Hindoo Holiday (9 page)

“He is very beautiful—like Napoleon the Third.”

“Napoleon the Third?” I asked, mystified. “Do you mean Napoleon the Second?”

“No, no; Napoleon the Third; I have a picture of him in a history book in my library. I will show you.”

He had been so taken with this boy's appearance that he had wanted to buy him, and had asked how much he was. But the manager of the company, who was the boy's uncle, had named too high a price—fifty rupees a month for the boy's life, for he was irreplaceable.

“I said it was too much,” concluded His Highness; then, after a pause—“But I want him. Should I pay it? Please advise me.” “What about the boy's parents?” I asked.

“Both dead,” said His Highness promptly.

“Well, if you want him so much and can afford him, you'd better buy him.”

“What would a European do? An Englishman?”

“The same thing, no doubt.”

“And an ancient Greek?”

“I believe they sternly discountenanced such transactions,” I said.

His Highness seemed to ponder this for a moment, then, “He's black, not fair,” he observed. “Do you like black?”

“I prefer fair.”

“Ah!” he breathed, nodding his head in agreement.

The sun was setting in front of us in a blaze of pink and golden light. His Highness waved a regretful hand towards it.

“I want a friend like that,” he said.

Perhaps His Highness was not pleased with the answer I returned him by his icemaker and assistant librarian; at any rate neither of them came back to me, and he never alluded to the subject again, but placed the matter in the hands of Babaji Rao, who sent me a very alarming young man, the son of a pundit, who seemed to think the letter of introduction he bore was a letter of engagement, for almost before I had finished reading it he had begun to teach me Hindi, shouting pronunciations at me in an abrupt, metallic voice which was actually hurtful, and jumping and gesticulating about the room as though he were composed of steel springs.

He was clearly bent upon making an impression on me (which indeed he did), and tried very hard to conceal the fact that he didn't in the least understand me; for whatever I said struck him at once, in the middle of some gesture, into a state of marionette-like immobility, an injured expression on his face. He would then complete his gesture and make a little rush at me with another staccato sentence, as though no interruption worthy of notice had occurred.

As is always the case when I have a visitor, he had been conducted into my room by curious sightseers—the waiter Hashim and two small boys, all Mohammedans. Hashim is easy to dismiss; one can do it with a nod, for he is accustomed to Europeans, though he would prefer to stay.

But the boys are very difficult and very exasperating. They stand about, quite quiet and expressionless, their wide gaze fixed upon me. A nod or gesture is quite useless. “Jao!” (Go!) moves them slightly, and may drive the older of the two out on to the verandah, where he will linger, rather bewildered, looking back; but the younger and smaller, whose name is Habib (Lover), might almost be under some hypnotic influence; he moves his thick lips a little . . . and remains. The other day, all else having failed, I made a threatening advance towards him, and then he went, but slowly, reluctantly, rearranging the door-curtains as he left, and staring at me all the time with large astonished eyes as though to say “This Sahib is certainly peculiar.”

But to return. When the son of the pundit had given me a headache I managed to convey to him that I had had enough instruction in Hindi for one day and would call him if I wanted more, intending to do so if I could not find some one more efficient and less mercurial; but this morning I received another candidate. My new visitor was a grave, tall, thin-featured Mohammedan, not unhandsome, with a long aquiline nose and a slight black mustache.

His dress was that odd mixture of European and Indian garments which all the educated men here affect. A red tarbush was set squarely on his close-cropped skull, and from beneath an Army drill tunic, stained green, the tails of an ordinary European shirt hung down over narrow white cotton trousers. He wore no collar. Socks, patent leather slippers, and a long gold watch-chain round his neck, completed his attire. He carried an umbrella.

Holding himself very erect, he said that his name was Abdul Haq, and that he had heard I was looking for a tutor, and had come to present himself. I began to explain that I already had a tutor, but he interrupted me, almost apologetically, to say that he had heard that also, but that—although he did not wish to speak ill of any man—the pundit's son was not nearly as well qualified to be my tutor as he himself was, and would not give such satisfaction.

This I felt might be true, and such self-confidence was disarming.

“I am very interested in you, gentleman, and will teach you well.”

He smiled at me, compressing his lips, his head on one side, his chin drawn in, very persuasive, very smooth, very confident, his umbrella beneath his arm, his toes turned out, and one foot a little in advance of the other as though he were about to begin a prim, decorous dance.

I engaged him, and he said “Thank you, Mr. Ackerley” three times and thrust out a clawlike hand; but I felt, while I grasped it, that he was really shaking hands with himself. He went, and rather dubiously I watched him down the drive, a thin, stiff figure with toes turned out, twitching back his shoulders, his left arm stiff down his body, his right sweeping the handle of the umbrella in expansive circles. Every now and then he jerked a swift, rather haughty, glance from side to side, so that the tassel on his cap leapt and swung.

It appears that Napoleon the Third is once more in the vicinity of Chhokrapur. The traveling players have returned, His Highness said, but he said it with so little emotion that I cannot help wondering whether they ever really left. At any rate they have not lowered the price of Napoleon, though they now make an alternative offer for a lump sum of two thousand rupees, which is about one hundred and fifty pounds. This is absurd. His Highness has never before paid more than about five shillings for any God. Moreover, for performing in Chhokrapur they now want fifty rupees a night, instead of fifty for the whole visit. They are robbers . . . wolves . . .

“What must I do?” he asked. “Should I buy him? Thirty years I have dreamed of that face, it is entangled in my heart, and then (he clapped his hands together) suddenly I see it! Why did I see it? How do these things happen? Did God put it before me? Is it God's wish that I should buy? If it is not God's wish, then He is a very wicked man! What must I do?”

“Do you suppose his mind, too, is like Napoleon the Third's?” I asked.

“No, like a donkey's!” he retorted emphatically, and then began to laugh silently, shielding his face with a letter he had just received from the Acting Governor-General of the Province. For some time, it appears, he has been angling for a decoration. All the neighboring potentates have, at one time or another, been honored with the K.C.S.I. or K.C.I.E. on the King Emperor's birthday, but so far His Highness of Chhokrapur has been passed over, which is a source of continual irritation to him. He said he could not explain the reason for this neglect, but went on at once to tell me that, at the time of his son's birth, one of his enemies had written an anonymous letter to the Political Agent, stating that the child was illegitimate and not his son at all, and further hinting that an investigation of His Highness's private amusements would prove instructive.

Apparently some sort of investigation had been made, but nothing had been discovered—nothing, that is to say, except the “Gods,” whose number had been forthwith curtailed. This His Highness called “political interference with my luxuries.” No doubt it is this suspicion that is operating still against his chances of a decoration; but he does not admit it, nor abate his efforts on his own behalf. The A.G.G. himself has recently been knighted, and His Highness, while congratulating him, had not scrupled to inquire again in the same letter when he himself was to be remembered. The letter that he had brought out to-day to show me was the answer to this, in which the A. G. G. assured His Highness that he would do his best to settle favorably the matter of which His Highness had spoken. The letter seemed sincere and cordial, so he was in a good humor—or would have been if it weren't for Napoleon the Third.

“I cannot afford two thousand rupees,” he repeated. “It is the boy's uncle who makes the demand. I should like to poison him.”

For some time past His Highness has been cherishing a desire to erect a “Greek Villa” where, wrapped in a toga, he may hold symposia with his European friends and his Indian Gods; and to-day a Mr. Bramble, an English architect, friend to the A.G.G., arrived in Chhokrapur to stay for a few days in the Guest House. There are some other guests here as well, two women and their children; and we were all present when His Highness drove up this afternoon. A chair and cigarettes were put ready for him in front of the fire, and as soon as he was seated he addressed himself to Mr. Bramble.

“How old are you, Mr. Bramble?”

“Well, Maharajah Sahib,” said the architect good-humoredly, His Highness's peculiarities having already been explained to him by the women, “I tell my bearer that I'm a hundred, and he believes me.”

This caused general amusement, in which the King joined; but he obviously did not quite understand the joke, for did not Mr. Bramble, with his silver hair, look very old indeed? So as soon as the laughter had ceased, he asked politely:

“Are you seventy-six?”

“Well—er—no,” said Mr. Bramble, rather taken aback. “Let me think . . . when was I born? In '66. That makes me sixty-four.”

“And where is your wife?” asked His Highness, without the slightest pause—and also without the slightest knowledge of Mr. Bramble's domestic affairs; but then surely so old and successful a man must have a wife. There was an awkward silence.

“I'm very sorry to say that . . . Mrs. Bramble is . . . no more . . . no more.”

He was clearly distressed; but His Highness did not appear to notice it.

“Dead?” he asked briefly.

“Yes,” said Mr. Bramble sadly.

“And have you children?” continued His Highness, without pause.

“One boy.”

There was a silence after this, and I awaited, with considerable apprehension, the King's next association of thought. But it was quite harmless.

“And where is he?”

“Well—at the moment he's in Portsmouth, I believe.”

“Ah, yes—Portsmouth. Where is Portsmouth?”

Mr. Bramble was by now so confused and intimidated that he was quite unable to remember where Portsmouth was; so I came to his rescue.

“It's in the south of England, Maharajah Sahib.”

“Near the Isle of Wight,” said Mr. Bramble, with presence of mind.

“Which,” I added, “is not the Isle of Man, you know, Maharajah Sahib.”

His Highness at once looked very intelligent, and I knew I had succeeded in diverting his attention from Mr. Bramble's personal history.

“Have you read Hall Caine, Mr. Bramble?” he asked.

“Hall Caine? Yes, I think I have—something or other.”

“
The Eternal City
?” asked His Highness enthusiastically. “A
very
good book. You
must
read it. He is Manx. Are you Manx, Mr. Bramble?”

“No, no, I'm not Manx,” said the architect, laughing.

His Highness seemed disappointed.

“Ah, I like Manx,” he said, nodding his head. “They have a separate Parliament, you know. The House of Keys. Do you know Edward Carpenter?”

“Yes, I know Edward Carpenter,” said Mr. Bramble fatiguedly, and began to talk about the weather to one of the women. But their conversation was at once interrupted. His Highness had remembered the “Greek Villa,” and, as always when he has an idea to impart, was far too impatient to wait quietly for an opening.

“You mean you want a villa in the Classic style, isn't that it?” asked Mr. Bramble. “Yes, I could do it for you certainly; but we shall have to talk about it first. You will have to show me the proposed site, and tell me how many rooms you want and how much you are prepared to spend, and then I'll make a design for you.”

The King nodded sagely, but he had left off listening; he was groping in his mind after something else, which in a moment or two he triumphantly produced.

“Parthenon! Like Parthenon!” he cried; and then, rather dimly: “What is Parthenon?”

Hindoos are of four main castes: (1) the Brahman, or Priestly caste, to which the Dewan and Narayan belong; (2) the Kshatriya, or Warrior caste, to which His Highness belongs; (3) the Vaishya, or Tradesman and Agriculturist caste, to which Babaji Rao belongs; and (4) the Sudra, or Servant and Laborer caste, to which Sharma, the barber's son, belongs. The Brahmans are the Lips of God; the Kshatriyas the Arms; the Vaishyas the Loins; and the Sudras the Feet. I believe that Rabindranath Tagore in one of his poems says: “How can I worship my God better than by kissing His Feet?”