Phantom Rickshaw and Other Ghost Stories , livre ebook

Pub One Info - Rudyard Kipling

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

75 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

pubOne.info present you this new edition. One of the few advantages that India has over England is a great Knowability. After five years' service a man is directly or indirectly acquainted with the two or three hundred Civilians in his Province, all the Messes of ten or twelve Regiments and Batteries, and some fifteen hundred other people of the non-official caste. In ten years his knowledge should be doubled, and at the end of twenty he knows, or knows something about, every Englishman in the Empire, and may travel anywhere and everywhere without paying hotel-bills.

Informations

Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	06 novembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819943440
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0100€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

THE PHANTOM 'RICKSHAW
May no ill dreams disturb my rest,
Nor Powers of Darkness me molest.
— Evening Hymn.
One of the few advantages that India has overEngland is a great Knowability. After five years' service a man isdirectly or indirectly acquainted with the two or three hundredCivilians in his Province, all the Messes of ten or twelveRegiments and Batteries, and some fifteen hundred other people ofthe non-official caste. In ten years his knowledge should bedoubled, and at the end of twenty he knows, or knows somethingabout, every Englishman in the Empire, and may travel anywhere andeverywhere without paying hotel-bills.
Globe-trotters who expect entertainment as a right,have, even within my memory, blunted this open-heartedness, butnone the less to-day, if you belong to the Inner Circle and areneither a Bear nor a Black Sheep, all houses are open to you, andour small world is very, very kind and helpful.
Rickett of Kamartha stayed with Polder of Kumaonsome fifteen years ago. He meant to stay two nights, but wasknocked down by rheumatic fever, and for six weeks disorganizedPolder's establishment, stopped Polder's work, and nearly died inPolder's bedroom. Polder behaves as though he had been placed undereternal obligation by Rickett, and yearly sends the little Rickettsa box of presents and toys. It is the same everywhere. The men whodo not take the trouble to conceal from you their opinion that youare an incompetent ass, and the women who blacken your characterand misunderstand your wife's amusements, will work themselves tothe bone in your behalf if you fall sick or into serioustrouble.
Heatherlegh, the Doctor, kept, in addition to hisregular practice, a hospital on his private account— an arrangementof loose boxes for Incurables, his friend called it— but it wasreally a sort of fitting-up shed for craft that had been damaged bystress of weather. The weather in India is often sultry, and sincethe tale of bricks is always a fixed quantity, and the only libertyallowed is permission to work overtime and get no thanks, menoccasionally break down and become as mixed as the metaphors inthis sentence.
Heatherlegh is the dearest doctor that ever was, andhis invariable prescription to all his patients is, “lie low, goslow, and keep cool. ” He says that more men are killed by overworkthan the importance of this world justifies. He maintains thatoverwork slew Pansay, who died under his hands about three yearsago. He has, of course, the right to speak authoritatively, and helaughs at my theory that there was a crack in Pansay's head and alittle bit of the Dark World came through and pressed him to death.“Pansay went off the handle, ” says Heatherlegh, “after thestimulus of long leave at Home. He may or he may not have behavedlike a blackguard to Mrs. Keith-Wessington. My notion is that thework of the Katabundi Settlement ran him off his legs, and that hetook to brooding and making much of an ordinary P. & O.flirtation. He certainly was engaged to Miss Mannering, and shecertainly broke off the engagement. Then he took a feverish chilland all that nonsense about ghosts developed. Overwork started hisillness, kept it alight, and killed him poor devil. Write him offto the System— one man to take the work of two and a half men.”
I do not believe this. I used to sit up with Pansaysometimes when Heatherlegh was called out to patients, and Ihappened to be within claim. The man would make me most unhappy bydescribing in a low, even voice, the procession that was alwayspassing at the bottom of his bed. He had a sick man's command oflanguage. When he recovered I suggested that he should write outthe whole affair from beginning to end, knowing that ink mightassist him to ease his mind. When little boys have learned a newbad word they are never happy till they have chalked it up on adoor. And this also is Literature.
He was in a high fever while he was writing, and theblood-and-thunder Magazine diction he adopted did not calm him. Twomonths afterward he was reported fit for duty, but, in spite of thefact that he was urgently needed to help an undermanned Commissionstagger through a deficit, he preferred to die; vowing at the lastthat he was hag-ridden. I got his manuscript before he died, andthis is his version of the affair, dated 1885:
My doctor tells me that I need rest and change ofair. It is not improbable that I shall get both ere long— rest thatneither the red-coated messenger nor the midday gun can break, andchange of air far beyond that which any homeward-bound steamer cangive me. In the meantime I am resolved to stay where I am; and, inflat defiance of my doctor's orders, to take all the world into myconfidence. You shall learn for yourselves the precise nature of mymalady; and shall, too, judge for yourselves whether any man bornof woman on this weary earth was ever so tormented as I.
Speaking now as a condemned criminal might speak erethe drop-bolts are drawn, my story, wild and hideously improbableas it may appear, demands at least attention. That it will everreceive credence I utterly disbelieve. Two months ago I should havescouted as mad or drunk the man who had dared tell me the like. Twomonths ago I was the happiest man in India. Today, from Peshawur tothe sea, there is no one more wretched. My doctor and I are theonly two who know this. His explanation is, that my brain,digestion, and eyesight are all slightly affected; giving rise tomy frequent and persistent “delusions. ” Delusions, indeed! I callhim a fool; but he attends me still with the same unwearied smile,the same bland professional manner, the same neatly trimmed redwhiskers, till I begin to suspect that I am an ungrateful,evil-tempered invalid. But you shall judge for your-selves.
Three years ago it was my fortune— my greatmisfortune— to sail from Gravesend to Bombay, on return from longleave, with one Agnes Keith-Wessington, wife of an officer on theBombay side. It does not in the least concern you to know whatmanner of woman she was. Be content with the knowledge that, erethe voyage had ended, both she and I were desperately andunreasoningly in love with one another. Heaven knows that I canmake the admission now without one particle of vanity. In mattersof this sort there is always one who gives and another who accepts.From the first day of our ill-omened attachment, I was consciousthat Agnes's passion was a stronger, a more dominant, and— if I mayuse the expression— a purer sentiment than mine. Whether sherecognized the fact then, I do not know. Afterward it was bitterlyplain to both of us.
Arrived at Bombay in the spring of the year, we wentour respective ways, to meet no more for the next three or fourmonths, when my leave and her love took us both to Simla. There wespent the season together; and there my fire of straw burned itselfout to a pitiful end with the closing year. I attempt no excuse. Imake no apology. Mrs. Wessington had given up much for my sake, andwas prepared to give up all. From my own lips, in August, 1882, shelearned that I was sick of her presence, tired of her company, andweary of the sound of her voice. Ninety-nine women out of a hundredwould have wearied of me as I wearied of them; seventy-five of thatnumber would have promptly avenged themselves by active andobtrusive flirtation with other men. Mrs. Wessington was thehundredth. On her neither my openly expressed aversion nor thecutting brutalities with which I garnished our interviews had theleast effect.
“Jack, darling! ” was her one eternal cuckoo cry:“I'm sure it's all a mistake— a hideous mistake; and we'll be goodfriends again some day. Please forgive me, Jack, dear. ”
I was the offender, and I knew it. That knowledgetransformed my pity into passive endurance, and, eventually, intoblind hate— the same instinct, I suppose, which prompts a man tosavagely stamp on the spider he has but half killed. And with thishate in my bosom the season of 1882 came to an end.
Next year we met again at Simla— she with hermonotonous face and timid attempts at reconciliation, and I withloathing of her in every fibre of my frame. Several times I couldnot avoid meeting her alone; and on each occasion her words wereidentically the same. Still the unreasoning wail that it was all a“mistake”; and still the hope of eventually “making friends. ” Imight have seen had I cared to look, that that hope only waskeeping her alive. She grew more wan and thin month by month. Youwill agree with me, at least, that such conduct would have drivenany one to despair. It was uncalled for; childish; unwomanly. Imaintain that she was much to blame. And again, sometimes, in theblack, fever-stricken night-watches, I have begun to think that Imight have been a little kinder to her. But that really is a“delusion. ” I could not have continued pretending to love her whenI didn't; could I? It would have been unfair to us both.
Last year we met again— on the same terms as before.The same weary appeal, and the same curt answers from my lips. Atleast I would make her see how wholly wrong and hopeless were herattempts at resuming the old relationship. As the season wore on,we fell apart— that is to say, she found it difficult to meet me,for I had other and more absorbing interests to attend to. When Ithink it over quietly in my sick-room, the season of 1884 seems aconfused nightmare wherein light and shade were fantasticallyintermingled— my courtship of little Kitty Mannering; my hopes,doubts, and fears; our long rides together; my trembling avowal ofattachment; her reply; and now and again a vision of a white faceflitting by in the 'rickshaw with the black and white liveries Ionce watched for so earnestly; the wave of Mrs. Wessington's glovedhand; and, when she met me alone, which was but seldom, the irksomemonotony of her appeal. I loved Kitty Mannering; honestly, heartilyloved her, and with my love for her grew my hatred for Agnes. InAugust Kitty and I were engaged. The next day I met thos