India -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Short stories, English
"'An' am I shameless?' sez she, bringin' her hands up above her head.
'Thin what are you, ye lyin', schamin', weak-kneed, dhirty-souled son av a
sutler? Am _I_ shameless? Who put the open shame on me an' my child that
we shud go beggin' through the lines in the broad daylight for the broken
word of a man? Double portion of my shame be on you, Terence Mulvaney,
that think yourself so strong! By Mary and the saints, by blood and water
an' by ivry sorrow that came into the world since the beginnin', the black
blight fall on you and yours, so that you may niver be free from pain for
another when ut's not your own! May your heart bleed in your breast drop
by drop wid all your friends laughin' at the bleedin'! Strong you think
yourself? May your strength be a curse to you to dhrive you into the
divil's hands against your own will! Clear-eyed you are? May your eyes see
dear evry step av the dark path you take till the hot cindhers av hell put
thim out! May the ragin' dry thirst in my own ould bones go to you that
you shall niver pass bottle full nor glass empty. God preserve the light
av your onder-standin' to you, my jewel av a bhoy, that ye may niver
forget what you mint to be an' do, whin you're wallowin' in the muck! May
ye see the betther and follow the worse as long as there's breath in your
body; an' may ye die quick in a strange land; watchin' your death before
ut takes you, an' onable to stir hand or foot!'
"I heard a scufflin' in the room behind, and thin Dinah Shadd's hand
dhropped into mine like a rose-leaf into a muddy road.
"'The half av that I'll take,' sez she, 'an' more too if I can. Go home,
ye silly talkin' woman,--go home an' confess.'
"'Come away! Come away!' sez Judy, pullin' her mother by the shawl. ''Twas
none av Terence's fault. For the love av Mary stop the talkin'!'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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