“There was not, but there may be when you have written a poem. You are our hero; the whole city is behind you, irrespective of creed.”
“I know, but will it last?”
“I fear not,” said Das, who had much mental clearness. “And for that reason, if I may say so, do not introduce too many Persian expressions into the poem, and not too much about the bulbul.”
“Half a sec,” said Aziz, biting his pencil. He was writing out a prescription. “Here you are. . . . Is not this better than a poem?”
“Happy the man who can compose both.”
“You are full of compliments to-day.”
“I know you bear me a grudge for trying that case,” said the other, stretching out his hand impulsively. “You are so kind and friendly, but always I detect irony beneath your manner.”
“No, no, what nonsense!” protested Aziz. They shook hands, in a half-embrace that typified the entente. Between people of distant climes there is always the possibility of romance, but the various branches of Indians know too much about each other to surmount the unknowable easily. The approach is prosaic. “Excellent,” said Aziz, patting a stout shoulder and thinking, “I wish they did not remind me of cow-dung”; Das thought, “Some Moslems are very violent.” They smiled wistfully, each spying the thought in the other’s heart, and Das, the more articulate, said: “Excuse my mistakes, realize my limitations. Life is not easy as we know it on the earth.”
“Oh, well, about this poem—how did you hear I sometimes scribbled?” he asked, much pleased, and a good deal moved—for literature had always been a solace to him, something that the ugliness of facts could not spoil.
“Professor Godbole often mentioned it, before his departure for Mau.”