That Eurasian

by Aleph Bey

Everything about the place was solid and substantial. The walls were square and bare, the floors of wood, unblessed with any kind of cloth, on which our feet ached in the winter time; the tables and benches in the halls were of the hardest wood, our plates, cups and dishes all of metal, our food in abundance, the few kinds they were, but badly cooked and served by weekly routine. Even the strongest appetite must be appalled by knowing three months or a year beforehand, that on certain days at a particular minute, such and such food would invariably appear. A person’s appetite likes to be surprised at times and is pleased with variety.

As everything we saw was solid and at right angles, so everything we did was by rules. We undressed by order, got into bed by order, the light went out by order, we washed, dressed, played, studied, sang, prayed according to rule. I had an abundance of pocket money, but could not use it except by rule. We all had to take steps, to march by order. This monotonous grind by order, day and night for weeks and months and years, as if we were so many prisoners in a tread-mill, was one of the grievances of my school life. I had all I needed and more, to add to my comfort. Many of the boys were scantily supplied. Their fathers had perhaps never been boys and gone away to school, or perhaps they never had fathers as I had none, and they never found such a friend as I had. I pitied them and aided them often, and so gained many a friendship. I had plenty of good, warm, soft bedding, and many a night my extra blankets were loaned to those shivering near me.

The principal was a great solid, ruddy, beefy sort of a man, so plump and enshrined with flesh, that if he had slept on the rocks they would not have come near his bones. He wore “parson clothes,” and was always mousing around, not to do any work himself, but to see that the teachers did their’s and that the boys obeyed the rules. He read the prayers and flogged the boys, and from what we could hear some of them required his services very often, or he thought they did. The result was the same. I do not remember, during my whole four years, of ever receiving a kind word from him. If he ever spoke to me it was just what was required, of course, and by rule. We never came in contact for good or ill except once. Whether this was arranged by the decrees or by the rules, or what, I do not know or ever cared, but have since suspected—as I have stated that I am rather of a suspicious, inquisitive nature, wanting a reason or giving a reason for everything—that I was not worthy of his profound attention, but having been sent by the well-known magistrate and collector of Muggerpur, a man of considerable influence, who paid well, I was not to be interfered with, though I was unnoticed and unfavored. Though in birth I was nothing, as I well knew, and he I am sure knew it as well as I did, for such men can tell by a sniff what rank a boy or man is of, yet my patron, by his position, had raised or put me in the rank of the higher class. It was not long before I came to the conclusion that my position was fixed, not by my own merit, but by some arbitrary rule or something, I knew not what.

Though happy for myself in my position, I could not help pitying some about whom he inquired of a teacher if they were of the middle or lower classes in society. The result was that the floggings were in this proportion, commencing with the lower class, as three, two, one. Though to be just I think the higher class, of which I was accidentally one, seldom got what we deserved. Thus the scripture is fulfilled, “To him that hath, shall be given even more than he hath,” so the lower classes, who have all the poverty, misery and wretchedness, have these abundantly increased, and besides get nearly all the stripes and curses.

This class arrangement greatly puzzled me. Somewhere in one of the scripture lessons we read that “God created of one blood all nations of men,” but this we read according to rule, and probably meant nothing when it came to practice, as scripture often does, yet for the life of me, and I was very attentive whenever our rules compelled us to read our Bible lessons, I could never find out where it was said that God had created higher, middle and lower classes, and this is still one of the many things I have yet to learn.

Why was I sent to this school? I often thought of that, for I was always putting in my whys and wherefores. This school was under the distinguished patronage of the Lord Bishop of Somewhere, the Supreme Head of the Church and next to God in authority, following the ecclesiastical rules. Accordingly, every mother’s son below him in rank followed him darja ba darja, as the natives say, step by step, as sheep follow a bell-wether. When he says “Thumbs up,” it is thumbs up, and when he says “Thumbs down,” what else can it be but that?

I think it was on account of its prominent figure-head that Mr. Percy finally decided upon this school.

The teachers, with one exception, were excellent men. They were good scholars, as I afterward came to know. They performed their work thoroughly and took delight in the advancement of their pupils. And better than all, they had a kind, genial manner that showed itself in various ways and won the affections of the boys. They were above pettiness, and acted as if they had once been boys themselves. Many men seem to forget and act as if they had come into the world full grown.

The one teacher, my exception, seemed to be, I do not know what else to say, a freak of nature. I formed a dislike to him the first time I saw him. I could never get over this feeling, though I tried to do so. I was not alone in this, for during the four years I never heard a boy speak well of him. And boys can make up their minds about what they like or dislike as well as men. In fact, their judgment is often more correct, as it comes by instinct. Did you ever see a dog run around in a crowd and pick out just the man he wanted? A wide awake boy, as well as a dog, can tell who would be kind to him at the first glance.

Acquaintance with this teacher did not improve on the first opinion of him, but the reverse. He was tall and lean as if he had been brought up on milk with the cream removed. His complexion was almost milky white, or rather a pale yellow, sometimes whiter and sometimes yellower. The color of his hair was not much better than that of his skin. He had the most juvenile moustache, and a few straggling unneighborly hairs at the sides of his face, that he seemed to be nursing with great care to bring to maturity. Many were the sly jokes of the boys on those whiskers. His clothes were of the strictest cleric cut, a parson’s waistcoat, a great high collar that was ever threatening to cut his ears off, but refused to do the deed out of sheer pity.