THE CABULIWALLAH
A Short Story by Rabindranath Tagore: Translated by the Sister Nivedita.
MY five years' old daughter Mini cannot live without chattering. I really believe that in all her life she has not wasted a minute in silence. Her mother is often vexed at this, and would stop her prattle, but I cannot feel so. To see Mini quiet is so unnatural that I cannot bear it long. And so my own conversation with her is always animated.
One morning, for instance, when I was in the midst of the seventeenth chapter of my new novel, my little Mini stole into the room, and putting her hand into mine, said, "Father! Ramdayal the door-keeper calls a crow a krow! He doesn't know anything, does he?"
Before I could explain to her the differences of language in this world, she was embarked on the full tide of another subject. "What do you think, Father? Bhola says there is an elephant in the clouds, blowing water out of his trunk, and that is why it rains!"
And then, darting off anew, while I sat still making ready some reply to this last remark, "Father! what relation is Mother to you?"
"My dear little sister in the law!" I murmured involuntarily to myself, but with a grave face contrived to answer, "Go and play with Bhola, Mini! I am busy!"
The window of my room overlooked the road. The child had seated herself at my feet near my table, and was playing softly, drumming on her knees. I was hard at work on my seventeenth chapter,—where Protap Singh the hero had just caught Kanchanlata the heroine in his arms, and both were about to escape by the third storey window of the Castle,—when all of a sudden Mini left her play, and ran to the window, crying "A Cabuliwallah! a Cabuliwallah!" Sure enough in the street below was a Cabuliwallah passing slowly along. He wore the loose soiled clothing of his people, with a tall turban; there was a bag on his back, and he carried boxes of grapes in his hand.
I cannot tell what were my daughter's feelings, at the sight of this man, but she began to call him loudly. "Ah!" I thought, "he will come in, and my seventeenth chapter will never be finished!" At which exact moment the Cabuliwallah turned and looked up at the child. When she saw this, however, overcome by terror, she turned to flee to her Mother's protection and completely disappeared. She had a blind belief that inside the bag that the big man carried there were perhaps two or three other children like herself. The pedlar meanwhile entered my doorway, and greeted me with a smiling face.
My first impulse, precarious as was the position of my hero and my heroine, was to stop and buy something, since the man had been called. So I made some small purchases, and a conversation began about Abdurrahman, the Russians, the English, and the Frontier Policy.
As he was about to leave, however, he asked,—"And where is the little girl, Sir?"
And I, thinking that Mini must get rid of her false fear, had her brought out.
But she stood by my chair, and looked at the Cabuliwallah and his bag. He offered nuts and raisins, but she would not be tempted, and only clung the closer to me, with all her doubts increased.
This was their first meeting.
One morning, however, not many days later, as I was leaving the house, I was startled to find Mini, seated on a bench near the door, laughing and talking, with the great Cabuliwallah at her feet. In all her life, it appeared, my small daughter had not found, save her father, so patient a listener. And already the corner of her
