MADHAV. What will your "in this and in that" do for me now? Why
don't you let them alone and come straight to the point? What's
to be done then? Your system is very, very hard for the poor
boy; and he is so quiet too with all his pain and sickness. It
tears my heart to see him wince, as he takes your medicine.
PHYSICIAN. The more he winces, the surer is the effect. That's
why the sage Chyabana observes: "In medicine as in good advices,
the least palatable ones are the truest." Ah, well! I must
be trotting now. [Exit]
[GAFFER enters]
MADHAV. Well, I'm jiggered, there's Gaffer now.
GAFFER. Why, why, I won't bite you.
MADHAV. No, but you are a devil to send children off their
heads.
GAFFER. But you aren't a child, and you've no child in the
house; why worry then?
MADHAV. Oh, but I have brought a child into the house.
GAFFER. Indeed, how so?
MADHAV. You remember how my wife was dying to adopt a child?
GAFFER. Yes, but that's an old story; you didn't like the idea.
MADHAV. You know, brother, how hard all this getting money in
has been. That somebody else's child would sail in and waste all
this money earned with so much trouble--Oh, I hated the idea.
But this boy clings to my heart in such a queer sort of way--
GAFFER. So that's the trouble! and your money goes all for him
and feels jolly lucky it does go at all.
MADHAV. Formerly, earning was a sort of passion with me; I
simply couldn't help working for money. Now, I make money and as
I know it is all for this dear boy, earning becomes a joy to me.
GAFFER. Ah, well, and where did you pick him up?
MADHAV. He is the son of a man who was a brother to my wife by
village ties. He has had no mother since infancy; and now the
other day he lost his father as well.
GAFFER. Poor thing: and so he needs me all the more.
MADHAV. The doctor says all the organs of his little body are at
loggerheads with each other, and there isn't much hope for his
life. There is only one way to save him and that is to keep him
out of this autumn wind and sun. But you are such a terror!
What with this game of yours at your age, too, to get children
out of doors!
GAFFER. God bless my soul! So I'm already as bad as autumn wind
and sun, eh! But, friend, I know something, too, of the game of
keeping them indoors. When my day's work is over I am coming in
to make friends with this child of yours. [Exit]
[AMAL enters]
AMAL. Uncle, I say, Uncle!
MADHAV. Hullo! Is that you, Amal?
AMAL. Mayn't I be out of the courtyard at all?
MADHAV. No, my dear, no.
AMAL. See, there where Auntie grinds lentils in the quirn, the
squirrel is sitting with his tail up and with his wee hands he's
picking up the broken grains of lentils and crunching them.
Can't I run up there?
MADHAV. No, my darling, no.
AMAL. Wish I were a squirrel!--it would be lovely. Uncle, why
won't you let me go about?
MADHAV. Doctor says it's bad for you to be out.
AMAL. How can the doctor know?
MADHAV. What a thing to say! The doctor can't know and he reads
such huge books!
AMAL. Does his book-learning tell him everything?
MADHAV. Of course, don't you know!
AMAL [With a sigh] Ah, I am so stupid! I don't read books.
MADHAV. Now, think of it; very, very learned people are all like
you; they are never out of doors.
AMAL. Aren't they really?
MADHAV. No, how can they? Early and late they toil and moil at
their books, and they've eyes for nothing else. Now, my little
man, you are going to be learned when you grow up; and then you
will stay at home and read such big books, and people will notice
you and say, "he's a wonder."
AMAL. No, no, Uncle; I beg of you by your dear feet--I don't
want to be learned, I won't.
MADHAV. Dear, dear; it would have been my saving if I could have
been learned.
AMAL. No, I would rather go about and see everything that there
is.
MADHAV. Listen to that! See! What will you see, what is there
so much to see?
AMAL. See that far-away hill from our window--I often long to go
beyond those hills and right away.
MADHAV. Oh, you silly! As if there's nothing more to be done
but just get up to the top of that hill and away! Eh! You don't
talk sense, my boy. Now listen, since that hill stands there
upright as a barrier, it means you can't get beyond it. Else,
what was the use in heaping up so many large stones to make such
a big affair of it, eh!
AMAL. Uncle, do you think it is meant to prevent your crossing
over? It seems to me because the earth can't speak it raises its
hands into the sky and beckons. And those who live far and sit
alone by their windows can see the signal. But I suppose the
learned people--
MADHAV. No, they don't have time for that sort of nonsense.
They are not crazy like you.
AMAL. Do you know, yesterday I met someone quite as crazy as I
am.
MADHAV. Gracious me, really, how so?
AMAL. He had a bamboo staff on his shoulder with a small bundle
at the top, and a brass pot in his left hand, and an old pair of
shoes on; he was making for those hills straight across that
meadow there. I called out to him and asked, "Where are you
going?" He answered, "I don't know, anywhere!" I asked again,
"Why are you going?" He said, "I'm going out to seek work."
Say, Uncle, have you to seek work?
MADHAV. Of course I have to. There's many about looking for
jobs.
AMAL. How lovely! I'll go about, like them too, finding things
to do.