Stories from Tagore

by Rabindranath Tagore

In her silent heart there sounded an endless, voiceless weeping, which only the Searcher of Hearts could hear.

they were hardly desirable companions for decent folk. Nor is a Calcutta boy an adept in the art of associating with others. Among strangers he appears either proud or ill at ease.

the girl would allude to his people as mother, brother, and sister, as if she had known them all her life. In fact, she had a complete picture of each one of them painted in her little heart.

the smell of the damp grass and leaves in the hot sun felt like the warm breathing of the tired earth on one's body.

A persistent bird went on all the afternoon repeating the burden of its one complaint in Nature's audience chamber.

The shimmer of the freshly washed leaves, and the banked-up remnants of the retreating rain-clouds were sights to see; and the postmaster was watching them and thinking to himself: "Oh, if only some kindred soul were near—j...

He had stuck to his Calcutta habit of bathing in water drawn and kept in pitchers, instead of taking a plunge in the river as was the custom of the village.

the rain-swollen river, like a stream of tears welling up from the earth, swirled and sobbed at her bows,

Alas for our foolish human nature! Its fond mistakes are persistent. The dictates of reason take a long time to assert their own sway. The surest proofs meanwhile are disbelieved. False hope is clung to with all one's might and main, till a day comes when it has sucked the heart dry and it forcibly breaks through its bonds and departs. After that comes the misery of awakening, and then once again the longing to get back into the maze of the same mistakes.

Like a rudderless boat, the discussion kept turning round and round the same point; and at last threatened to be overwhelmed in a flood of tears.

The village wiseacres thought it shameless for her husband to make so much fuss about a mere wife and even to suggest a change of air,

:( :( :(

There was a pinched look on her face which filled the beholder with pity, and made his heart tremble, as he thought how narrowly she had escaped death.

Her mother-in-law, too, was pleased at the prospect of profiting their Brahmin guest by her kindness.

Nilkanta himself was delighted at his double escape from his master and from the other world,

he gathered about him a devoted band of boys of all sorts and sizes, and the result was that not a solitary mango in the neighbourhood had a chance of ripening that season.

In his short experience of the world he had come to the conclusion that, as the earth consisted of land and water, so human life was made up of eatings and beatings, and that the beatings largely predominated.

He was either a man too early or a boy too late.

Since every one saw how small Nilkanta was, and he himself felt small, he did not receive due respect for his years.

hot glare of publicity had been a forcing-house that ripened untimely his outward aspect.

then he felt as if transported to another world and to fear other folk. This familiar earth and his own poor life became music, and he was transformed.

Kiran liked to see people enjoying good fare. Nilkanta had an immense capacity for eating, and never refused a good thing however often it was offered.

At last, when no one else came, Mother Sleep soothed with her soft caresses the wounded heart of the motherless lad.

He felt he would like to be a knife to cut Satish to pieces; a needle to pierce him through and through; a fire to burn him to ashes.

There is a constant tendency to-day in modern English to leave out the letter "u" and spell color, favor, etc. But this movement has not yet gained much ground in England.

The French word is "troupe," meaning a company. This form is used in English for a company of players or actors. But the form "troop" is used chiefly of soldiers.

Many words have changed their pronunciation in the course of time. Obdurate, in Milton's time, was pronounced obdúrate, but to-day it is pronounced óbdurate. Trafalgar was pronounced Trafalgár last century. Now we pronounce it Trafálgar.

With Bagala as his captain Bhavani set out on his voyage across the perilous sea of litigation.

Shyama Charan's treachery pierced the heart of the widow like an assassin's knife.

After his mother's death his faith became all the stronger, since the memory of her piety acquired greater radiance through death's mystery.

The necessities of life and the maintenance of family traditions,—these seemed to him like play acting on a temporary stage, not real things.

She neither paid attention to the past greatness of the family, nor to its future glories,—she kept her mind busy with the actual necessities of the present, and those necessities were not small in number or quality.

she was always furiously engaged in keeping her husband idle; and because he had received the best possible training in this direction she was wholly successful in her mission.

Bhavani was a child grown up by mistake beyond its natural age. This was the reason why, after the death of her husband's mother, she had to assume the position of mother and mistress in one.

All the forward young men of the village vied with one another in rising above their rusticity by purchasing these sweepings of the Calcutta market which, they were told, were absolutely necessary for the city gentry.

He began with all sorts of irrelevant remarks and then took a desperate plunge into the subject with startling incoherence. Rashmani briefly remarked: "Are you mad?"

straightened

straitened?

"Betu, you are old enough to know that it is the halfway house to stealing to desire that which you can't have."

came to know that nothing in this world could be gained without paying for it with the inevitable price of suffering,

This note, which was the symbol of his mother's numberless daily acts of self-denial, was the truest amulet of all for Kalipada.

this more than compensated for the spiritual disaster which must surely overtake the numberless creatures of this present age.

Vanity is not like a horse or an elephant requiring expensive fodder. Nevertheless, as Sailen had plenty of money he did not allow his vanity merely to graze at large; he took special pride in keeping it stall-fed.

recite his lessons, swinging himself from side to side to the rhythm of the sentence.

Kalipada's poverty was so blatantly exposed, it hurt Sailen's sense of decency. Every time he looked down into Kalipada's room, he was offended by the sight of the cheap clothing, the dingy mosquito net and the tattered bedding.

Bhavani himself was certain that, just as vegetation grew rank in his village surroundings, so comforts of all kinds sprang up of themselves from the soil of Calcutta.

The only thing that concerned him at that moment was that he felt he must live, and for that he had a claim upon the world.

and the one odd slipper of his infancy, which had evaded notice so long, was keeping its place in the dusty obscurity of the corner of the room.

preposterous. The Latin word "pre" means "before," and the Latin word "posterus" behind. The literal meaning, therefore, is "before-behind" and so "absurd," "outrageous."

bargain. From the late Latin "barca," a boat, because trade was carried on by boats along the rivers. Compare barque, barge, bark.

impertinence. Originally this word means that which is not "pertinent," and so something "out-of-place." Later on it got the present meaning of something insolent.

handkerchief. "Kerchief" came from two French words "couvre," to cover, and "chef," the head. It meant a head cloth. Then a smaller cloth was used in the hand and this was called a hand-kerchief.