Kim Rudyard Kipling (web ebook reader .TXT) đ
- Author: Rudyard Kipling
Book online «Kim Rudyard Kipling (web ebook reader .TXT) đ». Author Rudyard Kipling
âI am Kim. I am Kim. And what is Kim?â His soul repeated it again and again.
He did not want to cryâ âhad never felt less like crying in his lifeâ âbut of a sudden easy, stupid tears trickled down his nose, and with an almost audible click he felt the wheels of his being lock up anew on the world without. Things that rode meaningless on the eyeball an instant before slid into proper proportion. Roads were meant to be walked upon, houses to be lived in, cattle to be driven, fields to be tilled, and men and women to be talked to. They were all real and trueâ âsolidly planted upon the feetâ âperfectly comprehensibleâ âclay of his clay, neither more nor less. He shook himself like a dog with a flea in his ear, and rambled out of the gate. Said the Sahiba, to whom watchful eyes reported this move: âLet him go. I have done my share. Mother Earth must do the rest. When the Holy One comes back from meditation, tell him.â
There stood an empty bullock-cart on a little knoll half a mile away, with a young banyan tree behindâ âa lookout, as it were, above some new-ploughed levels; and his eyelids, bathed in soft air, grew heavy as he neared it. The ground was good clean dustâ âno new herbage that, living, is halfway to death already, but the hopeful dust that holds the seeds of all life. He felt it between his toes, patted it with his palms, and joint by joint, sighing luxuriously, laid him down full length along in the shadow of the wooden-pinned cart. And Mother Earth was as faithful as the Sahiba. She breathed through him to restore the poise he had lost lying so long on a cot cut off from her good currents. His head lay powerless upon her breast, and his opened hands surrendered to her strength. The many-rooted tree above him, and even the dead manhandled wood beside, knew what he sought, as he himself did not know. Hour upon hour he lay deeper than sleep.
Towards evening, when the dust of returning kine made all the horizons smoke, came the lama and Mahbub Ali, both afoot, walking cautiously, for the house had told them where he had gone.
âAllah! What a foolâs trick to play in open country!â muttered the horse-dealer. âHe could be shot a hundred timesâ âbut this is not the Border.â
âAnd,â said the lama, repeating a many-times-told tale, ânever was such a chela. Temperate, kindly, wise, of ungrudging disposition, a merry heart upon the road, never forgetting, learned, truthful, courteous. Great is his reward!â
âI know the boyâ âas I have said.â
âAnd he was all those things?â
âSome of themâ âbut I have not yet found a Red Hatâs charm for making him overly truthful. He has certainly been well nursed.â
âThe Sahiba is a heart of gold,â said the lama earnestly. âShe looks upon him as her son.â
âHmph! Half Hind seems that way disposed. I only wished to see that the boy had come to no harm and was a free agent. As thou knowest, he and I were old friends in the first days of your pilgrimage together.â
âThat is a bond between us.â The lama sat down. âWe are at the end of the pilgrimage.â
âNo thanks to thee thine was not cut off for good and all a week back. I heard what the Sahiba said to thee when we bore thee up on the cot.â Mahbub laughed, and tugged his newly dyed beard.
âI was meditating upon other matters that tide. It was the hakim from Dacca broke my meditations.â
âOtherwiseââ âthis was in Pashtu for decencyâs sakeâ ââthou wouldst have ended thy meditations upon the sultry side of Hellâ âbeing an unbeliever and an idolater for all thy childâs simplicity. But now, Red Hat, what is to be done?â
âThis very night,ââ âthe words came slowly, vibrating with triumphâ ââthis very night he will be as free as I am from all taint of sinâ âassured as I am, when he quits this body, of Freedom from the Wheel of Things. I have a signââ âhe laid his hand above the torn chart in his bosomâ ââthat my time is short; but I shall have safeguarded him throughout the years. Remember, I have reached Knowledge, as I told thee only three nights back.â
âIt must be true, as the Tirah priest said when I stole his cousinâs wife, that I am a sufi;65 for here I sit,â said Mahbub to himself, âdrinking in blasphemy unthinkableâ ââ ⊠I remember the tale. On that, then, he goes to Jannatu lâAdn.66 But how? Wilt thou slay him or drown him in that wonderful river from which the Babu dragged thee?â
âI was dragged from no river,â said the lama simply. âThou hast forgotten what befell. I found it by Knowledge.â
âOh, ay. True,â stammered Mahbub, divided between high indignation
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