All men of certain age know the feeling of caged irritation—an illustration in the Graphic5, a bar of music, or the light words of a friend from home may set it ablaze—that comes from the knowledge of our lost heritage of London. At home they, the other men, our equals, have at their disposal all that town can supply—the roar of the streets, the lights, the music, the pleasant places, the millions of their own kind, and a wilderness6 full of pretty, fresh-colored Englishwomen, theatres, and restaurants. It is their right. They accept it as such, and even affect to look upon it with contempt. And we, we have nothing except the few amusements that we painfully build up for ourselves—the dolorous7 dissipations of gymkhanas where every one knows everybody else, or the chastened intoxication8 of dances where all engagements are booked, in ink, ten days ahead, and where everybody’s antecedents are as patent as his or her method of waltzing. We have been deprived of our inheritance. The men at home are enjoying it all, not knowing how fair and rich it is, and we at the most can only fly westward9 for a few months and gorge10 what, properly speaking, should take seven or eight or ten luxurious11 years. That is the lost heritage of London; and the knowledge of the forfeiture12, wilful13 or forced, comes to most men at times and seasons, and they get cross.
Calcutta holds out false hopes of some return. The dense14 smoke hangs low, in the chill of the morning, over an ocean of roofs, and, as the city wakes, there goes up to the smoke a deep, full-throated boom of life and motion and humanity. For this reason does he who sees Calcutta for the first time hang joyously15 out of the ticca-gharri and sniff16 the smoke, and turn his face toward the tumult17, saying: “This is, at last, some portion of my heritage returned to me. This is a city. There is life here, and there should be all manner of pleasant things for the having, across the river and under the smoke.” When Leland, he who wrote the Hans Breitmann Ballads18, once desired to know the name of an austere19, plug-hatted redskin of repute, his answer, from the lips of a half-breed, was:
“He Injun. He big Injun. He heap big Injun. He dam big heap Injun. He dam mighty20 great big heap Injun. He Jones!” The litany is an expressive21 one, and exactly describes the first emotions of a wandering savage22 adrift in Calcutta. The eye has lost its sense of proportion, the focus has contracted through overmuch residence in up-country stations—twenty minutes’ canter from hospital to parade-ground, you know—and the mind has shrunk with the eye. Both say together, as they take in the sweep of shipping23 above and below the Hugli Bridge: “Why, this is London! This is the docks. This is Imperial. This is worth coming across India to see!”
Then a distinctly wicked idea takes possession of the mind: “What a divine—what a heavenly place to loot!” This gives place to a much worse devil—that of Conservatism. It seems not only a wrong but a criminal thing to allow natives to have any voice in the control of such a city—adorned, docked, wharfed24, fronted and reclaimed25 by Englishmen, existing only because England lives, and dependent for its life on England. All India knows of the Calcutta Municipality; but has any one thoroughly26 investigated the Big Calcutta Stink27? There is only one. Benares is fouler28 in point of concentrated, pent-up muck, and there are local stenches in Peshawur which are stronger than the B.C.S.; but, for diffused29, soul-sickening expansiveness, the reek30 of Calcutta beats both Benares and Peshawur. Bombay cloaks her stenches with a veneer31 of assafœtida and huqa-tobacco; Calcutta is above pretence32. There is no tracing back the Calcutta plague to any one source. It is faint, it is sickly, and it is indescribable; but Americans at the Great Eastern Hotel say that it is something like the smell of the Chinese quarter in San Francisco. It is certainly not an Indian smell. It resembles the essence of corruption33 that has rotted for the second time—the clammy odor of blue slime. And there is no escape from it. It blows across the maidan; it comes in gusts34 into the corridors of the Great Eastern Hotel; what they are pleased to call the “Palaces of Chouringhi” carry it; it swirls35 round the Bengal Club; it pours out of by-streets with sickening intensity36, and the breeze of the morning is laden37 with it. It is first found, in spite of the fume38 of the engines, in Howrah Station. It seems to be worst in the little lanes at the back of Lal Bazar where the drinking-shops are, but it is nearly as bad opposite Government House and in the Public Offices. The thing is intermittent39. Six moderately pure mouthfuls of air may be drawn40 without offence. Then comes the seventh wave and the queasiness41 of an uncultured stomach. If you live long enough in Calcutta you grow used to it. The regular residents admit the disgrace, but their answer is: “Wait till the wind blows off the Salt Lakes where all the sewage goes, and then you’ll smell something.” That is their defence! Small wonder that they consider Calcutta is a fit place for a permanent Viceroy. Englishmen who can calmly extenuate42 one shame by another are capable of asking for anything—and expecting to get it.
If an up-country station holding three thousand troops and twenty civilians43 owned such a possession as Calcutta does, the Deputy Commissioner3 or the Cantonment Magistrate44 would have all the natives off the board of management or decently shovelled45 into the background until the mess was abated46. Then they might come on again and talk of “high-handed oppression” as much as they liked. That stink, to an unprejudiced nose, damns Calcutta as a City of Kings. And, in spite of that stink, they allow, they even encourage, natives to look after the place! The damp, drainage-soaked soil is sick with the teeming47 life of a hundred years, and the Municipal Board list is choked with the names of natives—men of the breed born in and raised off this surfeited48 muck-heap! They own property, these amiable49 Aryans on the Municipal and the Bengal Legislative50 Council. Launch a proposal to tax them on that property, and they naturally howl. They also howl up-country, but there the halls for mass-meetings are few, and the vernacular51 papers fewer, and with a zubbardusti Secretary and a President whose favor is worth the having and whose wrath52 is undesirable53, men are kept clean despite themselves, and may not poison their neighbors. Why, asks a savage, let them vote at all? They can put up with this filthiness54. They cannot have any feelings worth caring a rush for. Let them live quietly and hide away their money under our protection, while we tax them till they know through their purses the measure of their neglect in the past, and when a little of the smell has been abolished, bring them back again to talk and take the credit of enlightenment. The better classes own their broughams and barouches; the worse can shoulder an Englishman into the kennel55 and talk to him as though he were a khidmatgar. They can refer to an English lady as an aurat; they are permitted a freedom—not to put it too coarsely—of speech which, if used by an Englishman toward an Englishman, would end in serious trouble. They are fenced and protected and made inviolate56. Surely they might be content with all those things without entering into matters which they cannot, by the nature of their birth, understand.
Now, whether all this genial57 diatribe58 be the outcome of an unbiased mind or the result first of sickness caused by that ferocious59 stench, and secondly60 of headache due to day-long smoking to drown the stench, is an open question. Anyway, Calcutta is a fearsome place for a man not educated up to it.
A word of advice to other barbarians. Do not bring a north-country servant into Calcutta. He is sure to get into trouble, because he does not understand the customs of the city. A Punjabi in this place for the first time esteems61 it his bounden duty to go to the Ajaib-ghar—the Museum. Such an one has gone and is even now returned very angry and troubled in the spirit. “I went to the Museum,” says he, “and no one gave me any gali. I went to the market to buy my food, and then I sat upon a seat. There came a chaprissi who said: ‘Go away, I want to sit here.’ I said: ‘I am here first.’ He said: ‘I am a chaprissi! nikal jao!’ and he hit me. Now that sitting-place was open to all, so I hit him till he wept. He ran away for the Police, and I went away too, for the Police here are all Sahibs. Can I have leave from two o’clock to go and look for that chaprissi and hit him again?”
Behold62 the situation! An unknown city full of smell that makes one long for rest and retirement63, and a champing naukar, not yet six hours in the stew64, who has started a blood-feud with an unknown chaprissi and clamors to go forth65 to the fray66. General orders that, whatever may be said or done to him, he must not say or do anything in return lead to an eloquent67 harangue68 on the quality of izzat and the nature of “face blackening.” There is no izzat in Calcutta, and this Awful Smell blackens the face of any Englishman who sniffs69 it.
Alas70! for the lost delusion71 of the heritage that was to be restored. Let us sleep, let us sleep, and pray that Calcutta may be better to-morrow.
点击收听单词发音
1 barbarians | |
n.野蛮人( barbarian的名词复数 );外国人;粗野的人;无教养的人 | |
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2 dwelling | |
n.住宅,住所,寓所 | |
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3 commissioner | |
n.(政府厅、局、处等部门)专员,长官,委员 | |
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4 commissioners | |
n.专员( commissioner的名词复数 );长官;委员;政府部门的长官 | |
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5 graphic | |
adj.生动的,形象的,绘画的,文字的,图表的 | |
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6 wilderness | |
n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等,荒漠 | |
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7 dolorous | |
adj.悲伤的;忧愁的 | |
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8 intoxication | |
n.wild excitement;drunkenness;poisoning | |
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9 westward | |
n.西方,西部;adj.西方的,向西的;adv.向西 | |
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10 gorge | |
n.咽喉,胃,暴食,山峡;v.塞饱,狼吞虎咽地吃 | |
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11 luxurious | |
adj.精美而昂贵的;豪华的 | |
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12 forfeiture | |
n.(名誉等)丧失 | |
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13 wilful | |
adj.任性的,故意的 | |
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14 dense | |
a.密集的,稠密的,浓密的;密度大的 | |
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15 joyously | |
ad.快乐地, 高兴地 | |
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16 sniff | |
vi.嗅…味道;抽鼻涕;对嗤之以鼻,蔑视 | |
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17 tumult | |
n.喧哗;激动,混乱;吵闹 | |
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18 ballads | |
民歌,民谣,特别指叙述故事的歌( ballad的名词复数 ); 讴 | |
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19 austere | |
adj.艰苦的;朴素的,朴实无华的;严峻的 | |
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20 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
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21 expressive | |
adj.表现的,表达…的,富于表情的 | |
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22 savage | |
adj.野蛮的;凶恶的,残暴的;n.未开化的人 | |
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23 shipping | |
n.船运(发货,运输,乘船) | |
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24 wharfed | |
v.靠码头(wharf的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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25 reclaimed | |
adj.再生的;翻造的;收复的;回收的v.开拓( reclaim的过去式和过去分词 );要求收回;从废料中回收(有用的材料);挽救 | |
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26 thoroughly | |
adv.完全地,彻底地,十足地 | |
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27 stink | |
vi.发出恶臭;糟透,招人厌恶;n.恶臭 | |
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28 fouler | |
adj.恶劣的( foul的比较级 );邪恶的;难闻的;下流的 | |
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29 diffused | |
散布的,普及的,扩散的 | |
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30 reek | |
v.发出臭气;n.恶臭 | |
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31 veneer | |
n.(墙上的)饰面,虚饰 | |
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32 pretence | |
n.假装,作假;借口,口实;虚伪;虚饰 | |
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33 corruption | |
n.腐败,堕落,贪污 | |
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34 gusts | |
一阵强风( gust的名词复数 ); (怒、笑等的)爆发; (感情的)迸发; 发作 | |
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35 swirls | |
n.旋转( swirl的名词复数 );卷状物;漩涡;尘旋v.旋转,打旋( swirl的第三人称单数 ) | |
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36 intensity | |
n.强烈,剧烈;强度;烈度 | |
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37 laden | |
adj.装满了的;充满了的;负了重担的;苦恼的 | |
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38 fume | |
n.(usu pl.)(浓烈或难闻的)烟,气,汽 | |
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39 intermittent | |
adj.间歇的,断断续续的 | |
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40 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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41 queasiness | |
n.恶心 | |
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42 extenuate | |
v.减轻,使人原谅 | |
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43 civilians | |
平民,百姓( civilian的名词复数 ); 老百姓 | |
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44 magistrate | |
n.地方行政官,地方法官,治安官 | |
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45 shovelled | |
v.铲子( shovel的过去式和过去分词 );锹;推土机、挖土机等的)铲;铲形部份 | |
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46 abated | |
减少( abate的过去式和过去分词 ); 减去; 降价; 撤消(诉讼) | |
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47 teeming | |
adj.丰富的v.充满( teem的现在分词 );到处都是;(指水、雨等)暴降;倾注 | |
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48 surfeited | |
v.吃得过多( surfeit的过去式和过去分词 );由于过量而厌腻 | |
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49 amiable | |
adj.和蔼可亲的,友善的,亲切的 | |
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50 legislative | |
n.立法机构,立法权;adj.立法的,有立法权的 | |
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51 vernacular | |
adj.地方的,用地方语写成的;n.白话;行话;本国语;动植物的俗名 | |
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52 wrath | |
n.愤怒,愤慨,暴怒 | |
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53 undesirable | |
adj.不受欢迎的,不良的,不合意的,讨厌的;n.不受欢迎的人,不良分子 | |
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54 filthiness | |
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55 kennel | |
n.狗舍,狗窝 | |
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56 inviolate | |
adj.未亵渎的,未受侵犯的 | |
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57 genial | |
adj.亲切的,和蔼的,愉快的,脾气好的 | |
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58 diatribe | |
n.抨击,抨击性演说 | |
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59 ferocious | |
adj.凶猛的,残暴的,极度的,十分强烈的 | |
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60 secondly | |
adv.第二,其次 | |
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61 esteems | |
n.尊敬,好评( esteem的名词复数 )v.尊敬( esteem的第三人称单数 );敬重;认为;以为 | |
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62 behold | |
v.看,注视,看到 | |
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63 retirement | |
n.退休,退职 | |
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64 stew | |
n.炖汤,焖,烦恼;v.炖汤,焖,忧虑 | |
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65 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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66 fray | |
v.争吵;打斗;磨损,磨破;n.吵架;打斗 | |
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67 eloquent | |
adj.雄辩的,口才流利的;明白显示出的 | |
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68 harangue | |
n.慷慨冗长的训话,言辞激烈的讲话 | |
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69 sniffs | |
v.以鼻吸气,嗅,闻( sniff的第三人称单数 );抽鼻子(尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气);抱怨,不以为然地说 | |
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70 alas | |
int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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71 delusion | |
n.谬见,欺骗,幻觉,迷惑 | |
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72 remarkably | |
ad.不同寻常地,相当地 | |
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73 corpse | |
n.尸体,死尸 | |
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