined to his chest, Satyajit made salutation to all. He caught sight of the schoolmaster who had taught him as a boy and made a 2021-22 92 Woven Words deep obeisance. Swelled with pride, the old man swept the floor mat group with a superior glance before he spoke: ‘Didn’t I say? Didn’t I say a hundred and one times in those far off days that the light of genius blazed on the face of my young pupil? That he stood apart from every other young pig—’ He broke short and yielded to a violent fit of coughing to cover up the slip. Presently he resumed: ‘That he with the light of genius on his face was afar from the world where the other youngsters dwelt? Why, I predicted that he would be a High Court Judge—’ Satyajit burst into a laugh. ‘Alas, I am no High Court Judge’. ‘Even more, much more!’ counted the old man. His good memory reached back to the boy with whom he had been on terms of a perpetual feud. Always bent on some kind of mischief—he did have an inventive mind that way! Arithmetic was his bogey. How does he count all his pile of money? He owns a million, if Srinath is to be believed. A million? And the old man hastened to add a brushful of colour to the drab picture presented by memory. ‘Even in those far-off days I could see two shadow forms about him, clear as life—Saraswati at his left, Lakshmi at his right. And I knew even then that the twin goddesses of knowledge and wealth, though hating the sight of each other, had for once united, stayed together, drawn by their common love.’ He lifted joined palms to his forehead, offering salutation— perhaps to those goddesses. Satyajit was determined to enjoy himself. He felt a twinge of regret that he had not thought of coming to Shantipur and basking in the people’s homage when it was truly his due. Now he was an impostor. He impersonated the man he had been a few weeks before. He made an angry jerk of his hand about his face, waving off a sandfly— and the regret. Let him be happy for the day even with a false echo, let him be wrapped a while in the lingering twilight splendour of departed glory. Tommorow he would be in the full fury of a stream, tugged under water, fighting for life. Today he would have his last breath of peace, freedom, content. Through the rest of the day he went round the village, meeting the elders, sipping the proffered milk of green 2021-22 Glory at Twilight 93 coconuts. He visited his house occupied by a tenant. His house—and he touched the walls possessively. This small house gave him a feeling of security which had not come to him even from his huge city mansion. He spent an hour by the fish pond. His pond—and he sprinkled a palmful of its water on his head. A good-sized carp landed at the end of his hook. When he came home with the catch, Uncle Srinath gazed at it raptly—one would have thought he had never before seen such fish. ‘What gills!’ he breathed in apparent ecstasy. He patted the head of the fish with an affectionate hand. ‘Bride and groom shall eat curried portions of this auspicious one when they break their marriage fast at midnight. That will bring them all the blessings that life can give’. It was near twilight when the groom’s party arrived in ox carts and palanquins. Conches blew welcome. Young women gathered at the dooryard and gave the shrill traditional greeting expressive of great joy; Ulu-ulu-uluulu- ulu! When the bridal party was well settled, chewing betel leaf and waiting for the marriage hour as prescribed by the almanac, Satyajit felt for his purse. Time now to part with Rs 101. Srinath, reading his thoughts, took him to the secluded darkness under a fig-tree in the backyard ‘My begging bowl is ready,’ he announced happily. ‘Yes, yes,’ Satyajit nodded. ‘The cash dowry stands fixed. Only Rs 2001.’ ‘What!’ Satyajit felt a hard blow in the pit of his stomach. ‘That is all.’ ‘Rs 2001?’ Srinath smiled. ‘Everything else is provided for, even the cost of the marriage feast. Only this last item awaits your benediction.’ Benediction—Srinath’s favourite word. Nothing abstract in its meaning. It could be interpreted only in terms of money. Satyajit felt a burning inside him. He had stretched his leg right into the snare of benediction, unthinkingly. How could he be so very stupid? Srinath broke the silence with a half laugh. ‘This drop in the ocean of your fortune. It shames me to mention the petty figure.’ 2021-22 94 Woven Words ‘Why didn’t you write and tell me?’ The voice was harsh. The half laugh repeated itself. ‘Have I no sense? I am not such a big ass as I look. What! Mention money to a millionaire! And such a pittance. A drop in the ocean.’ ‘A drop,’ echoed Satyajit, his mouth dry. This was the moment for confession. He was even worse off than Srinath. Hard struggle lay ahead of him for bare survival. Srinath would understand. ‘Millionaire!’ Rhapsody in the voice. Plain worship on the face. A devotee, prayerful before his god. ‘ We bask in your benediction. Our life-spark itself is held in your fist; you can destroy it just by closing your fingers tight. Words cannot say what I feel —’ Yes, the god had been a millionaire, truly. That was yesterday. Today... Confession stuck in his throat, clutched by the millionaire’s dead hand. Better give an excuse. He had come rushing in the midst of heavy work and had not thought of equipping himself with adequate cash. That would sound plausible. Later—it wouldn’t matter if Srinath discovered the terrible truth later, as he must. Something stronger than he spoke with his tongue. ‘I had to catch the morning train—there was no time to go to the bank. Maybe someone in the village—’ The words ‘cash a cheque’ were almost on his lips. ‘Someone in the village will advance a loan—’ Uncle Srinath rushed out of the house, panic on his face. He had been under the impression that a millionaire always had his pockets stuffed with money. Satyajit returned to the assembled guests. Instantly the groom, on his foothigh satin-draped platform, fat round cushions on three sides of him, was forgotten. Silence. All eyes took their fill of the rich man. A god on the pedestal of fortune. He too sat quiet, the tiredness within him heavier than even before. The peace he had attained erstwhile was gone. He longed to see the face of his new-born son. The rich man’s son who would never ride in a perambulator. Srinath returned in half an hour. His face looked angry. Satyajit saw his beckoning hand, rose heavily to his feet, and stepped outside, away from the people. 2021-22 Glory at Twilight 95 ‘Only one person in Shantipur can produce so much cash at this late hour,’ said Srinath, ‘Harish, the moneylender. That shark refuses to make an advance though.’ The swift flood of relief! ‘Harish does not trust me?’ Moneylenders did have a sixth sense. There was no knowing when Harish would have got his money back—perhaps never. ‘Preposterous! Not to trust the word and signature of a millionaire! Harish is off his senses; or, is it malice?’ The voice collected anger. ‘I could drag him to you and make him grovel at your feet and rub his fat nose on the ground.’ Satyajit could be generous. ‘No need, no need. Trust is out of date in these cynical times.’ The wonder of it—his leg was off the snare of benediction! ‘Where will our India be if such things are tolerated? What is Nehru doing about it? Is there no one to tell him how things stand in the country?’ Satyajit patted the excited man on the shoulder, soothingly. Srinath controlled himself with visible effort. His face saddened. ‘What is to be done?’ he moaned. ‘The groom’s father is a man of stone. He will break off the marriage unless cash is paid to him before the ceremony starts. Who will ever marry Beena after such dishonour?’ Satyajit wagged his head in befitting sympathy. ‘If only you had written to me. Just two words or three. Anyway, do not be worried. You will find another suitable match, a better one maybe. Who can foresee the ways of destiny?’ He felt for his purse the second time. He ought to restore the fifty rupees he had cut. Let it be Rs 151. Even if there would be no perambulator for his son— Srinath cleared his throat twice. ‘It shames me to tell you the full story.’ ‘Yes?’ ‘Harish is willing to pay.’ ‘What! you have just said—’ ‘He will pay against security. He wants security, that evil-eyed shark. Your house and fish-pond. The madness! To think that house and pond have more weight than a millionaire’s signature!’ Satyajit trembled within him. ‘House and pond,’ he murmurmed to himself. The only possessions that had not 2021-22 96 Woven Words toppled into the deluge. They were all he could give to his wife— ‘All the old values destroyed, where will our India be? Has Nehru no sense to understand this? What! A pond weighs more than a millionaire’s word, a house is better security than the signature of his hand! Yet, what else is to be done?’ Palms folded together made supplication. ‘What else is to be done in the daughter crisis?’ Satyajit had a queer drugged look. And the dead voice of the millionaire came from his throat. ‘Let the moneylender pay on those terms.’ ‘The insult, what about the insult?’ Srinath’s wrathful hand cleaved the air. ‘When the thing is done, I will make the shark rub his fat nose on the ground at your feet; I will do that, be sure. You will also see the whole village spit at the shark, thoo!’ The deed was signed, the house was gay with marriage music. Satyajit walked off to the deep dark under the fig tree, all by himself. ‘What now,’ he said under his breath, and a dim smile pinched the corners of his lips as he stuck between them the cork tip of a cigarette, the last one in the tin, and lifted a lit match with slow tremulous deliberation.

Would you agree that the “depths of oppression” create “heights of character”? How does Mandela illustrate this? Can you add your own examples to this argument?

<answer> I agree with the statement that depths of oppression create heights of character. Nelson Mandela illustrates this by giving examples of great heroes of South Africa like Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu and others who were inspired to sacrifice their lives in the long freedom struggle. India is full of such examples, during our freedom struggle there was a galaxy of leaders of great characters and the oppression of British rule created and encouraged people of noble characters like Mahatma Gandhi, Lala Lajpat Rai, JL Nehru, Chandra Shekhar Ajad, Sardar Bhagat Singh and many more. If we compare them with the quality of political leaders India is having today, then Nelson Mandela seems to be absolutely right. <context> Nelson Mandela has become South Africa’s first Black President after more than three centuries of White rule. Mr Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC) party won 252 of the 400 seats in the first democratic elections of South Africa’s history. The inauguration ceremony took place in the Union Buildings amphitheatre in Pretoria today, attended by politicians and dignitaries from more than 140 countries around the world. “Never, never again will this beautiful land experience the oppression of one by another, ” said Nelson Mandela in his address. … Jubilant scenes on the streets of Pretoria followed the ceremony with blacks, whites and coloureds celebrating together... More than 100,000 South African men, women and children of all races sang and danced with joy. TENTH May dawned bright and clear. For the past few days I had been pleasantly besieged by dignitaries and world leaders who were coming to pay their respects before the inauguration. The inauguration would be the largest gathering ever of international leaders on South African soil. The ceremonies took place in the lovely sandstone amphitheatre formed by the Union Buildings in Pretoria. For decades this had been the seat of white supremacy, and now it was the site of a rainbow gathering of different colours and nations for the installation of South Africa’s first democratic, non-racial government. On that lovely autumn day I was accompanied by my daughter Zenani. On the podium, Mr de Klerk was first sworn in as second deputy president. Then Thabo Mbeki was sworn in as first deputy president. When it was my turn, I pledged to obey and uphold the Constitution and to devote myself to the wellbeing of the Republic and its people. To the assembled guests and the watching world, I said: Today, all of us do, by our presence here... confer glory and hope to newborn liberty. Out of the experience of an extraordinary human disaster that lasted too long, must be born a society of which all humanity will be proud. We, who were outlaws not so long ago, have today been given the rare privilege to be host to the nations of the world on our own soil. We thank all of our distinguished international guests for having come to take possession with the people of our country of what is, after all, a common victory for justice, for peace, for human dignity. We have, at last, achieved our political emancipation. We pledge ourselves to liberate all our people from the continuing bondage of poverty, deprivation, suffering, gender and other discrimination. Never, never, and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another. The sun shall never set on so glorious a human achievement. Let freedom reign. God bless Africa! A few moments later we all lifted our eyes in awe as a spectacular array of South African jets, helicopters and troop carriers roared in perfect formation over the Union Buildings. It was not only a display of pinpoint precision and military force, but a demonstration of the military’s loyalty to democracy, to a new government that had been freely and fairly elected. Only moments before, the highest generals of the South African defence force and police, their chests bedecked with ribbons and medals from days gone by, saluted me and pledged their loyalty. I was not unmindful of the fact that not so many years before they would not have saluted but arrested me. Finally a chevron of Impala jets left a smoke trail of the black, red, green, blue and gold of the new South African flag. The day was symbolised for me by the playing of our two national anthems, and the vision of whites singing ‘Nkosi Sikelel –iAfrika’ and blacks singing ‘Die Stem’, the old anthem of the Republic. Although that day neither group knew the lyrics of the anthem they once despised, they would soon know the words by heart. On the day of the inauguration, I was overwhelmed with a sense of history. In the first decade of the twentieth century, a few years after the bitter Anglo-Boer war and before my own birth, the white-skinned peoples of South Africa patched up their differences and erected a system of racial domination against the dark-skinned peoples of their own land. The structure they created formed the basis of one of the harshest, most inhumane, societies the world has ever known. Now, in the last decade of the twentieth century, and my own eighth decade as a man, that system had been overturned forever and replaced by one that recognised the rights and freedoms of all peoples, regardless of the colour of their skin. That day had come about through the unimaginable sacrifices of thousands of my people, people whose suffering and courage can never be counted or repaid. I felt that day, as I have on so many other days, that I was simply the sum of all those African patriots who had gone before me. That long and noble line ended and now began again with me. I was pained that I was not able to thank them and that they were not able to see what their sacrifices had wrought. The policy of apartheid created a deep and lasting wound in my country and my people. All of us will spend many years, if not generations, recovering from that profound hurt. But the decades of oppression and brutality had another, unintended, effect, and that was that it produced the Oliver Tambos, the Walter Sisulus, the Chief Luthulis, the Yusuf Dadoos, the Bram Fischers, the Robert Sobukwes of our time* — men of such extraordinary courage, wisdom and generosity that their like may never be known again. Perhaps it requires such depths of oppression to create such heights of character. My country is rich in the minerals and gems that lie beneath its soil, but I have always known that its greatest wealth is its people, finer and truer than the purest diamonds. It is from these comrades in the struggle that I learned the meaning of courage. Time and again, I have seen men and women risk and give their lives for an idea. I have seen men stand up to attacks and torture without breaking, showing a strength and resilience that defies the imagination. I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear. No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. Even in the grimmest times in prison, when my comrades and I were pushed to our limits, I would see a glimmer of humanity in one of the guards, perhaps just for a second, but it was enough to reassure me and keep me going. Man’s goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished. In life, every man has twin obligations — obligations to his family, to his parents, to his wife and children; and he has an obligation to his people, his community, his country. In a civil and humane society, each man is able to fulfil those obligations according to his own inclinations and abilities. But in a country like South Africa, it was almost impossible for a man of my birth and colour to fulfil both of those obligations. In South Africa, a man of colour who attempted to live as a human being was punished and isolated. In South Africa, a man who tried to fulfil his duty to his people was inevitably ripped from his family and his home and was forced to live a life apart, a twilight existence of secrecy and rebellion. I did not in the beginning choose to place my people above my family, but in attempting to serve my people, I found that I was prevented from fulfilling my obligations as a son, a brother, a father and a husband. I was not born with a hunger to be free. I was born free — free in every way that I could know. Free to run in the fields near my mother’s hut, free to swim in the clear stream that ran through my village, free to roast mealies under the stars and ride the broad backs of slow-moving bulls. As long as I obeyed my father and abided by the customs of my tribe, I was not troubled by the laws of man or God. It was only when I began to learn that my boyhood freedom was an illusion, when I discovered as a young man that my freedom had already been taken from me, that I began to hunger for it. At first, as a student, I wanted freedom only for myself, the transitory freedoms of being able to stay out at night, read what I pleased and go where I chose. Later, as a young man in Johannesburg, I yearned for the basic and honourable freedoms of achieving my potential, of earning my keep, of marrying and having a family — the freedom not to be obstructed in a lawful life. But then I slowly saw that not only was I not free, but my brothers and sisters were not free. I saw that it was not just my freedom that was curtailed, but the freedom of everyone who looked like I did. That is when I joined the African National Congress, and that is when the hunger for my own freedom became the greater hunger for the freedom of my people. It was this desire for the freedom of my people to live their lives with dignity and selfrespect that animated my life, that transformed a frightened young man into a bold one, that drove a law-abiding attorney to become a criminal, that turned a family-loving husband into a man without a home, that forced a life-loving man to live like a monk. I am no more virtuous or self-sacrificing than the next man, but I found that I could not even enjoy the poor and limited freedoms I was allowed when I knew my people were not free. Freedom is indivisible; the chains on anyone of my people were the chains on all of them, the chains on all of my people were the chains on me. I knew that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A man who takes away another man’s freedom is a prisoner of hatred; he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrowmindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else’s freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.

Why does the world remember Einstein as a “world citizen”?

<answer> The world remembers Einstein as a 'world citizen' because he believed in universal peace. When there was the rat race for becoming atomic power, he was worried aout the aftermaths of the bomb. He was really a world citizen who was concerned with humanity. <context> 1. ALBERT Einstein was born on 14 March 1879 in the German city of Ulm, without any indication that he was destined for greatness. On the contrary, his mother thought Albert was a freak. To her, his head seemed much too large. 2. At the age of two-and-a-half, Einstein still wasn’t talking. When he finally did learn to speak, he uttered everything twice. Einstein did not know what to do with other children, and his playmates called him “Brother Boring.” So the youngster played by himself Otto Neugebauer, the historian of ancient mathematics, told a story about the boy Einstein that he characterises as a “legend”, but that seems fairly authentic. As he was a late talker, his parents were worried. At last, at the supper table one night, he broke his silence to say, “The soup is too hot.” Greatly relieved, his parents asked why he had never said a word before. Albert replied, “Because up to now everything was in order.” much of the time. He especially loved mechanical toys. Looking at his newborn sister, Maja, he is said to have said: “Fine, but where are her wheels?” 3. A headmaster once told his father that what Einstein chose as a profession wouldn’t matter, because “he’ll never make a success at anything.” Einstein began learning to play the violin at the age of six, because his mother wanted him to; he later became a gifted amateur violinist, maintaining this skill throughout his life. 4. But Albert Einstein was not a bad pupil. He went to high school in Munich, where Einstein’s family had moved when he was 15 months old, and scored good marks in almost every subject. Einstein hated the school’s regimentation, and often clashed with his teachers. At the age of 15, Einstein felt so stifled there that he left the school for good. 5. The previous year, Albert’s parents had moved to Milan, and left their son with relatives. After prolonged discussion, Einstein got his wish to continue his education in German-speaking Switzerland, in a city which was more liberal than Munich. 6. Einstein was highly gifted in mathematics and interested in physics, and after finishing school, he decided to study at a university in Zurich. But science wasn’t the only thing that appealed to the dashing young man with the walrus moustache. 7. He also felt a special interest in a fellow student, Mileva Maric, whom he found to be a “clever creature.” This young Serb had come to Switzerland because the University in Zurich was one of the few in Europe where women could get degrees. Einstein saw in her an ally against the “philistines”— those people in his family and at the university with whom he was constantly at odds. The couple fell in love. Letters survive in which they put their affection into words, mixing science with tenderness. Wrote Einstein: “How happy and proud I shall be when we both have brought our work on relativity to a victorious conclusion.” In 1900, at the age of 21, Albert Einstein was a university graduate and unemployed. He worked as a teaching assistant, gave private lessons and finally secured a job in 1902 as a technical expert in the patent office in Bern. While he was supposed to be assessing other people’s inventions, Einstein was actually developing his own ideas in secret. He is said to have jokingly called his desk drawer at work the “bureau of theoretical physics.” 9. One of the famous papers of 1905 was Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity, according to which time and distance are not absolute. Indeed, two perfectly accurate clocks will not continue to show the same time if they come together again after a journey if one of them has been moving very fast relative to the other. From this followed the world’s most famous formula which describes the relationship between mass and energy: E = mc2 10. While Einstein was solving the most difficult problems in physics, his private life was unravelling. Albert had wanted to marry Mileva right after finishing his studies, but his mother was against it. She thought Mileva, who was three years older than her son, was too old for him. She was also bothered by Mileva’s intelligence. “She is a book like you,” his mother said. Einstein put the wedding off. 11. The pair finally married in January 1903, and had two sons. But a few years later, the marriage faltered. Mileva, meanwhile, was losing her intellectual ambition and becoming an unhappy housewife. After years of constant fighting, the couple finally divorced in 1919. Einstein married his cousin Elsa the same year. 12.Einstein’s new personal chapter coincided with his rise to world fame. In 1915, he had published his General Theory of Relativity, which provided a new interpretation of gravity. An eclipse of the sun in 1919 brought proof that it was accurate. Einstein had correctly calculated in advance the extent to which the light from fixed stars would be deflected through the sun’s gravitational field. The newspapers proclaimed his work as “a scientific revolution.” 13. Einstein received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921. He was showered with honours and invitations from all over the world, and lauded by the press. 14. When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, Einstein emigrated to the United States. Five years later, the discovery of nuclear fission in Berlin had American physicists in an uproar. Many of them had fled from Fascism, just as Einstein had, and now they were afraid the Nazis could build and use an atomic bomb. 15. At the urging of a colleague, Einstein wrote a letter to the American President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, on 2 August 1939, in which he warned: “A single bomb of this type . . . exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory.” His words did not fail to have an effect. The Americans developed the atomic bomb in a secret project of their own, and dropped it on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. 16. Einstein was deeply shaken by the extent of the destruction. This time he wrote a public missive to the United Nations. In it he proposed the formation of a world government. Unlike the letter to Roosevelt, this one made no impact. But over the next decade, Einstein got ever more involved in politics — agitating for an end to the arms buildup and using his popularity to campaign for peace and democracy. 17. When Einstein died in 1955 at the age of 76, he was celebrated as a visionary and world citizen as much as a scientific genius.

What did Franz notice that was unusual about the school that day?

<answer> Usually, when school began, there was a great bustle, which could be heard out in the street. But it was all very still that day. Everything was as quiet as Sunday morning. There was no opening or closing of desks. His classmates were already in their places. The teacher’s great ruler instead of rapping on the table, was under M. Hamel’s arm. <context> I started for school very late that morning and was in great dread of a scolding, especially because M. Hamel had said that he would question us on participles, and I did not know the first word about them. For a moment I thought of running away and spending the day out of doors. It was so warm, so bright! The birds were chirping at the edge of the woods; and in the open field back of the sawmill the Prussian soldiers were drilling. It was all much more tempting than the rule for participles, but I had the strength to resist, and hurried off to school. When I passed the town hall there was a crowd in front of the bulletin-board. For the last two years all our bad news had come from there — the lost battles, the draft, the orders of the commanding officer — and I thought to myself, without stopping, “What can be the matter now?” Then, as I hurried by as fast as I could go, the blacksmith, Wachter, who was there, with his apprentice, reading the bulletin, called after me, “Don’t go so fast, bub; you’ll get to your school in plenty of time!” I thought he was making fun of me, and reached M. Hamel’s little garden all out of breath. Usually, when school began, there was a great bustle, which could be heard out in the street, the opening and closing of desks, lessons repeated in unison, very loud, with our hands over our ears to understand better, and the teacher’s great ruler rapping on the table. But now it was all so still! I had counted on the commotion to get to my desk without being seen; but, of course, that day everything had to be as quiet as Sunday morning. Through the window I saw my classmates, already in their places, and M. Hamel walking up and down with his terrible iron ruler under his arm. I had to open the door and go in before everybody. You can imagine how I blushed and how frightened I was. But nothing happened. M. Hamel saw me and said very kindly, “Go to your place quickly, little Franz. We were beginning without you.” I jumped over the bench and sat down at my desk. Not till then, when I had got a little over my fright, did I see that our teacher had on his beautiful green coat, his frilled shirt, and the little black silk cap, all embroidered, that he never wore except on inspection and prize days. Besides, the whole school seemed so strange and solemn. But the thing that surprised me most was to see, on the back benches that were always empty, the village people sitting quietly like ourselves; old Hauser, with his three-cornered hat, the former mayor, the former postmaster, and several others besides. Everybody looked sad; and Hauser had brought an old primer, thumbed at the edges, and he held it open on his knees with his great spectacles lying across the pages. While I was wondering about it all, M. Hamel mounted his chair, and, in the same grave and gentle tone which he had used to me, said, “My children, this is the last lesson I shall give you. The order has come from Berlin to teach only German in the schools of Alsace and Lorraine. The new master comes tomorrow. This is your last French lesson. I want you to be very attentive.” What a thunderclap these words were to me! Oh, the wretches; that was what they had put up at the town-hall! My last French lesson! Why, I hardly knew how to write! I should never learn any more! I must stop there, then! Oh, how sorry I was for not learning my lessons, for seeking birds’ eggs, or going sliding on the Saar! My books, that had seemed such a nuisance a while ago, so heavy to carry, my grammar, and my history of the saints, were old friends now that I couldn’t give up. And M. Hamel, too; the idea that he was going away, that I should never see him again, made me forget all about his ruler and how cranky he was. Poor man! It was in honour of this last lesson that he had put on his fine Sunday clothes, and now I understood why the old men of the village were sitting there in the back of the room. It was because they were sorry, too, that they had not gone to school more. It was their way of thanking our master for his forty years of faithful service and of showing their respect for the country that was theirs no more. While I was thinking of all this, I heard my name called. It was my turn to recite. What would I not have given to be able to say that dreadful rule for the participle all through, very loud and clear, and without one mistake? But I got mixed up on the first words and stood there, holding on to my desk, my heart beating, and not daring to look up. I heard M. Hamel say to me, “I won’t scold you, little Franz; you must feel bad enough. See how it is! Every day we have said to ourselves, ‘Bah! I’ve plenty of time. I’ll learn it tomorrow.’ And now you see where we’ve come out. Ah, that’s the great trouble with Alsace; she puts off learning till tomorrow. Now those fellows out there will have the right to say to you, ‘How is it; you pretend to be Frenchmen, and yet you can neither speak nor write your own language?’ But you are not the worst, poor little Franz. We’ve all a great deal to reproach ourselves with.” “Your parents were not anxious enough to have you learn. They preferred to put you to work on a farm or at the mills, so as to have a little more money. And I? I’ve been to blame also. Have I not often sent you to water my flowers instead of learning your lessons? And when I wanted to go fishing, did I not just give you a holiday?” Then, from one thing to another, M. Hamel went on to talk of the French language, saying that it was the most beautiful language in the world — the clearest, the most logical; that we must guard it among us and never forget it, because when a people are enslaved, as long as they hold fast to their language it is as if they had the key to their prison. Then he opened a grammar and read us our lesson. I was amazed to see how well I understood it. All he said seemed so easy, so easy! I think, too, that I had never listened so carefully, and that he had never explained everything with so much patience. It seemed almost as if the poor man wanted to give us all he knew before going away, and to put it all into our heads at one stroke. After the grammar, we had a lesson in writing. That day M. Hamel had new copies for us, written in a beautiful round hand — France, Alsace, France, Alsace. They looked like little flags floating everywhere in the school-room, hung from the rod at the top of our desks. You ought to have seen how every one set to work, and how quiet it was! The only sound was the scratching of the pens over the paper. Once some beetles flew in; but nobody paid any attention to them, not even the littlest ones, who worked right on tracing their fish-hooks, as if that was French, too. On the roof the pigeons cooed very low, and I thought to myself, “Will they make them sing in German, even the pigeons?” Whenever I looked up from my writing I saw M. Hamel sitting motionless in his chair and gazing first at one thing, then at another, as if he wanted to fix in his mind just how everything looked in that little school-room. Fancy! For forty years he had been there in the same place, with his garden outside the window and his class in front of him, just like that. Only the desks and benches had been worn smooth; the walnut-trees in the garden were taller, and the hopvine that he had planted himself twined about the windows to the roof. How it must have broken his heart to leave it all, poor man; to hear his sister moving about in the room above, packing their trunks! For they must leave the country next day. But he had the courage to hear every lesson to the very last. After the writing, we had a lesson in history, and then the babies chanted their ba, be bi, bo, bu. Down there at the back of the room old Hauser had put on his spectacles and, holding his primer in both hands, spelled the letters with them. You could see that he, too, was crying; his voice trembled with emotion, and it was so funny to hear him that we all wanted to laugh and cry. Ah, how well I remember it, that last lesson! All at once the church-clock struck twelve. Then the Angelus. At the same moment the trumpets of the Prussians, returning from drill, sounded under our windows. M. Hamel stood up, very pale, in his chair. I never saw him look so tall. “My friends,” said he, “I—I—” But something choked him. He could not go on. Then he turned to the blackboard, took a piece of chalk, and, bearing on with all his might, he wrote as large as he could — “Vive La France!” Then he stopped and leaned his head against the wall, and, without a word, he made a gesture to us with his hand — “School is dismissed — you may go.”

What are the criteria that Ruskin feels that readers should fulfil to make themselves fit for the company of the Dead.

<answer> The criteria that Ruskin feels that readers should fulfil to make themselves fit for the company of the Dead are that one must remain open to merit and labour. The essayist feels that no name will overawe, no wealth will bribe and no artifice will deceive the guardian of those Elysian gates. Ruskin says that one should rise to the level of their thoughts to be with their company. <context> The good book of the hour, then—I do not speak of the bad ones—is simply the useful or pleasant talk of some person whom you cannot otherwise converse with, printed for you. Very useful often, telling you what you need to know; very pleasant often, as a sensible friend’s present talk would be. These bright accounts of travels; good-humoured and witty discussions of question; lively or pathetic story-telling in the form of novel; firm fact-telling by the real agents concerned in the events of passing history—all these books of the hour, multiplying among us as education becomes more general, are a peculiar characteristic and possession of the present age: we ought to be entirely thankful for them, and entirely ashamed of ourselves if we make no good use of them. But we make the worst possible use if we allow them to usurp the place of true books: for, strictly speaking, they are not books at all but merely letters or newspapers in good print. Our friend’s letter may be delightful, or necessary, today: whether worth keeping or not, is to be considered. The newspaper may be entirely proper at breakfast time but, assuredly, it is not reading for all day. So, though bound up in a volume, the long letter which gives you so pleasant an account of the inns, and roads, and weather last year at such a place, or which tells you that amusing story or gives you the real circumstances of such and such events, however valuable for occasional reference, may not be, in the real sense of the word, a ‘book’ at all, nor, in the real sense, to be ‘read’. A book is essentially not a talked thing but a written thing; and written, not with the view of more communication, but of permanence. The book of talk is printed only because its author cannot speak to thousands of people at once; if he could, he would—the volume is mere ‘multiplication’ of his voice. You cannot talk to your friend in India; if you could, you would; you would write instead: that is mere ‘conveyance’ of voice. But a book is written, not to multiply the voice merely, not to carry it merely, but to preserve it. The author has something to say which he perceives to be true and useful, or helpfully beautiful. So far as he knows no one has yet said it; so far as he knows, no one else can say it. He is bound to say it, clearly and melodiously if he may; clearly, at all events. In the sum of his life he finds this to be the thing or group of things, manifest to him— this is the piece of true knowledge, or sight, which his share of sunshine and earth has permitted him to seize. He would fain set it down forever, engrave it on a rock, if he could, saying, ‘This is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and drank, and slept, loved, and hated, like another; my life was as the vapour, and is not; but this I saw and knew; this, if anything, of mine, is worth your memory.’ That his ‘writing’, it is, in his small human way, and with whatever degree of true inspiration is in him, his inscription, or scripture.That is a ‘Book’. Perhaps you think no books were ever so written? But, again, I ask you; do you at all believe in honesty or, at all, in kindness? Or do you think there is never any honesty or benevolence in wise people? None of us, I hope, are so unhappy as to think that. Well, whatever bit of a wise man’s work is honestly and benevolently done, that bit is his book, or his piece of art. It is mixed always with evil fragments—ill-done, redundant, affected work. But if you read rightly, you will easily discover the true bits, and those are the book. Now books of this kind have been written in all ages by their greatest men—by great leaders, great statesmen and great thinkers. These are all at your choice; and life is short. You have heard as much before; yet have you measured and mapped out this short life and its possibilities? Do you know, if you read this, that you cannot read that—that what you lose today you cannot gain tomorrow? Will you go and gossip with your housemaid, or your stable-boy, when you may talk with queens and kings; or flatter yourselves that it is with any worthy consciousness of your own claims to respect that you jostle with the common crowd for entrée here, an audience there, when all the while this eternal court is open to you, with its society wide as the world, multitudinous as its days, the chosen and the mighty, of every place and time? Into that you may enter always; in that you may take fellowship and rank according to your wish; from that, once entered into it, you can never be outcast but by your own fault; by your aristocracy of companionship there, your own inherent aristocracy will be assuredly tested and the motives with which you strive to take high place in the society of the living, measured, as to all the truth and sincerity that are in them, by the place you desire to take in this company of the Dead. ‘The place you desire’, and the place you ‘fit yourself for’, I must also say; because, observe, this court of the past differs from all living aristocracy in this—it is open to labour and to merit but to nothing else. No wealth will bribe, no name will overawe, no artifice will deceive the guardian of those Elysian gates. In the deep sense, no vile or vulgar person ever enters there. At the portieres of that silent Faubourg St. Germain, there is but brief question, ‘Do you deserve to enter? Pass. Do you ask to be the companion of nobles? Do you long for the conversation of the wise? Learn to understand it, and you shall hear it. But on other terms? No. If you will not rise to us, we cannot stoop to you. The living lord may assume courtesy, the living philosopher explain his thought to you with considerable pain; but here we neither feign nor interpret; you must rise to the level of our thoughts if you would be gladdened by them, and share our feelings, if you would recognise our presence.’ This, then, is what you have to do and I admit that it is much. You must, in a word, love these people if you are to be among them. No ambition is of any use. They scorn your ambition. You must love them and show your love by a true desire to be taught by them, and to enter their thoughts. To enter into theirs, observe; not to find your own expressed by them. If the person who wrote the book is not wiser than you, you need not read it; if he be, he will think differently from you in many respects. Very ready we are to say of a book, ‘How good this is— that’s exactly what I think!’ But the right feeling is, ‘How strange that is! I never thought of that before and yet I see it is true; or if I do not now, I hope I shall, some day.’ But whether thus submissively or not, at least be sure that you go to the author to get at his meaning, not to find yours. Judge it afterwards, if you think yourself qualified to do so; but ascertain it first. And be sure also, if the author is worth anything, that you will get at his meaning all at once; nay, that at his whole meaning you will not for a long time arrive in any wise. Not that he does not say what he means, and in strong words too; but he cannot say it all; and what is more strange, will not, but in a hidden way and in parables, in order that he may be sure you want it. I cannot quite see the reason of this, nor analyse that cruel reticence in the breasts of wise men which makes them always hide their deeper thoughts. They do not give it to you by way of help, but of reward, and will make themselves sure that you deserve it before they allow you to reach it. But it is the same with the physical type of wisdom, gold. There seems, to you and me, no reason why the electric forces of the earth should not carry whatever there is of gold within it at once to the mountain tops, so that kings and people might know that all the gold they could get was there; and without any trouble of digging, or anxiety, or chance, or waste of time, cut it away, and coin as much as they needed. But nature does not manage it so. She puts it in little fissures in the earth, nobody knows where: you may dig long and find none; you must dig painfully to find any. And it is just the same with men’s best wisdom. When you come to a good book, you must ask yourself, ‘Am I inclined to work as an Australian miner would? Are my pickaxes and shovels in good order and am I in good trim myself, my sleeves well up to the elbow, and my breath good, and my temper?’ And, keeping the figure a little longer, even at the cost of tiresomeness, for it is a thoroughly useful one, the metal you are in search of being the author’s mind or meaning, his words are as the rock which you have to crush and smelt in order to get at it. And your pickaxes are your own care, wit and learning; your smelting furnace is your own thoughtful soul. Do not hope to get at any good author’s meaning without these tools and that fire; often you will need sharpest, finest chiselling, and patientest fusing, before you can gather one grain of metal. And, therefore, first of all, I tell you, earnestly and authoritatively (I know I am right in this), you must get into the habit of looking intensely at words and assuring yourself of their meaning, syllable by syllable—nay, letter by letter. For, though it is only by reason of the opposition of letters in the function of signs, to sounds in the function of signs, that the study of books is called ‘literature’, and that a man versed in it is called, by the consent of nations, a man of letters instead of a man of books, or of words, you may yet connect with that accidental nomenclature this real principle: that you might read all the books in the British Museum (if you could live long enough), and remain an utterly ‘illiterate’, uneducated person; but that if you read ten pages of a good book, letter by letter—that is to say, with real accuracy—you are forever more in some measure with an educated person. The entire difference between education and non-education (as regards the merely intellectual part of it), consists in this accuracy. A well-educated gentleman may not know many languages— may not be able to speak any but his own—may have read very few books. But whatever language he knows, he knows precisely; whatever word he pronounces, he pronounces rightly; above all, he is learned in the peerage of words; knows the words of true descent and ancient blood, at a glance, from words of modern canaille; remembers all their ancestry—their inter-marriages, distantest relationships, and the extent to which they were admitted, and offices they held, among the national noblesse of words at any time, and in any country. But an uneducated person may know by memory any number of languages and talk them all, and yet truly not know a word of any—not a word even of his own. An ordinarily clever and sensible seaman will be able to make his way ashore at most ports; yet he has only to speak a sentence of any language to be known for an illiterate person: so also the accent, or turn of expression of a single sentence will at once mark a scholar. And this so strongly felt, so conclusively admitted, by educated persons, that a false accent or a mistaken syllable is enough, in the parliament of any civilized nation, to assign a man a certain degree of inferior standing forever. And this is right; but it is a pity that the accuracy insisted on is not greater, and required to a serious purpose. It is right that a false Latin quantity should excite a smile in the House of Commons; but it is wrong that a false English meaning should not excite a frown there. Let the accent of words be watched, by all means, but let the meaning be watched more closely still, and fewer will do the work. A few words, well chosen and well distinguished, will do work that a thousand cannot, when everyone is acting, equivocally, in the function of another. Yes; and words, if they are not watched, will do deadly work sometimes.

How would you explain the reluctance of the soldier to leave the shelter of the doctor’s home even when he knew he couldn’t stay there without risk to the doctor and himself?

<answer> As the American, Tom, recovered from his wound, he was weak and trusted Sadao to save his life. Though Sadao does not gracefully accept the gratitude the wounded soldier offered him, he was attentive as a doctor and eager for his patient to recover. However, Sadao was also concerned for his safety, and asked Tom to leave at his earliest. Though Sadao was momentarily tempted by the General’s offer to arrange for the prisoner to be secretly assassinated, the doctor showed unrest and finally arranged for the prisoner to escape. Tom understood that he posed a risk to the doctor’s family and his own self, but he was reluctant to leave. He felt safe at the doctor’s and admitted that he was the finest Japanese he came across. Fear of arrest and death led him to seek shelter with Sadao and his family. In this story, Tom bonds with the Japanese family as fellow humans, who have looked after him, and looked up to them as his saviour. The mutual hatred, that their respective country festered in them, fell away at the time of crisis. <context> Dr Sadao Hoki’s house was built on a spot of the Japanese coast where as a little boy he had often played. The low, square stone house was set upon rocks well above a narrow beach that was outlined with bent pines. As a boy Sadao had climbed the pines, supporting himself on his bare feet, as he had seen men do in the South Seas when they climbed for coconuts. His father had taken him often to the islands of those seas, and never had he failed to say to the little brave boy at his side, ‘‘Those islands yonder, they are the stepping stones to the future for Japan.’’ ‘‘Where shall we step from them?’’ Sadao had asked seriously. ‘‘Who knows?’’ his father had answered. ‘‘Who can limit our future? It depends on what we make it.’’ Sadao had taken this into his mind as he did everything his father said, his father who never joked or played with him but who spent infinite pains upon him who was his only son. Sadao knew that his education was his father’s chief concern. For this reason he had been sent at twenty-two to America to learn all that could be learned of surgery and medicine. He had come back at thirty, and before his father died he had seen Sadao become famous not only as a surgeon but as a scientist. Because he was perfecting a discovery which would render wounds entirely clean, he had not been sent abroad with the troops. Also, he knew, there was some slight danger that the old General might need an operation for a condition for which he was now being treated medically, and for this possibility Sadao was being kept in Japan. Clouds were rising from the ocean now. The unexpected warmth of the past few days had at night drawn heavy fog from the cold waves. Sadao watched mists hide outlines of a little island near the shore and then come creeping up the beach below the house, wreathing around the pines. In a few minutes fog would be wrapped about the house too. Then he would go into the room where Hana, his wife, would be waiting for him with the two children. But at this moment the door opened and she looked out, a dark-blue woollen haori1 over her kimono. She came to him affectionately and put her arm through his as he stood, smiled and said nothing. He had met Hana in America, but he had waited to fall in love with her until he was sure she was Japanese. His father would never have received her unless she had been pure in her race. He wondered often whom he would have married if he had not met Hana, and by what luck he had found her in the most casual way, by chance literally, at an American professor’s house. The professor and his wife had been kind people anxious to do something for their few foreign students, and the students, though bored, had accepted this kindness. Sadao had often told Hana how nearly he had not gone to Professor Harley’s house that night — the rooms were so small, the food so bad, the professor’s wife so voluble. But he had gone and there he had found Hana, a new student, and had felt he would love her if it were at all possible. Now he felt her hand on his arm and was aware of the pleasure it gave him, even though they had been married years enough to have the two children. For they had not married heedlessly in America. They had finished their work at school and had come home to Japan, and when his father had seen her the marriage had been arranged in the old Japanese way, although Sadao and Hana had talked everything over beforehand. They were perfectly happy. She laid her cheek against his arm. It was at this moment that both of them saw something black come out of the mists. It was a man. He was flung up out of the ocean — flung, it seemed, to his feet by a breaker. He staggered a few steps, his body outlined against the mist, his arms above his head. Then the curled mists hid him again. ‘‘Who is that?’’ Hana cried. She dropped Sadao’s arm and they both leaned over the railing of the veranda. Now they saw him again. The man was on his hands and knees crawling. Then they saw him fall on his face and lie there. ‘‘A fisherman perhaps,’’ Sadao said, ‘‘washed from his boat.’’ He ran quickly down the steps and behind him Hana came, her wide sleeves flying. A mile or two away on either side there were fishing villages, but here was only the bare and lonely coast, dangerous with rocks. The surf beyond the beach was spiked with rocks. Somehow the man had managed to come through them — he must be badly torn. They saw when they came toward him that indeed it was so. The sand on one side of him had already a stain of red soaking through. ‘‘He is wounded,’’ Sadao exclaimed. He made haste to the man, who lay motionless, his face in the sand. An old cap stuck to his head soaked with sea water. He was in wet rags of garments. Sadao stopped, Hana at his side, and turned the man’s head. They saw the face. “A white man!” Hana whispered. Yes, it was a white man. The wet cap fell away and there was his wet yellow hair, long, as though for many weeks it had not been cut, and upon his young and tortured face was a rough yellow beard. He was unconscious and knew nothing that they did for him. Now Sadao remembered the wound, and with his expert fingers he began to search for it. Blood flowed freshly at his touch. On the right side of his lower back Sadao saw that a gun wound had been reopened. The flesh was blackened with powder. Sometime, not many days ago, the man had been shot and had not been tended. It was bad chance that the rock had struck the wound. ‘‘Oh, how he is bleeding!’’ Hana whispered again in a solemn voice. The mists screened them now completely, and at this time of day no one came by. The fishermen had gone home and even the chance beachcombers would have considered the day at an end. ‘‘What shall we do with this man?’’ Sadao muttered. But his trained hands seemed of their own will to be doing what they could to stanch the fearful bleeding. He packed the wound with the sea moss that strewed the beach. The man moaned with pain in his stupor but he did not awaken. ‘‘The best thing that we could do would be to put him back in the sea,’’ Sadao said, answering himself. Now that the bleeding was stopped for the moment he stood up and dusted the sand from his hands. ‘‘Yes, undoubtedly that would be best,’’ Hana said steadily. But she continued to stare down at the motionless man. ‘‘If we sheltered a white man in our house we should be arrested and if we turned him over as a prisoner, he would certainly die,’’ Sadao said. ‘‘The kindest thing would be to put him back into the sea,’’ Hana said. But neither of them moved. They were staring with a curious repulsion upon the inert figure. ‘‘What is he?’’ Hana whispered. ‘‘There is something about him that looks American,’’ Sadao said. He took up the battered cap. Yes, there, almost gone, was the faint lettering. ‘‘A sailor,’’ he said, ‘‘from an American warship.’’ He spelled it out: ‘‘U.S. Navy.’’ The man was a prisoner of war! ‘‘He has escaped.’’ Hana cried softly, ‘‘and that is why he is wounded.’’ ‘‘In the back,’’ Sadao agreed. They hesitated, looking at each other. Then Hana said with resolution: “Come, are we able to put him back into the sea?” “If I am able, are you?” Sadao asked. “No,” Hana said, “But if you can do it alone...” Sadao hesitated again. “The strange thing is,” he said, “that if the man were whole I could turn him over to the police without difficulty. I care nothing for him. He is my enemy. All Americans are my enemy. And he is only a common fellow. You see how foolish his face is. But since he is wounded…” “You also cannot throw him back to the sea,” Hana said. “Then there is only one thing to do. We must carry him into the house.” “But the servants?” Sadao inquired. “We must simply tell them that we intend to give him to the police — as indeed we must, Sadao. We must think of the children and your position. It would endanger all of us if we did not give this man over as a prisoner of war.” “Certainly,” Sadao agreed. “I would not think of doing anything else.” Thus agreed, together they lifted the man. He was very light, like a fowl that had been half-starved for a long time until it is only feathers and skeleton. So, his arms hanging, they carried him up the steps and into the side door of the house. This door opened into a passage, and down the passage they carried the man towards an empty bedroom. It had been the bedroom of Sadao’s father, and since his death it had not been used. They laid the man on the deeply matted floor. Everything here had been Japanese to please the old man, who would never in his own home sit on a chair or sleep in a foreign bed. Hana went to the wall cupboards and slid back a door and took out a soft quilt. She hesitated. The quilt was covered with flowered silk and the lining was pure white silk. “He is so dirty,” she murmured in distress. “Yes, he had better be washed,” Sadao agreed. “If you will fetch hot water I will wash him.” “I cannot bear for you to touch him,” she said. “We shall have to tell the servants he is here. I will tell Yumi now. She can leave the children for a few minutes and she can wash him.” Sadao considered a moment. “Let it be so,” he agreed. “You tell Yumi and I will tell the others.” But the utter pallor of the man’s unconscious face moved him first to stoop and feel his pulse. It was faint but it was there. He put his hand against the man’s cold breast. The heart too was yet alive. “He will die unless he is operated on,” Sadao said, considering. “The question is whether he will not die anyway.” Hana cried out in fear. “Don’t try to save him! What if he should live?” “What if he should die?” Sadao replied. He stood gazing down on the motionless man. This man must have extraordinary vitality or he would have been dead by now. But then he was very young — perhaps not yet twentyfive. “You mean die from the operation?” Hana asked. “Yes,” Sadao said. Hana considered this doubtfully, and when she did not answer Sadao turned away. “At any rate something must be done with him,” he said, “and first he must be washed.” He went quickly out of the room and Hana came behind him. She did not wish to be left alone with the white man. He was the first she had seen since she left America and now he seemed to have nothing to do with those whom she had known there. Here he was her enemy, a menace, living or dead. She turned to the nursery and called, “Yumi!” But the children heard her voice and she had to go in for a moment and smile at them and play with the baby boy, now nearly three months old. Over the baby’s soft black hair she motioned with her mouth, “Yumi — come with me!” “I will put the baby to bed,” Yumi replied. “He is ready.” She went with Yumi into the bedroom next to the nursery and stood with the boy in her arms while Yumi spread the sleeping quilts on the floor and laid the baby between them. Then Hana led the way quickly and softly to the kitchen. The two servants were frightened at what their master had just told them. The old gardener, who was also a house servant, pulled the few hairs on his upper lip. “The master ought not to heal the wound of this white man,” he said bluntly to Hana. “The white man ought to die. First he was shot. Then the sea caught him and wounded him with her rocks. If the master heals what the gun did and what the sea did they will take revenge on us.” “I will tell him what you say,” Hana replied courteously. But she herself was also frightened, although she was not superstitious as the old man was. Could it ever be well to help an enemy? Nevertheless she told Yumi to fetch the hot water and bring it to the room where the white man was. She went ahead and slid back the partitions. Sadao was not yet there. Yumi, following, put down her wooden bucket. Then she went over to the white man. When she saw him her thick lips folded themselves into stubbornness. “I have never washed a white man,” she said, “and I will not wash so dirty a one now.” Hana cried at her severely. “You will do what your master commands you!” There was so fierce a look of resistance upon Yumi’s round dull face that Hana felt unreasonably afraid. After all, if the servants should report something that was not as it happened? “Very well,” she said with dignity. “You understand we only want to bring him to his senses so that we can turn him over as a prisoner?” “I will have nothing to do with it,” Yumi said, “I am a poor person and it is not my business.” “Then please,” Hana said gently, “return to your own work.” At once Yumi left the room. But this left Hana with the white man alone. She might have been too afraid to stay had not her anger at Yumi’s stubbornness now sustained her. “Stupid Yumi,” she muttered fiercely. “Is this anything but a man? And a wounded helpless man!” In the conviction of her own superiority she bent impulsively and untied the knotted rugs that kept the white man covered. When she had his breast bare she dipped the small clean towel that Yumi had brought into the steaming hot water and washed his face carefully. The man’s skin, though rough with exposure, was of a fine texture and must have been very blond when he was a child. While she was thinking these thoughts, though not really liking the man better now that he was no longer a child, she kept on washing him until his upper body was quite clean. But she dared not turn him over. Where was Sadao? Now her anger was ebbing, and she was anxious again and she rose, wiping her hands on the wrong towel. Then lest the man be chilled, she put the quilt over him. “Sadao!” she called softly. He had been about to come in when she called. His hand had been on the door and now he opened it. She saw that he had brought his surgeon’s emergency bag and that he wore his surgeon’s coat. “You have decided to operate!” she cried. “Yes,” he said shortly. He turned his back to her and unfolded a sterilized towel upon the floor of the tokonoma2 alcove, and put his instruments out upon it. “Fetch towels,” he said. She went obediently, but how anxious now, to the linen shelves and took out the towels. There ought also to be old pieces of matting so that the blood would not ruin the fine floor covering. She went out to the back veranda where the gardener kept strips of matting with which to protect delicate shrubs on cold nights and took an armful of them. But when she went back into the room, she saw this was useless. The blood had already soaked through the packing in the man’s wound and had ruined the mat under him. “Oh, the mat!” she cried. “Yes, it is ruined,” Sadao replied, as though he did not care. “Help me to turn him,” he commanded her. She obeyed him without a word, and he began to wash the man’s back carefully. “Yumi would not wash him,” she said. “Did you wash him then?” Sadao asked, not stopping for a moment his swift concise movements. “Yes,” she said. He did not seem to hear her. But she was used to his absorption when he was at work. She wondered for a moment if it mattered to him what was the body upon which he worked so long as it was for the work he did so excellently. “You will have to give the anesthetic if he needs it,” he said. “I?” she repeated blankly. “But never have I!” “It is easy enough,” he said impatiently. He was taking out the packing now, and the blood began to flow more quickly. He peered into the wound with the bright surgeon’s light fastened on his forehead. “The bullet is still there,” he said with cool interest. “Now I wonder how deep this rock wound is. If it is not too deep it may be that I can get the bullet. But the bleeding is not superficial. He has lost much blood.” At this moment Hana choked. He looked up and saw her face the colour of sulphur. “Don’t faint,” he said sharply. He did not put down his exploring instrument. “If I stop now the man will surely die.” She clapped her hands to her mouth and leaped up and ran out of the room. Outside in the garden he heard her retching. But he went on with his work. “It will be better for her to empty her stomach,” he thought. He had forgotten that of course she had never seen an operation. But her distress and his inability to go to her at once made him impatient and irritable with this man who lay like dead under his knife. “This man.” he thought, “there is no reason under heaven why he should live.” Unconsciously this thought made him ruthless and he proceeded swiftly. In his dream the man moaned but Sadao paid no heed except to mutter at him. “Groan,” he muttered, “groan if you like. I am not doing this for my own pleasure. In fact, I do not know why I am doing it.” The door opened and there was Hana again. “Where is the anesthetic?” she asked in a clear voice. Sadao motioned with his chin. “It is as well that you came back,” he said. “This fellow is beginning to stir.” She had the bottle and some cotton in her hand. “But how shall I do it?” she asked. “Simply saturate the cotton and hold it near his nostrils,” Sadao replied without delaying for one moment the intricate detail of his work. “When he breathes badly move it away a little.” She crouched close to the sleeping face of the young American. It was a piteously thin face, she thought, and the lips were twisted. The man was suffering whether he knew it or not. Watching him, she wondered if the stories they heard sometimes of the sufferings of prisoners were true. They came like flickers of rumour, told by word of mouth and always contradicted. In the newspapers the reports were always that wherever the Japanese armies went the people received them gladly, with cries of joy at their liberation. But sometimes she remembered such men as General Takima, who at home beat his wife cruelly, though no one mentioned it now that he had fought so victorious a battle in Manchuria. If a man like that could be so cruel to a woman in his power, would he not be cruel to one like this for instance? She hoped anxiously that this young man had not been tortured. It was at this moment that she observed deep red scars on his neck, just under the ear. “Those scars,” she murmured, lifting her eyes to Sadao. But he did not answer. At this moment he felt the tip of his instrument strike against something hard, dangerously near the kidney. All thought left him. He felt only the purest pleasure. He probed with his fingers, delicately, familiar with every atom of this human body. His old American professor of anatomy had seen to that knowledge. “Ignorance of the human body is the surgeon’s cardinal sin, sirs!” he had thundered at his classes year after year. “To operate without as complete knowledge of the body as if you had made it — anything less than that is murder.” “It is not quite at the kidney, my friend,” Sadao murmured. It was his habit to murmur to the patient when he forgot himself in an operation. “My friend,” he always called his patients and so now he did, forgetting that this was his enemy. Then quickly, with the cleanest and most precise of incisions, the bullet was out. The man quivered but he was still unconscious. Nevertheless he muttered a few English words. “Guts,” he muttered, choking. “They got...my guts...” “Sadao!” Hana cried sharply. “Hush,” Sadao said. The man sank again into silence so profound that Sadao took up his wrist, hating the touch of it. Yes, there was still a pulse so faint, so feeble, but enough, if he wanted the man to live, to give hope. “But certainly I do not want this man to live,” he thought. “No more anesthetic,” he told Hana. He turned as swiftly as though he had never paused and from his medicines he chose a small vial and from it filled a hypodermic and thrust it into the patient’s left arm. Then putting down the needle, he took the man’s wrist again. The pulse under his fingers fluttered once or twice and then grew stronger. “This man will live in spite of all,” he said to Hana and sighed. The young man woke, so weak, his blue eyes so terrified when he perceived where he was, that Hana felt compelled to apologise. She herself served him, for none of the servants would enter the room. When she came in the first time, she saw him summon his small strength to be prepared for some fearful thing. “Don’t be afraid,” she begged him softly. “How come... you speak English…” he gasped. “I was a long time in America,” she replied. She saw that he wanted to reply to that but he could not, and so she knelt and fed him gently from the porcelain spoon. He ate unwillingly, but still he ate. “Now you will soon be strong,” she said, not liking him and yet moved to comfort him. He did not answer. When Sadao came in the third day after the operation, he found the young man sitting up, his face bloodless with the effort. “Lie down,” Sadao cried. “Do you want to die?” He forced the man down gently and strongly and examined the wound. “You may kill yourself if you do this sort of thing,” he scolded. “What are you going to do with me?” the boy muttered. He looked just now barely seventeen. “Are you going to hand me over?” For a moment Sadao did not answer. He finished his examination and then pulled the silk quilt over the man. “I do not know myself what I shall do with you,” he said. “I ought of course to give you to the police. You are a prisoner of war — no, do not tell me anything.” He put up his hand as he saw the young man was about to speak. “Do not even tell me your name unless I ask it.” They looked at each other for a moment, and then the young man closed his eyes and turned his face to the wall. “Okay,” he whispered, his mouth a bitter line. Outside the door Hana was waiting for Sadao. He saw at once that she was in trouble. “Sadao, Yumi tells me the servants feel they cannot stay if we hide this man here any more,” she said. “She tells me that they are saying that you and I were so long in America that we have forgotten to think of our own country first. They think we like Americans.” “It is not true,” Sadao said harshly “Americans are our enemies. But I have been trained not to let a man die if I can help it.” “The servants cannot understand that,” she said anxiously. “No,” he agreed. Neither seemed able to say more, and somehow the household dragged on. The servants grew more watchful. Their courtesy was as careful as ever, but their eyes were cold upon the pair to whom they were hired. “It is clear what our master ought to do,” the old gardener said one morning. He had worked with flowers all his life, and had been a specialist too in moss. For Sadao’s father he had made one of the finest moss gardens in Japan, sweeping the bright green carpet constantly so that not a leaf or a pine needle marred the velvet of its surface. “My old master’s son knows very well what he ought to do,” he now said, pinching a bud from a bush as he spoke. “When the man was so near death why did he not let him bleed?” “That young master is so proud of his skill to save life that he saves any life,” the cook said contemptuously. She split a fowl’s neck skillfully and held the fluttering bird and let its blood flow into the roots of a wistaria vine. Blood is the best of fertilisers, and the old gardener would not let her waste a drop of it. “It is the children of whom we must think,” Yumi said sadly. “What will be their fate if their father is condemned as a traitor?” They did not try to hide what they said from the ears of Hana as she stood arranging the day’s flowers in the veranda near by, and she knew they spoke on purpose that she might hear. That they were right she knew too in most of her being. But there was another part of her which she herself could not understand. It was not sentimental liking of the prisoner. She had come to think of him as a prisoner. She had not liked him even yesterday when he had said in his impulsive way, “Anyway, let me tell you that my name is Tom.” She had only bowed her little distant bow. She saw hurt in his eyes but she did not wish to assuage it. Indeed, he was a great trouble in this house. As for Sadao, every day he examined the wound carefully. The last stitches had been pulled out this morning, and the young man would, in a fortnight be nearly as well as ever. Sadao went back to his office and carefully typed a letter to the Chief of police reporting the whole matter. “On the twenty-first day of February an escaped prisoner was washed up on the shore in front of my house.” So far he typed and then he opened a secret drawer of his desk and put the unfinished report into it. On the seventh day after that, two things happened. In the morning the servants left together, their belongings tied in large square cotton kerchiefs. When Hana got up in the morning nothing was done, the house not cleaned and the food not prepared, and she knew what it meant. She was dismayed and even terrified, but her pride as a mistress would not allow her to show it. Instead, she inclined her head gracefully when they appeared before her in the kitchen, and she paid them off and thanked them for all that they had done for her. They were crying, but she did not cry. The cook and the gardener had served Sadao since he was a little boy in his father’s house, and Yumi cried because of the children. She was so grieving that after she had gone she ran back to Hana. “If the baby misses me too much tonight, send for me. I am going to my own house and you know where it is.” “Thank you,” Hana said smiling. But she told herself she would not send for Yumi however the baby cried. She made the breakfast and Sadao helped with the children. Neither of them spoke of the servants beyond the fact that they were gone. But after Hana had taken morning food to the prisoner, she came back to Sadao. “Why is it we cannot see clearly what we ought to do?” she asked him. “Even the servants see more clearly than we do. Why are we different from other Japanese?” Sadao did not answer. But a little later he went into the room where the prisoner was and said brusquely, “Today you may get up on your feet. I want you to stay up only five minutes at a time. Tomorrow you may try it twice as long. It would be well that you get back your strength as quickly as possible.” He saw the flicker of terror on the young face that was still very pale. “Okay,” the boy murmured. Evidently he was determined to say more. “I feel I ought to thank you, Doctor, for having saved my life.” “Don’t thank me too early,” Sadao said coldly. He saw the flicker of terror again in the boy’s eyes — terror as unmistakable as an animal’s. The scars on his neck were crimson for a moment. Those scars! What were they? Sadao did not ask. In the afternoon the second thing happened. Hana, working hard on unaccustomed labour, saw a messenger come to the door in official uniform. Her hands went weak and she could not draw her breath. The servants must have told already. She ran to Sadao, gasping, unable to utter a word. But by then the messenger had simply followed her through the garden and there he stood. She pointed at him helplessly. Sadao looked up from his book. He was in his office, the other partition of which was thrown open to the garden for the southern sunshine. “What is it?” he asked the messenger and then he rose, seeing the man’s uniform. “You are to come to the palace,” the man said. “The old General is in pain again.” “Oh,” Hana breathed, “is that all?” “All?” the messenger exclaimed. “Is it not enough?” “Indeed it is,” she replied. “I am very sorry.” When Sadao came to say goodbye, she was in the kitchen, but doing nothing. The children were asleep and she sat merely resting for a moment, more exhausted from her fright than from work. “I thought they had come to arrest you”, she said. He gazed down into her anxious eyes. “I must get rid of this man for your sake,” he said in distress. “Somehow I must get rid of him.” (Sadao goes to see the General) “Of course,” the General said weakly, “I understand fully. But that is because, I once took a degree in Princeton. So few Japanese have.” “I care nothing for the man, Excellency,” Sadao said, “but having operated on him with such success…” “Yes, yes” the General said. “It only makes me feel you more indispensable to me. Evidently you can save anyone — you are so skilled. You say you think I can stand one more such attack as I have had today?” “Not more than one,” Sadao said. “Then certainly I can allow nothing to happen to you,” the General said with anxiety. His long pale Japanese face became expressionless, which meant that he was in deep thought. “You cannot be arrested,” the General said, closing his eyes. “Suppose you were condemned to death and the next day I had to have my operation?” “There are other surgeons, Excellency,” Sadao suggested. “None I trust,” the General replied. “The best ones have been trained by Germans and would consider the operation successful even if I died. I do not care for their point of view.” He sighed. “It seems a pity that we cannot better combine the German ruthlessness with the American sentimentality. Then you could turn your prisoner over to execution and yet I could be sure you would not murder me while I was unconscious.” The General laughed. He had an unusual sense of humour. “As a Japanese, could you not combine these two foreign elements?” he asked. Sadao smiled. “I am not quite sure,” he said, “but for your sake I would be willing to try, Excellency.” The General shook his head. “I had rather not be the test case,” he said. He felt suddenly weak and overwhelmed with the cares of his life as an official in times such as these when repeated victory brought great responsibilities all over the south Pacific. “It is very unfortunate that this man should have washed up on your doorstep,” he said irritably. “I feel it so myself,” Sadao said gently. “It would be best if he could be quietly killed,” the General said. “Not by you, but by someone who does not know him. I have my own private assassins. Suppose I send two of them to your house tonight or better, any night. You need know nothing about it. It is now warm — what would be more natural than that you should leave the outer partition of the white man’s room open to the garden while he sleeps?” “Certainly it would be very natural,” Sadao agreed. “In fact, it is so left open every night.” “Good,” the General said, yawning. “They are very capable assassins — they make no noise and they know the trick of inward bleeding. If you like I can even have them remove the body.” Sadao considered. “That perhaps would be best, Excellency,” he agreed, thinking of Hana. He left the General’s presence then and went home, thinking over the plan. In this way the whole thing would be taken out of his hands. He would tell Hana nothing, since she would be timid at the idea of assassins in the house, and yet certainly such persons were essential in an absolute state such as Japan was. How else could rulers deal with those who opposed them? He refused to allow anything but reason to be the atmosphere of his mind as he went into the room where the American was in bed. But as he opened the door, to his surprise he found the young man out of bed, and preparing to go into the garden. “What is this!” he exclaimed. “Who gave you permission to leave your room?” “I’m not used to waiting for permission,” Tom said gaily. “Gosh, I feel pretty good again! But will the muscles on this side always feel stiff?” “Is it so?” Sadao inquired, surprised. He forgot all else. “Now I thought I had provided against that,” he murmured. He lifted the edge of the man’s shirt and gazed at the healing scar. “Massage may do it,” he said, “if exercise does not.” “It won’t bother me much,” the young man said. His young face was gaunt under the stubbly blond beard. “Say, Doctor, I’ve got something I want to say to you. If I hadn’t met a Jap like you — well, I wouldn’t be alive today. I know that.” Sadao bowed but he could not speak. “Sure, I know that,” Tom went on warmly. His big thin hands gripping a chair were white at the knuckles. “I guess if all the Japs were like you there wouldn’t have been a war.” “Perhaps,” Sadao said with difficulty. “And now I think you had better go back to bed.” He helped the boy back into bed and then bowed. “Good night,” he said. Sadao slept badly that night. Time and time again he woke, thinking he heard the rustling of footsteps, the sound of a twig broken or a stone displaced in the garden — a noise such as men might make who carried a burden. The next morning he made the excuse to go first into the guest room. If the American were gone he then could simply tell Hana that so the General had directed. But when he opened the door he saw at once that there on the pillow was the shaggy blond head. He could hear the peaceful breathing of sleep and he closed the door again quietly. “He is asleep,” he told Hana. “He is almost well to sleep like that.” “What shall we do with him?” Hana whispered her old refrain. Sadao shook his head. “I must decide in a day or two,” he promised. But certainly, he thought, the second night must be the night. There rose a wind that night, and he listened to the sounds of bending boughs and whistling partitions. Hana woke too. “Ought we not to go and close the sick man’s partition?” she asked. “No,” Sadao said. “He is able now to do it for himself.” But the next morning the American was still there. Then the third night of course must be the night. The wind changed to quiet rain and the garden was full of the sound of dripping eaves and running springs. Sadao slept a little better, but he woke at the sound of a crash and leaped to his feet. “What was that?” Hana cried. The baby woke at her voice and began to wail. “I must go and see,” But he held her and would not let her move. “Sadao,” she cried, “what is the matter with you?” “Don’t go,” he muttered, “don’t go!” His terror infected her and she stood breathless, waiting. There was only silence. Together they crept back into the bed, the baby between them. Yet when he opened the door of the guest room in the morning there was the young man. He was very gay and had already washed and was now on his feet. He had asked for a razor yesterday and had shaved himself and today there was a faint colour in his cheeks. “I am well,” he said joyously. Sadao drew his kimono round his weary body. He could not, he decided suddenly, go through another night. It was not that he cared for this young man’s life. No, simply it was not worth the strain. “You are well,” Sadao agreed. He lowered his voice. “You are so well that I think if I put my boat on the shore tonight, with food and extra clothing in it, you might be able to row to that little island not far from the coast. It is so near the coast that it has not been worth fortifying. Nobody lives on it because in storm it is submerged. But this is not the season of storm. You could live there until you saw a Korean fishing boat pass by. They pass quite near the island because the water is many fathoms deep there.” The young man stared at him, slowly comprehending. “Do I have to?” he asked. “I think so,” Sadao said gently. “You understand — it is not hidden that you are here.” The young man nodded in perfect comprehension. “Okay,” he said simply. Sadao did not see him again until evening. As soon as it was dark he had dragged the stout boat down to the shore and in it he put food and bottled water that he had bought secretly during the day, as well as two quilts he had bought at a pawnshop. The boat he tied to a post in the water, for the tide was high. There was no moon and he worked without a flashlight. When he came to the house he entered as though he were just back from his work, and so Hana knew nothing. “Yumi was here today,” she said as she served his supper. Though she was so modern, still she did not eat with him. “Yumi cried over the baby,” she went on with a sigh. “She misses him so.” “The servants will come back as soon as the foreigner is gone,” Sadao said. He went into the guest room that night before he went to bed himself and checked carefully the American’s temperature, the state of the wound, and his heart and pulse. The pulse was irregular but that was perhaps because of excitement. The young man’s pale lips were pressed together and his eyes burned. Only the scars on his neck were red. “I realise you are saving my life again,” he told Sadao. “Not at all,” Sadao said. “It is only inconvenient to have you here any longer.” He had hesitated a good deal about giving the man a flashlight. But he had decided to give it to him after all. It was a small one, his own, which he used at night when he was called. “If your food runs out before you catch a boat,” he said, “signal me two flashes at the same instant the sun drops over the horizon. Do not signal in darkness, for it will be seen. If you are all right but still there, signal me once. You will find fresh fish easy to catch but you must eat them raw. A fire would be seen.” “Okay,” the young man breathed. He was dressed now in the Japanese clothes which Sadao had given him, and at the last moment Sadao wrapped a black cloth about his blond head. “Now,” Sadao said. The young American, without a word, shook Sadao’s hand warmly, and then walked quite well across the floor and down the step into the darkness of the garden. Once — twice... Sadao saw his light flash to find his way. But that would not be suspected. He waited until from the shore there was one more flash. Then he closed the partition. That night he slept. “You say the man escaped?” the General asked faintly. He had been operated upon a week before, an emergency operation to which Sadao had been called in the night. For twelve hours Sadao had not been sure the General would live. The gall bladder was much involved. Then the old man had begun to breathe deeply again and to demand food. Sadao had not been able to ask about the assassins. So far as he knew they had never come. The servants had returned and Yumi had cleaned the guest room thoroughly and had burned sulphur in it to get the white man’s smell out of it. Nobody said anything. Only the gardener was cross because he had got behind with his chrysanthemums. But after a week Sadao felt the General was well enough to be spoken to about the prisoner. “Yes, Excellency, he escaped,” Sadao now said. He coughed, signifying that he had not said all he might have said, but was unwilling to disturb the General further. But the old man opened his eyes suddenly. “That prisoner,” he said with some energy, “did I not promise you I would kill him for you?” “You did, Excellency,” Sadao said. “Well, well!” the old man said in a tone of amazement, “so I did! But you see, I was suffering a good deal. The truth is, I thought of nothing but myself. In short, I forgot my promise to you.” “I wondered, Your Excellency,” Sadao murmured. “It was certainly very careless of me,” the General said. “But you understand it was not lack of patriotism or dereliction of duty.” He looked anxiously at his doctor. “If the matter should come out you would understand that, wouldn’t you?” “Certainly, Your Excellency,” Sadao said. He suddenly comprehended that the General was in the palm of his hand and that as a consequence he himself was perfectly safe. “I can swear to your loyalty, Excellency,” he said to the old General, “and to your zeal against the enemy.” “You are a good man,” the General murmured and closed his eyes.” “You will be rewarded.” But Sadao, searching the spot of black in the twilighted sea that night, had his reward. There was no prick of light in the dusk. No one was on the island. His prisoner was gone — safe, doubtless, for he had warned him to wait only for a Korean fishing boat. He stood for a moment on the veranda, gazing out to the sea from whence the young man had come that other night. And into his mind, although without reason, there came other white faces he had known — the professor at whose house he had met Hana, a dull man, and his wife had been a silly talkative woman, in spite of her wish to be kind. He remembered his old teacher of anatomy, who had been so insistent on mercy with the knife, and then he remembered the face of his fat and slatternly landlady. He had had great difficulty in finding a place to live in America because he was a Japanese. The Americans were full of prejudice and it had been bitter to live in it, knowing himself their superior. How he had despised the ignorant and dirty old woman who had at last consented to house him in her miserable home! He had once tried to be grateful to her because she had in his last year nursed him through influenza, but it was difficult, for she was no less repulsive to him in her kindness. Now he remembered the youthful, haggard face of his prisoner — white and repulsive. “Strange,” he thought. “I wonder why I could not kill him?”

Where was the shehnai played traditionally? How did Bismillah Khan change this?

<answer> The shehnai was played traditionally in the temple at the royal courts and on the occasion of weddings. The credit must go to Bismillah Khan to take this instrument onto the classical stage. <context> RUSH hour crowds jostle for position on the underground train platform. A slight girl, looking younger than her seventeen years, was nervous yet excited as she felt the vibrations of the approaching train. It was her first day at the prestigious Royal Academy of Music in London and daunting enough for any teenager fresh from a Scottish farm. But this aspiring musician faced a bigger challenge than most: she was profoundly deaf. 2. Evelyn Glennie’s loss of hearing had been gradual. Her mother remembers noticing something was wrong when the eight-year-old Evelyn was waiting to play the piano. “They called her name and she didn’t move. I suddenly realised she hadn’t heard,” says Isabel Glennie. For quite a while Evelyn managed to conceal her growing deafness from friends and teachers. But by the time she was eleven her marks had deteriorated and her headmistress urged her parents to take her to a specialist. It was then discovered that her hearing was severely impaired as a result of gradual nerve damage. They were advised that she should be fitted with hearing aids and sent to a school for the deaf. “Everything suddenly looked black,” says Evelyn. 3. But Evelyn was not going to give up. She was determined to lead a normal life and pursue her interest in music. One day she noticed a girl playing a xylophone and decided that she wanted to play it too. Most of the teachers discouraged her but percussionist Ron Forbes spotted her potential. He began by tuning two large drums to different notes. “Don’t listen through your ears,” he would say, “try to sense it some other way.” Says Evelyn, “Suddenly I realised I could feel the higher drum from the waist up and the lower one from the waist down.” Forbes repeated the exercise, and soon Evelyn discovered that she could sense certain notes in different parts of her body. “I had learnt to open my mind and body to sounds and vibrations.” The rest was sheer determination and hard work. 4. She never looked back from that point onwards. She toured the United Kingdom with a youth orchestra and by the time she was sixteen, she had decided to make music her life. She auditioned for the Royal Academy of Music and scored one of the highest marks in the history of the academy. She gradually moved from orchestral work to solo performances. At the end of her three-year course, she had captured most of the top awards. 5. And for all this, Evelyn won’t accept any hint of heroic achievement. “If you work hard and know where you are going, you’ll get there.” And she got right to the top, the world’s most sought-after multipercussionist with a mastery of some thousand instruments, and hectic international schedule. 6. It is intriguing to watch Evelyn function so effortlessly without hearing. In our two-hour discussion she never missed a word. “Men with bushy beards give me trouble,” she laughed. “It is not just watching the lips, it’s the whole face, especially the eyes.” She speaks flawlessly with a Scottish lilt. “My speech is clear because I could hear till I was eleven,” she says. But that doesn’t explain how she managed to learn French and master basic Japanese. 7. As for music, she explains, “It pours in through every part of my body. It tingles in the skin, my cheekbones and even in my hair.” When she plays the xylophone, she can sense the sound passing up the stick into her fingertips. By leaning against the drums, she can feel the resonances flowing into her body. On a wooden platform she removes her shoes so that the vibrations pass through her bare feet and up her legs. Not surprisingly, Evelyn delights her audiences. In 1991 she was presented with the Royal Philharmonic Society’s prestigious Soloist of the Year Award. Says master percussionist James Blades, “God may have taken her hearing but he has given her back something extraordinary. What we hear, she feels — far more deeply than any of us. That is why she expresses music so beautifully.” 9. Evelyn confesses that she is something of a workaholic. “I’ve just got to work . . . often harder than classical musicians. But the rewards are enormous.” Apart from the regular concerts, Evelyn also gives free concerts in prisons and hospitals. She also gives high priority to classes for young musicians. Ann Richlin of the Beethoven Fund for Deaf Children says, “She is a shining inspiration for deaf children. They see that there is nowhere that they cannot go.” 10. Evelyn Glennie has already accomplished more than most people twice her age. She has brought percussion to the front of the orchestra, and demonstrated that it can be very moving. She has given inspiration to those who are handicapped, people who look to her and say, ‘If she can do it, I can.’ And, not the least, she has given enormous pleasure to millions. The Shehnai of Bismillah Khan 1. EMPEROR Aurangzeb banned the playing of a musical instrument called pungi in the royal residence for it had a shrill unpleasant sound. Pungi became the generic name for reeded noisemakers. Few had thought that it would one day be revived. A barber of a family of professional musicians, who had access to the royal palace, decided to improve the tonal quality of the pungi. He chose a pipe with a natural hollow stem that was longer and broader than the pungi, and made seven holes on the body of the pipe. When he played on it, closing and opening some of these holes, soft and melodious sounds were produced. He played the instrument before royalty and everyone was impressed. The instrument so different from the pungi had to be given a new name. As the story goes, since it was first played in the Shah’s chambers and was played by a nai (barber), the instrument was named the ‘shehnai’. 2. The sound of the shehnai began to be considered auspicious. And for this reason it is still played in temples and is an indispensable component of any North Indian wedding. In the past, the shehnai was part of the naubat or traditional ensemble of nine instruments found at royal courts. Till recently it was used only in temples and weddings. The credit for bringing this instrument onto the classical stage goes to Ustad Bismillah Khan. 3. As a five-year old, Bismillah Khan played gilli-danda near a pond in the ancient estate of Dumraon in Bihar. He would regularly go to the nearby Bihariji temple to sing the Bhojpuri ‘Chaita’, at the end of which he would earn a big laddu weighing 1.25 kg, a prize given by the local Maharaja. This happened 80 years ago, and the little boy has travelled far to earn the highest civilian award in India — the Bharat Ratna. 4. Born on 21 March 1916, Bismillah belongs to a well-known family of musicians from Bihar. His grandfather, Rasool Bux Khan, was the shehnainawaz of the Bhojpur king’s court. His father, Paigambar Bux, and other paternal ancestors were also great shehnai players. 5. The young boy took to music early in life. At the age of three when his mother took him to his maternal uncle’s house in Benaras (now Varanasi), Bismillah was fascinated watching his uncles practise the shehnai. Soon Bismillah started accompanying his uncle, Ali Bux, to the Vishnu temple of Benaras where Bux was employed to play the shehnai. Ali Bux would play the shehnai and Bismillah would sit captivated for hours on end. Slowly, he started getting lessons in playing the instrument and would sit practising throughout the day. For years to come the temple of Balaji and Mangala Maiya and the banks of the Ganga became the young apprentice’s favourite haunts where he could practise in solitude. The flowing waters of the Ganga inspired him to improvise and invent raagas that were earlier considered to be beyond the range of the shehnai. 6. At the age of 14, Bismillah accompanied his uncle to the Allahabad Music Conference. At the end of his recital, Ustad Faiyaz Khan patted the young boy’s back and said, “Work hard and you shall make it.” With the opening of the All India Radio in Lucknow in 1938 came Bismillah’s big break. He soon became an often-heard shehnai player on radio. 7. When India gained independence on 15 August 1947, Bismillah Khan became the first Indian to greet the nation with his shehnai. He poured his heart out into Raag Kafi from the Red Fort to an audience which included Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who later gave his famous ‘Tryst with Destiny’ speech. 8. Bismillah Khan has given many memorable performances both in India and abroad. His first trip abroad was to Afghanistan where King Zahir Shah was so taken in by the maestro that he gifted him priceless Persian carpets and other souvenirs. The King of Afghanistan was not the only one to be fascinated with Bismillah’s music. Film director Vijay Bhatt was so impressed after hearing Bismillah play at a festival that he named a film after the instrument called Gunj Uthi Shehnai. The film was a hit, and one of Bismillah Khan’s compositions, “Dil ka khilona hai toot gaya...,” turned out to be a nationwide chartbuster! Despite this huge success in the celluloid world, Bismillah Khan’s ventures in film music were limited to two: Vijay Bhatt’s Gunj Uthi Shehnai and Vikram Srinivas’s Kannada venture, Sanadhi Apanna. “I just can’t come to terms with the artificiality and glamour of the film world,” he says with emphasis. 9. Awards and recognition came thick and fast. Bismillah Khan became the first Indian to be invited to perform at the prestigious Lincoln Centre Hall in the United States of America. He also took part in the World Exposition in Montreal, in the Cannes Art Festival and in the Osaka Trade Fair. So well known did he become internationally that an auditorium in Teheran was named after him — Tahar Mosiquee Ustaad Bismillah Khan. 10. National awards like the Padmashri, the Padma Bhushan and the Padma Vibhushan were conferred on him. 11. In 2001, Ustad Bismillah Khan was awarded India’s highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna. With the coveted award resting on his chest and his eyes glinting with rare happiness he said, “All I would like to say is: Teach your children music, this is Hindustan’s richest tradition; even the West is now coming to learn our music.’’ 12. In spite of having travelled all over the world — Khansaab as he is fondly called — is exceedingly fond of Benaras and Dumraon and they remain for him the most wonderful towns of the world. A student of his once wanted him to head a shehnai school in the U.S.A., and the student promised to recreate the atmosphere of Benaras by replicating the temples there. But Khansaab asked him if he would be able to transport River Ganga as well. Later he is remembered to have said, “That is why whenever I am in a foreign country, I keep yearning to see Hindustan. While in Mumbai, I think of only Benaras and the holy Ganga. And while in Benaras, I miss the unique mattha of Dumraon.” 13. Ustad Bismillah Khan’s life is a perfect example of the rich, cultural heritage of India, one that effortlessly accepts that a devout Muslim like him can very naturally play the shehnai every morning at the Kashi Vishwanath temple. [Ustad Bismillah Khan passed away on 21 August 2006 at the age of ninety after a prolonged illness. He was given a state funeral and the Government of India declared one day of national mourning.

How does Russell’s definition of knowledge differ from what is commonly understood by the term?

<answer> Russell was seeking knowledge which is a treasure. He craved for it and tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which numbers held sway over the flux. He was a well learned man who believed that he had only achieved a little and yet craved more. He wished to know why the stars shine. Knowledge and love inturn took him towards heaven. <context> Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair. I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy— ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness—that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love, I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought and, though it might seem too good for human life, this is what at least I have found. With equal passion, I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway over the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved. Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer. This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered to me.

How does she describe her feelings at the summit of the Everest?

<answer> She describes her feelings in saying that the moment was simply great. It look sometime to sink in. She felt it was a spiritual moment. She felt proud as an Indian when she unfurled the Indian tricolour. <context> 1. The only woman in the world who has scaled Mt Everest twice was born in a society where the birth of a son was regarded as a blessing, and a daughter, though not considered a curse, was not generally welcome. When her mother was expecting Santosh, a travelling ‘holy man’, giving her his blessing, assumed that she wanted a son. But, to everyone’s surprise, the unborn child’s grandmother, who was standing close by, told him that they did not want a son. The ‘holy man’ was also surprised! Nevertheless, he gave the requested blessing . .. and as destiny would have it, the blessing seemed to work. Santosh was born the sixth child in a family with five sons, a sister to five brothers. She was born in the small village of Joniyawas of Rewari District in Haryana. 2. The girl was given the name ‘Santosh’, which means contentment. But Santosh was not always content with her place in a traditional way of life. She began living life on her own terms from the start. Where other girls wore traditional Indian dresses, Santosh preferred shorts. Looking back, she says now, “From the very beginning I was quite determined that if I chose a correct and a rational path, the others around me had to change, not me.” 3. Santosh’s parents were affluent landowners who could afford to send their children to the best schools, even to the country’s capital, New Delhi, which was quite close by. But, in line with the prevailing custom in the family, Santosh had to make do with the local village school. So, she decided to fight the system in her own quiet way when the right moment arrived. And the right moment came when she turned sixteen. At sixteen, most of the girls in her village used to get married. Santosh was also under pressure from her parents to do the same. 4. A marriage as early as that was the last thing on her mind. She threatened her parents that she would never marry if she did not get a proper education. She left home and got herself enrolled in a school in Delhi. When her parents refused to pay for her education, she politely informed them of her plans to earn money by working part time to pay her school fees. Her parents then agreed to pay for her education. 5. Wishing always to study “a bit more” and with her father slowly getting used to her urge for more education, Santosh passed the high school examinations and went to Jaipur. She joined Maharani College and got a room in Kasturba Hostel. Santosh remembers, “Kasturba Hostel faced the Aravalli Hills. I used to watch villagers from my room, going up the hill and suddenly vanishing after a while. One day I decided to check it out myself. I found nobody except a few mountaineers. I asked if I could join them. To my pleasant surprise, they answered in the affirmative and motivated me to take to climbing.” 6. Then there was no looking back for this determined young girl. She saved money and enrolled in a course at Uttarkashi’s Nehru Institute of Mountaineering. “My college semester in Jaipur was to end in April but it ended on the nineteenth of May. And I was supposed to be in Uttarkashi on the twenty-first. So, I did not go back home; instead, I headed straight for the training. I had to write a letter of apology to my father without whose permission I had got myself enrolled at Uttarkashi.” 7. Thereafter, Santosh went on an expedition every year. Her climbing skills matured rapidly. Also, she developed a remarkable resistance to cold and the altitude. Equipped with an iron will, physical endurance and an amazing mental toughness, she proved herself repeatedly. The culmination of her hard work and sincerity came in 1992, just four years after she had shyly asked the Aravalli mountaineers if she could join them. At barely twenty years of age, Santosh Yadav scaled Mt Everest, becoming the youngest woman in the world to achieve the feat. If her climbing skills, physical fitness, and mental strength impressed her seniors, her concern for others and desire to work together with them found her a special place in the hearts of fellow climbers. 8. During the 1992 Everest mission, Santosh Yadav provided special care to a climber who lay dying at the South Col. She was unfortunately unsuccessful in saving him. However, she managed to save another climber, Mohan Singh, who would have met with the same fate had she not shared her oxygen with him. 9. Within twelve months, Santosh found herself a member of an Indo-Nepalese Women’s Expedition that invited her to join them. She then scaled the Everest a second time, thus setting a record as the only woman to have scaled the Everest twice, and securing for herself and India a unique place in the annals of mountaineering. In recognition of her achievements, the Indian government bestowed upon her one of the nation’s top honours, the Padmashri. 10. Describing her feelings when she was literally ‘on top of the world’, Santosh has said, “It took some time for the enormity of the moment to sink in... Then I unfurled the Indian tricolour and held it aloft on the roof of the world. The feeling is indescribable. The Indian flag was flying on top of the world. It was truly a spiritual moment. I felt proud as an Indian.” Also a fervent environmentalist, Santosh collected and brought down 500 kilograms of garbage from the Himalayas.

What do you think Valli was planning to do?

<answer> Valli was planning to go to the town and then return back by the same bus. The fare was 30 paise one way and the ride took forty five minutes. In this way, she planned that she would be back by 2:45 pm if she took the bus at 1:00 pm. <context> THERE was a girl named Valliammai who was called Valli for short. She was eight years old and very curious about things. Her favourite pastime was standing in the front doorway of her house, watching what was happening in the street outside. There were no playmates of her own age on her street, and this was about all she had to do. But for Valli, standing at the front door was every bit as enjoyable as any of the elaborate games other children played. Watching the street gave her many new unusual experiences. The most fascinating thing of all was the bus that travelled between her village and the nearest town. It passed through her street each hour, once going to the town and once coming back. The sight of the bus, filled each time with a new set of passengers, was a source of unending joy for Valli. Day after day she watched the bus, and gradually a tiny wish crept into her head and grew there: she wanted to ride on that bus, even if just once. This wish became stronger and stronger, until it was an overwhelming desire. Valli would stare wistfully at the people who got on or off the bus when it stopped at the street corner. Their faces would kindle in her longings, dreams, and hopes. If one of her friends happened to ride the bus and tried to describe the sights of the town to her, Valli would be too jealous to listen and would shout, in English: “Proud! proud!” Neither she nor her friends really understood the meaning of the word, but they used it often as a slang expression of disapproval. Over many days and months Valli listened carefully to conversations between her neighbours and people who regularly used the bus, and she also asked a few discreet questions here and there. This way she picked up various small details about the bus journey. The town was six miles from her village. The fare was thirty paise one way — “which is almost nothing at all,” she heard one well-dressed man say, but to Valli, who scarcely saw that much money from one month to the next, it seemed a fortune. The trip to the town took forty-five minutes. On reaching town, if she stayed in her seat and paid another thirty paise, she could return home on the same bus. This meant that she could take the one-o’clock afternoon bus, reach the town at one forty-five, and be back home by about two forty-five... On and on went her thoughts as she calculated and recalculated, planned and replanned. Well, one fine spring day the afternoon bus was just on the point of leaving the village and turning into the main highway when a small voice was heard shouting: “Stop the bus! Stop the bus!” And a tiny hand was raised commandingly. The bus slowed down to a crawl, and the conductor, sticking his head out the door, said, “Hurry then! Tell whoever it is to come quickly.” “It’s me,” shouted Valli. “I’m the one who has to get on.” By now the bus had come to a stop, and the conductor said, “Oh, really! You don’t say so!” “Yes, I simply have to go to town,” said Valli, still standing outside the bus, “and here’s my money.” She showed him some coins. “Okay, okay, but first you must get on the bus,” said the conductor, and he stretched out a hand to help her up. “Never mind,” she said, “I can get on by myself. You don’t have to help me.” The conductor was a jolly sort, fond of joking. “Oh, please don’t be angry with me, my fine madam,” he said. “Here, have a seat right up there in front. Everybody move aside please — make way for madam.” It was the slack time of day, and there were only six or seven passengers on the bus. They were all looking at Valli and laughing with the conductor. Valli was overcome with shyness. Avoiding everyone’s eyes, she walked quickly to an empty seat and sat down. “May we start now, madam?” the conductor asked, smiling. Then he blew his whistle twice, and the bus moved forward with a roar. It was a new bus, its outside painted a gleaming white with some green stripes along the sides. Inside, the overhead bars shone like silver. Directly in front of Valli, above the windshield, there was a beautiful clock. The seats were soft and luxurious. Valli devoured everything with her eyes. But when she started to look outside, she found her view cut off by a canvas blind that covered the lower part of her window. So she stood up on the seat and peered over the blind. The bus was now going along the bank of a canal. The road was very narrow. On one side there was the canal and, beyond it, palm trees, grassland, distant mountains, and the blue, blue sky. On the other side was a deep ditch and then acres and acres of green fields — green, green, green, as far as the eye could see. Oh, it was all so wonderful! Suddenly she was startled by a voice. “Listen, child,” said the voice, “you shouldn’t stand like that. Sit down.” Sitting down, she looked to see who had spoken. It was an elderly man who had honestly been concerned for her, but she was annoyed by his attention. “There’s nobody here who’s a child,” she said haughtily. “I’ve paid my thirty paise like everyone else.” The conductor chimed in. “Oh, sir, but this is a very grown-up madam. Do you think a mere girl could pay her own fare and travel to the city all alone?” Valli shot an angry glance at the conductor and said, “I am not a madam. Please remember that. And you’ve not yet given me my ticket.” “I’ll remember,” the conductor said, mimicking her tone. Everyone laughed, and gradually Valli too joined in the laughter. The conductor punched a ticket and handed it to her. “Just sit back and make yourself comfortable. Why should you stand when you’ve paid for a seat?” “Because I want to,” she answered, standing up again. “But if you stand on the seat, you may fall and hurt yourself when the bus makes a sharp turn or hits a bump. That’s why we want you to sit down, child.” “I’m not a child, I tell you,” she said irritably. “I’m eight years old.” “Of course, of course. How stupid of me! Eight years — my!” The bus stopped, some new passengers got on, and the conductor got busy for a time. Afraid of losing her seat, Valli finally sat down. An elderly woman came and sat beside her. “Are you all alone, dear?” she asked Valli as the bus started again. Valli found the woman absolutely repulsive — such big holes she had in her ear lobes, and such ugly earrings in them! And she could smell the betel nut the woman was chewing and see the betel juice that was threatening to spill over her lips at any moment. Ugh! — who could be sociable with such a person? “Yes, I’m travelling alone,” she answered curtly. “And I’ve got a ticket too.” “Yes, she’s on her way to town,” said the conductor. “With a thirty-paise ticket.” “Oh, why don’t you mind your own business,” said Valli. But she laughed all the same, and the conductor laughed too. But the old woman went on with her drivel. “Is it proper for such a young person to travel alone? Do you know exactly where you’re going in town? What’s the street? What’s the house number?” “You needn’t bother about me. I can take care of myself,” Valli said, turning her face towards the window and staring out. Her first journey — what careful, painstaking, elaborate plans she had had to make for it! She had thriftily saved whatever stray coins came her way, resisting every temptation to buy peppermints, toys, balloons, and the like, and finally she had saved a total of sixty paise. How difficult it had been, particularly that day at the village fair, but she had resolutely stifled a strong desire to ride the merrygo- round, even though she had the money. After she had enough money saved, her next problem was how to slip out of the house without her mother’s knowledge. But she managed this without too much difficulty. Every day after lunch her mother would nap from about one to four or so. Valli always used these hours for her ‘excursions’ as she stood looking from the doorway of her house or sometimes even ventured out into the village; today, these same hours could be used for her first excursion outside the village. The bus rolled on now cutting across a bare landscape, now rushing through a tiny hamlet or past an odd wayside shop. Sometimes the bus seemed on the point of gobbling up another vehicle that was coming towards them or a pedestrian crossing the road. But lo! somehow it passed on smoothly, leaving all obstacles safely behind. Trees came running towards them but then stopped as the bus reached them and simply stood there helpless for a moment by the side of the road before rushing away in the other direction. Suddenly Valli clapped her hands with glee. A young cow, tail high in the air, was running very fast, right in the middle of the road, right in front of the bus. The bus slowed to a crawl, and the driver sounded his horn loudly again and again. But the more he honked, the more frightened the animal became and the faster it galloped — always right in front of the bus. Somehow this was very funny to Valli. She laughed and laughed until there were tears in her eyes. “Hey, lady, haven’t you laughed enough?” called, the conductor. “Better save some for tomorrow.” At last the cow moved off the road. And soon the bus came to a railroad crossing. A speck of a train could be seen in the distance, growing bigger and bigger as it drew near. Then it rushed past the crossing gate with a tremendous roar and rattle, shaking the bus. Then the bus went on and passed the train station. From there it traversed a busy, well-laid-out shopping street and, turning, entered a wider thoroughfare. Such big, bright-looking shops! What glittering displays of clothes and other merchandise! Such big crowds! Struck dumb with wonder, Valli gaped at everything. Then the bus stopped and everyone got off except Valli. “Hey, lady,” said the conductor, “aren’t you ready to get off? This is as far as your thirty paise takes you.” “No,” Valli said, “I’m going back on this same bus.” She took another thirty paise from her pocket and handed the coins to the conductor. “Why, is something the matter?” “No, nothing’s the matter. I just felt like having a bus ride, that’s all.” “Don’t you want to have a look at the sights, now that you’re here?” “All by myself? Oh, I’d be much too afraid.” Greatly amused by the girl’s way of speaking, the conductor said, “But you weren’t afraid to come in the bus.” “Nothing to be afraid of about that,” she answered. “Well, then, why not go to that stall over there and have something to drink? Nothing to be afraid of about that either." “Oh, no, I couldn’t do that.” “Well, then, let me bring you a cold drink.” “No, I don’t have enough money. Just give me my ticket, that’s all.” “It’ll be my treat and not cost you anything.” “No, no,” she said firmly, “please, no.” The conductor shrugged, and they waited until it was time for the bus to begin the return journey. Again there weren’t many passengers.

What were the attempts made by the author to get his watch repaired?

<answer> The author let his watch run down after keeping it for 18 months. The next day, the author had been to all the watchmakers beginning from the chief jeweller. The regulator of the watch was pushed a little hard by the head of the establishment which exacerbated its condition. The author then gave the watch to another watchmaker who slowed it down by keeping it for about a week. Then he gave it to another watchmaker who kept it for three days and a couple of more. After spending about a thousand dollars, the watch was not fixed by any of the watchmakers. The author tried for a last time and gave it to another one who was an erstwhile watchmaker. This made the author realise that “a good horse was a good horse until it had run away once, and that a good watch was a good watch until the repairers got a chance at it.” <context> My beautiful new watch had run eighteen months without losing or gaining, and without breaking any part of its machinery or stopping. I had come to believe it infallible in its judgments about the time of day, and to consider its constitution and its anatomy imperishable. But, at last, one night, I let it run down. I grieved about it as if it were a recognised messenger and forerunner of calamity. But by and by I cheered up, set the watch by guess, and commanded my bodings and superstitions to depart. Next day I stepped into the chief jeweller’s to set it by the exact time, and the head of the establishment took it out of my hand and proceeded to set it for me. Then he said, ‘she is four minutes slow— regulator wants pushing up’. I tried to stop him—tried to make him understand that the watch kept perfect time. But no; all this human cabbage could see was that the watch was four minutes slow and the regulator must be pushed up a little; and so, while I danced around him in anguish, and implored him to let the watch alone, he calmly and cruelly did the shameful deed. My watch began to gain. It gained faster and faster day by day. Within a week it sickened to a raging fever and its pulse went up to a hundred and fifty in the shade. At the end of two months it had left all the timepieces of the town far in the rear and was a fraction over thirteen days ahead of the almanac. It was away into November enjoying the snow, while the October leaves were still turning. It hurried up house rent, bills payable and such things in such a ruinous way that I could not abide it. I took it to the watchmaker to be regulated. He asked me if I had ever had it repaired. I said no, it had never needed any repairing. He looked a look of vicious happiness and eagerly pried the watch open, and then put a small dice-box into his eye and peered into its machinery. He said it wanted cleaning and oiling, besides regulating, and asked me to come in a week. After being cleaned and oiled, and regulated, my watch slowed down to that degree that it ticked all appointments I go to, missing my dinner, I gradually drifted back into yesterday, then the day before, then into last week and by and by the comprehension came upon me that, all solitary and alone, I was lingering alone in week before last and the world was out of sight. I seemed to detect in myself a sort of sneaking fellow-feeling for the mummy in the museum, and a desire to swap news with him. I went to a watchmaker again. He took the watch all to pieces while I waited and then said the barrel was ‘swelled’. He said he could reduce it in three days. After this the watch averaged well, but nothing more. For a half day it would go like the very mischief, and keep up such a barking and wheezing and whooping and sneezing and snorting that I could not hear myself think for the disturbance: and as it held out there was not a watch in the land that stood any chance against it. But the rest of the day it would keep on slowing down and fooling along until all the clocks it had left behind caught up again. It would show a fair and square average, and no man could say it had done more or less than its duty. But a correct average is only a mild virtue in a watch and I took this instrument to another watchmaker. He said the king-bolt was broken. I said I was glad it was nothing more serious. To tell the plain truth, I had no idea what the king-bolt was, but I did not choose to appear ignorant to a stranger. He repaired the king-bolt but what the watch gained in one way it lost in another. It would run a while and then stop a while, and then run a while again, and so on, using its own discretion about the intervals. And every time it went off it kicked back like a musket. I padded my breast for a few days but, finally, took the watch to another watchmaker. He picked it all to pieces and turned the ruin over and over under his glass; and then he said there appeared to be fresh start. It did well now, except that always at ten minutes to ten the hands would shut together like a pair of scissors and from that time forth they would travel together. The oldest man in the world could not make head or tail of the time of day by such a watch, and so I went again to have the thing repaired. This person said that the crystal had got bent and the mainspring was not straight. He made these things all right and then my timepiece performed unexceptionably, save that now and then, after working along quietly for nearly eight hours, everything inside would let go all of a sudden and begin to buzz like a bee, and the hands would straightway begin to spin round and round so fast that their individuality was lost completely, and they simply seemed a delicate spider’s web over the face of the watch. She would reel off the next twenty-four hours in six or seven minutes, and then stop with a bang. I went with a heavy heart to one more watchmaker, and looked on while he took her to pieces. Then I prepared to cross-question him rigidly, for this thing was getting serious. The watch had cost two hundred dollars originally, and I seemed to have paid out two or three thousand for repairs. While I waited and looked on, I presently recognised in this watchmaker an old acquaintance—a steam-boat engineer of other days and not a good engineer, either. He examined all the parts carefully, just as the other watchmakers had done, and then delivered his verdict with the same confidence of manner. He said: ‘She makes too much steam— you want to hang the monkey-wrench on the safety-valve!’ I brained him on the spot and had him buried at my own expense. My uncle William (now deceased, alas!) used to say that a good horse was a good horse until it had run away once, and that a good watch was a good watch until the repairers got a chance at it. And he used to wonder what became of all the unsuccessful tinkers, and gunsmiths, and shoe-makers, and engineers, and blacksmiths; but nobody could ever tell him.

Why was the Englishman’s visit referred to as unexplained mystery?

<answer> The Englishman was a poet whose name was not familiar. In his speech he talked about the thrills and travails of an English poet, which made no sense for the simple people at Gemini Studios who had had no exposure other than films and so they were not interested. These simple people had neither taste for English poetry nor political interests. Hence, his visit is referred to as an unexplained mystery. <context> Pancake was the brand name of the make-up material that Gemini Studios bought in truck-loads. Greta Garbo1 must have used it, Miss Gohar must have used it, Vyjayantimala2 must also have used it but Rati Agnihotri may not have even heard of it. The make-up department of the Gemini Studios was in the upstairs of a building that was believed to have been Robert Clive’s stables. A dozen other buildings in the city are said to have been his residence. For his brief life and an even briefer stay in Madras, Robert Clive seems to have done a lot of moving, besides fighting some impossible battles in remote corners of India and marrying a maiden in St. Mary’s Church in Fort St. George in Madras. The make-up room had the look of a hair-cutting salon with lights at all angles around half a dozen large mirrors. They were all incandescent lights, so you can imagine the fiery misery of those subjected to make-up. The make-up department was first headed by a Bengali who became too big for a studio and left. He was succeeded by a Maharashtrian who was assisted by a Dharwar Kannadiga, an Andhra, a Madras Indian Christian, an Anglo-Burmese and the usual local Tamils. All this shows that there was a great deal of national integration long before A.I.R. and Doordarshan began broadcasting programmes on national integration. This gang of nationally integrated make-up men could turn any decent-looking person into a hideous crimson hued monster with the help of truck-loads of pancake and a number of other locally made potions and lotions. Those were the days of mainly indoor shooting, and only five per cent of the film was shot outdoors. I suppose the sets and studio lights needed the girls and boys to be made to look ugly in order to look presentable in the movie. A strict hierarchy was maintained in the make-up department. The chief make-up man made the chief actors and actresses ugly, his senior assistant the ‘second’ hero and heroine, the junior assistant the main comedian, and so forth. The players who played the crowd were the responsibility of the office boy. (Even the make-up department of the Gemini Studio had an ‘office boy’!) On the days when there was a crowdshooting, you could see him mixing his paint in a giant vessel and slapping it on the crowd players. The idea was to close every pore on the surface of the face in the process of applying make-up. He wasn’t exactly a ‘boy’; he was in his early forties, having entered the studios years ago in the hope of becoming a star actor or a top screen writer, director or lyrics writer. He was a bit of a poet. In those days I worked in a cubicle, two whole sides of which were French windows. (I didn’t know at that time they were called French windows.) Seeing me sitting at my desk tearing up newspapers day in and day out, most people thought I was doing next to nothing. It is likely that the Boss thought likewise too. So anyone who felt I should be given some occupation would barge into my cubicle and deliver an extended lecture. The ‘boy’ in the make-up department had decided I should be enlightened on how great literary talent was being allowed to go waste in a department fit only for barbers and perverts. Soon I was praying for crowd-shooting all the time. Nothing short of it could save me from his epics. In all instances of frustration, you will always find the anger directed towards a single person openly or covertly and this man of the make-up department was convinced that all his woes, ignominy and neglect were due to Kothamangalam Subbu. Subbu was the No. 2 at Gemini Studios. He couldn’t have had a more encouraging opening in films than our grown-up make-up boy had. On the contrary he must have had to face more uncertain and difficult times, for when he began his career, there were no firmly established film producing companies or studios. Even in the matter of education, specially formal education, Subbu couldn’t have had an appreciable lead over our boy. But by virtue of being born a Brahmin — a virtue, indeed! — he must have had exposure to more affluent situations and people. He had the ability to look cheerful at all times even after having had a hand in a flop film. He always had work for somebody — he could never do things on his own — but his sense of loyalty made him identify himself with his principal completely and turn his entire creativity to his principal’s advantage. He was tailor-made for films. Here was a man who could be inspired when commanded. “The rat fights the tigress underwater and kills her but takes pity on the cubs and tends them lovingly — I don’t know how to do the scene,” the producer would say and Subbu would come out with four ways of the rat pouring affection on its victim’s offspring. “Good, but I am not sure it is effective enough,” the producer would say and in a minute Subbu would come out with fourteen more alternatives. Film-making must have been and was so easy with a man like Subbu around and if ever there was a man who gave direction and definition to Gemini Studios during its golden years, it was Subbu. Subbu had a separate identity as a poet and though he was certainly capable of more complex and higher forms, he deliberately chose to address his poetry to the masses. His success in films overshadowed and dwarfed his literary achievements — or so his critics felt. He composed several truly original ‘story poems’ in folk refrain and diction and also wrote a sprawling novel Thillana Mohanambal with dozens of very deftly etched characters. He quite successfully recreated the mood and manner of the Devadasis of the early 20th century. He was an amazing actor — he never aspired to the lead roles — but whatever subsidiary role he played in any of the films, he performed better than the supposed main players. He had a genuine love for anyone he came across and his house was a permanent residence for dozens of near and far relations and acquaintances. It seemed against Subbu’s nature to be even conscious that he was feeding and supporting so many of them. Such a charitable and improvident man, and yet he had enemies! Was it because he seemed so close and intimate with The Boss? Or was it his general demeanour that resembled a sycophant’s? Or his readiness to say nice things about everything? In any case, there was this man in the make-up department who would wish the direst things for Subbu. You saw Subbu always with The Boss but in the attendance rolls, he was grouped under a department called the Story Department comprising a lawyer and an assembly of writers and poets. The lawyer was also officially known as the legal adviser, but everybody referred to him as the opposite. An extremely talented actress, who was also extremely temperamental, once blew over on the sets. While everyone stood stunned, the lawyer quietly switched on the recording equipment. When the actress paused for breath, the lawyer said to her, “One minute, please,” and played back the recording. There was nothing incriminating or unmentionably foul about the actress’s tirade against the producer. But when she heard her voice again through the sound equipment, she was struck dumb. A girl from the countryside, she hadn’t gone through all the stages of worldly experience that generally precede a position of importance and sophistication that she had found herself catapulted into. She never quite recovered from the terror she felt that day. That was the end of a brief and brilliant acting career — the legal adviser, who was also a member of the Story Department, had unwittingly brought about that sad end. While every other member of the Department wore a kind of uniform — khadi dhoti with a slightly oversized and clumsily tailored white khadi shirt — the legal adviser wore pants and a tie and sometimes a coat that looked like a coat of mail. Often he looked alone and helpless — a man of cold logic in a crowd of dreamers — a neutral man in an assembly of Gandhiites and khadiites. Like so many of those who were close to The Boss, he was allowed to produce a film and though a lot of raw stock and pancake were used on it, not much came of the film. Then one day The Boss closed down the Story Department and this was perhaps the only instance in all human history where a lawyer lost his job because the poets were asked to go home. Gemini Studios was the favourite haunt of poets like S.D.S.Yogiar3, Sangu Subramanyam, Krishna Sastry and Harindranath Chattopadhyaya4. It had an excellent mess which supplied good coffee at all times of the day and for most part of the night. Those were the days when Congress rule meant Prohibition and meeting over a cup of coffee was rather satisfying entertainment. Barring the office boys and a couple of clerks, everybody else at the Studios radiated leisure, a pre-requisite for poetry. Most of them wore khadi and worshipped Gandhiji but beyond that they had not the faintest appreciation for political thought of any kind. Naturally, they were all averse to the term ‘Communism’. A Communist was a godless man — he had no filial or conjugal love; he had no compunction about killing his own parents or his children; he was always out to cause and spread unrest and violence among innocent and ignorant people. Such notions which prevailed everywhere else in South India at that time also, naturally, floated about vaguely among the khadi-clad poets of Gemini Studios. Evidence of it was soon forthcoming. When Frank Buchman’s Moral Re-Armament army, some two hundred strong, visited Madras sometime in 1952, they could not have found a warmer host in India than the Gemini Studios. Someone called the group an international circus. They weren’t very good on the trapeze and their acquaintance with animals was only at the dinner table, but they presented two plays in a most professional manner. Their ‘Jotham Valley’ and ‘The Forgotten Factor’ ran several shows in Madras and along with the other citizens of the city, the Gemini family of six hundred saw the plays over and over again. The message of the plays were usually plain and simple homilies, but the sets and costumes were first-rate. Madras and the Tamil drama community were terribly impressed and for some years almost all Tamil plays had a scene of sunrise and sunset in the manner of ‘Jotham Valley’ with a bare stage, a white background curtain and a tune played on the flute. It was some years later that I learnt that the MRA was a kind of countermovement to international Communism and the big bosses of Madras like Mr. Vasan simply played into their hands. I am not sure however, that this was indeed the case, for the unchangeable aspects of these big bosses and their enterprises remained the same, MRA or no MRA, international Communism or no international Communism. The staff of Gemini Studios had a nice time hosting two hundred people of all hues and sizes of at least twenty nationalities. It was such a change from the usual collection of crowd players waiting to be slapped with thick layers of make-up by the office-boy in the make-up department. A few months later, the telephone lines of the big bosses of Madras buzzed and once again we at Gemini Studios cleared a whole shooting stage to welcome another visitor. All they said was that he was a poet from England. The only poets from England the simple Gemini staff knew or heard of were Wordsworth and Tennyson; the more literate ones knew of Keats, Shelley and Byron; and one or two might have faintly come to know of someone by the name Eliot. Who was the poet visiting the Gemini Studios now? “He is not a poet. He is an editor. That’s why The Boss is giving him a big reception.” Vasan was also the editor of the popular Tamil weekly Ananda Vikatan. He wasn’t the editor of any of the known names of British publications in Madras, that is, those known at the Gemini Studios. Since the top men of The Hindu were taking the initiative, the surmise was that the poet was the editor of a daily — but not from The Manchester Guardian or the London Times. That was all that even the most wellinformed among us knew. At last, around four in the afternoon, the poet (or the editor) arrived. He was a tall man, very English, very serious and of course very unknown to all of us. Battling with half a dozen pedestal fans on the shooting stage, The Boss read out a long speech. It was obvious that he too knew precious little about the poet (or the editor). The speech was all in the most general terms but here and there it was peppered with words like ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’. Then the poet spoke. He couldn’t have addressed a more dazed and silent audience — no one knew what he was talking about and his accent defeated any attempt to understand what he was saying. The whole thing lasted about an hour; then the poet left and we all dispersed in utter bafflement — what are we doing? What is an English poet doing in a film studio which makes Tamil films for the simplest sort of people? People whose lives least afforded them the possibility of cultivating a taste for English poetry? The poet looked pretty baffled too, for he too must have felt the sheer incongruity of his talk about the thrills and travails of an English poet. His visit remained an unexplained mystery. The great prose-writers of the world may not admit it, but my conviction grows stronger day after day that prosewriting is not and cannot be the true pursuit of a genius. It is for the patient, persistent, persevering drudge with a heart so shrunken that nothing can break it; rejection slips don’t mean a thing to him; he at once sets about making a fresh copy of the long prose piece and sends it on to another editor enclosing postage for the return of the manuscript. It was for such people that The Hindu had published a tiny announcement in an insignificant corner of an unimportant page — a short story contest organised by a British periodical by the name The Encounter. Of course, The Encounter wasn’t a known commodity among the Gemini literati. I wanted to get an idea of the periodical before I spent a considerable sum in postage sending a manuscript to England. In those days, the British Council Library had an entrance with no long winded signboards and notices to make you feel you were sneaking into a forbidden area. And there were copies of The Encounter lying about in various degrees of freshness, almost untouched by readers. When I read the editor’s name, I heard a bell ringing in my shrunken heart. It was the poet who had visited the Gemini Studios — I felt like I had found a long lost brother and I sang as I sealed the envelope and wrote out his address. I felt that he too would be singing the same song at the same time — long lost brothers of Indian films discover each other by singing the same song in the first reel and in the final reel of the film. Stephen Spender5. Stephen — that was his name. And years later, when I was out of Gemini Studios and I had much time but not much money, anything at a reduced price attracted my attention. On the footpath in front of the Madras Mount Road Post Office, there was a pile of brand new books for fifty paise each. Actually they were copies of the same book, an elegant paperback of American origin. ‘Special low-priced student edition, in connection with the 50th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution’, I paid fifty paise and picked up a copy of the book, The God That Failed. Six eminent men of letters in six separate essays described ‘their journeys into Communism and their disillusioned return’; Andre Gide6, Richard Wright7, Ignazio Silone8, Arthur Koestler9, Louis Fischer10 and Stephen Spender. Stephen Spender! Suddenly the book assumed tremendous significance. Stephen Spender, the poet who had visited Gemini Studios! In a moment I felt a dark chamber of my mind lit up by a hazy illumination. The reaction to Stephen Spender at Gemini Studios was no longer a mystery. The Boss of the Gemini Studios may not have much to do with Spender’s poetry. But not with his god that failed.

What happened when the box was opened?

<answer> As soon as the box was opened, Mij ran out. Then it ran all over the place scaring all the passengers. It created a claos and most of the people in the plane got scared. <context> EARLY in the New Year of 1956 I travelled to Southern Iraq. By then it had crossed my mind that I should like to keep an otter instead of a dog, and that Camusfearna, ringed by water a stone’s throw from its door, would be an eminently suitable spot for this experiment. When I casually mentioned this to a friend, he as casually replied that I had better get one in the Tigris marshes, for there they were as common as mosquitoes, and were often tamed by the Arabs. We were going to Basra to the Consulate-General to collect and answer our mail from Europe. At the Consulate-General we found that my friend’s mail had arrived but that mine had not. I cabled to England, and when, three days later, nothing had happened, I tried to telephone. The call had to be booked twenty-four hours in advance. On the first day the line was out of order; on the second the exchange was closed for a religious holiday. On the third day there was another breakdown. My friend left, and I arranged to meet him in a week’s time. Five days later, my mail arrived. I carried it to my bedroom to read, and there, squatting on the floor, were two Arabs; beside them lay a sack that squirmed from time to time. They handed me a note from my friend: “Here is your otter...” II With the opening of that sack began a phase of my life that has not yet ended, and may, for all I know, not end before I do. It is, in effect, a thraldom to otters, an otter fixation, that I have since found to be shared by most other people, who have ever owned one. The creature that emerged from this sack on to the spacious tiled floor of the Consulate bedroom resembled most of all a very small, medievallyconceived, dragon. From the head to the tip of the tail he was coated with symmetrical pointed scales of mud armour, between whose tips was visible a soft velvet fur like that of a chocolate-brown mole. He shook himself, and I half expected a cloud of dust, but in fact it was not for another month that I managed to remove the last of the mud and see the otter, as it were, in his true colours. Mijbil, as I called the otter, was, in fact, of a race previously unknown to science, and was at length christened by zoologists Lutrogale perspicillata maxwelli, or Maxwell’s otter. For the first twentyfour hours Mijbil was neither hostile nor friendly; he was simply aloof and indifferent, choosing to sleep on the floor as far from my bed as possible. The second night Mijbil came on to my bed in the small hours and remained asleep in the crook of my knees until the servant brought tea in the morning, and during the day he began to lose his apathy and take a keen, much too keen, interest in his surroundings. I made a body-belt for him and took him on a lead to the bathroom, where for half an hour he went wild with joy in the water, plunging and rolling in it, shooting up and down the length of the bathtub underwater, and making enough slosh and splash for a hippo. This, I was to learn, is a characteristic of otters; every drop of water must be, so to speak, extended and spread about the place; a bowl must at once be overturned, or, if it will not be overturned, be sat in and sploshed in until it overflows. Water must be kept on the move and made to do things; when static it is wasted and provoking. Two days later, Mijbil escaped from my bedroom as I entered it, and I turned to see his tail disappearing round the bend of the corridor that led to the bathroom. By the time I got there he was up on the end of the bathtub and fumbling at the chromium taps with his paws. I watched, amazed; in less than a minute he had turned the tap far enough to produce a trickle of water, and after a moment or two achieved the full flow. (He had been lucky to turn the tap the right way; on later occasions he would sometimes screw it up still tighter, chittering with irritation and disappointment at the tap’s failure to cooperate.) Very soon Mij would follow me without a lead and come to me when I called his name. He spent most of his time in play. He spent hours shuffling a rubber ball round the room like a four-footed soccer player using all four feet to dribble the ball, and he could also throw it, with a powerful flick of the neck, to a surprising height and distance. But the real play of an otter is when he lies on his back and juggles with small objects between his paws. Marbles were Mij’s favourite toys for this pastime: he would lie on his back rolling two or more of them up and down his wide, flat belly without ever dropping one to the floor. The days passed peacefully at Basra, but I dreaded the prospect of transporting Mij to England, and to Camusfearna. The British airline to London would not fly animals, so I booked a flight to Paris on another airline, and from there to London. The airline insisted that Mij should be packed into a box not more than eighteen inches square, to be carried on the floor at my feet. I had a box made, and an hour before we started, I put Mij into the box so that he would become accustomed to it, and left for a hurried meal. When I returned, there was an appalling spectacle. There was complete silence from the box, but from its airholes and chinks around the lid, blood had trickled and dried. I whipped off the lock and tore open the lid, and Mij, exhausted and bloodspattered, whimpered and caught at my leg. He had torn the lining of the box to shreds; when I removed the last of it so that there were no cutting edges left, it was just ten minutes until the time of the flight, and the airport was five miles distant. I put the miserable Mij back into the box, holding down the lid with my hand. I sat in the back of the car with the box beside me as the driver tore through the streets of Basra like a ricochetting bullet. The aircraft was waiting to take off; I was rushed through to it by infuriated officials. Luckily, the seat booked for me was at the extreme front. I covered the floor around my feet with newspapers, rang for the air hostess, and gave her a parcel of fish (for Mij) to keep in a cool place. I took her into my confidence about the events of the last half hour. I have retained the most profound admiration for that air hostess; she was the very queen of her kind. She suggested that I might prefer to have my pet on my knee, and I could have kissed her hand in the depth of my gratitude. But, not knowing otters, I was quite unprepared for what followed. Mij was out of the box in a flash. He disappeared at high speed down the aircraft. There were squawks and shrieks, and a woman stood up on her seat screaming out, “A rat! A rat!” I caught sight of Mij’s tail disappearing beneath the legs of a portly whiteturbaned Indian. Diving for it, I missed, but found my face covered in curry. “Perhaps,” said the air hostess with the most charming smile, “it would be better if you resumed your seat, and I will find the animal and bring it to you.” I returned to my seat. I was craning my neck trying to follow the hunt when suddenly I heard from my feet a distressed chitter of recognition and welcome, and Mij bounded on to my knee and began to nuzzle my face and my neck. Mij and I remained in London for nearly a month. He would play for hours with a selection of toys, ping-pong balls, marbles, rubber fruit, and a terrapin shell that I had brought back from his native marshes. With the ping-pong ball he invented a game of his own which could keep him engrossed for up to half an hour at a time. A suitcase that I had taken to Iraq had become damaged on the journey home, so that the lid, when closed, remained at a slope from one end to the other. Mij discovered that if he placed the ball on the high end it would run down the length of the suitcase. He would dash around to the other end to ambush its arrival, hide from it, crouching, to spring up and take it by surprise, grab it and trot off with it to the high end once more. Outside the house I exercised him on a lead, precisely as if he had been a dog. Mij quickly developed certain compulsive habits on these walks in the London streets, like the rituals of children who on their way to and from school must place their feet squarely on the centre of each paving block; must touch every seventh upright of the iron railings, or pass to the outside of every second lamp post. Opposite to my flat was a single-storied primary school, along whose frontage ran a low wall some two feet high. On his way home, but never on his way out, Mij would tug me to this wall, jump on to it, and gallop the full length of its thirty yards, to the hopeless distraction both of pupils and of staff within. It is not, I suppose, in any way strange that the average Londoner should not recognise an otter, but the variety of guesses as to what kind of animal this might be came as a surprise to me. Otters belong to a comparatively small group of animals called Mustellines, shared by the badger, mongoose, weasel, stoat, mink and others. I faced a continuous barrage of conjectural questions that sprayed all the Mustellines but the otter; more random guesses hit on ‘a baby seal’ and ‘a squirrel.’ ‘Is that a walrus, mister?’ reduced me to giggles, and outside a dog show I heard ‘a hippo’. A beaver, a bear cub, a leopard — one, apparently, that had changed its spots — and a ‘brontosaur’; Mij was anything but an otter. But the question for which I awarded the highest score came from a labourer digging a hole in the street. I was still far from him when he laid down his tool, put his hands on his hips, and began to stare. As I drew nearer I saw his expression of surprise and affront, as though he would have me know that he was not one upon whom to play jokes. I came abreast of him; he spat, glared, and then growled out, “Here, Mister — what is that supposed to be?”

How did Holmes guess that John Garrideb would go to 136, Little Ryder Street? Did he expect to find what he ultimately did before he went there?

<answer> John Garrideb was furious over the fact that Nathan got a detective involved in the whole case as as Holmes and Watson knew this they expected John Garrideb to show up immediately after their meeting in Nathan's apartment. They knew that John will come to question and express his discomfort over Nathan's actions. However, Holmes and Watson did put the man at ease by clearing it to him that they were least interested in any matter and won his confidence by showing that they were just to help him in discovering another Garrideb. Thus, Garrideb did appear at Little Ryder Street. To their amazement, he had acted promptly by coming up with the advertisement of Howard Garrideb and with a neat plan of sending Nathan away to Birmingham and knocking the detectives out of his way so that he can carry his plan out without any hindrance. <context> It may have been a comedy, or it may have been a tragedy. It cost one man his reason, it cost me a blood-letting, and it cost yet another man the penalties of the law. Yet there was certainly an element of comedy. Well, you shall judge for yourselves. I remember the date very well, for, it was in the same month that Holmes refused a knighthood for services which may perhaps some day be described. I only refer to the matter in passing, for, in my position of partner and confidant I am obliged to be particularly careful to avoid any indiscretion. I repeat, however, that this enables me to fix the date, which was the latter end of June 1902, shortly after the conclusion of the South African War. Holmes had spent several days in bed, as was his habit from time to time, but he emerged that morning with a long foolscap document in his hand and a twinkle of amusement in his austere grey eyes. ‘There is a chance for you to make some money, friend Watson,’ said he. ‘Have you ever heard the name of Garrideb?’ I admitted that I had not. ‘Well, if you can lay your hand upon a Garrideb, there’s money in it.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Ah, that’s a long story—rather a whimsical one, too. I don’t think in all our explorations of human complexities we have ever come upon anything more singular. The fellow will be here presently for cross-examination, so I won’t open the matter up till he comes. But meanwhile, that’s the name we want.’ The telephone directory lay on the table beside me and I turned over the pages in a rather hopeless quest. But to my amazement there was this strange name in its due place. I gave a cry of triumph. Here you are Holmes! Here it is!’ Holmes took the book from my hand. ‘Garrideb, N.’ he read, ‘136, Little Ryder Street, W. Sorry to disappoint you, my dear Watson, but this is the man himself. That is the address upon his letter. We want another to match him.’ Mrs Hudson had come in with a card upon a tray. I took it up and glanced at it. ‘Why, here it is!’ I cried in amazement. ‘This is a different initial. John Garrideb, Counsellor at Law, Moorville, Kansas, U.S.A.’ Holmes smiled as he looked at the card. ‘I am afraid you must make yet another effort, Watson,’ said he. ‘This gentleman is also in the plot already, though I certainly did not expect to see him this morning. However, he is in a position to tell us a good deal which I want to know.’ A moment later he was in the room. Mr John Garrideb, Counsellor at Law, was a short, powerful man with the round, fresh clean-shaven face characteristic of so many American men of affairs. The general effect was chubby and rather childlike, so that one received the impression of quite a young man with a broad set smile upon his face. His eyes, however, were arresting. Seldom in any human head have I seen a pair which bespoke a more intense inward life, so bright were they, so alert, so responsive to every change of thought. His accent was American but was not accompanied by any eccentricity of speech ‘Mr Holmes?’ he asked, glancing from one to the other. ‘Ah, yes! Your pictures are not unlike you, sir, if I may say so I believe you have had a letter from my namesake, Mr Nathan Garrideb, have you not?’ ‘Pray sit down,’ said Sherlock Holmes. We shall, I fancy, have a good deal to discuss.’ He took up his sheets of foolscap. You are, of course, the Mr John Garrideb mentioned in this document. But surely you have been in England some time?’ ‘Why do you say that, Mr Holmes?’ I seemed to read sudden suspicion in those expressive eyes. ‘Your whole outfit is English.’ Mr Garrideb forced a laugh. ‘I’ve read of your tricks, Mr Holmes, but I never thought I would be the subject of them. Where do you read that?’ ‘The shoulder cut of your coat, the toes of your boots— could anyone doubt it?’ ‘Well, well, I had no idea I was so obvious a Britisher. But business brought me over here some time ago and so, as you say, my outfit is nearly all London. However, I guess your time is of value and we did not meet to talk about the cut of my socks. What about getting down to that paper you hold in your hand?’ Holmes had, in some way, ruffled our visitor, whose chubby face had assumed a far less amiable expression. ‘Patience! Patience, Mr Garrideb!’ said my friend in a soothing voice. ‘Dr Watson would tell you that these little digressions of mine sometimes prove in the end to have some bearing on the matter. But why did Mr Nathan Garrideb not come with you?’ ‘Why did he ever drag you into it at all?’ asked our visitor, with a sudden outflame of anger. ‘What in thunder had you to do with it? Here was a bit of professional business between two gentlemen, and one of them must need call in a detective! I saw him this morning and he told me this fool-trick he had played on me, and that’s why I am here. But I feel bad about it, all the same.’ ‘There was no reflection upon you, Mr Garrideb. It was simply zeal upon his part to gain your end—an end which is, I understand, equally vital for both of you. He knew that I had means of getting information and, therefore, it was very natural that he should apply to me.’ Our visitor’s angry face gradually cleared. ‘Well, that puts it different,’ said he, ‘When I went to see him this morning and he told me he had sent for a detective, I just asked for your address and came right away. I don’t want police butting into a private matter. But if you are content just to help us find the man, there can be no harm in that.’ ‘Well, that is just how it stands,’ said Holmes. ‘And now, sir, since you are here, we had best have a clear account from your own lips. My friend here knows nothing of the details.’ Mr Garrideb surveyed me with not too friendly a gaze. ‘Need he know?’ he asked. ‘We usually work together.’ ‘Well, there’s no reason it should be kept a secret. I’ll give you the facts as short as I can make them. If you came from Kansas I would not need to explain to you who Alexander Hamilton Garrideb was. He made his money in real estate and, afterwards, in the wheat pit at Chicago, but he spent it in buying up as much land as would make one of your counties, lying along the Arkansas River, west of Fort Dodge. It’s grazing land and lumber land and Arabic land and mineralised land, and just every sort of land that brings dollars to the man that owns it. ‘He had no kith nor kin—or, if he had, I never heard of it. But he took a kind of pride in the queerness of his name. That was what brought us together. I was in the law at Topeka, and one day I had a visit from the old man and he was tickled to death to meet another man with his own name. It was his pet fad and he was dead set to find out if there were any more Garridebs in the world. ‘Find me another!’ said he. I told him I was a busy man and could not spend my life hiking round the world in search of Garridebs. ‘None the less,’ said he, ‘that is just what you will do if things pan out as I planned them.’ I thought he was joking, but there was a powerful lot of meaning in the words, as I was soon to discover. ‘For he died within a year of saying them and he left a will behind him. It was the queerest will that has ever been filed in the State of Kansas. His property was divided into three parts and I was to have one on condition that I found two Garridebs who would share the remainder. It’s five million dollars for each if it is a cent, but we can’t lay a finger on it until we all three stand in a row. ‘It was so big a chance that I just let my legal practice slide and I set forth looking for Garridebs. There is not one in the United States. I went through it, sir, with a finetoothed comb and never a Garrideb could I catch. Then I tried the old country. Sure enough there was the name in the London Telephone Directory. I went after him two days ago and explained the whole matter to him. But he is a lone man, like myself, with some women relations, but no men. It says three adult men in the will. So you see we still have a vacancy and if you can help to fill it we will be very ready to pay your charges.’ ‘Well, Watson,’ said Holmes, with a smile, ‘I said it was rather whimsical, did I not? I should have thought, sir, that your obvious way was to advertise in the agony columns of the papers.’ ‘I have done that, Mr Holmes. No replies.’ ‘Dear me! Well, it is certainly a most curious little problem. I may take a glance at it in my leisure. By the way, it is curious that you should have come from Topeka. I used to have a correspondent—he is dead now—old Dr Lysander Starr, who was Mayor in 1890.’ ‘Good old Dr Starr!’ said our visitor. ‘His name is still honoured. Well, Mr Holmes, I suppose all we can do is to report to you and let you know how we progress. I reckon you will hear within a day or two.’ With this assurance our American bowed and departed. Holmes had lit his pipe, and he sat for some time with a curious smile upon his face. ‘Well?’ I asked at last. ‘I am wondering, Watson—just wondering!’ ‘At what?’ Holmes took his pipe from his lips. ‘I was wondering, Watson, what on earth could be the object of this man in telling us such a rigmarole of lies. I nearly asked him so—for there are times when a brutal frontal attack is the best policy—but I judged it better to let him think he had fooled us. Here is a man with an English coat frayed at the elbow and trousers bagged at the knee with a year’s wear, and yet by this document and by his own account he is a provincial American lately landed in London. There have been no advertisements in the agony columns. You know that I miss nothing there. They are my favourite covert for putting up a bird and I would never have overlooked such a cock pheasant as that. I never knew a Dr Lysander Starr of Topeka. Touch him where you would he was false. I think the fellow is really an American, but he has worn his accent smooth with years of London. What is his game, then, and what motive lies behind this preposterous search for Garridebs? It’s worth our attention, for, granting that the man is a rascal, he is certainly a complex and ingenious one. We must now find out if our other correspondent is a fraud also. Just ring him up, Watson.’ I did so, and heard a thin, quavering voice at the other end of the line. ‘Yes, yes, I am Mr Nathan Garrideb. Is Mr Holmes there? I should very much like to have a word with Mr Holmes.’ My friend took the instrument and I heard the usual syncopated dialogue. ‘Yes, he has been here. I understand that you don’t know him… How long? Only two days!... Yes, yes, of course it is a most captivating prospect. Will you be at home this evening? I suppose your namesake will not be there?... Very good, we will come then, for I would rather have a chat without him… Dr Watson will come with me… I understood from your note that you did not go out often… Well, we shall be round about six. You need not mention it to the American lawyer… Very good. Good-bye!’ It was twilight of a lovely spring evening and even Little Ryder Street, one of the smaller offshoots from the Edgware Road, within a stone-cast of old Tyburn Tree of evil memory, looked golden and wonderful in the slanting rays of the setting sun. The particular house to which we were directed was a large, old-fashioned, Early Georgian edifice with a fat brick face broken only by two deep bay windows on the ground floor. It was on this ground floor that our client lived and, indeed, the low windows proved to be the front of the huge room in which he spent his waking hours. Holmes pointed as we passed to the small brass plate which bore the curious name. ‘Up some years, Watson,’ he remarked, indicating its discoloured surface. ‘It’s his real name, anyhow, and that is something to note.’ The house had a common stair and there were a number of names painted in the hall, some indicating offices and some private chambers. It was not a collection of residential flats, but rather the abode of Bohemian bachelors. Our client opened the door for us himself and apologised by saying that the woman in charge left at four o’clock. Mr Nathan Garrideb proved to be a very tall, loose jointed, round-backed person, gaunt and bald, some sixtyodd years of age. He had a cadaverous face, with the dull dead skin of a man to whom exercise was unknown. Large round spectacles and a small projecting goat’s beard combined with his stooping attitude to give him an expression of peering curiosity. The general effect, however, was amiable, though eccentric. The room was as curious as its occupant. It looked like a small museum. It was both broad and deep, with cupboards and cabinets all round, crowded with specimens, geological and anatomical. Cases of butterflies and moths flanked each side of the entrance. A large table in the centre was littered with all sorts of debris, while the tall brass tube of a powerful microscope bristled up amongst them. As I glanced round I was surprised at the universality of the man’s interests. Here was a case of ancient coins. There was a cabinet of flint instruments. Behind his central table was a large cupboard of fossil bones. Above was a line of plaster skulls with such names as ‘Neanderthal’, ‘Heidelberg,’ ‘Cromagnan’ printed beneath them. It was clear that he was a student of many subjects. As he stood in front of us now, he held a piece of chamois leather in his right hand with which he was polishing a coin. ‘Syracusan—of the best period,’ he explained, holding it up. ‘They degenerated greatly towards the end. At their best I hold them supreme, though some prefer the Alexandrian school. You will find a chair here, Mr Holmes. Pray allow me to clear these bones. And you, sir—ah, yes, Dr Watson—if you would have the goodness to put the Japanese vase to one side. You see round me my little interests in life. My doctor lectures me about never going out, but why should I go out when I have so much to hold me here? I can assure you that the adequate cataloguing of one of those cabinets would take me three good months.’ Holmes looked round him with curiosity. ‘But do you tell me that you never go out?’ he said. ‘Now and again I drive down to Sotheby’s or Christie’s. Otherwise I very seldom leave my room. I am not too strong and my researches are very absorbing. But you can imagine, Mr Holmes, what a terrific shock—pleasant but terrific—it was for me when I heard of this unparalleled good fortune. It only needs one more Garrideb to complete the matter and surely we can find one; I had a brother, but he is dead, and female relatives are disqualified. But there must surely be others in the world. I had heard that you handled strange cases, and that was why I sent for you. Of course, this American gentleman is quite right, and I should have taken his advice first, but I acted for the best.’ ‘I think you acted very wisely indeed,’ said Holmes. ‘But are you really anxious to acquire an estate in America?’ ‘Certainly not, sir. Nothing would induce me to leave my collection. But this gentleman has assured me that he will buy me out as soon as we have established our claim. Five million dollars was the sum named. There are a dozen specimens in the market at the present moment which fill gaps in my collection, and which I am unable to purchase for want of a few hundred pounds. Just think what I could do with five million dollars. Why, I have the nucleus of a national collection. I shall be the Hans Sloane of my age.’ His eyes gleamed behind his great spectacles. It was very clear that no pains would be spared by Mr Nathan Garrideb in finding a namesake. ‘I merely called to make your acquaintance and there is no reason why I should interrupt your studies,’ said Holmes. ‘I prefer to establish personal touch with those with whom I do business. There are few questions I need ask, for I have your very clear narrative in my pocket and I filled up the blanks when this American gentleman called. I understand that up to this week you were unaware of his existence.’ ‘That is so. He called last Tuesday.’ ‘Did he tell you of our interview today?’ ‘Yes, he came straight back to me. He had been very angry.’ ‘Why should he be angry?’ ‘He seemed to think it was some reflection on his honour. But he was quite cheerful again when he returned.’ ‘Did he suggest any course of action?’ ‘No, sir, he did not.’ ‘Has he had, or asked for, any money from you?’ ‘No, sir, never!’ ‘You see no possible object he has in view?’ ‘None, except what he states.’ ‘Did you tell him of our telephone appointment?’ ‘Yes, sir, I did.’ Holmes was lost in thought. I could see that he was puzzled. ‘Have you any articles of great value in your collection?’ ‘No, sir. I am not a rich man. It is a good collection, but not a very valuable one.’ ‘You have no fear of burglars?’ ‘Not the least.’ ‘How long have you been in these rooms?’ ‘Nearly five years.’ Holmes’s cross-examination was interrupted by an imperative knocking at the door. No sooner had our client unlatched it than the American lawyer burst excitedly into the room. ‘Here you are!’ he cried, waving a paper over his head. ‘I thought I should be in time to get you. Mr Nathan Garrideb, my congratulations! You are a rich man, sir. Our business is happily finished and all is well. As to you, Mr Holmes, we can only say we are sorry if we have given you any useless trouble.’ He handed over the paper to our client, who stood staring at a marked advertisement. Holmes and I leaned forward and read it over his shoulder. This is how it ran ‘Glorious!’ gasped our host. ‘That makes our third man.’ ‘I had opened up inquiries in Birmingham,’ said the American, ‘and my agent there has sent me this advertisement from a local paper. We must hustle and put the thing through. I have written to this man and told him that you will see him in his office tomorrow afternoon at four o’clock.’ ‘You want me to see him?’ ‘What do you say, Mr Holmes? Don’t you think it would be wiser? Here am I, a wandering American with a wonderful tale. Why should he believe what I tell him? But you are a Britisher with solid references and he is bound to take notice of what you say. I would go with you if you wished, but I have a very busy day tomorrow and I could always follow you if you are in any trouble.’ ‘Well, I have not made such a journey for years.’ ‘It is nothing, Mr Garrideb. I have figured out your connections. You leave at twelve and should be there soon after two. Then you can be back the same night. All you have to do is to see this man, explain the matter and get an affidavit of his existence. By the Lord!’ he added, hotly, ‘considering I’ve come all the way from the centre of America, it is surely little enough if you go a hundred miles in order to put this matter through.’ ‘Quite so,’ said Holmes. ‘I think what this gentleman says is very true.’ Mr Nathan Garrideb shrugged his shoulders with a disconsolate air. ‘Well, If you insist I shall go,’ said he. ‘It is certainly hard for me to refuse you anything, considering the glory of hope that you have brought into my life.’ ‘Then that is agreed,’ said Holmes, ‘and no doubt you will let me have a report as soon as you can.’ ‘I’ll see to that,’ said the American. ‘Well,’ he added, looking at his watch, ‘I’ll have to get on. I’ll call tomorrow, Mr Nathan, and see you off to Birmingham. Coming my way, Mr Holmes? Well, then, good-bye and we may have good news for you tomorrow night.’ I noticed that my friend’s face cleared when the American left the room and the look of thoughtful perplexity had vanished. ‘I wish I could look over your collection, Mr Garrideb,’ said he. ‘In my profession all sorts of odd knowledge comes useful and this room of yours is a storehouse of it.’ Our client shone with pleasure and his eyes gleamed from behind his big glasses. ‘I had always heard, sir, that you were a very intelligent man,’ said he. ‘I could take you round now, if you have the time.’ ‘Unfortunately, I have not. But these specimens are so well labelled and classified that they hardly need your personal explanation. If I should be able to look in tomorrow, I presume that there would be no objection to my glancing over them?’ ‘None at all. You are most welcome. The place will, of course, be shut up, but Mrs Saunders is in the basement up to four o’clock and would let you in with her key.’ ‘Well, I happen to be clear tomorrow afternoon. If you would say a word to Mrs Saunders it would be quite in order. By the way, who is your house-agent?’ Our client was amazed at the sudden question. ‘Holloway and Steele, in the Edgware Road. But why?’ ‘I am a bit of an archaeologist myself when it comes to houses,’ said Holmes, laughing. ‘I was wondering if this was Queen Anne or Georgian.’ ‘Georgian, beyond doubt.’ ‘Really. I should have thought a little earlier. However, it is easily ascertained. Well, good-bye, Mr Garrideb and may you have every success in your Birmingham journey.’ The house-agent’s was close by, but we found that it was closed for the day, so we made our way back to Baker Street. It was not till after dinner that Holmes reverted to the subject. ‘Our little problem draws to a close,’ said he. ‘No doubt you have outlined the solution in your own mind.’ ‘I can make neither head nor tail of it.’ ‘The head is surely clear enough and the tail we should see tomorrow. Did you notice nothing curious about that advertisement?’ ‘I saw that the word ‘plough’ was misspelt.’ ‘Oh, you did notice that, did you? Come, Watson, you improve all the time. Yes, it was bad English but good American. The printer had set it up as received. Then the buckboards. That is American also. And artesian wells are commoner with them than with us. It was a typical American advertisement, but purporting to be from an English firm. What do you make of that?’ ‘I can only suppose that this American lawyer put it in himself. What his object was I fail to understand.’ ‘Well, there are alternative explanations. Anyhow, he wanted to get this good old fossil up to Birmingham. That is very clear. I might have told him that he was clearly going on a wild-goose chase, but, on second thoughts, it seemed better to clear the stage by letting him go. Tomorrow, Watson—well, tomorrow will speak for itself.’ Holmes was up and out early. When he returned at lunch-time I noticed that his face was very grave. ‘This is a more serious matter than I had expected, Watson,’ said he. ‘It is fair to tell you so, though I know it will only be an additional reason to you for running your head into danger. I should know my Watson by now. But there is danger, and you should know it.’ ‘Well, it is not the first we have shared, Holmes. I hope it may not be the last. What is the particular danger this time?’ ‘We are up against a very hard case. I have identified Mr John Garrideb, Counsellor at Law. He is none other than ‘Killer’ Evans, of sinister and murderous reputation.’ ‘I fear I am none the wiser.’ ‘Ah, it is not part of your profession to carry about a portable Newgate Calendar in your memory. I have been down to see friend Lestrade at the Yard. There may be an occasional want of imaginative intuition down there, but they lead the world for thoroughness and method. I had an idea that we might get on the track of our American friend in their records. Sure enough, I found his chubby face smiling up at me from the Rogues’ Portrait Gallery. James Winter, alias Morecroft, alias Killer Evans, was the inscription below.’ Holmes drew an envelope from his pocket. ‘I scribbled down a few points from his dossier. Aged forty four. Native of Chicago. Known to have shot three men in the States. Escaped from penitentiary through political influence. Came to London in 1893. Shot a man over cards in a night club in the Waterloo Road in January, 1895. Man died, but he was shown to have been the aggressor in the row. Dead man was identified as Rodger Presbury, famous as forger and coiner in Chicago. Killer Evans released in 1901. Has been under police supervision since, but so far as known has led an honest life. Very dangerous man, usually carries arms and is prepared to use them. That is our bird, Watson—a sporting bird, as you must admit.’ ‘But what is his game?’ ‘Well, it begins to define itself. I have been to the houseagents. Our client, as he told us, has been there five years. It was unlet for a year before then. The previous tenant was a gentleman at large named Waldron. Waldron’s appearance was well remembered at the office. He had suddenly vanished and nothing more been heard of him. He was a tall, bearded man with very dark features. Now, Presbury, the man whom Killer Evans had shot, was, according to Scotland Yard, a tall, dark man with a beard. As a working hypothesis, I think we may take it that Presbury, the American criminal, used to live in the very room which our innocent friend now devotes to his museum. So at last we get a link, you see.’ ‘And the next link?’ ‘Well, we must go now and look for that.’ He took a revolver from the drawer and handed it to me. ‘I have my old favourite with me. If our Wild West friend tries to live up to his nickname, we must be ready for him. I’ll give you an hour for a siesta, Watson, and then I think it will be time for our Ryder Street adventure.’ It was just four o’clock when we reached the curious apartment of Nathan Garrideb. Mrs Saunders, the caretaker, was about to leave but she had no hesitation in admitting us, for the door shut with a spring lock and Holmes promised to see that all was safe before we left. Shortly afterwards the outer door closed, her bonnet passed the bow window and we knew that we were alone in the lower floor of the house. Holmes made a rapid examination of the premises. There was one cupboard in a dark corner which stood out a little from the wall. It was behind this that we eventually crouched, while Holmes in a whisper outlined his intentions. ‘He wanted to get our amiable friend out of his room— that is very clear and, as the collector never went out, it took some planning to do it. The whole of this Garrideb invention was apparently for no other end. I must say, Watson, that there is a certain devilish ingenuity about it, even if the queer name of the tenant did give him an opening which he could hardly have expected. He wove his plot with remarkable cunning.’ ‘But what did he want?’ ‘Well, that is what we are here to find out. It has nothing whatever to do with our client, so far as I can read the situation. It is something connected with the man he murdered—the man who may have been his confederate in crime. There is some guilty secret in the room. That is how I read it. At first I thought our friend might have something in his collection more valuable than he knew—something worth the attention of a big criminal. But the fact that Rodger Presbury of evil memory inhabited these rooms points to some deeper reason. Well, Watson, we can but possess our souls in patience and see what the hour may bring.’ That hour was not long in striking. We crouched closer in the shadow as we heard the outer door open and shut. Then came the sharp, metallic snap of a key and the American was in the room. He closed the door softly behind him, took a sharp glance around him to see that all was safe, threw off his overcoat and walked up to the central table with the brisk manner of one who knows exactly what he has to do and how to do it. He pushed the table to one side, tore up the square of carpet on which it rested, rolled it completely back and then, drawing a jimmy from his inside pocket, he knelt down and worked vigorously upon the floor. Presently we heard the sound of sliding boards and, an instant later, a square had opened in the planks. Killer Evans struck a match, lit a stump of candle, and vanished from our view. Clearly our moment had come. Holmes touched my wrist as a signal and together we stole across to the open trapdoor. Gently as we moved, however, the old floor must have creaked under our feet, for the head of our American, peering anxiously round, emerged suddenly from the open space. His face turned upon us with a glare of baffled rage, which gradually softened into a rather shamefaced grin as he realised that two pistols were pointed at his head. ‘Well, well!’ said he, coolly as he scrambled to the surface. ‘I guess you have been one too many for me, Mr Holmes. Saw through my game, I suppose and played me for a sucker from the first. Well, sir, I hand it to you; you have me beat and—’ In an instant he had whisked out a revolver from his breast pocket and had fired two shots. I felt a sudden hot sear as if a red-hot iron had been pressed to my thigh. There was a crash as Holmes’s pistol came down on the man’s head. I had a vision of him sprawling upon the floor with blood running down his face while Holmes rummaged him for weapons. Then my friend’s wiry arms were round me and he was leading me to a chair. ‘You’re not hurt, Watson? For God’s sake, say that you are not hurt!’ It was worth a wound—it was worth many wounds—to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation. ‘It’s nothing, Holmes. It’s a mere scratch.’ He had ripped up my trousers with his pocket-knife. ‘You are right,’ he cried, with an immense sigh of relief. ‘It is quite superficial.’ His face set like flint as he glared at our prisoner who was sitting up with a dazed face. ‘By the Lord, it is as well for you. If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive. Now, sir, what have you to say for yourself?’ He had nothing to say for himself. He only lay and scowled. I leaned on Holmes’s arm and together we looked down into the small cellar which had been disclosed by the secret flap. It was still illuminated by the candle which Evans had taken down with him. Our eyes fell upon a mass of rusted machinery, great rolls of paper, a litter of bottles and, neatly arranged upon a small table, a number of neat little bundles. ‘A printing press—a counterfeiter’s outfit,’ said Holmes. ‘Yes, sir,’ said our prisoner, staggering slowly to his feet and then sinking into the chair. ‘The greatest counterfeiter London ever saw. That’s Presbury’s machine and those bundles on the table are two thousand of Presbury’s notes worth a hundred each and fit to pass anywhere. Help yourselves, gentlemen. Call it a deal and let me beat it.’ Holmes laughed. ‘We don’t do things like that, Mr Evans. There is no bolt-hole for you in this country. You shot this man, Presbury, did you not?’ ‘Yes, sir, and got five years for it, though it was he who pulled on me. Five years—when I should have had a medal the size of a soup plate. No living man could tell a Presbury from a Bank of England, and if I hadn’t put him out he would have flooded London with them. I was the only one in the world who knew where he made them. Can you wonder that I wanted to get to the place? And can you wonder that when I found this crazy boob of a bughunter with the queer name squatting right on the top of it, and never quitting his room, I had to do the best I could to shift him? Maybe I would have been wiser if I had put him away. It would have been easy enough, but I’m a soft-hearted guy that can’t begin shooting unless the other man has a gun also. But say, Mr Holmes, what have I done wrong, anyhow? I’ve not used this plant. I’ve not hurt this old stiff. Where do you get me?’ ‘Only attempted murder, so far as I can see,’ said Holmes. ‘But that’s not our job. They take that at the next stage. What we wanted at present was just your sweet self. Please give the Yard a call, Watson. It won’t be entirely unexpected.’ So those were the facts about Killer Evans and his remarkable invention of the three Garridebs. We heard later that our poor old friend never got over the shock of his dissipated dreams. When his castle in the air fell down, it buried him beneath the ruins. He was last heard of at a nursing home in Brixton. It was a glad day at the Yard when the Presbury outfit was discovered for, though they knew that it existed, they had never been able, after the death of the man, to find out where it was. Evans had indeed done great service and caused several worthy CID men to sleep the sounder, for the counterfeiter stands in a class by himself as a public danger. They would willingly have subscribed to that soup-plate medal of which the criminal had spoken, but an unappreciative Bench took a less favourite view and the Killer returned to those shades from which he had just emerged.

Why does Valli stand up on the seat? What does she see now?

<answer> Valli wanted to look outside the bus. She found her view blocked by the canvas blind that covered the lower part of the window. In order to have a better view she stood up on the seat and peered over the blind. She saw a canal, palm trees, grassland, mountains, green fields and the sky. <context> THERE was a girl named Valliammai who was called Valli for short. She was eight years old and very curious about things. Her favourite pastime was standing in the front doorway of her house, watching what was happening in the street outside. There were no playmates of her own age on her street, and this was about all she had to do. But for Valli, standing at the front door was every bit as enjoyable as any of the elaborate games other children played. Watching the street gave her many new unusual experiences. The most fascinating thing of all was the bus that travelled between her village and the nearest town. It passed through her street each hour, once going to the town and once coming back. The sight of the bus, filled each time with a new set of passengers, was a source of unending joy for Valli. Day after day she watched the bus, and gradually a tiny wish crept into her head and grew there: she wanted to ride on that bus, even if just once. This wish became stronger and stronger, until it was an overwhelming desire. Valli would stare wistfully at the people who got on or off the bus when it stopped at the street corner. Their faces would kindle in her longings, dreams, and hopes. If one of her friends happened to ride the bus and tried to describe the sights of the town to her, Valli would be too jealous to listen and would shout, in English: “Proud! proud!” Neither she nor her friends really understood the meaning of the word, but they used it often as a slang expression of disapproval. Over many days and months Valli listened carefully to conversations between her neighbours and people who regularly used the bus, and she also asked a few discreet questions here and there. This way she picked up various small details about the bus journey. The town was six miles from her village. The fare was thirty paise one way — “which is almost nothing at all,” she heard one well-dressed man say, but to Valli, who scarcely saw that much money from one month to the next, it seemed a fortune. The trip to the town took forty-five minutes. On reaching town, if she stayed in her seat and paid another thirty paise, she could return home on the same bus. This meant that she could take the one-o’clock afternoon bus, reach the town at one forty-five, and be back home by about two forty-five... On and on went her thoughts as she calculated and recalculated, planned and replanned. Well, one fine spring day the afternoon bus was just on the point of leaving the village and turning into the main highway when a small voice was heard shouting: “Stop the bus! Stop the bus!” And a tiny hand was raised commandingly. The bus slowed down to a crawl, and the conductor, sticking his head out the door, said, “Hurry then! Tell whoever it is to come quickly.” “It’s me,” shouted Valli. “I’m the one who has to get on.” By now the bus had come to a stop, and the conductor said, “Oh, really! You don’t say so!” “Yes, I simply have to go to town,” said Valli, still standing outside the bus, “and here’s my money.” She showed him some coins. “Okay, okay, but first you must get on the bus,” said the conductor, and he stretched out a hand to help her up. “Never mind,” she said, “I can get on by myself. You don’t have to help me.” The conductor was a jolly sort, fond of joking. “Oh, please don’t be angry with me, my fine madam,” he said. “Here, have a seat right up there in front. Everybody move aside please — make way for madam.” It was the slack time of day, and there were only six or seven passengers on the bus. They were all looking at Valli and laughing with the conductor. Valli was overcome with shyness. Avoiding everyone’s eyes, she walked quickly to an empty seat and sat down. “May we start now, madam?” the conductor asked, smiling. Then he blew his whistle twice, and the bus moved forward with a roar. It was a new bus, its outside painted a gleaming white with some green stripes along the sides. Inside, the overhead bars shone like silver. Directly in front of Valli, above the windshield, there was a beautiful clock. The seats were soft and luxurious. Valli devoured everything with her eyes. But when she started to look outside, she found her view cut off by a canvas blind that covered the lower part of her window. So she stood up on the seat and peered over the blind. The bus was now going along the bank of a canal. The road was very narrow. On one side there was the canal and, beyond it, palm trees, grassland, distant mountains, and the blue, blue sky. On the other side was a deep ditch and then acres and acres of green fields — green, green, green, as far as the eye could see. Oh, it was all so wonderful! Suddenly she was startled by a voice. “Listen, child,” said the voice, “you shouldn’t stand like that. Sit down.” Sitting down, she looked to see who had spoken. It was an elderly man who had honestly been concerned for her, but she was annoyed by his attention. “There’s nobody here who’s a child,” she said haughtily. “I’ve paid my thirty paise like everyone else.” The conductor chimed in. “Oh, sir, but this is a very grown-up madam. Do you think a mere girl could pay her own fare and travel to the city all alone?” Valli shot an angry glance at the conductor and said, “I am not a madam. Please remember that. And you’ve not yet given me my ticket.” “I’ll remember,” the conductor said, mimicking her tone. Everyone laughed, and gradually Valli too joined in the laughter. The conductor punched a ticket and handed it to her. “Just sit back and make yourself comfortable. Why should you stand when you’ve paid for a seat?” “Because I want to,” she answered, standing up again. “But if you stand on the seat, you may fall and hurt yourself when the bus makes a sharp turn or hits a bump. That’s why we want you to sit down, child.” “I’m not a child, I tell you,” she said irritably. “I’m eight years old.” “Of course, of course. How stupid of me! Eight years — my!” The bus stopped, some new passengers got on, and the conductor got busy for a time. Afraid of losing her seat, Valli finally sat down. An elderly woman came and sat beside her. “Are you all alone, dear?” she asked Valli as the bus started again. Valli found the woman absolutely repulsive — such big holes she had in her ear lobes, and such ugly earrings in them! And she could smell the betel nut the woman was chewing and see the betel juice that was threatening to spill over her lips at any moment. Ugh! — who could be sociable with such a person? “Yes, I’m travelling alone,” she answered curtly. “And I’ve got a ticket too.” “Yes, she’s on her way to town,” said the conductor. “With a thirty-paise ticket.” “Oh, why don’t you mind your own business,” said Valli. But she laughed all the same, and the conductor laughed too. But the old woman went on with her drivel. “Is it proper for such a young person to travel alone? Do you know exactly where you’re going in town? What’s the street? What’s the house number?” “You needn’t bother about me. I can take care of myself,” Valli said, turning her face towards the window and staring out. Her first journey — what careful, painstaking, elaborate plans she had had to make for it! She had thriftily saved whatever stray coins came her way, resisting every temptation to buy peppermints, toys, balloons, and the like, and finally she had saved a total of sixty paise. How difficult it had been, particularly that day at the village fair, but she had resolutely stifled a strong desire to ride the merrygo- round, even though she had the money. After she had enough money saved, her next problem was how to slip out of the house without her mother’s knowledge. But she managed this without too much difficulty. Every day after lunch her mother would nap from about one to four or so. Valli always used these hours for her ‘excursions’ as she stood looking from the doorway of her house or sometimes even ventured out into the village; today, these same hours could be used for her first excursion outside the village. The bus rolled on now cutting across a bare landscape, now rushing through a tiny hamlet or past an odd wayside shop. Sometimes the bus seemed on the point of gobbling up another vehicle that was coming towards them or a pedestrian crossing the road. But lo! somehow it passed on smoothly, leaving all obstacles safely behind. Trees came running towards them but then stopped as the bus reached them and simply stood there helpless for a moment by the side of the road before rushing away in the other direction. Suddenly Valli clapped her hands with glee. A young cow, tail high in the air, was running very fast, right in the middle of the road, right in front of the bus. The bus slowed to a crawl, and the driver sounded his horn loudly again and again. But the more he honked, the more frightened the animal became and the faster it galloped — always right in front of the bus. Somehow this was very funny to Valli. She laughed and laughed until there were tears in her eyes. “Hey, lady, haven’t you laughed enough?” called, the conductor. “Better save some for tomorrow.” At last the cow moved off the road. And soon the bus came to a railroad crossing. A speck of a train could be seen in the distance, growing bigger and bigger as it drew near. Then it rushed past the crossing gate with a tremendous roar and rattle, shaking the bus. Then the bus went on and passed the train station. From there it traversed a busy, well-laid-out shopping street and, turning, entered a wider thoroughfare. Such big, bright-looking shops! What glittering displays of clothes and other merchandise! Such big crowds! Struck dumb with wonder, Valli gaped at everything. Then the bus stopped and everyone got off except Valli. “Hey, lady,” said the conductor, “aren’t you ready to get off? This is as far as your thirty paise takes you.” “No,” Valli said, “I’m going back on this same bus.” She took another thirty paise from her pocket and handed the coins to the conductor. “Why, is something the matter?” “No, nothing’s the matter. I just felt like having a bus ride, that’s all.” “Don’t you want to have a look at the sights, now that you’re here?” “All by myself? Oh, I’d be much too afraid.” Greatly amused by the girl’s way of speaking, the conductor said, “But you weren’t afraid to come in the bus.” “Nothing to be afraid of about that,” she answered. “Well, then, why not go to that stall over there and have something to drink? Nothing to be afraid of about that either." “Oh, no, I couldn’t do that.” “Well, then, let me bring you a cold drink.” “No, I don’t have enough money. Just give me my ticket, that’s all.” “It’ll be my treat and not cost you anything.” “No, no,” she said firmly, “please, no.” The conductor shrugged, and they waited until it was time for the bus to begin the return journey. Again there weren’t many passengers.

How did the peddler defend himself against not having revealed his true identity?

<answer> The peddler explained that he had not tried to pretend as his acquaintance. He was not at fault. All along he had maintained that he was a poor trader. He had pleaded and begged to be allowed to stay in the forge. No harm had been done by his stay. He was willing to put on his rags again and go away. <context> Once upon a time there was a man who went around selling small rattraps of wire. He made them himself at odd moments, from the material he got by begging in the stores or at the big farms. But even so, the business was not especially profitable, so he had to resort to both begging and petty thievery to keep body and soul together. Even so, his clothes were in rags, his cheeks were sunken, and hunger gleamed in his eyes. No one can imagine how sad and monotonous life can appear to such a vagabond, who plods along the road, left to his own meditations. But one day this man had fallen into a line of thought, which really seemed to him entertaining. He had naturally been thinking of his rattraps when suddenly he was struck by the idea that the whole world about him — the whole world with its lands and seas, its cities and villages — was nothing but a big rattrap. It had never existed for any other purpose than to set baits for people. It offered riches and joys, shelter and food, heat and clothing, exactly as the rattrap offered cheese and pork, and as soon as anyone let himself be tempted to touch the bait, it closed in on him, and then everything came to an end. The world had, of course, never been very kind to him, so it gave him unwonted joy to think ill of it in this way. It became a cherished pastime of his, during many dreary ploddings, to think of people he knew who had let themselves be caught in the dangerous snare, and of others who were still circling around the bait. One dark evening as he was trudging along the road he caught sight of a little gray cottage by the roadside, and he knocked on the door to ask shelter for the night. Nor was he refused. Instead of the sour faces which ordinarily met him, the owner, who was an old man without wife or child, was happy to get someone to talk to in his loneliness. Immediately he put the porridge pot on the fire and gave him supper; then he carved off such a big slice from his tobacco roll that it was enough both for the stranger’s pipe and his own. Finally he got out an old pack of cards and played ‘mjolis’ with his guest until bedtime. The old man was just as generous with his confidences as with his porridge and tobacco. The guest was informed at once that in his days of prosperity his host had been a crofter at Ramsjo Ironworks and had worked on the land. Now that he was no longer able to do day labour, it was his cow which supported him. Yes, that bossy was extraordinary. She could give milk for the creamery every day, and last month he had received all of thirty kronor in payment. The stranger must have seemed incredulous, for the old man got up and went to the window, took down a leather pouch which hung on a nail in the very window frame, and picked out three wrinkled ten-kronor bills. These he held up before the eyes of his guest, nodding knowingly, and then stuffed them back into the pouch. The next day both men got up in good season. The crofter was in a hurry to milk his cow, and the other man probably thought he should not stay in bed when the head of the house had gotten up. They left the cottage at the same time. The crofter locked the door and put the key in his pocket. The man with the rattraps said good bye and thank you, and thereupon each went his own way. But half an hour later the rattrap peddler stood again before the door. He did not try to get in, however. He only went up to the window, smashed a pane, stuck in his hand, and got hold of the pouch with the thirty kronor. He took the money and thrust it into his own pocket. Then he hung the leather pouch very carefully back in its place and went away. As he walked along with the money in his pocket he felt quite pleased with his smartness. He realised, of course, that at first he dared not continue on the public highway, but must turn off the road, into the woods. During the first hours this caused him no difficulty. Later in the day it became worse, for it was a big and confusing forest which he had gotten into. He tried, to be sure, to walk in a definite direction, but the paths twisted back and forth so strangely! He walked and walked without coming to the end of the wood, and finally he realised that he had only been walking around in the same part of the forest. All at once he recalled his thoughts about the world and the rattrap. Now his own turn had come. He had let himself be fooled by a bait and had been caught. The whole forest, with its trunks and branches, its thickets and fallen logs, closed in upon him like an impenetrable prison from which he could never escape. It was late in December. Darkness was already descending over the forest. This increased the danger, and increased also his gloom and despair. Finally he saw no way out, and he sank down on the ground, tired to death, thinking that his last moment had come. But just as he laid his head on the ground, he heard a sound—a hard regular thumping. There was no doubt as to what that was. He raised himself. ‘‘Those are the hammer strokes from an iron mill’’, he thought. ‘‘There must be people near by’’. He summoned all his strength, got up, and staggered in the direction of the sound. The Ramsjo Ironworks, which are now closed down, were, not so long ago, a large plant, with smelter, rolling mill, and forge. In the summertime long lines of heavily loaded barges and scows slid down the canal, which led to a large inland lake, and in the wintertime the roads near the mill were black from all the coal dust which sifted down from the big charcoal crates. During one of the long dark evenings just before Christmas, the master smith and his helper sat in the dark forge near the furnace waiting for the pig iron, which had been put in the fire, to be ready to put on the anvil. Every now and then one of them got up to stir the glowing mass with a long iron bar, returning in a few moments, dripping with perspiration, though, as was the custom, he wore nothing but a long shirt and a pair of wooden shoes. All the time there were many sounds to be heard in the forge. The big bellows groaned and the burning coal cracked. The fire boy shovelled charcoal into the maw of the furnace with a great deal of clatter. Outside roared the waterfall, and a sharp north wind whipped the rain against the brick-tiled roof. It was probably on account of all this noise that the blacksmith did not notice that a man had opened the gate and entered the forge, until he stood close up to the furnace. Surely it was nothing unusual for poor vagabonds without any better shelter for the night to be attracted to the forge by the glow of light which escaped through the sooty panes, and to come in to warm themselves in front of the fire. The blacksmiths glanced only casually and indifferently at the intruder. He looked the way people of his type usually did, with a long beard, dirty, ragged, and with a bunch of rattraps dangling on his chest. He asked permission to stay, and the master blacksmith nodded a haughty consent without honouring him with a single word. The tramp did not say anything, either. He had not come there to talk but only to warm himself and sleep. In those days the Ramsjo iron mill was owned by a very prominent ironmaster, whose greatest ambition was to ship out good iron to the market. He watched both night and day to see that the work was done as well as possible, and at this very moment he came into the forge on one of his nightly rounds of inspection. Naturally the first thing he saw was the tall ragamuffin who had eased his way so close to the furnace that steam rose from his wet rags. The ironmaster did not follow the example of the blacksmiths, who had hardly deigned to look at the stranger. He walked close up to him, looked him over very carefully, then tore off his slouch hat to get a better view of his face. ‘‘But of course it is you, Nils Olof!’’ he said. “How you do look!” The man with the rattraps had never before seen the ironmaster at Ramsjo and did not even know what his name was. But it occurred to him that if the fine gentleman thought he was an old acquaintance, he might perhaps throw him a couple of kronor. Therefore he did not want to undeceive him all at once. ‘‘Yes, God knows things have gone downhill with me’’, he said. ‘‘You should not have resigned from the regiment’’, said the ironmaster. ‘‘That was the mistake. If only I had still been in the service at the time, it never would have happened. Well, now of course you will come home with me.’’ To go along up to the manor house and be received by the owner like an old regimental comrade — that, however, did not please the tramp. ‘‘No, I couldn’t think of it!’’ he said, looking quite alarmed. He thought of the thirty kronor. To go up to the manor house would be like throwing himself voluntarily into the lion’s den. He only wanted a chance to sleep here in the forge and then sneak away as inconspicuously as possible. The ironmaster assumed that he felt embarrassed because of his miserable clothing. ‘‘Please don’t think that I have such a fine home that you cannot show yourself there’’, He said... ‘‘Elizabeth is dead, as you may already have heard. My boys are abroad, and there is no one at home except my oldest daughter and myself. We were just saying that it was too bad we didn’t have any company for Christmas. Now come along with me and help us make the Christmas food disappear a little faster.” But the stranger said no, and no, and again no, and the ironmaster saw that he must give in. ‘‘It looks as though Captain von Stahle preferred to stay with you tonight, Stjernstrom’’, he said to the master blacksmith, and turned on his heel. But he laughed to himself as he went away, and the blacksmith, who knew him, understood very well that he had not said his last word. It was not more than half an hour before they heard the sound of carriage wheels outside the forge, and a new guest came in, but this time it was not the ironmaster. He had sent his daughter, apparently hoping that she would have better powers of persuasion than he himself. She entered, followed by a valet, carrying on his arm a big fur coat. She was not at all pretty, but seemed modest and quite shy. In the forge everything was just as it had been earlier in the evening. The master blacksmith and his apprentice still sat on their bench, and iron and charcoal still glowed in the furnace. The stranger had stretched himself out on the floor and lay with a piece of pig iron under his head and his hat pulled down over his eyes. As soon as the young girl caught sight of him, she went up and lifted his hat. The man was evidently used to sleeping with one eye open. He jumped up abruptly and seemed to be quite frightened. ‘‘My name is Edla Willmansson,’’ said the young girl. ‘‘My father came home and said that you wanted to sleep here in the forge tonight, and then I asked permission to come and bring you home to us. I am so sorry, Captain, that you are having such a hard time.’’ She looked at him compassionately, with her heavy eyes, and then she noticed that the man was afraid. ‘‘Either he has stolen something or else he has escaped from, jail’’, she thought, and added quickly, “You may be sure, Captain, that you will be allowed to leave us just as freely as you came. Only please stay with us over Christmas Eve.’’ She said this in such a friendly manner that the rattrap peddler must have felt confidence in her. ‘‘It would never have occurred to me that you would bother with me yourself, miss,’’ he said. ‘’I will come at once.’’ He accepted the fur coat, which the valet handed him with a deep bow, threw it over his rags, and followed the young lady out to the carriage, without granting the astonished blacksmiths so much as a glance. But while he was riding up to the manor house he had evil forebodings. ‘‘Why the devil did I take that fellow’s money?’’ he thought. ‘‘Now I am sitting in the trap and will never get out of it.’’ The next day was Christmas Eve, and when the ironmaster came into the dining room for breakfast he probably thought with satisfaction of his old regimental comrade whom he had run across so unexpectedly. “First of all we must see to it that he gets a little flesh on his bones,” he said to his daughter, who was busy at the table. “And then we must see that he gets something else to do than to run around the country selling rattraps.” “It is queer that things have gone downhill with him as badly as that,” said the daughter. “Last night I did not think there was anything about him to show that he had once been an educated man.” “You must have patience, my little girl,” said the father. “As soon as he gets clean and dressed up, you will see something different. Last night he was naturally embarrassed. The tramp manners will fall away from him with the tramp clothes.” Just as he said this the door opened and the stranger entered. Yes, now he was truly clean and well dressed. The valet had bathed him, cut his hair, and shaved him. Moreover he was dressed in a good-looking suit of clothes which belonged to the ironmaster. He wore a white shirt and a starched collar and whole shoes. But although his guest was now so well groomed, the ironmaster did not seem pleased. He looked at him with puckered brow, and it was easy to understand that when he had seen the strange fellow in the uncertain reflection from the furnace he might have made a mistake, but that now, when he stood there in broad daylight, it was impossible to mistake him for an old acquaintance. “What does this mean?” he thundered. The stranger made no attempt to dissimulate. He saw at once that the splendour had come to an end. “It is not my fault, sir,” he said. “I never pretended to be anything but a poor trader, and I pleaded and begged to be allowed to stay in the forge. But no harm has been done. At worst I can put on my rags again and go away”. “Well,” said the ironmaster, hesitating a little, “it was not quite honest, either. You must admit that, and I should not be surprised if the sheriff would like to have something to say in the matter.” The tramp took a step forward and struck the table with his fist. “Now I am going to tell you, Mr Ironmaster, how things are,” he said. “This whole world is nothing but a big rattrap. All the good things that are offered to you are nothing but cheese rinds and bits of pork, set out to drag a poor fellow into trouble. And if the sheriff comes now and locks me up for this, then you, Mr Ironmaster, must remember that a day may come when you yourself may want to get a big piece of pork, and then you will get caught in the trap.” The ironmaster began to laugh. “That was not so badly said, my good fellow. Perhaps we should let the sheriff alone on Christmas Eve. But now get out of here as fast as you can.” But just as the man was opening the door, the daughter said, “I think he ought to stay with us today. I don’t want him to go.” And with that she went and closed the door. “What in the world are you doing?” said the father. The daughter stood there quite embarrassed and hardly knew what to answer. That morning she had felt so happy when she thought how homelike and Christmassy she was going to make things for the poor hungry wretch. She could not get away from the idea all at once, and that was why she had interceded for the vagabond. “I am thinking of this stranger here,” said the young girl. “He walks and walks the whole year long, and there is probably not a single place in the whole country where he is welcome and can feel at home. Wherever he turns he is chased away. Always he is afraid of being arrested and cross-examined. I should like to have him enjoy a day of peace with us here — just one in the whole year.” The ironmaster mumbled something in his beard. He could not bring himself to oppose her. “It was all a mistake, of course,” she continued. “But anyway I don’t think we ought to chase away a human being whom we have asked to come here, and to whom we have promised Christmas cheer.” “You do preach worse than a parson,” said the ironmaster. “I only hope you won’t have to regret this.” The young girl took the stranger by the hand and led him up to the table. “Now sit down and eat,” she said, for she could see that her father had given in. The man with the rattraps said not a word; he only sat down and helped himself to the food. Time after time he looked at the young girl who had interceded for him. Why had she done it? What could the crazy idea be? After that, Christmas Eve at Ramsjo passed just as it always had. The stranger did not cause any trouble because he did nothing but sleep. The whole forenoon he lay on the sofa in one of the guest rooms and slept at one stretch. At noon they woke him up so that he could have his share of the good Christmas fare, but after that he slept again. It seemed as though for many years he had not been able to sleep as quietly and safely as here at Ramsjo. In the evening, when the Christmas tree was lighted, they woke him up again, and he stood for a while in the drawing room, blinking as though the candlelight hurt him, but after that he disappeared again. Two hours later he was aroused once more. He then had to go down into the dining room and eat the Christmas fish and porridge. As soon as they got up from the table he went around to each one present and said thank you and good night, but when he came to the young girl she gave him to understand that it was her father’s intention that the suit which he wore was to be a Christmas present — he did not have to return it; and if he wanted to spend next Christmas Eve in a place where he could rest in peace, and be sure that no evil would befall him, he would be welcomed back again. The man with the rattraps did not answer anything to this. He only stared at the young girl in boundless amazement. The next morning the ironmaster and his daughter got up in good season to go to the early Christmas service. Their guest was still asleep, and they did not disturb him. When, at about ten o’clock, they drove back from the church, the young girl sat and hung her head even more dejectedly than usual. At church she had learned that one of the old crofters of the ironworks had been robbed by a man who went around selling rattraps. “Yes, that was a fine fellow you let into the house,” said her father. “I only wonder how many silver spoons are left in the cupboard by this time.” The wagon had hardly stopped at the front steps when the ironmaster asked the valet whether the stranger was still there. He added that he had heard at church that the man was a thief. The valet answered that the fellow had gone and that he had not taken anything with him at all. On the contrary, he had left behind a little package which Miss Willmansson was to be kind enough to accept as a Christmas present. The young girl opened the package, which was so badly done up that the contents came into view at once. She gave a little cry of joy. She found a small rattrap, and in it lay three wrinkled ten kronor notes. But that was not all. In the rattrap lay also a letter written in large, jagged characters — “Honoured and noble Miss, “Since you have been so nice to me all day long, as if I was a captain, I want to be nice to you, in return, as if I was a real captain — for I do not want you to be embarrassed at this Christmas season by a thief; but you can give back the money to the old man on the roadside, who has the money pouch hanging on the window frame as a bait for poor wanderers. “The rattrap is a Christmas present from a rat who would have been caught in this world’s rattrap if he had not been raised to captain, because in that way he got power to clear himself. “Written with friendship and high regard, “Captain von Stahle.”

What made the lawyer stand out from the others at Gemini Studios?

<answer> The lawyer wore pants, a tie and sometimes a coat, while all wore khadi dhoti and white khadi shirt. He looked alone and helpless. He was a man of cold logic in a crowd of dreamers. He was a neutral man among Gandhiites and Khadiites. <context> Pancake was the brand name of the make-up material that Gemini Studios bought in truck-loads. Greta Garbo1 must have used it, Miss Gohar must have used it, Vyjayantimala2 must also have used it but Rati Agnihotri may not have even heard of it. The make-up department of the Gemini Studios was in the upstairs of a building that was believed to have been Robert Clive’s stables. A dozen other buildings in the city are said to have been his residence. For his brief life and an even briefer stay in Madras, Robert Clive seems to have done a lot of moving, besides fighting some impossible battles in remote corners of India and marrying a maiden in St. Mary’s Church in Fort St. George in Madras. The make-up room had the look of a hair-cutting salon with lights at all angles around half a dozen large mirrors. They were all incandescent lights, so you can imagine the fiery misery of those subjected to make-up. The make-up department was first headed by a Bengali who became too big for a studio and left. He was succeeded by a Maharashtrian who was assisted by a Dharwar Kannadiga, an Andhra, a Madras Indian Christian, an Anglo-Burmese and the usual local Tamils. All this shows that there was a great deal of national integration long before A.I.R. and Doordarshan began broadcasting programmes on national integration. This gang of nationally integrated make-up men could turn any decent-looking person into a hideous crimson hued monster with the help of truck-loads of pancake and a number of other locally made potions and lotions. Those were the days of mainly indoor shooting, and only five per cent of the film was shot outdoors. I suppose the sets and studio lights needed the girls and boys to be made to look ugly in order to look presentable in the movie. A strict hierarchy was maintained in the make-up department. The chief make-up man made the chief actors and actresses ugly, his senior assistant the ‘second’ hero and heroine, the junior assistant the main comedian, and so forth. The players who played the crowd were the responsibility of the office boy. (Even the make-up department of the Gemini Studio had an ‘office boy’!) On the days when there was a crowdshooting, you could see him mixing his paint in a giant vessel and slapping it on the crowd players. The idea was to close every pore on the surface of the face in the process of applying make-up. He wasn’t exactly a ‘boy’; he was in his early forties, having entered the studios years ago in the hope of becoming a star actor or a top screen writer, director or lyrics writer. He was a bit of a poet. In those days I worked in a cubicle, two whole sides of which were French windows. (I didn’t know at that time they were called French windows.) Seeing me sitting at my desk tearing up newspapers day in and day out, most people thought I was doing next to nothing. It is likely that the Boss thought likewise too. So anyone who felt I should be given some occupation would barge into my cubicle and deliver an extended lecture. The ‘boy’ in the make-up department had decided I should be enlightened on how great literary talent was being allowed to go waste in a department fit only for barbers and perverts. Soon I was praying for crowd-shooting all the time. Nothing short of it could save me from his epics. In all instances of frustration, you will always find the anger directed towards a single person openly or covertly and this man of the make-up department was convinced that all his woes, ignominy and neglect were due to Kothamangalam Subbu. Subbu was the No. 2 at Gemini Studios. He couldn’t have had a more encouraging opening in films than our grown-up make-up boy had. On the contrary he must have had to face more uncertain and difficult times, for when he began his career, there were no firmly established film producing companies or studios. Even in the matter of education, specially formal education, Subbu couldn’t have had an appreciable lead over our boy. But by virtue of being born a Brahmin — a virtue, indeed! — he must have had exposure to more affluent situations and people. He had the ability to look cheerful at all times even after having had a hand in a flop film. He always had work for somebody — he could never do things on his own — but his sense of loyalty made him identify himself with his principal completely and turn his entire creativity to his principal’s advantage. He was tailor-made for films. Here was a man who could be inspired when commanded. “The rat fights the tigress underwater and kills her but takes pity on the cubs and tends them lovingly — I don’t know how to do the scene,” the producer would say and Subbu would come out with four ways of the rat pouring affection on its victim’s offspring. “Good, but I am not sure it is effective enough,” the producer would say and in a minute Subbu would come out with fourteen more alternatives. Film-making must have been and was so easy with a man like Subbu around and if ever there was a man who gave direction and definition to Gemini Studios during its golden years, it was Subbu. Subbu had a separate identity as a poet and though he was certainly capable of more complex and higher forms, he deliberately chose to address his poetry to the masses. His success in films overshadowed and dwarfed his literary achievements — or so his critics felt. He composed several truly original ‘story poems’ in folk refrain and diction and also wrote a sprawling novel Thillana Mohanambal with dozens of very deftly etched characters. He quite successfully recreated the mood and manner of the Devadasis of the early 20th century. He was an amazing actor — he never aspired to the lead roles — but whatever subsidiary role he played in any of the films, he performed better than the supposed main players. He had a genuine love for anyone he came across and his house was a permanent residence for dozens of near and far relations and acquaintances. It seemed against Subbu’s nature to be even conscious that he was feeding and supporting so many of them. Such a charitable and improvident man, and yet he had enemies! Was it because he seemed so close and intimate with The Boss? Or was it his general demeanour that resembled a sycophant’s? Or his readiness to say nice things about everything? In any case, there was this man in the make-up department who would wish the direst things for Subbu. You saw Subbu always with The Boss but in the attendance rolls, he was grouped under a department called the Story Department comprising a lawyer and an assembly of writers and poets. The lawyer was also officially known as the legal adviser, but everybody referred to him as the opposite. An extremely talented actress, who was also extremely temperamental, once blew over on the sets. While everyone stood stunned, the lawyer quietly switched on the recording equipment. When the actress paused for breath, the lawyer said to her, “One minute, please,” and played back the recording. There was nothing incriminating or unmentionably foul about the actress’s tirade against the producer. But when she heard her voice again through the sound equipment, she was struck dumb. A girl from the countryside, she hadn’t gone through all the stages of worldly experience that generally precede a position of importance and sophistication that she had found herself catapulted into. She never quite recovered from the terror she felt that day. That was the end of a brief and brilliant acting career — the legal adviser, who was also a member of the Story Department, had unwittingly brought about that sad end. While every other member of the Department wore a kind of uniform — khadi dhoti with a slightly oversized and clumsily tailored white khadi shirt — the legal adviser wore pants and a tie and sometimes a coat that looked like a coat of mail. Often he looked alone and helpless — a man of cold logic in a crowd of dreamers — a neutral man in an assembly of Gandhiites and khadiites. Like so many of those who were close to The Boss, he was allowed to produce a film and though a lot of raw stock and pancake were used on it, not much came of the film. Then one day The Boss closed down the Story Department and this was perhaps the only instance in all human history where a lawyer lost his job because the poets were asked to go home. Gemini Studios was the favourite haunt of poets like S.D.S.Yogiar3, Sangu Subramanyam, Krishna Sastry and Harindranath Chattopadhyaya4. It had an excellent mess which supplied good coffee at all times of the day and for most part of the night. Those were the days when Congress rule meant Prohibition and meeting over a cup of coffee was rather satisfying entertainment. Barring the office boys and a couple of clerks, everybody else at the Studios radiated leisure, a pre-requisite for poetry. Most of them wore khadi and worshipped Gandhiji but beyond that they had not the faintest appreciation for political thought of any kind. Naturally, they were all averse to the term ‘Communism’. A Communist was a godless man — he had no filial or conjugal love; he had no compunction about killing his own parents or his children; he was always out to cause and spread unrest and violence among innocent and ignorant people. Such notions which prevailed everywhere else in South India at that time also, naturally, floated about vaguely among the khadi-clad poets of Gemini Studios. Evidence of it was soon forthcoming. When Frank Buchman’s Moral Re-Armament army, some two hundred strong, visited Madras sometime in 1952, they could not have found a warmer host in India than the Gemini Studios. Someone called the group an international circus. They weren’t very good on the trapeze and their acquaintance with animals was only at the dinner table, but they presented two plays in a most professional manner. Their ‘Jotham Valley’ and ‘The Forgotten Factor’ ran several shows in Madras and along with the other citizens of the city, the Gemini family of six hundred saw the plays over and over again. The message of the plays were usually plain and simple homilies, but the sets and costumes were first-rate. Madras and the Tamil drama community were terribly impressed and for some years almost all Tamil plays had a scene of sunrise and sunset in the manner of ‘Jotham Valley’ with a bare stage, a white background curtain and a tune played on the flute. It was some years later that I learnt that the MRA was a kind of countermovement to international Communism and the big bosses of Madras like Mr. Vasan simply played into their hands. I am not sure however, that this was indeed the case, for the unchangeable aspects of these big bosses and their enterprises remained the same, MRA or no MRA, international Communism or no international Communism. The staff of Gemini Studios had a nice time hosting two hundred people of all hues and sizes of at least twenty nationalities. It was such a change from the usual collection of crowd players waiting to be slapped with thick layers of make-up by the office-boy in the make-up department. A few months later, the telephone lines of the big bosses of Madras buzzed and once again we at Gemini Studios cleared a whole shooting stage to welcome another visitor. All they said was that he was a poet from England. The only poets from England the simple Gemini staff knew or heard of were Wordsworth and Tennyson; the more literate ones knew of Keats, Shelley and Byron; and one or two might have faintly come to know of someone by the name Eliot. Who was the poet visiting the Gemini Studios now? “He is not a poet. He is an editor. That’s why The Boss is giving him a big reception.” Vasan was also the editor of the popular Tamil weekly Ananda Vikatan. He wasn’t the editor of any of the known names of British publications in Madras, that is, those known at the Gemini Studios. Since the top men of The Hindu were taking the initiative, the surmise was that the poet was the editor of a daily — but not from The Manchester Guardian or the London Times. That was all that even the most wellinformed among us knew. At last, around four in the afternoon, the poet (or the editor) arrived. He was a tall man, very English, very serious and of course very unknown to all of us. Battling with half a dozen pedestal fans on the shooting stage, The Boss read out a long speech. It was obvious that he too knew precious little about the poet (or the editor). The speech was all in the most general terms but here and there it was peppered with words like ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’. Then the poet spoke. He couldn’t have addressed a more dazed and silent audience — no one knew what he was talking about and his accent defeated any attempt to understand what he was saying. The whole thing lasted about an hour; then the poet left and we all dispersed in utter bafflement — what are we doing? What is an English poet doing in a film studio which makes Tamil films for the simplest sort of people? People whose lives least afforded them the possibility of cultivating a taste for English poetry? The poet looked pretty baffled too, for he too must have felt the sheer incongruity of his talk about the thrills and travails of an English poet. His visit remained an unexplained mystery. The great prose-writers of the world may not admit it, but my conviction grows stronger day after day that prosewriting is not and cannot be the true pursuit of a genius. It is for the patient, persistent, persevering drudge with a heart so shrunken that nothing can break it; rejection slips don’t mean a thing to him; he at once sets about making a fresh copy of the long prose piece and sends it on to another editor enclosing postage for the return of the manuscript. It was for such people that The Hindu had published a tiny announcement in an insignificant corner of an unimportant page — a short story contest organised by a British periodical by the name The Encounter. Of course, The Encounter wasn’t a known commodity among the Gemini literati. I wanted to get an idea of the periodical before I spent a considerable sum in postage sending a manuscript to England. In those days, the British Council Library had an entrance with no long winded signboards and notices to make you feel you were sneaking into a forbidden area. And there were copies of The Encounter lying about in various degrees of freshness, almost untouched by readers. When I read the editor’s name, I heard a bell ringing in my shrunken heart. It was the poet who had visited the Gemini Studios — I felt like I had found a long lost brother and I sang as I sealed the envelope and wrote out his address. I felt that he too would be singing the same song at the same time — long lost brothers of Indian films discover each other by singing the same song in the first reel and in the final reel of the film. Stephen Spender5. Stephen — that was his name. And years later, when I was out of Gemini Studios and I had much time but not much money, anything at a reduced price attracted my attention. On the footpath in front of the Madras Mount Road Post Office, there was a pile of brand new books for fifty paise each. Actually they were copies of the same book, an elegant paperback of American origin. ‘Special low-priced student edition, in connection with the 50th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution’, I paid fifty paise and picked up a copy of the book, The God That Failed. Six eminent men of letters in six separate essays described ‘their journeys into Communism and their disillusioned return’; Andre Gide6, Richard Wright7, Ignazio Silone8, Arthur Koestler9, Louis Fischer10 and Stephen Spender. Stephen Spender! Suddenly the book assumed tremendous significance. Stephen Spender, the poet who had visited Gemini Studios! In a moment I felt a dark chamber of my mind lit up by a hazy illumination. The reaction to Stephen Spender at Gemini Studios was no longer a mystery. The Boss of the Gemini Studios may not have much to do with Spender’s poetry. But not with his god that failed.

Why did Margie’s mother send for the County Inspector?

<answer> Margie's mother sent for the Country Inspector because the mechanical teacher was not functioning efficiently. It had been giving her test after test in geography and she had been doing worse and worse. <context> MARGIE even wrote about it that night in her diary. On the page headed 17 May 2157, she wrote, “Today Tommy found a real book!” It was a very old book. Margie’s grandfather once said that when he was a little boy his grandfather told him that there was a time when all stories were printed on paper. They turned the pages, which were yellow and crinkly, and it was awfully funny to read words that stood still instead of moving the way they were supposed to — on a screen, you know. And then when they turned back to the page before, it had the same words on it that it had had when they read it the first time. 2. “Gee,” said Tommy, “what a waste. When you’re through with the book, you just throw it away, I guess. Our television screen must have had a million books on it and it’s good for plenty more. I wouldn’t throw it away.” “Same with mine,” said Margie. She was eleven and hadn’t seen as many telebooks as Tommy had. He was thirteen. She said, “Where did you find it?” “In my house.” He pointed without looking, because he was busy reading. “In the attic.” “What’s it about?” “School.” 3. Margie was scornful. “School? What’s there to write about school? I hate school.” Margie always hated school, but now she hated it more than ever. The mechanical teacher had been giving her test after test in geography and she had been doing worse and worse until her mother had shaken her head sorrowfully and sent for the County Inspector. 4. He was a round little man with a red face and a whole box of tools with dials and wires. He smiled at Margie and gave her an apple, then took the teacher apart. Margie had hoped he wouldn’t know how to put it together again, but he knew how all right, and, after an hour or so, there it was again, large and black and ugly, with a big screen on which all the lessons were shown and the questions were asked. That wasn’t so bad. The part Margie hated most was the slot where she had to put homework and test papers. She always had to write them out in a punch code they made her learn when she was six years old, and the mechanical teacher calculated the marks in no time. 5. The Inspector had smiled after he was finished and patted Margie’s head. He said to her mother, “It’s not the little girl’s fault, Mrs Jones. I think the geography sector was geared a little too quick. Those things happen sometimes. I’ve slowed it up to an average ten-year level. Actually, the overall pattern of her progress is quite satisfactory.” And he patted Margie’s head again. Margie was disappointed. She had been hoping they would take the teacher away altogether. They had once taken Tommy’s teacher away for nearly a month because the history sector had blanked out completely. So she said to Tommy, “Why would anyone write about school?” 6. Tommy looked at her with very superior eyes. “Because it’s not our kind of school, stupid. This is the old kind of school that they had hundreds and hundreds of years ago.” He added loftily, pronouncing the word carefully, “Centuries ago.” Margie was hurt. “Well, I don’t know what kind of school they had all that time ago.” She read the book over his shoulder for a while, then said, “Anyway, they had a teacher.” “Sure they had a teacher, but it wasn’t a regular teacher. It was a man.” “A man? How could a man be a teacher?” “Well, he just told the boys and girls things and gave them homework and asked them questions.” 7. “A man isn’t smart enough.” “Sure he is. My father knows as much as my teacher.” “He knows almost as much, I betcha.” Margie wasn’t prepared to dispute that. She said, “I wouldn’t want a strange man in my house to teach me.” Tommy screamed with laughter. “You don’t know much, Margie. The teachers didn’t live in the house. They had a special building and all the kids went there.” “And all the kids learned the same thing?” “Sure, if they were the same age.” 8. “But my mother says a teacher has to be adjusted to fit the mind of each boy and girl it teaches and that each kid has to be taught differently.” “Just the same they didn’t do it that way then. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to read the book.” “I didn’t say I didn’t like it,” Margie said quickly. She wanted to read about those funny schools. They weren’t even half finished when Margie’s mother called, “Margie! School!” Margie looked up. “Not yet, Mamma.” “Now!” said Mrs Jones. “And it’s probably time for Tommy, too.” Margie said to Tommy, “Can I read the book some more with you after school?” 9. “May be,” he said nonchalantly. He walked away whistling, the dusty old book tucked beneath his arm. Margie went into the schoolroom. It was right next to her bedroom, and the mechanical teacher was on and waiting for her. It was always on at the same time every day except Saturday and Sunday, betcha (informal): because her mother said little girls learned better if they learned at regular hours. The screen was lit up, and it said: “Today’s arithmetic lesson is on the addition of proper fractions. Please insert yesterday’s homework in the proper slot.” 10. Margie did so with a sigh. She was thinking about the old schools they had when her grandfather’s grandfather was a little boy. All the kids from the whole neighborhood came, laughing and shouting in the schoolyard, sitting together in the schoolroom, going home together at the end of the day. They learned the same things, so they could help one another with the homework and talk about it. And the teachers were people… The mechanical teacher was flashing on the screen: “When we add fractions ½ and ¼...” Margie was thinking about how the kids must have loved it in the old days. She was thinking about the fun they had.

Why does Jack insist that it was the wizard that was hit and not the mother?

<answer> Jack has the typical parental attitude. He is of the opinion that the parents know what is best for their children. He asserts the parental authority time and again to quieten Jo and stifle her objections and amendments to the story of the foul smelling Skunk related by him. He defends the attitude of Roger Skunk’s mother. She does not approve of the unnatural, unskunk like smell that Roger has. She calls the sweet smell of the roses an awful smell. Earlier the little skunk smelled the way a little skunk should. She wants the natural characteristic—the foul smell—restored. He says that she knew what was right. Secondly, the little skunk loved his mommy more than he loved all the other animals. That is why, he took his mommy to the wizard. She hit the wizard and forced him to change the smell of roses to his earlier bad odour, He insisted on this ending to emphasize the concern of the parents for children and their role in bringing them up on proper lines. . <context> In the evenings and for Saturday naps like today’s, Jack told his daughter Jo a story out of his head. This custom, begun when she was two, was itself now nearly two years old, and his head felt empty. Each new story was a slight variation of a basic tale: a small creature, usually named Roger (Roger Fish, Roger Squirrel, Roger Chipmunk), had some problem and went with it to the wise old owl. The owl told him to go to the wizard, and the wizard performed a magic spell that solved the problem, demanding in payment a number of pennies greater than the number that Roger Creature had, but in the same breath directing the animal to a place where the extra pennies could be found. Then Roger was so happy he played many games with other creatures, and went home to his mother just in time to hear the train whistle that brought his daddy home from Boston. Jack described their supper, and the story was over. Working his way through this scheme was especially fatiguing on Saturday, because Jo never fell asleep in naps any more, and knowing this made the rite seem futile. The little girl (not so little any more; the bumps her feet made under the covers were halfway down the bed, their big double bed that they let her be in for naps and when she was sick) had at last arranged herself, and from the way her fat face deep in the pillow shone in the sunlight sifting through the drawn shades, it did not seem fantastic that some magic would occur, and she would take her nap like an infant of two. Her brother, Bobby, was two, and already asleep with his bottle. Jack asked, “Who shall the story be about today?” “Roger...” Jo squeezed her eyes shut and smiled to be thinking she was thinking. Her eyes opened, her mother’s blue. “Skunk,” she said firmly. A new animal; they must talk about skunks at nursery school. Having a fresh hero momentarily stirred Jack to creative enthusiasm. “All right,” he said. “Once upon a time, in the deep dark woods, there was a tiny little creature by the name of Roger Skunk. And he smelled very bad.” “Yes,” Jo said. “He smelled so bad that none of the other little woodland creatures would play with him.” Jo looked at him solemnly; she hadn’t foreseen this. “Whenever he would go out to play,” Jack continued with zest, remembering certain humiliations of his own childhood, “all of the other tiny animals would cry, “Uh-oh, here comes Roger Stinky Skunk,” and they would run away, and Roger Skunk would stand there all alone, and two little round tears would fall from his eyes.” The corners of Jo’s mouth drooped down and her lower lip bent forward as he traced with a forefinger along the side of her nose the course of one of Roger Skunk’s tears. “Won’t he see the owl?” she asked in a high and faintly roughened voice. Sitting on the bed beside her, Jack felt the covers tug as her legs switched tensely. He was pleased with this moment — he was telling her something true, something she must know — and had no wish to hurry on. But downstairs a chair scraped, and he realised he must get down to help Clare paint the living-room woodwork. “Well, he walked along very sadly and came to a very big tree, and in the tiptop of the tree was an enormous wise old owl.” “Good.” “Mr Owl,” Roger Skunk said, “all the other little animals run away from me because I smell so bad.” “So you do,” the owl said. “Very, very bad.” “What can I do?” Roger Skunk said, and he cried very hard. “The wizard, the wizard,” Jo shouted, and sat right up, and a Little Golden Book spilled from the bed. “Now, Jo. Daddy’s telling the story. Do you want to tell Daddy the story?” “No. You me.” “Then lie down and be sleepy.” Her head relapsed onto the pillow and she said, “Out of your head.” “Well. The owl thought and thought. At last he said, “Why don’t you go see the wizard?” “Daddy?” “What?” “Are magic spells real?” This was a new phase, just this last month, a reality phase. When he told her spiders eat bugs, she turned to her mother and asked, “Do they really?” and when Clare told her God was in the sky and all around them, she turned to her father and insisted, with a sly yet eager smile, “Is He really?” “They’re real in stories,” Jack answered curtly. She had made him miss a beat in the narrative. “The owl said, “Go through the dark woods, under the apple trees, into the swamp, over the crick —” “What’s a crick?” A little river. “Over the crick, and there will be the wizard’s house.” And that’s the way Roger Skunk went, and pretty soon he came to a little white house, and he rapped on the door.” Jack rapped on the window sill, and under the covers Jo’s tall figure clenched in an infantile thrill. “And then a tiny little old man came out, with a long white beard and a pointed blue hat, and said, “Eh? Whatzis? Whatcher want? You smell awful.” The wizard’s voice was one of Jack’s own favourite effects; he did it by scrunching up his face and somehow whining through his eyes, which felt for the interval rheumy. He felt being an old man suited him. “I know it,” Roger Skunk said, “and all the little animals run away from me. The enormous wise owl said you could help me.” “Eh? Well, maybe. Come on in. Don’t get too close.” Now, inside, Jo, there were all these magic things, all jumbled together in a big dusty heap, because the wizard did not have any cleaning lady.” “Why?” “Why? Because he was a wizard, and a very old man.” “Will he die?” “No. Wizards don’t die. Well, he rummaged around and found an old stick called a magic wand and asked Roger Skunk what he wanted to smell like. Roger thought and thought and said, “Roses.” “Yes. Good,” Jo said smugly. Jack fixed her with a trance like gaze and chanted in the wizard’s elderly irritable voice: He paused as a rapt expression widened out from his daughter’s nostrils, forcing her eyebrows up and her lower lip down in a wide noiseless grin, an expression in which Jack was startled to recognise his wife feigning pleasure at cocktail parties. “And all of a sudden,” he whispered, “the whole inside of the wizard’s house was full of the smell of — roses! ‘Roses!’ Roger Fish cried. And the wizard said, very cranky, “That’ll be seven pennies.” “Daddy.” “What?” “Roger Skunk. You said Roger Fish.” “Yes. Skunk.” “You said Roger Fish. Wasn’t that silly?” “Very silly of your stupid old daddy. Where was I? Well, you know about the pennies.” “Say it.” “O.K. Roger Skunk said, ‘But all I have is four pennies,’ and he began to cry.” Jo made the crying face again, but this time without a trace of sincerity. This annoyed Jack. Downstairs some more furniture rumbled. Clare shouldn’t move heavy things; she was six months pregnant. It would be their third. “So the wizard said, ‘Oh, very well. Go to the end of the lane and turn around three times and look down the magic well and there you will find three pennies. Hurry up.’ So Roger Skunk went to the end of the lane and turned around three times and there in the magic well were three pennies! So he took them back to the wizard and was very happy and ran out into the woods and all the other little animals gathered around him because he smelled so good. And they played tag, baseball, football, basketball, lacrosse, hockey, soccer, and pick-up-sticks.” “What’s pick-up-sticks?” “It’s a game you play with sticks.” “Like the wizard’s magic wand?” “Kind of. And they played games and laughed all afternoon and then it began to get dark and they all ran home to their mommies.” Jo was starting to fuss with her hands and look out of the window, at the crack of day that showed under the shade. She thought the story was all over. Jack didn’t like women when they took anything for granted; he liked them apprehensive, hanging on his words. “Now, Jo, are you listening?” “Yes.” “Because this is very interesting. Roger Skunk’s mommy said, ‘What’s that awful smell?’ “Wha-at?” “And, Roger Skunk said, ‘It’s me, Mommy. I smell like roses.’ And she said, ‘Who made you smell like that?’ And he said, ‘The wizard,’ and she said, ‘Well, of all the nerve. You come with me and we’re going right back to that very awful wizard.” Jo sat up, her hands dabbling in the air with genuine fright. “But Daddy, then he said about the other little animals run away!” Her hands skittered off, into the underbrush. “All right. He said, ‘But Mommy, all the other little animals run away,’ and she said, ‘I don’t care. You smelled the way a little skunk should have and I’m going to take you right back to that wizard,’ and she took an umbrella and went back with Roger Skunk and hit that wizard right over the head.” “No,” Jo said, and put her hand out to touch his lips, yet even in her agitation did not quite dare to stop the source of truth. Inspiration came to her. “Then the wizard hit her on the head and did not change that little skunk back.” “No,” he said. “The wizard said ‘O.K.’ and Roger Skunk did not smell of roses any more. He smelled very bad again.” “But the other little amum — oh! — amum — ” “Joanne. It’s Daddy’s story. Shall Daddy not tell you any more stories?” Her broad face looked at him through sifted light, astounded. “This is what happened, then. Roger Skunk and his mommy went home and they heard Woo-oo, woooo-oo and it was the choo-choo train bringing Daddy Skunk home from Boston. And they had lima beans, celery, liver, mashed potatoes, and Pie-Oh-My for dessert. And when Roger Skunk was in bed Mommy Skunk came up and hugged him and said he smelled like her little baby skunk again and she loved him very much. And that’s the end of the story.” “But Daddy.” “What?” “Then did the other little animals run away?” “No, because eventually they got used to the way he was and did not mind it at all.” “What’s evenshiladee?” “In a little while.” “That was a stupid mommy.” “It was not,” he said with rare emphasis, and believed, from her expression, that she realised he was defending his own mother to her, or something as odd. “Now I want you to put your big heavy head in the pillow and have a good long nap.” He adjusted the shade so not even a crack of day showed, and tiptoed to the door, in the pretense that she was already asleep. But when he turned, she was crouching on top of the covers and staring at him. “Hey. Get under the covers and fall faaast asleep. Bobby’s asleep.” She stood up and bounced gingerly on the springs. “Daddy.” “What?” “Tomorrow, I want you to tell me the story that that wizard took that magic wand and hit that mommy” — her plump arms chopped forcefully — “right over the head.” “No. That’s not the story. The point is that the little skunk loved his mommy more than he loved all the other little animals and she knew what was right.” “No. Tomorrow you say he hit that mommy. Do it.” She kicked her legs up and sat down on the bed with a great heave and complaint of springs, as she had done hundreds of times before, except that this time she did not laugh. “Say it, Daddy.” “Well, we’ll see. Now at least have a rest. Stay on the bed. You’re a good girl.” He closed the door and went downstairs. Clare had spread the newspapers and opened the paint can and, wearing an old shirt of his on top of her maternity smock, was stroking the chair rail with a dipped brush. Above him footsteps vibrated and he called, “Joanne! Shall I come up there and spank you?” The footsteps hesitated. “That was a long story,” Clare said. “The poor kid,” he answered, and with utter weariness watched his wife labour. The woodwork, a cage of moldings and rails and baseboards all around them, was half old tan and half new ivory and he felt caught in an ugly middle position, and though he as well felt his wife’s presence in the cage with him, he did not want to speak with her, work with her, touch her, anything.

Who is Jo? How does she respond to her father’s story-telling?

<answer> Jo is the shortened form of Joanne. She is the four year old daughter of Jack and Clare. For the last two years, her father, Jack, has been telling her bed-time stories. Since these stories are woven around the same basic tale and have the same characters and turn of events, Jo takes so many things for granted and takes active interest in the story-telling session. The protagonist (main character) is always named Roger. It may be Roger Fish, Roger Squirrel, Roger Chipmunk or Roger Skunk. The other characters are the huge, wise, old owl and the thin small wizard. The creatures of the forest—small animals—also take part in playing with Roger and liking/disliking him. <context> In the evenings and for Saturday naps like today’s, Jack told his daughter Jo a story out of his head. This custom, begun when she was two, was itself now nearly two years old, and his head felt empty. Each new story was a slight variation of a basic tale: a small creature, usually named Roger (Roger Fish, Roger Squirrel, Roger Chipmunk), had some problem and went with it to the wise old owl. The owl told him to go to the wizard, and the wizard performed a magic spell that solved the problem, demanding in payment a number of pennies greater than the number that Roger Creature had, but in the same breath directing the animal to a place where the extra pennies could be found. Then Roger was so happy he played many games with other creatures, and went home to his mother just in time to hear the train whistle that brought his daddy home from Boston. Jack described their supper, and the story was over. Working his way through this scheme was especially fatiguing on Saturday, because Jo never fell asleep in naps any more, and knowing this made the rite seem futile. The little girl (not so little any more; the bumps her feet made under the covers were halfway down the bed, their big double bed that they let her be in for naps and when she was sick) had at last arranged herself, and from the way her fat face deep in the pillow shone in the sunlight sifting through the drawn shades, it did not seem fantastic that some magic would occur, and she would take her nap like an infant of two. Her brother, Bobby, was two, and already asleep with his bottle. Jack asked, “Who shall the story be about today?” “Roger...” Jo squeezed her eyes shut and smiled to be thinking she was thinking. Her eyes opened, her mother’s blue. “Skunk,” she said firmly. A new animal; they must talk about skunks at nursery school. Having a fresh hero momentarily stirred Jack to creative enthusiasm. “All right,” he said. “Once upon a time, in the deep dark woods, there was a tiny little creature by the name of Roger Skunk. And he smelled very bad.” “Yes,” Jo said. “He smelled so bad that none of the other little woodland creatures would play with him.” Jo looked at him solemnly; she hadn’t foreseen this. “Whenever he would go out to play,” Jack continued with zest, remembering certain humiliations of his own childhood, “all of the other tiny animals would cry, “Uh-oh, here comes Roger Stinky Skunk,” and they would run away, and Roger Skunk would stand there all alone, and two little round tears would fall from his eyes.” The corners of Jo’s mouth drooped down and her lower lip bent forward as he traced with a forefinger along the side of her nose the course of one of Roger Skunk’s tears. “Won’t he see the owl?” she asked in a high and faintly roughened voice. Sitting on the bed beside her, Jack felt the covers tug as her legs switched tensely. He was pleased with this moment — he was telling her something true, something she must know — and had no wish to hurry on. But downstairs a chair scraped, and he realised he must get down to help Clare paint the living-room woodwork. “Well, he walked along very sadly and came to a very big tree, and in the tiptop of the tree was an enormous wise old owl.” “Good.” “Mr Owl,” Roger Skunk said, “all the other little animals run away from me because I smell so bad.” “So you do,” the owl said. “Very, very bad.” “What can I do?” Roger Skunk said, and he cried very hard. “The wizard, the wizard,” Jo shouted, and sat right up, and a Little Golden Book spilled from the bed. “Now, Jo. Daddy’s telling the story. Do you want to tell Daddy the story?” “No. You me.” “Then lie down and be sleepy.” Her head relapsed onto the pillow and she said, “Out of your head.” “Well. The owl thought and thought. At last he said, “Why don’t you go see the wizard?” “Daddy?” “What?” “Are magic spells real?” This was a new phase, just this last month, a reality phase. When he told her spiders eat bugs, she turned to her mother and asked, “Do they really?” and when Clare told her God was in the sky and all around them, she turned to her father and insisted, with a sly yet eager smile, “Is He really?” “They’re real in stories,” Jack answered curtly. She had made him miss a beat in the narrative. “The owl said, “Go through the dark woods, under the apple trees, into the swamp, over the crick —” “What’s a crick?” A little river. “Over the crick, and there will be the wizard’s house.” And that’s the way Roger Skunk went, and pretty soon he came to a little white house, and he rapped on the door.” Jack rapped on the window sill, and under the covers Jo’s tall figure clenched in an infantile thrill. “And then a tiny little old man came out, with a long white beard and a pointed blue hat, and said, “Eh? Whatzis? Whatcher want? You smell awful.” The wizard’s voice was one of Jack’s own favourite effects; he did it by scrunching up his face and somehow whining through his eyes, which felt for the interval rheumy. He felt being an old man suited him. “I know it,” Roger Skunk said, “and all the little animals run away from me. The enormous wise owl said you could help me.” “Eh? Well, maybe. Come on in. Don’t get too close.” Now, inside, Jo, there were all these magic things, all jumbled together in a big dusty heap, because the wizard did not have any cleaning lady.” “Why?” “Why? Because he was a wizard, and a very old man.” “Will he die?” “No. Wizards don’t die. Well, he rummaged around and found an old stick called a magic wand and asked Roger Skunk what he wanted to smell like. Roger thought and thought and said, “Roses.” “Yes. Good,” Jo said smugly. Jack fixed her with a trance like gaze and chanted in the wizard’s elderly irritable voice: He paused as a rapt expression widened out from his daughter’s nostrils, forcing her eyebrows up and her lower lip down in a wide noiseless grin, an expression in which Jack was startled to recognise his wife feigning pleasure at cocktail parties. “And all of a sudden,” he whispered, “the whole inside of the wizard’s house was full of the smell of — roses! ‘Roses!’ Roger Fish cried. And the wizard said, very cranky, “That’ll be seven pennies.” “Daddy.” “What?” “Roger Skunk. You said Roger Fish.” “Yes. Skunk.” “You said Roger Fish. Wasn’t that silly?” “Very silly of your stupid old daddy. Where was I? Well, you know about the pennies.” “Say it.” “O.K. Roger Skunk said, ‘But all I have is four pennies,’ and he began to cry.” Jo made the crying face again, but this time without a trace of sincerity. This annoyed Jack. Downstairs some more furniture rumbled. Clare shouldn’t move heavy things; she was six months pregnant. It would be their third. “So the wizard said, ‘Oh, very well. Go to the end of the lane and turn around three times and look down the magic well and there you will find three pennies. Hurry up.’ So Roger Skunk went to the end of the lane and turned around three times and there in the magic well were three pennies! So he took them back to the wizard and was very happy and ran out into the woods and all the other little animals gathered around him because he smelled so good. And they played tag, baseball, football, basketball, lacrosse, hockey, soccer, and pick-up-sticks.” “What’s pick-up-sticks?” “It’s a game you play with sticks.” “Like the wizard’s magic wand?” “Kind of. And they played games and laughed all afternoon and then it began to get dark and they all ran home to their mommies.” Jo was starting to fuss with her hands and look out of the window, at the crack of day that showed under the shade. She thought the story was all over. Jack didn’t like women when they took anything for granted; he liked them apprehensive, hanging on his words. “Now, Jo, are you listening?” “Yes.” “Because this is very interesting. Roger Skunk’s mommy said, ‘What’s that awful smell?’ “Wha-at?” “And, Roger Skunk said, ‘It’s me, Mommy. I smell like roses.’ And she said, ‘Who made you smell like that?’ And he said, ‘The wizard,’ and she said, ‘Well, of all the nerve. You come with me and we’re going right back to that very awful wizard.” Jo sat up, her hands dabbling in the air with genuine fright. “But Daddy, then he said about the other little animals run away!” Her hands skittered off, into the underbrush. “All right. He said, ‘But Mommy, all the other little animals run away,’ and she said, ‘I don’t care. You smelled the way a little skunk should have and I’m going to take you right back to that wizard,’ and she took an umbrella and went back with Roger Skunk and hit that wizard right over the head.” “No,” Jo said, and put her hand out to touch his lips, yet even in her agitation did not quite dare to stop the source of truth. Inspiration came to her. “Then the wizard hit her on the head and did not change that little skunk back.” “No,” he said. “The wizard said ‘O.K.’ and Roger Skunk did not smell of roses any more. He smelled very bad again.” “But the other little amum — oh! — amum — ” “Joanne. It’s Daddy’s story. Shall Daddy not tell you any more stories?” Her broad face looked at him through sifted light, astounded. “This is what happened, then. Roger Skunk and his mommy went home and they heard Woo-oo, woooo-oo and it was the choo-choo train bringing Daddy Skunk home from Boston. And they had lima beans, celery, liver, mashed potatoes, and Pie-Oh-My for dessert. And when Roger Skunk was in bed Mommy Skunk came up and hugged him and said he smelled like her little baby skunk again and she loved him very much. And that’s the end of the story.” “But Daddy.” “What?” “Then did the other little animals run away?” “No, because eventually they got used to the way he was and did not mind it at all.” “What’s evenshiladee?” “In a little while.” “That was a stupid mommy.” “It was not,” he said with rare emphasis, and believed, from her expression, that she realised he was defending his own mother to her, or something as odd. “Now I want you to put your big heavy head in the pillow and have a good long nap.” He adjusted the shade so not even a crack of day showed, and tiptoed to the door, in the pretense that she was already asleep. But when he turned, she was crouching on top of the covers and staring at him. “Hey. Get under the covers and fall faaast asleep. Bobby’s asleep.” She stood up and bounced gingerly on the springs. “Daddy.” “What?” “Tomorrow, I want you to tell me the story that that wizard took that magic wand and hit that mommy” — her plump arms chopped forcefully — “right over the head.” “No. That’s not the story. The point is that the little skunk loved his mommy more than he loved all the other little animals and she knew what was right.” “No. Tomorrow you say he hit that mommy. Do it.” She kicked her legs up and sat down on the bed with a great heave and complaint of springs, as she had done hundreds of times before, except that this time she did not laugh. “Say it, Daddy.” “Well, we’ll see. Now at least have a rest. Stay on the bed. You’re a good girl.” He closed the door and went downstairs. Clare had spread the newspapers and opened the paint can and, wearing an old shirt of his on top of her maternity smock, was stroking the chair rail with a dipped brush. Above him footsteps vibrated and he called, “Joanne! Shall I come up there and spank you?” The footsteps hesitated. “That was a long story,” Clare said. “The poor kid,” he answered, and with utter weariness watched his wife labour. The woodwork, a cage of moldings and rails and baseboards all around them, was half old tan and half new ivory and he felt caught in an ugly middle position, and though he as well felt his wife’s presence in the cage with him, he did not want to speak with her, work with her, touch her, anything.

Is it the truth? What is the speaker’s reason for saying this “I said it with bullets.”?

<answer> No, he wants that the intruder should change his idea of killing him. <context> When the curtain rises Gerrard is standing by the table making a phone call. He is of medium height, and wearing horn-rimmed glasses . . . He is dressed in a lounge suit and a great coat. His voice is cultured.) GERRARD : ... Well, tell him to phone up directly. I must know... Yes, I expect I’ll still be here, but you mustn’t count on that ... In about ten minutes’ time. Right-ho. Goodbye. (He puts down the phone and goes to the divan on the left, where there is a travelling bag, and starts packing. Whilst he is thus engaged, another man, similar in build to Gerrard enters from the right silently — revolver in hand. He is flashily dressed in an overcoat and a soft hat. He bumps accidentally against the table, and at the sound Gerrard turns quickly.) GERRARD : (pleasantly) Why, this is a surprise, Mr— er— INTRUDER : I’m glad you’re pleased to see me. I don’t think you’ll be pleased for long. Put those paws up! GERRARD : This is all very melodramatic, not very original, perhaps, but… INTRUDER : Trying to be calm and —er— GERRARD : ‘Nonchalant’ is your word, I think. INTRUDER : Thanks a lot. You’ll soon stop being smart. I’ll make you crawl. I want to know a few things, see. GERRARD : Anything you like. I know all the answers. But before we begin I should like to change my position; you may be comfortable, but I am not. INTRUDER : Sit down there, and no funny business. (Motions to a chair, and seats himself on the divan by the bag.) Now then, we’ll have a nice little talk about yourself! GERRARD : At last a sympathetic audience! I’ll tell you the story of my life. How as a child I was stolen by the gypsies, and why at the age of thirty-two, I find myself in my lonely Essex cottage, how... INTRUDER : Keep it to yourself, and just answer my questions. You live here alone? Well, do you? GERRARD : I’m sorry. I thought you were telling me, not asking me. A question of inflection; your voice is unfamiliar. INTRUDER : (with emphasis) Do you live here alone? GERRARD : And if I don’t answer? INTRUDER : You’ve got enough sense not to want to get hurt. GERRARD : I think good sense is shown more in the ability to avoid pain than in the mere desire to do so. What do you think, Mr— er— INTRUDER : Never mind my name. I like yours better, Mr Gerrard. What are your Christian names? GERRARD : Vincent Charles. INTRUDER : Do you run a car? GERRARD : No. INTRUDER : That’s a lie. You’re not dealing with a fool. I’m as smart as you and smarter, and I know you run a car. Better be careful, wise guy! GERRARD : Are you American, or is that merely a clever imitation? INTRUDER : Listen, this gun’s no toy. I can hurt you without killing you, and still get my answers. GERRARD : Of course, if you put it like that, I’ll be glad to assist you. I do possess a car, and it’s in the garage round the corner. INTRUDER : That’s better. Do people often come out here? GERRARD : Very rarely. Surprisingly few people take the trouble to visit me. There’s the baker and the greengrocer, of course; and then there’s the milkman — quite charming, but no one so interesting as yourself. INTRUDER : I happen to know that you never see tradespeople. 2 GERRARD : You seem to have taken a considerable amount of trouble. Since you know so much about me, won’t you say something about yourself? You have been so modest. INTRUDER : I could tell you plenty. You think you’re smart, but I’m the top of the class round here. I’ve got brains and I use them. That’s how I’ve got where I have. GERRARD : And where precisely have you got? It didn’t require a great brain to break into my little cottage. INTRUDER : When you know why I’ve broken into your little cottage, you’ll be surprised, and it won’t be a pleasant surprise. GERRARD : With you figuring so largely in it, that is understandable. By the way, what particular line of crime do you embrace, or aren’t you a specialist? INTRUDER : My speciality’s jewel robbery. Your car will do me a treat. It’s certainly a dandy bus. GERRARD : I’m afraid jewels are few and far between in the wilds of Essex. INTRUDER : So are the cops. I can retire here nicely for a little while. GERRARD : You mean to live with me? A trifle sudden isn’t it; you’ve not been invited. INTRUDER : You won’t be here long; so I didn’t trouble to ask. GERRARD : What do you mean? INTRUDER : This is your big surprise. I’m going to kill you. GERRARD : A little harsh, isn’t it? INTRUDER : (with heavy sarcasm) Yeah, I’ll be sorry to do it. I’ve taken a fancy to you, but it’s just got to be done. GERRARD : Why add murder to your other crimes? It’s a grave step you’re taking. INTRUDER : I’m not taking it for fun. I’ve been hunted long enough. I’m wanted for murder already, and they can’t hang me twice. GERRARD : You’re planning a gratuitous double, so to speak. Admitted you’ve nothing to lose, but what have you to gain? INTRUDER : I’ve got freedom to gain. As for myself, I’m a poor hunted rat. As Vincent Charles Gerrard I’m free to go places and do nothing. I can eat well and sleep and without having to be ready to beat it at the sight of a cop. GERRARD : In most melodramas the villain is foolish enough to delay his killing long enough to be frustrated. You are much luckier. INTRUDER : I’m O.K. I’ve got a reason for everything. I’m going to be Vincent Charles Gerrard, see. I’ve got to know what he talks like. Now I know. That posh stuff comes easy. This is Mr V.C. Gerrard speaking. (Pantomime of phoning, in imitation cultured voice.) And that’s not all. (He stands up.) Get up a minute (Gerrard stands.) Now take a look at me. GERRARD : You’re not particularly decorative. INTRUDER : No! Well, that goes for you, too. I’ve only got to wear specs and I’ll be enough like you to get away with it. GERRARD : What about your clothes? They’ll let you down if you’re not careful. INTRUDER : That’ll be all right. Yours will fit me fine. GERRARD : That is extremely interesting, but you seem to miss the point of my remark. I said, you were luckier than most melodramatic villains. It was not a tribute to your intelligence. You won’t kill me for a very good reason. INTRUDER : So that’s what you think. GERRARD : You’ll let me go, and thank God you didn’t shoot sooner. INTRUDER : Come on. What’s on your mind! Better be quick. This conversation bores me. GERRARD : Your idea is to elude the police by killing me and taking on my identity? INTRUDER : Yes, I like the idea. GERRARD : But are you sure it’s going to help you? INTRUDER : Now listen here. I’ve got this all planned. I did a job in town. Things went wrong and I killed a cop. Since then I’ve done nothing but dodge. GERRARD : And this is where dodging has brought you? INTRUDER : It brought me to Aylesbury. That’s where I saw you in the car. Two other people saw you and started to talk. I listened. It looks like you’re a bit queer — kind of a mystery man. GERRARD : A mystery which I propose to explain. INTRUDER : (disregarding him) You phone your orders and sometimes you go away suddenly and come back just the same. Those are just the things I want to do. Hearing about you was one of my luckiest breaks. GERRARD : Apparently you haven’t the intelligence to ask why I am invested in this cloak of mystery. INTRUDER : (preparing to shoot) As I said before, this conversation bores me. GERRARD : Don’t be a fool. If you shoot, you’ll hang for sure. If not as yourself, then as Vincent Charles Gerrard. INTRUDER : What is this? GERRARD : This is your big surprise. I said you wouldn’t kill me and I was right. Why do you think I am here today and gone tomorrow, never see tradespeople? You say my habits would suit you. You are a crook. Do you think I am a Sunday-school teacher? The game’s up as far as I’m concerned. Things went wrong with me. I said it with bullets and got away. Unfortunately they got one of my men, and found things the fool should have burnt. Tonight I’m expecting trouble. My bag’s packed ready to clear off. There it is. INTRUDER : It’s a bag all right and this is a gun all right. What’s all this? GERRARD : That’s a disguise outfit; false moustaches and what not. Now do you believe me? INTRUDER : (musingly) I don’t know. GERRARD : For God’s sake clear that muddled head of yours and let’s go. Come with me in the car. I can use you. If you find it’s a frame, you’ve got me in the car, and you’ve still got your gun. INTRUDER : May be you’re right. GERRARD : Then don’t waste time. (Goes and picks up hat and bag.) INTRUDER : Careful, boss, I’m watching you. GERRARD : I have got a man posted on the main road. He’ll ring up if he sees the police, but I don’t want to leave ... (telephone bell rings) Come on! They’re after us. Through here straight to the garage. INTRUDER : How do I know that you are telling the truth? GERRARD : Oh, don’t be a fool. Look for yourself. (Gerrard opens door and steps away. Intruder leans forward to inspect it, with his side towards Gerrard, but with the revolver ready. As he turns his head, Gerrard gives him a push into the cupboard, knocking the revolver out of his hand. He slams the door and locks it, picks up the revolver and goes to the phone, where he stands with the gun pointed at the cupboard door.) INTRUDER : (rattles door and shouts) Let me out of here! GERRARD : Hello. Yes, speaking. Sorry I can’t let you have the props in time for rehearsal, I’ve had a spot of bother — quite amusing. I think I’ll put it in my next play. Listen, can you tell our friend the Sergeant to come up here at once? You’ll probably find him in the Public Bar.

What was the reason for young Paul’s restlessness at the beginning of the story? How did it find expression?

<answer> Young Paul is restless at the beginning of the story because he was told by his mother that they were not lucky therefore don't have enough money to have a car and other luxuries of life. Besides young Paul had a feeling that deep down his mother was not as happy as she appeared to be. She blamed Young Paul's father for not being lucky and making her unlucky as well because she was married to him. <context> There was a woman who was beautiful, who started with all the advantages, yet she had no luck. She married for love and love turned to dust. She had bonny children, yet, she felt they had been thrust upon her and she could not love them. They looked at her coldly as if they were finding fault with her. And hurriedly she felt she must cover up some fault in herself. Yet what it was that she must cover up she never knew. Nevertheless, when her children were present, she always felt the centre of her heart go hard. This troubled her and, in her manner, she was all the more gentle and anxious for her children as if she loved them very much. Only she herself knew that at the centre of her heart was a hard little place that could not feel love, no, not for anybody. Everybody else said of her: ‘She is such a good mother. She adores her children.’ Only she herself, and her children themselves, knew it was not so. They read it in each other’s eyes. There were a boy and two little girls. They lived in a pleasant house, with a garden, and they had discreet servants, and felt themselves superior to anyone in the neighbourhood. Although they lived in style, they felt always an anxiety in the house. There was never enough money. The mother had a small income and the father had a small income but not nearly enough for the social position which they had to keep up. The father went into town to some office. But though he had good prospects, these prospects never materialised. There was always the grinding sense of the shortage of money though the style was always kept up. At last the mother said: ‘I will see if I can’t make something.’ But she did not know where to begin. She racked her brains, and tried this thing and the other but could not find anything successful. The failure made deep lines come into her face. Her children were growing up; they would have to go to school. There must be more money, there must be more money. The father, who was always very handsome and expensive in his tastes, seemed as if he never would be able to do anything worth doing. And the mother, who had a great belief in herself, did not succeed any better, and her tastes were just as expensive. And so the house came to be haunted by the unspoken phrase: ‘There must be more money! There must be more money!’ The children could hear it all the time, though nobody said it aloud. They heard it at Christmas, when expensive and splendid toys filled the nursery. Behind the shining modern rocking-horse, behind the smart doll’s house, a voice would start whispering: ‘There must be more money! There must be more money!’ And the children would stop playing, to listen for a moment. They would look into each other’s eyes to see if they had all heard. And each one saw in the eyes of the other two that they too had heard. ‘There must be more money! There must be more money!’ It came whispering from the springs of the still-swaying rocking-horse and even the horse, bending his wooden, champing head, heard it. The big doll, sitting so pink and smirking in her new pram, could hear it quite plainly and seemed to be smirking all the more self-consciously because of it. The foolish puppy, too, that took the place of the teddy-bear, he was looking so extraordinarily foolish for no other reason but that he heard the secret whisper all over the house: ‘There must be more money!’ Yet nobody ever said it aloud. The whisper was everywhere and therefore no one spoke it. Just as no one ever says ‘we are breathing’ in spite of the fact that breath is coming and going all the time. ‘Mother,’ said the boy Paul one day, ‘why don’t we keep a car of our own? Why do we always use uncle’s, or else a taxi?’ ‘Because we’re the poor members of the family,’ said the mother. ‘But why are we, mother?’ ‘Well—I suppose,’ she said slowly and bitterly, ‘it’s because your father has no luck.’ The boy was silent for some time. ‘Is luck money, mother?’ he asked, rather timidly. ‘No, Paul, not quite. It’s what causes you to have money.’ ‘Oh!’, said Paul vaguely. ‘I thought when Uncle Oscar said filthy lucre, it meant money.’ ‘Filthy lucre does mean money,’ said the mother. ‘But it’s lucre, not luck.’ ‘Oh,’ said the boy. ‘Then what is luck, mother?’ ‘It’s what causes you to have money. If you’re lucky you have money. That’s why it’s better to be born lucky than rich. If you’re rich, you may lose your money. But if you’re lucky, you will always get more money.’ ‘Oh! Will you? And is father not lucky?’ ‘Very unlucky, I should say,’ she said bitterly. The boy watched her with unsure eyes. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘I don’t know. Nobody ever knows why one person is lucky and another unlucky.’ ‘Do they? Nobody at all? Does nobody know?’ ‘Perhaps God. But He never tells.’ ‘He ought to, then. And aren’t you lucky either, mother?’ ‘I can’t be, if I married an unlucky husband.’ ‘But by yourself, aren’t you?’ ‘I used to think I was, before I married. Now I think I am very unlucky indeed.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Well—never mind! Perhaps I’m not really,’ she said. The child looked at her to see if she meant it. But he saw, by the lines of her mouth, that she was only trying to hide something from him. ‘Well, anyhow,’ he said stoutly, ‘I’m a lucky person.’ ‘Why?’ said his mother, with a sudden laugh. He stared at her. He didn’t even know why he had said it. ‘God told me,’ he asserted, brazening it out. ‘1 hope He did, dear,’ she said, again with a laugh, but rather bitter. ‘He did, mother!’ ‘Excellent!’ said the mother, using one of her husband’s exclamations. The boy saw she did not believe him; or rather, that she paid no attention to his assertion. This angered him somewhat and made him want to compel her attention. He went off by himself, vaguely, in a childish way, seeking for the clue to ‘luck’. Absorbed, taking no heed of other people, he went about with a sort of stealth, seeking inwardly for luck. He wanted luck. He wanted it, he wanted it. When the two girls were playing dolls in the nursery, he would sit on his big rocking-horse, charging madly into space, with a frenzy that made the little girls peer at him uneasily. Wildly the horse careered. The waving dark hair of the boy tossed, his eyes had a strange glare in them. The little girls dared not speak to him. When he had ridden to the end of his mad little journey, he climbed down and stood in front of his rocking-horse, staring fixedly into its lowered face. Its red mouth was slightly open, its big eye was wide and glassy-bright. ‘Now!’ he would silently command the snorting steed. ‘Now, take me to where there is luck. Now take me!’ And he would slash the horse on the neck with the little whip he had asked Uncle Oscar for. He knew the horse could take him to where there was luck if only he forced it. So he would mount again and start on his furious ride, hoping at last to get there. He knew he could get there. ‘You’ll break your horse, Paul!’ said the nurse. ‘He’s always riding like that, I wish he’d leave off ’, said his sister, Joan. But he only glared down on them in silence. Nurse gave him up. She could make nothing of him. Anyhow, he was growing beyond her. One day his mother and his Uncle Oscar came in when he was on one of his furious rides. He did not speak to them. ‘Hello, you young jockey! Riding a winner?’ said his uncle. ‘Aren’t you growing too big for a rocking-horse? You’re not a very little boy any longer, you know,’ said his mother. But Paul only gave a blue glare from his big, rather close-set eyes. He would speak to nobody when he was in full tilt. His mother watched him with an anxious expression on her face. At last he suddenly stopped forcing his horse into the mechanical gallop and slid down. ‘Well, I got there,’ he announced fiercely, his blue eyes still flaring and his sturdy long legs straddling apart. ‘Where did you get to?’ asked his mother. ‘Where I wanted to go,’ he flared back at her. ‘That’s right, son!’ said Uncle Oscar, ‘Don’t you stop till you get there. What’s the horse’s name?’ ‘He doesn’t have a name,’ said the boy. ‘Gets on without all right?’ asked the uncle. ‘Well, he has different names. He was called Sansovino last week.’ ‘Sansovino, eh? Won the Ascot. How did you know his name?’ ‘He always talks about horse-races with Bassett,’ said Joan. The uncle was delighted to find that his small nephew was posted with all the racing news. Bassett, the young gardener, who had been wounded in the left foot in the war and had got his present job through Oscar Cresswell whose batman he had been, was a perfect blade of the ‘turf’. He lived in the racing events, and the small boy lived with him. Oscar Cresswell got it all from Bassett. ‘Master Paul comes and asks me so I can’t do more than tell him, sir,’ said Bassett, his face terribly serious, as if he were speaking of religious matters. ‘And does he ever put anything on a horse he fancies?’ ‘Well—I don’t want to give him away—he’s a young sport, a fine sport, sir. Would you mind asking himself? He sort of takes a pleasure in it and perhaps he’d feel I was giving him away, sir, if you don’t mind.’ Bassett was serious as a church. The uncle went back to his nephew and took him off for a ride in the car. ‘Say, Paul, old man, do you ever put anything on a horse?’ the uncle asked. The boy watched the handsome man closely. ‘Why, do you think I oughtn’t to?’ he parried. ‘Not a bit of it! I thought perhaps you might give me a tip for the Lincoln.’ The car sped on into the country, going down to Uncle Oscar’s place in Hampshire. ‘Honour bright?’ said the nephew. ‘Honour bright, son!’ said the uncle. ‘Well, then, Daffodil.’ ‘Daffodil! I doubt it, sonny. What about Mirza?’ ‘I only know the winner,’ said the boy. ‘That’s Daffodil.’ ‘Daffodil, eh?’ There was a pause. Daffodil was an obscure horse comparatively. ‘Uncle!’ ‘Yes, son?’ ‘You won’t let it go any further, will you? I promised Bassett.’ ‘Bassett be damned, old man! What’s he got to do with it?’ ‘We’re partners. We’ve been partners from the first. Uncle, he lent me my first five shillings which I lost. I promised him. Honour bright, it was only between me and him; only you gave me that ten-shilling note I started winning with so I thought you were lucky. You won’t let it go any further, will you?’ The boy gazed at his uncle from those big, hot, blue eyes, set rather close together. The uncle stirred and laughed uneasily. ‘Right you are, son! I’ll keep your tip private. Daffodil, eh? How much are you putting on him?’ ‘All except twenty pounds,’ said the boy. ‘I keep that in reserve.’ The uncle thought it a good joke. ‘You keep twenty pounds in reserve, do you, you young romancer? What are you betting, then?’ I’m betting three hundred,’ said the boy gravely. ‘But it’s between you and me Uncle Oscar! Honour bright?’ The uncle burst into a roar of laughter. ‘It’s between you and me all right, you young Nat Gould,’ he said, laughing. ‘But where’s your three hundred?’ ‘Bassett keeps it for me. We’re partners.’ ‘You are, are you? And what is Bassett putting on Daffodil?’ ‘He won’t go quite as high as I do, I expect. Perhaps he’ll go a hundred and fifty.’ ‘What pennies?’ laughed the uncle. ‘Pounds,’ said the child, with a surprised look at his uncle. ‘Bassett keeps a bigger reserve than I do.’ Between wonder and amusement, Uncle Oscar was silent. He pursued that matter no further but he determined to take his nephew with him to the Lincoln races. ‘Now, son,’ he said, ‘I’m putting twenty on Mirza and I’ll put five on for you on any horse you fancy. What’s your pick?’ ‘Daffodil, uncle.’ ‘No, not the fiver on Daffodil.’ ‘I should if it was my own fiver,’ said the child. ‘Good! Good! Right you are! A fiver for me and a fiver for you on Daffodil.’ The child had never been to a race-meeting before, and his eyes were blue fire. He pursed his mouth tight and watched. A Frenchman, just in front, had put his money on Lancelot. Wild with excitement, he flayed his arms up and down, yelling ‘Lancelot! Lancelot!’ in his French accent. Daffodil came in first, Lancelot second, Mirza third. The child, flushed and with eyes blazing, was curiously serene. His uncle brought him four five-pound notes, four to one. ‘What am I to do with these?’ he cried, waving them before the boy’s eyes. “I suppose we’ll talk to Bassett,’ said the boy. ‘I expect I have fifteen hundred now and twenty in reserve; and this twenty.’ His uncle studied him for some moments. ‘Look here, son!’ he said, ‘You’re not serious about Bassett and that fIfteen hundred, are you?’ ‘Yes, I am. But it’s between you and me, uncle. Honour bright?’ ‘Honour bright all right, son! But I must talk to Bassett.’ ‘If you’d like to be a partner, uncle, with Bassett and me, we could all be partners. Only, you’d have to promise, Honour bright, uncle, not to let it go beyond us three. Bassett and I are lucky, and you must be lucky, because it was your ten shillings I started winning with...’ Uncle Oscar took both Bassett and Paul into Richmond Park for an afternoon, and there they talked. ‘It’s like this, you see, sir,’ Bassett said. ‘Master Paul would get me talking about racing events, spinning yarns, you know, sir. And he was always keen on knowing if I’d made or if I’d lost. It’s about a year since now that I put five shillings on Blush of Dawn for him; and we lost. Then the luck turned, with that ten shillings he had from you: that we put on Singhalese. And since that time, it’s been pretty steady, all things considering. ‘What do you say, Master Paul?’ ‘We’re all right when we’re sure,’ said Paul. ‘It’s when we’re not quite sure that we go down.’ ‘Oh, but we’re careful then,’ said Bassett. ‘But when are you sure?’ smiled Uncle Oscar. ‘It’s Master Paul, sir,’ said Bassett in a secret, religious voice. ‘It’s as if he had it from heaven. Like Daffodil, now, for the Lincoln. That was as sure as eggs.’ ‘Did you put anything on Daffodil?’ asked Oscar Cresswell. ‘Yes, sir. I made my bit.’ ‘And my nephew?’ Bassett was obstinately silent, looking at Paul. ‘I made twelve hundred, didn’t I, Bassett? I told uncle I was putting three hundred on Daffodil.’ ‘That’s right,’ said Bassett, nodding. ‘But where’s the money?’ asked the uncle. ‘I keep it safe locked up, sir. Master Paul, he can have it any minute he likes to ask for it.’ ‘What, fifteen hundred pounds?’ ‘And twenty. And forty, that is, with the twenty he made on the course.’ ‘It’s amazing,’ said the uncle. ‘If Master Paul offers you to be partners, sir, I would, if I were you: if you’ll excuse me,’ said Bassett. Oscar Cresswell thought about it. ‘I’ll see the money,’ he said. They drove home again and, sure enough, Bassett came round to the garden-house with fifteen hundred pounds in notes. The twenty pounds reserve was left with Joe Gleen, in the Turf Commission deposit. ‘You see, it’s all right, uncle, when I’m sure. Then we go strong, for all we’re worth. Don’t we, Bassett?’ ‘We do that, Master Paul.’ ‘And when are you sure?’ said the uncle, laughing. ‘Oh, well, sometimes I’m absolutely sure, like about Daffodil,’ said the boy; ‘and sometimes I have an idea; and sometimes I haven’t even an idea, have I, Bassett? Then we’re careful, because we mostly go down.’ ‘You do, do you? And when you’re sure, like about Daffodil, what makes you sure, sonny?’ ‘Oh, well, I don’t know,’ said the boy uneasily. ‘I’m sure, you know, uncle; that’s all.’ ‘It’s as if he had it from heaven, sir,’ Bassett reiterated. ‘I should say so!’ said the uncle. But he became a partner. And when the Leger was coming on, Paul was ‘sure’ about Lively Spark which was a quite inconsiderable horse. The boy insisted on putting a thousand on the horse, Bassett went for five hundred and Oscar Cresswell two hundred. Lively Spark came in first and the betting had been ten to one against him. Paul had made ten thousand. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘I was absolutely sure of him.’ Even Oscar Cresswell had cleared two thousand. ‘Look here, son,’ he said, ‘this sort of thing makes me nervous.’ ‘It needn’t, uncle! Perhaps I shan’t be sure again for a long time.’ ‘But what are you going to do with your money?’ asked the uncle. ‘Of course,’ said the boy, ‘I started it for mother. She said she had no luck because father is unlucky, so I thought if I was lucky, it might stop whispering.’ ‘What might stop whispering?’ ‘Our house. I hate our house for whispering.’ ‘What does it whisper?’ ‘Why—why—’ the boy fidgeted—‘why, I don’t know. But it’s always short of money, you know, uncle.’ ‘I know it, son, I know it.’ ‘You know people send mother writs, don’t you, uncle?’ ‘I’m afraid I do,’ said the uncle. ‘And then the house whispers, like people laughing at you behind your back. It’s awful, that is why I thought if I was lucky—’ ‘You might stop it,’ added the uncle. The boy watched him with big blue eyes that had an uncanny cold fire in them, and he said never a word. ‘Well, then,’ said the uncle. ‘What are we doing?’ ‘I shouldn’t like mother to know I was lucky,’ said the boy. ‘Why not, son?’ ‘She’d stop me.’ ‘I don’t think she would.’ ‘Oh!’—and the boy writhed in an odd way—‘I don’t want her to know, uncle.’ ‘All right, son! We’ll manage it without her knowing.’ They managed it very easily. Paul, at the other’s suggestion, handed over five thousand pounds to his uncle, who deposited it with the family lawyer, who was then to inform Paul’s mother that a relative had put five thousand pounds into his hands, which sum was to be paid out a thousand pounds at a time, on the mother’s birthday, for the next five years. ‘So she’ll have a birthday present of a thousand pounds for five successive years,’ said Uncle Oscar. ‘I hope it won’t make it all the harder for her later.’ ‘Paul’s mother had her birthday in November. The house had been ‘whispering’ worse than ever lately and, even in spite of his luck, Paul could not bear up against it. He was very anxious to see the effect of the birthday letter telling his mother about the thousand pounds. When there were no visitors, Paul now took his meals with his parents as he was beyond the nursery control. His mother went into town nearly every day. She had discovered that she had an odd knack of sketching furs and dress materials, so she worked secretly in the studio of a friend who was the chief ‘artist’ for the leading drapers. She drew the figures of ladies in furs and ladies in silk and sequins for the newspaper advertisements. This young woman artist earned several thousand pounds a year; but Paul’s mother only made several hundreds and she was again dissatisfied. She so wanted to be first in something, and she did not succeed, even in making sketches for drapery advertisements. She was down to breakfast on the morning of her birthday. Paul watched her face as she read her letters. He knew the lawyer’s letter. As his mother read it, her face hardened and became more expressionless. Then, a cold determined look came on her mouth. She hid the letter under the pile of others and said not a word about it. ‘Didn’t you have anything nice in the post for your birthday, mother?’ said Paul. ‘Quite moderately nice,’ she said, her voice cold and absent. She went away to town without saying more. But in the afternoon Uncle Oscar appeared. He said Paul’s mother had had a long interview with the lawyer, asking if the whole five thousand could not be advanced at once, as she was in debt. ‘What do you think, uncle?’ said the boy. ‘I leave it to you, son.’ ‘Oh, let her have it, then! We can get some more with the other,’ said the boy. ‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, laddie!’ said Uncle Oscar. ‘But I’m sure to know for the Grand National; or the Lincolnshire; or else the Derby. I’m sure to know for one of them,’ said Paul. So Uncle Oscar signed the agreement and Paul’s mother touched the whole five thousand. Then something very curious happened. The voices in the house suddenly went mad, like a chorus of frogs on a spring evening. There were certain new furnishings, and Paul had a tutor. He was really going to Eton, his father’s school, in the following autumn. There were flowers in the winter and a blossoming of the luxury Paul’s mother had been used to. And yet the voices in the house, behind the sprays of mimosa and almond-blossoms, and from under the piles of iridescent cushions, simply trilled and screamed in a sort of ecstasy: ‘There must be more money! Oh-h-h! There must be more money! Oh, now, now-w! Now-w-w there must be more money—more than ever! More than ever!’ It frightened Paul terribly. He studied away at his Latin and Greek with his tutor. But his intense hours were spent with Bassett. The Grand National had gone by; he had not ‘known,’ and had lost a hundred pounds. Summer was at hand. He was in agony for the Lincoln. But even for the Lincoln he didn’t ‘know,’ and he lost fifty pounds. He became wild-eyed and strange as if something were going to explode in him. ‘Let it alone, son! Don’t you bother about it,’ urged Uncle Oscar. But it was as if the boy couldn’t really hear what his uncle was saying. ‘I’ve got to know for the Derby! I’ve got to know for the Derby!’ the child reiterated, his big blue eyes blazing with a sort of madness. His mother noticed how overwrought he was. You’d better go to the seaside. Wouldn’t you like to go now to the seaside, instead of waiting? I think you’d better,’ she said, looking down at him anxiously, her heart curiously heavy because of him. But the child lifted his uncanny blue eyes. ‘I couldn’t possibly go before the Derby, mother!’ he said. ‘I couldn’t possibly!’ ‘Why not?’ she said, her voice becoming heavy when she was opposed. ‘Why not? You can still go from the seaside to see the Derby with your Uncle Oscar, if that’s what you wish. No need for you to wait here. Besides, I think you care too much about these races. It’s a bad sign. My family had been a gambling family and you won’t know till you grow up how much damage it has done. But it has done damage. I shall have to send Bassett away and ask Uncle Oscar not to talk racing to you, unless you promise to be reasonable about it: go away to the seaside and forget it. You’re all nerves!’ ‘I’ll do what you like, mother, so long as you don’t send me away till after the Derby’, the boy said. ‘Send you away from where? Just from this house?’ ‘Yes,’ he said, gazing at her. ‘Why, you curious child, what makes you care about this house so much, suddenly? I never knew you loved it.’ He gazed at her without speaking. He had a secret within a secret, something he had not divulged, even to Bassett or to his Uncle Oscar. But his mother, after standing undecided and a little bit sullen for some moments, said: ‘Very well, then! Don’t go to the seaside till after the Derby, if you don’t wish it. But promise me you won’t let your nerves go to pieces. Promise you won’t think so much about horse-racing and events, as you call them.’ ‘Oh, no,’ said the boy casually. ‘I won’t think much about them, mother. You needn’t worry. I wouidn’t worry, mother, if I were you.’ ‘If you were me and I were you,’ said his mother, ‘I wonder what we should do!’ ‘But you know you needn’t worry, mother, don’t you?’ the boy repeated. ‘I should be awfully glad to know it,’ she said wearily. ‘Oh, well, you can, you know, I mean, you ought to know, you needn’t worry,’ he insisted. ‘Ought I? Then I’ll see about it,’ she said. Paul’s secret of secrets was his wooden horse, that which had no name. Since he was emancipated from a nurse and a nursery-governess, he had had his rockinghorse removed to his own bedroom at the top of the house. ‘Surely you’re too big for a rocking-horse’, his mother had remonstrated. ‘Well, you see, mother, till I can have a real horse, I like to have some sort of animal about,’ had been his quaint answer.‘Do you feel he keeps you company?’ She laughed. ‘Oh, yes! He’s very good, he always keeps me company when I’m there,’ said Paul. So the horse, rather shabby, stood in an arrested prance in the boy’s bedroom. The Derby was drawing near and the boy grew more and more tense. He hardly heard what was spoken to him, he was very frail, and his eyes were really uncanny. His mother had sudden strange seizures of uneasiness about him. Sometimes for half an hour, she would feel a sudden anxiety about him that was almost anguish. She wanted to rush to him at once and know that he was safe. Two nights before the Derby, she was at a big party in town, when one of her rushes of anxiety about her boy, her fIrstborn, gripped her heart till she could hardly speak. She fought with the feeling, might and main, for she believed in common sense. But it was too strong. She had to leave the dance and go downstairs to telephone to the country. The children’s nursery-governess was terribly surprised and startled at being rung up in the night. ‘Are the children all right, Miss Wilmot?’ ‘Oh yes, they are quite all right.’ ‘Master Paul? Is he all right?’ ‘He went to bed as right as a trivet. Shall I run up and look at him?’ ‘No,’ said Paul’s mother reluctantly. ‘No. Don’t trouble. It’s all right. Don’t sit up. We shall be home fairly soon.’ She did not want her son’s privacy intruded upon. ‘Very good,’ said the governess. It was about one o’clock when Paul’s mother and father drove up to their house. All was still. Paul’s mother went to her room and slipped off her white fur cloak. She had told her maid not to wait up for her. She heard her husband downstairs, mixing a whisky and soda. And then, because of the strange anxiety at her heart, she stole upstairs to her son’s room. Noiselessly she went along the upper corridor. Was there a faint noise? What was it? She stood, with arrested muscles, outside his door, listening. There was a strange, heavy and yet not loud noise. Her heart stood still. It was a soundless noise, yet rushing and powerful. Something huge in violent, hushed motion. What was it? What in God’s name was it? She ought to know. She felt that she knew the noise. She knew what it was. Yet she could not place it. She couldn’t say what it was. And on and on it went, like a madness. Softly, frozen with anxiety and fear, she turned the door handle. The room was dark. Yet in the space near the window, she heard and saw something move to and fro. She gazed in fear and amazement. Then suddenly she switched on the light and saw her son, in his green pyjamas, madly surging on the rockinghorse. The blaze of light suddenly lit him up, as he urged the wooden horse, and lit her up, as she stood, blonde, in her dress of pale green and crystal in the doorway. ‘Paul,’ she cried. ‘Whatever are you doing?’ ‘It’s Malabar!’ he screamed in a powerful, strange voice. It’s Malabar!’ His eyes blazed at her for one strange and senseless second, as he ceased urging his wooden horse. Then he fell with a crash to the ground and she, all her tormented motherhood flooding upon her, rushed to gather him up. But he was unconscious, and unconscious he remained, with some brain-fever. He talked and tossed, and his mother sat stonily by his side. ‘Malabar! It’s Malabar! Bassett! Bassett, I know! It’s Malabar!’ So the child cried, trying to get up and urge the rockinghorse that gave him his inspiration. ‘What does he mean by Malabar?’ asked the heartfrozen mother. ‘I don’t know,’ said the father stonily. ‘What does he mean by Malabar?’ she asked her brother Oscar. ‘It’s one of the horses running for the Derby,’ was the answer. And, in spite of himself, Oscar Cresswell spoke to Bassett, and himself put a thousand on Malabar: at fourteen to one.The third day of the illness was critical: they were waiting for a change. The boy, with his rather long, curly hair, was tossing ceaselessly on the pillow. He neither slept nor regained consciousness, and his eyes were like blue stones. His mother sat, feeling her heart had gone, turned actually into a stone. In the evening, Oscar Cresswell did not come, but Bassett sent a message, saying could he come up for a moment, just one moment? Paul’s mother was very angry at the intrusion but, on second thought, she agreed. The boy was the same. Perhaps Bassett might bring him to consciousness. The gardener, a shortish fellow with a little brown moustache and sharp little brown eyes, tiptoed into the room, touched his imaginary cap to Paul’s mother, and stole to the bedside, staring with glittering, smallish eyes at the tossing, dying child. ‘Master Paul,’ he whispered, ‘Master Paul! Malabar came in first all right, a clean win. I did as you told me. You’ve made over seventy thousand pounds, you have; you’ve got over eighty thousand. Malabar came in all right, Master Paul.’ ‘Malabar! Malabar! Did I say Malabar, mother? Did I say Malabar? Do you think I’m lucky, mother? I knew Malabar, didn’t I? Over eighty thousand pounds! I call that lucky, don’t you, mother? Over eighty thousand pounds! I knew, didn’t I know I knew? Malabar came in all right. If I ride my horse till I’m sure, then I tell you, Bassett, you can go as high as you like. Did you go for all you were worth, Bassett? ‘I went a thousand on it, Master Paul.’ ‘I never told you, mother, that if I can ride my horse, and get there, then I’m absolutely sure—oh, absolutely mother, did I ever tell you? I am lucky!’ ‘No, you never did,’ said his mother. But the boy died in the night. And even as he lay dead, his mother heard her brother’s voice saying to her: ‘My God, Hester, you’re eighty-odd thousand to the good, and a poor devil of a son to the bad. But, poor devil, poor devil, he’s best gone out of a life where he rides his rocking-horse to find a winner.’

What were the lessons of life learnt in her younger days that Kumudini carried into her adult life?

<answer> The author learnt many lessons of life in her younger days which she carried into her adult life. She relates an incident when she stayed in a sprawling house in Delhi that was allotted to her father who was an engineer. The later Prime Minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali was their neighbour. One day, she and her brother were caught by his gardener while picking guavas from his tree. They were not punished by Liaquat Ali but got an open invitation from him to pick the fruits when they wanted. She says that it was one of the first lessons in the games which the politicians play She was able to learn the importance of discipline in Queen Mary’s College in Lahore. She trusts that following discipline in a daily routine will bring discipline in thinking. She learnt the pangs of hunger when her mother died, which is highlighted in her work. The author was able to understand the nature of conflict that she dealt with in a play known as Duvidha. The author could learn to distinguish between sentimentality and sensitivity. She created a piece known as Panch Paras, five senses in her adult days to explore this realm. She relates how she learnt a lesson from Ram Gopal that before we begin to experiment, we should perfect the technique. By touring with Ram Gopal, Kumudini was able to learn about her own personality. <context> If my younger self could see me now she would be incredulous. That I would work in the field of dance or decipher and translate dance for my own comprehension, call it choreography if you wish, would have been unbelievable. In this respect, I am particularly envious of dancers who claim that they were ‘born to dance’, implying that it was clearly laid out for them from the beginning. I must say, I find this assertion dubious; it is rarely that easy. To dance means to struggle—I believe it is the same in any discipline because discipline itself is a struggle. I believe I was not simply born to dance; I was born to live. And now, as the patchwork of my life comes into clearer focus, I can see clear bridges between my life experiences and my work in dance. In all truth, as a child, I never did want to dance; it was forced upon me by a doting mother and a silent father. My father probably kept his peace to avoid argument. From the beginning my lessons took place under trying conditions, though I believe that the conditions were more trying for my mother than for me. She travelled in local, over-crowded trains to dance class with an unwilling child, tired from a whole day at school. She waited a whole hour in the not-so-clean ante-room of my guru’s house and then endured the same journey back. This was in Bombay, and my first dance lessons were with Guru Sunder Prasad who lived in Chowpatty while we lived in Khar. We took the train, then a bus and then walked, and the whole trip took roughly 45 minutes each way. Interestingly, it was the film industry that spurred my mother to enrol me in dance classes. When I was seven, we went to see a movie starring Mumtaz Ali, father of the comedian, Mehmood. Ali did a dance number in the film with which I became fascinated. When we arrived home, I began prancing around the house imitating the film actor and my mother, who was quietly watching, was the one who said, ‘Kumudini, you are born to dance.’ Ironically, I have no recollection of this story; it was my mother who saw this innate ability in me. Her belief was so strong that she went through the gruelling exercise of taking me to dance class four days a week without complaint. However, my childhood education was composed of much more than just dance and academics. I did not live in a vacuum. I was surrounded by life and learnt many of my lessons there, lessons that I still carry with me. I grew up during a volatile era, a time of war, India’s independence movement compounded by World War II in which India played a role in military operations. My father, being an engineer, was called upon to build the cantonment areas first in Delhi, then in Naini and Allahabad. In Delhi we were allotted a sprawling house on Hardinge Avenue (now Tilak Marg) with Liaquat Ali (later, Prime Minister of Pakistan), as our neighbour. Once his gardener caught me and my brother, Suresh, picking guavas from his tree. He grabbed us by the ear and presented us before the master for punishment. Liaquat Ali not only let us keep the guavas but extended an open invitation to pick the fruits whenever we wished! However, this generous offer was accompanied by the mali’s face which was so horrifying and revengeful that we never went near that garden again. It was one of my first lessons in the games that politicians play. Father would now have to move to wherever army construction was required. Therefore, when I was nine years old, the decision was made to send me to boarding school. After a lot of arguments, advice, consideration and research on the part of my parents, I was packed off to Queen Mary’s College (school) in Lahore (at that time in India). I had not known a day away from home, but the idea of living with a lot of girls of my age and studying in a fancy school was both exciting and worrisome, as curiosity was mixed with sadness. No more shuffling to and from class, no more over-bearing Guruji. No such luck. Mother sent a dance teacher, Radhelal Misra, Sunder Prasad’s nephew, along with me! She hired a small apartment for him in Lahore and arranged a schedule for my lessons. Despite her belief that I was ‘born’ to dance, I didn’t enjoy dance classes. Quite frankly, they were no fun. I felt as if nothing progressed, that I was just doing what my guru ordered. I was always a curious child and I wanted to know and understand what I was doing. Why was I gyrating in this way? But my teacher could not, or would not, explain it to me. I was envious of other girls who were playing tennis and basketball while I was doing this thing called Kathak. My mother convinced the principal, a Britisher, that to dance was a form of prayer and that she could not curb religious freedom! Having spent several years in a school where most of our teachers were British, I have come to like their form of discipline. Discipline in one’s daily routine does bring discipline in thinking. You begin to place your thoughts in neat little piles the way you do your uniforms and shoes. It was three weeks before the final school examinations—matriculation at that time—when my life changed dramatically. I was called to the Principal’s office. What had I done? The only reason one was called to Miss Cox’s office was because of some infraction. While she was a kind and diplomatic person, she was also strict and firm and later, when I myself became a teacher, I was influenced by her demeanour. As I approached the office, I wondered— did I forget to put away the tennis racquets after morning play? Did I forget to lock the door of the dormitory? ‘May I come in, madam?’ I asked quietly. ‘Yes do come in child,’ she answered with a voice full of such kindness that it made me suspicious, ‘You have to go home.’ ‘But why? I have to study for my exams!’ ‘Your father called to say that your mother is sick and he would like you to visit her.’ During the walk back from Miss Cox’s office to my classroom I was overwhelmed with feelings of confusion, a state of mind I have never completely got over. Even today, when I want to create a new piece, the first theme that comes to my mind vibrates with confusion. Mother was already dead when I arrived, 36 hours and three train-rides later. When I saw her, motionless and colourless, I finally understood why I had been summoned home. I was 14 years old. The air was still and nobody looked at me. I did not know where to turn or what to do with my hands, which hung loose from my body. Then suddenly they clutched my stomach. Hunger pangs? I hadn’t eaten for three days and there was an emptiness I wanted to fill. I was afraid of appearing greedy, so I underplayed my emotions, though all kinds of yearning gnawed my insides. Even today I mistake the different kinds of hunger inside me, and this is something that shows up in my work. The dangling arms find expression in my choreography. In Duvidha or Conflict, I examined the plight of a middle-class woman who is chained to the traditions of Indian life. She is restricted to domestic circles, is forbidden from wearing sleeveless blouses, must wear her hair in a bun and must cater to her husband. Yet, from a small window she sees the newspaperman waving images of a woman with a bold streak of white in her short hair, who wears sleeveless blouses, is surrounded by men who listen to her intently, is widowed but wears colourful saris. Moreover, she commands a country with millions of people. Yet, while the woman looking out of the window is intrigued by this image, she experiences conflicting emotions. The character in Duvidha is torn between two lives—she feels an emptiness within her but is not sure what she is hungry for, what kind of life she wants. This is something I have felt often, yet now that I have so much behind me, I am more certain of where to place my hands. My exams yielded surprisingly good results. So, now what? Where do I go from here? This question has cropped up throughout my life, and many years later took shape in my composition, Atah Kim. It’s funny how we store our experiences in our brains as if we are pre-recorded cassettes. The right cassette seems to fall into place when you least expect it to. Upon finishing school, I was at a crossroads and the path ahead was not clear to me. I had lots of ideas about what I wanted to do with my life, and dance was not always a priority. I was always driven, and that partly stems from the fact that I had a relatively subdued childhood. I was enveloped by a great mist of protection and I wanted to emerge from that mist and discover myself. In particular, I wanted to feel powerful; to control a large group of people. In Atah Kim I address this desire for power and, yet, once you possess it, what do you do with it? Once you reach your goal, where do you go from there? It’s a question without an answer but I believe the question must be asked. At the age of 15, I had many options. It would have been easy enough to join college for a bachelor’s or master’s degree in psychology or English literature. But everyone does that. ‘You have to do something that is off-beat, different from the done thing,’ my father said to me. So it was that I decided to attend an agriculture college in Naini, Allahabad. There were twenty-nine boys and I, in a class of thirty. Having spent my school years in a girls’ school, I knew little about the behaviour of boys. My brother was seven years younger so his friends were no help. However, at the agriculture college, I got a taste of relations between boys and girls. We had to travel for miles in the fields on bicycles. The boys deflated the tires of my bicycle so that they could walk back with me, resulting in miles and miles of worthless conversation about the latest film songs and actors, none of which interested me. Also, I was fascinated by the professors, mostly American, who wore shorts because we worked in fields with clay, crops, manure and insecticides. One day, I also turned up in shorts and had 58 eyes peering at my legs! My grandmother had always said that girls must never push their chests out or uncover their legs. I now realised what she meant but couldn’t accept it as valid. ‘What about the short blouses you wear, with your midriff showing?’ I asked her. ‘Don’t argue,’ was her reply. When will we understand the dignity of the female body? A dancer has to move with dignity, a quality much desired amongst dancers but sadly missing in most, especially women, as they are taught to underplay their bodies most of their lives. My grandmother, of course, was not completely to blame for this attitude. It is a problem that goes deep into the texture of our society. We must embrace our senses and use them to the fullest, rather than try to inhibit them. Another argument I often had with my grandmother was about religion and visiting temples. ‘Go to the temple before your exams, God will give you strength to do well,’ she would say. I took issue with the idea that an outside force must be bargained with in order to obtain desirable results. Doesn’t this strength come from within? I had a hard time believing that it was God alone who endowed me with this ability. Visiting temples activates your senses, though we often take this for granted. You see the grandeur of the architecture and can feel the curve of the stones. The scent of incense, flowers and sandalwood mingle together. You hear the ringing of the bells and taste the panchamrut. With your palms and the soles of your feet you touch the different surfaces. What an experience! Why do I have to bargain with God as if he is some kind of agent for a trading company? Yet these arguments with my grandmother were useful in that they made me differentiate between sensitivity and sentimentality. Later, I created a piece called Panch Paras, the five senses, to explore this realm. After graduating with a degree in agriculture at the age of 18, I was left with few job prospects and was again at a crossroads. Luckily, good fortune came to me without much beckoning. It happened in Bombay. I had gone to the train station to see off Suresh who was studying at Sherwood College in Nainital. While I was waving to the train that had now disappeared, there was a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and the woman who stood there changed the course of my life. All those tedious hours of dance lessons fused into a new synergy. She was Komlata Dutt, a friend of my father’s and, more importantly, the person who introduced Uday Shankar to the dance legend, Anna Pavlova, in Paris. And here she was, telling me to join the Ram Gopal Dance Company based in London! It took some learning to adjust to working with a group of professional dancers and musicians, on the move all the time, and the opportunity exposed me to a very different aspect of dance education—there was a lot of dance to be learnt as well—kummi of Kerala, ghumar of Rajasthan, dandia of Gujarat—all were part of the troupe’s repertoire. What I enjoyed most was learning the classical Bharatanatyam from Ram Gopal himself who was a strict disciplinarian and had a fetish for perfection of line. However, in the end he would say, ‘You’ve perfected the technique, now throw it overboard and dance’. This is a lesson I have tried to teach my own students—before you begin experimenting, you need to perfect the technique with which you experiment. Touring with Ram Gopal not only taught me more about dance, I discovered new things about my own personality. Encountering people from different countries gives you a chance to look at yourself in a new light. More often than not, I found that my weaknesses were brought glaringly into focus. I came to realise the importance of context— how things change when you change their placement. One of the most striking moments of that tour was my time in post-war Germany. It was an unbelievably sad place. Hungry children begging for food is a common sight in India, yet, in Germany the same sight created a different sensation. It amazed me how the same situation in a different environment evokes quite different reactions, and the same is true in dance. One changes the placement of a choreographic piece on stage and it looks quite different. I myself was a changed person when placed in different surroundings. Still, a long tour of many countries in Europe and America is exhausting. I was constantly travelling between India and various parts of the globe. In all, I was abroad for three years and by the end, I needed to go home. But where was home? And how does one make a home for oneself? Buy a house, get married, have children, make friends? I had only the last item on the agenda. While in school in Lahore, I had made a lot of friends, but they now lived in a different country—Pakistan. I had to obtain a visa to visit my closest friend over a weekend. I would like to say I am apolitical but I’ve discovered that politics makes its presence felt even when uninvited. On my return, the last of many returns, what ultimately awaited me were marriage, children and a flat in Bombay. Finally I had a home, but it came with strings attached—I now had to manage this new home. In a society like ours, where a woman wanting to work outside the home must do so in addition to her domestic responsibilities, it is easy to feel overwhelmed. Still, I didn’t do too badly thanks to my supportive husband, Rajanikant. In spite of his own background in a family where men are treated as a special breed, he was a good man, with the extraordinary quality of believing everything. The word ‘suspicion’ was absent from his vocabulary. This made him popular but unsuccessful, both as a professional and a parent, but a very accommodating husband. My biggest benefit from my association with him was the love of music he instilled in me. If he had chosen music as a profession he would have done better in life, but his bar-at-law from Lincoln’s Inn in London pushed him into the wrong line of work. I must say, I am blessed with a wonderful family, two normal and healthy children, my son Shriraj and daughter Maitreyi, now married with their own children. Looking back, I keep wondering what my contribution was as a mother, but it must have been satisfactory to attain these results. And yet, both are completely different in their attitudes and philosophies—one has an extended sense of ambition and the other allows things to transpire as they are destined to. The only point on which they agree is that they disagree with my profession! It is interesting to have this kind of variety in a family. Living with a group of different personalities beneath one roof is like performing with other artistes on stage. The equation, the space factor, vibrations and relationships must be taken into serious consideration. You are no longer performing solo. You belong to a larger image and must develop a new set of performing skills.

How did this experience affect him?

<answer> This experience revived his aversion to water. He shook and cried when he lay on his bed. He couldn’t eat that night. For many days, there was a haunting fear in his heart. The slightest exertion upset him, making him wobbly in the knees and sick to his stomach. He never went back to the pool. He feared water and avoided it whenever he could. <context> The Yakima River is a tributary of the Columbia River in eastern Washington, U.S.A. The state is named after the indigenous Yakama people. It had happened when I was ten or eleven years old. I had decided to learn to swim. There was a pool at the Y.M.C.A. in Yakima that offered exactly the opportunity. The Yakima River was treacherous. Mother continually warned against it, and kept fresh in my mind the details of each drowning in the river. But the Y.M.C.A. pool was safe. It was only two or three feet deep at the shallow end; and while it was nine feet deep at the other, the drop was gradual. I got a pair of water wings and went to the pool. I hated to walk naked into it and show my skinny legs. But I subdued my pride and did it. From the beginning, however, I had an aversion to the water when I was in it. This started when I was three or four years old and father took me to the beach in California. He and I stood together in the surf. I hung on to him, yet the waves knocked me down and swept over me. I was buried in water. My breath was gone. I was frightened. Father laughed, but there was terror in my heart at the overpowering force of the waves. My introduction to the Y.M.CA. swimming pool revived unpleasant memories and stirred childish fears. But in a little while I gathered confidence. I paddled with my new water wings, watching the other boys and trying to learn by aping them. I did this two or three times on different days and was just beginning to feel at ease in the water when the misadventure happened. I went to the pool when no one else was there. The place was quiet. The water was still, and the tiled bottom was as white and clean as a bathtub. I was timid about going in alone, so I sat on the side of the pool to wait for others. I had not been there long when in came a big bruiser of a boy, probably eighteen years old. He had thick hair on his chest. He was a beautiful physical specimen, with legs and arms that showed rippling muscles. He yelled, “Hi, Skinny! How’d you like to be ducked?” With that he picked me up and tossed me into the deep end. I landed in a sitting position, swallowed water, and went at once to the bottom. I was frightened, but not yet frightened out of my wits. On the way down I planned: When my feet hit the bottom, I would make a big jump, come to the surface, lie flat on it, and paddle to the edge of the pool. It seemed a long way down. Those nine feet were more like ninety, and before I touched bottom my lungs were ready to burst. But when my feet hit bottom I summoned all my strength and made what I thought was a great spring upwards. I imagined I would bob to the surface like a cork. Instead, I came up slowly. I opened my eyes and saw nothing but water — water that had a dirty yellow tinge to it. I grew panicky. I reached up as if to grab a rope and my hands clutched only at water. I was suffocating. I tried to yell but no sound came out. Then my eyes and nose came out of the water — but not my mouth. I flailed at the surface of the water, swallowed and choked. I tried to bring my legs up, but they hung as dead weights, paralysed and rigid. A great force was pulling me under. I screamed, but only the water heard me. I had started on the long journey back to the bottom of the pool. I struck at the water as I went down, expending my strength as one in a nightmare fights an irresistible force. I had lost all my breath. My lungs ached, my head throbbed. I was getting dizzy. But I remembered the strategy — I would spring from the bottom of the pool and come like a cork to the surface. I would lie flat on the water, strike out with my arms, and thrash with my legs. Then I would get to the edge of the pool and be safe. I went down, down, endlessly. I opened my eyes. Nothing but water with a yellow glow — dark water that one could not see through. And then sheer, stark terror seized me, terror that knows no understanding, terror that knows no control, terror that no one can understand who has not experienced it. I was shrieking under water. I was paralysed under water — stiff, rigid with fear. Even the screams in my throat were frozen. Only my heart, and the pounding in my head, said that I was still alive. And then in the midst of the terror came a touch of reason. I must remember to jump when I hit the bottom. At last I felt the tiles under me. My toes reached out as if to grab them. I jumped with everything I had. But the jump made no difference. The water was still around me. I looked for ropes, ladders, water wings. Nothing but water. A mass of yellow water held me. Stark terror took an even deeper hold on me, like a great charge of electricity. I shook and trembled with fright. My arms wouldn’t move. My legs wouldn’t move. I tried to call for help, to call for mother. Nothing happened. And then, strangely, there was light. I was coming out of the awful yellow water. At least my eyes were. My nose was almost out too. Then I started down a third time. I sucked for air and got water. The yellowish light was going out. Then all effort ceased. I relaxed. Even my legs felt limp; and a blackness swept over my brain. It wiped out fear; it wiped out terror. There was no more panic. It was quiet and peaceful. Nothing to be afraid of. This is nice... to be drowsy... to go to sleep... no need to jump... too tired to jump... it’s nice to be carried gently... to float along in space... tender arms around me... tender arms like Mother’s... now I must go to sleep... I crossed to oblivion, and the curtain of life fell. The next I remember I was lying on my stomach beside the pool, vomiting. The chap that threw me in was saying, “But I was only fooling.” Someone said, “The kid nearly died. Be all right now. Let’s carry him to the locker room.” Several hours later, I walked home. I was weak and trembling. I shook and cried when I lay on my bed. I couldn’t eat that night. For days a haunting fear was in my heart. The slightest exertion upset me, making me wobbly in the knees and sick to my stomach. I never went back to the pool. I feared water. I avoided it whenever I could. A few years later when I came to know the waters of the Cascades, I wanted to get into them. And whenever I did — whether I was wading the Tieton or Bumping River or bathing in Warm Lake of the Goat Rocks — the terror that had seized me in the pool would come back. It would take possession of me completely. My legs would become paralysed. Icy horror would grab my heart. This handicap stayed with me as the years rolled by. In canoes on Maine lakes fishing for landlocked salmon, bass fishing in New Hampshire, trout fishing on the Deschutes and Metolius in Oregon, fishing for salmon on the Columbia, at Bumping Lake in the Cascades — wherever I went, the haunting fear of the water followed me. It ruined my fishing trips; deprived me of the joy of canoeing, boating, and swimming. I used every way I knew to overcome this fear, but it held me firmly in its grip. Finally, one October, I decided to get an instructor and learn to swim. I went to a pool and practiced five days a week, an hour each day. The instructor put a belt around me. A rope attached to the belt went through a pulley that ran on an overhead cable. He held on to the end of the rope, and we went back and forth, back and forth across the pool, hour after hour, day after day, week after week. On each trip across the pool a bit of the panic seized me. Each time the instructor relaxed his hold on the rope and I went under, some of the old terror returned and my legs froze. It was three months before the tension began to slack. Then he taught me to put my face under water and exhale, and to raise my nose and inhale. I repeated the exercise hundreds of times. Bit by bit I shed part of the panic that seized me when my head went under water. Next he held me at the side of the pool and had me kick with my legs. For weeks I did just that. At first my legs refused to work. But they gradually relaxed; and finally I could command them. Thus, piece by piece, he built a swimmer. And when he had perfected each piece, he put them together into an integrated whole. In April he said, “Now you can swim. Dive off and swim the length of the pool, crawl stroke.” I did. The instructor was finished. But I was not finished. I still wondered if I would be terror-stricken when I was alone in the pool. I tried it. I swam the length up and down. Tiny vestiges of the old terror would return. But now I could frown and say to that terror, “Trying to scare me, eh? Well, here’s to you! Look!” And off I’d go for another length of the pool. This went on until July. But I was still not satisfied. I was not sure that all the terror had left. So I went to Lake Wentworth in New Hampshire, dived off a dock at Triggs Island, and swam two miles across the lake to Stamp Act Island. I swam the crawl, breast stroke, side stroke, and back stroke. Only once did the terror return. When I was in the middle of the lake, I put my face under and saw nothing but bottomless water. The old sensation returned in miniature. I laughed and said, “Well, Mr Terror, what do you think you can do to me?” It fled and I swam on. Yet I had residual doubts. At my first opportunity I hurried west, went up the Tieton to Conrad Meadows, up the Conrad Creek Trail to Meade Glacier, and camped in the high meadow by the side of Warm Lake. The next morning I stripped, dived into the lake, and swam across to the other shore and back — just as Doug Corpron used to do. I shouted with joy, and Gilbert Peak returned the echo. I had conquered my fear of water. The experience had a deep meaning for me, as only those who have known stark terror and conquered it can appreciate. In death there is peace. There is terror only in the fear of death, as Roosevelt knew when he said, “All we have to fear is fear itself.” Because I had experienced both the sensation of dying and the terror that fear of it can produce, the will to live somehow grew in intensity. At last I felt released — free to walk the trails and climb the peaks and to brush aside fear.

Where was Abdul Kalam’s house?

<answer> Abdul Kalam's house was on the Mosque Street in Rameswaram. <context> 1. I WAS born into a middle-class Tamil family in the island town of Rameswaram in the erstwhile Madras State. My father, Jainulabdeen, had neither much formal education nor much wealth; despite these disadvantages, he possessed great innate wisdom and a true generosity of spirit. He had an ideal helpmate in my mother, Ashiamma. I do not recall the exact number of people she fed every day, but I am quite certain that far more outsiders ate with us than all the members of our own family put together. 2. I was one of many children — a short boy with rather undistinguished looks, born to tall and handsome parents. We lived in our ancestral house, which was built in the middle of the nineteenth century. It was a fairly large pucca house, made of limestone and brick, on the Mosque Street in Rameswaram. My austere father used to avoid all inessential comforts and luxuries. However, all necessities were provided for, in terms of food, medicine or clothes. In fact, I would say mine was a very secure childhood, both materially and emotionally. 3. The Second World War broke out in 1939, when I was eight years old. For reasons I have never been able to understand, a sudden demand for tamarind seeds erupted in the market. I used to collect the seeds and sell them to a provision shop on Mosque Street. A day’s collection would fetch me the princely sum of one anna. My brother-in-law Jallaluddin would tell me stories about the War which I would later attempt to trace in the headlines in Dinamani. Our area, being isolated, was completely unaffected by the War. But soon India was forced to join the Allied Forces and something like a state of emergency was declared. The first casualty came in the form of the suspension of the train halt at Rameswaram station. The newspapers now had to be bundled and thrown out from the moving train on the Rameswaram Road between Rameswaram and Dhanuskodi. That forced my cousin Samsuddin, who distributed newspapers in Rameswarm, to look for a helping hand to catch the bundles and, as if naturally, I filled the slot. Samsuddin helped me earn my first wages. Half a century later, I can still feel the surge of pride in earning my own money for the first time. 4. Every child is born, with some inherited characteristics, into a specific socio-economic and emotional environment, and trained in certain ways by figures of authority. I inherited honesty and selfdiscipline from my father; from my mother, I inherited faith in goodness and deep kindness and so did my three brothers and sister. I had three close friends in my childhood — Ramanadha Sastry, Aravindan and Sivaprakasan. All these boys were from orthodox Hindu Brahmin families. As children, none of us ever felt any difference amongst ourselves because of our religious differences and upbringing. In fact, Ramanadha Sastry was the son of Pakshi Lakshmana Sastry, the high priest of the Rameswaram temple. Later, he took over the priesthood of the Rameswaram temple from his father; Aravindan went into the business of arranging transport for visiting pilgrims; and Sivaprakasan became a catering contractor for the Southern Railways. 5. During the annual Shri Sita Rama Kalyanam ceremony, our family used to arrange boats with a special platform for carrying idols of the Lord from the temple to the marriage site, situated in the middle of the pond called Rama Tirtha which was near our house. Events from the Ramayana and from the life of the Prophet were the bedtime stories my mother and grandmother would tell the children in our family. 6. One day when I was in the fifth standard at the Rameswaram Elementary School, a new teacher came to our class. I used to wear a cap which marked me as a Muslim, and I always sat in the front row next to Ramanadha Sastry, who wore the Our family used to arrange boats for carrying idols of the Lord from the temple to the marriage site. sacred thread. The new teacher could not stomach a Hindu priest’s son sitting with a Muslim boy. In accordance with our social ranking as the new teacher saw it, I was asked to go and sit on the back bench. I felt very sad, and so did Ramanadha Sastry. He looked utterly downcast as I shifted to my seat in the last row. The image of him weeping when I shifted to the last row left a lasting impression on me. 7. After school, we went home and told our respective parents about the incident. Lakshmana Sastry summoned the teacher, and in our presence, told the teacher that he should not spread the poison of social inequality and communal intolerance in the minds of innocent children. He bluntly asked the teacher to either apologise or quit the school and the island. Not only did the teacher regret his behaviour, but the strong sense of conviction Lakshmana Sastry conveyed ultimately reformed this young teacher. 8. On the whole, the small society of Rameswaram was very rigid in terms of the segregation of different social groups. However, my science teacher Sivasubramania Iyer, though an orthodox Brahmin with a very conservative wife, was something of a rebel. He did his best to break social barriers so that people from varying backgrounds could mingle easily. He used to spend hours with me and would say, “Kalam, I want you to develop so that you are on par with the highly educated people of the big cities.” 9. One day, he invited me to his home for a meal. His wife was horrified at the idea of a Muslim boy being invited to dine in her ritually pure kitchen. She refused to serve me in her kitchen. Sivasubramania Iyer was not perturbed, nor did he get angry with his wife, but instead, served me with his own hands and sat down beside me to eat his meal. His wife watched us from behind the kitchen door. I wondered whether she had observed any difference in the way I ate rice, drank water or cleaned the floor after the meal. When I was leaving his house, Sivasubramania Iyer invited me to join him for dinner again the next weekend. Observing my hesitation, he told me not to get upset, saying, “Once you decide to change the system, such problems have to be confronted.” When I visited his house the next week, Sivasubramania Iyer’s wife took me inside her kitchen and served me food with her own hands. 10. Then the Second World War was over and India’s freedom was imminent. “Indians will build their own India,” declared Gandhiji. The whole country was filled with an unprecedented optimism. I asked my father for permission to leave Rameswaram and study at the district headquarters in Ramanathapuram. 11. He told me as if thinking aloud, “Abul ! I know you have to go away to grow. Does the seagull not fly across the sun, alone and without a nest?” He quoted Khalil Gibran to my hesitant mother, “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts.” A.P.J. ABDUL KALAM

What are the ways in which Mr Lamb tries to overcome these feelings?

<answer> He made an effort to befriend people, leaving the door open, and the window curtain-less. Mr Lamb tried to overcome his loneliness and did not seem overwhelmed by the same. He sat in the garden and listened to his bees singing and sat in the sun and read books. Unlike Derry, he complained little about being isolated, he found company in nature around him, content to marvel at their beauty, and the occasional visitors. <context> Mr Lamb’s garden [There is the occasional sound of birdsong and of tree leaves rustling. Derry’s footsteps are heard as he walks slowly and tentatively through the long grass. He pauses, then walks on again. He comes round a screen of bushes, so that when Mr Lamb speaks to him he is close at hand and Derry is startled] MR LAMB: Mind the apples! DERRY: What? Who’s that? Who’s there? MR LAMB: Lamb’s my name. Mind the apples. Crab apples those are. Windfalls in the long grass. You could trip. DERRY: I....there....I thought this was an empty place. I didn’t know there was anybody here.... MR LAMB: That’s all right. I’m here. What are you afraid of, boy? That’s all right. DERRY: I thought it was empty....an empty house. MR LAMB: So it is. Since I’m out here in the garden. It is empty. Until I go back inside. In the meantime, I’m out here and likely to stop. A day like this. Beautiful day. Not a day to be indoors. DERRY: [Panic] I’ve got to go. MR LAMB: Not on my account. I don’t mind who comes into the garden. The gate’s always open. Only you climbed the garden wall. DERRY: [Angry] You were watching me. MR LAMB: I saw you. But the gate’s open. All welcome. You’re welcome. I sit here. I like sitting. DERRY: I’d not come to steal anything. MR LAMB: No, no. The young lads steal....scrump the apples. You’re not so young. DERRY: I just....wanted to come in. Into the garden. MR LAMB: So you did. Here we are, then. DERRY: You don’t know who I am. MR LAMB: A boy. Thirteen or so. DERRY: Fourteen. [Pause] But I’ve got to go now. Good-bye. MR LAMB: Nothing to be afraid of. Just a garden. Just me. DERRY: But I’m not....I’m not afraid. [Pause] People are afraid of me. MR LAMB: Why should that be? DERRY: Everyone is. It doesn’t matter who they are, or what they say, or how they look. How they pretend. I know. I can see. MR LAMB: See what? DERRY: What they think. MR LAMB: What do they think, then? DERRY: You think.... ‘Here’s a boy.’ You look at me...and then you see my face and you think. ‘That’s bad. That’s a terrible thing. That’s the ugliest thing I ever saw.’ You think, ‘Poor boy.’ But I’m not. Not poor. Underneath, you are afraid. Anybody would be. I am. When I look in the mirror, and see it, I’m afraid of me. MR LAMB: No, Not the whole of you. Not of you. DERRY: Yes! [Pause] MR LAMB: Later on, when it’s a bit cooler, I’ll get the ladder and a stick, and pull down those crab apples. They’re ripe for it. I make jelly. It’s a good time of year, September. Look at them....orange and golden. That’s magic fruit. I often say. But it’s best picked and made into jelly. You could give me a hand. DERRY: What have you changed the subject for? People always do that. Why don’t you ask me? Why do you do what they all do and pretend it isn’t true and isn’t there? In case I see you looking and mind and get upset? I’ll tell....you don’t ask me because you’re afraid to. MR LAMB: You want me to ask....say so, then. DERRY: I don’t like being with people. Any people. MR LAMB: I should say....to look at it.... I should say, you got burned in a fire. DERRY: Not in a fire. I got acid all down that side of my face and it burned it all away. It ate my face up. It ate me up. And now it’s like this and it won’t ever be any different. MR LAMB: No. DERRY: Aren’t you interested? MR LAMB: You’re a boy who came into the garden. Plenty do. I’m interested in anybody. Anything. There’s nothing God made that doesn’t interest me. Look over there....over beside the far wall. What can you see? DERRY: Rubbish. MR LAMB: Rubbish ? Look, boy, look....what do you see? DERRY: Just....grass and stuff. Weeds. MR LAMB: Some call them weeds. If you like, then....a weed garden, that. There’s fruit and there are flowers, and trees and herbs. All sorts. But over there....weeds. I grow weeds there. Why is one green, growing plant called a weed and another ‘flower’? Where’s the difference. It’s all life.... growing. Same as you and me. DERRY: We’re not the same. MR LAMB: I’m old. You’re young. You’ve got a burned face, I’ve got a tin leg. Not important. You’re standing there.... I’m sitting here. Where’s the difference? DERRY: Why have you got a tin leg? MR LAMB: Real one got blown off, years back. Lamey-Lamb, some kids say. Haven’t you heard them? You will. Lamey-Lamb. It fits. Doesn’t trouble me. DERRY: But you can put on trousers and cover it up and no one sees, they don’t have to notice and stare. MR LAMB: Some do. Some don’t. They get tired of it, in the end. There’s plenty of other things to stare at. DERRY: Like my face. MR LAMB: Like crab apples or the weeds or a spider climbing up a silken ladder, or my tall sun-flowers. DERRY: Things. MR LAMB: It’s all relative. Beauty and the beast. DERRY: What’s that supposed to mean? MR LAMB: You tell me. DERRY: You needn’t think they haven’t all told me that fairy story before. ‘It’s not what you look like, it’s what you are inside. Handsome is as handsome does. Beauty loved the monstrous beast for himself and when she kissed him he changed into a handsome prince.’ Only he wouldn’t, he’d have stayed a monstrous beast. I won’t change. MR LAMB: In that way? No, you won’t. DERRY: And no one’ll kiss me, ever. Only my mother, and she kisses me on the other side of my face, and I don’t like my mother to kiss me, she does it because she has to. Why should I like that? I don’t care if nobody ever kisses me. MR LAMB: Ah, but do you care if you never kiss them. DERRY: What? MR LAMB: Girls. Pretty girls. Long hair and large eyes. People you love. DERRY: Who’d let me? Not one. MR LAMB: Who can tell? DERRY: I won’t ever look different. When I’m as old as you, I’ll look the same. I’ll still only have half a face. MR LAMB: So you will. But the world won’t. The world’s got a whole face, and the world’s there to be looked at. DERRY: Do you think this is the world? This old garden? MR LAMB: When I’m here. Not the only one. But the world, as much as anywhere. DERRY: Does your leg hurt you? MR LAMB: Tin doesn’t hurt, boy! DERRY: When it came off, did it? MR LAMB: Certainly. DERRY: And now? I mean, where the tin stops, at the top? MR LAMB: Now and then. In wet weather. It doesn’t signify. DERRY: Oh, that’s something else they all say. ‘Look at all those people who are in pain and brave and never cry and never complain and don’t feel sorry for themselves.’ MR LAMB: I haven’t said it. DERRY: And think of all those people worse off than you. Think, you might have been blinded, or born deaf, or have to live in a wheelchair, or be daft in your head and dribble. MR LAMB: And that’s all true, and you know it. DERRY: It won’t make my face change. Do you know, one day, a woman went by me in the street — I was at a bus-stop — and she was with another woman, and she looked at me, and she said.... whispered....only I heard her.... she said, “Look at that, that’s a terrible thing. That’s a face only a mother could love.” MR LAMB: So you believe everything you hear, then? DERRY: It was cruel. MR LAMB: Maybe not meant as such. Just something said between them. DERRY: Only I heard it. I heard. MR LAMB: And is that the only thing you ever heard anyone say, in your life? DERRY: Oh no! I’ve heard a lot of things. MR LAMB: So now you keep your ears shut. DERRY: You’re....peculiar. You say peculiar things. You ask questions I don’t understand. MR LAMB: I like to talk. Have company. You don’t have to answer questions. You don’t have to stop here at all. The gate’s open. DERRY: Yes, but... MR LAMB: I’ve a hive of bees behind those trees over there. Some hear bees and they say, bees buzz. But when you listen to bees for a long while, they humm....and hum means ‘sing’. I hear them singing, my bees. DERRY: But....I like it here. I came in because I liked it....when I looked over the wall. MR LAMB: If you’d seen me, you’d not have come in. DERRY: No. MR LAMB: No. DERRY: It’d have been trespassing. MR LAMB: Ah. That’s not why. DERRY: I don’t like being near people. When they stare....when I see them being afraid of me. MR LAMB: You could lock yourself up in a room and never leave it. There was a man who did that. He was afraid, you see. Of everything. Everything in this world. A bus might run him over, or a man might breathe deadly germs onto him, or a donkey might kick him to death, or lightning might strike him down, or he might love a girl and the girl would leave him, and he might slip on a banana skin and fall and people who saw him would laugh their heads off. So he went into this room, and locked the door, and got into his bed, and stayed there. DERRY: For ever? MR LAMB: For a while. DERRY: Then what? MR LAMB: A picture fell off the wall on to his head and killed him. [Derry laughs a lot] MR LAMB: You see? DERRY: But....you still say peculiar things. MR LAMB: Peculiar to some. DERRY: What do you do all day? MR LAMB: Sit in the sun. Read books. Ah, you thought it was an empty house, but inside, it’s full. Books and other things. Full. DERRY: But there aren’t any curtains at the windows. MR LAMB: I’m not fond of curtains. Shutting things out, shutting things in. I like the light and the darkness, and the windows open, to hear the wind. DERRY: Yes. I like that. When it’s raining, I like to hear it on the roof. MR LAMB: So you’re not lost, are you? Not altogether? You do hear things. You listen. DERRY: They talk about me. Downstairs, When I’m not there. ‘What’ll he ever do? What’s going to happen to him when we’ve gone? How ever will he get on in this world? Looking like that? With that on his face?’ That’s what they say. MR LAMB: Lord, boy, you’ve got two arms, two legs and eyes and ears, you’ve got a tongue and a brain. You’ll get on the way you want, like all the rest. And if you chose, and set your mind to it, you could get on better than all the rest. DERRY: How? MR LAMB: Same way as I do. DERRY: Do you have any friends? MR LAMB: Hundreds. DERRY: But you live by yourself in that house. It’s a big house, too. MR LAMB: Friends everywhere. People come in.... everybody knows me. The gate’s always open. They come and sit here. And in front of the fire in winter. Kids come for the apples and pears. And for toffee. I make toffee with honey. Anybody comes. So have you. DERRY: But I’m not a friend. MR LAMB: Certainly you are. So far as I’m concerned. What have you done to make me think you’re not? DERRY: You don’t know me. You don’t know where I come from or even what my name is. MR LAMB: Why should that signify? Do I have to write all your particulars down and put them in a filing box, before you can be a friend? DERRY: I suppose...not. No. MR LAMB: You could tell me your name. If you chose. And not, if you didn’t. DERRY: Derry. Only it’s Derek....but I hate that. Derry. If I’m your friend, you don’t have to be mine. I choose that. MR LAMB: Certainly. DERRY: I might never come here again, you might never see me again and then I couldn’t still be a friend. MR LAMB: Why not? DERRY: How could I? You pass people in the street and you might even speak to them, but you never see them again. It doesn’t mean they’re friends. MR LAMB: Doesn’t mean they’re enemies, either, does it? DERRY: No they’re just....nothing. People. That’s all. MR LAMB: People are never just nothing. Never. DERRY: There are some people I hate. MR LAMB: That’d do you more harm than any bottle of acid. Acid only burns your face. DERRY: Only.... MR LAMB: Like a bomb only blew up my leg. There’s worse things can happen. You can burn yourself away inside. DERRY: After I’d come home, one person said, “He’d have been better off stopping in there. In the hospital. He’d be better off with others like himself.” She thinks blind people only ought to be with other blind people and idiot boys with idiot boys. MR LAMB: And people with no legs altogether? DERRY: That’s right. MR LAMB: What kind of a world would that be? DERRY: At least there’d be nobody to stare at you because you weren’t like them. MR LAMB: So you think you’re just the same as all the other people with burned faces? Just by what you look like? Ah....everything’s different. Everything’s the same, but everything is different. Itself. DERRY: How do you make all that out? MR LAMB: Watching. Listening. Thinking. DERRY: I’d like a place like this. A garden. I’d like a house with no curtains. MR LAMB: The gate’s always open. DERRY: But this isn’t mine. MR LAMB: Everything’s yours if you want it. What’s mine is anybody’s. DERRY: So I could come here again? Even if you were out....I could come here. MR LAMB: Certainly. You might find others here, of course. DERRY: Oh.... MR LAMB: Well, that needn’t stop you, you needn’t mind. DERRY: It’d stop them. They’d mind me. When they saw me here. They look at my face and run. MR LAMB: They might. They might not. You’d have to take the risk. So would they. DERRY: No, you would. You might have me and lose all your other friends, because nobody wants to stay near me if they can help it. MR LAMB: I’ve not moved. DERRY: No.... MR LAMB: When I go down the street, the kids shout ‘Lamey-Lamb.’ But they still come into the garden, into my house; it’s a game. They’re not afraid of me. Why should they be? Because I’m not afraid of them, that’s why not. DERRY: Did you get your leg blown off in the war? MR LAMB: Certainly. DERRY: How will you climb on a ladder and get the crab apples down, then? MR LAMB: Oh, there’s a lot of things I’ve learned to do, and plenty of time for it. Years. I take it steady. DERRY: If you fell and broke your neck, you could lie on the grass and die. If you were on your own. MR LAMB: I could. DERRY: You said I could help you. MR LAMB: If you want to. DERRY: But my mother’ll want to know where I am. It’s three miles home, across the fields. I’m fourteen. but they still want to know where I am. MR LAMB: People worry. DERRY: People fuss. MR LAMB: Go back and tell them. DERRY: It’s three miles. MR LAMB: It’s a fine evening. You’ve got legs. DERRY: Once I got home, they’d never let me come back. MR LAMB: Once you got home, you’d never let yourself come back. DERRY: You don’t know....you don’t know what I could do. MR LAMB: No. Only you know that. DERRY: If I chose.... MR LAMB: Ah....if you chose. I don’t know everything, boy. I can’t tell you what to do. DERRY: They tell me. MR LAMB: Do you have to agree? DERRY: I don’t know what I want. I want....something no one else has got or ever will have. Something just mine. Like this garden. I don’t know what it is. MR LAMB: You could find out. DERRY: How? MR LAMB: Waiting. Watching. Listening. Sitting here or going there. I’ll have to see to the bees. DERRY: Those other people who come here....do they talk to you? Ask you things? MR LAMB: Some do, some don’t. I ask them. I like to learn. DERRY: I don’t believe in them. I don’t think anybody ever comes. You’re here all by yourself and miserable and no one would know if you were alive or dead and nobody cares. MR LAMB: You think what you please. DERRY: All right then, tell me some of their names. MR LAMB: What are names? Tom, Dick or Harry. [Getting up] I’m off down to the bees. DERRY: I think you’re daft....crazy.... MR LAMB: That’s a good excuse. DERRY: What for? You don’t talk sense. MR LAMB: Good excuse not to come back. And you’ve got a burned-up face, and that’s other people’s excuse. DERRY: You’re like the others, you like to say things like that. If you don’t feel sorry for my face, you’re frightened of it, and if you’re not frightened, you think I’m ugly as a devil. I am a devil. Don’t you? [Shouts] [Mr Lamb does not reply. He has gone to his bees.] DERRY: [Quietly] No. You don’t. I like it here. [Pause. Derry gets up and shouts.] I’m going. But I’ll come back. You see. You wait. I can run. I haven’t got a tin leg. I’ll be back. [Derry runs off. Silence. The sounds of the garden again.] MR LAMB: [To himself] There my dears. That’s you seen to. Ah....you know. We all know. I’ll come back. They never do, though. Not them. Never do come back. [The garden noises fade.] SCENE TWO Derry’s house. MOTHER: You think I don’t know about him, you think. I haven’t heard things? DERRY: You shouldn’t believe all you hear. MOTHER: Been told. Warned. We’ve not lived here three months, but I know what there is to know and you’re not to go back there. DERRY: What are you afraid of? What do you think he is? An old man with a tin leg and he lives in a huge house without curtains and has a garden. And I want to be there, and sit and....listen to things. Listen and look. MOTHER: Listen to what? DERRY: Bees singing. Him talking. MOTHER: And what’s he got to say to you? DERRY: Things that matter. Things nobody else has ever said. Things I want to think about. MOTHER: Then you stay here and do your thinking. You’re best off here. DERRY: I hate it here. MOTHER: You can’t help the things you say. I forgive you. It’s bound to make you feel bad things....and say them. I don’t blame you. DERRY: It’s got nothing to do with my face and what I look like. I don’t care about that and it isn’t important. It’s what I think and feel and what I want to see and find out and hear. And I’m going back there. Only to help him with the crab apples. Only to look at things and listen. But I’m going. MOTHER: You’ll stop here. DERRY: Oh no, oh no. Because if I don’t go back there, I’ll never go anywhere in this world again. [The door slams. Derry runs, panting.] And I want the world....I want it....I want it.... [The sound of his panting fades.] SCENE THREE Mr Lamb’s garden [Garden sounds: the noise of a branch shifting; apples thumping down; the branch shifting again.] MR LAMB: Steady....that’s....got it. That’s it... [More apples fall] And again. That’s it....and.... [A creak. A crash. The ladder falls back, Mr Lamb with it. A thump. The branch swishes back. Creaks. Then silence. Derry opens the garden gate, still panting.] DERRY: You see, you see! I came back. You said I wouldn’t and they said....but I came back, I wanted.... [He stops dead. Silence.] Mr Lamb, Mr....You’ve..... [He runs through the grass. Stops. Kneels] Mr Lamb, It’s all right....You fell....I’m here, Mr Lamb, It’s all right. [Silence] I came back. Lamey-Lamb. I did.....come back. [Derry begins to weep.]

Why didn’t Sophie want Jansie to know about her story with Danny?

<answer> Sophie expressed displeasure at Geoff telling Frank about how she had met the football star, Dafiny. Jansie, her friend, found out about the same from Frank. She felt that Geoff had betrayed her trust letting out their secret. She was also wary about the whole neighbourhood finding out about it from Jansie. <context> “When I leave,” Sophie said, coming home from school, “I’m going to have a boutique.” Jansie, linking arms with her along the street; looked doubtful. “Takes money, Soaf, something like that.” “I’ll find it,” Sophie said, staring far down the street. “Take you a long time to save that much.” “Well I’ll be a manager then — yes, of course — to begin with. Till I’ve got enough. But anyway, I know just how it’s all going to look.” “They wouldn’t make you manager straight off, Soaf.” “I’ll be like Mary Quant,” Sophie said. “I’ll be a natural. They’ll see it from the start. I’ll have the most amazing shop this city’s ever seen.’” Jansie, knowing they were both earmarked for the biscuit factory, became melancholy. She wished Sophie wouldn’t say these things. When they reached Sophie’s street Jansie said, “It’s only a few months away now, Soaf, you really should be sensible. They don’t pay well for shop work, you know that, your dad would never allow it.” “Or an actress. Now there’s real money in that. Yes, and I could maybe have the boutique on the side. Actresses don’t work full time, do they? Anyway, that or a fashion designer, you know — something a bit sophisticated”. And she turned in through the open street door leaving Jansie standing in the rain. “If ever I come into money I’ll buy a boutique.” “Huh - if you ever come into money... if you ever come into money you’ll buy us a blessed decent house to live in, thank you very much.” Sophie’s father was scooping shepherd’s pie into his mouth as hard as he could go, his plump face still grimy and sweat — marked from the day. “She thinks money grows on trees, don’t she, Dad?’ said little Derek, hanging on the back of his father’s chair. Their mother sighed. Sophie watched her back stooped over the sink and wondered at the incongruity of the delicate bow which fastened her apron strings. The delicate-seeming bow and the crooked back. The evening had already blacked in the windows and the small room was steamy from the stove and cluttered with the heavy-breathing man in his vest at the table and the dirty washing piled up in the corner. Sophie felt a tightening in her throat. She went to look for her brother Geoff. He was kneeling on the floor in the next room tinkering with a part of his motorcycle over some newspaper spread on the carpet. He was three years out of school, an apprentice mechanic, travelling to his work each day to the far side of the city. He was almost grown up now, and she suspected areas of his life about which she knew nothing, about which he never spoke. He said little at all, ever, voluntarily. Words had to be prized out of him like stones out of the ground. And she was jealous of his silence. When he wasn’t speaking it was as though he was away somewhere, out there in the world in those places she had never been. Whether they were only the outlying districts of the city, or places beyond in the surrounding country — who knew? — they attained a special fascination simply because they were unknown to her and remained out of her reach. Perhaps there were also people, exotic, interesting people of whom he never spoke — it was possible, though he was quiet and didn’t make new friends easily. She longed to know them. She wished she could be admitted more deeply into her brother’s affections and that someday he might take her with him. Though their father forbade it and Geoff had never expressed an opinion, she knew he thought her too young. And she was impatient. She was conscious of a vast world out there waiting for her and she knew instinctively that she would feel as at home there as in the city which had always been her home. It expectantly awaited her arrival. She saw herself riding there behind Geoff. He wore new, shining black leathers and she a yellow dress with a kind of cape that flew out behind. There was the sound of applause as the world rose to greet them. He sat frowning at the oily component he cradled in his hands, as though it were a small dumb animal and he was willing it to speak. “I met Danny Casey,” Sophie said. He looked around abruptly. “Where?” “In the arcade — funnily enough.” “It’s never true.” “I did too.” “You told Dad?” She shook her head, chastened at his unawareness that he was always the first to share her secrets. “I don’t believe it.” “There I was looking at the clothes in Royce’s window when someone came and stood beside me, and I looked around and who should it be but Danny Casey.” “All right, what does he look like?” “Oh come on, you know what he looks like.” “Close to, I mean.” “Well — he has green eyes. Gentle eyes. And he’s not so tall as you’d think...” She wondered if she should say about his teeth, but decided against it. Their father had washed when he came in and his face and arms were shiny and pink and he smelled of soap. He switched on the television, tossed one of little Derek’s shoes from his chair onto the sofa, and sat down with a grunt. “Sophie met Danny Casey,” Geoff said. Sophie wriggled where she was sitting at the table. Her father turned his head on his thick neck to look at her. His expression was one of disdain. “It’s true,” Geoff said. “I once knew a man who had known Tom Finney,” his father said reverently to the television. “But that was a long time ago.” “You told us,” Geoff said. “Casey might be that good some day.” “Better than that even. He’s the best.” “If he keeps his head on his shoulders. If they look after him properly. A lot of distractions for a youngster in the game these days.” “He’ll be all right. He’s with the best team in the country.” “He’s very young yet.” “He’s older than I am.” “Too young really for the first team.” “You can’t argue with that sort of ability.” “He’s going to buy a shop,” Sophie said from the table. Her father grimaced. “Where’d you hear that?” “He told me so.” He muttered something inaudible and dragged himself round in his chair. “This another of your wild stories?” “She met him in the arcade,” Geoff said, and told him how it had been. “One of these days you’re going to talk yourself into a load of trouble,” her father said aggressively. “Geoff knows it’s true, don’t you Geoff?” “He don’t believe you-though he’d like to.” * * * The table lamp cast an amber glow across her brother’s bedroom wall, and across the large poster of United’s first team squad and the row of coloured photographs beneath, three of them of the young Irish prodigy, Casey. “Promise you’ll tell no-one?” Sophie said. “Nothing to tell is there?” “Promise, Geoff — Dad’d murder me.” “Only if he thought it was true.” “Please, Geoff.” “Christ, Sophie, you’re still at school. Casey must have strings of girls.” “No he doesn’t.” “How could you know that?” he jeered. “He told me, that’s how.” “As if anyone would tell a girl something like that.” “Yes he did. He isn’t like that. He’s... quiet.” “Not as quiet as all that — apparently.” “It was nothing like that, Geoff — it was me spoke first. When I saw who it was, I said, “Excuse me, but aren’t you Danny Casey?” And he looked sort of surprised. And he said, “Yes, that’s right.” And I knew it must be him because he had the accent, you know, like when they interviewed him on the television. So I asked him for an autograph for little Derek, but neither of us had any paper or a pen. So then we just talked a bit. About the clothes in Royce’s window. He seemed lonely. After all, it’s a long way from the west of Ireland. And then, just as he was going, he said, if I would care to meet him next week he would give me an autograph then. Of course, I said I would.” “As if he’d ever show up.” “You do believe me now, don’t you?” He dragged his jacket, which was shiny and shapeless, from the back of the chair and pushed his arms into it. She wished he paid more attention to his appearance. Wished he cared more about clothes. He was tall with a strong dark face. Handsome, she thought. “It’s the unlikeliest thing I ever heard,” he said. * * * On Saturday they made their weekly pilgrimage to watch United. Sophie and her father and little Derek went down near the goal — Geoff, as always, went with his mates higher up. United won two-nil and Casey drove in the second goal, a blend of innocence and Irish genius, going round the two big defenders on the edge of the penalty area, with her father screaming for him to pass, and beating the hesitant goalkeeper from a dozen yards. Sophie glowed with pride. Afterwards Geoff was ecstatic. “I wish he was an Englishman,” someone said on the bus. “Ireland’ll win the World Cup,” little Derek told his mother when Sophie brought him home. Her father was gone to the pub to celebrate. “What’s this you’ve been telling?” Jansie said, next week. “About what?” “Your Geoff told our Frank you met Danny Casey.” This wasn’t an inquisition, just Jansie being nosey. But Sophie was startled. “Oh, that.” Jansie frowned, sensing she was covering. “Yes — that.” “Well-yes, I did.” “You never did?” Jansie exclaimed. Sophie glared at the ground. Damn that Geoff, this was a Geoff thing not a Jansie thing. It was meant to be something special just between them. Something secret. It wasn’t a Jansie kind of thing at all. Tell gawky Jansie something like that and the whole neighbourhood would get to know it. Damn that Geoff, was nothing sacred? “It’s a secret — meant to be.” “I’ll keep a secret, Soaf, you know that.” “I wasn’t going to tell anyone. There’ll be a right old row if my dad gets to hear about it.” Jansie blinked. “A row? I’d have thought he’d be chuffed as anything.” She realised then that Jansie didn’t know about the date bit — Geoff hadn’t told about that. She breathed more easily. So Geoff hadn’t let her down after all. He believed in her after all. After all some things might be sacred. “It was just a little thing really. I asked him for an autograph, but we hadn’t any paper or a pen so it was no good.” How much had Geoff said? “Jesus, I wish I’d have been there.” “Of course, my dad didn’t want to believe it. You know what a misery he is. But the last thing I need is queues of people round our house asking him, “What’s all this about Danny Casey?” He’d murder me. And you know how my mum gets when there’s a row.” Jansie said, hushed, “You can trust me, Soaf, you know that.” * * * After dark she walked by the canal, along a sheltered path lighted only by the glare of the lamps from the wharf across the water, and the unceasing drone of the city was muffled and distant. It was a place she had often played in when she was a child. There was a wooden bench beneath a solitary elm where lovers sometimes came. She sat down to wait. It was the perfect place, she had always thought so, for a meeting of this kind. For those who wished not to be observed. She knew he would approve. For some while, waiting, she imagined his coming. She watched along the canal, seeing him come out of the shadows, imagining her own consequent excitement. Not until some time had elapsed did she begin balancing against this the idea of his not coming. Here I sit, she said to herself, wishing Danny would come, wishing he would come and sensing the time passing. I feel the pangs of doubt stirring inside me. I watch for him but still there is no sign of him. I remember Geoff saying he would never come, and how none of them believed me when I told them. I wonder what will I do, what can I tell them now if he doesn’t come? But we know how it was, Danny and me — that’s the main thing. How can you help what people choose to believe? But all the same, it makes me despondent, this knowing I’ll never be able to show them they’re wrong to doubt me. She waited, measuring in this way the changes taking place in her. Resignation was no sudden thing. Now I have become sad, she thought. And it is a hard burden to carry, this sadness. Sitting here waiting and knowing he will not come I can see the future and how I will have to live with this burden. They of course will doubt me, as they always doubted me, but I will have to hold up my head remembering how it was. Already I envisage the slow walk home, and Geoff’s disappointed face when I tell him, “He didn’t come, that Danny.” And then he’ll fly out and slam the door. “But we know how it was,” I shall tell myself, “Danny and me.” It is a hard thing, this sadness. She climbed the crumbling steps to the street. Outside the pub she passed her father’s bicycle propped against the wall, and was glad. He would not be there when she got home. “Excuse me, but aren’t you Danny Casey?” Coming through the arcade she pictured him again outside Royce’s. He turns, reddening slightly. “Yes, that’s right.” “I watch you every week, with my dad and my brothers. We think you’re great.” “Oh, well now — that’s very nice.” “I wonder — would you mind signing an autograph?” His eyes are on the same level as your own. His nose is freckled and turns upwards slightly, and when he smiles he does so shyly, exposing teeth with gaps between. His eyes are green, and when he looks straight at you they seem to shimmer. They seem gentle, almost afraid. Like a gazelle’s. And you look away. You let his eyes run over you a little. And then you come back to find them, slightly breathless. And he says, “I don’t seem to have a pen at all.” You realise you haven’t either. “My brothers will be very sorry,” you say. And afterwards you wait there alone in the arcade for a long while, standing where he stood, remembering the soft melodious voice, the shimmer of green eyes. No taller than you. No bolder than you. The prodigy. The innocent genius. The great Danny Casey. And she saw it all again, last Saturday — saw him ghost past the lumbering defenders, heard the fifty thousand catch their breath as he hovered momentarily over the ball, and then the explosion of sound as he struck it crisply into the goal, the sudden thunderous eruption of exultant approbation.

Describe the cycle of events in Satyajit’s life that brought him back to where he began

<answer> Satyajit witnessed a lot of changes in his life till the time the story was written. He had started his career as a client at a bank. He then caught a forgery and thus got promoted as a Managing Director. However, all these events turned out to be turning point in his life. At present, he regretted reaching heights of success just by chance and not hard work. Now he realises that the tempo of failure is always faster than that of success. Today, he faced crisis when it came to job, wealth, in fact any resource at all. The wheel of fortune had turned and had completed an entire rotation bringing Satyajit back to where he had begun. He was reduced to nothing after enjoying glorious days when he owned a fortune. Once, it was he who was looked up to for financing and fulfilling the needs of the people. Now, he had to avert such situations to avoid the shame and dismay he felt at his present situation. <context> The slow, narrow-gauge Indian train with its awkward freak of an engine had a way of making unauthorised stops for no good reason, between fields of corn or at the foot of a village—it was said that the guard signalled a halt to pluck a pumpkin or ripe melons from its stem or to buy fistfuls of green gram from a peasant. Some of the passengers grumbled and sat with drawn brows, composing in their minds angry letters to Authority, or to the Press, but others seized the chance to slip merrily out of doors for a breath of air and a view of the green fields. Satyajit, languid on the cushioned bench now vacated by the other occupants, reached out for his cigarettes but, on second thought, withdrew his hand brusquely. That won’t do, he told himself with a stern shake of his head. His smoke was rationed. He had attuned himself in the past month to a fast-growing list of denials, large and small, and this was one. How can he afford the unrestricted luxury of chain smoking? Life lay sharpening to realities that still had the semblance of an undreamable dream. He winced, the turning wheel of fortune in his unhappy eye, as always. Along the orbit of reminiscence he went round and round, pulled by a force beyond his will. The banking establishment of which he had attained control. The amazing tempo of it all. Luck had come his way, undeniably, but behind it was his mind, his initiative, grit, energy. Starting as a mere clerk he had become Managing Director. And now? What now? Tall, thin, near forty, he had sharp features, the hair receding on his temple in wide shiny smooth patches. His eyes hated glare and he wore smart eye-glasses to shield them. His mouth, thin-lipped, would tighten in repose to a line that suggested strength of will but might have been only pride. ‘What now?’ he said to himself in an underbreath. Those words had become his obsession. ‘What now?’ He had no business to be on this wretched train on a neglected railroad, travelling away from the city where he must look for work, for the means of living. With the sudden collapse of his bank, all his private assets were gone overnight; the equities; the house on Tagore Street; even the two cars, his and his wife’s. A mercy that she was away from the scene, with her parents at Delhi, and unaware of the full extent of the ruin. A telegram had come last Tuesday announcing the safe birth of her child. Their first-born, for he had married late in life. His son, his heir. And he had sold off his diamond ring to send his young wife a remittance for the name-giving rites. She had married a man of fortune—that made it harder for him in this crisis. True, she knew all about his earlier life. But that was story-book stuff. It could be narrated happily to their first-born when he grew older. The story lay killed by its sequel—failure. Glory was all overlaid with dark shame. Glory was dead. It would be easy enough today if there were none else to think of except himself. Born in a humble village home, self-educated, struggle had been his life-breath. How grateful he was for the clerkship he secured. A turning of the wheel of fortune? he had wondered. The next turning, a year after, was more dramatic. What made him give a fixed look to the man beyond the brass grille of the counter? The cheque presented for encashment was not a large sum. 2021-22 Glory at Twilight 87 Eye upon eye. Alarm vivid in the face and the hand on the counter shaking curiously. Surprised, stirred by a quick impulse, he took the cheque to the accounts desk, compared the signature with the one on record. It tallied. But that face, that hand. A hundred reasons, none connected with the cheque, could explain the face and hand. Even so, the impulse led him to the telephone. ‘Sir, have you signed a bearer cheque for Rs 2,000? It has yesterday’s date...’ ‘Rs 2,000? No.’ His heart felt pain for lack of air. ‘Sir, are you sure? The signature seems okay.’ In the next instance he was back to his counter in a rush. Where was the man? There, close to the exit, and the face turning back for a moment wore stark fear. He was going away. Feet bounded up the counter. The bank clerk hunted down his prey on the gravel path, twenty paces from the front door. There was no struggle. The man crumpled down in a heap. He squatted with head between his hands, looking down, tears rolling down. ‘Why did you have to commit forgery?’ ‘She has TB.’ ‘She?’ ‘She is dying for want of medicine.’ ‘Who?’ ‘My wife. I saw no other means. I give lessons in Maths to the rich man’s son. That money...’ The head between the hands wagged from side to side in a queer rhythmic frenzy. That was the way the clerk grew into an accountant. He deserved what he had gained. He was not made to be a mere clerk. Lost in the thrill, he had honest contempt for his stepping-stone, the forgerer. You could not commit such a crime even to save your dying wife. But today, as he sat on his lone bench on the train, he saw mind-pictures and felt troubled. The crouched figure on the gravel path wrapped in mute grieving. The prisoner at the bar, face frozen, as though he had died within himself. Had he anything to say to the Court? the Judge had asked. ‘Punish me.’ ‘Is that all?’ ‘Punish me as a killer.’ ‘Killer?’ ‘I have put my wife to shame. Shame kills as fast as TB.’ Yes, that wretched one had turned the wheel for him with his trembling hand. From that point the wheel attained a volition of its own, moving continuously. He had every reason to be grateful to the forgerer. Too late now to seek him out, give him a chance to live? 2021-22 88 Woven Words Too late. He himself sorely needed a chance to live. The banking business lay around him in a broken mass and there was he, prostrate on his face in the wreckage, sucking its dust. All his fault. He had tried to overreach himself. Each wrong step was now clear in time’s perspective. The run on the bank had come all too suddenly though. Failure had a tempo far faster than success. He had great need to fly from himself—that was why he was on this train. A letter had come in the nick of time offering him an excuse, a temporary relief from the wrenching within. ‘The wedding of my fifth daughter, Beena, is to take place on the twentieth of this month. I have kept you posted with the progress of negotiations. I seek your benediction as in the case of my second, third and fourth daughters— Kamini, Damini and Suhashi. With Beena wedded, there will be only Aruna left, and she is in her tenth year. Your benediction alone can pull me through the present daughter crisis. That is all I have to say—Your helpless Uncle Srinath.’ Daughter crisis, indeed! mused Satyajit with a dim smile. Uncle Srinath, a neighbour at Shantipur village but no blood relation, seemed to have been producing his numerous daughters secure in the faith that others would bear the brunt of the repeated crises of their marriage needs. And Satyajit, in the flush of prosperity, had been more than open-handed. It was a matter of pride, selfsatisfaction. In his younger days, the village people had not thought much of him, had not seen in him any special gift or brilliance. One of the common herd. That was all the more reason why he enjoyed success. He needed the wide-eyed wonder and eager homage of Uncle Srinath and the like while they had use and longing for his money. It was plain give-and-take. All that was over. Fallen from his castle in the clouds, Satyajit must tread the earthly ways of humble folk. But he could not deny the old man altogether. He must send some help. He had pondered over the amount. He had to ponder over each rupee before he spent it. Then, all at once, he had come to a decision. He would go to Shantipur and attend the marriage. This would be a 2021-22 Glory at Twilight 89 welcome relief—the city was suffocating him. His mind would be freshened, his strength renewed for the coming struggle by a return to the physical scene which had been his starting point in life. Let that be his starting point once more, outwardly as much as in the spirit. He would also take this chance to look at his ancestral house and fishpond, both leased out, bits of property still intact amid the vast demolition. Those he must pass on to his wife as his last gift. And he had sent word to Uncle Srinath about his arrival on the marriage day. The engine came to life with a shrill of warning. The passenger hurried back. Another half-hour and it was Shantipur. Satyajit leaned out of the door, his eyes looking for Uncle Srinath on the station platform, where many people stood crowded together, alert and apparently excited, one of them holding aloft the national flag on a bamboo pole. A political celebrity on the train? Strange that Uncle Srinath, who had always feared politics, was leading the group. Suddenly, there was a rush of legs towards Satyajit as he stepped down. The legs stopped and a booming chorus followed. Swagatam! Welcome!’ A small girl with an awestruck face stepped up with a jasmine garland in her hand. Satyajit stood in a daze of bewilderment as the girl rose on tiptoe to place the chain of flowers around his neck. He bent mechanically to receive the offer, not knowing what it meant. It was obviously a mistake, a very curious one. ‘Welcome!’ the voices rang again. Then, an expectant hush. Uncle Srinath turned round to the group. On the high cheekbones and grey stubble of his face was a clear coating of strong elation. ‘Friends and brothers! Bengal has seen greatness in almost every field of action. I shall not belittle your knowledge by citing names. It is only in trade and industry that Bengal has lagged behind sadly—the plums of business have gone to people from upcountry or from overseas. That is why our hearts grow big with pride at the sight of a son of Bengal, a son of our own Shantipur village, who has attained great success in that field, that 2021-22 90 Woven Words forbidden field, and become the glory of the motherland, Swagatam! Welcome!’ ‘Swagatam!’ the combined voices roared while the tricolour flag on its tall pole nodded approvingly. When Satyajit slipped down from the ox cart at the door of a mud-brick house, a knot of women waiting tensely with brass water-bowls rushed up and stooped over his feet, scrambling for the privilege to wash his feet with cool water. Satyajit shrank back, embarrassed. ‘It’s my Beena’s privilege,’ cried Srinath, smiling. ‘This is her day. Let Beena alone wash and wipe the reverent feet. All her life she will remember this honour befalling her on the auspicious day of her marriage.’ Satyajit looked at the girl who stepped forward, shy, slender with large pensive eyes in a graceful face. ‘So this is the bride,’ he smiled at her and touched her hair in the gesture of blessing. ‘I hope the groom is worthy of this girl,’ he said as she knelt down to unlace his shoes. She slipped off his socks and poured cool water to freshen his feet, washing them with keen care. As her slim fingers went between his toes, he wiggled them, for he felt ticklish. Presently he sat on a carpet in the inner verandah with a plateful of sweets and a glass of whey while Kamini, Damini and Suhashi sat near him on their haunches and waved palm leaf fans with all their energy, as though each passing minute had to be fully used before their hands were deprived of the privilege. Sweat 2021-22 Glory at Twilight 91 broke out on their faces and they shifted their fans from right hand to left and again to the right. Their mother, who stood by, now spoke in a murmur, husky with emotion. ‘You have been more of a father to these girls than he,’ jerking her head at her invisible husband. ‘But for the bigness of your heart, they would still be maids under this room, shooting up in years and in height with no chance of having husband and home.’ She lifted her sari fringes to her eyes, wiping off two grateful tears. The meal over, Uncle Srinath, who had been shuttling between the inner verandah and the outer quarters, now stopped, leaning over his guest. ‘Beena has been given the old jewellery of her mother,’ he confided. ‘So, that part of the dowry problem has been met. Her three married sisters, whom you see before you and who owe all their bliss in life to your benediction, have given her the marriage gifts she must have: sari, jacket, chemise. Also brass utensils for her new household.’ ‘Good! Good!’ Satyajit cried happily. He had Rs 200 in his purse and had wondered how much of it had to go into the marriage pool. May be Rs 100; or, rather, Rs 101, since a figure ending with zero was not propitious. During the meal he had been slowly adding to that figure: ten, twenty, finally stopping at an additional fifty. Now that Beena had got all she needed, he could just as well slice a goodly bit off the amount. Let it be Rs 101. The fifty rupees saved would buy a perambulator for his newborn son. ‘Your benediction is our blind-man’s staff,’ Srinath went on. ‘Do I have to say more?’ He apparently decided that he did not, for he changed the topic abruptly. ‘My house has become a place of pilgrimage. You are the pride of the village, its strength. In you the people see their own inmost dream fulfilled. Will you now show yourself for a minute to the devotees who sit waiting—’ Satyajit followed his host. His devotees were seated on a floor mat, talking animatedly, and at the sight of him there was an instant hush. Hands joined to his chest, Satyajit made salutation to all. He caught sight of the schoolmaster who had taught him as a boy and made a 2021-22 92 Woven Words deep obeisance. Swelled with pride, the old man swept the floor mat group with a superior glance before he spoke: ‘Didn’t I say? Didn’t I say a hundred and one times in those far off days that the light of genius blazed on the face of my young pupil? That he stood apart from every other young pig—’ He broke short and yielded to a violent fit of coughing to cover up the slip. Presently he resumed: ‘That he with the light of genius on his face was afar from the world where the other youngsters dwelt? Why, I predicted that he would be a High Court Judge—’ Satyajit burst into a laugh. ‘Alas, I am no High Court Judge’. ‘Even more, much more!’ counted the old man. His good memory reached back to the boy with whom he had been on terms of a perpetual feud. Always bent on some kind of mischief—he did have an inventive mind that way! Arithmetic was his bogey. How does he count all his pile of money? He owns a million, if Srinath is to be believed. A million? And the old man hastened to add a brushful of colour to the drab picture presented by memory. ‘Even in those far-off days I could see two shadow forms about him, clear as life—Saraswati at his left, Lakshmi at his right. And I knew even then that the twin goddesses of knowledge and wealth, though hating the sight of each other, had for once united, stayed together, drawn by their common love.’ He lifted joined palms to his forehead, offering salutation— perhaps to those goddesses. Satyajit was determined to enjoy himself. He felt a twinge of regret that he had not thought of coming to Shantipur and basking in the people’s homage when it was truly his due. Now he was an impostor. He impersonated the man he had been a few weeks before. He made an angry jerk of his hand about his face, waving off a sandfly— and the regret. Let him be happy for the day even with a false echo, let him be wrapped a while in the lingering twilight splendour of departed glory. Tommorow he would be in the full fury of a stream, tugged under water, fighting for life. Today he would have his last breath of peace, freedom, content. Through the rest of the day he went round the village, meeting the elders, sipping the proffered milk of green 2021-22 Glory at Twilight 93 coconuts. He visited his house occupied by a tenant. His house—and he touched the walls possessively. This small house gave him a feeling of security which had not come to him even from his huge city mansion. He spent an hour by the fish pond. His pond—and he sprinkled a palmful of its water on his head. A good-sized carp landed at the end of his hook. When he came home with the catch, Uncle Srinath gazed at it raptly—one would have thought he had never before seen such fish. ‘What gills!’ he breathed in apparent ecstasy. He patted the head of the fish with an affectionate hand. ‘Bride and groom shall eat curried portions of this auspicious one when they break their marriage fast at midnight. That will bring them all the blessings that life can give’. It was near twilight when the groom’s party arrived in ox carts and palanquins. Conches blew welcome. Young women gathered at the dooryard and gave the shrill traditional greeting expressive of great joy; Ulu-ulu-uluulu- ulu! When the bridal party was well settled, chewing betel leaf and waiting for the marriage hour as prescribed by the almanac, Satyajit felt for his purse. Time now to part with Rs 101. Srinath, reading his thoughts, took him to the secluded darkness under a fig-tree in the backyard ‘My begging bowl is ready,’ he announced happily. ‘Yes, yes,’ Satyajit nodded. ‘The cash dowry stands fixed. Only Rs 2001.’ ‘What!’ Satyajit felt a hard blow in the pit of his stomach. ‘That is all.’ ‘Rs 2001?’ Srinath smiled. ‘Everything else is provided for, even the cost of the marriage feast. Only this last item awaits your benediction.’ Benediction—Srinath’s favourite word. Nothing abstract in its meaning. It could be interpreted only in terms of money. Satyajit felt a burning inside him. He had stretched his leg right into the snare of benediction, unthinkingly. How could he be so very stupid? Srinath broke the silence with a half laugh. ‘This drop in the ocean of your fortune. It shames me to mention the petty figure.’ 2021-22 94 Woven Words ‘Why didn’t you write and tell me?’ The voice was harsh. The half laugh repeated itself. ‘Have I no sense? I am not such a big ass as I look. What! Mention money to a millionaire! And such a pittance. A drop in the ocean.’ ‘A drop,’ echoed Satyajit, his mouth dry. This was the moment for confession. He was even worse off than Srinath. Hard struggle lay ahead of him for bare survival. Srinath would understand. ‘Millionaire!’ Rhapsody in the voice. Plain worship on the face. A devotee, prayerful before his god. ‘ We bask in your benediction. Our life-spark itself is held in your fist; you can destroy it just by closing your fingers tight. Words cannot say what I feel —’ Yes, the god had been a millionaire, truly. That was yesterday. Today... Confession stuck in his throat, clutched by the millionaire’s dead hand. Better give an excuse. He had come rushing in the midst of heavy work and had not thought of equipping himself with adequate cash. That would sound plausible. Later—it wouldn’t matter if Srinath discovered the terrible truth later, as he must. Something stronger than he spoke with his tongue. ‘I had to catch the morning train—there was no time to go to the bank. Maybe someone in the village—’ The words ‘cash a cheque’ were almost on his lips. ‘Someone in the village will advance a loan—’ Uncle Srinath rushed out of the house, panic on his face. He had been under the impression that a millionaire always had his pockets stuffed with money. Satyajit returned to the assembled guests. Instantly the groom, on his foothigh satin-draped platform, fat round cushions on three sides of him, was forgotten. Silence. All eyes took their fill of the rich man. A god on the pedestal of fortune. He too sat quiet, the tiredness within him heavier than even before. The peace he had attained erstwhile was gone. He longed to see the face of his new-born son. The rich man’s son who would never ride in a perambulator. Srinath returned in half an hour. His face looked angry. Satyajit saw his beckoning hand, rose heavily to his feet, and stepped outside, away from the people. 2021-22 Glory at Twilight 95 ‘Only one person in Shantipur can produce so much cash at this late hour,’ said Srinath, ‘Harish, the moneylender. That shark refuses to make an advance though.’ The swift flood of relief! ‘Harish does not trust me?’ Moneylenders did have a sixth sense. There was no knowing when Harish would have got his money back—perhaps never. ‘Preposterous! Not to trust the word and signature of a millionaire! Harish is off his senses; or, is it malice?’ The voice collected anger. ‘I could drag him to you and make him grovel at your feet and rub his fat nose on the ground.’ Satyajit could be generous. ‘No need, no need. Trust is out of date in these cynical times.’ The wonder of it—his leg was off the snare of benediction! ‘Where will our India be if such things are tolerated? What is Nehru doing about it? Is there no one to tell him how things stand in the country?’ Satyajit patted the excited man on the shoulder, soothingly. Srinath controlled himself with visible effort. His face saddened. ‘What is to be done?’ he moaned. ‘The groom’s father is a man of stone. He will break off the marriage unless cash is paid to him before the ceremony starts. Who will ever marry Beena after such dishonour?’ Satyajit wagged his head in befitting sympathy. ‘If only you had written to me. Just two words or three. Anyway, do not be worried. You will find another suitable match, a better one maybe. Who can foresee the ways of destiny?’ He felt for his purse the second time. He ought to restore the fifty rupees he had cut. Let it be Rs 151. Even if there would be no perambulator for his son— Srinath cleared his throat twice. ‘It shames me to tell you the full story.’ ‘Yes?’ ‘Harish is willing to pay.’ ‘What! you have just said—’ ‘He will pay against security. He wants security, that evil-eyed shark. Your house and fish-pond. The madness! To think that house and pond have more weight than a millionaire’s signature!’ Satyajit trembled within him. ‘House and pond,’ he murmurmed to himself. The only possessions that had not 2021-22 96 Woven Words toppled into the deluge. They were all he could give to his wife— ‘All the old values destroyed, where will our India be? Has Nehru no sense to understand this? What! A pond weighs more than a millionaire’s word, a house is better security than the signature of his hand! Yet, what else is to be done?’ Palms folded together made supplication. ‘What else is to be done in the daughter crisis?’ Satyajit had a queer drugged look. And the dead voice of the millionaire came from his throat. ‘Let the moneylender pay on those terms.’ ‘The insult, what about the insult?’ Srinath’s wrathful hand cleaved the air. ‘When the thing is done, I will make the shark rub his fat nose on the ground at your feet; I will do that, be sure. You will also see the whole village spit at the shark, thoo!’ The deed was signed, the house was gay with marriage music. Satyajit walked off to the deep dark under the fig tree, all by himself. ‘What now,’ he said under his breath, and a dim smile pinched the corners of his lips as he stuck between them the cork tip of a cigarette, the last one in the tin, and lifted a lit match with slow tremulous deliberation.

Why was the Moral Re-Armament Army welcomed at Gemini Studios?

<answer> The Moral Re-Armament Army was invited to stage two plays, which were more like plain homilies ‘ (sermons/lectures) for the Gemini family. It was discovered only later that the group was part of the movement countering international communism and Vasan had invited them under the influence of his political interests. <context> Pancake was the brand name of the make-up material that Gemini Studios bought in truck-loads. Greta Garbo1 must have used it, Miss Gohar must have used it, Vyjayantimala2 must also have used it but Rati Agnihotri may not have even heard of it. The make-up department of the Gemini Studios was in the upstairs of a building that was believed to have been Robert Clive’s stables. A dozen other buildings in the city are said to have been his residence. For his brief life and an even briefer stay in Madras, Robert Clive seems to have done a lot of moving, besides fighting some impossible battles in remote corners of India and marrying a maiden in St. Mary’s Church in Fort St. George in Madras. The make-up room had the look of a hair-cutting salon with lights at all angles around half a dozen large mirrors. They were all incandescent lights, so you can imagine the fiery misery of those subjected to make-up. The make-up department was first headed by a Bengali who became too big for a studio and left. He was succeeded by a Maharashtrian who was assisted by a Dharwar Kannadiga, an Andhra, a Madras Indian Christian, an Anglo-Burmese and the usual local Tamils. All this shows that there was a great deal of national integration long before A.I.R. and Doordarshan began broadcasting programmes on national integration. This gang of nationally integrated make-up men could turn any decent-looking person into a hideous crimson hued monster with the help of truck-loads of pancake and a number of other locally made potions and lotions. Those were the days of mainly indoor shooting, and only five per cent of the film was shot outdoors. I suppose the sets and studio lights needed the girls and boys to be made to look ugly in order to look presentable in the movie. A strict hierarchy was maintained in the make-up department. The chief make-up man made the chief actors and actresses ugly, his senior assistant the ‘second’ hero and heroine, the junior assistant the main comedian, and so forth. The players who played the crowd were the responsibility of the office boy. (Even the make-up department of the Gemini Studio had an ‘office boy’!) On the days when there was a crowdshooting, you could see him mixing his paint in a giant vessel and slapping it on the crowd players. The idea was to close every pore on the surface of the face in the process of applying make-up. He wasn’t exactly a ‘boy’; he was in his early forties, having entered the studios years ago in the hope of becoming a star actor or a top screen writer, director or lyrics writer. He was a bit of a poet. In those days I worked in a cubicle, two whole sides of which were French windows. (I didn’t know at that time they were called French windows.) Seeing me sitting at my desk tearing up newspapers day in and day out, most people thought I was doing next to nothing. It is likely that the Boss thought likewise too. So anyone who felt I should be given some occupation would barge into my cubicle and deliver an extended lecture. The ‘boy’ in the make-up department had decided I should be enlightened on how great literary talent was being allowed to go waste in a department fit only for barbers and perverts. Soon I was praying for crowd-shooting all the time. Nothing short of it could save me from his epics. In all instances of frustration, you will always find the anger directed towards a single person openly or covertly and this man of the make-up department was convinced that all his woes, ignominy and neglect were due to Kothamangalam Subbu. Subbu was the No. 2 at Gemini Studios. He couldn’t have had a more encouraging opening in films than our grown-up make-up boy had. On the contrary he must have had to face more uncertain and difficult times, for when he began his career, there were no firmly established film producing companies or studios. Even in the matter of education, specially formal education, Subbu couldn’t have had an appreciable lead over our boy. But by virtue of being born a Brahmin — a virtue, indeed! — he must have had exposure to more affluent situations and people. He had the ability to look cheerful at all times even after having had a hand in a flop film. He always had work for somebody — he could never do things on his own — but his sense of loyalty made him identify himself with his principal completely and turn his entire creativity to his principal’s advantage. He was tailor-made for films. Here was a man who could be inspired when commanded. “The rat fights the tigress underwater and kills her but takes pity on the cubs and tends them lovingly — I don’t know how to do the scene,” the producer would say and Subbu would come out with four ways of the rat pouring affection on its victim’s offspring. “Good, but I am not sure it is effective enough,” the producer would say and in a minute Subbu would come out with fourteen more alternatives. Film-making must have been and was so easy with a man like Subbu around and if ever there was a man who gave direction and definition to Gemini Studios during its golden years, it was Subbu. Subbu had a separate identity as a poet and though he was certainly capable of more complex and higher forms, he deliberately chose to address his poetry to the masses. His success in films overshadowed and dwarfed his literary achievements — or so his critics felt. He composed several truly original ‘story poems’ in folk refrain and diction and also wrote a sprawling novel Thillana Mohanambal with dozens of very deftly etched characters. He quite successfully recreated the mood and manner of the Devadasis of the early 20th century. He was an amazing actor — he never aspired to the lead roles — but whatever subsidiary role he played in any of the films, he performed better than the supposed main players. He had a genuine love for anyone he came across and his house was a permanent residence for dozens of near and far relations and acquaintances. It seemed against Subbu’s nature to be even conscious that he was feeding and supporting so many of them. Such a charitable and improvident man, and yet he had enemies! Was it because he seemed so close and intimate with The Boss? Or was it his general demeanour that resembled a sycophant’s? Or his readiness to say nice things about everything? In any case, there was this man in the make-up department who would wish the direst things for Subbu. You saw Subbu always with The Boss but in the attendance rolls, he was grouped under a department called the Story Department comprising a lawyer and an assembly of writers and poets. The lawyer was also officially known as the legal adviser, but everybody referred to him as the opposite. An extremely talented actress, who was also extremely temperamental, once blew over on the sets. While everyone stood stunned, the lawyer quietly switched on the recording equipment. When the actress paused for breath, the lawyer said to her, “One minute, please,” and played back the recording. There was nothing incriminating or unmentionably foul about the actress’s tirade against the producer. But when she heard her voice again through the sound equipment, she was struck dumb. A girl from the countryside, she hadn’t gone through all the stages of worldly experience that generally precede a position of importance and sophistication that she had found herself catapulted into. She never quite recovered from the terror she felt that day. That was the end of a brief and brilliant acting career — the legal adviser, who was also a member of the Story Department, had unwittingly brought about that sad end. While every other member of the Department wore a kind of uniform — khadi dhoti with a slightly oversized and clumsily tailored white khadi shirt — the legal adviser wore pants and a tie and sometimes a coat that looked like a coat of mail. Often he looked alone and helpless — a man of cold logic in a crowd of dreamers — a neutral man in an assembly of Gandhiites and khadiites. Like so many of those who were close to The Boss, he was allowed to produce a film and though a lot of raw stock and pancake were used on it, not much came of the film. Then one day The Boss closed down the Story Department and this was perhaps the only instance in all human history where a lawyer lost his job because the poets were asked to go home. Gemini Studios was the favourite haunt of poets like S.D.S.Yogiar3, Sangu Subramanyam, Krishna Sastry and Harindranath Chattopadhyaya4. It had an excellent mess which supplied good coffee at all times of the day and for most part of the night. Those were the days when Congress rule meant Prohibition and meeting over a cup of coffee was rather satisfying entertainment. Barring the office boys and a couple of clerks, everybody else at the Studios radiated leisure, a pre-requisite for poetry. Most of them wore khadi and worshipped Gandhiji but beyond that they had not the faintest appreciation for political thought of any kind. Naturally, they were all averse to the term ‘Communism’. A Communist was a godless man — he had no filial or conjugal love; he had no compunction about killing his own parents or his children; he was always out to cause and spread unrest and violence among innocent and ignorant people. Such notions which prevailed everywhere else in South India at that time also, naturally, floated about vaguely among the khadi-clad poets of Gemini Studios. Evidence of it was soon forthcoming. When Frank Buchman’s Moral Re-Armament army, some two hundred strong, visited Madras sometime in 1952, they could not have found a warmer host in India than the Gemini Studios. Someone called the group an international circus. They weren’t very good on the trapeze and their acquaintance with animals was only at the dinner table, but they presented two plays in a most professional manner. Their ‘Jotham Valley’ and ‘The Forgotten Factor’ ran several shows in Madras and along with the other citizens of the city, the Gemini family of six hundred saw the plays over and over again. The message of the plays were usually plain and simple homilies, but the sets and costumes were first-rate. Madras and the Tamil drama community were terribly impressed and for some years almost all Tamil plays had a scene of sunrise and sunset in the manner of ‘Jotham Valley’ with a bare stage, a white background curtain and a tune played on the flute. It was some years later that I learnt that the MRA was a kind of countermovement to international Communism and the big bosses of Madras like Mr. Vasan simply played into their hands. I am not sure however, that this was indeed the case, for the unchangeable aspects of these big bosses and their enterprises remained the same, MRA or no MRA, international Communism or no international Communism. The staff of Gemini Studios had a nice time hosting two hundred people of all hues and sizes of at least twenty nationalities. It was such a change from the usual collection of crowd players waiting to be slapped with thick layers of make-up by the office-boy in the make-up department. A few months later, the telephone lines of the big bosses of Madras buzzed and once again we at Gemini Studios cleared a whole shooting stage to welcome another visitor. All they said was that he was a poet from England. The only poets from England the simple Gemini staff knew or heard of were Wordsworth and Tennyson; the more literate ones knew of Keats, Shelley and Byron; and one or two might have faintly come to know of someone by the name Eliot. Who was the poet visiting the Gemini Studios now? “He is not a poet. He is an editor. That’s why The Boss is giving him a big reception.” Vasan was also the editor of the popular Tamil weekly Ananda Vikatan. He wasn’t the editor of any of the known names of British publications in Madras, that is, those known at the Gemini Studios. Since the top men of The Hindu were taking the initiative, the surmise was that the poet was the editor of a daily — but not from The Manchester Guardian or the London Times. That was all that even the most wellinformed among us knew. At last, around four in the afternoon, the poet (or the editor) arrived. He was a tall man, very English, very serious and of course very unknown to all of us. Battling with half a dozen pedestal fans on the shooting stage, The Boss read out a long speech. It was obvious that he too knew precious little about the poet (or the editor). The speech was all in the most general terms but here and there it was peppered with words like ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’. Then the poet spoke. He couldn’t have addressed a more dazed and silent audience — no one knew what he was talking about and his accent defeated any attempt to understand what he was saying. The whole thing lasted about an hour; then the poet left and we all dispersed in utter bafflement — what are we doing? What is an English poet doing in a film studio which makes Tamil films for the simplest sort of people? People whose lives least afforded them the possibility of cultivating a taste for English poetry? The poet looked pretty baffled too, for he too must have felt the sheer incongruity of his talk about the thrills and travails of an English poet. His visit remained an unexplained mystery. The great prose-writers of the world may not admit it, but my conviction grows stronger day after day that prosewriting is not and cannot be the true pursuit of a genius. It is for the patient, persistent, persevering drudge with a heart so shrunken that nothing can break it; rejection slips don’t mean a thing to him; he at once sets about making a fresh copy of the long prose piece and sends it on to another editor enclosing postage for the return of the manuscript. It was for such people that The Hindu had published a tiny announcement in an insignificant corner of an unimportant page — a short story contest organised by a British periodical by the name The Encounter. Of course, The Encounter wasn’t a known commodity among the Gemini literati. I wanted to get an idea of the periodical before I spent a considerable sum in postage sending a manuscript to England. In those days, the British Council Library had an entrance with no long winded signboards and notices to make you feel you were sneaking into a forbidden area. And there were copies of The Encounter lying about in various degrees of freshness, almost untouched by readers. When I read the editor’s name, I heard a bell ringing in my shrunken heart. It was the poet who had visited the Gemini Studios — I felt like I had found a long lost brother and I sang as I sealed the envelope and wrote out his address. I felt that he too would be singing the same song at the same time — long lost brothers of Indian films discover each other by singing the same song in the first reel and in the final reel of the film. Stephen Spender5. Stephen — that was his name. And years later, when I was out of Gemini Studios and I had much time but not much money, anything at a reduced price attracted my attention. On the footpath in front of the Madras Mount Road Post Office, there was a pile of brand new books for fifty paise each. Actually they were copies of the same book, an elegant paperback of American origin. ‘Special low-priced student edition, in connection with the 50th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution’, I paid fifty paise and picked up a copy of the book, The God That Failed. Six eminent men of letters in six separate essays described ‘their journeys into Communism and their disillusioned return’; Andre Gide6, Richard Wright7, Ignazio Silone8, Arthur Koestler9, Louis Fischer10 and Stephen Spender. Stephen Spender! Suddenly the book assumed tremendous significance. Stephen Spender, the poet who had visited Gemini Studios! In a moment I felt a dark chamber of my mind lit up by a hazy illumination. The reaction to Stephen Spender at Gemini Studios was no longer a mystery. The Boss of the Gemini Studios may not have much to do with Spender’s poetry. But not with his god that failed.

Why didn’t Valli want to make friends with the elderly woman?

<answer> Valli did not wanted to make friends with the elderly woman because she looked quite repulsive. She had big earholes and was wearing ugly earrings. Apart from this, she was chewing betel and her mouth was also filled with betel juice. <context> THERE was a girl named Valliammai who was called Valli for short. She was eight years old and very curious about things. Her favourite pastime was standing in the front doorway of her house, watching what was happening in the street outside. There were no playmates of her own age on her street, and this was about all she had to do. But for Valli, standing at the front door was every bit as enjoyable as any of the elaborate games other children played. Watching the street gave her many new unusual experiences. The most fascinating thing of all was the bus that travelled between her village and the nearest town. It passed through her street each hour, once going to the town and once coming back. The sight of the bus, filled each time with a new set of passengers, was a source of unending joy for Valli. Day after day she watched the bus, and gradually a tiny wish crept into her head and grew there: she wanted to ride on that bus, even if just once. This wish became stronger and stronger, until it was an overwhelming desire. Valli would stare wistfully at the people who got on or off the bus when it stopped at the street corner. Their faces would kindle in her longings, dreams, and hopes. If one of her friends happened to ride the bus and tried to describe the sights of the town to her, Valli would be too jealous to listen and would shout, in English: “Proud! proud!” Neither she nor her friends really understood the meaning of the word, but they used it often as a slang expression of disapproval. Over many days and months Valli listened carefully to conversations between her neighbours and people who regularly used the bus, and she also asked a few discreet questions here and there. This way she picked up various small details about the bus journey. The town was six miles from her village. The fare was thirty paise one way — “which is almost nothing at all,” she heard one well-dressed man say, but to Valli, who scarcely saw that much money from one month to the next, it seemed a fortune. The trip to the town took forty-five minutes. On reaching town, if she stayed in her seat and paid another thirty paise, she could return home on the same bus. This meant that she could take the one-o’clock afternoon bus, reach the town at one forty-five, and be back home by about two forty-five... On and on went her thoughts as she calculated and recalculated, planned and replanned. Well, one fine spring day the afternoon bus was just on the point of leaving the village and turning into the main highway when a small voice was heard shouting: “Stop the bus! Stop the bus!” And a tiny hand was raised commandingly. The bus slowed down to a crawl, and the conductor, sticking his head out the door, said, “Hurry then! Tell whoever it is to come quickly.” “It’s me,” shouted Valli. “I’m the one who has to get on.” By now the bus had come to a stop, and the conductor said, “Oh, really! You don’t say so!” “Yes, I simply have to go to town,” said Valli, still standing outside the bus, “and here’s my money.” She showed him some coins. “Okay, okay, but first you must get on the bus,” said the conductor, and he stretched out a hand to help her up. “Never mind,” she said, “I can get on by myself. You don’t have to help me.” The conductor was a jolly sort, fond of joking. “Oh, please don’t be angry with me, my fine madam,” he said. “Here, have a seat right up there in front. Everybody move aside please — make way for madam.” It was the slack time of day, and there were only six or seven passengers on the bus. They were all looking at Valli and laughing with the conductor. Valli was overcome with shyness. Avoiding everyone’s eyes, she walked quickly to an empty seat and sat down. “May we start now, madam?” the conductor asked, smiling. Then he blew his whistle twice, and the bus moved forward with a roar. It was a new bus, its outside painted a gleaming white with some green stripes along the sides. Inside, the overhead bars shone like silver. Directly in front of Valli, above the windshield, there was a beautiful clock. The seats were soft and luxurious. Valli devoured everything with her eyes. But when she started to look outside, she found her view cut off by a canvas blind that covered the lower part of her window. So she stood up on the seat and peered over the blind. The bus was now going along the bank of a canal. The road was very narrow. On one side there was the canal and, beyond it, palm trees, grassland, distant mountains, and the blue, blue sky. On the other side was a deep ditch and then acres and acres of green fields — green, green, green, as far as the eye could see. Oh, it was all so wonderful! Suddenly she was startled by a voice. “Listen, child,” said the voice, “you shouldn’t stand like that. Sit down.” Sitting down, she looked to see who had spoken. It was an elderly man who had honestly been concerned for her, but she was annoyed by his attention. “There’s nobody here who’s a child,” she said haughtily. “I’ve paid my thirty paise like everyone else.” The conductor chimed in. “Oh, sir, but this is a very grown-up madam. Do you think a mere girl could pay her own fare and travel to the city all alone?” Valli shot an angry glance at the conductor and said, “I am not a madam. Please remember that. And you’ve not yet given me my ticket.” “I’ll remember,” the conductor said, mimicking her tone. Everyone laughed, and gradually Valli too joined in the laughter. The conductor punched a ticket and handed it to her. “Just sit back and make yourself comfortable. Why should you stand when you’ve paid for a seat?” “Because I want to,” she answered, standing up again. “But if you stand on the seat, you may fall and hurt yourself when the bus makes a sharp turn or hits a bump. That’s why we want you to sit down, child.” “I’m not a child, I tell you,” she said irritably. “I’m eight years old.” “Of course, of course. How stupid of me! Eight years — my!” The bus stopped, some new passengers got on, and the conductor got busy for a time. Afraid of losing her seat, Valli finally sat down. An elderly woman came and sat beside her. “Are you all alone, dear?” she asked Valli as the bus started again. Valli found the woman absolutely repulsive — such big holes she had in her ear lobes, and such ugly earrings in them! And she could smell the betel nut the woman was chewing and see the betel juice that was threatening to spill over her lips at any moment. Ugh! — who could be sociable with such a person? “Yes, I’m travelling alone,” she answered curtly. “And I’ve got a ticket too.” “Yes, she’s on her way to town,” said the conductor. “With a thirty-paise ticket.” “Oh, why don’t you mind your own business,” said Valli. But she laughed all the same, and the conductor laughed too. But the old woman went on with her drivel. “Is it proper for such a young person to travel alone? Do you know exactly where you’re going in town? What’s the street? What’s the house number?” “You needn’t bother about me. I can take care of myself,” Valli said, turning her face towards the window and staring out. Her first journey — what careful, painstaking, elaborate plans she had had to make for it! She had thriftily saved whatever stray coins came her way, resisting every temptation to buy peppermints, toys, balloons, and the like, and finally she had saved a total of sixty paise. How difficult it had been, particularly that day at the village fair, but she had resolutely stifled a strong desire to ride the merrygo- round, even though she had the money. After she had enough money saved, her next problem was how to slip out of the house without her mother’s knowledge. But she managed this without too much difficulty. Every day after lunch her mother would nap from about one to four or so. Valli always used these hours for her ‘excursions’ as she stood looking from the doorway of her house or sometimes even ventured out into the village; today, these same hours could be used for her first excursion outside the village. The bus rolled on now cutting across a bare landscape, now rushing through a tiny hamlet or past an odd wayside shop. Sometimes the bus seemed on the point of gobbling up another vehicle that was coming towards them or a pedestrian crossing the road. But lo! somehow it passed on smoothly, leaving all obstacles safely behind. Trees came running towards them but then stopped as the bus reached them and simply stood there helpless for a moment by the side of the road before rushing away in the other direction. Suddenly Valli clapped her hands with glee. A young cow, tail high in the air, was running very fast, right in the middle of the road, right in front of the bus. The bus slowed to a crawl, and the driver sounded his horn loudly again and again. But the more he honked, the more frightened the animal became and the faster it galloped — always right in front of the bus. Somehow this was very funny to Valli. She laughed and laughed until there were tears in her eyes. “Hey, lady, haven’t you laughed enough?” called, the conductor. “Better save some for tomorrow.” At last the cow moved off the road. And soon the bus came to a railroad crossing. A speck of a train could be seen in the distance, growing bigger and bigger as it drew near. Then it rushed past the crossing gate with a tremendous roar and rattle, shaking the bus. Then the bus went on and passed the train station. From there it traversed a busy, well-laid-out shopping street and, turning, entered a wider thoroughfare. Such big, bright-looking shops! What glittering displays of clothes and other merchandise! Such big crowds! Struck dumb with wonder, Valli gaped at everything. Then the bus stopped and everyone got off except Valli. “Hey, lady,” said the conductor, “aren’t you ready to get off? This is as far as your thirty paise takes you.” “No,” Valli said, “I’m going back on this same bus.” She took another thirty paise from her pocket and handed the coins to the conductor. “Why, is something the matter?” “No, nothing’s the matter. I just felt like having a bus ride, that’s all.” “Don’t you want to have a look at the sights, now that you’re here?” “All by myself? Oh, I’d be much too afraid.” Greatly amused by the girl’s way of speaking, the conductor said, “But you weren’t afraid to come in the bus.” “Nothing to be afraid of about that,” she answered. “Well, then, why not go to that stall over there and have something to drink? Nothing to be afraid of about that either." “Oh, no, I couldn’t do that.” “Well, then, let me bring you a cold drink.” “No, I don’t have enough money. Just give me my ticket, that’s all.” “It’ll be my treat and not cost you anything.” “No, no,” she said firmly, “please, no.” The conductor shrugged, and they waited until it was time for the bus to begin the return journey. Again there weren’t many passengers.

Describe the changing relationship between the author and his grandmother. Did their feelings for each other change?

<answer> During his boyhood, the author was completely dependent on his grandmother. She was a part of his life. The turning point in their friendship came when they went to city. She could no longer accompany him to school as he went there by bus. They shared the same room but she could not help him in his studies. She would ask him what the teachers had taught. She did not believe in the things that were taught at school. She was distressed that there was no teaching about God and the scriptures. She felt offended that music was also being taught. She expressed her disapprovall silently. After this she rarely talked to him. When he went to university, he was given a room of his own. The common link of friendship was snapped. However their feelings for each other did not change. They still love each other deeply. She went to see author off at the railway station when he was going abroad for higher studies. She showed no emotion but kissed his forehead silently. The author valued this as perhaps the last sign of physical contact between them. When the author returned after five years, she received him at the station. She clasped him in her arms. In the evening she celebrated his homecoming by singing songs and beating an old drum. <context> MY grandmother, like everybody’s grandmother, was an old woman. She had been old and wrinkled for the twenty years that I had known her. People said that she had once been young and pretty and had even had a husband, but that was hard to believe. My grandfather’s portrait hung above the mantelpiece in the drawing room. He wore a big turban and loose-fitting clothes. His long, white beard covered the best part of his chest and he looked at least a hundred years old. He did not look the sort of person who would have a wife or children. He looked as if he could only have lots and lots of grandchildren. As for my grandmother being young and pretty, the thought was almost revolting. She often told us of the games she used to play as a child. That seemed quite absurd and undignified on her part and we treated it like the fables of the Prophets she used to tell us. She had always been short and fat and slightly bent. Her face was a criss-cross of wrinkles running from everywhere to everywhere. No, we were certain she had always been as we had known her. Old, so terribly old that she could not have grown older, and had stayed at the same age for twenty years. She could never have been pretty; but she was always beautiful. She hobbled about the house in spotless white with one hand resting on her waist to balance her stoop and the other telling the beads of her rosary. Her silver locks were scattered untidily over her pale, puckered face, and her lips constantly moved in inaudible prayer. Yes, she was beautiful. She was like the winter landscape in the mountains, an expanse of pure white serenity breathing peace and contentment. My grandmother and I were good friends. My parents left me with her when they went to live in the city and we were constantly together. She used to wake me up in the morning and get me ready for school. She said her morning prayer in a monotonous sing-song while she bathed and dressed me in the hope that I would listen and get to know it by heart; I listened because I loved her voice but never bothered to learn it. Then she would fetch my wooden slate which she had already washed and plastered with yellow chalk, a tiny earthen ink-pot and a red pen, tie them all in a bundle and hand it to me. After a breakfast of a thick, stale chapatti with a little butter and sugar spread on it, we went to school. She carried several stale chapattis with her for the village dogs. My grandmother always went to school with me because the school was attached to the temple. The priest taught us the alphabet and the morning prayer. While the children sat in rows on either side of the verandah singing the alphabet or the prayer in a chorus, my grandmother sat inside reading the scriptures. When we had both finished, we would walk back together. This time the village dogs would meet us at the temple door. They followed us to our home growling and fighting with each other for the chapattis we threw to them. When my parents were comfortably settled in the city, they sent for us. That was a turning-point in our friendship. Although we shared the same room, my grandmother no longer came to school with me. I used to go to an English school in a motor bus. There were no dogs in the streets and she took to feeding sparrows in the courtyard of our city house. As the years rolled by we saw less of each other. For some time she continued to wake me up and get me ready for school. When I came back she would ask me what the teacher had taught me. I would tell her English words and little things of western science and learning, the law of gravity, Archimedes’ Principle, the world being round, etc. This made her unhappy. She could not help me with my lessons. She did not believe in the things they taught at the English school and was distressed that there was no teaching about God and the scriptures. One day I announced that we were being given music lessons. She was very disturbed. To her music had lewd associations. It was the monopoly of harlots and beggars and not meant for gentlefolk. She said nothing but her silence meant disapproval. She rarely talked to me after that. When I went up to University, I was given a room of my own. The common link of friendship was snapped. My grandmother accepted her seclusion with resignation. She rarely left her spinning-wheel to talk to anyone. From sunrise to sunset she sat by her wheel spinning and reciting prayers. Only in the afternoon she relaxed for a while to feed the sparrows. While she sat in the verandah breaking the bread into little bits, hundreds of little birds collected round her creating a veritable bedlam of chirrupings. Some came and perched on her legs, others on her shoulders. Some even sat on her head. She smiled but never shooed them away. It used to be the happiest halfhour of the day for her. When I decided to go abroad for further studies, I was sure my grandmother would be upset. I would be away for five years, and at her age one could never tell. But my grandmother could. She was not even sentimental. She came to leave me at the railway station but did not talk or show any emotion. Her lips moved in prayer, her mind was lost in prayer. Her fingers were busy telling the beads of her rosary. Silently she kissed my forehead, and when I left I cherished the moist imprint as perhaps the last sign of physical contact between us. But that was not so. After five years I came back home and was met by her at the station. She did not look a day older. She still had no time for words, and while she clasped me in her arms I could hear her reciting her prayers. Even on the first day of my arrival, her happiest moments were with her sparrows whom she fed longer and with frivolous rebukes. In the evening a change came over her. She did not pray. She collected the women of the neighbourhood, got an old drum and started to sing. For several hours she thumped the sagging skins of the dilapidated drum and sang of the home-coming of warriors. We had to persuade her to stop to avoid overstraining. That was the first time since I had known her that she did not pray. The next morning she was taken ill. It was a mild fever and the doctor told us that it would go. But my grandmother thought differently. She told us that her end was near. She said that, since only a few hours before the close of the last chapter of her life she had omitted to pray, she was not going to waste any more time talking to us. We protested. But she ignored our protests. She lay peacefully in bed praying and telling her beads. Even before we could suspect, her lips stopped moving and the rosary fell from her lifeless fingers. A peaceful pallor spread on her face and we knew that she was dead. We lifted her off the bed and, as is customary, laid her on the ground and covered her with a red shroud. After a few hours of mourning we left her alone to make arrangements for her funeral. In the evening we went to her room with a crude stretcher to take her to be cremated. The sun was setting and had lit her room and verandah with a blaze of golden light. We stopped half-way in the courtyard. All over the verandah and in her room right up to where she lay dead and stiff wrapped in the red shroud, thousands of sparrows sat scattered on the floor. There was no chirruping. We felt sorry for the birds and my mother fetched some bread for them. She broke it into little crumbs, the way my grandmother used to, and threw it to them. The sparrows took no notice of the bread. When we carried my grandmother’s corpse off, they flew away quietly. Next morning the sweeper swept the bread crumbs into the dustbin.

Why do you think Wanda gave Maddie and Peggy the drawings of the dresses? Why are they surprised?

<answer> When Maddie and Peggy wrote a letter to Wanda, she might have understood their feelings behind their letter and during the dresses game, she had observed both of them. So she requested Miss Mason to give two of her drawings to them and had taught them a lesson of life. Maddie and Peggy were surprised as she gifted them the drawings with their faces. <context> WHILE the class was circling the room, the monitor from the principal’s office brought Miss Mason a note. Miss Mason read it several times and studied it thoughtfully for a while. Then she clapped her hands. “Attention, class. Everyone back to their seat.” When the shuffling of feet had stopped and the room was still and quiet, Miss Mason said, “I have a letter from Wanda’s father that I want to read to you.” Miss Mason stood there a moment and the silence in the room grew tense and expectant. The teacher adjusted her glasses slowly and deliberately. Her manner indicated that what was coming — this letter from Wanda’s father — was a matter of great importance. Everybody listened closely as Miss Mason read the brief note. Dear Teacher: My Wanda will not come to your school any more. Jake also. Now we move away to big city. No more holler ‘Pollack’. No more ask why funny name. Plenty of funny names in the big city. Yours truly, Jan Petronski A deep silence met the reading of this letter. Miss Mason took off her glasses, blew on them and wiped them on her soft white handkerchief. Then she put them on again and looked at the class. When she spoke her voice was very low. “I am sure that none of the boys and girls in Room Thirteen would purposely and deliberately hurt anyone’s feelings because his or her name happened to be a long, unfamiliar one. I prefer to think that what was said was said in thoughtlessness. I know that all of you feel the way I do, that this is a very unfortunate thing to have happened — unfortunate and sad, both. And I want you all to think about it.” The first period was a study period. Maddie tried to prepare her lessons, but she could not put her mind on her work. She had a very sick feeling in the bottom of her stomach. True, she had not enjoyed listening to Peggy ask Wanda how many dresses she had in her closet, but she had said nothing. She had stood by silently, and that was just as bad as what Peggy had done. Worse. She was a coward. At least Peggy hadn’t considered they were being mean but she, Maddie, had thought they were doing wrong. She could put herself in Wanda’s shoes. Goodness! Wasn’t there anything she could do? If only she could tell Wanda she hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings. She turned around and stole a glance at Peggy, but Peggy did not look up. She seemed to be studying hard. Well, whether Peggy felt badly or not, she, Maddie, had to do something. She had to find Wanda Petronski. Maybe she had not yet moved away. Maybe Peggy would climb the Heights with her, and they would tell Wanda she had won the contest, that they thought she was smart and the hundred dresses were beautiful. When school was dismissed in the afternoon, Peggy said, with pretended casualness, “Hey, let’s go and see if that kid has left town or not.” So Peggy had had the same idea! Maddie glowed. Peg was really all right. The two girls hurried out of the building, up the street toward Boggins Heights, the part of town that wore such a forbidding air on this kind of a November afternoon, drizzly, damp and dismal. “Well, at least,” said Peggy gruffly, “I never did call her a foreigner or make fun of her name. I never thought she had the sense to know we were making fun of her anyway. I thought she was too dumb. And gee, look how she can draw!” Maddie could say nothing. All she hoped was that they would find Wanda. She wanted to tell her that they were sorry they had picked on her, and how wonderful the whole school thought she was, and please, not to move away and everybody would be nice. She and Peggy would fight anybody who was not nice. The two girls hurried on. They hoped to get to the top of the hill before dark. “I think that’s where the Petronskis live,” said Maddie, pointing to a little white house. Wisps of old grass stuck up here and there along the pathway like thin kittens. The house and its sparse little yard looked shabby but clean. It reminded Maddie of Wanda’s one dress, her faded blue cotton dress, shabby but clean. There was not a sign of life about the house. Peggy knocked firmly on the door, but there was no answer. She and Maddie went around to the back yard and knocked there. Still there was no answer. There was no doubt about it. The Petronskis were gone. How could they ever make amends? They turned slowly and made their way back down the hill. “Well, anyway,” said Peggy, “she’s gone now, so what can we do? Besides, when I was asking her about all her dresses, she probably was getting good ideas for her drawings. She might not even have won the contest, otherwise.” Maddie turned this idea carefully over in her head, for if there were anything in it she would not have to feel so badly. But that night she could not get to sleep. She thought about Wanda and her faded blue dress and the little house she had lived in. And she thought of the glowing picture those hundred dresses made — all lined up in the classroom. At last Maddie sat up in bed and pressed her forehead tight in her hands and really thought. This was the hardest thinking she had ever done. After a long, long time, she reached an important conclusion. She was never going to stand by and say nothing again. If she ever heard anybody picking on someone because they were funny looking or because they had strange names, she’d speak up. Even if it meant losing Peggy’s friendship. She had no way of making things right with Wanda, but from now on she would never make anybody else that unhappy again. On Saturday Maddie spent the afternoon with Peggy. They were writing a letter to Wanda Petronski. It was just a friendly letter telling about the contest and telling Wanda she had won. They told her how pretty her drawings were. And they asked her if she liked where she was living and if she liked her new teacher. They had meant to say they were sorry, but it ended up with their just writing a friendly letter, the kind they would have written to any good friend, and they signed it with lots of X’s for love. They mailed the letter to Boggins Heights, writing ‘Please Forward’ on the envelope. Days passed and there was no answer, but the letter did not come back, so maybe Wanda had received it. Perhaps she was so hurt and angry she was not going to answer. You could not blame her. Weeks went by and still Wanda did not answer. Peggy had begun to forget the whole business, and Maddie put herself to sleep at night making speeches about Wanda, defending her from great crowds of girls who were trying to tease her with, “How many dresses have you got?” And before Wanda could press her lips together in a tight line, the way she did before answering, Maddie would cry out, “Stop!” Then everybody would feel ashamed the way she used to feel. Now it was Christmas time and there was snow on the ground. Christmas bells and a small tree decorated the classroom. On the last day of school before the holidays, the teacher showed the class a letter she had received that morning. “You remember Wanda Petronski, the gifted little artist who won the drawing contest? Well, she has written me, and I am glad to know where she lives, because now I can send her medal. I want to read her letter to you.” The class sat up with a sudden interest and listened intently. Dear Miss Mason, How are you and Room Thirteen? Please tell the girls they can keep those hundred dresses, because in my new house I have a hundred new ones, all lined up in my closet. I’d like that girl Peggy to have the drawing of the green dress with the red trimming, and her friend Maddie to have the blue one. For Christmas, I miss that school and my new teacher does not equalise with you. Merry Christmas to you and everybody. On the way home from school Maddie and Peggy held their drawings very carefully. All the houses had wreaths and holly in the windows. Outside the grocery store, hundreds of Christmas trees were stacked, and in the window, candy peppermint sticks and cornucopias of shiny transparent paper were strung. The air smelled like Christmas and light shining everywhere reflected different colours on the snow. “Boy!” said Peggy, “this shows she really likes us. It shows she got our letter and this is her way of saying that everything’s all right. And that’s that.” “I hope so,” said Maddie sadly. She felt sad because she knew she would never see the little tight-lipped Polish girl again and couldn’t ever really make things right between them. She went home and she pinned her drawing over a torn place in the pink-flowered wallpaper in the bedroom. The shabby room came alive from the brilliancy of the colours. Maddie sat down on her bed and looked at the drawing. She had stood by and said nothing, but Wanda had been nice to her, anyway. Tears blurred her eyes and she gazed for a long time at the picture. Then hastily she rubbed her eyes and studied it intently. The colours in the dress were so vivid that she had scarcely noticed the face and head of the drawing. But it looked like her, Maddie! It really looked like her own mouth. Why it really looked like her own self! Wanda had really drawn this for her. Excitedly, she ran over to Peggy’s. “Peg!” she said, “let me see your picture.” “What’s the matter?” asked Peggy, as they clattered up to her room where Wanda’s drawing was lying face down on the bed. Maddie carefully raised it. “Look! She drew you. That’s you!” she exclaimed. And the head and face of this picture did look like Peggy. “What did I say!” said Peggy, “She must have really liked us, anyway.” “Yes, she must have,” agreed Maddie, and she blinked away the tears that came every time she thought of Wanda standing alone in that sunny spot in the school yard, looking stolidly over at the group of laughing girls after she had walked off, after she had said, “Sure, a hundred of them, all lined up.”

What are the main features of the mechanical teachers and the schoolrooms that Margie and Tommy have in the story?

<answer> Margie and Tommy have mechanical teachers. They need not go to school for getting a formal education. The mechanical teacher is placed in one of the rooms of the house and they can get the knowledge of various subjects of individually from the mechanical teacher. They dont have such classrooms where students sit together. They study from the telebooks. So they don't require books and exercise books. The examination system is very different. They do homework in a different way. Margie has to write them out in a punch code. She learnt it when she was six years old. So the system of their education is technologically advanced and not based on printed books. <context> MARGIE even wrote about it that night in her diary. On the page headed 17 May 2157, she wrote, “Today Tommy found a real book!” It was a very old book. Margie’s grandfather once said that when he was a little boy his grandfather told him that there was a time when all stories were printed on paper. They turned the pages, which were yellow and crinkly, and it was awfully funny to read words that stood still instead of moving the way they were supposed to — on a screen, you know. And then when they turned back to the page before, it had the same words on it that it had had when they read it the first time. 2. “Gee,” said Tommy, “what a waste. When you’re through with the book, you just throw it away, I guess. Our television screen must have had a million books on it and it’s good for plenty more. I wouldn’t throw it away.” “Same with mine,” said Margie. She was eleven and hadn’t seen as many telebooks as Tommy had. He was thirteen. She said, “Where did you find it?” “In my house.” He pointed without looking, because he was busy reading. “In the attic.” “What’s it about?” “School.” 3. Margie was scornful. “School? What’s there to write about school? I hate school.” Margie always hated school, but now she hated it more than ever. The mechanical teacher had been giving her test after test in geography and she had been doing worse and worse until her mother had shaken her head sorrowfully and sent for the County Inspector. 4. He was a round little man with a red face and a whole box of tools with dials and wires. He smiled at Margie and gave her an apple, then took the teacher apart. Margie had hoped he wouldn’t know how to put it together again, but he knew how all right, and, after an hour or so, there it was again, large and black and ugly, with a big screen on which all the lessons were shown and the questions were asked. That wasn’t so bad. The part Margie hated most was the slot where she had to put homework and test papers. She always had to write them out in a punch code they made her learn when she was six years old, and the mechanical teacher calculated the marks in no time. 5. The Inspector had smiled after he was finished and patted Margie’s head. He said to her mother, “It’s not the little girl’s fault, Mrs Jones. I think the geography sector was geared a little too quick. Those things happen sometimes. I’ve slowed it up to an average ten-year level. Actually, the overall pattern of her progress is quite satisfactory.” And he patted Margie’s head again. Margie was disappointed. She had been hoping they would take the teacher away altogether. They had once taken Tommy’s teacher away for nearly a month because the history sector had blanked out completely. So she said to Tommy, “Why would anyone write about school?” 6. Tommy looked at her with very superior eyes. “Because it’s not our kind of school, stupid. This is the old kind of school that they had hundreds and hundreds of years ago.” He added loftily, pronouncing the word carefully, “Centuries ago.” Margie was hurt. “Well, I don’t know what kind of school they had all that time ago.” She read the book over his shoulder for a while, then said, “Anyway, they had a teacher.” “Sure they had a teacher, but it wasn’t a regular teacher. It was a man.” “A man? How could a man be a teacher?” “Well, he just told the boys and girls things and gave them homework and asked them questions.” 7. “A man isn’t smart enough.” “Sure he is. My father knows as much as my teacher.” “He knows almost as much, I betcha.” Margie wasn’t prepared to dispute that. She said, “I wouldn’t want a strange man in my house to teach me.” Tommy screamed with laughter. “You don’t know much, Margie. The teachers didn’t live in the house. They had a special building and all the kids went there.” “And all the kids learned the same thing?” “Sure, if they were the same age.” 8. “But my mother says a teacher has to be adjusted to fit the mind of each boy and girl it teaches and that each kid has to be taught differently.” “Just the same they didn’t do it that way then. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to read the book.” “I didn’t say I didn’t like it,” Margie said quickly. She wanted to read about those funny schools. They weren’t even half finished when Margie’s mother called, “Margie! School!” Margie looked up. “Not yet, Mamma.” “Now!” said Mrs Jones. “And it’s probably time for Tommy, too.” Margie said to Tommy, “Can I read the book some more with you after school?” 9. “May be,” he said nonchalantly. He walked away whistling, the dusty old book tucked beneath his arm. Margie went into the schoolroom. It was right next to her bedroom, and the mechanical teacher was on and waiting for her. It was always on at the same time every day except Saturday and Sunday, betcha (informal): because her mother said little girls learned better if they learned at regular hours. The screen was lit up, and it said: “Today’s arithmetic lesson is on the addition of proper fractions. Please insert yesterday’s homework in the proper slot.” 10. Margie did so with a sigh. She was thinking about the old schools they had when her grandfather’s grandfather was a little boy. All the kids from the whole neighborhood came, laughing and shouting in the schoolyard, sitting together in the schoolroom, going home together at the end of the day. They learned the same things, so they could help one another with the homework and talk about it. And the teachers were people… The mechanical teacher was flashing on the screen: “When we add fractions ½ and ¼...” Margie was thinking about how the kids must have loved it in the old days. She was thinking about the fun they had.

How is humour employed to comment on the pains that the author took to get his watch set right?

<answer> It is humorous on how the author and his watch had to undergo the pain which was delivered by the seven watchmakers. It was futile at the end and no good was done to his dear watch. The episodes with the seven watchmakers are funny as the watchmakers tried their best to repair the watch, playing with it, exploring, operating, assembling and disassembling each part of it. The author experienced sheer pain as the watch was dear to him. Each time with strength and hope he went to a new watchmaker; not even a single tinker was able to put it back together and make it function properly again. It was strange how the seven watchmakers could not repair the watch while they experimented and did lots of development and research on it. <context> My beautiful new watch had run eighteen months without losing or gaining, and without breaking any part of its machinery or stopping. I had come to believe it infallible in its judgments about the time of day, and to consider its constitution and its anatomy imperishable. But, at last, one night, I let it run down. I grieved about it as if it were a recognised messenger and forerunner of calamity. But by and by I cheered up, set the watch by guess, and commanded my bodings and superstitions to depart. Next day I stepped into the chief jeweller’s to set it by the exact time, and the head of the establishment took it out of my hand and proceeded to set it for me. Then he said, ‘she is four minutes slow— regulator wants pushing up’. I tried to stop him—tried to make him understand that the watch kept perfect time. But no; all this human cabbage could see was that the watch was four minutes slow and the regulator must be pushed up a little; and so, while I danced around him in anguish, and implored him to let the watch alone, he calmly and cruelly did the shameful deed. My watch began to gain. It gained faster and faster day by day. Within a week it sickened to a raging fever and its pulse went up to a hundred and fifty in the shade. At the end of two months it had left all the timepieces of the town far in the rear and was a fraction over thirteen days ahead of the almanac. It was away into November enjoying the snow, while the October leaves were still turning. It hurried up house rent, bills payable and such things in such a ruinous way that I could not abide it. I took it to the watchmaker to be regulated. He asked me if I had ever had it repaired. I said no, it had never needed any repairing. He looked a look of vicious happiness and eagerly pried the watch open, and then put a small dice-box into his eye and peered into its machinery. He said it wanted cleaning and oiling, besides regulating, and asked me to come in a week. After being cleaned and oiled, and regulated, my watch slowed down to that degree that it ticked all appointments I go to, missing my dinner, I gradually drifted back into yesterday, then the day before, then into last week and by and by the comprehension came upon me that, all solitary and alone, I was lingering alone in week before last and the world was out of sight. I seemed to detect in myself a sort of sneaking fellow-feeling for the mummy in the museum, and a desire to swap news with him. I went to a watchmaker again. He took the watch all to pieces while I waited and then said the barrel was ‘swelled’. He said he could reduce it in three days. After this the watch averaged well, but nothing more. For a half day it would go like the very mischief, and keep up such a barking and wheezing and whooping and sneezing and snorting that I could not hear myself think for the disturbance: and as it held out there was not a watch in the land that stood any chance against it. But the rest of the day it would keep on slowing down and fooling along until all the clocks it had left behind caught up again. It would show a fair and square average, and no man could say it had done more or less than its duty. But a correct average is only a mild virtue in a watch and I took this instrument to another watchmaker. He said the king-bolt was broken. I said I was glad it was nothing more serious. To tell the plain truth, I had no idea what the king-bolt was, but I did not choose to appear ignorant to a stranger. He repaired the king-bolt but what the watch gained in one way it lost in another. It would run a while and then stop a while, and then run a while again, and so on, using its own discretion about the intervals. And every time it went off it kicked back like a musket. I padded my breast for a few days but, finally, took the watch to another watchmaker. He picked it all to pieces and turned the ruin over and over under his glass; and then he said there appeared to be fresh start. It did well now, except that always at ten minutes to ten the hands would shut together like a pair of scissors and from that time forth they would travel together. The oldest man in the world could not make head or tail of the time of day by such a watch, and so I went again to have the thing repaired. This person said that the crystal had got bent and the mainspring was not straight. He made these things all right and then my timepiece performed unexceptionably, save that now and then, after working along quietly for nearly eight hours, everything inside would let go all of a sudden and begin to buzz like a bee, and the hands would straightway begin to spin round and round so fast that their individuality was lost completely, and they simply seemed a delicate spider’s web over the face of the watch. She would reel off the next twenty-four hours in six or seven minutes, and then stop with a bang. I went with a heavy heart to one more watchmaker, and looked on while he took her to pieces. Then I prepared to cross-question him rigidly, for this thing was getting serious. The watch had cost two hundred dollars originally, and I seemed to have paid out two or three thousand for repairs. While I waited and looked on, I presently recognised in this watchmaker an old acquaintance—a steam-boat engineer of other days and not a good engineer, either. He examined all the parts carefully, just as the other watchmakers had done, and then delivered his verdict with the same confidence of manner. He said: ‘She makes too much steam— you want to hang the monkey-wrench on the safety-valve!’ I brained him on the spot and had him buried at my own expense. My uncle William (now deceased, alas!) used to say that a good horse was a good horse until it had run away once, and that a good watch was a good watch until the repairers got a chance at it. And he used to wonder what became of all the unsuccessful tinkers, and gunsmiths, and shoe-makers, and engineers, and blacksmiths; but nobody could ever tell him.

What does the third level refer to?

<answer> The third level is the world somewhere between desire or dream and reality. It is a world of fantasy that we create for ourselves and occasionally seek to escape to. Most of the time it is a picture of the simple past of our forefathers, who, we believe were happier. It is an escapist’s world which one weaves around to be off the current-day problems, worries, anxieties and tensions. <context> THE presidents of the New York Central and the New York, New Haven and Hartford railroads will swear on a stack of timetables that there are only two. But I say there are three, because I’ve been on the third level of the Grand Central Station. Yes, I’ve taken the obvious step: I talked to a psychiatrist friend of mine, among others. I told him about the third level at Grand Central Station, and he said it was a wakingdream wish fulfillment. He said I was unhappy. That made my wife kind of mad, but he explained that he meant the modern world is full of insecurity, fear, war, worry and all the rest of it, and that I just want to escape. Well, who doesn’t? Everybody I know wants to escape, but they don’t wander down into any third level at Grand Central Station. But that’s the reason, he said, and my friends all agreed. Everything points to it, they claimed. My stamp collecting, for example; that’s a ‘temporary refuge from reality.’ Well, maybe, but my grandfather didn’t need any refuge from reality; things were pretty nice and peaceful in his day, from all I hear, and he started my collection. It’s a nice collection too, blocks of four of practically every U.S. issue, first-day covers, and so on. President Roosevelt collected stamps too, you know. Anyway, here’s what happened at Grand Central. One night last summer I worked late at the office. I was in a hurry to get uptown to my apartment so I decided to take the subway from Grand Central because it’s faster than the bus. Now, I don’t know why this should have happened to me. I’m just an ordinary guy named Charley, thirty-one years old, and I was wearing a tan gabardine suit and a straw hat with a fancy band; I passed a dozen men who looked just like me. And I wasn’t trying to escape from anything; I just wanted to get home to Louisa, my wife. I turned into Grand Central from Vanderbilt Avenue, and went down the steps to the first level, where you take trains like the Twentieth Century. Then I walked down another flight to the second level, where the suburban trains leave from, ducked into an arched doorway heading for the subway — and got lost. That’s easy to do. I’ve been in and out of Grand Central hundreds of times, but I’m always bumping into new doorways and stairs and corridors. Once I got into a tunnel about a mile long and came out in the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel. Another time I came up in an office building on Forty-sixth Street, three blocks away. Sometimes I think Grand Central is growing like a tree, pushing out new corridors and staircases like roots. There’s probably a long tunnel that nobody knows about feeling its way under the city right now, on its way to Times Square, and maybe another to Central Park. And maybe — because for so many people through the years Grand Central has been an exit, a way of escape — maybe that’s how the tunnel I got into... But I never told my psychiatrist friend about that idea. The corridor I was in began angling left and slanting downward and I thought that was wrong, but I kept on walking. All I could hear was the empty sound of my own footsteps and I didn’t pass a soul. Then I heard that sort of hollow roar ahead that means open space and people talking. The tunnel turned sharp left; I went down a short flight of stairs and came out on the third level at Grand Central Station. For just a moment I thought I was back on the second level, but I saw the room was smaller, there were fewer ticket windows and train gates, and the information booth in the centre was wood and oldlooking. And the man in the booth wore a green eyeshade and long black sleeve protectors. The lights were dim and sort of flickering. Then I saw why; they were open-flame gaslights. There were brass spittoons on the floor, and across the station a glint of light caught my eye; a man was pulling a gold watch from his vest pocket. He snapped open the cover, glanced at his watch and frowned. He wore a derby hat, a black four-button suit with tiny lapels, and he had a big, black, handlebar mustache. Then I looked around and saw that everyone in the station was dressed like eighteen-ninety-something; I never saw so many beards, sideburns and fancy mustaches in my life. A woman walked in through the train gate; she wore a dress with leg-ofmutton sleeves and skirts to the top of her high-buttoned shoes. Back of her, out on the tracks, I caught a glimpse of a locomotive, a very small Currier & Ives locomotive with a funnel-shaped stack. And then I knew. To make sure, I walked over to a newsboy and glanced at the stack of papers at his feet. It was The World; and The World hasn’t been published for years. The lead story said something about President Cleveland. I’ve found that front page since, in the Public Library files, and it was printed June 11, 1894. I turned toward the ticket windows knowing that here — on the third level at Grand Central — I could buy tickets that would take Louisa and me anywhere in the United States we wanted to go. In the year 1894. And I wanted two tickets to Galesburg, Illinois. Have you ever been there? It’s a wonderful town still, with big old frame houses, huge lawns, and tremendous trees whose branches meet overhead and roof the streets. And in 1894, summer evenings were twice as long, and people sat out on their lawns, the men smoking cigars and talking quietly, the women waving palm-leaf fans, with the fire-flies all around, in a peaceful world. To be back there with the First World War still twenty years off, and World War II over forty years in the future... I wanted two The clerk figured the fare — he glanced at my fancy hatband, but he figured the fare — and I had enough for two coach tickets, one way. But when I counted out the money and looked up, the clerk was staring at me. He nodded at the bills. ‘‘That ain’t money, mister,’’ he said, ‘‘and if you’re trying to skin me, you won’t get very far,’’ and he glanced at the cash drawer beside him. Of course the money was old-style bills, half again as big as the money we use nowadays, and different-looking. I turned away and got out fast. There’s nothing nice about jail, even in 1894. And that was that. I left the same way I came, I suppose. Next day, during lunch hour, I drew three hundred dollars out of the bank, nearly all we had, and bought old-style currency (that really worried my psychiatrist friend). You can buy old money at almost any coin dealer’s, but you have to pay a premium. My three hundred dollars bought less than two hundred in old-style bills, but I didn’t care; eggs were thirteen cents a dozen in 1894. But I’ve never again found the corridor that leads to the third level at Grand Central Station, although I’ve tried often enough. Louisa was pretty worried when I told her all this, and didn’t want me to look for the third level any more, and after a while I stopped; I went back to my stamps. But now we’re both looking, every weekend, because now we have proof that the third level is still there. My friend Sam Weiner disappeared! Nobody knew where, but I sort of suspected because Sam’s a city boy, and I used to tell him about Galesburg — I went to school there — and he always said he liked the sound of the place. And that’s where he is, all right. In 1894. Because one night, fussing with my stamp collection, I found — Well, do you know what a first-day cover is? When a new stamp is issued, stamp collectors buy some and use them to mail envelopes to themselves on the very first day of sale; and the postmark proves the date. The envelope is called a first-day cover. They’re never opened; you just put blank paper in the envelope. That night, among my oldest first-day covers, I found one that shouldn’t have been there. But there it was. It was there because someone had mailed it to my grandfather at his home in Galesburg; that’s what the address on the envelope said. And it had been there since July 18, 1894 — the postmark showed that — yet I didn’t remember it at all. The stamp was a six-cent, dull brown, with a picture of President Garfield. Naturally, when the envelope came to Granddad in the mail, it went right into his collection and stayed there — till I took it out and opened it. At the stamp and coin store I go to, I found out that Sam bought eight hundred dollars’ worth of old-style currency. That ought to set him up in a nice little hay, feed and grain business; he always said that’s what he really wished he could do, and he certainly can’t go back to his old business. Not in Galesburg, Illinois, in 1894. His old business? Why, Sam was my psychiatrist.

What do you understand by the expression ‘thumbprints on his windpipe’?

<answer> Saul Bellow once described interviews as being like ‘thumbprints on his windpipe’. It means he treated interviews as a painful experience, as something that caught him by his windpipe, squeezed him and left indelible thumbprints on that. It also means that when the interviewer forces personal details from his interviewee, it becomes undesirable and cruel. <context> Since its invention a little over 130 years ago, the interview has become a commonplace of journalism. Today, almost everybody who is literate will have read an interview at some point in their lives, while from the other point of view, several thousand celebrities have been interviewed over the years, some of them repeatedly. So it is hardly surprising that opinions of the interview — of its functions, methods and merits — vary considerably. Some might make quite extravagant claims for it as being, in its highest form, a source of truth, and, in its practice, an art. Others, usually celebrities who see themselves as its victims, might despise the interview as an unwarranted intrusion into their lives, or feel that it somehow diminishes them, just as in some primitive cultures it is believed that if one takes a photographic portrait of somebody then one is stealing that person’s soul. V. S. Naipaul1 ‘feels that some people are wounded by interviews and lose a part of themselves,’ Lewis Carroll, the creator of Alice in Wonderland, was said to have had ‘a just horror of the interviewer’ and he never consented to be interviewed — It was his horror of being lionized which made him thus repel would be acquaintances, interviewers, and the persistent petitioners for his autograph and he would afterwards relate the stories of his success in silencing all such people with much satisfaction and amusement. Rudyard Kipling2 expressed an even more condemnatory attitude towards the interviewer. His wife, Caroline, writes in her diary for 14 October 1892 that their day was ‘wrecked by two reporters from Boston’. She reports her husband as saying to the reporters, “Why do I refuse to be interviewed? Because it is immoral! It is a crime, just as much of a crime as an offence against my person, as an assault, and just as much merits punishment. It is cowardly and vile. No respectable man would ask it, much less give it,” Yet Kipling had himself perpetrated such an ‘assault’ on Mark Twain only a few years before. H. G. Wells3 in an interview in 1894 referred to ‘the interviewing ordeal’, but was a fairly frequent interviewee and forty years later found himself interviewing Joseph Stalin4. Saul Bellow5, who has consented to be interviewed on several occasions, nevertheless once described interviews as being like thumbprints on his windpipe. Yet despite the drawbacks of the interview, it is a supremely serviceable medium of communication. “These days, more than at any other time, our most vivid impressions of our contemporaries are through interviews,” Denis Brian has written. “Almost everything of moment reaches us through one man asking questions of another. Because of this, the interviewer holds a position of unprecedented power and influence.” The following is an extract from an interview of Umberto Eco. The interviewer is Mukund Padmanabhan from The Hindu. Umberto Eco, a professor at the University of Bologna in Italy had already acquired a formidable reputation as a scholar for his ideas on semiotics (the study of signs), literary interpretation, and medieval aesthetics before he turned to writing fiction. Literary fiction, academic texts, essays, children’s books, newspaper articles—his written output is staggeringly large and wide-ranging, In 1980, he acquired the equivalent of intellectual superstardom with the publication of The Name of the Rose, which sold more than 10 million copies. Mukund: The English novelist and academic David Lodge once remarked, “I can’t understand how one man can do all the things he [Eco] does.” Umberto Eco: Maybe I give the impression of doing many things. But in the end, I am convinced I am always doing the same thing. Mukund: Which is? Umberto Eco: Aah, now that is more difficult to explain. I have some philosophical interests and I pursue them through my academic work and my novels. Even my books for children are about non-violence and peace...you see, the same bunch of ethical, philosophical interests. And then I have a secret. Did you know what will happen if you eliminate the empty spaces from the universe, eliminate the empty spaces in all the atoms? The universe will become as big as my fist. Similarly, we have a lot of empty spaces in our lives. I call them interstices. Say you are coming over to my place. You are in an elevator and while you are coming up, I am waiting for you. This is an interstice, an empty space. I work in empty spaces. While waiting for your elevator to come up from the first to the third floor, I have already written an article! (Laughs). Mukund: Not everyone can do that of course. Your non-fictional writing, your scholarly work has a certain playful and personal quality about it. It is a marked departure from a regular academic style — which is invariably depersonalised and often dry and boring. Have you consciously adopted an informal approach or is it something that just came naturally to you? Umberto Eco: When I presented my first Doctoral dissertation in Italy, one of the Professors said, “Scholars learn a lot of a certain subject, then they make a lot of false hypotheses, then they correct them and at the end, they put the conclusions. You, on the contrary, told the story of your research. Even including your trials and errors.” At the same time, he recognised I was right and went on to publish my dissertation as a book, which meant he appreciated it. At that point, at the age of 22, I understood scholarly books should be written the way I had done — by telling the story of the research. This is why my essays always have a narrative aspect. And this is why probably I started writing narratives [novels] so late — at the age of 50, more or less. I remember that my dear friend Roland Barthes was always frustrated that he was an essayist and not a novelist. He wanted to do creative writing one day or another but he died before he could do so. I never felt this kind of frustration. I started writing novels by accident. I had nothing to do one day and so I started. Novels probably satisfied my taste for narration. Mukund: Talking about novels, from being a famous academic you went on to becoming spectacularly famous after the publication of The Name of the Rose. You’ve written five novels against many more scholarly works of non-fiction, at least more than 20 of them... Umberto Eco: Over 40. Mukund: Over 40! Among them a seminal piece of work on semiotics. But ask most people about Umberto Eco and they will say, “Oh, he’s the novelist.” Does that bother you? Umberto Eco: Yes. Because I consider myself a university professor who writes novels on Sundays. It’s not a joke. I participate in academic conferences and not meetings of Pen Clubs and writers. I identify myself with the academic community. But okay, if they [most people] have read only the novels... (laughs and shrugs). I know that by writing novels, I reach a larger audience. I cannot expect to have one million readers with stuff on semiotics. Mukund: Which brings me to my next question. The Name of the Rose is a very serious novel. It’s a detective yarn at one level but it also delves into metaphysics, theology, and medieval history. Yet it enjoyed a huge mass audience. Were you puzzled at all by this? Umberto Eco: No. Journalists are puzzled. And sometimes publishers. And this is because journalists and publishers believe that people like trash and don’t like difficult reading experiences. Consider there are six billion people on this planet. The Name of the Rose sold between 10 and 15 million copies. So in a way I reached only a small percentage of readers. But it is exactly these kinds of readers who don’t want easy experiences. Or at least don’t always want this. I myself, at 9 pm after dinner, watch television and want to see either ‘Miami Vice’ or ‘Emergency Room’. I enjoy it and I need it. But not all day. Mukund: Could the huge success of the novel have anything to do with the fact that it dealt with a period of medieval history that... Umberto Eco: That’s possible. But let me tell you another story, because I often tell stories like a Chinese wise man. My American publisher said while she loved my book, she didn’t expect to sell more than 3,000 copies in a country where nobody has seen a cathedral or studies Latin. So I was given an advance for 3,000 copies, but in the end it sold two or three million in the U.S. A lot of books have been written about the medieval past far before mine. I think the success of the book is a mystery. Nobody can predict it. I think if I had written The Name of the Rose ten years earlier or ten years later, it wouldn’t have been the same. Why it worked at that time is a mystery.