Tag: Short Literature

Short Literature

  • Bade Ghar Ki Beti / बड़े घर की बेटी

    Bade Ghar Ki Beti / बड़े घर की बेटी

    Bade Ghar Ki Beti / बड़े घर की बेटी

    यह कहानी मुंशी प्रेमचंद द्वारा लिखी गई है!

    बेनीमाधव सिंह गौरीपुर गाँव के जमींदार और नम्बरदार थे। उनके पितामह किसी समय बड़े धन-धान्य संपन्न थे। गाँव का पक्का तालाब और मंदिर जिनकी अब मरम्मत भी मुश्किल थी, उन्हीं की कीर्ति-स्तंभ थे। कहते हैं, इस दरवाजे पर हाथी झूमता था, अब उसकी जगह एक बूढ़ी भैंस थी, जिसके शरीर में अस्थि-पंजर के सिवा और कुछ शेष न रहा था; पर दूध शायद बहुत देती थी; क्योंकि एक न एक आदमी हाँड़ी लिये उसके सिर पर सवार ही रहता था। बेनीमाधव सिंह अपनी आधी से अधिक संपत्ति वकीलों को भेंट कर चुके थे। उनकी वर्तमान आय एक हजार रुपये वार्षिक से अधिक न थी। ठाकुर साहब के दो बेटे थे। बड़े का नाम श्रीकंठ सिंह था। उसने बहुत दिनों के परिश्रम और उद्योग के बाद बी. ए. की डिग्री प्राप्त की थी। अब एक दफ्तर में नौकर था। छोटा लड़का लालबिहारी सिंह दोहरे बदन का, सजीला जवान था। भरा हुआ मुखड़ा, चौड़ी छाती। भैंस का दो सेर ताजा दूध वह उठ कर सबेरे पी जाता था। श्रीकंठ सिंह की दशा बिलकुल विपरीत थी। इन नेत्रप्रिय गुणों को उन्होंने बी. ए.-इन्हीं दो अक्षरों पर न्योछावर कर दिया था। इन दो अक्षरों ने उनके शरीर को निर्बल और चेहरे को कांतिहीन बना दिया था। इसी से वैद्यक ग्रंथों पर उनका विशेष प्रेम था। आयुर्वैदिक औषधियों पर उनका अधिक विश्वास था। शाम-सबेरे से उनके कमरे से प्रायः खरल की सुरीली कर्णमधुर ध्वनि सुनायी दिया करती थी। लाहौर और कलकत्ते के वैद्यों से बड़ी लिखा-पढ़ी रहती थी।

    श्रीकंठ इस अँगरेजी डिग्री के अधिपति होने पर भी अँगरेजी सामाजिक प्रथाओं के विशेष प्रेमी न थे। बल्कि वह बहुधा बड़े जोर से उसकी निंदा और तिरस्कार किया करते थे। इसी से गाँव में उनका बड़ा सम्मान था। दशहरे के दिनों में वह बड़े उत्साह से रामलीला में सम्मिलित होते और स्वयं किसी न किसी पात्रा का पार्ट लेते थे। गौरीपुर में रामलीला के वही जन्मदाता थे। प्राचीन हिंदू सभ्यता का गुणगान उनकी धार्मिकता का प्रधान अंग था। सम्मिलित कुटुम्ब के तो वह एकमात्र उपासक थे। आजकल स्त्रियों को कुटुम्ब में मिल-जुल कर रहने की जो अरुचि होती है, उसे वह जाति और देश दोनों के लिए हानिकारक समझते थे। यही कारण था कि गाँव की ललनाएँ उनकी निंदक थीं। कोई-कोई तो उन्हें अपना शत्रु समझने में भी संकोच न करती थीं। स्वयं उनकी पत्नी को ही इस विषय में उनसे विरोध था। यह इसलिए नहीं कि उसे अपने सास-ससुर, देवर या जेठ आदि से घृणा थी, बल्कि उसका विचार था कि यदि बहुत कुछ सहने और तरह देने पर भी परिवार के साथ निर्वाह न हो सके, तो आये-दिन की कलह से जीवन को नष्ट करने की अपेक्षा यही उत्तम है कि अपनी खिचड़ी अलग पकायी जाये।

    आनंदी एक बड़े उच्च कुल की लड़की थी। उसके बाप एक छोटी-सी रियासत के ताल्लुकेदार थे। विशाल भवन, एक हाथी, तीन कुत्ते, बाज, बहरी-शिकरे, झाड़-फानूस, आनरेरी मजिस्ट्रेटी, और ऋण, जो एक प्रतिष्ठित ताल्लुकेदार के भोग्य पदार्थ हैं, सभी यहाँ विद्यमान थे। नाम था भूपसिंह। बड़े उदार-चित्त और प्रतिभाशाली पुरुष थे, पर दुर्भाग्य से लड़का एक भी न था। सात लड़कियाँ हुईं और दैवयोग से सब-की-सब जीवित रहीं। पहली उमंग में तो उन्होंने तीन ब्याह दिल खोल कर किये; पर पंद्रह-बीस हजार रुपयों का कर्ज सिर पर हो गया, तो आँखें खुलीं, हाथ समेट लिया। आनंदी चौथी लड़की थी। वह अपनी सब बहनों से अधिक रूपवती और गुणवती थी। इससे ठाकुर भूपसिंह उसे बहुत प्यार करते थे। सुन्दर संतान को कदाचित् उसके माता-पिता भी अधिक चाहते हैं। ठाकुर साहब बड़े धर्म-संकट में थे कि इसका विवाह कहाँ करें ? न तो यही चाहते थे कि ऋण का बोझ बढ़े और न यही स्वीकार था कि उसे अपने को भाग्यहीन समझना पड़े। एक दिन श्रीकंठ उनके पास किसी चंदे का रुपया माँगने आया। शायद नागरी-प्रचार का चंदा था। भूपसिंह उनके स्वभाव पर रीझ गये और धूमधाम से श्रीकंठ सिंह का आनंदी के साथ ब्याह हो गया।

    आनंदी अपने नये घर में आयी, तो यहाँ का रंग-ढंग कुछ और ही देखा। जिस टीम-टाम की उसे बचपन से ही आदत पड़ी हुई थी, वह यहाँ नाम-मात्र को भी न थी। हाथी-घोड़ों का तो कहना ही क्या, कोई सजी हुई सुंदर बहली तक न थी। रेशमी स्लीपर साथ लायी थी, पर यहाँ बाग कहाँ। मकान में खिड़कियाँ तक न थीं। न जमीन पर फर्श, न दीवार पर तस्वीरें। यह एक सीधा-सादा देहाती गृहस्थ का मकान था, किन्तु आनंदी ने थोड़े ही दिनों में अपने को इस नयी अवस्था के ऐसा अनुकूल बना लिया, मानो उसने विलास के सामान कभी देखे ही न थे।

    02

    एक दिन दोपहर के समय लालबिहारी सिंह दो चिड़िया लिये हुए आया और भावज से बोला-जल्दी से पका दो, मुझे भूख लगी है। आनंदी भोजन बनाकर उसकी राह देख रही थी। अब वह नया व्यंजन बनाने बैठी। हाँड़ी में देखा, तो घी पाव-भर से अधिक न था। बड़े घर की बेटी, किफायत क्या जाने। उसने सब घी मांस में डाल दिया। लालबिहारी खाने बैठा, तो दाल में घी न था, बोला-दाल में घी क्यों नहीं छोड़ा ?

    आनंदी ने कहा-घी सब मांस में पड़ गया। लालबिहारी जोर से बोला-अभी परसों घी आया है। इतना जल्द उठ गया ?

    आनंदी ने उत्तर दिया-आज तो कुल पाव-भर रहा होगा। वह सब मैंने मांस में डाल दिया।

    जिस तरह सूखी लकड़ी जल्दी से जल उठती है-उसी तरह क्षुधा से बावला मनुष्य जरा-जरा सी बात पर तिनक जाता है। लालबिहारी को भावज की यह ढिठाई बहुत बुरी मालूम हुई, तिनक कर बोला-मैके में तो चाहे घी की नदी बहती हो !

    स्त्री गालियाँ सह लेती है, मार भी सह लेती है; पर मैके की निंदा उससे नहीं सही जाती। आनंदी मुँह फेर कर बोली-हाथी मरा भी, तो नौ लाख का। वहाँ इतना घी नित्य नाई-कहार खा जाते हैं।

    लालबिहारी जल गया, थाली उठाकर पलट दी, और बोला-जी चाहता है, जीभ पकड़ कर खींच लूँ।

    आनंदी को भी क्रोध आ गया। मुँह लाल हो गया, बोली-वह होते तो आज इसका मजा चखाते।

    अब अपढ़, उजड्ड ठाकुर से न रहा गया। उसकी स्त्री एक साधारण जमींदार की बेटी थी। जब जी चाहता, उस पर हाथ साफ कर लिया करता था। खड़ाऊँ उठाकर आनंदी की ओर जोर से फेंकी, और बोला-जिसके गुमान पर भूली हुई हो, उसे भी देखूँगा और तुम्हें भी।

    आनंदी ने हाथ से खड़ाऊँ रोकी, सिर बच गया। पर उँगली में बड़ी चोट आयी। क्रोध के मारे हवा से हिलते पत्ते की भाँति काँपती हुई अपने कमरे में आ कर खड़ी हो गयी। स्त्री का बल और साहस, मान और मर्यादा पति तक है। उसे अपने पति के ही बल और पुरुषत्व का घंमड होता है। आनंदी खून का घूँट पी कर रह गयी।

    03

    श्रीकंठ सिंह शनिवार को घर आया करते थे। बृहस्पति को यह घटना हुई थी। दो दिन तक आनंदी कोप-भवन में रही। न कुछ खाया न पिया, उनकी बाट देखती रही। अंत में शनिवार को वह नियमानुकूल संध्या समय घर आये और बाहर बैठ कर कुछ इधर-उधर की बातें, कुछ देश-काल संबंधी समाचार तथा कुछ नये मुकदमों आदि की चर्चा करने लगे। यह वार्तालाप दस बजे रात तक होता रहा। गाँव के भद्र पुरुषों को इन बातों में ऐसा आनंद मिलता था कि खाने-पीने की भी सुधि न रहती थी। श्रीकंठ को पिंड छुड़ाना मुश्किल हो जाता था। ये दो-तीन घंटे आनंदी ने बड़े कष्ट से काटे! किसी तरह भोजन का समय आया। पंचायत उठी। एकांत हुआ, तो लालबिहारी ने कहा-भैया, आप जरा भाभी को समझा दीजिएगा कि मुँह सँभाल कर बातचीत किया करें, नहीं तो एक दिन अनर्थ हो जायेगा।

    बेनीमाधव सिंह ने बेटे की ओर से साक्षी दी-हाँ, बहू-बेटियों का यह स्वभाव अच्छा नहीं कि मर्दों के मुँह लगें।

    लालबिहारी-वह बड़े घर की बेटी हैं, तो हम भी कोई कुर्मी-कहार नहीं हैं। श्रीकंठ ने चिंतित स्वर से पूछा-आखिर बात क्या हुई ?

    लालबिहारी ने कहा-कुछ भी नहीं; यों ही आप ही आप उलझ पड़ीं। मैके के सामने हम लोगों को कुछ समझतीं ही नहीं।

    श्रीकंठ खा-पी कर आनंदी के पास गये। वह भरी बैठी थी। यह हजरत भी कुछ तीखे थे। आनंदी ने पूछा-चित्त तो प्रसन्न है।

    श्रीकंठ बोले-बहुत प्रसन्न है। पर तुमने आजकल घर में यह क्या उपद्रव मचा रखा है ?

    आनंदी की त्योरियों पर बल पड़ गये, झुँझलाहट के मारे बदन में ज्वाला-सी दहक उठी। बोली-जिसने तुमसे यह आग लगायी है, उसे पाऊँ, तो मुँह झुलस दूँ।

    श्रीकंठ-इतनी गरम क्यों होती हो, बात तो कहो।

    आनंदी-क्या कहूँ, यह मेरे भाग्य का फेर है ! नहीं तो गँवार छोकरा, जिसको चपरासगिरी करने का भी शऊर नहीं, मुझे खड़ाऊँ से मार कर यों न अकड़ता।

    श्रीकंठ-सब हाल साफ-साफ कहो, तो मालूम हो। मुझे तो कुछ पता नहीं।

    आनंदी-परसों तुम्हारे लाड़ले भाई ने मुझसे मांस पकाने को कहा। घी हाँड़ी में पाव-भर से अधिक न था। वह सब मैंने मांस में डाल दिया। जब खाने बैठा तो कहने लगा-दाल में घी क्यों नहीं है। बस, इसी पर मेरे मैके को बुरा-भला कहने लगा-मुझसे न रहा गया। मैंने कहा कि वहाँ इतना घी तो नाई-कहार खा जाते हैं, और किसी को जान भी नहीं पड़ता। बस इतनी सी बात पर इस अन्यायी ने मुझ पर खड़ाऊँ फेंक मारी। यदि हाथ से न रोक लूँ, तो सिर फट जाये। उसी से पूछो, मैंने जो कुछ कहा है, वह सच है या झूठ।

    श्रीकंठ की आँखें लाल हो गयीं। बोले-यहाँ तक हो गया, इस छोकरे का यह साहस !

    आनंदी स्त्रियों के स्वभावानुसार रोने लगी क्योंकि आँसू उनकी पलकों पर रहते हैं। श्रीकंठ बड़े धैर्यवान और शंात पुरुष थे। उन्हें कदाचित् ही कभी क्रोध आता था; स्त्रियों के आँसू पुरुषों की क्रोधाग्नि भड़काने में तेल का काम देते हैं। रात भर करवटें बदलते रहे। उद्विग्नता के कारण पलक तक नहीं झपकी। प्रातःकाल अपने बाप के पास जाकर बोले-दादा, अब इस घर में मेरा निबाह न होगा।

    इस तरह की विद्रोहपूर्ण बातें कहने पर श्रीकंठ ने कितनी ही बार अपने कई मित्रों को आड़े हाथों लिया था; परन्तु दुर्भाग्य, आज उन्हें स्वयं वे ही बातें अपने मुँह से कहनी पड़ीं; दूसरों को उपदेश देना भी कितना सहज है।

    बेनीमाधव सिंह घबरा उठे और बोले-क्यों ?

    श्रीकंठ-इसलिए कि मुझे भी अपनी मान-प्रतिष्ठा का कुछ विचार है। आपके घर में अब अन्याय और हठ का प्रकोप हो रहा है। जिनको बड़ों का आदर-सम्मान करना चाहिए, वे उनके सिर चढ़ते हैं। मैं दूसरे का नौकर ठहरा, घर पर रहता नहीं। यहाँ मेरे पीछे स्त्रियों पर खड़ाऊँ और जूतों की बौछारें होती हैं। कड़ी बात तक चिन्ता नहीं। कोई एक की दो कह ले, वहाँ तक मैं सह सकता हूँ किन्तु यह कदापि नहीं हो सकता कि मेरे ऊपर लात-घूँसे पड़ें और मैं दम न मारूँ।

    बेनीमाधव सिंह कुछ जवाब न दे सके। श्रीकंठ सदैव उनका आदर करते थे। उनके ऐसे तेवर देख कर बूढ़ा ठाकुर अवाक् रह गया। केवल इतना ही बोला-बेटा, तुम बुद्धिमान हो कर ऐसी बातें करते हो ? स्त्रियाँ इस तरह घर का नाश कर देती हैं। उनको बहुत सिर चढ़ाना अच्छा नहीं।

    श्रीकंठ-इतना मैं जानता हूँ, आपके आशीर्वाद से ऐसा मूर्ख नहीं हूँ। आप स्वयं जानते हैं कि मेरे ही समझाने-बुझाने से, इसी गाँव में कई घर सँभल गये, पर जिस स्त्री की मान-प्रतिष्ठा का ईश्वर के दरबार में उत्तरदाता हूँ, उसके प्रति ऐसा घोर अन्याय और पशुवत् व्यवहार मुझे असह्य है। आप सच मानिए, मेरे लिए यही कुछ कम नहीं है कि लालबिहारी को कुछ दंड नहीं देता।

    अब बेनीमाधव सिंह भी गरमाये। ऐसी बातें और न सुन सके। बोले-लालबिहारी तुम्हारा भाई है। उससे जब कभी भूल-चूक हो, उसके कान पकड़ो लेकिन …

    श्रीकंठ-लालबिहारी को मैं अब अपना भाई नहीं समझता।

    बेनीमाधव सिंह-स्त्री के पीछे ?

    श्रीकंठ-जी नहीं, उसकी क्रूरता और अविवेक के कारण।

    दोनों कुछ देर चुप रहे। ठाकुर साहब लड़के का क्रोध शांत करना चाहते थे। लेकिन यह नहीं स्वीकार करना चाहते थे कि लालबिहारी ने कोई अनुचित काम किया है। इसी बीच में गाँव के और कई सज्जन हुक्के-चिलम के बहाने वहाँ आ बैठे। कई स्त्रियों ने जब यह सुना कि श्रीकंठ पत्नी के पीछे पिता से लड़ने को तैयार है, तो उन्हें बड़ा हर्ष हुआ। दोनों पक्षों की मधुर वाणियाँ सुनने के लिए उनकी आत्माएँ तिलमिलाने लगीं। गाँव में कुछ ऐसे कुटिल मनुष्य भी थे, जो इस कुल की नीतिपूर्ण गति पर मन ही मन जलते थे। वे कहा करते थे-श्रीकंठ अपने बाप से दबता है, इसीलिए वह दब्बू है। उसने विद्या पढ़ी, इसलिए वह किताबों का कीड़ा है। बेनीमाधव सिंह उसकी सलाह के बिना कोई काम नहीं करते, यह उनकी मूर्खता है। इन महानुभावों की शुभकामनाएँ आज पूरी होती दिखायी दीं। कोई हुक्का पीने के बहाने और कोई लगान की रसीद दिखाने आ कर बैठ गया। बेनीमाधव सिंह पुराने आदमी थे। इन भावों को ताड़ गये। उन्होंने निश्चय किया चाहे कुछ ही क्यों न हो, इन द्रोहियों को ताली बजाने का अवसर न दूँगा। तुरंत कोमल शब्दों में बोले-बेटा, मैं तुमसे बाहर नहीं हूँ। तुम्हारा जो जी चाहे करो, अब तो लड़के से अपराध हो गया।

    इलाहाबाद का अनुभव-रहित झल्लाया हुआ ग्रेजुएट इस बात को न समझ सका। उसे डिबेटिंग-क्लब में अपनी बात पर अड़ने की आदत थी, इन हथकंडों की उसे क्या खबर ? बाप ने जिस मतलब से बात पलटी थी, वह उसकी समझ में न आयी। बोला-लालबिहारी के साथ अब इस घर में नहीं रह सकता।

    बेनीमाधव-बेटा, बुद्धिमान लोग मूर्खों की बात पर ध्यान नहीं देते। वह बेसमझ लड़का है। उससे जो कुछ भूल हुई, उसे तुम बड़े हो कर क्षमा करो।

    श्रीकंठ-उसकी इस दुष्टता को मैं कदापि नहीं सह सकता। या तो वही घर में रहेगा, या मैं ही। आपको यदि वह अधिक प्यारा है, तो मुझे विदा कीजिए, मैं अपना भार आप सँभाल लूँगा। यदि मुझे रखना चाहते हैं तो उससे कहिए, जहाँ चाहे चला जाये। बस यह मेरा अंतिम निश्चय है।

    लालबिहारी सिंह दरवाजे की चौखट पर चुपचाप खड़ा बड़े भाई की बातें सुन रहा था। वह उनका बहुत आदर करता था। उसे कभी इतना साहस न हुआ था कि श्रीकंठ के सामने चारपाई पर बैठ जाय, हुक्का पी ले या पान खा ले। बाप का भी वह इतना मान न करता था। श्रीकंठ का भी उस पर हार्दिक स्नेह था। अपने होश में उन्होंने कभी उसे घुड़का तक न था। जब वह इलाहाबाद से आते, तो उसके लिए कोई न कोई वस्तु अवश्य लाते। मुगदर की जोड़ी उन्होंने ही बनवा दी थी। पिछले साल जब उसने अपने से ड्योढ़े जवान को नागपंचमी के दिन दंगल में पछाड़ दिया, तो उन्होंने पुलकित हो कर अखाड़े में ही जाकर उसे गले से लगा लिया था, पाँच रुपये के पैसे लुटाये थे। ऐसे भाई के मुँह से आज ऐसी हृदय-विदारक बात सुन कर लालबिहारी को बड़ी ग्लानि हुई। वह फूट-फूट कर रोेने लगा। इसमें संदेह नहीं कि अपने किये पर पछता रहा था। भाई के आने से एक दिन पहले से उसकी छाती धड़कती थी कि देखूँ भैया क्या कहते हैं। मैं उनके सम्मुख कैसे जाऊँगा, उनसे कैसे बोलूँगा, मेरी आँखें उनके सामने कैसे उठेंगी। उसने समझा था कि भैया मुझे बुला कर समझा देंगे। इस आशा के विपरीत आज उसने उन्हें निर्दयता की मूर्ति बने हुए पाया। वह मूर्ख था। परंतु उसका मन कहता था कि भैया मेरे साथ अन्याय कर रहे हैं। यदि श्रीकंठ उसे अकेले में बुला कर दो-चार बातें कह देते; इतना ही नहीं दो-चार तमाचे भी लगा देते तो कदाचित् उसे इतना दुःख न होता; पर भाई का यह कहना कि अब मैं इसकी सूरत नहीं देखना चाहता, लालबिहारी से सहा न गया। वह रोता हुआ घर आया। कोठरी में जाकर कपड़े पहने, आँखें पोंछीं, जिससे कोई यह न समझे कि रोता था। तब आनंदी के द्वार पर आकर बोला-भाभी, भैया ने निश्चय किया है कि वह मेरे साथ इस घर में न रहेंगे। अब वह मेरा मुँह नहीं देखना चाहते, इसलिए अब मैं जाता हूँ। उन्हें फिर मुँह न दिखाऊँगा। मुझसे जो कुछ अपराध हुआ, उसे क्षमा करना।

    यह कहते-कहते लालबिहारी का गला भर आया।

    04

    जिस समय लालबिहारी सिंह सिर झुकाये आनंदी के द्वार पर खड़ा था, उसी समय श्रीकंठ सिंह भी आँखें लाल किये बाहर से आये। भाई को खड़ा देखा, तो घृणा से आँखें फेर लीं, और कतरा कर निकल गये। मानो उसकी परछाईं से दूर भागते हों।

    आनंदी ने लालबिहारी की शिकायत तो की थी, लेकिन अब मन में पछता रही थी। वह स्वभाव से ही दयावती थी। उसे इसका तनिक भी ध्यान न था कि बात इतनी बढ़ जायगी। वह मन में अपने पति पर झुँझला रही थी कि यह इतने गरम क्यों होते हैं। उस पर यह भय भी लगा हुआ था कि कहीं मुझसे इलाहाबाद चलने को कहें, तो कैसे क्या करूँगी। इस बीच में जब उसने लालबिहारी को दरवाजे पर खड़े यह कहते सुना कि अब मैं जाता हूँ, मुझसे जो कुछ अपराध हुआ, क्षमा करना, तो उसका रहा-सहा क्रोध भी पानी हो गया। वह रोने लगी। मन का मैल धोने के लिए नयन-जल से उपयुक्त और कोई वस्तु नहीं है।

    श्रीकंठ को देख कर आनंदी ने कहा-लाला बाहर खड़े बहुत रो रहे हैं।

    श्रीकंठ-तो मैं क्या करूँ ?

    आनंदी-भीतर बुला लो। मेरी जीभ में आग लगे। मैंने कहाँ से यह झगड़ा उठाया।

    श्रीकंठ-मैं न बुलाऊँगा।

    आनंदी-पछताओगे। उन्हें बहुत ग्लानि हो गयी है, ऐसा न हो, कहीं चल दें।

    श्रीकंठ न उठे। इतने में लालबिहारी ने फिर कहा-भाभी, भैया से मेरा प्रणाम कह दो। वह मेरा मुँह नहीं देखना चाहते। इसलिए मैं भी अपना मुँह उन्हें न दिखाऊँगा।

    लालबिहारी इतना कह कर लौट पड़ा। और शीघ्रता से दरवाजे की ओर बढ़ा। अंत में आनंदी कमरे से निकली और उसका हाथ पकड़ लिया। लालबिहारी ने पीछे फिर कर देखा और आँखों में आँसू भरे बोला-मुझे जाने दो।

    आनंदी-कहाँ जाते हो ?

    लालबिहारी-जहाँ कोई मेरा मुँह न देखे।

    आनंदी-मैं न जाने दूँगी ?

    लालबिहारी-मैं तुम लोगों के साथ रहने योग्य नहीं हूँ।

    आनंदी-तुम्हें मेरी सौगंध, अब एक पग भी आगे न बढ़ाना।

    लालबिहारी-जब तक मुझे यह न मालूम हो जाय कि भैया का मन मेरी तरफ से साफ हो गया, तब तक मैं इस घर में कदापि न रहूँगा।

    आनंदी-मैं इश्वर को साक्षी दे कर कहती हूँ कि तुम्हारी ओर से मेरे मन में तनिक भी मैल नहीं है।

    अब श्रीकंठ का हृदय भी पिघला। उन्होंने बाहर आ कर लालबिहारी को गले लगा लिया। दोनों भाई खूब फूट-फूटकर रोये। लालबिहारी ने सिसकते हुए कहा-भैया, अब कभी मत कहना कि तुम्हारा मुँह न देखूँगा। इसके सिवा आप जो दंड देंगे, मैं सहर्ष स्वीकार करूँगा।

    श्रीकंठ ने काँपते हुए स्वर से कहा-लल्लू ! इन बातों को बिलकुल भूल जाओ। ईश्वर चाहेगा, तो फिर ऐसा अवसर न आवेगा।

    बेनीमाधव सिंह बाहर से आ रहे थे। दोनों भाइयों को गले मिलते देख कर आनंद से पुलकित हो गये। बोल उठे-बड़े घर की बेटियाँ ऐसी ही होती हैं। बिगड़ता हुआ काम बना लेती हैं।

    गाँव में जिसने यह वृत्तांत सुना, उसी ने इन शब्दों में आनंदी की उदारता को सराहा-‘बड़े घर की बेटियाँ ऐसी ही होती हैं।’

  • About Love

    About Love

    About Love

    Dear Learner, The Short Story by Anton Chekhov

    AT lunch next day there were very nice pies, crayfish, and mutton cutlets; and while we were eating, Nikanor, the cook, came up to ask what the visitors would like for dinner. He was a man of medium height, with a puffy face and little eyes; he was close-shaven, and it looked as though his moustaches had not been shaved, but had been pulled out by the roots. Alehin told us that the beautiful Pelagea was in love with this cook. As he drank and was of a violent character, she did not want to marry him, but was willing to live with him without. He was very devout, and his religious convictions would not allow him to “live in sin”; he insisted on her marrying him, and would consent to nothing else, and when he was drunk he used to abuse her and even beat her. Whenever he got drunk she used to hide upstairs and sob, and on such occasions Alehin and the servants stayed in the house to be ready to defend her in case of necessity.

    We began talking about love.

    “How love is born,” said Alehin, “why Pelagea does not love somebody more like herself in her spiritual and external qualities, and why she fell in love with Nikanor, that ugly snout — we all call him ‘The Snout’ — how far questions of personal happiness are of consequence in love — all that is known; one can take what view one likes of it. So far only one incontestable truth has been uttered about love: ‘This is a great mystery.’ Everything else that has been written or said about love is not a conclusion, but only a statement of questions which have remained unanswered. The explanation which would seem to fit one case does not apply in a dozen others, and the very best thing, to my mind, would be to explain every case individually without attempting to generalize. We ought, as the doctors say, to individualize each case.”

    “Perfectly true,” Burkin assented.

    “We Russians of the educated class have a partiality for these questions that remain unanswered. Love is usually poeticized, decorated with roses, nightingales; we Russians decorate our loves with these momentous questions, and select the most uninteresting of them, too. In Moscow, when I was a student, I had a friend who shared my life, a charming lady, and every time I took her in my arms she was thinking what I would allow her a month for housekeeping and what was the price of beef a pound. In the same way, when we are in love we are never tired of asking ourselves questions: whether it is honourable or dishonourable, sensible or stupid, what this love is leading up to, and so on. Whether it is a good thing or not I don’t know, but that it is in the way, unsatisfactory, and irritating, I do know.”

    It looked as though he wanted to tell some story. People who lead a solitary existence always have something in their hearts which they are eager to talk about. In town bachelors visit the baths and the restaurants on purpose to talk, and sometimes tell the most interesting things to bath attendants and waiters; in the country, as a rule, they unbosom themselves to their guests. Now from the window we could see a grey sky, trees drenched in the rain; in such weather we could go nowhere, and there was nothing for us to do but to tell stories and to listen.

    “I have lived at Sofino and been farming for a long time,” Alehin began, “ever since I left the University. I am an idle gentleman by education, a studious person by disposition; but there was a big debt owing on the estate when I came here, and as my father was in debt partly because he had spent so much on my education, I resolved not to go away, but to work till I paid off the debt. I made up my mind to this and set to work, not, I must confess, without some repugnance. The land here does not yield much, and if one is not to farm at a loss one must employ serf labour or hired labourers, which is almost the same thing, or put it on a peasant footing — that is, work the fields oneself and with one’s family. There is no middle path. But in those days I did not go into such subtleties. I did not leave a clod of earth unturned; I gathered together all the peasants, men and women, from the neighbouring villages; the work went on at a tremendous pace. I myself ploughed and sowed and reaped, and was bored doing it, and frowned with disgust, like a village cat driven by hunger to eat cucumbers in the kitchen-garden. My body ached, and I slept as I walked. At first it seemed to me that I could easily reconcile this life of toil with my cultured habits; to do so, I thought, all that is necessary is to maintain a certain external order in life. I established myself upstairs here in the best rooms, and ordered them to bring me there coffee and liquor after lunch and dinner, and when I went to bed I read every night the Yyesnik Evropi. But one day our priest, Father Ivan, came and drank up all my liquor at one sitting; and the Yyesnik Evropi went to the priest’s daughters; as in the summer, especially at the haymaking, I did not succeed in getting to my bed at all, and slept in the sledge in the barn, or somewhere in the forester’s lodge, what chance was there of reading? Little by little I moved downstairs, began dining in the servants’ kitchen, and of my former luxury nothing is left but the servants who were in my father’s service, and whom it would be painful to turn away.

    “In the first years I was elected here an honourary justice of the peace. I used to have to go to the town and take part in the sessions of the congress and of the circuit court, and this was a pleasant change for me. When you live here for two or three months without a break, especially in the winter, you begin at last to pine for a black coat. And in the circuit court there were frock-coats, and uniforms, and dress-coats, too, all lawyers, men who have received a general education; I had some one to talk to. After sleeping in the sledge and dining in the kitchen, to sit in an arm-chair in clean linen, in thin boots, with a chain on one’s waistcoat, is such luxury!

    “I received a warm welcome in the town. I made friends eagerly. And of all my acquaintanceships the most intimate and, to tell the truth, the most agreeable to me was my acquaintance with Luganovitch, the vice-president of the circuit court. You both know him: a most charming personality. It all happened just after a celebrated case of incendiarism; the preliminary investigation lasted two days; we were exhausted. Luganovitch looked at me and said:

    ” ‘Look here, come round to dinner with me.’

    “This was unexpected, as I knew Luganovitch very little, only officially, and I had never been to his house. I only just went to my hotel room to change and went off to dinner. And here it was my lot to meet Anna Alexyevna, Luganovitch’s wife. At that time she was still very young, not more than twenty-two, and her first baby had been born just six months before. It is all a thing of the past; and now I should find it difficult to define what there was so exceptional in her, what it was in her attracted me so much; at the time, at dinner, it was all perfectly clear to me. I saw a lovely young, good, intelligent, fascinating woman, such as I had never met before; and I felt her at once some one close and already familiar, as though that face, those cordial, intelligent eyes, I had seen somewhere in my childhood, in the album which lay on my mother’s chest of drawers.

    “Four Jews were charged with being incendiaries, were regarded as a gang of robbers, and, to my mind, quite groundlessly. At dinner I was very much excited, I was uncomfortable, and I don’t know what I said, but Anna Alexyevna kept shaking her head and saying to her husband:

    ” ‘Dmitry, how is this?’

    “Luganovitch is a good-natured man, one of those simple-hearted people who firmly maintain the opinion that once a man is charged before a court he is guilty, and to express doubt of the correctness of a sentence cannot be done except in legal form on paper, and not at dinner and in private conversation.

    ” ‘You and I did not set fire to the place,’ he said softly, ‘and you see we are not condemned, and not in prison.’

    “And both husband and wife tried to make me eat and drink as much as possible. From some trifling details, from the way they made the coffee together, for instance, and from the way they understood each other at half a word, I could gather that they lived in harmony and comfort, and that they were glad of a visitor. After dinner they played a duet on the piano; then it got dark, and I went home. That was at the beginning of spring.

    “After that I spent the whole summer at Sofino without a break, and I had no time to think of the town, either, but the memory of the graceful fair-haired woman remained in my mind all those days; I did not think of her, but it was as though her light shadow were lying on my heart.

    “In the late autumn there was a theatrical performance for some charitable object in the town. I went into the governor’s box (I was invited to go there in the interval); I looked, and there was Anna Alexyevna sitting beside the governor’s wife; and again the same irresistible, thrilling impression of beauty and sweet, caressing eyes, and again the same feeling of nearness. We sat side by side, then went to the foyer.

    ” ‘You’ve grown thinner,’ she said; ‘have you been ill?’

    ” ‘Yes, I’ve had rheumatism in my shoulder, and in rainy weather I can’t sleep.’

    ” ‘You look dispirited. In the spring, when you came to dinner, you were younger, more confident. You were full of eagerness, and talked a great deal then; you were very interesting, and I really must confess I was a little carried away by you. For some reason you often came back to my memory during the summer, and when I was getting ready for the theatre today I thought I should see you.’

    “And she laughed.

    ” ‘But you look dispirited today,’ she repeated; ‘it makes you seem older.’

    “The next day I lunched at the Luganovitchs’. After lunch they drove out to their summer villa, in order to make arrangements there for the winter, and I went with them. I returned with them to the town, and at midnight drank tea with them in quiet domestic surroundings, while the fire glowed, and the young mother kept going to see if her baby girl was asleep. And after that, every time I went to town I never failed to visit the Luganovitchs. They grew used to me, and I grew used to them. As a rule I went in unannounced, as though I were one of the family.

    ” ‘Who is there?’ I would hear from a faraway room, in the drawling voice that seemed to me so lovely.

    ” ‘It is Pavel Konstantinovitch,’ answered the maid or the nurse.

    “Anna Alexyevna would come out to me with an anxious face, and would ask every time:

    ” ‘Why is it so long since you have been? Has anything happened?’

    “Her eyes, the elegant refined hand she gave me, her indoor dress, the way she did her hair, her voice, her step, always produced the same impression on me of something new and extraordinary in my life, and very important. We talked together for hours, were silent, thinking each our own thoughts, or she played for hours to me on the piano. If there were no one at home I stayed and waited, talked to the nurse, played with the child, or lay on the sofa in the study and read; and when Anna Alexyevna came back I met her in the hall, took all her parcels from her, and for some reason I carried those parcels every time with as much love, with as much solemnity, as a boy.

    “There is a proverb that if a peasant woman has no troubles she will buy a pig. The Luganovitchs had no troubles, so they made friends with me. If I did not come to the town I must be ill or something must have happened to me, and both of them were extremely anxious. They were worried that I, an educated man with a knowledge of languages, should, instead of devoting myself to science or literary work, live in the country, rush round like a squirrel in a rage, work hard with never a penny to show for it. They fancied that I was unhappy, and that I only talked, laughed, and ate to conceal my sufferings, and even at cheerful moments when I felt happy I was aware of their searching eyes fixed upon me. They were particularly touching when I really was depressed, when I was being worried by some creditor or had not money enough to pay interest on the proper day. The two of them, husband and wife, would whisper together at the window; then he would come to me and say with a grave face:

    ” ‘If you really are in need of money at the moment, Pavel Konstantinovitch, my wife and I beg you not to hesitate to borrow from us.’

    “And he would blush to his ears with emotion. And it would happen that, after whispering in the same way at the window, he would come up to me, with red ears, and say:

    ” ‘My wife and I earnestly beg you to accept this present.’

    “And he would give me studs, a cigar-case, or a lamp, and I would send them game, butter, and flowers from the country. They both, by the way, had considerable means of their own. In early days I often borrowed money, and was not very particular about it — borrowed wherever I could — but nothing in the world would have induced me to borrow from the Luganovitchs. But why talk of it?

    “I was unhappy. At home, in the fields, in the barn, I thought of her; I tried to understand the mystery of a beautiful, intelligent young woman’s marrying some one so uninteresting, almost an old man (her husband was over forty), and having children by him; to understand the mystery of this uninteresting, good, simple-hearted man, who argued with such wearisome good sense, at balls and evening parties kept near the more solid people, looking listless and superfluous, with a submissive, uninterested expression, as though he had been brought there for sale, who yet believed in his right to be happy, to have children by her; and I kept trying to understand why she had met him first and not me, and why such a terrible mistake in our lives need have happened.

    “And when I went to the town I saw every time from her eyes that she was expecting me, and she would confess to me herself that she had had a peculiar feeling all that day and had guessed that I should come. We talked a long time, and were silent, yet we did not confess our love to each other, but timidly and jealously concealed it. We were afraid of everything that might reveal our secret to ourselves. I loved her tenderly, deeply, but I reflected and kept asking myself what our love could lead to if we had not the strength to fight against it. It seemed to be incredible that my gentle, sad love could all at once coarsely break up the even tenor of the life of her husband, her children, and all the household in which I was so loved and trusted. Would it be honourable? She would go away with me, but where? Where could I take her? It would have been a different matter if I had had a beautiful, interesting life — if, for instance, I had been struggling for the emancipation of my country, or had been a celebrated man of science, an artist or a painter; but as it was it would mean taking her from one everyday humdrum life to another as humdrum or perhaps more so. And how long would our happiness last? What would happen to her in case I was ill, in case I died, or if we simply grew cold to one another?

    “And she apparently reasoned in the same way. She thought of her husband, her children, and of her mother, who loved the husband like a son. If she abandoned herself to her feelings she would have to lie, or else to tell the truth, and in her position either would have been equally terrible and inconvenient. And she was tormented by the question whether her love would bring me happiness — would she not complicate my life, which, as it was, was hard enough and full of all sorts of trouble? She fancied she was not young enough for me, that she was not industrious nor energetic enough to begin a new life, and she often talked to her husband of the importance of my marrying a girl of intelligence and merit who would be a capable housewife and a help to me — and she would immediately add that it would be difficult to find such a girl in the whole town.

    “Meanwhile the years were passing. Anna Alexyevna already had two children. When I arrived at the Luganovitchs’ the servants smiled cordially, the children shouted that Uncle Pavel Konstantinovitch had come, and hung on my neck; every one was overjoyed. They did not understand what was passing in my soul, and thought that I, too, was happy. Every one looked on me as a noble being. And grown-ups and children alike felt that a noble being was walking about their rooms, and that gave a peculiar charm to their manner towards me, as though in my presence their life, too, was purer and more beautiful. Anna Alexyevna and I used to go to the theatre together, always walking there; we used to sit side by side in the stalls, our shoulders touching. I would take the opera-glass from her hands without a word, and feel at that minute that she was near me, that she was mine, that we could not live without each other; but by some strange misunderstanding, when we came out of the theatre we always said good-bye and parted as though we were strangers. Goodness knows what people were saying about us in the town already, but there was not a word of truth in it all!

    “In the latter years Anna Alexyevna took to going away for frequent visits to her mother or to her sister; she began to suffer from low spirits, she began to recognize that her life was spoilt and unsatisfied, and at times she did not care to see her husband nor her children. She was already being treated for neurasthenia.

    “We were silent and still silent, and in the presence of outsiders she displayed a strange irritation in regard to me; whatever I talked about, she disagreed with me, and if I had an argument she sided with my opponent. If I dropped anything, she would say coldly:

    ” ‘I congratulate you.’

    “If I forgot to take the opera-glass when we were going to the theatre, she would say afterwards:

    ” ‘I knew you would forget it.’

    “Luckily or unluckily, there is nothing in our lives that does not end sooner or later. The time of parting came, as Luganovitch was appointed president in one of the western provinces. They had to sell their furniture, their horses, their summer villa. When they drove out to the villa, and afterwards looked back as they were going away, to look for the last time at the garden, at the green roof, every one was sad, and I realized that I had to say goodbye not only to the villa. It was arranged that at the end of August we should see Anna Alexyevna off to the Crimea, where the doctors were sending her, and that a little later Luganovitch and the children would set off for the western province.

    “We were a great crowd to see Anna Alexyevna off. When she had said good-bye to her husband and her children and there was only a minute left before the third bell, I ran into her compartment to put a basket, which she had almost forgotten, on the rack, and I had to say good-bye. When our eyes met in the compartment our spiritual fortitude deserted us both; I took her in my arms, she pressed her face to my breast, and tears flowed from her eyes. Kissing her face, her shoulders, her hands wet with tears — oh, how unhappy we were! — I confessed my love for her, and with a burning pain in my heart I realized how unnecessary, how petty, and how deceptive all that had hindered us from loving was. I understood that when you love you must either, in your reasonings about that love, start from what is highest, from what is more important than happiness or unhappiness, sin or virtue in their accepted meaning, or you must not reason at all.

    “I kissed her for the last time, pressed her hand, and parted for ever. The train had already started. I went into the next compartment — it was empty — and until I reached the next station I sat there crying. Then I walked home to Sofino. . . .”

    While Alehin was telling his story, the rain left off and the sun came out. Burkin and Ivan Ivanovitch went out on the balcony, from which there was a beautiful view over the garden and the mill-pond, which was shining now in the sunshine like a mirror. They admired it, and at the same time they were sorry that this man with the kind, clever eyes, who had told them this story with such genuine feeling, should be rushing round and round this huge estate like a squirrel on a wheel instead of devoting himself to science or something else which would have made his life more pleasant; and they thought what a sorrowful face Anna Alexyevna must have had when he said good-bye to her in the railway-carriage and kissed her face and shoulders. Both of them had met her in the town, and Burkin knew her and thought her beautiful.

    About Love

  • Aborigines

    Aborigines

    Aborigines

    Dear Learner, The Short Story by Anton Chekhov

    BETWEEN nine and ten in the morning. Ivan Lyashkevsky, a lieutenant of Polish origin, who has at some time or other been wounded in the head, and now lives on his pension in a town in one of the southern provinces, is sitting in his lodgings at the open window talking to Franz Stepanitch Finks, the town architect, who has come in to see him for a minute. Both have thrust their heads out of the window, and are looking in the direction of the gate near which Lyashkevsky’s landlord, a plump little native with pendulous perspiring cheeks, in full, blue trousers, is sitting on a bench with his waistcoat unbuttoned. The native is plunged in deep thought and is absent-mindedly prodding the toe of his boot with a stick.

    “Extraordinary people, I tell you,” grumbled Lyashkevsky, looking angrily at the native, “here he has sat down on the bench, and so he will sit, damn the fellow, with his hands folded till evening. They do absolutely nothing. The wastrels and loafers! It would be all right, you scoundrel, if you had money lying in the bank or had a farm of your own where others would be working for you, but here you have not a penny to your name, you eat the bread of others, you are in debt all round, and you starve your family — devil take you! You wouldn’t believe me, Franz Stepanitch, sometimes it makes me so cross that I could jump out of the window and give the low fellow a good horse-whipping. Come, why don’t you work? What are you sitting there for?”

    The native looks indifferently at Lyashkevsky tries to say something but cannot; sloth and the sultry heat have paralyzed his conversational faculties. . . . Yawning lazily, he makes the sign of the cross over his mouth and turns his eyes up towards the sky where pigeons fly, bathing in the hot air.

    “You must not be too severe in your judgments, honored friend,” sighs Finks, mopping his big bald head with his handkerchief. “Put yourself in their place: business is slack now, there’s unemployment all round, a bad harvest, stagnation in trade.”

    “Good gracious, how you talk!” cries Lyashkevsky in indignation, angrily wrapping his dressing gown round him. “Supposing he has no job and no trade, why doesn’t he work in his own home, the devil flay him! I say! Is there no work for you at home? Just look, you brute! Your steps have come to pieces, the plankway is falling into the ditch, the fence is rotten; you had better set to and mend it all, or if you don’t know how, go into the kitchen and help your wife. Your wife is running out every minute to fetch water or carry out the slops. Why shouldn’t you run instead, you rascal? And then you must remember, Franz Stepanitch, that he has six acres of garden, that he has pigsties and poultry houses, but it is all wasted and no use. The flower garden is overgrown with weeds and almost baked dry, while the boys play ball in the kitchen garden. Isn’t he a lazy brute? I assure you, though I have only the use of an acre and a half with my lodgings, you will always find radishes, and salad, and fennel, and onions, while that blackguard buys everything at the market.”

    “He is a Russian, there is no doing anything with him,” said Finks with a condescending smile; “it’s in the Russian blood. . . . They are a very lazy people! If all property were given to Germans or Poles, in a year’s time you would not recognise the town.”

    The native in the blue trousers beckons a girl with a sieve, buys a kopeck’s worth of sunflower seeds from her and begins cracking them.

    “A race of curs!” says Lyashkevsky angrily. “That’s their only occupation, they crack sunflower seeds and they talk politics! The devil take them!”

    Staring wrathfully at the blue trousers, Lyashkevsky is gradually roused to fury, and gets so excited that he actually foams at the mouth. He speaks with a Polish accent, rapping out each syllable venomously, till at last the little bags under his eyes swell, and he abandons the Russian “scoundrels, blackguards, and rascals,” and rolling his eyes, begins pouring out a shower of Polish oaths, coughing from his efforts. “Lazy dogs, race of curs. May the devil take them!”

    The native hears this abuse distinctly, but, judging from the appearance of his crumpled little figure, it does not affect him. Apparently he has long ago grown as used to it as to the buzzing of the flies, and feels it superfluous to protest. At every visit Finks has to listen to a tirade on the subject of the lazy good-for-nothing aborigines, and every time exactly the same one.

    “But . . . I must be going,” he says, remembering that he has no time to spare. “Good-bye!”

    “Where are you off to?”

    “I only looked in on you for a minute. The wall of the cellar has cracked in the girls’ high school, so they asked me to go round at once to look at it. I must go.”

    “H’m. . . . I have told Varvara to get the samovar,” says Lyashkevsky, surprised. “Stay a little, we will have some tea; then you shall go.”

    Finks obediently puts down his hat on the table and remains to drink tea. Over their tea Lyashkevsky maintains that the natives are hopelessly ruined, that there is only one thing to do, to take them all indiscriminately and send them under strict escort to hard labour.

    “Why, upon my word,” he says, getting hot, “you may ask what does that goose sitting there live upon! He lets me lodgings in his house for seven roubles a month, and he goes to name-day parties, that’s all that he has to live on, the knave, may the devil take him! He has neither earnings nor an income. They are not merely sluggards and wastrels, they are swindlers too, they are continually borrowing money from the town bank, and what do they do with it? They plunge into some scheme such as sending bulls to Moscow, or building oil presses on a new system; but to send bulls to Moscow or to press oil you want to have a head on your shoulders, and these rascals have pumpkins on theirs! Of course all their schemes end in smoke. . . . They waste their money, get into a mess, and then snap their fingers at the bank. What can you get out of them? Their houses are mortgaged over and over again, they have no other property — it’s all been drunk and eaten up long ago. Nine-tenths of them are swindlers, the scoundrels! To borrow money and not return it is their rule. Thanks to them the town bank is going smash!”

    “I was at Yegorov’s yesterday,” Finks interrupts the Pole, anxious to change the conversation, “and only fancy, I won six roubles and a half from him at picquet.”

    “I believe I still owe you something at picquet,” Lyashkevsky recollects, “I ought to win it back. Wouldn’t you like one game?”

    “Perhaps just one,” Finks assents. “I must make haste to the high school, you know.”

    Lyashkevsky and Finks sit down at the open window and begin a game of picquet. The native in the blue trousers stretches with relish, and husks of sunflower seeds fall in showers from all over him on to the ground. At that moment from the gate opposite appears another native with a long beard, wearing a crumpled yellowish-grey cotton coat. He screws up his eyes affectionately at the blue trousers and shouts:

    “Good-morning, Semyon Nikolaitch, I have the honour to congratulate you on the Thursday.”

    “And the same to you, Kapiton Petrovitch!”

    “Come to my seat! It’s cool here!”

    The blue trousers, with much sighing and groaning and waddling from side to side like a duck, cross the street.

    “Tierce major . . .” mutters Lyashkevsky, “from the queen. . . . Five and fifteen. . . . The rascals are talking of politics. . . . Do you hear? They have begun about England. I have six hearts.”

    “I have the seven spades. My point.”

    “Yes, it’s yours. Do you hear? They are abusing Beaconsfield. They don’t know, the swine, that Beaconsfield has been dead for ever so long. So I have twenty-nine. . . . Your lead.”

    “Eight . . . nine . . . ten . . . . Yes, amazing people, these Russians! Eleven . . . twelve. . . . The Russian inertia is unique on the terrestrial globe.”

    “Thirty . . . Thirty-one. . . . One ought to take a good whip, you know. Go out and give them Beaconsfield. I say, how their tongues are wagging! It’s easier to babble than to work. I suppose you threw away the queen of clubs and I didn’t realise it.”

    “Thirteen . . . Fourteen. . . . It’s unbearably hot! One must be made of iron to sit in such heat on a seat in the full sun! Fifteen.”

    The first game is followed by a second, the second by a third. . . . Finks loses, and by degrees works himself up into a gambling fever and forgets all about the cracking walls of the high school cellar. As Lyashkevsky plays he keeps looking at the aborigines. He sees them, entertaining each other with conversation, go to the open gate, cross the filthy yard and sit down on a scanty patch of shade under an aspen tree. Between twelve and one o’clock the fat cook with brown legs spreads before them something like a baby’s sheet with brown stains upon it, and gives them their dinner. They eat with wooden spoons, keep brushing away the flies, and go on talking.

    “The devil, it is beyond everything,” cries Lyashkevsky, revolted. “I am very glad I have not a gun or a revolver or I should have a shot at those cattle. I have four knaves — fourteen. . . . Your point. . . . It really gives me a twitching in my legs. I can’t see those ruffians without being upset.”

    “Don’t excite yourself, it is bad for you.”

    “But upon my word, it is enough to try the patience of a stone!”

    When he has finished dinner the native in blue trousers, worn out and exhausted, staggering with laziness and repletion, crosses the street to his own house and sinks feebly on to his bench. He is struggling with drowsiness and the gnats, and is looking about him as dejectedly as though he were every minute expecting his end. His helpless air drives Lyashkevsky out of all patience. The Pole pokes his head out of the window and shouts at him, spluttering:

    “Been gorging? Ah, the old woman! The sweet darling. He has been stuffing himself, and now he doesn’t know what to do with his tummy! Get out of my sight, you confounded fellow! Plague take you!”

    The native looks sourly at him, and merely twiddles his fingers instead of answering. A school-boy of his acquaintance passes by him with his satchel on his back. Stopping him the native ponders a long time what to say to him, and asks:

    “Well, what now?”

    “Nothing.”

    “How, nothing?”

    “Why, just nothing.”

    “H’m. . . . And which subject is the hardest?”

    “That’s according.” The school-boy shrugs his shoulders.

    “I see — er . . . What is the Latin for tree?”

    “Arbor.”

    “Aha. . . . And so one has to know all that,” sighs the blue trousers. “You have to go into it all. . . . It’s hard work, hard work. . . . Is your dear Mamma well?”

    “She is all right, thank you.”

    “Ah. . . . Well, run along.”

    After losing two roubles Finks remembers the high school and is horrified.

    “Holy Saints, why it’s three o’clock already. How I have been staying on. Good-bye, I must run. . . .”

    “Have dinner with me, and then go,” says Lyashkevsky. “You have plenty of time.”

    Finks stays, but only on condition that dinner shall last no more than ten minutes. After dining he sits for some five minutes on the sofa and thinks of the cracked wall, then resolutely lays his head on the cushion and fills the room with a shrill whistling through his nose. While he is asleep, Lyashkevsky, who does not approve of an afternoon nap, sits at the window, stares at the dozing native, and grumbles:

    “Race of curs! I wonder you don’t choke with laziness. No work, no intellectual or moral interests, nothing but vegetating . . . . disgusting. Tfoo!”

    At six o’clock Finks wakes up.

    “It’s too late to go to the high school now,” he says, stretching. “I shall have to go to-morrow, and now. . . . How about my revenge? Let’s have one more game. . . .”

    After seeing his visitor off, between nine and ten, Lyashkevsky looks after him for some time, and says:

    “Damn the fellow, staying here the whole day and doing absolutely nothing. . . . Simply get their salary and do no work; the devil take them! . . . The German pig. . . .”

    He looks out of the window, but the native is no longer there. He has gone to bed. There is no one to grumble at, and for the first time in the day he keeps his mouth shut, but ten minutes passes and he cannot restrain the depression that overpowers him, and begins to grumble, shoving the old shabby armchair:

    “You only take up room, rubbishly old thing! You ought to have been burnt long ago, but I keep forgetting to tell them to chop you up. It’s a disgrace!”

    And as he gets into bed he presses his hand on a spring of the mattress, frowns and says peevishly:

    “The con–found–ed spring! It will cut my side all night. I will tell them to rip up the mattress to-morrow and get you out, you useless thing.”

    He falls asleep at midnight and dreams that he is pouring boiling water over the natives, Finks, and the old armchair.

    Aborigines

  • A Blunder

    A Blunder

    A Blunder

    Dear Learner, The Short Story by Anton Chekhov

    ILYA SERGEITCH PEPLOV and his wife Kleopatra Petrovna were standing at the door, listening greedily. On the other side in the little drawing-room, a love scene was apparently taking place between two persons: their daughter Natashenka and a teacher of the district school, called Shchupkin.

    “He’s rising!” whispered Peplov, quivering with impatience and rubbing his hands. “Now, Kleopatra, mind; as soon as they begin talking of their feelings, take down the ikon from the wall and we’ll go in and bless them. . . . We’ll catch him. . . . A blessing with an ikon is sacred and binding. . . He couldn’t get out of it, if he brought it into court.”

    On the other side of the door this was the conversation:

    “Don’t go on like that!” said Shchupkin, striking a match against his checked trousers. “I never wrote you any letters!”

    “I like that! As though I didn’t know your writing!” giggled the girl with an affected shriek, continually peeping at herself in the glass. “I knew it at once! And what a queer man you are! You are a writing master, and you write like a spider! How can you teach writing if you write so badly yourself?”

    “H’m! . . . That means nothing. The great thing in writing lessons is not the hand one writes, but keeping the boys in order. You hit one on the head with a ruler, make another kneel down. . . . Besides, there’s nothing in handwriting! Nekrassov was an author, but his handwriting’s a disgrace, there’s a specimen of it in his collected works.”

    “You are not Nekrassov. . . .” (A sigh). “I should love to marry an author. He’d always be writing poems to me.”

    “I can write you a poem, too, if you like.”

    “What can you write about?”

    “Love — passion — your eyes. You’ll be crazy when you read it. It would draw a tear from a stone! And if I write you a real poem, will you let me kiss your hand?”

    “That’s nothing much! You can kiss it now if you like.”

    Shchupkin jumped up, and making sheepish eyes, bent over the fat little hand that smelt of egg soap.

    “Take down the ikon,” Peplov whispered in a fluster, pale with excitement, and buttoning his coat as he prodded his wife with his elbow. “Come along, now!”

    And without a second’s delay Peplov flung open the door.

    “Children,” he muttered, lifting up his arms and blinking tearfully, “the Lord bless you, my children. May you live — be fruitful — and multiply.”

    “And — and I bless you, too,” the mamma brought out, crying with happiness. “May you be happy, my dear ones! Oh, you are taking from me my only treasure!” she said to Shchupkin. “Love my girl, be good to her. . . .”

    Shchupkin’s mouth fell open with amazement and alarm. The parents’ attack was so bold and unexpected that he could not utter a single word.

    “I’m in for it! I’m spliced!” he thought, going limp with horror. “It’s all over with you now, my boy! There’s no escape!”

    And he bowed his head submissively, as though to say, “Take me, I’m vanquished.”

    “Ble-blessings on you,” the papa went on, and he, too, shed tears. “Natashenka, my daughter, stand by his side. Kleopatra, give me the ikon.”

    But at this point the father suddenly left off weeping, and his face was contorted with anger.

    “You ninny!” he said angrily to his wife. “You are an idiot! Is that the ikon?”

    “Ach, saints alive!”

    What had happened? The writing master raised himself and saw that he was saved; in her flutter the mamma had snatched from the wall the portrait of Lazhetchnikov, the author, in mistake for the ikon. Old Peplov and his wife stood disconcerted in the middle of the room, holding the portrait aloft, not knowing what to do or what to say. The writing master took advantage of the general confusion and slipped away.

    A Blunder

  • A Bad Business

    A Bad Business

    A Bad Business

    Dear Learner, The Short Story by Anton Chekhov

    WHO goes there?”

    No answer. The watchman sees nothing, but through the roar of the wind and the trees distinctly hears someone walking along the avenue ahead of him. A March night, cloudy and foggy, envelopes the earth, and it seems to the watchman that the earth, the sky, and he himself with his thoughts are all merged together into something vast and impenetrably black. He can only grope his way.

    “Who goes there?” the watchman repeats, and he begins to fancy that he hears whispering and smothered laughter. “Who’s there?”

    “It’s I, friend . . .” answers an old man’s voice.

    “But who are you?”

    “I . . . a traveller.”

    “What sort of traveller?” the watchman cries angrily, trying to disguise his terror by shouting. “What the devil do you want here? You go prowling about the graveyard at night, you ruffian!”

    “You don’t say it’s a graveyard here?”

    “Why, what else? Of course it’s the graveyard! Don’t you see it is?”

    “O-o-oh . . . Queen of Heaven!” there is a sound of an old man sighing. “I see nothing, my good soul, nothing. Oh the darkness, the darkness! You can’t see your hand before your face, it is dark, friend. O-o-oh. . .”

    “But who are you?”

    “I am a pilgrim, friend, a wandering man.”

    “The devils, the nightbirds. . . . Nice sort of pilgrims! They are drunkards . . .” mutters the watchman, reassured by the tone and sighs of the stranger. “One’s tempted to sin by you. They drink the day away and prowl about at night. But I fancy I heard you were not alone; it sounded like two or three of you.”

    “I am alone, friend, alone. Quite alone. O-o-oh our sins. . . .”

    The watchman stumbles up against the man and stops.

    “How did you get here?” he asks.

    “I have lost my way, good man. I was walking to the Mitrievsky Mill and I lost my way.”

    “Whew! Is this the road to Mitrievsky Mill? You sheepshead! For the Mitrievsky Mill you must keep much more to the left, straight out of the town along the high road. You have been drinking and have gone a couple of miles out of your way. You must have had a drop in the town.”

    “I did, friend . . . Truly I did; I won’t hide my sins. But how am I to go now?”

    “Go straight on and on along this avenue till you can go no farther, and then turn at once to the left and go till you have crossed the whole graveyard right to the gate. There will be a gate there. . . . Open it and go with God’s blessing. Mind you don’t fall into the ditch. And when you are out of the graveyard you go all the way by the fields till you come out on the main road.”

    “God give you health, friend. May the Queen of Heaven save you and have mercy on you. You might take me along, good man! Be merciful! Lead me to the gate.”

    “As though I had the time to waste! Go by yourself!”

    “Be merciful! I’ll pray for you. I can’t see anything; one can’t see one’s hand before one’s face, friend. . . . It’s so dark, so dark! Show me the way, sir!”

    “As though I had the time to take you about; if I were to play the nurse to everyone I should never have done.”

    “For Christ’s sake, take me! I can’t see, and I am afraid to go alone through the graveyard. It’s terrifying, friend, it’s terrifying; I am afraid, good man.”

    “There’s no getting rid of you,” sighs the watchman. “All right then, come along.”

    The watchman and the traveller go on together. They walk shoulder to shoulder in silence. A damp, cutting wind blows straight into their faces and the unseen trees murmuring and rustling scatter big drops upon them. . . . The path is almost entirely covered with puddles.

    “There is one thing passes my understanding,” says the watchman after a prolonged silence — “how you got here. The gate’s locked. Did you climb over the wall? If you did climb over the wall, that’s the last thing you would expect of an old man.”

    “I don’t know, friend, I don’t know. I can’t say myself how I got here. It’s a visitation. A chastisement of the Lord. Truly a visitation, the evil one confounded me. So you are a watchman here, friend?”

    “Yes.”

    “The only one for the whole graveyard?”

    There is such a violent gust of wind that both stop for a minute. Waiting till the violence of the wind abates, the watchman answers:

    “There are three of us, but one is lying ill in a fever and the other’s asleep. He and I take turns about.”

    “Ah, to be sure, friend. What a wind! The dead must hear it! It howls like a wild beast! O-o-oh.”

    “And where do you come from?”

    “From a distance, friend. I am from Vologda, a long way off. I go from one holy place to another and pray for people. Save me and have mercy upon me, O Lord.”

    The watchman stops for a minute to light his pipe. He stoops down behind the traveller’s back and lights several matches. The gleam of the first match lights up for one instant a bit of the avenue on the right, a white tombstone with an angel, and a dark cross; the light of the second match, flaring up brightly and extinguished by the wind, flashes like lightning on the left side, and from the darkness nothing stands out but the angle of some sort of trellis; the third match throws light to right and to left, revealing the white tombstone, the dark cross, and the trellis round a child’s grave.

    “The departed sleep; the dear ones sleep!” the stranger mutters, sighing loudly. “They all sleep alike, rich and poor, wise and foolish, good and wicked. They are of the same value now. And they will sleep till the last trump. The Kingdom of Heaven and peace eternal be theirs.”

    “Here we are walking along now, but the time will come when we shall be lying here ourselves,” says the watchman.

    “To be sure, to be sure, we shall all. There is no man who will not die. O-o-oh. Our doings are wicked, our thoughts are deceitful! Sins, sins! My soul accursed, ever covetous, my belly greedy and lustful! I have angered the Lord and there is no salvation for me in this world and the next. I am deep in sins like a worm in the earth.”

    “Yes, and you have to die.”

    “You are right there.”

    “Death is easier for a pilgrim than for fellows like us,” says the watchman.

    “There are pilgrims of different sorts. There are the real ones who are God-fearing men and watch over their own souls, and there are such as stray about the graveyard at night and are a delight to the devils. . . Ye-es! There’s one who is a pilgrim could give you a crack on the pate with an axe if he liked and knock the breath out of you.”

    “What are you talking like that for?”

    “Oh, nothing . . . Why, I fancy here’s the gate. Yes, it is. Open it, good man.

    The watchman, feeling his way, opens the gate, leads the pilgrim out by the sleeve, and says:

    “Here’s the end of the graveyard. Now you must keep on through the open fields till you get to the main road. Only close here there will be the boundary ditch — don’t fall in. . . . And when you come out on to the road, turn to the right, and keep on till you reach the mill. . . .”

    “O-o-oh!” sighs the pilgrim after a pause, “and now I am thinking that I have no cause to go to Mitrievsky Mill. . . . Why the devil should I go there? I had better stay a bit with you here, sir. . . .”

    “What do you want to stay with me for?”

    “Oh . . . it’s merrier with you! . . . .”

    “So you’ve found a merry companion, have you? You, pilgrim, are fond of a joke I see. . . .”

    “To be sure I am,” says the stranger, with a hoarse chuckle. “Ah, my dear good man, I bet you will remember the pilgrim many a long year!”

    “Why should I remember you?”

    “Why I’ve got round you so smartly. . . . Am I a pilgrim? I am not a pilgrim at all.”

    “What are you then?”

    “A dead man. . . . I’ve only just got out of my coffin. . . . Do you remember Gubaryev, the locksmith, who hanged himself in carnival week? Well, I am Gubaryev himself! . . .”

    “Tell us something else!”

    The watchman does not believe him, but he feels all over such a cold, oppressive terror that he starts off and begins hurriedly feeling for the gate.

    “Stop, where are you off to?” says the stranger, clutching him by the arm. “Aie, aie, aie . . . what a fellow you are! How can you leave me all alone?”

    “Let go!” cries the watchman, trying to pull his arm away.

    “Sto-op! I bid you stop and you stop. Don’t struggle, you dirty dog! If you want to stay among the living, stop and hold your tongue till I tell you. It’s only that I don’t care to spill blood or you would have been a dead man long ago, you scurvy rascal. . . . Stop!”

    The watchman’s knees give way under him. In his terror he shuts his eyes, and trembling all over huddles close to the wall. He would like to call out, but he knows his cries would not reach any living thing. The stranger stands beside him and holds him by the arm. . . . Three minutes pass in silence.

    “One’s in a fever, another’s asleep, and the third is seeing pilgrims on their way,” mutters the stranger. “Capital watchmen, they are worth their salary! Ye-es, brother, thieves have always been cleverer than watchmen! Stand still, don’t stir. . . .”

    Five minutes, ten minutes pass in silence. All at once the wind brings the sound of a whistle.

    “Well, now you can go,” says the stranger, releasing the watchman’s arm. “Go and thank God you are alive!”

    The stranger gives a whistle too, runs away from the gate, and the watchman hears him leap over the ditch.

    With a foreboding of something very dreadful in his heart, the watchman, still trembling with terror, opens the gate irresolutely and runs back with his eyes shut.

    At the turning into the main avenue he hears hurried footsteps, and someone asks him, in a hissing voice: “Is that you, Timofey? Where is Mitka?”

    And after running the whole length of the main avenue he notices a little dim light in the darkness. The nearer he gets to the light the more frightened he is and the stronger his foreboding of evil.

    “It looks as though the light were in the church,” he thinks. “And how can it have come there? Save me and have mercy on me, Queen of Heaven! And that it is.”

    The watchman stands for a minute before the broken window and looks with horror towards the altar. . . . A little wax candle which the thieves had forgotten to put out flickers in the wind that bursts in at the window and throws dim red patches of light on the vestments flung about and a cupboard overturned on the floor, on numerous footprints near the high altar and the altar of offerings.

    A little time passes and the howling wind sends floating over the churchyard the hurried uneven clangs of the alarm-bell. . . .!

    A Bad Business

  • The Lottery

    The Lottery

    The Lottery

    Short Story by Shirley Jackson

    The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green. The people of the village began to gather in the square, between the post office and the bank, around ten o’clock; in some towns there were so many people that the lottery took two days and had to be started on June 20th, but in this village, where there were only about three hundred people, the whole lottery took less than two hours, so it could begin at ten o’clock in the morning and still be through in time to allow the villagers to get home for noon dinner.

    The children assembled first, of course. School was recently over for the summer, and the feeling of liberty sat uneasily on most of them; they tended to gather together quietly for a while before they broke into boisterous play, and their talk was still of the classroom and the teacher, of books and reprimands. Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones; Bobby and Harry Jones and Dickie Delacroix—the villagers pronounced this name “Dellacroy”—eventually made a great pile of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the raids of the other boys. The girls stood aside, talking among themselves, looking over their shoulders at the boys, and the very small children rolled in the dust or clung to the hands of their older brothers or sisters.

    Soon the men began to gather, surveying their own children, speaking of planting and rain, tractors and taxes. They stood together, away from the pile of stones in the corner, and their jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed. The women, wearing faded house dresses and sweaters, came shortly after their menfolk. They greeted one another and exchanged bits of gossip as they went to join their husbands. Soon the women, standing by their husbands, began to call to their children, and the children came reluctantly, having to be called four or five times. Bobby Martin ducked under his mother’s grasping hand and ran, laughing, back to the pile of stones. His father spoke up sharply, and Bobby came quickly and took his place between his father and his oldest brother.

    The lottery was conducted—as were the square dances, the teen club, the Halloween program—by Mr. Summers, who had time and energy to devote to civic activities. He was a round-faced, jovial man and he ran the coal business, and people were sorry for him because he had no children and his wife was a scold. When he arrived in the square, carrying the black wooden box, there was a murmur of conversation among the villagers, and he waved and called. “Little late today, folks. ” The postmaster, Mr. Graves, followed him, carrying a three-legged stool, and the stool was put in the center of the square and Mr. Summers set the black box down on it. The villagers kept their distance, leaving a space between themselves and the stool, and when Mr. Summers said, “Some of you fellows want to give me a hand?” there was a hesitation before two men. Mr. Martin and his oldest son, Baxter, came forward to hold the box steady on the stool while Mr. Summers stirred up the papers inside it.

    The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago, and the black box now resting on the stool had been put into use even before Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, was born. Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box. There was a story that the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that had been constructed when the first people settled down to make a village here. Every year, after the lottery, Mr. Summers began talking again about a new box, but every year the subject was allowed to fade off without anything’s being done. The black box grew shabbier each year: by now it was no longer completely black but splintered badly along one side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained.

    Mr. Martin and his oldest son, Baxter, held the black box securely on the stool until Mr. Summers had stirred the papers thoroughly with his hand. Because so much of the ritual had been forgotten or discarded, Mr. Summers had been successful in having slips of paper substituted for the chips of wood that had been used for generations. Chips of wood, Mr. Summers had argued, had been all very well when the village was tiny, but now that the population was more than three hundred and likely to keep on growing, it was necessary to use something that would fit more easily into he black box. The night before the lottery, Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves made up the slips of paper and put them in the box, and it was then taken to the safe of Mr. Summers’ coal company and locked up until Mr. Summers was ready to take it to the square next morning. The rest of the year, the box was put way, sometimes one place, sometimes another; it had spent one year in Mr. Graves’s barn and another year underfoot in the post office. and sometimes it was set on a shelf in the Martin grocery and left there.

    There was a great deal of fussing to be done before Mr. Summers declared the lottery open. There were the lists to make up–of heads of families, heads of households in each family, members of each household in each family. There was the proper swearing-in of Mr. Summers by the postmaster, as the official of the lottery; at one time, some people remembered, there had been a recital of some sort, performed by the official of the lottery, a perfunctory, tuneless chant that had been rattled off duly each year; some people believed that the official of the lottery used to stand just so when he said or sang it, others believed that he was supposed to walk among the people, but years and years ago this p3rt of the ritual had been allowed to lapse. There had been, also, a ritual salute, which the official of the lottery had had to use in addressing each person who came up to draw from the box, but this also had changed with time, until now it was felt necessary only for the official to speak to each person approaching. Mr. Summers was very good at all this; in his clean white shirt and blue jeans, with one hand resting carelessly on the black box, he seemed very proper and important as he talked interminably to Mr. Graves and the Martins.

    Just as Mr. Summers finally left off talking and turned to the assembled villagers, Mrs. Hutchinson came hurriedly along the path to the square, her sweater thrown over her shoulders, and slid into place in the back of the crowd. “Clean forgot what day it was,” she said to Mrs. Delacroix, who stood next to her, and they both laughed softly. “Thought my old man was out back stacking wood,” Mrs. Hutchinson went on, “and then I looked out the window and the kids was gone, and then I remembered it was the twenty-seventh and came a-running. ” She dried her hands on her apron, and Mrs. Delacroix said, “You’re in time, though. They’re still talking away up there. “

    Mrs. Hutchinson craned her neck to see through the crowd and found her husband and children standing near the front. She tapped Mrs. Delacroix on the arm as a farewell and began to make her way through the crowd. The people separated good-humoredly to let her through: two or three people said, in voices just loud enough to be heard across the crowd, “Here comes your, Missus, Hutchinson,” and “Bill, she made it after all. ” Mrs. Hutchinson reached her husband, and Mr. Summers, who had been waiting, said cheerfully. “Thought we were going to have to get on without you, Tessie. ” Mrs. Hutchinson said, grinning, “Wouldn’t have me leave m’dishes in the sink, now, would you, Joe?” and soft laughter ran through the crowd as the people stirred back into position after Mrs. Hutchinson’s arrival.

    “Well, now. ” Mr. Summers said soberly, “guess we better get started, get this over with, so’s we can go back to work. Anybody ain’t here?”

    “Dunbar. ” several people said. “Dunbar. Dunbar. “

    Mr. Summers consulted his list. “Clyde Dunbar. ” he said. “That’s right. He’s broke his leg, hasn’t he? Who’s drawing for him?”

    “Me. I guess,” a woman said, and Mr. Summers turned to look at her. “Wife draws for her husband. ” Mr. Summers said. “Don’t you have a grown boy to do it for you, Janey?” Although Mr. Summers and everyone else in the village knew the answer perfectly well, it was the business of the official of the lottery to ask such questions formally. Mr. Summers waited with an expression of polite interest while Mrs. Dunbar answered.

    “Horace’s not but sixteen yet. ” Mrs. Dunbar said regretfully. “Guess I gotta fill in for the old man this year. “

    “Right. ” Sr. Summers said. He made a note on the list he was holding. Then he asked, “Watson boy drawing this year?”

    A tall boy in the crowd raised his hand. “Here,” he said. “I m drawing for my mother and me. ” He blinked his eyes nervously and ducked his head as several voices in the crowd said things like “Good fellow, lack. ” and “Glad to see your mother’s got a man to do it. “

    “Well,” Mr. Summers said, “guess that’s everyone. Old Man Warner make it?”

    “Here,” a voice said, and Mr. Summers nodded.

    A sudden hush fell on the crowd as Mr. Summers cleared his throat and looked at the list. “All ready?” he called. “Now, I’ll read the names–heads of families first–and the men come up and take a paper out of the box. Keep the paper folded in your hand without looking at it until everyone has had a turn. Everything clear?”

    The people had done it so many times that they only half listened to the directions: most of them were quiet, wetting their lips, not looking around. Then Mr. Summers raised one hand high and said, “Adams. ” A man disengaged himself from the crowd and came forward. “Hi. Steve. ” Mr. Summers said, and Mr. Adams said. “Hi. Joe. ” They grinned at one another humorlessly and nervously. Then Mr. Adams reached into the black box and took out a folded paper. He held it firmly by one corner as he turned and went hastily back to his place in the crowd, where he stood a little apart from his family, not looking down at his hand.

    “Allen. ” Mr. Summers said. “Anderson… Bentham. “

    “Seems like there’s no time at all between lotteries anymore. ” Mrs. Delacroix said to Mrs. Graves in the back row.

    “Seems like we got through with the last one only last week. “

    “Time sure goes fast” Mrs. Graves said.

    “Clark… Delacroix. “

    “There goes my old man. ” Mrs. Delacroix said. She held her breath while her husband went forward.

    “Dunbar,” Mr. Summers said, and Mrs. Dunbar went steadily to the box while one of the women said. “Go on, Janey,” and another said, “There she goes. “

    “We’re next. ” Mrs. Graves said. She watched while Mr. Graves came around from the side of the box, greeted Mr. Summers gravely and selected a slip of paper from the box. By now, all through the crowd, there were men holding the small folded papers in their large hand, turning them over and over nervously Mrs. Dunbar and her two sons stood together, Mrs. Dunbar holding the slip of paper.

    “Harburt… Hutchinson. “

    “Get up there, Bill,” Mrs. Hutchinson said, and the people near her laughed.

    “Jones. “

    “They do say,” Mr. Adams said to Old Man Warner, who stood next to him, “that over in the north village they’re talking of giving up the lottery. “

    Old Man Warner snorted. “Pack of crazy fools,” he said. “Listening to the young folks, nothing’s good enough for them. Next thing you know, they’ll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work anymore, live hat way for a while. Used to be a saying about Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon. ‘ First thing you know, we’d all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns. There’s always been a lottery,” he added petulantly. “Bad enough to see young Joe Summers up there joking with everybody. “

    “Some places have already quit lotteries,” Mrs. Adams said.

    “Nothing but trouble in that,” Old Man Warner said stoutly. “Pack of young fools. “

    “Martin. ” And Bobby Martin watched his father go forward. “Overdyke… Percy. “

    “I wish they’d hurry,” Mrs. Dunbar said to her older son. “I wish they’d hurry.”

    “They’re almost through,” her son said.

    “You get ready to run tell Dad,” Mrs. Dunbar said.

    Mr. Summers called his own name and then stepped forward precisely and selected a slip from the box. Then he called, “Warner. “

    “Seventy-seventh year I been in the lottery,” Old Man Warner said as he went through the crowd. “Seventy-seventh time. “

    “Watson. ” The tall boy came awkwardly through the crowd. Someone said, “Don’t be nervous, Jack,” and Mr. Summers said, “Take your time, son. “

    “Zanini. “

    After that, there was a long pause, a breathless pause, until Mr. Summers, holding his slip of paper in the air, said, “All right, fellows. ” For a minute, no one moved, and then all the slips of paper were opened. Suddenly, all the women began to speak at once, saving. “Who is it?,” “Who’s got it?,” “Is it the Dunbars?,” “Is it the Watsons?” Then the voices began to say, “It’s Hutchinson. It’s Bill,” “Bill Hutchinson’s got it. “

    “Go tell your father,” Mrs. Dunbar said to her older son.

    People began to look around to see the Hutchinsons. Bill Hutchinson was standing quiet, staring down at the paper in his hand. Suddenly, Tessie Hutchinson shouted to Mr. Summers. “You didn’t give him time enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn’t fair!”

    “Be a good sport, Tessie,” Mrs. Delacroix called, and Mrs. Graves said, “All of us took the same chance. “

    “Shut up, Tessie,” Bill Hutchinson said.

    “Well, everyone,” Mr. Summers said, “that was done pretty fast, and now we’ve got to be hurrying a little more to get done in time. ” He consulted his next list. “Bill,” he said, “you draw for the Hutchinson family. You got any other households in the Hutchinsons?”

    “There are Don and Eva,” Mrs. Hutchinson yelled. “Make them take their chance!”

    “Daughters draw with their husbands’ families, Tessie,” Mr. Summers said gently. “You know that as well as anyone else. “

    “It wasn’t fair,” Tessie said.

    “I guess not, Joe,” Bill Hutchinson said regretfully. “My daughter draws with her husband’s family; that’s only fair. And I’ve got no other family except the kids. “

    “Then, as far as drawing for families is concerned, it’s you,” Mr. Summers said in explanation, “and as far as drawing for households is concerned, that’s you, too. Right?”

    “Right,” Bill Hutchinson said.

    “How many kids, Bill?” Mr. Summers asked formally.

    “Three,” Bill Hutchinson said.

    “There’s Bill, Jr. , and Nancy, and little Dave. And Tessie and me. “

    “All right, then,” Mr. Summers said. “Harry, you got their tickets back?”

    Mr. Graves nodded and held up the slips of paper. “Put them in the box, then,” Mr. Summers directed. “Take Bill’s and put it in. “

    “I think we ought to start over,” Mrs. Hutchinson said, as quietly as she could. “I tell you it wasn’t fair. You didn’t give him time enough to choose. Everybody saw that. “

    Mr. Graves had selected the five slips and put them in the box, and he dropped all the papers but those onto the ground, where the breeze caught them and lifted them off.

    “Listen, everybody,” Mrs. Hutchinson was saying to the people around her.

    “Ready, Bill?” Mr. Summers asked, and Bill Hutchinson, with one quick glance around at his wife and children, nodded.

    “Remember,” Mr. Summers said, “take the slips and keep them folded until each person has taken one. Harry, you help little Dave. ” Mr. Graves took the hand of the little boy, who came willingly with him up to the box. “Take a paper out of the box, Davy,” Mr. Summers said. Davy put his hand into the box and laughed. “Take just one paper. ” Mr. Summers said. “Harry, you hold it for him. ” Mr. Graves took the child’s hand and removed the folded paper from the tight fist and held it while little Dave stood next to him and looked up at him wonderingly.

    “Nancy next,” Mr. Summers said. Nancy was twelve, and her school friends breathed heavily as she went forward switching her skirt, and took a slip daintily from the box “Bill, Jr. ,” Mr. Summers said, and Billy, his face red and his feet overlarge, near knocked the box over as he got a paper out. “Tessie,” Mr. Summers said. She hesitated for a minute, looking around defiantly, and then set her lips and went up to the box. She snatched a paper out and held it behind her.

    “Bill,” Mr. Summers said, and Bill Hutchinson reached into the box and felt around, bringing his hand out at last with the slip of paper in it.

    The crowd was quiet. A girl whispered, “I hope it’s not Nancy,” and the sound of the whisper reached the edges of the crowd.

    “It’s not the way it used to be,” Old Man Warner said clearly. “People ain’t the way they used to be. “

    “All right,” Mr. Summers said. “Open the papers. Harry, you open little Dave’s. “

    Mr. Graves opened the slip of paper and there was a general sigh through the crowd as he held it up and everyone could see that it was blank. Nancy and Bill, Jr., opened theirs at the same time, and both beamed and laughed, turning around to the crowd and holding their slips of paper above their heads.

    “Tessie,” Mr. Summers said. There was a pause, and then Mr. Summers looked at Bill Hutchinson, and Bill unfolded his paper and showed it. It was blank.

    “It’s Tessie,” Mr. Summers said, and his voice was hushed. “Show us her paper, Bill. “

    Bill Hutchinson went over to his wife and forced the slip of paper out of her hand. It had a black spot on it, the black spot Mr. Summers had made the night before with the heavy pencil in the coal company office. Bill Hutchinson held it up, and there was a stir in the crowd.

    “All right, folks. ” Mr. Summers said. “Let’s finish quickly. “

    Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones. The pile of stones the boys had made earlier was ready; there were stones on the ground with the blowing scraps of paper that had come out of the box Delacroix selected a stone so large she had to pick it up with both hands and turned to Mrs. Dunbar. “Come on,” she said. “Hurry up. “

    Mrs. Dunbar had small stones in both hands, and she said, gasping for breath. “I can’t run at all. You’ll have to go ahead and I’ll catch up with you. “

    The children had stones already. And someone gave little Davy Hutchinson a few pebbles.

    Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now, and she held her hands out desperately as the villagers moved in on her. “It isn’t fair,” she said. A stone hit her on the side of the head. Old Man Warner was saying, “Come on, come on, everyone. ” Steve Adams was in the front of the crowd of villagers, with Mrs. Graves beside him.

    “It isn’t fair, it isn’t right,” Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her.

    The Lottery

  • Motivational and Inspiring Short Stories About Life

    Motivational and Inspiring Short Stories About Life

    Motivational and Inspiring 5 Short Stories About Life; When life has got you in a slump, turn to these inspirational short stories. Not only is reading them like getting an internet hug for the soul, but they just may spark an idea or a change in you for the better. Read on and get ready how to keep a smile yourself.

    Here is the article to explain, 5 best Short Story for Life – Motivational and Inspiring.

    The following few Motivational and Inspiring Short Stories below are;

    1. Everyone Has a Story in Life

    A 24-year-old boy seeing out from the train’s window shouted…!

    “Dad, look the trees are going behind!”
    Dad smiled and a young couple sitting nearby; looked at the 24-year old’s childish behavior with pity, suddenly he again exclaimed…

    “Dad, look the clouds are running with us!”

    The couple couldn’t resist and said to the old man…!

    “Why don’t you take your son to a good doctor?” The old man smiled and said…“I did and we are just coming from the hospital, my son was blind from birth, he just got his eyes today.”

    Every single person on the planet has a story. Don’t judge people before you truly know them. The truth might surprise you.

    2. Shake off Your Problems

    A man’s favorite donkey falls into a deep precipice. He can’t pull it out no matter how hard he tries. He, therefore, decides to bury it alive.

    The soil pore onto the donkey from above. The donkey feels the load, shakes it off, and steps on it. More soil pours.

    It shakes it off and steps up. The more the load was poured, the higher it rose. By noon, the donkey was grazing in green pastures.

    After much shaking off (of problems) And stepping up (learning from them), One will graze in GREEN PASTURES.

    3. The Elephant Rope

    As a man was passing the elephants, he suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg. No chains, no cages. It was obvious that the elephants could, at any time, break away from their bonds but for some reason, they did not.

    He saw a trainer nearby and asked why these animals just stood there and made no attempt to getaway. “Well,” the trainer said, “when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them, and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they condition to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.”

    The man was amazed. These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believed they couldn’t, they were stuck right where they were.

    Like the elephants, how many of us go through life hanging onto a belief that we cannot do something, simply because we failed at it once before?

    Failure is part of learning; we should never give up the struggle in life. This is the best Inspiring Short Stories.

    4. Potatoes, Eggs, and Coffee Beans

    Once upon a time a daughter complained to her father that her life was miserable and that she didn’t know how she was going to make it. She was tired of fighting and struggling all the time. It seemed just as one problem was solved, another one soon followed.

    Her father, a chef, took her to the kitchen. He filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Once the three pots began to boil, he placed potatoes in one pot, eggs in the second pot, and ground coffee beans in the third pot.

    He then let them sit and boil, without saying a word to his daughter. The daughter moaned and impatiently waited, wondering what he was doing.

    After twenty minutes he turned off the burners. He took the potatoes out of the pot and placed them in a bowl, He pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl.

    He then ladled the coffee out and placed it in a cup. Turning to her he asked. “Daughter, what do you see?”

    “Potatoes, eggs, and coffee,” she hastily replied.

    “Look closer,” he said, “and touch the potatoes.” She did and noted that they were soft. He then asked her to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg. Finally, he asked her to sip the coffee. Its rich aroma brought a smile to her face.

    “Father, what does this mean?” she asked.

    continue…

    He then explained that the potatoes, the eggs and coffee beans had each faced the same adversity– the boiling water.

    However, each one reacted differently.

    The potato went in strong, hard, and unrelenting, but in boiling water, it became soft and weak.

    The egg was fragile, with the thin outer shell protecting its liquid interior until it was put in the boiling water. Then the inside of the egg became hard.

    However, the ground coffee beans were unique. After they were exposed to the boiling water, they changed the water and created something new.

    “Which are you,” he asked his daughter. “When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a potato, an egg, or a coffee bean? “

    Moral: In life, things happen around us, things happen to us, but the only thing that truly matters is what happens within us.

    Which one are you?

    5. A Dish of Ice Cream

    In the days when an ice cream sundae cost much less, a 10-year-old boy entered a hotel coffee shop and sat at a table. A waitress put a glass of water in front of him.

    “How much is an ice cream sundae?”

    “50 cents,” replied the waitress.

    The little boy pulled his hand out of his pocket and studied a number of coins in it.

    “How much is a dish of plain ice cream?” he inquired. Some people were now waiting for a table and the waitress was a bit impatient.

    “35 cents,” she said brusquely.

    The little boy again counted the coins. “I’ll have the plain ice cream,” he said.

    The waitress brought the ice cream, put the bill on the table and walked away. The boy finished the ice cream, paid the cashier and departed.

    When the waitress came back, she began wiping down the table and then swallowed hard at what she saw.

    There, placed neatly beside the empty dish, were 15 cents – her tip.

    Motivational and Inspiring Short Stories About Life
    5 Motivational and Inspiring Short Stories About Life.
  • Motivational Short Stories for Business Success

    Motivational Short Stories for Business Success

    Motivational Short Stories for Business; 4 best Short Story of Motivational for Start Business. Succeeding in business is no easy feat. It’s too easy to let business knock you down. Instead of throwing in the towel when there is a business problem, pick yourself back up, buckle down, and get to work.

    Best 4 Motivational Short Stories make you strong for Business.

    These motivational stories prove that with a little hard work, any amount of business success is possible.

    1. Colonel Sanders – Kentucky Fried Chicken:

    Once, there was an older man, who was broke, living in a tiny house and owned a beat up car. He was living off of $99 social security checks. At 65 years of age, he decide things had to change. So he thought about what he had to offer. His friends raved about his chicken recipe. He decided that this was his best shot at making a change.

    Old man left Kentucky and traveled to different states to try to sell his recipe. He told restaurant owners that he had a mouthwatering chicken recipe. He offered the recipe to them for free, just asking for a small percentage on the items sold. Sounds like a good deal, right?

    Unfortunately, not to most of the restaurants. He heard NO over 1000 times. Even after all of those rejections, he didn’t give up. He believed his chicken recipe was something special. He got rejected 1009 times before he heard his first yes.

    With that one success, Colonel Hart-land Sanders changed the way Americans eat chicken. Kentucky Fried Chicken, popularly known as KFC, was born.

    Remember, never give up and always believe in yourself in spite of rejection.

    2. The Obstacle in our Path – Thanh_Min:

    This Short Story written by Thanh_Min; There once was a very wealthy and curious king. This king had a huge boulder placed in the middle of a road. Then he hid nearby to see if anyone would try to remove the gigantic rock from the road.

    The first people to pass by were some of the king’s wealthiest merchants and courtiers. Rather than moving it, they simply walked around it. A few loudly blamed the King for not maintaining the roads. Not one of them tried to move the boulder.

    Finally, a peasant came along. His arms were full of vegetables. When he got near the boulder, rather than simply walking around it as the others had, the peasant put down his load and tried to move the stone to the side of the road. It took a lot of effort but he finally succeeded.

    The peasant gathered up his load and was ready to go on his way when he say a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been. The peasant opened the purse. The purse was stuffed full of gold coins and a note from the king. The king’s note said the purse’s gold was a reward for moving the boulder from the road.

    The king showed the peasant what many of us never understand: every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve our condition.

    3. Value:

    A popular speaker started off a seminar by holding up a $20 bill. A crowd of 200 had gathered to hear him speak. He asked, “Who would like this $20 bill?”

    200 hands went up.

    He said, “I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this.” He crumpled the bill up.

    He then asked, “Who still wants it?”

    All 200 hands were still raised.

    “Well,” he replied, “What if I do this?” Then he dropped the bill on the ground and stomped on it with his shoes.

    He picked it up, and showed it to the crowd. The bill was all crumpled and dirty.

    “Now who still wants it?”

    All the hands still went up.

    “My friends, I have just showed you a very important lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20. Many times in our lives, life crumples us and grinds us into the dirt. We make bad decisions or deal with poor circumstances. We feel worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value. You are special – Don’t ever forget it!

    4. A Very Special Bank Account:

    Imagine you had a bank account that deposited $86,400 each morning. The account carries over no balance from day to day, allows you to keep no cash balance, and every evening cancels whatever part of the amount you had failed to use during the day. What would you do? Draw out every dollar each day!

    We all have such a bank. Its name is Time. Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever time you have failed to use wisely. It carries over no balance from day to day. It allows no overdraft so you can’t borrow against yourself or use more time than you have. Each day, the account starts fresh. Each night, it destroys an unused time. If you fail to use the day’s deposits, it’s your loss and you can’t appeal to get it back.

    There is never any borrowing time. You can’t take a loan out on your time or against someone else’s. The time you have is the time you have and that is that. Time management is yours to decide how you spend the time, just as with money you decide how you spend the money. It is never the case of us not having enough time to do things, but the case of whether we want to do them and where they fall in our priorities.

    Motivational Short Stories for Business
    Motivational Short Stories for Business; Image from Online.
  • A Common Man

    A Common Man

    A Common Man

    Moral Short Story for Learn

    Once upon a time, Raj is a middle-aged man. Although he was born in a poor family, he was raised well by his father and mother. His father owned a welding shop and used to work for more than 12 hours a day so that his family could lead a comfortable life.

    However, Raj’s father could not earn sufficient money to provide a decent life to his family. Raj was an average student in school and used to score around 70 percent marks. Raj’s dream was to become a doctor. Since his marks weren’t very high, he could not get the desired course that he wanted to study. Instead, he joined a bachelor’s degree course, completed the course successfully, and got a job in a company.

    While his life was going on with no dramatic change, his father continued to work in his welding shop, so that he did not have to depend on Raj. After getting a permanent job, Raj’s parents wanted him to marry. He got married to a girl from his native town, and at the same time was also promoted in his job. After a few years, his wife gave birth to beautiful twin boys.

    Later, Raj began to earn a handsome salary and started to live luxuriously. He bought a new house and a new car. Some of the luxuries were really unnecessary. Although his company provided him with a car, Raj purchased a new car!

    After an extravagant life that spanned almost 6 to 7 years, Raj was neither able to manage all the household expenses, nor pay for the children’s education and other basic necessities.

    It so happened that Raj’s father fell sick, and as a result, could not continue his work in the welding shop. He requested Raj to give some money for his treatment and other household expenses.

    Raj, who was already suffering from financial crisis, shouted at his parents and told them that he had no money to provide. He complained to his parents, “You never sent me to a big school. I was not provided with expensive clothes. You rarely fed me with my favorite food. I was not able to taste different varieties of food. When I got low marks you didn’t have enough money to provide me with private tuition, and it took me more than 10 years to get settled. Now, while I am again struggling for money, you are not doing anything to help me, but instead are a burden to me! So, please don’t come to me again.”

    His parents were left shattered.

    After a week, while Raj was on an official tour, he met a small boy aged about 10 years selling toys. The boy requested Raj to buy something. Raj asked the boy why he was selling toys instead of studying. The boy replied, “My father met with an accident a year ago and he lost one hand. He cannot work now. My mother works as a maid in a few houses. I’m helping my parents by selling these toys. I go to school in the morning and sell toys in the evenings. I work for 3 hours a day and study at night!”

    Raj purchased a few toys from the little boy. He thought about what the boy had said. He realized that he had been wrong in the way he treated his parents. He had learned a lesson from the small boy. At a very small age, this boy was helping his parents, but Raj, in order to meet the demands of his lavish lifestyle, had neglected his parents.

    So, what can we learn from Raj and this poor, small boy?

    A Common Man

  • Skip the EGO and Start Learning

    Skip the EGO and Start Learning

    Skip the EGO and Start Learning

    Moral Short Story in Hindi for Learn

    धरती पर जन्म लेने के साथ ही सीखने की प्रक्रिया प्रारंभ हो जाती है ज्यों हम बड़े होते जाते हैं, सीखने की प्रक्रिया भी विस्तार लेती जाती है, जल्द ही हम उठना, बैठना, बोलना, चलना सीख लेते हैं। इस बड़े होने की प्रक्रिया के साथ ही कभी-कभी हमारा अहंकार हमसे अधिक बड़ा हो जाता है और तब हम सीखना छोड़कर गलतियां करने लगते हैं। यह अंहकार हमारे विकास मार्ग को अवरूद्ध कर देता है इस बात की चर्चा करते हुए मुझे एक वाकिया याद आ रहा है जिसकी चर्चा यहाँ करना अच्छा होगा।

    एक बार की बात है रूस के ऑस्पेंस्की नाम के महान विचारक एक बार संत गुरजियफ से मिलने उनके घर गए। दोनों में विभिन्न् विषयों पर चर्चा होने लगी। ऑस्पेंस्की ने संत गुरजियफ से कहा, यूं तो मैंने गहन अध्ययन और अनुभव के द्वारा काफी ज्ञान अर्जित किया है, किन्तु मैं कुछ और भी जानना चाहता हूं। आप मेरी कुछ मदद कर सकते हैं? गुरजियफ को मालूम था कि ऑस्पेंस्की अपने विषय के प्रकांड विद्वान हैं, जिसका उन्हें थोड़ा घमंड भी है अतः सीधी बात करने से कोई काम नहीं बनेगा। इसलिए उन्होंने कुछ देर सोचने के बाद एक कोरा कागज उठाया और उसे ऑस्पेंस्की की ओर बढ़ाते हुए बोले- ”यह अच्छी बात है कि तुम कुछ सीखना चाहते हो। लेकिन मैं कैसे समझूं कि तुमने अब तक क्या-क्या सीख लिया है और क्या-क्या नहीं सीखा है। अतः तुम ऐसा करो कि जो कुछ भी जानते हो और जो कुछ भी नहीं जानते हो, उन दोनों के बारे में इस कागज पर लिख दो। जो तुम पहले से ही जानते हो उसके बारे में तो चर्चा करना व्यर्थ है और जो तुम नहीं जानते, उस पर ही चर्चा करना ठीक रहेगा।”

    बात एकदम सरल थी, लेकिन ऑस्पेंस्की के लिए कुछ मुश्किल। उनका ज्ञानी होने का अभिमान धूल-धूसरित हो गया। ऑस्पेंस्की आत्मा और परमात्मा जैसे विषय के बारे में तो बहुत जानते थे, लेकिन तत्व-स्वरूप और भेद-अभेद के बारे में उन्होंने सोचा तक नहीं था। गुरजियफ की बात सुनकर वे सोच में पड़ गए। काफी देर सोचने के बाद भी जब उन्हें कुछ समझ में नहीं आया तो उन्होंने वह कोरा कागज ज्यों का त्यों गुरजियफ को थमा दिया और बोले- श्रीमान मैं तो कुछ भी नहीं जानता। आज आपने मेरी आंखे खोल दीं। ऑस्पेंस्की के विनम्रतापूर्वक कहे गए इन शब्दों से गुरजियफ बेहद प्रभावति हुए और बोले – ”ठीक है, अब तुमने जानने योग्य पहली बात जान ली है कि तुम कुछ नहीं जानते। यही ज्ञान की प्रथम सीढ़ी है। अब तुम्हें कुछ सिखाया और बताया जा सकता है। अर्थात खाली बर्तन को भरा जा सकता है, किन्तु अहंकार से भरे बर्तन में बूंदभर ज्ञान भरना संभव नहीं। अगर हम खुद को ज्ञान को ग्रहण करने के लिए तैयार रखें तो ज्ञानार्जन के लिये सुपात्र बन सकेंगे। ज्ञानी बनने के लिए जरूरी है कि मनुष्य ज्ञान को पा लेने का संकल्प ले और वह केवल एक गुरू से ही स्वयं को न बांधे बल्कि उसे जहां कहीं भी अच्छी बात पता चले, उसे ग्रहण करें।”

    Skip the EGO and Start Learning