to this time we have not crossed our trail once. ‘You might knock about the city for a night and never cross the same line. Recollect Calcutta isn’t one of your poky upcountry cities of a lakh and a half of people.’ ‘How long does it take to’ know it then?’ About a lifetime, and even then some of the streets puzzle you.’ ‘How much has the head of a ward to know?’ ‘Every house in his ward if he can, who owns it, what sort of character the inhabitants are, who are their friends, who go out and in, who loaf about the place at night, and so on and so on.’ ‘And he knows all this by night as well as by day?’ ‘Of course. Why shouldn’t he?’ ‘No reason in the world. Only it’s pitchy black just now, and I’d like to see where this alley is going to end.’ ‘Round the corner beyond that dead wall. There’s a lamp there. Then you’ll be able to see.’ A shadow flits out of a gully and disappears. ‘Who’s that?’ ‘Sergeant of Police just to see where we’re going in case of accidents.’ Another shadow staggers into the darkness. ‘Who’s that?’ ‘Soldier from the Fort or a sailor from the ships. I couldn’t quite see.’ The Police open a shut door in a high wall, and stumble unceremoniously among a gang of women cooking their food. The floor is of beaten earth, the steps that lead into the upper stories are unspeakably, grimy, and, the heat is the heat of April. The women rise hastily, and the light of the bull’s eye — for the Police have now lighted a lantern in regular London fashion — shows six bleared faces — one a half-native half-Chinese one, and the others Bengali. ‘There are no men here!’ they cry. ‘The house is empty.’ Then they grin and jabber and chew pan and spit, and hurry up the steps into the darkness. A range of three big rooms has been knocked into one here, and there is some sort of arrangement of mats. But an average country-bred is more sumptuously accommodated in an Englishman’s stable. A horse would snort at the accommodation.
‘Nice sort of place, isn’t it?’ say the Police genially. ‘This is where the sailors get robbed and drunk.’ ‘They must be blind drunk before they come.’ ‘Na — na! Na sailor men ee — yah!’ chorus the women, catching at the one word they understand. ‘Arl gone!’ The Police take no notice, but tramp down the big room with the mat loose-boxes. A woman is shivering in one of these. ‘What’s the matter?’ ‘Fever. Seek. Vary, vary seek.’ She huddles herself into a heap on the charpoy and groans.
A tiny, pitch-black closet opens out of the long room, and into this the Police plunge. ‘Hullo! What’s here?’ Down flashes the lantern, and a white hand with black nails comes out of the gloom. Somebody is asleep or drunk in the cot. The ring of lantern-light travels slowly up and down the body. ‘A sailor from the ships. He’ll be robbed before the morning most likely.’ The man is sleeping like a little child, both arms thrown over his head, and he is not unhandsome.’ He is shoeless, and there are huge holes in his stockings: He is a pure-blooded white, and carries the flush of innocent sleep on his cheeks.
The light is turned off, and the Police depart; while the woman in the loose-box shivers, and moans that she is ‘seek; vary, vary seek.’
Chapter 7.
Deeper and Deeper Still
I built myself a lordly pleasure-house,
Wherein at ease for aye to dwell.
I said, ‘0 Soul, make merry and carouse,
Dear soul, for all is well.’
The Palace of Art.
‘And where next? I don’t like Colootollah.’ The Police and their charge are standing in the interminable waste of houses under the starlight. ‘To the lowest sink of all, but you wouldn’t know if you were told.’ They lead till they come to the last circle of the Inferno — a long, quiet, winding road. ‘There you are; you can see for yourself.’
But there is nothing to be seen. On one side are houses — gaunt and dark, naked and devoid of furniture; on the other, low, mean stalls, lighted, and with shamelessly open doors, where women stand and mutter and whisper one to another. There is a hush here, or at least the busy silence of an office or counting-house in working hours. One look down the street is sufficient. Lead on, gentlemen of the Calcutta Police. We do not love the lines of open doors, the flaring lamps within, the glimpses of the tawdry toilet-tables adorned with little plaster dogs, glass balls from Christmas-trees, and — for religion must not be despised though women be fallen — pictures of the saints and statuettes of the Virgin. The street is a long one, and other streets, full of the same pitiful wares, branch off from it.
‘Why are they so quiet? Why don’t they make a row and sing and shout, and so on?’ ‘Why should they, poor devils?’ say the Police, and fall to telling tales of horror, of women decoyed and shot into this trap. Then other tales that shatter one’s belief in all things and folk of good repute. ‘How can you Police have faith in humanity?’
‘That’s because you’re seeing it all in a lump for the first time, and it’s not nice that way. Makes a man jump rather, doesn’t it? But, recollect, you’ve asked for the worst places, and you can’t complain.’ ‘Who’s complaining? Bring on your atrocities. Isn’t that a European woman at that door?’ ‘Yes. Mrs. D— — widow of a soldier, mother of seven children.’ ‘Nine, if you please, and good evening to you,’ shrills Mrs. D— — leaning against the door-post, her arms folded on her bosom. She is a rather pretty, slightly made Eurasian, and whatever shame she may have owned she has long since cast behind her. A shapeless Burmo-native trot, with high cheek-bones and mouth like a shark, calls Mrs. D—— ‘Mem-Sahib.’ The word jars, unspeakably. Her life is a matter between herself and her Maker, but in that she — the widow of a soldier of the Queen — has stooped to this common foulness in the face of the city, she has offended against the White race. ‘You’re from up-country, and of course you don’t understand. There are any amount of that lot in the city,’ say the Police. Then the secret of the insolence of Calcutta is made plain. Small wonder the natives fail to respect the Sahib, seeing what they see and knowing what they know. In the good old days, the Honourable the Directors deported him or her who misbehaved grossly, and the white man preserved his face. He may have been a ruffian, but he was a ruffian on a large scale. He did not sink in the presence of the people. The natives are quite right to take the wall of the Sahib who has been at great pains to prove that he is of the same flesh and blood.
All this time Mrs. D—— stands on the threshold of her room and looks upon the men with unabashed eyes. Mrs. D—— is a lady with a story. She is not averse to telling it. ‘What was — ahem — the case in which you were — er — hmn — concerned, Mrs. D——?’ ‘They said I’d poisoned my husband by putting something into his drinking water.’ This is interesting. ‘And — ah — did you?’ ‘’Twasn’t proved,’ says Mrs. D—— with a laugh, a pleasant, lady-like laugh that does infinite credit to her education and upbringing. Worthy Mrs. D——! It would pay a novelist — a French one let us say — to pick you out of the stews and make you talk.
The Police move forward, into a region, of Mrs. D——’s. Everywhere are the empty houses, and the babbling women in print gowns. The clocks in the city are close upon midnight, but the Police show no signs of stopping. They plunge hither and thither, like wreckers into the surf; and each plunge brings up a sample of misery, filth and woe.
A woman — Eurasian — rises to a sitting position on a cot and blinks sleepily at the Police. Then she throws herself down with a grunt. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ ‘I live in Markiss Lane and’— this with intense gravity —‘I’m so drunk.’ She has a rather striking gipsy-like face, but her language might be improved.
‘Come along,’ say the Police, ‘we’ll head back to Bentinck Street, and put you on the road to the Great Eastern.’ They walk long and steadily, and the talk falls on gambling hells. ‘You ought to see our men rush one of ’em. When we’ve marked a hell down, we post men at the entrances and carry it. Sometimes the Chinese bite, but as a rule they