Teshoo Lama Character Analysis

Kim followed like a shadow. What he had overheard excited him wildly. This man was entirely new to all his experience, and he meant to investigate further, precisely as he would have investigated a new building or a strange festival in Lahore city. The lama was his trove, and he purposed to take possession. Kim’s mother had been Irish too.

‘Pity it is that these and such as these could not be freed from the wheel of things,’ said the lama.

‘Nay, then would only evil people be left on the earth, and who would give us meat and shelter?’ quoth Kim, stepping merrily under his burden.’

‘Yonder is a small stream. Let us look,’ said the lama, and he led from the white road across the fields; walking in a very hornets’ nest of pariah dogs.

‘It is not a good fancy,’ said the lama. ‘What profit to kill men?’

‘Very little – as I know; but if evil men were not now and then slain it would not be a good world for weaponless dreamers. I do not speak without knowledge who have seen the land from Delhi south awash with blood.’

The lama as usual, was deep in meditation, but Kim’s bright eyes were wide open. This broad, smiling river of life, he considered, was a vast improvement on the cramped and crowded Lahore streets. There were new people and new sights at every stride – castes he knew and castes that were altogether out of his experience.

‘A blessing on thee.’ The lama inclined his solemn head. ‘I have known many men in my so long life, and disciples not a few. But to none among men, if so be thou art woman-born, has my heart gone out as it has to thee – thoughtful, wise, and courteous; but something of a small imp.

‘And I have never seen such a priest as thou.’ Kim considered the benevolent face wrinkly by wrinkle. ‘It is less than three days since we took the road together, and it is as though it were a hundred years.’

This was seeing the world in real truth; this was life as he would have it – bustling and shouting, the buckling of belts, and the beating of bullocks and creaking of wheels, lighting of fires and cooking of food, and new sights at every turn of the approving eye… India was awake, and Kim was in the middle of it, more awake and more excited than anyone, chewing on a twig that he would presently use as a toothbrush; for he borrowed right-and-left-handedly from all the customs of the country he knew and loved.

Oh, it is true. I knew it since my birth, but he could only find it out by rending the amulet from my neck and reading all the papers. He thinks that once a Sahib is always a Sahib, and between them they purpose to keep me in this Regiment or to send me to a madrissah [a school].

‘And I am a follower of the Way,‘ he said bitterly. ‘The sin is mine and the punishment is mine. I made believe to myself for now I see it was but make-belief – that thou wast sent to me to aid in the Search. So my heart went out to thee for thy charity and thy courtesy and the wisdom of thy littler years. But those who follow the Way must permit not the fire of any desire or attachment, that is all Illusion. As says…’ He quoted an old, old Chinese text, backed with another, and reinforced these with a third. ‘I stepped aside from the Way, my chela. It was no fault of thine. I delighted in the sight of life, the new people upon the roads, and in thy joy at seeing these things. I was pleased with thee who should have considered my Search and my Search alone. Now I am sorrowful because thou art taken away and my River is far from me. It is the Law which I have broken!’

It was absurd that a man of his position should take an interest in a little country-bred vagabond; but the Colonel remembered the conversation in the train, and often in the past few months had caught himself thinking of the queer, silent, self-possessed boy. His evasion, of course, was the height of insolence, but it argued some resource and nerve.

1000

‘I am very old,’ he thought sleepily. ‘Every month I become a year more old. I was very young, and a fool to boot, when I took Mahbub’s message to Umballa. Even when I was with that white regiment I was very young and had no wisdom. But now I learn every day and in three years the Colonel will take me out of the madrissah and let me go upon the road with Mahbub hunting for horses’ pedigrees, or maybe I shall go by myself; or maybe I shall find the lama and go with him. Yes; that is best. To walk again as a chela with my lama when he comes back to Benares.’

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Then he stooped towards Mahbub’s feet to make proper acknowledgement with fluttering quick-patting hands; his heart too full for words. Mahbub forestalled and embraced him.

‘My son,’ said he, ‘what need of words between us? But is not the gun a delight?’

1000

‘Now I am all alone – all alone,’ he thought. ‘In all India is no one so alone as I! I if I die today, who shall bring the news – and to whom? If I live and God is good, there will be a price upon my head, for I am son of the Charm – I, Kim.’

…

‘Who is Kim – Kim – Kim?’

0110

‘I was made wise by thee, Holy One,’ said Kim, forgetting the little play just ended; forgetting St. Xavier’s; forgetting his white blood; forgetting even the Great Game as he stooped Mohammedan-fashion, to touch his master’s feet in the dust of the Jain temple. ‘My teaching I owe to thee. I have eaten thy bread three years. My time is finished. I am loosed from the schools. I come to thee.’

1100

But when they came to the Human World, busy and profitless, that is just above the Hells, his mind was distracted; for by the roadside trundled the very Wheel itself, eating, drinking, trading, marrying, and quarrelling – all warmly alive. Often the lama made the living pictures a matter of his text, bidding Kim – too ready – note how the flesh takes a thousand shapes, desirable or detestable as men reckon, but in truth of no account either way.

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‘Thy Gods are lies; thy works are lies; thy words are lies. There are no gods under all the Heavens. I know it… But for a while I thought it was my Sahib come back, and he was my God.’

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‘Thou hast said there is neither black nor white. Why plague me with this talk, Holy One? Let me rub the other foot. It vexes me. I am not a Sahib. I am thy chela, and my head is heavy on my shoulders.’

1100

So thus the Search is ended. For the merit that I have acquired, the River of the Arrow is here. It broke forth at our feet, as I have said. I have found it. Son of my Soul, I have wrenched my Soul back from the threshold of Freedom to free thee from all sin – as I am free, and sinless! Just is the Wheel! Certain is our deliverance! Come!

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