you meet with shamchand. (Takes shamchand, the
leather strap, from the wall.)

Sadhu. My lord, the hand is only blackened by killing
a fly—your beating only injures you. I am too
mean. We——

Ray. (Angrily.) O my brother, you had better
stop; let them take what they can; our very
stomach is on the point of falling down from hunger.
The whole day is passed; we have not been able yet
either to bathe or take our food.

Amin. O rascal! where is your court now? (Twists
his ears.)

Ray. (With violent panting.) I now die! My
mother! my mother!

Wood. Beat that cursed nigger! (Beats with
shamchand.)

While this scene is enacting, Nobin Madhab
enters; he intercedes for Sadhu in vain; the
latter is led off to receive his fifty rupees in
advance, and to engage to cultivate indigo, Gopi
encouraging him with the assurance "that ashes
have fallen upon his ready-made rice;" that the
"Yama (Death, the King of Terror) of Indigo
has attacked him, and that he has no safety."

In the next scene, which is laid in "Goluk
Chunder Basu's hall," we are introduced to
Sabitri, wife of Goluk Chunder, Soirindri, wife
of Nobin, Saralota, wife of Bindu Madhab, and
Reboti, wife of Sadhu Churn. These ladies are
all models of virtue and innocence, but all
apparently yield the palm to Khetromani, who joins
them, and whose modesty is such that she is
found to have cut off the curls of her beautiful
hair, because she had heard that such adornments
were becoming only to ladies either of
rich family or loose character. In the course of
conversation it becomes apparent that the
designs of Amin upon the young lady are beginning
to develop. A woman named Podi
Moyrani, a sweetmeat-seller, noted for her intrigues,
has been to Sadhu's house that day, and Reboti,
Sadhu's wife, declares that the woman has told
her "that the young Sahib has become mad, as
it were, at seeing Khetromani, and wants to see
her in the factory." Aduri, a maid-servant in
the house, overhears the statement. Her
manners have not, apparently, that repose which
stamps the caste of her mistress. She is at
once suspicious; and doesn't care who knows
it; but the metaphorical manner in which she
expresses her feelings would be considered rather
strong on the British stage:

Aduri. Fie! fie! fie! bad smell of the onion!
Can we go to the Sahib? Fie! fie! bad smell of
the onion! I shall never be out any more alone.
I can bear every other thing, but the smell of the
onion I never could bear. Fie! fie! bad smell of
the onion!

It appears that the agent of the Sahib has
said that if Khetromani refuses to go to the
house, she will be brought away by force.
Reboti says that it is easy for the planter to carry
her away, as no ryot's wife is safe from him; the
planters, one of the other ladies says, are not
Sahibs, but they are the dregs (chandál) of
Sahibs. They then go on to say that the planters
get the magistrate to throw anybody who
offends them into prison, and here the feminine
nature breaks out into scandal. Reboti says
that "the wife of the planter, in order to make
her husband's case strong (pucca), sent a letter
to the magistrate, since it is said that the
magistrate hears her words most attentively." To
this Aduri, the waiting-maid, whose want of
repose in manner has been already noticed, adds
a frank statement of her own experience. She
says: "I saw the lady; she has no shame at
all. When the magistrate of the Zillah (whose
name occasions great terror) goes riding about
through the village, the lady also rides on horseback
with him."

The scene concludes with the elder lady telling
the two younger to go to the ghât together,
while the evening light continues, and wash
themselves; a desirable process, doubtless, for,
throughout the act, there are several allusions
to the fact that none of the characters—owing
to the hurried action of the drama—have had
time to perform their ablutions during the
day.

The second act begins with a scene at the
godown (cellar) of Begunbari Factory. Torapa
and four other ryots are discovered sitting and
abusing the planters. One says that they have
nothing for it but to submit. "Before sticks
there can be no words." This, like several other
sentences which we have marked in italics, is an
aphorism in common use, and must not be
understood as arising from the ready wit of the
ryot. Another says that they must assert
themselves: "By speaking the truth we shall ride on
horseback" The planters, he says, always get
a good magistrate removed as soon as they can.
In a district of which they are speaking, he says
that the planters prepared a dinner for the
magistrate, in order to get him into their power;
but he concealed himself like a stolen cow, and
would not go. He was a person of good family.
Why should he go to the dinner? The planters
are the low people of Belata, or England. Yet
a former governor allowed himself to be feasted
at the factories, like a bridegroom before the
celebration of his marriage. Some of their
number have composed some verses, which are
quoted in the course of conversation. One
is:

The man with eyes like those of the cat, is an
ignorant fool:
So the indigo of the indigo factory is an instrument
of punishment.

We must confess that we do not see the bearing
of the above. As a late facetious judge remarked
of another judge, who had been "trying" a
joke: "His lordship has reserved the point."
Another quotation is more comprehensible:

The missionaries have destroyed the caste;
The factory-monkeys have destroyed the rice.

The conference is disturbed by the entrance
of Gopi Churn, the Dewan, with Mr. Rose, a
planter, carrying his ramkanta: an instrument
much resembling shamchand. The ryots are all
beaten and kicked, and one of them falls in a
position described in the stage direction as
"upside down on the ground."