Webster - "Webster's Unabridged Dictionary"

William H. Gilder - "Schwatka's Search"

Unknown - "The World English Bible (WEB): 1 Kings"

John Greenleaf Whittier - "Anti Slavery Poems III."

Under the Deodars

R >> Rudyard Kipling >> Under the Deodars




"Perhaps I could if I'd any heart to do it, but I'm in trouble, I've lost
a case, a case that was doing well, through nothing in the world
but inattention on the part of a nurse I had begun to trust. And
when I spoke only a small piece of my mind she collapsed in a
whining heap on the floor. It is hopeless."

The men were silent, for the blue eyes of the lady doctor were dim.
Recovering herself she looked up with a smile, half sad, half
humorous, "And I am in a whining heap, too; but what phase of
Indian life are you particularly interested in, sir?"

"Mr. Pagett intends to study the political aspect of things and the
possibility of bestowing electoral institutions on the people."

"Wouldn't it be as much to the purpose to bestow point-lace collars
on them? They need many things more urgently than votes. Why
it's like giving a bread-pill for a broken leg."

"Er-I don't quite follow," said Pagett, uneasily.

"Well, what's the matter with this country is not in the least
political, but an all round entanglement of physical, social, and
moral evils and corruptions, all more or less due to the unnatural
treatment of women. You can't gather figs from thistles, and so
long as the system of infant marriage, the prohibition of the
remarriage of widows, the lifelong imprisonment of wives and
mothers in a worse than penal confinement, and the withholding
from them of any kind of education or treatment as rational beings
continues, the country can't advance a step. Half of it is morally
dead, and worse than dead, and that's just the half from which we
have a right to look for the best impulses. It's right here where
the trouble is, and not in any political considerations whatsoever."

"But do they marry so early?" said Pagett, vaguely.

"The average age is seven, but thousands are married still earlier.
One result is that girls of twelve and thirteen have to bear the
burden of wifehood and motherhood, and, as might be expected,
the rate of mortality both for mothers and children is terrible.
Pauperism, domestic unhappiness, and a low state of health are
only a few of the consequences of this. Then, when, as frequently
happens, the boy-husband dies prematurely, his widow is
condemned to worse than death. She may not re-marry, must live
a secluded and despised life, a life so unnatural that she sometimes
prefers suicide; more often she goes astray. You don't know in
England what such words as 'infant-marriage, baby-wife,
girl-mother, and virgin-widow' mean; but they mean unspeakable
horrors here."

"Well, but the advanced political party here will surely make it
their business to advocate social reforms as well as political ones,"
said Pagett.

"Very surely they will do no such thing," said the lady doctor,
emphatically. "I wish I could make you understand. Why, even of
the funds devoted to the Marchioness of Dufferin's organization
for medical aid to the women of India, it was said in print and in
speech, that they would be better spent on more college
scholarships for men. And in all the advanced parties' talk-God
forgive them--and in all their programmes, they carefully avoid all
such subjects. They will talk about the protection of the cow, for
that's an ancient superstition--they can all understand that; but the
protection of the women is a new and dangerous idea." She turned
to Pagett impulsively:

"You are a member of the English Parliament. Can you do
nothing? The foundations of their life are rotten-utterly and
bestially rotten. I could tell your wife things that I couldn't tell
you. I know the life--the inner life that belongs to the native, and I
know nothing else; and believe me you might as well try to grow
golden-rod in a mushroom-pit as to make anything of a people that
are born and reared as these --these things're. The men talk of
their rights and privileges. I have seen the women that bear these
very men, and again-may God forgive the men!"

Pagett's eyes opened with a large wonder. Dr. Lathrop rose
tempestuously.

"I must be off to lecture," said she, "and I'm sorry that I can't show
you my hospitals; but you had better believe, sir, that it's more
necessary for India than all the elections in creation."

"That's a woman with a mission, and no mistake," said Pagett, after
a pause.

"Yes; she believes in her work, and so do I," said Orde. "I've a
notion that in the end it will be found that the most helpful work
done for India in this generation was wrought by Lady Dufferin in
drawing attention-what work that was, by the way, even with her
husband's great name to back it to the needs of women here. In
effect, native habits and beliefs are an organized conspiracy
against the laws of health and happy life--but there is some
dawning of hope now."

"How d' you account for the general indifferencc, then?"

"I suppose it's due in part to their fatalism and their utter
indifference to all human suffering. How much do you imagine the
great province of the Pun-jab with over twenty million people and
half a score rich towns has contributed to the maintenance of civil
dispensaries last year? About seven thousand rupees."

"That's seven hundred pounds," said Pagett, quickly.

"I wish it was," replied Orde; "but anyway, it's an absurdly
inadequate sum, and shows one of the blank sides of Oriental
character."

Pagett was silent for a long time. The question of direct and
personal pain did not lie within his researches. He pre ferred to
discuss the weightier matters of the law, and contented himself
with murmuring: "They'll do better later on." Then, with a rush,
returning to his first thought:

"But, my dear Orde, if it's merely a class movement of a local and
temporary character, how d' you account for Bradlaugh, who is at
least a man of sense taking it up?"

"I know nothing of the champion of the New Brahmins but what I
see in the papers. I suppose there is something tempting in being
hailed by a large assemblage as the representative of the
aspirations of two hundred and fifty millions of people. Such a
man looks 'through all the roaring and the wreaths,' and does not
reflect that it is a false perspective, which, as a matter of fact,
hides the real complex and manifold India from his gaze. He can
scarcely be expected to distinguish between the ambitions of a new
oligarchy and the real wants of the people of whom he knows
nothing. But it's strange that a professed Radical should come to be
the chosen advocate of a movement which has for its aim the
revival of an ancient tyranny. Shows how even Radicalism can
fall into academic grooves and miss the essential truths of its own
creed. Believe me, Pagett, to deal with India you want first-hand
knowledge and experience. I wish he would come and live here
for a couple of years or so."

"Is not this rather an ad hminem style of argument?"

"Can't help it in a case like this. Indeed, I am not sure you ought
not to go further and weigh the whole character and quality and
upbringing of the man. You must admit that the monumental
complacency with which he trotted out his ingenious little
Constitution for India showed a strange want of imagination and
the sense of humor."

"No, I don't quite admit it," said Pagett.

"Well, you know him and I don't, but that's how it strikes a
stranger." He turned on his heel and paced the veranda
thoughtfully. "And, after all, the burden of the actual, daily
unromantic toil falls on the shoulders of the men out here, and not
on his own. He enjoys all the privileges of recommendation
without responsibility, and we-well, perhaps, when you've seen a
little more of India you'll understand. To begin with, our death
rate's five times higher than yours-I speak now for the brutal
bureaucrat--and we work on the refuse of worked-out cities and
exhausted civilizations, among the bones of the dead."

Pagett laughed. "That's an epigrammatic way of putting it, Orde."

"Is it? Let's see," said the Deputy Commissioner of Amara,
striding into the sunshine toward a half-naked gardener potting
roses. He took the man's hoe, and went to a rain-scarped bank at
the bottom of the garden.

"Come here, Pagett," he said, and cut at the sun-baked soil. After
three strokes there rolled from under the blade of the hoe the half
of a clanking skeleton that settled at Pagett's feet in an unseemly
jumble of bones. The M.P. drew back.

"Our houses are built on cemeteries," said Orde. "There are scores
of thousands of graves within ten miles."

Pagett was contemplating the skull with the awed fascination of a
man who has but little to do with the dead. "India's a very curious
place," said he, after a pause.

"Ah? You'll know all about it in three months. Come in to lunch,"
said Orde.

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