Kim

experience and adversity, gathering wisdom from the lama's lips. The

old lady confided to Kim that these rare levels were beyond her. She

liked charms with plenty of ink that one could wash off in water,

swallow, and be done with. Else what was the use of the Gods? She

liked men and women, and she spoke of them--of kinglets she had known

in the past; of her own youth and beauty; of the depredations of

leopards and the eccentricities of love Asiatic; of the incidence of

taxation, rack-renting, funeral ceremonies, her son-in-law (this by

allusion, easy to be followed), the care of the young, and the age's

lack of decency. And Kim, as interested in the life of this world as

she soon to leave it, squatted with his feet under the hem of his robe,

drinking all in, while the lama demolished one after another every

theory of body-curing put forward by Hurree Babu.

At noon the Babu strapped up his brass-bound drug-box, took his

patent-leather shoes of ceremony in one hand, a gay blue-and-white

umbrella in the other, and set off northwards to the Doon, where, he

said, he was in demand among the lesser kings of those parts.

'We will go in the cool of the evening, chela,' said the lama. 'That

doctor, learned in physic and courtesy, affirms that the people among

these lower hills are devout, generous, and much in need of a teacher.

In a very short time--so says the hakim--we come to cool air and the

smell of pines.'

'Ye go to the Hills? And by Kulu road? Oh, thrice happy!' shrilled

the old lady. 'But that I am a little pressed with the care of the

homestead I would take palanquin ... but that would be shameless, and

my reputation would be cracked. Ho! Ho! I know the road--every march

of the road I know. Ye will find charity throughout--it is not denied

to the well-looking. I will give orders for provision. A servant to

set you forth upon your journey? No ... Then I will at least cook ye

good food.'

'What a woman is the Sahiba!' said the white-bearded Oorya, when a

tumult rose by the kitchen quarters. 'She has never forgotten a

friend: she has never forgotten an enemy in all her years. And her

cookery--wah!' He rubbed his slim stomach.

There were cakes, there were sweetmeats, there was cold fowl stewed to

rags with rice and prunes--enough to burden Kim like a mule.

'I am old and useless,' she said. 'None now love me--and none

respect--but there are few to compare with me when I call on the Gods

and squat to my cooking-pots. Come again, O people of good will. Holy

One and disciple, come again. The room is always prepared; the welcome

is always ready ... See the women do not follow thy chela too openly.

I know the women of Kulu. Take heed, chela, lest he run away when he

smells his Hills again ... Hai! Do not tilt the rice-bag upside down

... Bless the household, Holy One, and forgive thy servant her

stupidities.'

She wiped her red old eyes on a corner of her veil, and clucked

throatily.

'Women talk,' said the lama at last, 'but that is a woman's infirmity.

I gave her a charm. She is upon the Wheel and wholly given over to the

shows of this life, but none the less, chela, she is virtuous, kindly,

hospitable--of a whole and zealous heart. Who shall say she does not

acquire merit?'

'Not I, Holy One,' said Kim, reslinging the bountiful provision on his

shoulders. 'In my mind--behind my eyes--I have tried to picture such

an one altogether freed from the Wheel--desiring nothing, causing

nothing--a nun, as it were.'

'And, O imp?' The lama almost laughed aloud.

'I cannot make the picture.'

'Nor I. But there are many, many millions of lives before her. She

will get wisdom a little, it may be, in each one.'

'And will she forget how to make stews with saffron upon that road?'

'Thy mind is set on things unworthy. But she has skill. I am

refreshed all over. When we reach the lower hills I shall be yet

stronger. The hakim spoke truly to me this morn when he said a breath

from the snows blows away twenty years from the life of a man. We will

go up into the Hills--the high hills--up to the sound of snow-waters

and the sound of the trees--for a little while. The hakim said that at

any time we may return to the Plains, for we do no more than skirt the

pleasant places. The hakim is full of learning; but he is in no way

proud. I spoke to him--when thou wast talking to the Sahiba--of a

certain dizziness that lays hold upon the back of my neck in the night,

and he said it rose from excessive heat--to be cured by cool air. Upon

consideration, I marvelled that I had not thought of such a simple

remedy.'

'Didst thou tell him of thy Search?' said Kim, a little jealously. He

preferred to sway the lama by his own speech--not through the wiles of

Hurree Babu.

'Assuredly. I told him of my dream, and of the manner by which I had

acquired merit by causing thee to be taught wisdom.'

'Thou didst not say I was a Sahib?'

'What need? I have told thee many times we be but two souls seeking

escape. He said--and he is just herein--that the River of Healing will

break forth even as I dreamed--at my feet, if need be. Having found

the Way, seest thou, that shall free me from the Wheel, need I trouble

to find a way about the mere fields of earth--which are illusion? That

were senseless. I have my dreams, night upon night repeated; I have

Jataka; and I have thee, Friend of all the World. It was written in thy

horoscope that a Red Bull on a green field--I have not

forgotten--should bring thee to honour. Who but I saw that prophecy

accomplished? Indeed, I was the instrument. Thou shalt find me my

River, being in return the instrument. The Search is sure!'

He set his ivory-yellow face, serene and untroubled, towards the

beckoning Hills; his shadow shouldering far before him in the dust.

Chapter 13

Who hath desired the Sea--the immense and contemptuous surges?

The shudder, the stumble, the swerve ere the star-stabbing bowsprit

merges--

The orderly clouds of the Trades and the ridged roaring

sapphire thereunder--

Unheralded cliff-lurking flaws and the head-sails' low-volleying

thunder?

His Sea in no wonder the same--his Sea and the same in each wonder--

His Sea that his being fulfils?

So and no otherwise--so and no otherwise hill-men desire their hills!

The Sea and the Hills.

'Who goes to the hills goes to his mother.'

They had crossed the Siwaliks and the half-tropical Doon, left

Mussoorie behind them, and headed north along the narrow hill-roads.

Day after day they struck deeper into the huddled mountains, and day

after day Kim watched the lama return to a man's strength. Among the

terraces of the Doon he had leaned on the boy's shoulder, ready to

profit by wayside halts. Under the great ramp to Mussoorie he drew

himself together as an old hunter faces a well-remembered bank, and

where he should have sunk exhausted swung his long draperies about him,

drew a deep double-lungful of the diamond air, and walked as only a

hillman can. Kim, plains-bred and plains-fed, sweated and panted

astonished. 'This is my country,' said the lama. 'Beside Such-zen,

this is flatter than a rice-field'; and with steady, driving strokes

from the loins he strode upwards. But it was on the steep downhill

marches, three thousand feet in three hours, that he went utterly away

from Kim, whose back ached with holding back, and whose big toe was

nigh cut off by his grass sandal-string. Through the speckled shadow