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Title: The Post Office

 

Author: Rabindranath Tagore

 

Release Date: September, 2004 [EBook #6523]

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE POST OFFICE ***

 

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The Post Office

 

By Rabindranath Tagore

 

[Translated from Bengali to English by Devabrata Mukherjee]

 

[New York: The Macmillan Company, 1914

Copyright 1914, by Mitchell Kennerley;

Copyright, 1914 by The Macmillan Company]

 

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

 

THE POST OFFICE

 

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. 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.

 

MADHAV. Suppose you seek and don’t find. Then—

 

AMAL. Wouldn’t that be jolly? Then I should go farther! I

watched that man slowly walking on with his pair of worn out

shoes. And when he got to where the water flows under the fig

tree, he stopped and washed his feet in the stream. Then he took

out from his bundle some gram-flour, moistened it with water and

began to eat. Then he tied up his bundle and shouldered it

again; tucked up his cloth above his knees and crossed the

stream. I’ve asked Auntie to let me go up to the stream, and eat

my gram-flour just like him.

 

MADHAV. And what did your Auntie say to that?

 

AMAL. Auntie said, “Get well and then I’ll take you over there.”

Please, Uncle, when shall I get well?

 

MADHAV. It won’t be long, dear.

 

AMAL. Really, but then I shall go right away the moment I’m well

again.

 

MADHAV. And where will you go?

 

AMAL. Oh, I will walk on, crossing so many streams, wading

through water. Everybody will be asleep with their doors shut in

the heat of the day and I will tramp on and on seeking work far,

very far.

 

MADHAV. I see! I think you had better be getting well first;

then—

 

AMAL. But then you won’t want me to be learned, will you, Uncle?

 

MADHAV. What would you rather be then?

 

AMAL. I can’t think of anything just now; but I’ll tell you

later on.

 

MADHAV. Very well. But mind you, you aren’t to call out and

talk to strangers again.

 

AMAL. But I love to talk to strangers!

 

MADHAV. Suppose