The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 03, January, 1858: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
General
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 03, January, 1858: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
Now whether or not the unlucky little speculator had in good faith
discharged the debt will, in all the probabilities of human rights
and wrongs, never appear this side of the last trump; for the Holy
Water and the Sacred Cow, his father's beard and his mother's veil,
were not good in law, the documents not forthcoming.
But it is certain that his widow had faith in his integrity; for at
once, with all her sorrows on her head, she sallied forth in quest
of justice; and from Brahmin post to Sahib pillar she went crying,
"See me righted! Against this hard and arrogant Baboo let my wrongs
be redressed, or fear the evil eye of Dookhee the Sorrowful, of
Haranu the Lost!"
But utterly in vain; for the clamor of the Hindoo widow, however
bitterly aggrieved, is but a nuisance, and her accusation insolence.
So in her pitiful outcasting, in all the forlorn loathsomeness of
leprosy, and the shunned squalor of a cripple, she sat down at the
Baboo's gate, to wait for justice till the gods should bestow it,--
till Siva, the Avenger, should behold her, and ask, "Who has done
this?"
And who shall challenge her? Who shall bid her move on? Mamoul has
crowned her Queen of Tears, and her sublime patience and appealing
have made a throne of the wayside stone on which she sits; there is
no power so audacious that it would give the word to depose her; her
matted gray locks and her furrowed cheeks, her sunken eyes and her
hungry lips, are her "sacred ashes" of the high caste of Sorrow.
The Brahmin averts his face as he passes, and mutters, "She is as
the flower which is out of reach,--she is dedicated to God." That
insolent official, the Baboo's pampered durwan, sees in her only
Mamoul; he would as soon think of shaving himself as of driving her
away. So, as the Baboo passes in or out through the great gate, the
solemn coachman whips up the spanking Arabs, and the syces bawl
louder than ever, and Kalidas Ramaya Mullick turns away his eyes.
But for all that, the durhna woman heaps dust upon her head, which
he sees, and mutters a weird warning, which he hears; and though the
lawn is wide, and the banian topes are leafy, and a gilded temple,
the family shrine, stands between, and the marble veranda is spacious,
and the state apartments are remote, they do say the shadow of the
durhna woman falls on the iced Simpkin and the steaks, in spite of
Young Bengal.
_Mootrib i koosh nuwà bigo,
Tazu bu tazu, nou bu nou!
Baduè dil kooshà bidoh,
Tazu bu tazu, nou bu nou!
Koosh biu sheen bu kilwulé
Chung nuwaz-a sa-uté,
Bosu sitan bu kam uz o,
Tazu bu tazu, nou bu nou!_
"Songster sweet, begin the lay,
Ever sweet and ever gay!
Bring the joy-inspiring wine,
Ever fresh and ever fine!
With a heart-alluring lass
Gayly let the moments pass,
Kisses stealing while you may,
Ever fresh and ever gay!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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