Page:Plunder (Perlman).djvu/60

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54

MOKSA

My son was a drop of clean pure rain. Why do you hate your sister, my son?

INDIO

You understand, don't you Vaisya? We grow crops we can't eat and we get water we can't drink.

VOICE OF DUTCHMAN

I do not see how somebody can live here. It smells, if you pardon the expression, like a hell here. You have no idea how many people are here!

MOKSA

You have wronged your sister, my son. You have killed your sister's child.

INDIO

Crazy old man! That pool of dead rats killed the baby! It'll kill Vaisya next! The Kali Canal is poison!

VOICE OF DUTCHMAN

They live positively like animals, with no idea of health or cleanness. The same water they use for a toilet, for washing, for drinking.

INDIO

The Dutch don't drink from it, or wash in it. They don't even walk by it because it smells of the dirt and the leavings and the death of Natives.

VOICE OF DUTCHMAN

And these are the same people making so much noise about independence! They do not know how to keep their houses clean and they want to run a government. It is unbelievable!

INDIO

We're all going to die from it! Everyone who lives by the banks of the Kali will die from Kali poisoning. And we'll be buried in the Kali because we smell like the Kali.