The Great Eastern hums with life through all its hundred rooms. Doors slam merrily, and all the nations of the earth run up and down the staircases. This alone is refreshing2, because the passers bump you and ask you to stand aside. Fancy finding any place outside a Levée-room where Englishmen are crowded together to this extent! Fancy sitting down seventy strong to tâble d’hôte and with a deafening3 clatter4 of knives and forks! Fancy finding a real bar whence drinks may be obtained! and, joy of joys, fancy stepping out of the hotel into the arms of a live, white, helmeted, buttoned, truncheoned Bobby! A beautiful, burly Bobby—just the sort of man who, seven thousand miles away, staves off the stuttering witticism5 of the three-o’clock-in-the-morning reveller6 by the strong badged arm of authority. What would happen if one spoke7 to this Bobby? Would he be offended? He is not offended. He is affable. He has to patrol the pavement in front of the Great Eastern and to see that the crowding ticca-gharris do not jam. Toward a presumably respectable white he behaves as a man and a brother. There is no arrogance8 about him. And this is disappointing. Closer inspection9 shows that he is not a real Bobby after all. He is a Municipal Police something and his uniform is not correct; at least if they have not changed the dress of the men at home. But no matter. Later on we will inquire into the Calcutta Bobby, because he is a white man, and has to deal with some of the “toughest” folk that ever set out of malice10 aforethought to paint Job Charnock’s city vermillion. You must not, you cannot cross Old Court House Street without looking carefully to see that you stand no chance of being run over. This is beautiful. There is a steady roar of traffic, cut every two minutes by the deeper roll of the trams. The driving is eccentric, not to say bad, but there is the traffic—more than unsophisticated eyes have beheld11 for a certain number of years. It means business, it means money-making, it means crowded and hurrying life, and it gets into the blood and makes it move. Here be big shops with plate-glass fronts—all displaying the well-known names of firms that we savages12 only correspond with through the V. P. P. and Parcels Post. They are all here, as large as life, ready to supply anything you need if you only care to sign. Great is the fascination13 of being able to obtain a thing on the spot without having to write for a week and wait for a month, and then get something quite different. No wonder pretty ladies, who live anywhere within a reasonable distance, come down to do their shopping personally.
“Look here. If you want to be respectable you musn’t smoke in the streets. Nobody does it.” This is advice kindly14 tendered by a friend in a black coat. There is no Levée or Lieutenant-Governor in sight; but he wears the frock-coat because it is daylight, and he can be seen. He also refrains from smoking for the same rea{17}son. He admits that Providence15 built the open air to be smoked in, but he says that “it isn’t the thing.” This man has a brougham, a remarkably16 natty17 little pill-box with a curious wabble about the wheels. He steps into the brougham and puts on—a top-hat, a shiny black “plug.”
There was a man up-country once who owned a top-hat. He leased it to amateur theatrical18 companies for some seasons until the nap wore off. Then he threw it into a tree and wild bees hived in it. Men were wont19 to come and look at the hat, in its palmy days, for the sake of feeling homesick. It interested all the station, and died with two seers of babul flower honey in its bosom20. But top-hats are not intended to be worn in India. They are as sacred as home letters and old rosebuds21. The friend cannot see this. He allows that if he stepped out of his brougham and walked about in the sunshine for ten minutes he would get a bad headache. In half an hour he would probably catch sunstroke. He allows all this, but he keeps to his hat and cannot see why a barbarian22 is moved to inextinguishable laughter at the sight. Everyone who owns a brougham and many people who hire ticca-gharris keep top-hats and black frock-coats. The effect is curious, and at first fills the beholder23 with surprise.
And now, “let us see the handsome houses where the wealthy nobles dwell.” Northerly lies the great human jungle of the native city, stretching from Burra Bazar to Chitpore. That can keep. Southerly is the maidan and Chouringhi. “If you get out into the centre of the maidan you will understand why Calcutta is called the City of Palaces.” The travelled American said so at the Great Eastern. There is a short tower, falsely called a “memorial,” standing24 in a waste of soft, sour green. That is as good a place to get to as any other. Near here the newly-landed waler is taught the whole duty of the trap-horse and careers madly in a brake. Near here young Calcutta gets upon a horse and is incontinently run away with. Near here hundreds of kine feed, close to the innumerable trams and the whirl of traffic along the face of Chouringhi Road. The size of the maidan takes the heart out of anyone accustomed to the “gardens” of up-country, just as they say Newmarket Heath cows a horse accustomed to more shut-in course. The huge level is studded with brazen25 statues of eminent26 gentlemen riding fretful horses on diabolically27 severe curbs28. The expanse dwarfs29 the statues, dwarfs everything except the frontage of the far-away Chouringhi Road. It is big—it is impressive. There is no escaping the fact. They built houses in the old days when the rupee was two shillings and a penny. Those houses are three-storied, and ornamented30 with service-staircases like houses in the Hills. They are also very close together, and they own garden walls of pukka-masonry pierced with a single gate. In their shut-upness they are British. In their spaciousness31 they are Oriental, but those service-staircases do not look healthy. We will form an amateur sanitary32 commission and call upon Chouringhi.
A first introduction to the Calcutta durwan is not nice. If he is chewing pan, he does not take the trouble to get rid of his quid. If he is sitting on his charpoy chewing sugarcane, he does not think it worth his while to rise. He has to be taught those things, and he cannot understand why he should be reproved. Clearly he is a survival of a played-out system. Providence never intended that any native should be made a concierge33 more insolent34 than any of the French variety. The people of Calcutta put an Uria in a little lodge35 close to the gate of their house, in order that loafers may be turned away, and the houses protected from theft. The natural result is that the durwan treats everybody whom he does not know as a loafer, has an intimate and vendible36 knowledge of all the outgoings and incomings in that house, and controls, to a large extent, the nomination37 of the naukar-log. They say that one of the estimable class is now suing a bank for about three lakhs of rupees. Up-country, a Lieutenant-Governor’s charprassi has to work for thirty years before he can retire on seventy thousand rupees of savings38. The Calcutta durwan is a great institution. The head and front of his offence is that he will insist upon trying to talk English. How he protects the houses Calcutta only knows. He can be frightened out of his wits by severe speech, and is generally asleep in calling hours. If a rough round of visits be any guide, three times out of seven he is fragrant39 of drink. So much for the durwan. Now for the houses he guards.
Very pleasant is the sensation of being ushered40 into a pestiferously stablesome drawing-room. “Does this always happen?” No, “not unless you shut up the room for some time; but if you open the jhilmills there are other smells. You see the stables and the servants’ quarters are close too.” People pay five hundred a month for half-a-dozen rooms filled with attr of this kind. They make no complaint. When they think the honor of the city is at stake they say defiantly41: “Yes, but you must remember we’re a metropolis42. We are crowded here. We have no room. We aren’t like your little stations.” Chouringhi is a stately place full of sumptuous43 houses, but it is best to look at it hastily. Stop to consider for a moment what the cramped44 compounds, the black soaked soil, the netted intricacies of the service-staircases, the packed stables, the seethment of human life round the durwans’ lodges45, and the curious arrangement of little open drains means, and you will call it a whited sepulchre.
Men living in expensive tenements46 suffer from chronic47 sore-throat, and will tell you cheerily that “we’ve got typhoid in Calcutta now.” Is the pest ever out of it? Everything seems to be built with a view to its comfort. It can lodge comfortably on roofs, climb along from the gutter-pipe to piazza48, or rise from sink to verandah and thence to the topmost story. But Calcutta says that all is sound and produces figures to prove it; at the same time admitting that healthy cut flesh will not readily heal. Further evidence may be dispensed49 with.
Here come pouring down Park Street on the maidan a rush of broughams, neat buggies, the lightest of gigs, trim office brownberrys, shining victorias, and a sprinkling of veritable hansom cabs. In the broughams sit men in {22}top-hats. In the other carts, young men, all very much alike, and all immaculately turned out. A fresh stream from Chouringhi joins the Park Street detachment, and the two together stream away across the maidan toward the business quarter of the city. This is Calcutta going to office—the civilians50 to the Government Buildings and the young men to their firms and their blocks and their wharves52. Here one sees that Calcutta has the best turn-out in the Empire. Horses and traps alike are enviably perfect, and—mark the touchstone of civilization—the lamps are in the sockets53. This is distinctly refreshing. Once more we will take off our hats to Calcutta, the well-appointed, the luxurious54. The country-bred is a rare beast here; his place is taken by the waler, and the waler, though a ruffian at heart, can be made to look like a gentleman. It would be indecorous as well as insane to applaud the winking55 harness, the perfectly56 lacquered panels, and the liveried saises. They show well in the outwardly fair roads shadowed by the Palaces.
How many sections of the complex society of the place do the carts carry? Imprimis, the Bengal Civilian51 who goes to Writers’ Buildings and sits in a perfect office and speaks flippantly of “sending things into India,” meaning thereby57 the Supreme58 Government. He is a great person, and his mouth is full of promotion-and-appointment “shop.” Generally he is referred to as a “rising man.” Calcutta seems full of “rising men.” Secondly59, the Government of India man, who wears a familiar Simla face, rents a flat when he is not up in the Hills, and is rational on the subject of the drawbacks of Calcutta. Thirdly, the man of the “firms,” the pure non-official who fights under the banner of one of the great houses of the City, or for his own hand in a neat office, or dashes about Clive Street in a brougham doing “share work” or something of the kind. He fears not “Bengal,” nor regards he “India.” He swears impartially60 at both when their actions interfere61 with his operations. His “shop” is quite unintelligible62. He is like the English city man with the chill off, lives well and entertains hospitably63. In the old days he was greater than he is now, but still he bulks large. He is rational in so far that he will help the abuse of the Municipality, but womanish in his insistence64 on the excellencies of Calcutta. Over and above these who are hurrying to work are the various brigades, squads65, and detachments of the other interests. But they are sets and not sections, and revolve66 round Belvedere, Government House, and Fort William. Simla and Darjeeling claim them in the hot weather. Let them go. They wear top-hats and frock-coats.
It is time to escape from Chouringhi Road and get among the long-shore folk, who have no prejudices against tobacco, and who all use pretty nearly the same sort of hat.
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1
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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refreshing
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| adj.使精神振作的，使人清爽的，使人喜欢的 | |
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deafening
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| adj. 振耳欲聋的, 极喧闹的 动词deafen的现在分词形式 | |
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clatter
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| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
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witticism
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| n.谐语，妙语 | |
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reveller
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| n.摆设酒宴者，饮酒狂欢者 | |
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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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arrogance
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| n.傲慢，自大 | |
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inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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fascination
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| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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natty
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| adj.整洁的，漂亮的 | |
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theatrical
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| adj.剧场的，演戏的；做戏似的，做作的 | |
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wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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21
rosebuds
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| 蔷薇花蕾，妙龄少女，初入社交界的少女( rosebud的名词复数 ) | |
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22
barbarian
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| n.野蛮人；adj.野蛮(人)的；未开化的 | |
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beholder
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| n.观看者，旁观者 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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brazen
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| adj.厚脸皮的，无耻的，坚硬的 | |
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eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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diabolically
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28
curbs
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| v.限制，克制，抑制( curb的第三人称单数 ) | |
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dwarfs
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| n.侏儒，矮子（dwarf的复数形式）vt.（使）显得矮小（dwarf的第三人称单数形式） | |
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ornamented
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| adj.花式字体的v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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spaciousness
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| n.宽敞 | |
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32
sanitary
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| adj.卫生方面的，卫生的，清洁的，卫生的 | |
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concierge
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| n.管理员；门房 | |
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insolent
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| adj.傲慢的，无理的 | |
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lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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vendible
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| adj.可销售的，可被普遍接受的n.可销售物 | |
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nomination
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| n.提名，任命，提名权 | |
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savings
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| n.存款，储蓄 | |
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fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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40
ushered
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| v.引，领，陪同( usher的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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defiantly
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| adv.挑战地，大胆对抗地 | |
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metropolis
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| n.首府；大城市 | |
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sumptuous
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| adj.豪华的，奢侈的，华丽的 | |
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cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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lodges
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| v.存放( lodge的第三人称单数 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
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46
tenements
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| n.房屋，住户，租房子( tenement的名词复数 ) | |
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chronic
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| adj.(疾病)长期未愈的，慢性的；极坏的 | |
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piazza
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| n.广场；走廊 | |
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49
dispensed
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| v.分配( dispense的过去式和过去分词 )；施与；配（药） | |
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50
civilians
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| 平民，百姓( civilian的名词复数 )； 老百姓 | |
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51
civilian
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| adj.平民的，民用的，民众的 | |
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52
wharves
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| n.码头，停泊处( wharf的名词复数 ) | |
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53
sockets
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| n.套接字，使应用程序能够读写与收发通讯协定(protocol)与资料的程序( Socket的名词复数 )；孔( socket的名词复数 )；（电器上的）插口；托座；凹穴 | |
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54
luxurious
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| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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55
winking
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| n.瞬眼，目语v.使眼色( wink的现在分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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56
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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57
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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secondly
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| adv.第二，其次 | |
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impartially
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| adv.公平地，无私地 | |
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61
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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unintelligible
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| adj.无法了解的，难解的，莫明其妙的 | |
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hospitably
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| 亲切地，招待周到地，善于款待地 | |
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insistence
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| n.坚持；强调；坚决主张 | |
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65
squads
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| n.（军队中的）班( squad的名词复数 )；（暗杀）小组；体育运动的运动（代表）队；（对付某类犯罪活动的）警察队伍 | |
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revolve
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| vi.(使)旋转；循环出现 | |
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