1888
THE GATE OF THE HUNDRED SORROWS
by Rudyard Kipling
Electronically Enhanced Text (c) Copyright 1996, World Library(R)
THE GATE OF THE HUNDRED SORROWS
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If I can attain Heaven for a pice, why should you be envious?
-Opium Smoker's Proverb.
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THIS is no work of mine. My friend, Gabral Misquitta, the
half-caste, spoke it all, between moonset and morning, six weeks
before he died; and I took it down from his mouth as he answered my
questions. So:-
It lies between the Coppersmith's Gully and the pipe-stem sellers'
quarter, within a hundred yards, too, as the crow flies, of the Mosque
of Wazir Khan. I don't mind telling any one this much, but I defy
him to find the Gate, however well he may think he knows the City. You
might even go through the very gully it stands in a hundred times, and
be none the wiser. We used to call the gully, 'The Gully of the
Black Smoke,' but its native name is altogether different of course. A
loaded donkey couldn't pass between the walls; and, at one point, just
before you reach the Gate, a bulged house-front makes people go
along all sideways.
It isn't really a gate, though. It's a house. Old Fung-Tching, had
it first five years ago. He was a boot-maker in Calcutta. They say
that he murdered his wife there when he was drunk. That was why he
dropped bazar-rum and took to the Black Smoke instead. Later on, he
came up north and opened the Gate as a house where you could get
your smoke in peace and quiet. Mind you, it was a pukka,
respectable opium-house, and not one of those stifling, sweltering
chandoo-khanas, that you can find all over the City. No; the old man
knew his business thoroughly, and he was most clean for a Chinaman. He
was a one-eyed little chap, not much more than five feet high, and
both his middle fingers were gone. All the same, he was the handiest
man at rolling black pills I have ever seen. Never seemed to be
touched by the Smoke, either; and what he took day and night, night
and day, was a caution. I've been at it five years, and I can do my
fair share of the Smoke with any one; but I was a child to Fung-Tching
that way. All the same, the old man was keen on his money: very
keen; and that's what I can't understand. I heard he saved a good deal
before he died, but his nephew has got all that now and the old
man's gone back to China to be buried.
He kept the big upper room, where his best customers gathered, as
neat as a new pin. In one corner used to stand Fung-Tching's Joss-
almost as ugly as Fung-Tching- and there were always sticks burning
under his nose; but you never smelt 'em when the pipes were going
thick. Opposite the Joss was Fung-Tching's coffin. He had spent a good
deal of his savings on that, and whenever a new man came to the Gate
he was always introduced to it. It was lacquered black, with red and
gold writings on it, and I've heard that Fung-Tching brought it out
all the way from China. I don't know whether that's true or not, but I
know that, if I came first in the evening, I used to spread my mat
just at the foot of it. It was a quiet corner, you see, and a sort
of breeze from the gully came in at the window now and then. Besides
the mats, there was no other furniture in the room- only the coffin,
and the old Joss all green and blue and purple with age and polish.
Fung-Tching never told us why he called the place 'The Gate of the
Hundred Sorrows.' (He was the only Chinaman I know who used
bad-sounding fancy names. Most of them are flowery. As you'll see in
Calcutta.) We used to find that out for ourselves. Nothing grows on
you so much, if you're white, as the Black Smoke. A yellow man is made
different. Opium doesn't tell on him scarcely at all; but white and
black suffer a good deal. Of course, there are some people that the
Smoke doesn't touch any more than tobacco would at first. They just
doze a bit, as one would fall asleep naturally, and next morning
they are almost fit for work. Now, I was one of that sort when I
began, but I've been at it for five years pretty steadily, and it's
different now. There was an old aunt of mine, down Agra way, and she
left me a little at her death. About sixty rupees a month secured.
Sixty isn't much. I can recollect a time, 'seems hundreds and hundreds
of years ago, that I was getting my three hundred a month, and
pickings, when I was working on a big timber-contract in Calcutta.
I didn't stick to that work for long. The Black Smoke does not allow
of much other business; and even though I am very little affected by
it, as men go, I couldn't do a day's work now to save my life. After
all, sixty rupees is what I want. When old Fung-Tching was alive he
used to draw the money for me, give me about half of it to live on
(I eat very little), and the rest he kept himself. I was free of the
Gate at any time of the day and night, and could smoke and sleep there
when I liked, so I didn't care. I know the old man made a good thing
out of it; but that's no matter. Nothing matters much to me; and
besides, the money always came fresh and fresh each month.
There was ten of us met at the Gate when the place was first opened.
Me, and two Baboos from a Government Office somewhere in Anarkulli,
but they got the sack and couldn't pay (no man who has to work in
the daylight can do the Black Smoke for any length of time straight
on); a Chinaman that was Fung-Tching's nephew; a bazar-woman that
had got a lot of money somehow; an English loafer- MacSomebody I
think, but I have forgotten- that smoked heaps, but never seemed to
pay anything (they said he had saved Fung-Tching's life at some
trial in Calcutta when he was a barrister); another Eurasian, like
myself, from Madras; a half-caste woman, and a couple of men who
said they had come from the North. I think they must have been
Persians or Afghans or something. There are not more than five of us
living now, but we come regular. I don't know what happened to the
Baboos; but the bazar-woman she died after six months of the Gate, and
I think Fung-Tching took her bangles and nose-ring for himself. But
I'm not certain. The Englishman, he drank as well as smoked, and he
dropped off. One of the Persians got killed in a row at night by the
big well near the mosque a long time ago, and the Police shut up the
well, because they said it was full of foul air. They found him dead
at the bottom of it. So you see, there is only me, the Chinaman, the
half-caste woman that we call the Memsahib (she used to live with
Fung-Tching), the other Eurasian, and one of the Persians. The
Memsahib looks very old now. I think she was a young woman when
the Gate was opened; but we are all old for the matter of that.
Hundreds and hundreds of years old. It is very hard to keep account of
time in the Gate, and, besides, time doesn't matter to me. I draw my
sixty rupees fresh and fresh every month. A very, very long while ago,
when I used to be getting three hundred and fifty rupees a month,
and pickings, on a big timber-contract at Calcutta, I had a wife of
sorts. But she's dead now. People said that I killed her by taking
to the Black Smoke. Perhaps I did, but it's so long since that it
doesn't matter. Sometimes when I first came to the Gate, I used to
feel sorry for it; but that's all over and done with long ago, and I
draw my sixty rupees fresh and fresh every month, and am quite
happy. Not drunk happy, you know, but always quiet and soothed and
contented.
How did I take to it? It began at Calcutta. I used to try it in my
own house, just to see what it was like. I never went very far, but
I think my wife must have died then. Anyhow, I found myself here,
and got to know Fung-Tching. I don't remember rightly how that came
about; but he told me of the Gate and I used to go there, and,
somehow, I have never got away from it since. Mind you, though, the
Gate was a respectable place in Fung-Tching's time where you could
be comfortable, and not at all like the chandoo-khanas where the
niggers go. No; it was clean and quiet, and not crowded. Of course,
there were others besides us ten and the man; but we always had a
mat apiece, with a wadded woollen headpiece, all covered with black
and red dragons and things; just like the coffin in the corner.
At the end of one's third pipe the dragons used to move about and
fight. I've watched 'em many and many a night through. I used to
regulate my Smoke that way, and now it takes a dozen pipes to make 'em
stir. Besides, they are all torn and dirty, like the mats, and old
Fung-Tching is dead. He died a couple of years ago, and gave me the
pipe I always use now- a silver one, with queer beasts crawling up and
down the receiver-bottle below the cup. Before that, I think, I used a
big bamboo stem with a copper cup, a very small one and a green jade
mouthpiece. It was a little thicker than a walking-stick stem, and
smoked sweet, very sweet. The bamboo seemed to suck up the smoke.
Silver doesn't, and I've got to clean it out now and then, that's a
great deal of trouble, but I smoke it for the old man's sake. He
must have made a good thing out of me, but he always gave me clean
mats and pillows, and the best stuff you could get anywhere.
When he died, his nephew Tsin-ling took up the Gate, and he called
it the 'Temple of the Three Possessions'; but we old ones speak of
it as the 'Hundred Sorrows,' all the same. The nephew does things very
shabbily, and I think the Memsahib must help him. She lives with
him; same as she used to do with the old man. The two let in all sorts
of low people, niggers and all, and the Black Smoke isn't as good as
it used to be. I've found burnt bran in my pipe over and over again.
The old man would have died if that had happened in his time. Besides,
the room is never cleaned, and all the mats are torn and cut at the
edges. The coffin is gone- gone to China again- with the old man and
two ounces of Smoke inside it, in case be should want 'em on the way.
The Joss doesn't get so many sticks burnt under his nose as he
used to; that's a sign of ill-luck, as sure as Death. He's all
brown, too, and no one ever attends to him. That's the Memsahib's
work, I know; because, when Tsin-ling tried to burn gilt paper
before him, she said it was a waste of money, and, if he kept a
stick burning very slowly, the Joss wouldn't know the difference. So
now we've got the sticks mixed with a lot of glue, and they take
half an hour longer to burn, and smell stinky. Let alone the smell
of the room by itself. No business can get on if they try that sort of
thing. The Joss doesn't like it. I can see that. Late at night,
sometimes, he turns all sorts of queer colours- blue and green and
red- just as he used to do when old Fung-Tching was alive; and he
rolls his eyes and stamps his feet like a devil.
I don't know why I don't leave the place and smoke quietly in a
little room of my own in the bazar. Most like, Tsin-ling would kill me
if I went away- he draws my sixty rupees now- and besides, it's so
much trouble, and I've grown to be very fond of the Gate. It's not
much to look at. Not what it was in the old man's time, but I couldn't
leave it. I've seen so many come in and out. And I've seen so many die
here on the mats that I should be afraid of dying in the open now.
I've seen some things that people would call strange enough; but
nothing is strange when you're on the Black Smoke, except the Black
Smoke. And if it was, it wouldn't matter. Fung-Tching used to be
very particular about his people, and never got in any one who'd
give trouble by dying messy and such. But the nephew isn't half so
careful. He tells everywhere that he keeps a 'first-chop' house. Never
tries to get men in quietly, and make them comfortable like
Fung-Tching did. That's why the Gate is getting a little bit more
known than it used to be. Among the niggers of course. The nephew
daren't get a white, or, for matter of that, a mixed skin into the
place. He has to keep us three of course- me and the Memsahib and
the other Eurasian. We're fixtures. But he wouldn't give us credit for
a pipeful- not for anything.
One of these days, I hope, I shall die in the Gate. The Persian
and the Madras man are terribly shaky now. They've got a boy to
light their pipes for them. I always do that myself. Most like, I
shall see them carried out before me: I don't think I shall ever
outlive the Memsahib or Tsin-ling. Women last longer than men at the
Black Smoke, and Tsin-ling has a deal of the old man's blood in him,
though he does smoke cheap stuff. The bazar-woman knew when she was
going two days before her time; and she died on a clean mat with a
nicely wadded pillow, and the old man hung up her pipe just above
the Joss. He was always fond of her, I fancy. But he took her
bangles just the same.
I should like to die like the bazar-woman- on a clean, cool mat with
a pipe of good stuff between my lips. When I feel I'm going, I shall
ask Tsin-ling for them, and he can draw my sixty rupees a month, fresh
and fresh, as long as he pleases. Then I shall lie back, quiet and
comfortable, and watch the black and red dragons have their last big
fight together; and then...
Well, it doesn't matter. Nothing matters much to me- only I wish
Tsin-ling wouldn't put bran into the Black Smoke.
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THE END
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