ANTONY

Six months later relief came. The government demanded a report from the Municipality on the question of the statue, and this together with other lapses on the part of the Municipality made them want to know why the existing Council should not be dissolved and re-elections ordered. I called on the Chairman and said, ‘You will have to do something grand now. Why not acquire my house as a National Trust?’‘Why should I?’ he asked.‘Because,’ I said, ‘Sir F. is there. You will never be able to cart him to his old place. It’ll be a waste of public money. Why not put him up where he is now? He has stayed in the other place too long. I’m prepared to give you my house for a reasonable price.’‘But our funds don’t permit it,’ he wailed.‘I’m sure you have enough funds of your own. Why should you depend on the municipal funds? It’ll indeed be a grand gesture on your part, unique in India . . .’ I suggested he ought to relieve himself of some of his old blanket gains. ‘After all . . . how much more you will have to spend if you have to fight another election!’ It appealed to him. We arrived at a figure. He was very happy when he saw in the papers a few days later: ‘The Chairman of Malgudi Municipality has been able to buy back as a present for the nation the statue of Sir Frederick Lawley. He proposed to install it in a newly acquired property which is shortly to be converted into a park. The Municipal Council have resolved that Kabir Lane shall be changed to Lawley Road.’

Next the Municipality called for tenders. A dozen contractors sent in their estimates, the lowest standing at fifty thousand rupees, for removing the statue and carting it to the Muncipal Office, where they were already worried about the housing of it. The Chairman thought it over and told me, ‘Why don’t you take it yourself? I will give you the statue free if you do not charge us anything for removing it.’ I had thought till then that only my municipal friends were mad, but now I found I could be just as mad as they. I began to calculate the whole affair as a pure investment. Suppose it cost me five thousand rupees to dislodge and move the statue (I knew the contractors were overestimating), and I sold it as metal for six thousand . . . About three tons of metal might fetch anything. Or I could probably sell it to the British Museum or Westminster Abbey. I saw myself throwing up the upcountry paper job.The Council had no difficulty in passing a resolution permitting me to take the statue away. I made elaborate arrangements for the task . . . I borrowed money from my father-in-law, promising him a fantastic rate of interest. I recruited a team of fifty coolies to hack the pedestal. I stood over them like a slave-driver and kept shouting instructions. They put down their implements at six in the evening and returned to their attack early next day. They were specially recruited from Koppal, where the men’s limbs were hardened by generations of teak-cutting in Mempi Forest.

People dropped their normal occupations and loitered around the statue, wondering how they could have tolerated it for so many years. The gentleman seemed to smile derisively at the nation now, with his arms locked behind and his sword dangling from his belt. There could be no doubt that he must have been the worst tyrant imaginable: the true picture—with breeches and wig and white waistcoat and that hard, determined look—of all that has been hatefully familiar in the British period of Indian history. They shuddered when they thought of the fate of their ancestors who had to bear the tyrannies of this man.

He lay there he did not know how long. He strained his ears to catch the sound of the train, but he heard nothing more than a vague rattling and buzzing far off . . . Presently he grew tired of lying down there. He rose and walked back to the station. There was a good crowd on the platform. He asked someone, ‘What has happened to the train?’‘A goods train has derailed three stations off, and the way is blocked. They have sent up a relief. All the trains will be at least three hours late today . . .’‘God, you have shown me mercy!’ Rama Rao cried, and ran home.His wife was waiting at the door, looking down the street. She brightened up and sighed with relief on seeing Rama Rao. She welcomed him with a warmth he had not known for over a year now. ‘Oh, why are you so late today?’ she asked. ‘I was somehow feeling very restless the whole evening. Even the children were worried. Poor creatures! They have just gone to sleep.’When he sat down to eat she said, ‘Our tenants in the Extension bungalow came in the evening to ask if you would sell the house. They are ready to offer good cash for it immediately.’ She added quietly, ‘I think we may sell the house.’‘Excellent idea,’ Rama Rao replied jubilantly. ‘This minute we can get four and a half thousand for it. Give me the half thousand and I will go away to Madras and see if I can do anything useful there. You keep the balance with you and run the house. Let us first move to a better locality . . .’‘Are you going to employ your five hundred to get more money out of crossword puzzles?’ she asked quietly. At this Rama Rao felt depressed for a moment and then swore with great emphasis, ‘No, no. Never again.’

ttention to speculate whether HOPE or DOPE or ROPE mad

For the next few days his head was free from family cares. He was thinking intensely of his answers: whether it should be TALLOW or FOLLOW. Whether BAD or MAD or SAD would be most apt for a clue which said, ‘Men who are this had better be avoided.’ He hardly stopped to look at his wife and children standing in the doorway when he returned home in the evenings. Week after week he invested a little money and sent his solutions, and every week he awaited the results with a palpitating heart. On the day a solution was due he hung about the newsagent’s shop, worming himself into his favour in order to have a look into the latest issue of The Captain without paying for it. He was too impatient to wait till the journal came on the table in the Jubilee Reading Room. Sometimes the newsagent would grumble, and Rama Rao would pacify him with an awkward, affected optimism. ‘Please wait. When I get a prize I will give you three years’ subscription in advance . . .’ His heart quailed as he opened the page announcing the prize-winners. Someone in Baluchistan, someone in Dacca and someone in Ceylon had hit upon the right set of words; not Rama Rao. It took three hours for Rama Rao to recover from this shock. The only way to exist seemed to be to plunge into the next week’s puzzle; that would keep him buoyed up with hope for a few days more.

And one day, it was a bolt from the blue, the crash came. A series of circumstances in the world of trade, commerce, banking and politics was responsible for it. The gramophone company, which had its factory somewhere in North India, automatically collapsed when a bank in Lahore crashed, which was itself the result of a Bombay financier’s death. The financier was driving downhill when his car flew off sideways and came to rest three hundred feet below the road. It was thought that he had committed suicide because the previous night his wife eloped with his cashier.

‘Five-nought-one in second-class! Can it be true?’ he shrieked. He looked at the number again and again. Yes, there it was. He had obtained a second-class. ‘If this is true I shall sit in the B.A. class next month,’ he shouted. His voice rang through the silent building. ‘I will flay alive anyone who calls me a fool hereafter . . .’ he proclaimed. He felt slightly giddy. He leant against the wall. Years of strain and suspense were suddenly relaxed; and he could hardly bear the force of this release. Blood raced along his veins and heaved and knocked under his skull. He steadied himself with an effort. He softly hummed a tune to himself. He felt he was the sole occupant of the world and its overlord. He thumped his chest and addressed the notice-board: ‘Know who I am?’ He stroked an imaginary moustache arrogantly, laughed to himself and asked, ‘Is the horse ready, groom?’ He threw a supercilious side glance at the notice-board and strutted out like a king. He stood on the last step of the porch and looked for his steed. He waited for a minute and commanded, ‘Fool, bring the horse nearer. Do you hear?’ The horse was brought nearer. He made a movement as if mounting and whipped his horse into a fury. His voice rang through the dark riverside, urging the horse on. He swung his arms and ran along the sands. He shouted at the top of his voice: ‘Keep off; the king is coming; whoever comes his way will be trampled . . .’‘I have five hundred and one horses,’ he spoke to the night. The number stuck in his mind and kept coming up again and again. He ran the whole length of the riverbank up and down. Somehow this did not satisfy him. ‘Prime Minister,’ he said, ‘this horse is no good. Bring me the other five hundred and one horses, they are all in second-classes—’ He gave a kick to the horse which he had been riding and drove it off. Very soon the Prime Minister brought him another horse. He mounted it with dignity and said, ‘This is better.’ Now he galloped about on his horse. It was a strange sight. In the dim starlight, alone at that hour, making a tap-tap with his tongue to imitate galloping hoofs. With one hand swinging and tugging the reins, and with the other stroking his moustache defiantly, he urged the horse on and on until it attained the speed of a storm. He felt like a conqueror as the air rushed about him. Soon he crossed the whole stretch of sand. He came to the water’s edge, hesitated for a moment and whispered to his horse, ‘Are you afraid of water? You must swim across, otherwise I will never pay five-nought-one rupees for you.’ He felt the horse make a leap.

Soon the lights went out and the show started—a Tamil film with all the known gods in it. He soon lost himself in the politics and struggles of gods and goddesses; he sat rapt in the vision of a heavenly world which some film director had chosen to present. This felicity of forgetfulness lasted but half an hour. Soon the heroine of the story sat on a low branch of a tree in paradise and wouldn’t move out of the place. She sat there singing a song for over half an hour. This portion tired Iswaran, and now there returned all the old pains and gloom. ‘Oh, lady,’ Iswaran appealed, ‘don’t add to my troubles, please move on.’ As if she heard this appeal the lady moved off, and brighter things followed. A battle, a deluge, somebody dropping headlong from cloud-land, and somebody coming up from the bed of an ocean, a rain of fire, a rain of flowers, people dying, people rising from graves and so on. All kinds of thrills occurred on that white screen beyond the pall of tobacco smoke. The continuous babble on and off the screen, music and shouting, the cry of pedlars selling soda, the unrestrained comments of the spectators—all this din and commotion helped Iswaran to forget the Senate House and student life for a few hours.

He hummed as he went in for a wash before dressing to go out. He combed his hair with deliberate care, the more so because he knew everybody looked on him as a sort of an outcast for failing so often. He knew that behind him the whole family and the town were laughing. He felt that they remarked among themselves that washing, combing his hair and putting on a well-ironed coat were luxuries too far above his state. He was a failure and had no right to such luxuries. He was treated as a sort of thick-skinned idiot. But he did not care. He answered their attitude by behaving like a desperado. He swung his arms, strode up and down, bragged and shouted, and went to a cinema. But all this was only a mask. Under it was a creature hopelessly seared by failure, desperately longing and praying for success. On the day of the results he was, inwardly, in a trembling suspense. ‘Mother,’ he said as he went out, ‘don’t expect me for dinner tonight. I will eat something in a hotel and sit through both the shows at the Palace Talkies.’

On his way home he stopped for a moment at his hospital, called out his assistant and said, ‘That Lawley Extension case. You might expect the collapse any second now. Go there with a tube of———in hand, and give it in case the struggle is too hard at the end. Hurry up.’Next morning he was back at Lawley Extension at ten. From his car he made a dash for the sick bed. The patient was awake and looked very well. The assistant reported satisfactory pulse. The doctor put his tube to his heart, listened for a while and told the sick man’s wife, ‘Don’t look so unhappy, lady. Your husband will live to be ninety.’ When they were going back to the hospital, the assistant sitting beside him in the car asked, ‘Is he going to live, sir?’‘I will bet on it. He will live to be ninety. He has turned the corner. How he has survived this attack will be a puzzle to me all my life,’ replied the doctor.

When the doctor resumed his seat the patient asked in the faintest whisper possible, ‘Is that someone crying?’ The doctor advised, ‘Don’t exert yourself. You mustn’t talk.’ He felt the pulse. It was already agitated by the exertion. The patient asked, ‘Am I going? Don’t hide it from me.’ The doctor made a deprecating noise and sat back in his chair. He had never faced a situation like this. It was not in his nature to whitewash. People attached great value to his word because of that. He stole a look at the other. The patient motioned a finger to draw him nearer and whispered, ‘I must know how long I am going to last. I must sign the will. It is all ready. Ask my wife for the despatch box. You must sign as a witness.’

People came to him when the patient was on his last legs. Dr Raman often burst out, ‘Why couldn’t you have come a day earlier?’ The reason was obvious—visiting fee twenty-five rupees, and more than that, people liked to shirk the fact that the time had come to call in Dr Raman; for them there was something ominous in the very association. As a result, when the big man came on the scene it was always a quick decision one way or another. There was no scope or time for any kind of wavering or whitewashing. Long years of practice of this kind had bred in the doctor a certain curt truthfulness; for that very reason his opinion was valued; he was not a mere doctor expressing an opinion but a judge pronouncing a verdict. The patient’s life hung on his words. This never unduly worried Dr Raman. He never believed that agreeable words ever saved lives. He did not think it was any of his business to provide comforting lies when as a matter of course nature would tell them the truth in a few hours. However, when he glimpsed the faintest sign of hope, he rolled up his sleeve and stepped into the arena: it might be hours or days, but he never withdrew till he wrested the prize from Yama’s hands.Today, standing over a bed, the doctor felt that he himself needed someone to tell him soothing lies. He mopped his brow with his kerchief and sat down in the chair beside the bed. On the bed lay his dearest friend in the world: Gopal. They had known each other for forty years now, starting with their kindergarten days. They could not, of course, meet as much as they wanted, each being wrapped in his own family and profession. Occasionally, on a Sunday, Gopal would walk into the consulting room and wait patiently in a corner till the doctor was free. And then they would dine together, see a picture and talk of each other’s life and activities. It was a classic friendship, which endured untouched by changing times, circumstances and activities.

The earth, that’s nature’s mother, is her tomb. What is her burying, grave that is her womb.

Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, And vice sometime by action dignified.

Nor aught so good but, strained from that fair use Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse.

FRIAR LAWRENCE

Conceal me what I am, and be my aid For such disguise as haply shall become The form of my intent. I’ll serve this duke.

There is a fair behavior in thee, captain, And though that nature with a beauteous wall Doth oft close in pollution, yet of thee I will believe thou hast a mind that suits With this thy fair and outward character.

When Father came home and was told, he said, ‘The child must not have any chain hereafter. Didn’t I tell you that I saw her carrying it in her hand once or twice? She must have dropped it into the pot sometime . . . And all this bother on account of her.’

How did it get into the tamarind pot?’ Mother asked.‘Somehow,’ replied Leela.‘Did you put it in?’ asked Mother.‘Yes.’‘When?’‘Long ago, the other day,’‘Why didn’t you say so before?’‘I don’t know,’ said Leela.When Father came home and was told, he said, ‘The child must not have any chain hereafter. Didn’t I tell you that I saw her carrying it in her hand once or twice? She must have dropped it into the pot sometime . . . And all this bother on account of her.’‘What about Sidda?’ asked Mother.‘I will tell the inspector tomorrow . . . in any case, we couldn’t have kept a criminal like him in the house.’

Leela ran in and told her mother, ‘Sidda knows the moon.’ At dusk he carried her in and she held a class for him. She had a box filled with catalogues, illustrated books and stumps of pencils. It gave her great joy to play the teacher to Sidda. She made him squat on the floor with a pencil between his fingers and a catalogue in front of him. She had another pencil and a catalogue and commanded, ‘Now write.’ And he had to try and copy whatever she wrote in the pages of her catalogue. She knew two or three letters of the alphabet and could draw a kind of cat and crow. But none of these could Sidda copy even remotely. She said, examining his effort, ‘Is this how I have drawn the crow? Is this how I have drawn the B?’ She pitied him and redoubled her efforts to teach him. But that good fellow, though an adept at controlling the moon, was utterly incapable of plying the pencil. Consequently, it looked as though Leela would keep him there pinned to his seat till his stiff, inflexible wrist cracked. He sought relief by saying, ‘I think your mother is calling you in to dinner.’ Leela would drop the pencil and run out of the room, and the school hour would end.

‘I have asked it to follow us about.’

‘Sidda, come and play!’ Leela would cry, and Sidda had to drop any work he might be doing and run to her, as she stood in the front garden with a red ball in her hand. His company made her supremely happy. She flung the ball at him and he flung it back. And then she said, ‘Now throw the ball into the sky.’ Sidda clutched the ball, closed his eyes for a second and threw the ball up. When the ball came down again, he said, ‘Now this has touched the moon and come. You see here a little bit of the moon sticking.’ Leela keenly examined the ball for traces of the moon and said, ‘I don’t see it.’

LEELA’S FRIEND

giving the stock reply.

‘As I know all other things. Guru Nayak, listen carefully to what I have to say. Your village is two days’ journey due north of this town. Take the next train and be gone. I see once again great danger to your life if you go from home.’ He took out a pinch of sacred ash and held it out to him. ‘Rub it on your forehead and go home. Never travel southward again, and you will live to be a hundred.’‘Why should I leave home again?’ the other said reflectively. ‘I was only going away now and then to look for him and to choke out his life if I met him.’ He shook his head regretfully. ‘He has escaped my hands. I hope at least he died as he deserved.’ ‘Yes,’ said the astrologer. ‘He was crushed under a lorry.’ The other looked gratified to hear it.

‘Ah, tell me more.’‘A knife has passed through you once?’ said the astrologer.‘Good fellow!’ He bared his chest to show the scar. ‘What else?’‘And then you were pushed into a well nearby in the field. You were left for dead.’

There was a pause as cars hooted on the road, jutka-drivers swore at their horses and the babble of the crowd agitated the semi-darkness of the park.

He had a working analysis of mankind’s troubles: marriage, money and the tangles of human ties. Long practice had sharpened his perception. Within five minutes he understood what was wrong. He charged three pies per question and never opened his mouth till the other had spoken for at least ten minutes, which provided him enough stuff for a dozen answers and advices. When he told the person before him, gazing at his palm, ‘In many ways you are not getting the fullest results for your efforts, ’ nine out of ten were disposed to agree with him. Or he questioned: ‘Is there any woman in your family, maybe even a distant relative, who is not well disposed towards you?’ Or he gave an analysis of character: ‘Most of your troubles are due to your nature. How can you be otherwise with Saturn where he is? You have an impetuous nature and a rough exterior.’ This endeared him to their hearts immediately, for even the mildest of us loves to think that he has a forbidding exterior.

The screen which had covered the image parted. A great flame of camphor was waved in front of the image, and bronze bells rang. A silence fell upon the crowd. Every eye was fixed upon the image. In the flame of the circling camphor Nataraja’s eyes lit up. His limbs moved, his anklets jingled. The crowd was awe-stricken. The God pressed one foot on earth and raised the other in dance. He destroyed the universe under his heel, and smeared the ashes over his body, and the same God rattled the drum in his hand and by its rhythm set life in motion again . . . Creation, Dissolution and God attained a meaning now; this image brought it out . . . the bells rang louder every second. The crowd stood stunned by this vision vouchsafed to them.At this moment a wind blew from the east. The moon’s disc gradually dimmed. The wind gathered force, clouds blotted out the moon; people looked up and saw only pitchlike darkness above. Lightning flashed, thunder roared and fire poured down from the sky. It was a thunderbolt striking a haystack and setting it ablaze. Its glare illuminated the whole village. People ran about in panic, searching for shelter. The population of ten villages crammed in that village. Another thunderbolt hit a house. Women and children shrieked and wailed. The fires descended with a tremendous hiss as a mighty rain came down. It rained as it had never rained before. The two lakes, over which the village road ran, filled, swelled and joined over the road. Water flowed along the streets. The wind screamed and shook the trees and the homes. ‘This is the end of the world!’ wailed the people through the storm.

This man spoke to people and the great secret was out. A kind of dread seized the people of the village. On an auspicious day, Soma went to the temple priest and asked, ‘At the coming full moon my Nataraja must be consecrated. Have you made a place for him in the temple?’ The priest answered, ‘Let me see the image first . . .’ He went over to the sculptor’s house, gazed on the image and said, ‘This perfection, this God, is not for mortal eyes. He will blind us. At the first chant of prayer before him, he will dance . . . and we shall be wiped out . . .’ The sculptor looked so unhappy that the priest added, ‘Take your chisel and break a little toe or some other part of the image, and it will be safe . . .’ The sculptor replied that he would sooner crack the skull of his visitor. The leading citizens of the village came over and said, ‘Don’t mistake us. We cannot give your image a place in our temple. Don’t be angry with us. We have to think of the safety of all the people in the village . . . Even now if you are prepared to break a small finger . . .’

After all, his labours had come to an end. He sat back, wiped the perspiration off his face and surveyed his handiwork with great satisfaction. As he looked on he was overwhelmed by the majesty of this image. He fell prostrate before it, praying, ‘I have taken five years to make you. May you reside in our temple and bless all human beings!’ The dim mud flame cast subtle shadows on the image and gave it an undertone of rippling life. The sculptor stood lost in this vision. A voice said, ‘My friend, never take this image out of this room. It is too perfect . . .’ Soma trembled with fear. He looked round. He saw a figure crouching in a dark corner of the room—it was a man. Soma dashed forward and clutched him by the throat. ‘Why did you come here?’ The other writhed under the grip and replied, ‘Out of admiration for you. I have always loved your work. I have waited for five years . .

but he did not mind it so long as it helped him to keep out prying eyes. He worked with a fierce concentration and never encouraged anyone to talk about it.

SUCH PERFECTION

Nataraja

At about five in the morning the station-master and the porter arrived, and innocently walked in. The moment they stepped in the tiger left me and turned on them. They both ran at top speed. The station-master flew back to his house and shut the door. The porter on fleet foot went up a tree, with the tiger halfway up behind him. Thus they stopped, staring at each other till the goods train lumbered in after 5:30. It hissed and whistled and belched fire, till the tiger took himself down and bolted across the tracks into the jungle.He did not visit these parts again, though one was constantly hearing of his ravages. I did not meet him again—till a few moments ago when I saw him riding in that bullock cart. I instantly recognized him by his right forepaw, where three toes and claws are missing. You seemed to be so much lost in admiration for those people who met the tiger at their own convenience, with gun and company, that I thought you might give a little credit to a fellow who has faced the same animal, alone, barehanded. Hence this narration.When the Talkative Man left us, we moved on to the square, where they were keeping the trophy in view and hero-worshipping and fêting the hunters, who were awaiting a lorry from the town. We pushed through the crowd, and begged to be shown the right forepaw of the tiger. Somebody lowered a gas lamp. Yes, three toes were missing, and a deep black scar marked the spot. The man who cut it off must have driven his knife with the power of a hammer. To a question, the hunters replied, ‘Can’t say how it happens. We’ve met a few instances like this. It’s said that some forest tribes, if they catch a tiger cub, cut off its claws for some talisman and let it go. They do not usually kill cubs.’

At this point the dream ended as the chair barricading the door came hurtling through and fell on me. I opened my eyes and saw at the door a tiger pushing himself in. It was a muddled moment for me: not being sure whether the dream was continuing or whether I was awake. I at first thought it was my friend the station-master who was coming in, but my dream had fully prepared my mind—I saw the thing clearly against the starlit sky, tail wagging, growling, and, above all, his terrible eyes gleaming through the dark. I understood that the fertilizer company would have to manage without my lectures from the following day. The tiger himself was rather startled by the noise of the chair and stood hesitating. He saw me quite clearly in my corner, and he seemed to be telling himself, ‘My dinner is there ready, but let me first know what this clattering noise is about.’ Somehow wild animals are less afraid of human beings than they are of pieces of furniture like chairs and tables. I have seen circus men managing a whole menagerie with nothing more than a chair. God gives us such recollections in order to save us at critical moments; and as the tiger stood observing me and watching the chair, I put out my hands and with desperate strength drew the table towards me, and also the stool. I sat with my back to the corner, the table wedged in nicely with the corner. I sat under it, and the stool walled up another side. While I dragged the table down, a lot of things fell off it, a table lamp, a long knife and pins. From my shelter I peeped at the tiger, who was also watching me with interest. Evidently he didn’t like his meal to be so completely shut out of sight. So he cautiously advanced a step or two, making a sort of rumbling noise in his throat which seemed to shake up the little station house. My end was nearing. I really pitied the woman whose lot it was to have become my wife.I held up the chair like a shield and flourished it, and the tiger hesitated and fell back a step or two. Now once again we spent some time watching for each other’s movements. I held my breath and waited. The tiger stood there fiercely waving its tail, which sometimes struck the side walls and sent forth a thud. He suddenly crouched down without taking his eyes off me, and scratched the floor with his claws. ‘He is sharpening them for me,’ I told myself. The little shack had already acquired the smell of a zoo. It made me sick. The tiger kept scratching the floor with his forepaws. It was the most hideous sound you could think of.All of a sudden he sprang up and flung his entire weight on this lot of furniture. I thought it’d be reduced to matchwood, but fortunately our railways have a lot of foresight and choose the heaviest timber for their furniture. That saved me. The tiger could do nothing more than perch himself on the roof of the table and hang down his paws: he tried to strike me down, but I parried with the chair and stool. The table rocked under him. I felt smothered: I could feel his breath on me. He sat completely covering the top, and went on shooting his paws in my direction. He would have scooped portions of me out for his use, but fortunately I sat right in the centre, a hair’s-breadth out of his reach on any side. He made vicious sounds and wriggled over my head. He could have knocked the chair to one side and dragged me out if he had come down, but somehow the sight of the chair seemed to worry him for a time. He preferred to be out of its reach. This battle went on for a while, I cannot say how long: time had come to a dead stop in my world. He jumped down and walked about the table, looking for a gap; I rattled the chair a couple of times, but very soon it lost all its terror for him; he patted the chair and found that it was inoffensive. At this discovery he tried to hurl it aside. But I was too quick for him. I swiftly drew it towards me and wedged it tight into the arch of the table, and the stool protected me on another side. I was more or less in a stockade made of the legs of furniture. He sat up on his haunches in front of me, wondering how best to get at me. Now the chair, table and stool had formed a solid block, with me at their heart, and they could withstand all his tricks. He scrutinized my arrangement with great interest, espied a gap and thrust his paw in. It dangled in my eyes with the curved claws opening out towards me. I felt very angry at the sight of it. Why should I allow the offensive to be developed all in his own way? I felt very indignant. The long knife from the station-master’s table was lying nearby. I picked it up and drove it in. He withdrew his paw, maddened by pain. He jumped up and nearly brought down the room, and then tried to crack to bits the entire stockade. He did not succeed. He once again thrust his paw in. I employed the long knife to good purpose and cut off a digit with the claw on it. It was a fight to the finish between him and me. He returned again and again to the charge. And I cut out, let me confess, three claws, before I had done with him. I had become as bloodthirsty as he. (Those claws, mounted on gold, are hanging around the necks of my three daughters. You can come and see them if you like sometime.)

The station-master lived here with his wife and seven children. He fed me. I changed. He sent the porter along with me to the village, which was nearly a mile off in the interior. I gathered about me the peasants of those forty houses and lectured to them from the pyol of the headman’s house. They listened to me patiently, received the samples and my elaborate directions for their use, and went away to their respective occupations, with cynical comments among themselves regarding my ideas of manuring.

We watched this scene, fascinated, drifting along with the crowd—till the Talkative Man patted us from behind and cried, ‘Lost in wonder! If you’ve had your eyeful of that carcass, come aside and listen to me . . .’ After the crowd surged past us, he sat us on a rock mount, under a margosa tree, and began his tale: I was once camping in Koppal, the most obscure of all the villages that lie scattered about the Mempi region. You might wonder what I was doing in that desolate corner of the earth. I’ll tell you. You remember I’ve often spoken to you about my work as agent of a soil fertilizer company. It was the most miserable period of my life. Twenty-five days in the month, I had to be on the road, visiting nooks and corners of the country and popularizing the stuff . . . One such journey brought me to the village Koppal. It was not really a village but just a clearing with about forty houses and two streets, hemmed in by the jungle on all sides. The place was dingy and depressing. Why our company should have sought to reach a place like this for their stuff, I can’t understand. They would not have known of its existence but for the fact that it was on the railway. Yes, actually on the railway, some obscure branch-line passed through this village, though most trains did not stop there. Its centre of civilization was its railway station—presided over by a porter in blue and an old station-master, a wizened man wearing a green turban, and with red and green flags always tucked under his arms. Let me tell you about the station. It was not a building but an old railway carriage, which, having served its term of life, was deprived of its wheels and planted beside the railway lines. It had one or two windows through which the station-master issued tickets, and spoke to those occasional passengers who turned up in this wilderness. A convolvulus creeper was trained over its entrance: no better use could be found for an ex-carriage.

The man-eater’s dark career was ended. The men who had laid it low were the heroes of the day. They were garlanded with chrysanthemum flowers and seated on the arch of the highest bullock cart and were paraded in the streets, immediately followed by another bullock-drawn open cart, on which their trophy lay with glazed eyes—overflowing the cart on every side, his tail trailing the dust. The village suspended all the normal activity for the day; men, women and children thronged the highways, pressing on with the procession, excitedly talking about the tiger

The tiger had held a reign of terror for nearly five years, in the villages that girt Mempi Forest.

Attila was the hero of the day. Even the lady of the house softened towards him. She said, ‘Whatever one might say of Attila, one has to admit that he is a very cunning detective. He is too deep for words.’

But this was a vain promise. He stood up twenty inches high, had a large frame and a forbidding appearance on the whole—but that was all. A variety of people entered the gates of the house every day: mendicants, bill-collectors, postmen, trades-men and family friends. All of them were warmly received by Attila. The moment the gate clicked he became alert and stood up looking towards the gate. By the time anyone entered the gate Attila went blindly charging forward. But that was all. The person had only to stop and smile, and Attila would melt. He would behave as if he apologized for even giving an impression of violence. He would lower his head, curve his body, tuck his tail between his legs, roll his eyes and moan as if to say, ‘How sad that you should have mistaken my gesture! I only hurried down to greet you.’ Till he was patted on the head, stroked and told that he was forgiven, he would be in extreme misery.Gradually he realized that his bouncing advances caused much unhappy misunderstanding. And so when he heard the gate click he hardly stirred. He merely looked in that direction and wagged his tail. The people at home did not like this attitude very much. They thought it rather a shame

But as time passed our Attila exhibited a love of humanity which was sometimes disconcerting. The Scourge of Europe—could he ever have been like this? They put it down to his age. What child could help loving all creatures? In their zeal to establish this fact, they went to the extent of delving into ancient history to find out what the Scourge of Europe was like when he was a child. It was rumoured that as a child he clung to his friends and to his parents’ friends so fast that often he had to be beaten and separated from them. But when he was fourteen he showed the first sign of his future: he knocked down and plunged his knife into a fellow who tried to touch his marbles. Ah, this was encouraging. Let our dog reach the parallel of fourteen years and people would get to know his real nature.

In a mood of optimism they named him ‘Attila’. What they wanted of a dog was strength, formidableness and fight, and hence he was named after the ‘Scourge of Europe’.The puppy was only a couple of months old; he had square jaws, red eyes, a pug nose and a massive head, and there was every reason to hope that he would do credit to his name. The immediate reason for buying him was a series of house-breakings and thefts in the neighbourhood, and our householders decided to put more trust in a dog than in the police. They searched far and wide and met a dog fancier. He held up a month-old black-and-white puppy and said, ‘Come and fetch him a month hence. In six months he will be something to be feared and respected.’ He spread out before them a pedigree sheet which was stunning. The puppy had running in his veins the choicest and the most ferocious blood.

a landowner

LOMOV: 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 STEPANOVNA: What are you talking about? Oxen Meadows are ours, not yours!

THE PROPOSAL

NATALYA STEPANOVNA: It was too much, Ivan Vassilevitch. LOMOV: I think it was very cheap. He's a first-rate dog. NATALYA STEPANOVNA: 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!

CHUBUKOV: [Yells] He's coming, I tell you. Oh, what a burden, Lord, to be the father of a grown-up daughter

CHUBUKOV: And that blind hen, yes, that turnip-ghost has the confounded cheek to make a proposal, and so on! What? A proposal!

NATALYA STEPANOVNA: 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 STEPANOVNA: All, all, all!

NATALYA STEPANOVNA: No, it isn't at all like that! Both my grandfather and great-grandfather 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 STEPANOVNA: 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 [Note: 13.5 acres], and are worth perhaps 300 roubles [Note: £30.], but I can't stand unfairness. Say what you will, but I can't stand unfairness.

NATALYA STEPANOVNA: Well, there! It's you, and papa said, "Go; there's a merchant come for his goods." How do you do, Ivan Vassilevitch!

LOMOV: You see, Honour 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. ...

[Aloud]

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.

Away before me to sweet beds of flowers. Love thoughts lie rich when canopied with bowers.

liver, brain, and heart,

Yet, a barful strife— Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife.

Thy small pipe Is as the maiden’s organ, shrill and sound, And all is semblative a woman’s part. I know thy constellation is right apt For this affair. (to CURIO and attendants)

Diana’s lip Is not more smooth and rubious.

When least in company. (to VIOLA) Prosper well in this, And thou shalt live as freely as thy lord, To call his fortunes thine.

dreams are as beleaguered as the nextJoe’s, my happiness as absurd

You, too, have seenthe bulbs flash from the sea. You, too, have feltit breathing down your neck. You eat fish. You’ve heardthat mermaids sing.

.

Let’s sayit’s the Almighty, twirling His whistle, ready to blow itat any moment and let loose the bottomless Apocalypse:the ocean would make bone of a body, coral of bone.

she could see the yellow billows spread like gasor dreams between kids’ legs.

PROCTOR [with a cry of his soul]: Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!

But PROCTOR snatches it up, and now a wild terror is rising in him, and a boundless anger.]

PROCTOR [evading]: This woman never thought she done the Devil’s work

ROCTOR [almost inaudibly]: No.

PARRIS: Praise God!

PROCTOR: I cannot mount the gibbet like a saint. It is a fraud. I am not that man. [She is silent.] My honesty is broke, Elizabeth; I am no good man. Nothing’s spoiled by giving them this lie that were not rotten long before.   ELIZABETH: And yet you’ve not confessed till now. That speak goodness in you.   PROCTOR: Spite only keeps me silent. It is hard to give a lie to dogs. [Pause, for the first time he turns directly to her.] I would have your forgiveness, Elizabeth.   ELIZABETH: It is not for me to give, John, I am –   PROCTOR: I’d have you see some honesty in it. Let them that never lied die now to keep their souls. It is pretence for me, a vanity that will not blind God nor keep my children out of the wind. [Pause.] What say you?   ELIZABETH [upon a heaving sob that always threatens]: John, it come to naught that I should forgive you, if you’ll not forgive yourself.   [Now he turns away a little, in great agony.]   It is not my soul, John, it is yours.   [He stands, as though in physical pain, slowly rising to his feet with a great immortal longing to find his answer. It is difficult to say, and she is on the verge of tears.]   Only be sure of this, for I know it now: Whatever you will do, it is a good man does it.   [He turns his doubting, searching gaze upon her.]

HALE [continuing to ELIZABETH]: Let you not mistake your duty as I mistook my own. I came into this village like a bridegroom to his beloved, bearing gifts of high religion; the very crowns of holy law I brought, and what I touched with my bright confidence, it died; and where I turned the eye of my great faith, blood flowed up. Beware, Goody Proctor – cleave to no faith when faith brings blood. It is mistaken law that leads you to sacrifice. Life, woman, life is God’s most precious gift; no principle, however glorious, may justify the taking of it. I beg you, woman, prevail upon your husband to confess. Let him give his lie. Quail not before God’s judgement in this, for it may well be God damns a liar less than he that throws his life away for pride. Will you plead with him? I cannot think he will listen to another.

ee the book even of my secret soul.

ess but all. I have

(to VIOLA) Cesario,

desires, like fell and cruel hounds

t instant was I turned into a hart,

dark visitation of The Word

Now you must master me.

your practiced slouch, your porkpie hat at rakish angle,commending the dumpling-shaped lump atop your pelvis—as if we’ve one more thing to consider amidst the striptease of all your stanzas and all your lines—draws me down into the center of you: the prize peony,so that I’m nothing more than an ant whose singular laboris to gather the beading liquid inside you; bring it to light.

Pupil

I have never written a true poem, it seems. Snatchesof my salacious dreams, sandwiched together all afternoon at my desk, awaiting the dark visitation of The Word.When you arrive, unfasten your notebook, and recite,I am only a schoolboy with a schoolboy’s hard mind.You are the headmaster. Now you must master me.

your practiced slouch, your porkpie hat at rakish angle,commending the dumpling-shaped lump atop your pelvis—as if we’ve one more thing to consider amidst the striptease of all your stanzas and all your lines—draws me down into the center of you: the prize peony,so that I’m nothing more than an ant whose singular laboris to gather the beading liquid inside you; bring it to light.

you

How is

Snatchesof my salacious dreams, sandwiched

, it seems. Snatches

Well, Brutus, thou art noble. Yet I see Thy honorable mettle may be wrought From that it is disposed. Therefore it is meet That noble minds keep ever with their likes, For who so firm that cannot be seduced? Caesar doth bear me hard, but he loves Brutus. If I were Brutus now and he were Cassius, He should not humor me. I will this night, In several hands, in at his windows throw, As if they came from several citizens, Writings all tending to the great opinion That Rome holds of his name, wherein obscurely Caesar’s ambition shall be glancèd at. And after this let Caesar seat him sure, For we will shake him, or worse days endure.

A shirt, almost new, Creases still crisp from the iron,

Is unfurled by the wind Like a flag, In a country which already has Too many.

Whose hair is parted Straight down the middle.

Her face is hidden by her hands, But the hands are enough. She is slumped by the cross That bears her son’s name,

The Prologue to Act Two of Romeo and Juliet Is a Sonnet

ROMEO Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?------------------E JULIET Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.-----------------F ROMEO O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;---------------E They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.--------------F

The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,-----------------------E And the continuance of their parents' rage,-----------------------------F Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,---------------E Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;--------------------------------F

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes-----------------------------C A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;------------------------------D Whose misadventured piteous overthrows-----------------------------C Do with their death bury their parents' strife.---------------------------D

Two households, both alike in dignity,--------------------------------A In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,--------------------------------B From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,-----------------------------A Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.-------------------------B

If music be the food of love, play on. Give me excess of it that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die.

ORSINO

Oh, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound, That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odor.

O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou, That, notwithstanding thy capacity Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there, Of what validity and pitch soe'er, But falls into abatement and low price Even in a minute.

THE SNAKE-SONG

This life went on for three years. And then a change in his life occurred. A beggar, blind in both eyes, appeared at the Market Gate. An old woman led him up there early in the morning, seated him at the gate, and came up again at midday with some food, gathered his coins and took him home at night.

Punctually at midday he opened his bag and spread out his professional equipment, which consisted of a dozen cowrie shells, a square piece of cloth with obscure mystic charts on it, a notebook and a bundle of palmyra writing. His forehead was resplendent with sacred ash and vermilion, and his eyes sparkled with a sharp abnormal gleam which was really an outcome of a continual searching look for customers, but which his simple clients took to be a prophetic light and felt comforted. The power of his eyes was considerably enhanced by their position—placed as they were between the painted forehead and the dark whiskers which streamed down his cheeks: even a half-wit’s eyes would sparkle in such a setting. To crown the effect he wound a saffron-coloured turban around his head. This colour scheme never failed. People were attracted to him as bees are attracted to cosmos or dahlia stalks. He sat under the boughs of a spreading tamarind tree which flanked a path running through the Town Hall Park. It was a remarkable place in many ways: a surging crowd was always moving up and down this narrow road morning till night. A variety of trades and occupations was represented all along its way: medicine-sellers, sellers of stolen hardware and junk, magicians and, above all, an auctioneer of cheap cloth, who created enough din all day to attract the whole town. Next to him in vociferousness came a vendor of fried groundnuts, who gave his ware a fancy name each day, calling it Bombay Ice-Cream one day, and on the next Delhi Almond, and on the third Raja’s Delicacy, and so on and so forth, and people flocked to him. A considerable portion of this crowd dallied before the astrologer too. The astrologer transacted his business by the light of a flare which crackled and smoked up above the groundnut heap nearby. Half the enchantment of the place was due to the fact that it did not have the benefit of municipal lighting. The place was lit up by shop lights. One or two had hissing gaslights, some had naked flares stuck on poles, some were lit up by old cycle lamps and one or two, like the astrologer’s, managed without lights of their own. It was a bewildering crisscross of light rays and moving shadows. This suited the astrologer very well, for the simple reason that he had not in the least intended to be an astrologer when he began life; and he knew no more of what was going to happen to others than he knew what was going to happen to himself next minute. He was as much a stranger to the stars as were his innocent customers. Yet he said things which pleased and astonished everyone: that was more a matter of study, practice and shrewd guesswork. All the same, it was as much an honest man’s labour as any other, and he deserved the wages he carried home at the end of a day.He had left his village without any previous thought or plan. If he had continued there he would have carried on the work of his forefathers—namely, tilling the land, living, marrying and ripening in his cornfield and ancestral home. But that was not to be. He had to leave home without telling anyone, and he could not rest till he left it behind a couple of hundred miles. To a villager it is a great deal, as if an ocean flowed between.He had a working analysis of mankind’s troubles: marriage, money and the tangles of human ties. Long practice had sharpened his perception. Within five minutes he understood what was wrong. He charged three pies per question and never opened his mouth till the other had spoken for at least ten minutes, which provided him enough stuff for a dozen answers and advices. When he told the person before him, gazing at his palm, ‘In many ways you are not getting the fullest results for your efforts, ’ nine out of ten were disposed to agree with him. Or he questioned: ‘Is there any woman in your family, maybe even a distant relative, who is not well disposed towards you?’ Or he gave an analysis of character: ‘Most of your troubles are due to your nature. How can you be otherwise with Saturn where he is? You have an impetuous nature and a rough exterior.’ This endeared him to their hearts immediately, for even the mildest of us loves to think that he has a forbidding exterior.

Why I Don’t Piss in the Ocean

It matters not how strait the gate,       How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate,       I am the captain of my soul.

Out of the night

One of the sonnet’s most popular aims is to write in praise of someone (or something) beloved.

In the Petrarchan sonnet, the sections are broken up into an octave (first eight lines) and a sestet (final six lines). In the Shakespearean sonnet, there are three quatrains (four-line stanzas or sections) and then a couplet. In both types, a volta marks the transition to the final section.

The form was adopted and enthusiastically embraced by the English in the Elizabethan period, most notably by Shakespeare, who gave it the structure we commonly think of today: 14 lines of rhymed iambic pentameter.

Signifies that from you great Rome shall suck Reviving blood, and that great men shall press For tinctures, stains, relics, and cognizance.

great Rome shall suck Reviving blood

There was a Brutus once that would have brooked Th' eternal devil to keep his state in Rome As easily as a king.

When went there by an age, since the great flood, But it was famed with more than with one man? When could they say till now, that talked of Rome, That her wide walks encompassed but one man?

Age, thou art shamed!