Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:
Marfa, the General’s widow, who has been practising for ten years as a homeopathic doctor, is
seeing patients in her study. She has already seen ten patients when she calls the eleventh. The
door opens and Zamu-rishen, a neighbouring landowner who has sunk into poverty, walks into
the room. He goes up to the lady and without a word drops on one knee before her.
“What are you doing?” cries the lady in horror.
“While I live I will not rise,” says Zamu-rishen. “Let all the world see my homage on my knees,
our guardian angel, benefactress of the human race and the good fairy who has given me life! I
have recovered. I am a new man now, Madam!”
“I am very glad...” mutters the lady, flushing with pleasure.
Zamu-rishen says, “I had rheumatism. I have been in misery for eight years, I have consulted
several doctors. I have tried all sorts of mud-baths, and drunk waters, and goodness knows what
I haven’t tried! I have wasted all my money on doctors. The doctors did me nothing but harm.
They drove the disease inwards. I went home from you that Tuesday, took the three pills that
you gave me. The effect was instantaneous!”
“It’s not me, but you must thank God,” Marfa says, blushing with excitement.“There’s only one trouble: our lack of means. I’m well now, but what’s the use of health
if there’s nothing to live on? Poverty weighs on me worse than illness. It’s the time to sow
oats, but I have no money to buy the seeds.”
“I will give you oats,” says the doctor.
Zamu-rishen says, “We live in stone houses, but it’s a mere make-believe, for the roof leaks.
And there is no money to buy wood to mend it with.”
“I will give you the wood,” says Marfa.
Zamu-rishen asks for and gets a cow too, and a letter of recommendation for his daughter
whom he wants to send to a boarding school. When she has seen her patient out, Marfa’s
eyes fall on the paper just dropped by her patient. She picks up the paper, unfolds it, and
sees in it three pills – the very pills she had given Zamu-rishen the previous Tuesday.
“They are the very ones,” she thinks. “...The paper is the same....He hasn’t even unwrapped
them! What has he taken then? Strange....Surely he wouldn’t try to deceive me!”
And for the first time in her ten years of practice a doubt creeps into Marfa’s mind. She
summons the other patients, and while talking to them of their complaints, notices what has
hitherto slipped by her ears unnoticed. The patients, as though they were in a conspiracy, first
praise her for their miraculous cure, go into raptures over her medical skill, then when she is
flushed with excitement, begin holding forth on their needs. One asks for a bit of land to
plough, another for wood, a third for permission to shoot in her forests, and so on. She looks
down and a new truth begins gnawing at her heart – an evil oppressive truth – “the deceitfulness
of man!”
(a) Give the meaning of the following words as used in the passage. One word answers or short [3]
phrases will be accepted.
(i) homage (line 6)
(ii) benefactress (line 7)
(iii) make-believe (line 20)
(b) Answer the following questions briefly in your own words.
(i) How was Zamu-rishen’s rheumatism apparently cured? [1]
(ii) Why was Zamu-rishen in need of money? [2]
(iii) Explain what type of conspiracy is referred to in the passage? [2]
(iv) What did Marfa realise about her patients at the end of the passage? [2]
(v) What had Zamu-rishen done to cure himself of rheumatism before he went to Marfa? [2]
(c) In not more than 50 words, state how Marfa realises the deceitfulness of man. [8]
Please fast
Answers
Answer:
1
(a) homage: reverence (b) benefactress: patron (c) make-believe: fantasy
2
(a) Zamu rishen consulted many doctors and tried a number of treatments like mud-baths and drinking waters for eight years to cure himself of rheumatism. Zamu-rishen's rheumatism was apparently cured by tking the three pills that Marfa had given him.
(b) Zamu-rishen needed money to buy seeds to sow oats, to buy wood to repair the roof of his house and to buy a cow. He asked for letter of recommendation for getting his daughter's admission in a boarding school.
(c) Marfa was surprised to see the unopened paper containing the pills that
she had given to Zamu-rishen to cure his rhematism.
(d) The conspiracy refers to the deceit by Marfa's patients, who used to first praise her for curing them and after she became too excited on hearing her praise, would request for things of their need.
(e) Marfa came to know the truth that all along her patients have been trying to decieve her by flattery and thereby, extracting the things they needed like land, wood, food etc.
3
Marfa, a doctor, met a patient, Zamu-rishen who praised her for curing him of rheumatism with just three pills. When he left, Marfa saw a paper containing the same three pills which she had given. She realised that her patients had been deceiving her by flattery to get monetary benefits.
Explanation: