by
Rabindranath Tagore

Translated by Devabrata Mukherjee

Dramatis Personæ

Madhav
Amal, his adopted child
Sudha, a little flower girl
The Doctor
Dairyman
Watchman
Gaffer
Village Headman, a bully
King’s Herald
Royal Physician

Act I

[Madhav’s House]

Madhav
What a state I am in! Before he came, nothing mattered; I felt so free. But now that he has come, goodness knows from where, my heart is filled with his dear self, and my home will be no home to me when he leaves. Doctor, do you think he —

Physician
If there’s life in his fate, then he will live long. But what the medical scriptures say, it seems —

Madhav
Great heavens, what?

Physician
The scriptures have it: “Bile or palsey, cold or gout spring all alike.”

Madhav
Oh, get along, don’t fling your scriptures at me; you only make me more anxious; tell me what I can do.

Physician [Taking snuff]
The patient needs the most scrupulous care.

Madhav
That’s true; but tell me how.

Physician
I have already mentioned, on no account must he be let out of doors.

Madhav
Poor child, it is very hard to keep him indoors all day long.

Physician
What else can you do? The autumn sun and the damp are both very bad for the little fellow — for the scriptures have it:

“In wheezing, swoon or in nervous fret,
In jaundice or leaden eyes — ”

Madhav
Never mind the scriptures, please. Eh, then we must shut the poor thing up. Is there no other method?

Physician
None at all: for, “In the wind and in the sun — ”

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.