The Post Office, Rabindranath Tagore [best reads TXT] 📗

to stay on

here either.

 

GIRL. You make me think of some late star of the morning!

Whatever’s the matter with you?

 

AMAL. I don’t know; the doctor won’t let me out.

 

GIRL. Ah me! Don’t then! Should listen to the doctor.

People’ll be cross with you if you’re naughty. I know, always

looking out and watching must make you feel tired. Let me close

the window a bit for you.

 

AMAL. No, don’t, only this one’s open! All the others are shut.

But will you tell me who you are? Don’t seem to know you.

 

GIRL. I am Sudha.

 

AMAL. What Sudha?

 

SUDHA. Don’t you know? Daughter of the flower-seller here.

 

AMAL. What do you do?

 

SUDHA. I gather flowers in my basket.

 

AMAL. Oh, flower gathering! That is why your feet seem so glad

and your anklets jingle so merrily as you walk. Wish I could be

out too. Then I would pick some flowers for you from the very

topmost branches right out of sight.

 

SUDHA. Would you really? Do you know more about flowers than I?

 

AMAL. Yes, I do, quite as much. I know all about Champa of the

fairy tale and his seven brothers. If only they let me, I’ll go

right into the dense forest where you can’t find your way. And

where the honey-sipping hummingbird rocks himself on the end of

the thinnest branch, I will flower out as a champa. Would you be

my sister Parul?

 

SUDHA. You are silly! How can I be sister Parul when I am Sudha

and my mother is Sasi, the flower-seller? I have to weave so

many garlands a day. It would be jolly if I could lounge here

like you!

 

AMAL. What would you do then, all the day long?

 

SUDHA. I could have great times with my doll Benay the bride,

and Meni the pussycat and—but I say it is getting late and I

mustn’t stop, or I won’t find a single flower.

 

AMAL. Oh, wait a little longer; I do like it so!

 

SUDHA. Ah, well—now don’t you be naughty. Be good and sit

still and on my way back home with the flowers I’ll come and talk

with you.

 

AMAL. And you’ll let me have a flower then?

 

SUDHA. No, how can I? It has to be paid for.

 

AMAL. I’ll pay when I grow up—before I leave to look for work

out on the other side of that stream there.

 

SUDHA. Very well, then.

 

AMAL. And you’ll come back when you have your flowers?

 

SUDHA. I will.

 

AMAL. You will, really?

 

SUDHA. Yes, I will.

 

AMAL. You won’t forget me? I am Amal, remember that.

 

SUDHA. I won’t forget you, you’ll see. [Exit]

 

[A TROOP OF BOYS enter]

 

AMAL. Say, brothers, where are you all off to? Stop here a

little.

 

BOYS. We’re off to play.

 

AMAL. What will you play at, brothers?

 

BOYS. We’ll play at being ploughmen.

 

FIRST BOY [Showing a stick] This is our ploughshare.

 

SECOND BOY. We two are the pair of oxen.

 

AMAL. And you’re going to play the whole day?

 

BOYS. Yes, all day long.

 

AMAL. And you’ll come back home in the evening by the road along

the river bank?

 

BOYS. Yes.

 

AMAL. Do you pass our house on your way home?

 

BOYS. You come out to play with us, yes do.

 

AMAL. Doctor won’t let me out.

 

BOYS. Doctor! Suppose the likes of you mind the doctor. Let’s

be off; it is getting late.

 

AMAL. Don’t. Why not play on the road near this window? I

could watch you then.

 

THIRD BOY. What can we play at here?

 

AMAL. With all these toys of mine lying about. Here you are,

have them. I can’t play alone. They are getting dirty and are

of no use to me.

 

BOYS. How jolly! What fine toys! Look, here’s a ship. There’s

old mother Jatai; say, chaps, ain’t he a gorgeous sepoy? And

you’ll let us have them all? You don’t really mind?

 

AMAL. No, not a bit; have them by all means.

 

BOYS. You don’t want them back?

 

AMAL. Oh, no, I shan’t want them.

 

BOYS. Say, won’t you get a scolding for this?

 

AMAL. No one will scold me. But will you play with them in

front of our door for a while every morning? I’ll get you new

ones when these are old.

 

BOYS. Oh, yes, we will. Say, chaps, put these sepoys into a

line. We’ll play at war; where can we get a musket? Oh, look

here, this bit of reed will do nicely. Say, but you’re off to

sleep already.

 

AMAL. I’m afraid I’m sleepy. I don’t know, I feel like it at

times. I have been sitting a long while and I’m tired; my back

aches.

 

BOYS. It’s only early noon now. How is it you’re sleepy? Listen!

The gong’s sounding the first watch.

 

AMAL. Yes, dong, dong, dong, it tolls me to sleep.

 

BOYS. We had better go then. We’ll come in again to-morrow morning.

 

AMAL. I want to ask you something before you go. You are always

out—do you know of the King’s postmen?

 

BOYS. Yes, quite well.

 

AMAL. Who are they? Tell me their names.

 

BOYS. One’s Badal, another’s Sarat. There’s so many of them.

 

AMAL. Do you think they will know me if there’s a letter for me?

 

BOYS. Surely, if your name’s on the letter they will find you out.

 

AMAL. When you call in to-morrow morning, will you bring one of

them along so that he’ll know me?

 

BOYS. Yes, if you like.

 

CURTAIN

 

THE POST OFFICE

 

ACT II

 

[AMAL in Bed]

 

AMAL. Can’t I go near the window to-day, Uncle? Would the

doctor mind that too?

 

MADHAV. Yes, darling, you see you’ve made yourself worse

squatting there day after day.

 

AMAL. Oh, no, I don’t know if it’s made me more ill, but I

always feel well when I’m there.

 

MADHAV. No, you don’t; you squat there and make friends with the

whole lot of people round here, old and young, as if they are

holding a fair right under my eaves—flesh and blood won’t stand

that strain. Just see—your face is quite pale.

 

AMAL. Uncle, I fear my fakir’ll pass and not see me by the

window.

 

MADHAV. Your fakir, whoever’s that?

 

AMAL. He comes and chats to me of the many lands where he’s

been. I love to hear him.

 

MADHAV. How’s that? I don’t know of any fakirs.

 

AMAL. This is about the time he comes in. I beg of you, by your

dear feet, ask him in for a moment to talk to me here.

 

[GAFFER Enters in a FAKIR’S Guise]

 

AMAL. There you are. Come here, Fakir, by my bedside.

 

MADHAV. Upon my word, but this is—

 

GAFFER. [Winking hard] I am the fakir.

 

MADHAV. It beats my reckoning what you’re not.

 

AMAL. Where have you been this time, Fakir?

 

FAKIR. To the Isle of Parrots. I am just back.

 

MADHAV. The Parrots’ Isle!

 

FAKIR. Is it so very astonishing? Am I like you, man? A

journey doesn’t cost a thing. I tramp just where I like.

 

AMAL. [Clapping] How jolly for you! Remember your promise to take

me with you as your follower when I’m well.

 

FAKIR. Of course, and I’ll teach you such secrets too of

travelling that nothing in sea or forest or mountain can bar your

way.

 

MADHAV. What’s all this rigmarole?

 

GAFFER. Amal, my dear, I bow to nothing in sea or mountain; but

if the doctor joins in with this uncle of yours, then I with all

my magic must own myself beaten.

 

AMAL. No. Uncle shan’t tell the doctor. And I promise to lie

quiet; but the day I am well, off I go with the Fakir and nothing

in sea or mountain or torrent shall stand in my way.

 

MADHAV. Fie, dear child, don’t keep on harping upon going! It

makes me so sad to hear you talk so.

 

AMAL. Tell me, Fakir, what the Parrots’ Isle is like.

 

GAFFER. It’s a land of wonders; it’s a haunt of birds. There’s

no man; and they neither speak nor walk, they simply sing and

they fly.

 

AMAL. How glorious! And it’s by some sea?

 

GAFFER. Of course. It’s on the sea.

 

AMAL. And green hills are there?

 

GAFFER. Indeed, they live among the green hills; and in the time

of the sunset when there is a red glow on the hillside, all the

birds with their green wings flock back to their nests.

 

AMAL. And there are waterfalls!

 

GAFFER. Dear me, of course; you don’t have a hill without its

waterfalls. Oh, it’s like molten diamonds; and, my dear, what

dances they have! Don’t they make the pebbles sing as they rush

over them to the sea. No devil of a doctor can stop them for a

moment. The birds looked upon me as nothing but a man, quite a

trifling creature without wings—and they would have nothing to

do with me. Were it not so I would build a small cabin for

myself among their crowd of nests and pass my days counting the

sea waves.

 

AMAL. How I wish I were a bird! Then—

 

GAFFER. But that would have been a bit of a job; I hear you’ve

fixed up with the dairyman to be a hawker of curds when you grow

up; I’m afraid such business won’t flourish among birds; you

might land yourself into serious loss.

 

MADHAV. Really this is too much. Between you two I shall turn

crazy. Now, I’m off.

 

AMAL. Has the dairyman been, Uncle?

 

MADHAV. And why shouldn’t he? He won’t bother his head running

errands for your pet fakir, in and out among the nests in his

Parrots’ Isle. But he has left a jar of curd for you saying that

he is rather busy with his niece’s wedding in the village, and he

has got to order a band at Kamlipara.

 

AMAL. But he is going to marry me to his little niece.

 

GAFFER. Dear me, we are in a fix now.

 

AMAL. He said she would find me a lovely little bride with a

pair of pearl drops in her ears and dressed in a lovely red

sâree; and in the morning she would milk with her own hands the

black cow and feed me with warm milk with foam on it from a brand

new earthen cruse; and in the evenings she would carry the lamp

round the cow-house, and then come and sit by me to tell me tales

of Champa and his six brothers.

 

[Transcriber’s note: In act 1, Amal mentions to Sudha about Champa

and his seven brothers. In this act, Amal mentions to Gaffer about

Champa and his six brothers. Translator error?]

 

GAFFER. How delicious! The prospect tempts even me, a hermit!

But never mind, dear, about this wedding. Let it be. I tell you

when you wed there’ll be no lack of nieces in his household.

 

MADHAV. Shut up! This is more than I can stand. [Exit]

 

AMAL. Fakir, now that Uncle’s off, just tell me, has the King

sent me a letter to the Post Office?

 

GAFFER. I gather that his letter has already started; but it’s

still on the way.

 

AMAL. On the way?