The first minutes of the movie; the first pages of the book.
'Welcome, then, O lama from Tibet. Here be the images, and I am here'--he glanced at the lama's face--'to gather knowledge. Come to my office awhile.' The old man was trembling with excitement.
The office was but a little wooden cubicle partitioned off from the sculpture-lined gallery. Kim laid himself down, his ear against a crack in the heat-split cedar door, and, following his instinct, stretched out to listen and watch.
Most of the talk was altogether above his head. The lama, haltingly at first, spoke to the Curator of his own lamassery, the Such-zen, opposite the Painted Rocks, four months' march away. The Curator brought out a huge book of photos and showed him that very place, perched on its crag, overlooking the gigantic valley of many-hued strata.
'Ay, ay!' The lama mounted a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles of Chinese work. 'Here is the little door through which we bring wood before winter. And thou--the English know of these things? He who is now Abbot of Lung-Cho told me, but I did not believe. The Lord—the Excellent One--He has honour here too? And His life is known?'
'It is all carven upon the stones. Come and see, if thou art rested.'
Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain.
Kipling's novel of India and the British empire, published in 1900.
More information here:
| Literature Daily | More of this Series |
No comments:
Post a Comment