Eurasians -- Fiction; India -- History -- British occupation, 1765-1947 -- Fiction
I was mightily troubled about getting out of my coat and trousers, for,
since I began that experiment in growing, they were to me and I to them,
as if we had been born simultaneously. The bearer had brought the night
clothes that the darzi had purchased. I have read how frogs get out of
their old skins, and I think that bearer must have known all about it. I
took everything as a matter of course, as if all was a daily habit of
mine, and I to the manner born. I was growing very fast. The bearer left
me and I slept. I almost wished for the old bare charpoy, for such
fearful dreams I had on that soft bed after that good dinner! One dream
was about getting into my trousers and coat again, and no end of worry
it gave me. Very early I was awakened by Mr. Percy calling me, saying
that he was going out to inspect a bridge, and would not be back to
breakfast before eleven or twelve o’clock; that I was to make myself
comfortable. So kind and considerate he was.
The bearer came and said that if I would lounge about in my pajamas for
a while, the darzi would have some clothes for me to try on. That bearer
was a jewel, a black diamond, a stoic, for he never even winked, or
hinted at the narrowness of my former apparel. I think if I had stood on
my head he would gravely have said that was the proper way for me to
stand, yet I suspect he had lots of fun in the servants’ quarters
talking about me. Upright as I am, I am somewhat of a suspicious nature;
that is, I often suspect others of doing just what I would do if our
circumstances were exchanged. I mention this, as I do not wish to be
considered better than I am or was at that time. I hate gilding, for I
always think there is flimsy, cheap material underneath.
When the clothes came, it took all the nonchalance I possessed to get
into them, and appear to be at ease. They were not exactly a fit, but
passable after a few alterations, so I emerged from my room. Then came
the jutiwala with his boots, the boxwala with his shirts, socks,
collars, neckties, and I was transferred into them, and transformed into
what I never expected to be. I hardly need say that I went to my room to
become acquainted with my new rig, so as to be ready for Mr. Percy. It
seemed my whole desire was in trying to please him.
CHAPTER V.
I have been thus minute and particular to show, if possible, how strange
it was to undergo this change of scene and circumstances. I have often
wondered what a pupa must think when it first emerges from its prison of
a cocoon into a butterfly to float in the air in the glorious sunlight!
What shall we feel the moment after we have shuffled off this mortal
coil and fly out somewhere? Whither?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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