Your
veins stick out from your poor thin hands.
AMAL. Won't you sound the gong, Watchman?
WATCHMAN. Time has not yet come.
AMAL. How curious! Some say time has not yet come, and some say
time has gone by! But surely your time will come the moment you
strike the gong!
WATCHMAN. That's not possible; I strike up the gong only when it
is time.
AMAL. Yes, I love to hear your gong. When it is midday and our
meal is over, Uncle goes off to his work and Auntie falls asleep
reading her R?mayana, and in the courtyard under the shadow of
the wall our doggie sleeps with his nose in his curled up tail;
then your gong strikes out, "Dong, dong, dong!" Tell me why does
your gong sound?
WATCHMAN. My gong sounds to tell the people, Time waits for
none, but goes on forever.
AMAL. Where, to what land?
WATCHMAN. That none knows.
AMAL. Then I suppose no one has ever been there! Oh, I do wish
to fly with the time to that land of which no one knows anything.
WATCHMAN. All of us have to get there one day, my child.
AMAL. Have I too?
WATCHMAN. Yes, you too!
AMAL. But doctor won't let me out.
WATCHMAN. One day the doctor himself may take you there by the
hand.
AMAL. He won't; you don't know him. He only keeps me in.
WATCHMAN.
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