That Eurasian

by Aleph Bey

There is not a country on the globe where a European is so badly off as in India, if he is without work and destitute of means and influence. I have known a family of father and mother, with several sons and daughters well educated. The father and sons tried to get employment but failed. They offered to work at wages that would barely supply them with the coarsest food, but this was denied them. They were at last reduced to living on rice alone, the amount for the whole family of six not costing four pence a day, and this they often could not purchase.

Another case was that of a man and his wife, well educated and of fine appearance. He had invested all his money in a business that did not pay. They sold their little property for almost nothing and then their clothes. He could get no kind of employment, and at last they were so reduced that the wife had to conceal herself in the hut where they stayed, for want of clothes, and their almost starving heathen neighbors gave them a few handfuls of rice to eat. An empty pocket and a naked back are about the worst certificates a man can show to get employment or position of any kind. Nobody wants such a recommendation, not even a Christian. Accursed is poverty, for in proportion to his descent in destitution, a man is less liable to receive anything. The rich, who need nothing, have money thrown into their laps and positions thrust upon them, but the greater a person’s necessities, the less he gets. This is a strange contradictory world, yet this is also nature’s law. The more you enrich a field the more it gives you in return, the more I improve my bungalows, the higher rents I can get, but what is the use of talking; the poor cannot grow fat on illustrations and arguments.

If the poor whites have such a struggle for life what must be the condition of the destitute Eurasians who from their emaciated looks have not even rice to eat?

Some months passed and again I became restless. I thought that in the economic arrangement of nature in which everything has its function and uses I also must have my place and work; that I, not less than an active mosquito or a creeping snail, could not have been forgotten in the universal plan.

I knew I must first fit myself for a position. As I had tried to learn the mercantile business, so I thought of engineering. This was no sooner considered than settled. Even if I did not find employment by it I would have the discipline and knowledge of the science, so would lose nothing and be a gainer by it. I entered an engineering college and passed several successful and happy years without anything really worth mentioning occurring except several incidents that were of great importance to me.

The station was a small one, so the society was limited. The students were rather above the average in ability; in fact there was not a sumf among us. All had passed in the highest grades in school, so we could stand erect with our heads upon our shoulders and act like men. We called on the European families, were invited to their lawn and tennis parties, took our share in the games, or rather more often got up games of our own to enliven our hours of recreation and give pleasure to our friends. During the last year of my course a gentleman, with his wife and daughter, came to reside in the station. The daughter was about eighteen years of age, finely formed, healthy and robust, of blonde complexion, very good looking and to me, handsome. She had passed the giggling stage of girlhood, if she ever had been in it. She was well educated, intelligent and had read a number of good books.

From what I have read in English books, from what I have heard and the little I have seen, it appears that most young women and many older ones in society can dress finely, smile, giggle, dance, flirt, look pretty and be or do anything but be sensible. The chief characteristic of this young lady was her sensibleness. She seldom indulged in nonsense, but when she did there was so much wit and real fun in it as to lift it above inanity. I said she was a blonde, so my opposite, for I was rather “soso.” I have heard the story of an Eurasian who in England was with some unsophisticated girls, when one of them innocently remarked, “You are very much tanned, are you not?” “Yes, I am,” said he. “When I was in India I was out a great deal in the sun.” I think this is what has ailed me, or something or other, perhaps the other, had made my complexion the opposite of a blonde. Yet I think being opposite we were attracted to each other for that—well, no matter—what’s the use of surmising? We often met. I tried to talk as intelligently as I could to her, and I think she reciprocated my efforts, for a number of times she mentioned that she had found the books I had referred to and gave me their opinions. I liked her for this.

One holiday when we were at a tennis party, a white, or rather a reddish youth, still in the downy stage of adolescence, on a visit in the station was of the party. I was standing a little aside, but heard the youth ask the young lady to be his partner. She replied that she was going to play with Mr. Japhet. “Well,” said he, “if you prefer that Eurasian.” “You have no right to make such a remark as that,” she replied with warmth. It was not prudent for me to appear as if I had heard anything, and her choice of me and her reply helped me to restrain my anger. But I remembered the youth, and why shouldn’t I? He was not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy; “as a squash before ’tis a peas-cod, or a codling when ’tis almost an apple.”

At first I liked her for her good sense and goodness, then I admired, and then—but what’s the use of repeating the old, old story that has been so often told since Adam looked upon Eve and saw that she was good; and yet I will, for there is a pleasure in telling it—I loved her. By that electrical, unseen, unheard power or means of conveying messages from heart to heart that love has, I knew that she loved me. Nothing was said between us about it, for what need was there of telling when we both knew it all? After a while we talked as if the subject had been understood and settled for some time. I will not relate what we said, for nearly everybody knows our conversation all by heart; at least they ought to.

Then the next question was about mama and papa. My dear little mama had gone, and I was still Japhet in search of his father, so there could be no trouble on my side, but hers? Aye, there was the rub. I had my “doots,” as the Scotch say, and yet I was full of courage. She was a fair lady and my heart was not faint. I concluded to attack the weaker half of the family first, but I found my mistake, for she was the stronger of the two when it came to heart affairs, as probably many men have learned to their sorrow when dealing with what is called the weaker sex. She listened most attentively, turning red, then white and so on, the red coming like flashes of lightning. I saw this danger signal at once, but love and courage made me go on. I had formed rather a tender regard for this expected mother-in-law. So in the gentlest, most winning terms and tones I could command, I plead my case. I saw and felt I had no chance from my first word. My courage at last took to its heels and I was trembling and powerless. It was one of the hardest and most trying bits of work I ever had and I have had not a few. When I had finished she said in angry tones, repressed like water bursting from a pipe under a pressure of seventy pounds to the square inch: