For the Christian riles, and the Aryan smiles, and he weareth the Christian down;
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, with the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear: ‘A fool lies here who tried to hustle the East.’
— Solo from Libretto3 of Naulahka.
Tarvin stood on the platform of the station at Rawut Junction4 watching the dust cloud that followed the retreating Bombay mail. When it had disappeared, the heated air above the stone ballast began its dance again, and he turned blinking to India.
It was amazingly simple to come fourteen thousand miles. He had lain still in a ship for a certain time, and then had transferred himself to stretch at full length, in his shirt-sleeves, on the leather-padded bunk5 of the train which had brought him from Calcutta to Rawut Junction. The journey was long only as it kept him from sight of Kate, and kept him filled with thought of her. But was this what he had come for — the yellow desolation of a Rajputana desert, and the pinched-off perspective of the track? Topaz was cosier6 when they had got the church, the saloon, the school, and three houses up; the loneliness made him shiver. He saw that they did not mean to do any more of it. It was a desolation which doubled desolateness8, because it was left for done. It was final, intended, absolute. The grim solidity of the cut-stone station-house, the solid masonry9 of the empty platform, the mathematical exactitude of the station name-board looked for no future. No new railroad could help Rawut Junction. It had no ambition. It belonged to the Government. There was no green thing, no curved line, no promise of life that produces, within eyeshot of Rawut Junction. The mauve railroad-creeper on the station had been allowed to die from lack of attention.
Tarvin was saved from the more positive pangs10 of home-sickness by a little healthy human rage. A single man, fat, brown, clothed in white gauze, and wearing a black velvet11 cap on his head, stepped out from the building. This stationmaster and permanent population of Rawut Junction accepted Tarvin as a feature of the landscape: he did not look at him. Tarvin began to sympathise with the South in the war of the rebellion.
‘When does the next train leave for Rhatore?’ he asked.
‘There is no train,’ returned the man, pausing with precise deliberation between the words. He sent his speech abroad with an air of detachment, irresponsibly, like the phonograph.
‘No train? Where’s your time-table? Where’s your railroad guide? Where’s your Pathfinder?’
‘No train at all of any kind whatever.’
‘Then what the devil are you here for?’
‘Sir, I am the stationmaster of this station, and it is prohibited using profane12 language to employees of this company.’
‘Oh, are you? Is it? Well, see here, my friend — you stationmaster of the steep-edge of the Jumping-off-place, if you want to save your life you will tell me how I get to Rhatore — quick!’
The man was silent.
‘Well, what do I do, anyway?’ shouted the West.
‘What do I know?’ answered the East.
Tarvin stared at the brown being in white, beginning at his patent-leather shoes, surmounted13 by open-work socks, out of which the calf14 of his leg bulged15, and ending with the velvet smokingcap on his head. The passionless regard of the Oriental, borrowed from the purple hills behind his station, made him wonder for one profane, faithless, and spiritless moment whether Topaz and Kate were worth all they were costing.
‘Ticket, please,’ said the baboo.
The gloom darkened. This thing was here to take tickets, and would do it though men loved, and fought, and despaired and died at his feet.
‘See here,’ cried Tarvin, ‘you shiny-toed fraud; you agate-eyed pillar of alabaster16 ——’ But he did not go on; speech failed in a shout of rage and despair. The desert swallowed all impartially17; and the baboo, turning with awful quiet, drifted through the door of the station-house, and locked it behind him.
Tarvin whistled persuasively18 at the door with uplifted eyebrows19, jingling20 an American quarter against a rupee in his pocket. The window of the ticket-office opened a little way, and the baboo showed an inch of impassive face.
‘Speaking now in offeshal capacity, your honour can getting to Rhatore via country bullock-cart.’
‘Find me the bullock-cart,’ said Tarvin.
‘Your honour granting commission on transaction?’
‘Cert!’ It was the tone that conveyed the idea to the head under the smoking-cap.
The window was dropped. Afterward21, but not too immediately afterward, a long-drawn howl made itself heard — the howl of a weary warlock invoking22 a dilatory23 ghost.
‘O Moti! Moti! O-oh!’
‘Ah, there, Moti!’ murmured Tarvin, as he vaulted24 over the low stone wall, gripsack in hand, and stepped out through the ticket wicket into Rajputana. His habitual25 gaiety and confidence had returned with the prospect26 of motion.
Between himself and a purple circle of hills lay fifteen miles of profitless, rolling ground, jagged with laterite rocks, and studded with unthrifty trees — all given up to drought and dust, and all colourless as the sun-bleached locks of a child of the prairies. Very far away to the right the silver gleam of a salt lake showed, and a formless blue haze27 of heavier forest. Sombre, desolate7, oppressive, withering28 under a brazen29 sun, it smote30 him with its likeness31 to his own prairies, and with its home-sick unlikeness.
Apparently32 out of a crack in the earth — in fact, as he presently perceived, out of a spot where two waves of plain folded in upon each other and contained a village — came a pillar of dust, the heart of which was a bullock-cart. The distant whine33 of the wheels sharpened, as it drew near, to the fullbodied shriek34 that Tarvin knew when they put the brakes suddenly on a freight coming into Topaz on the down grade. But this was in no sense a freight. The wheels were sections of tree butts35 — square for the most part. Four unbarked poles bounded the corners of a flat body; the sides were made of netted rope of cocoa-nut fibre. Two bullocks, a little larger than Newfoundlands, smaller than Alderneys, drew a vehicle which might have contained the half of a horse’s load.
The cart drew up at the station, and the bullocks, after contemplating36 Tarvin for a moment, lay down. Tarvin seated himself on his gripsack, rested his shaggy head in his hands, and expended37 himself in mirth.
‘Sail in,’ he instructed the baboo; ‘make your bargain. I’m in no hurry.’
Then began a scene of declamation38 and riot, to which a quarrel in a Leadville gambling39 saloon was a poor matter. The impassiveness of the stationmaster deserted40 him like a wind-blown garment. He harangued41, gesticulated, and cursed; and the driver, naked except for a blue loin-cloth, was nothing behind him. They pointed42 at Tarvin; they seemed to be arguing over his birth and ancestry43; for all he knew they were appraising44 his weight. When they seemed to be on the brink45 of an amicable46 solution, the question re-opened itself, and they went back to the beginning, and reclassified him and the journey.
Tarvin applauded both parties, sicking one on the other impartially for the first ten minutes. Then he besought47 them to stop, and when they would not he discovered that it was hot, and swore at them.
The driver had for the moment exhausted48 himself, when the baboo turned suddenly on Tarvin, and, clutching him by the arm, cried, almost shouting, ‘All arrange, sir! all arrange! This man most uneducated man, sir. You giving me the money, I arrange everything.’
Swift as thought, the driver had caught his other arm, and was imploring49 him in a strange tongue not to listen to his opponent. As Tarvin stepped back they followed him with uplifted hands of entreaty50 and representation, the stationmaster forgetting his English, and the driver his respect for the white man. Tarvin, eluding51 them both, pitched his gripsack into the bullock-cart, bounded in himself, and shouted the one Indian word he knew. It happened, fortunately, to be the word that moves all India, ‘Challo!’ which, being interpreted, is ‘Go on!’
So, leaving strife52 and desolation behind him, rode out into the desert of Rajputana Nicholas Tarvin of Topaz, Colorado.
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1
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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hustle
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| v.推搡；竭力兜售或获取；催促；n.奔忙(碌) | |
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libretto
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| n.歌剧剧本，歌曲歌词 | |
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junction
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| n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站 | |
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bunk
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| n.(车、船等倚壁而设的)铺位；废话 | |
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6
cosier
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| adj.温暖舒适的( cosy的比较级 )；亲切友好的 | |
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7
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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desolateness
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| 孤独 | |
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masonry
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| n.砖土建筑；砖石 | |
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pangs
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| 突然的剧痛( pang的名词复数 )； 悲痛 | |
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velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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12
profane
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| adj.亵神的，亵渎的；vt.亵渎，玷污 | |
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13
surmounted
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| 战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 )； 克服（困难）； 居于…之上； 在…顶上 | |
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calf
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| n.小牛，犊，幼仔，小牛皮 | |
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15
bulged
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| 凸出( bulge的过去式和过去分词 )； 充满； 塞满（某物） | |
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16
alabaster
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| adj.雪白的；n.雪花石膏；条纹大理石 | |
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17
impartially
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| adv.公平地，无私地 | |
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persuasively
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| adv.口才好地；令人信服地 | |
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19
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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jingling
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| 叮当声 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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invoking
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| v.援引( invoke的现在分词 )；行使（权利等）；祈求救助；恳求 | |
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23
dilatory
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| adj.迟缓的，不慌不忙的 | |
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24
vaulted
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| adj.拱状的 | |
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25
habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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26
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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27
haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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28
withering
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| 使人畏缩的，使人害羞的，使人难堪的 | |
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brazen
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| adj.厚脸皮的，无耻的，坚硬的 | |
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30
smote
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| v.猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去式 ) | |
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31
likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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32
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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33
whine
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| v.哀号，号哭；n.哀鸣 | |
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34
shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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35
butts
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| 笑柄( butt的名词复数 )； （武器或工具的）粗大的一端； 屁股； 烟蒂 | |
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36
contemplating
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| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的现在分词 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
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37
expended
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| v.花费( expend的过去式和过去分词 )；使用（钱等）做某事；用光；耗尽 | |
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38
declamation
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| n. 雄辩，高调 | |
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gambling
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| n.赌博；投机 | |
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40
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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41
harangued
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| v.高谈阔论( harangue的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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42
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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43
ancestry
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| n.祖先，家世 | |
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44
appraising
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| v.估价( appraise的现在分词 )；估计；估量；评价 | |
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45
brink
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| n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿 | |
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46
amicable
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| adj.和平的，友好的；友善的 | |
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47
besought
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| v.恳求，乞求（某事物）( beseech的过去式和过去分词 )；(beseech的过去式与过去分词) | |
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48
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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49
imploring
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| 恳求的，哀求的 | |
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50
entreaty
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| n.恳求，哀求 | |
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51
eluding
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| v.（尤指机敏地）避开( elude的现在分词 )；逃避；躲避；使达不到 | |
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52
strife
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| n.争吵，冲突，倾轧，竞争 | |
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