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Kipling, Rudyard, 1865-1936

"Plain Tales from the Hills"


In the day-time, Trejago drove through his routine of office-work,
or put on his calling-clothes and called on the ladies of the
Station; wondering how long they would know him if they knew of poor
little Bisesa. At night, when all the City was still, came the walk
under the evil-smelling boorka, the patrol through Jitha Megji's
bustee, the quick turn into Amir Nath's Gully between the sleeping
cattle and the dead walls, and then, last of all, Bisesa, and the
deep, even breathing of the old woman who slept outside the door of
the bare little room that Durga Charan allotted to his sister's
daughter. Who or what Durga Charan was, Trejago never inquired; and
why in the world he was not discovered and knifed never occurred to
him till his madness was over, and Bisesa . . . But this comes
later.
Bisesa was an endless delight to Trejago. She was as ignorant as a
bird; and her distorted versions of the rumors from the outside
world that had reached her in her room, amused Trejago almost as
much as her lisping attempts to pronounce his name--"Christopher.


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