—Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar.
FROM DIARY:
January 28. I learned of an official Thug-book the other day. I was not aware before that there was such a thing. I am allowed the temporary use of it. We are making preparations for travel. Mainly the preparations are purchases of bedding. This is to be used in sleeping berths2 in the trains; in private houses sometimes; and in nine-tenths of the hotels. It is not realizable; and yet it is true. It is a survival; an apparently3 unnecessary thing which in some strange way has outlived the conditions which once made it necessary. It comes down from a time when the railway and the hotel did not exist; when the occasional white traveler went horseback or by bullock-cart, and stopped over night in the small dak-bungalow provided at easy distances by the government—a shelter, merely, and nothing more. He had to carry bedding along, or do without. The dwellings4 of the English residents are spacious5 and comfortable and commodiously6 furnished, and surely it must be an odd sight to see half a dozen guests come filing into such a place and dumping blankets and pillows here and there and everywhere. But custom makes incongruous things congruous.
One buys the bedding, with waterproof7 hold-all for it at almost any shop—there is no difficulty about it.
January 30. What a spectacle the railway station was, at train-time! It was a very large station, yet when we arrived it seemed as if the whole world was present—half of it inside, the other half outside, and both halves, bearing mountainous head-loads of bedding and other freight, trying simultaneously8 to pass each other, in opposing floods, in one narrow door. These opposing floods were patient, gentle, long-suffering natives, with whites scattered9 among them at rare intervals10; and wherever a white man’s native servant appeared, that native seemed to have put aside his natural gentleness for the time and invested himself with the white man’s privilege of making a way for himself by promptly11 shoving all intervening black things out of it. In these exhibitions of authority Satan was scandalous. He was probably a Thug in one of his former incarnations.
Inside the great station, tides upon tides of rainbow-costumed natives swept along, this way and that, in massed and bewildering confusion, eager, anxious, belated, distressed12; and washed up to the long trains and flowed into them with their packs and bundles, and disappeared, followed at once by the next wash, the next wave. And here and there, in the midst of this hurly-burly, and seemingly undisturbed by it, sat great groups of natives on the bare stone floor,—young, slender brown women, old, gray wrinkled women, little soft brown babies, old men, young men, boys; all poor people, but all the females among them, both big and little, bejeweled with cheap and showy nose-rings, toe-rings, leglets, and armlets, these things constituting all their wealth, no doubt. These silent crowds sat there with their humble13 bundles and baskets and small household gear about them, and patiently waited—for what? A train that was to start at some time or other during the day or night! They hadn’t timed themselves well, but that was no matter—the thing had been so ordered from on high, therefore why worry? There was plenty of time, hours and hours of it, and the thing that was to happen would happen—there was no hurrying it.
The natives traveled third class, and at marvelously cheap rates. They were packed and crammed14 into cars that held each about fifty; and it was said that often a Brahmin of the highest caste was thus brought into personal touch, and consequent defilement15, with persons of the lowest castes—no doubt a very shocking thing if a body could understand it and properly appreciate it. Yes, a Brahmin who didn’t own a rupee and couldn’t borrow one, might have to touch elbows with a rich hereditary16 lord of inferior caste, inheritor of an ancient title a couple of yards long, and he would just have to stand it; for if either of the two was allowed to go in the cars where the sacred white people were, it probably wouldn’t be the august poor Brahmin. There was an immense string of those third-class cars, for the natives travel by hordes17; and a weary hard night of it the occupants would have, no doubt.
When we reached our car, Satan and Barney had already arrived there with their train of porters carrying bedding and parasols and cigar boxes, and were at work. We named him Barney for short; we couldn’t use his real name, there wasn’t time.
It was a car that promised comfort; indeed, luxury. Yet the cost of it—well, economy could no further go; even in France; not even in Italy. It was built of the plainest and cheapest partially-smoothed boards, with a coating of dull paint on them, and there was nowhere a thought of decoration. The floor was bare, but would not long remain so when the dust should begin to fly. Across one end of the compartment18 ran a netting for the accommodation of hand-baggage; at the other end was a door which would shut, upon compulsion, but wouldn’t stay shut; it opened into a narrow little closet which had a wash-bowl in one end of it, and a place to put a towel, in case you had one with you—and you would be sure to have towels, because you buy them with the bedding, knowing that the railway doesn’t furnish them. On each side of the car, and running fore1 and aft, was a broad leather-covered sofa to sit on in the day and sleep on at night. Over each sofa hung, by straps19, a wide, flat, leather-covered shelf—to sleep on. In the daytime you can hitch20 it up against the wall, out of the way—and then you have a big unencumbered and most comfortable room to spread out in. No car in any country is quite its equal for comfort (and privacy) I think. For usually there are but two persons in it; and even when there are four there is but little sense of impaired21 privacy. Our own cars at home can surpass the railway world in all details but that one: they have no cosiness22; there are too many people together.
At the foot of each sofa was a side-door, for entrance and exit. Along the whole length of the sofa on each side of the car ran a row of large single-plate windows, of a blue tint—blue to soften23 the bitter glare of the sun and protect one’s eyes from torture. These could be let down out of the way when one wanted the breeze. In the roof were two oil lamps which gave a light strong enough to read by; each had a green-cloth attachment24 by which it could be covered when the light should be no longer needed.
While we talked outside with friends, Barney and Satan placed the hand-baggage, books, fruits, and soda-bottles in the racks, and the hold-alls and heavy baggage in the closet, hung the overcoats and sun-helmets and towels on the hooks, hoisted25 the two bed-shelves up out of the way, then shouldered their bedding and retired26 to the third class.
Now then, you see what a handsome, spacious, light, airy, homelike place it was, wherein to walk up and down, or sit and write, or stretch out and read and smoke. A central door in the forward end of the compartment opened into a similar compartment. It was occupied by my wife and daughter. About nine in the evening, while we halted a while at a station, Barney and Satan came and undid27 the clumsy big hold-alls, and spread the bedding on the sofas in both compartments—mattresses, sheets, gay coverlets, pillows, all complete; there are no chambermaids in India—apparently it was an office that was never heard of. Then they closed the communicating door, nimbly tidied up our place, put the night-clothing on the beds and the slippers28 under them, then returned to their own quarters.
January 31. It was novel and pleasant, and I stayed awake as long as I could, to enjoy it, and to read about those strange people the Thugs. In my sleep they remained with me, and tried to strangle me. The leader of the gang was that giant Hindoo who was such a picture in the strong light when we were leaving those Hindoo betrothal29 festivities at two o’clock in the morning—Rao Bahadur Baskirao Balinkanje Pitale, Vakeel to the Gaikwar of Baroda. It was he that brought me the invitation from his master to go to Baroda and lecture to that prince—and now he was misbehaving in my dreams. But all things can happen in dreams. It is indeed as the Sweet Singer of Michigan says—irrelevantly, of course, for the one and unfailing great quality which distinguishes her poetry from Shakespeare’s and makes it precious to us is its stern and simple irrelevancy30:
My heart was gay and happy,
This was ever in my mind,
There is better times a coming,
And I hope some day to find
Myself capable of composing,
It was my heart’s delight
To compose on a sentimental31 subject
If it came in my mind just right.
Barroda. Arrived at 7 this morning. The dawn was just beginning to show. It was forlorn to have to turn out in a strange place at such a time, and the blinking lights in the station made it seem night still. But the gentlemen who had come to receive us were there with their servants, and they make quick work; there was no lost time. We were soon outside and moving swiftly through the soft gray light, and presently were comfortably housed—with more servants to help than we were used to, and with rather embarassingly important officials to direct them. But it was custom; they spoke33 Ballarat English, their bearing was charming and hospitable34, and so all went well.
Breakfast was a satisfaction. Across the lawns was visible in the distance through the open window an Indian well, with two oxen tramping leisurely35 up and down long inclines, drawing water; and out of the stillness came the suffering screech36 of the machinery—not quite musical, and yet soothingly37 melancholy38 and dreamy and reposeful—a wail39 of lost spirits, one might imagine. And commemorative and reminiscent, perhaps; for of course the Thugs used to throw people down that well when they were done with them.
After breakfast the day began, a sufficiently40 busy one. We were driven by winding41 roads through a vast park, with noble forests of great trees, and with tangles42 and jungles of lovely growths of a humbler sort; and at one place three large gray apes came out and pranced43 across the road—a good deal of a surprise and an unpleasant one, for such creatures belong in the menagerie, and they look artificial and out of place in a wilderness44.
We came to the city, by and by, and drove all through it. Intensely Indian, it was, and crumbly, and mouldering45, and immemorially old, to all appearance. And the houses—oh, indescribably quaint46 and curious they were, with their fronts an elaborate lace-work of intricate and beautiful wood-carving, and now and then further adorned47 with rude pictures of elephants and princes and gods done in shouting colors; and all the ground floors along these cramped48 and narrow lanes occupied as shops—shops unbelievably small and impossibly packed with merchantable rubbish, and with nine-tenths-naked natives squatting49 at their work of hammering, pounding, brazing, soldering50, sewing, designing, cooking, measuring out grain, grinding it, repairing idols—and then the swarm51 of ragged52 and noisy humanity under the horses’ feet and everywhere, and the pervading53 reek54 and fume55 and smell! It was all wonderful and delightful56.
Imagine a file of elephants marching through such a crevice57 of a street and scraping the paint off both sides of it with their hides. How big they must look, and how little they must make the houses look; and when the elephants are in their glittering court costume, what a contrast they must make with the humble and sordid58 surroundings. And when a mad elephant goes raging through, belting right and left with his trunk, how do these swarms59 of people get out of the way? I suppose it is a thing which happens now and then in the mad season (for elephants have a mad season).
I wonder how old the town is. There are patches of building—massive structures, monuments, apparently—that are so battered60 and worn, and seemingly so tired and so burdened with the weight of age, and so dulled and stupefied with trying to remember things they forgot before history began, that they give one the feeling that they must have been a part of original Creation. This is indeed one of the oldest of the princedoms of India, and has always been celebrated61 for its barbaric pomps and splendors62, and for the wealth of its princes.
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1
fore
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| adv.在前面；adj.先前的；在前部的；n.前部 | |
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berths
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| n.（船、列车等的）卧铺( berth的名词复数 )；（船舶的）停泊位或锚位；差事；船台vt.v.停泊( berth的第三人称单数 )；占铺位 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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dwellings
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| n.住处，处所( dwelling的名词复数 ) | |
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spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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commodiously
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| adv.宽阔地，方便地 | |
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waterproof
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| n.防水材料；adj.防水的；v.使...能防水 | |
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simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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crammed
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| adj.塞满的，挤满的；大口地吃；快速贪婪地吃v.把…塞满；填入；临时抱佛脚( cram的过去式) | |
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15
defilement
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| n.弄脏，污辱，污秽 | |
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hereditary
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| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
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hordes
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| n.移动着的一大群( horde的名词复数 )；部落 | |
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compartment
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| n.卧车包房，隔间；分隔的空间 | |
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straps
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| n.带子( strap的名词复数 )；挎带；肩带；背带v.用皮带捆扎( strap的第三人称单数 )；用皮带抽打；包扎；给…打绷带 | |
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hitch
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| v.免费搭(车旅行)；系住；急提；n.故障；急拉 | |
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21
impaired
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| adj.受损的；出毛病的；有（身体或智力）缺陷的v.损害，削弱( impair的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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22
cosiness
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| n.舒适，安逸 | |
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23
soften
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| v.(使)变柔软；(使)变柔和 | |
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24
attachment
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| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
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25
hoisted
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| 把…吊起，升起( hoist的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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26
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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Undid
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| v. 解开, 复原 | |
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28
slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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29
betrothal
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| n. 婚约, 订婚 | |
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30
irrelevancy
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| n.不恰当，离题，不相干的事物 | |
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31
sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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32
stanza
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| n.（诗）节，段 | |
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33
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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34
hospitable
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| adj.好客的；宽容的；有利的，适宜的 | |
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leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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36
screech
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| n./v.尖叫；(发出)刺耳的声音 | |
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soothingly
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| adv.抚慰地，安慰地；镇痛地 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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39
wail
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| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
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40
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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41
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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42
tangles
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| （使）缠结， （使）乱作一团( tangle的第三人称单数 ) | |
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43
pranced
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| v.（马）腾跃( prance的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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44
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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45
mouldering
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| v.腐朽( moulder的现在分词 )；腐烂，崩塌 | |
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46
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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47
adorned
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| [计]被修饰的 | |
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48
cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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49
squatting
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的现在分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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50
soldering
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| n.软焊；锡焊；低温焊接；热焊接v.（使）焊接，焊合( solder的现在分词 ) | |
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51
swarm
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| n.(昆虫)等一大群；vi.成群飞舞；蜂拥而入 | |
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52
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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53
pervading
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的现在分词 ) | |
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54
reek
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| v.发出臭气；n.恶臭 | |
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55
fume
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| n.(usu pl.)(浓烈或难闻的)烟，气，汽 | |
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56
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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57
crevice
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| n.(岩石、墙等)裂缝；缺口 | |
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58
sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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59
swarms
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| 蜂群，一大群( swarm的名词复数 ) | |
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60
battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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61
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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62
splendors
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| n.华丽( splendor的名词复数 )；壮丽；光辉；显赫 | |
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