How we cite our quotes: (Chapter. Paragraph)
Quote #7
'Was that Lurgan Sahib?' Kim asked as he cuddled down. No answer. He could hear the Hindu boy breathing, however, and, guided by the sound, crawled across the floor, and cuffed into the darkness, crying: 'Give answer, devil! Is this the way to lie to a Sahib?'
From the darkness he fancied he could hear the echo of a chuckle. It could not be his soft-fleshed companion, because he was weeping. So Kim lifted up his voice and called aloud: 'Lurgan Sahib! O Lurgan Sahib! Is it an order that thy servant does not speak to me?'
'It is an order.' The voice came from behind him and he started. (9.19-21)
At the beginning of this trip to Lurgan's house, Kim decides that he "would be a Sahib again for a while" (9.1). In other words, he is going to inhabit what he sees as the role of the white man. And as part of that role, he is quite rough on this Hindu boy.
It is kind of weird to see Kim—who we know was beaten up by the other kids at his awful regimental school—suddenly hitting someone else for acting under Lurgan's orders. Why do you think Kim is being so rough and tough here? Do Kim's Sahib manners continue in later scenes of the book? What does Kim's behavior in this chapter suggest to you about what it means to be a Sahib?
Quote #8
'The pony is made—finished—mouthed and paced, Sahib! From now on, day by day, he will lose his manners if he is kept at tricks. Drop the rein on his back and let go,' said the horse-dealer. 'We need him.'
'But he is so young, Mahbub—not more than sixteen—is he?'
'When I was fifteen, I had shot my man and begot my man, Sahib.'
'You impenitent old heathen!' Creighton turned to Lurgan. The black beard nodded assent to the wisdom of the Afghan's dyed scarlet.
'I should have used him long ago,' said Lurgan. 'The younger the better. That is why I always have my really valuable jewels watched by a child. You sent him to me to try. I tried him in every way: he is the only boy I could not make to see things.' (10.25-9)
Creighton worries that he is sending Kim out into the world too young, but both Mahbub Ali and Lurgan insist that Kim has to start his work as a spy young or else he will lose that flexibility that makes him such a particularly good spy. Speaking symbolically, when a person is young, they have a lot of potential to become anything, but then at a certain age, they will settle down into one thing that they are meant to be. Mahbub Ali and Lurgan do not want Kim to settle into one thing—they want to take advantage of his potential to keep shifting.
What do you think of their decision to send Kim into his highly dangerous workplace at seventeen? Is it fair to employ someone on the assumption that they will never settle down? (By the way, Mahbub Ali's comment that he "begot" his man at fifteen means that he had a son at fifteen—"begot" is an old-fashioned word for making someone pregnant.)
Quote #9
Kim paused before a filthy staircase that climbed to the warm darkness of an upper chamber, in the ward that is behind Azim Ullah's tobacco-shop. Those who know it call it The Birdcage—it is so full of whisperings and whistlings and chirrupings.
The room, with its dirty cushions and half-smoked hookahs, smelt abominably of stale tobacco. In one corner lay a huge and shapeless woman clad in greenish gauzes, and decked, brow, nose, ear, neck, wrist, arm, waist, and ankle with heavy native jewellery. When she turned it was like the clashing of copper pots. (10.77-8)
When Kim first arrives at the Birdcage and sees Huneefa lying there in her gauzy clothes, it seems like Mahbub Ali plans to introduce Kim to his sexual coming-of-age—Mahbub Ali has brought Kim to a secret place filled with tobacco and the sounds of women's voices, and it definitely appears to be a brothel. But what Mahbub Ali is actually paying Huneefa to do is to cast charms on Kim for good luck. There is a lot of sexuality in the background and between the lines of this novel, but nothing ever really happens in the main plot line of Kim.