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Title: A Passage to India

Author: E. M. Forster

Release Date: January 22, 2020 [EBook #61221]

Language: English

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 A PASSAGE TO INDIA

BY

E. M. FORSTER
Author of “Howards End,” “A Room with a View,” etc.

SECOND IMPRESSION

LONDON
EDWARD ARNOLD & CO.
1924
 BY THE SAME WRITER:
WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD
THE LONGEST JOURNEY
A ROOM WITH A VIEW
HOWARDS END
THE CELESTIAL OMNIBUS
PHAROS AND PHARILLON

Made and Printed in Great Britain by

Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London
Copyright in U.S.A.

TO
SYED ROSS MASOOD
AND TO THE SEVENTEEN YEARS OF OUR FRIENDSHIP
 CONTENTS

PART I: MOSQUE

CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI

PART II: CAVES

CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
 CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXXI
CHAPTER XXXII

PART III: TEMPLE

CHAPTER XXXIII
CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXV
CHAPTER XXXVI
CHAPTER XXXVII

A PASSAGE TO INDIA
PART I: MOSQUE
 CHAPTER I

Except for the Marabar Caves—and they are twenty miles off—the city
of Chandrapore presents nothing extraordinary. Edged rather than washed
by the river Ganges, it trails for a couple of miles along the bank, scarcely
distinguishable from the rubbish it deposits so freely. There are no bathing-
steps on the river front, as the Ganges happens not to be holy here; indeed
there is no river front, and bazaars shut out the wide and shifting panorama
of the stream. The streets are mean, the temples ineffective, and though a
few fine houses exist they are hidden away in gardens or down alleys whose
filth deters all but the invited guest. Chandrapore was never large or
beautiful, but two hundred years ago it lay on the road between Upper
India, then imperial, and the sea, and the fine houses date from that period.
The zest for decoration stopped in the eighteenth century, nor was it ever
democratic. There is no painting and scarcely any carving in the bazaars.
The very wood seems made of mud, the inhabitants of mud moving. So
abased, so monotonous is everything that meets the eye, that when the
Ganges comes down it might be expected to wash the excrescence back into
the soil. Houses do fall, people are drowned and left rotting, but the general
outline of the town persists, swelling here, shrinking there, like some low
but indestructible form of life.

Inland, the prospect alters. There is an oval Maidan, and a long sallow
hospital. Houses belonging to Eurasians stand on the high ground by the
railway station. Beyond the railway—which runs parallel to the river—the
land sinks, then rises again rather steeply. On the second rise is laid out the
little civil station, and viewed hence Chandrapore appears to be a totally
different place. It is a city of gardens. It is no city, but a forest sparsely
scattered with huts. It is a tropical pleasaunce washed by a noble river. The
toddy palms and neem trees and mangoes and pepul that were hidden
behind the bazaars now become visible and in their turn hide the bazaars.
They rise from the gardens where ancient tanks nourish them, they burst out
of stifling purlieus and unconsidered temples. Seeking, light and air, and
endowed with more strength than man or his works, they soar above the
lower deposit to greet one another with branches and beckoning leaves, and
to build a city for the birds. Especially after the rains do they screen what
passes below, but at all times, even when scorched or leafless, they glorify
the city to the English people who inhabit the rise, so that new-comers
cannot believe it to be as meagre as it is described, and have to be driven
down to acquire disillusionment. As for the civil station itself, it provokes
no emotion. It charms not, neither does it repel. It is sensibly planned, with
a red-brick club on its brow, and farther back a grocer’s and a cemetery, and
the bungalows are disposed along roads that intersect at right angles. It has
nothing hideous in it, and only the view is beautiful; it shares nothing with
the city except the overarching sky.

The sky too has its changes, but they are less marked than those of the
vegetation and the river. Clouds map it up at times, but it is normally a
dome of blending tints, and the main tint blue. By day the blue will pale
down into white where it touches the white of the land, after sunset it has a
new circumference—orange, melting upwards into tenderest purple. But the
core of blue persists, and so it is by night. Then the stars hang like lamps
from the immense vault. The distance between the vault and them is as
nothing to the distance behind them, and that farther distance, though
beyond colour, last freed itself from blue.

The sky settles everything—not only climates and seasons but when the
earth shall be beautiful. By herself she can do little—only feeble outbursts
of flowers. But when the sky chooses, glory can rain into the Chandrapore
bazaars or a benediction pass from horizon to horizon. The sky can do this
because it is so strong and so enormous. Strength comes from the sun,
infused in it daily, size from the prostrate earth. No mountains infringe on
the curve. League after league the earth lies flat, heaves a little, is flat again.
Only in the south, where a group of fists and fingers are thrust up through
the soil, is the endless expanse interrupted. These fists and fingers are the
Marabar Hills, containing the extraordinary caves.
 CHAPTER II

Abandoning his bicycle, which fell before a servant could catch it, the
young man sprang up on to the verandah. He was all animation.
“Hamidullah, Hamidullah! am I late?” he cried.

“Do not apologize,” said his host. “You are always late.”

“Kindly answer my question. Am I late? Has Mahmoud Ali eaten all the
food? If so I go elsewhere. Mr. Mahmoud Ali, how are you?”

“Thank you, Dr. Aziz, I am dying.”

“Dying before your dinner? Oh, poor Mahmoud Ali!”

“Hamidullah here is actually dead. He passed away just as you rode up

on your bike.”

“Yes, that is so,” said the other. “Imagine us both as addressing you from
another and a happier world.”

“Does there happen to be such a thing as a hookah in that happier world

of yours?”

“Aziz, don’t chatter. We are having a very sad talk.”

The hookah had been packed too tight, as was usual in his friend’s house,
and bubbled sulkily. He coaxed it. Yielding at last, the tobacco jetted up
into his lungs and nostrils, driving out the smoke of burning cow dung that
had filled them as he rode through the bazaar. It was delicious. He lay in a
trance, sensuous but healthy, through which the talk of the two others did
not seem particularly sad—they were discussing as to whether or no it is
possible to be friends with an Englishman. Mahmoud Ali argued that it was
not, Hamidullah disagreed, but with so many reservations that there was no
friction between them. Delicious indeed to lie on the broad verandah with
the moon rising in front and the servants preparing dinner behind, and no
trouble happening.

“Well, look at my own experience this morning.”

“I only contend that it is possible in England,” replied Hamidullah, who

had been to that country long ago, before the big rush, and had received a
cordial welcome at Cambridge.

“It is impossible here. Aziz! The red-nosed boy has again insulted me in
Court. I do not blame him. He was told that he ought to insult me. Until
lately he was quite a nice boy, but the others have got hold of him.”

“Yes, they have no chance here, that is my point. They come out
intending to be gentlemen, and are told it will not do. Look at Lesley, look
at Blakiston, now it is your red-nosed boy, and Fielding will go next. Why, I
remember when Turton came out first. It was in another part of the
Province. You fellows will not believe me, but I have driven with Turton in
his carriage—Turton! Oh yes, we were once quite intimate. He has shown
me his stamp collection.”

“He would expect you to steal it now. Turton! But red-nosed boy will be
far worse than Turton!”

“I do not think so. They all become exactly the same, not worse, not
better. I give any Englishman two years, be he Turton or Burton. It is only
the difference of a letter. And I give any Englishwoman six months. All are
exactly alike. Do you not agree with me?”

“I do not,” replied Mahmoud Ali, entering into the bitter fun, and feeling
both pain and amusement at each word that was uttered. “For my own part I
find such profound differences among our rulers. Red-nose mumbles,
Turton talks distinctly, Mrs. Turton takes bribes, Mrs. Red-nose does not
and cannot, because so far there is no Mrs. Red-nose.”

“Bribes?”
 “Did you not know that when they were lent to Central India over a
Canal Scheme, some Rajah or other gave her a sewing machine in solid
gold so that the water should run through his state.”

“And does it?”

“No, that is where Mrs. Turton is so skilful. When we poor blacks take
bribes, we perform what we are bribed to perform, and the law discovers us
in consequence. The English take and do nothing. I admire them.”

“We all admire them. Aziz, please pass me the hookah.”

“Oh, not yet—hookah is so jolly now.”

“You are a very selfish boy.” He raised his voice suddenly, and shouted
for dinner. Servants shouted back that it was ready. They meant that they
wished it was ready, and were so understood, for nobody moved. Then
Hamidullah continued, but with changed manner and evident emotion.

“But take my case—the case of young Hugh Bannister. Here is the son of
my dear, my dead friends, the Reverend and Mrs. Bannister, whose
goodness to me in England I shall never forget or describe. They were
father and mother to me, I talked to them as I do now. In the vacations their
Rectory became my home. They entrusted all their children to me—I often
carried little Hugh about—I took him up to the Funeral of Queen Victoria,
and held him in my arms above the crowd.”

“Queen Victoria was different,” murmured Mahmoud Ali.

“I learn now that this boy is in business as a leather merchant at

Cawnpore. Imagine how I long to see him and to pay his fare that this house
may be his home. But it is useless. The other Anglo-Indians will have got
hold of him long ago. He will probably think that I want something, and I
cannot face that from the son of my old friends. Oh, what in this country
has gone wrong with everything, Vakil Sahib? I ask you.”

Aziz joined in. “Why talk about the English? Brrrr . . . ! Why be either
friends with the fellows or not friends? Let us shut them out and be jolly.
Queen Victoria and Mrs. Bannister were the only exceptions, and they’re
dead.”

“No, no, I do not admit that, I have met others.”

“So have I,” said Mahmoud Ali, unexpectedly veering. “All ladies are far
from alike.” Their mood was changed, and they recalled little kindnesses
and courtesies. “She said ‘Thank you so much’ in the most natural way.”
“She offered me a lozenge when the dust irritated my throat.” Hamidullah
could remember more important examples of angelic ministration, but the
other, who only knew Anglo-India, had to ransack his memory for scraps,
and it was not surprising that he should return to “But of course all this is
exceptional. The exception does not prove the rule. The average woman is
like Mrs. Turton, and, Aziz, you know what she is.” Aziz did not know, but
said he did. He too generalized from his disappointments—it is difficult for
members of a subject race to do otherwise. Granted the exceptions, he
agreed that all Englishwomen are haughty and venal. The gleam passed
from the conversation, whose wintry surface unrolled and expanded
interminably.

A servant announced dinner. They ignored him. The elder men had
reached their eternal politics, Aziz drifted into the garden. The trees smelt
sweet—green-blossomed champak—and scraps of Persian poetry came into
his head. Dinner, dinner, dinner . . . but when he returned to the house for it,
Mahmoud Ali had drifted away in his turn, to speak to his sais. “Come and
see my wife a little then,” said Hamidullah, and they spent twenty minutes
behind the purdah. Hamidullah Begum was a distant aunt of Aziz, and the
only female relative he had in Chandrapore, and she had much to say to him
on this occasion about a family circumcision that had been celebrated with
imperfect pomp. It was difficult to get away, because until they had had
their dinner she would not begin hers, and consequently prolonged her
remarks in case they should suppose she was impatient. Having censured
the circumcision, she bethought her of kindred topics, and asked Aziz when
he was going to be married.

Respectful but irritated, he answered, “Once is enough.”

 “Yes, he has done his duty,” said Hamidullah. “Do not tease him so. He
carries on his family, two boys and their sister.”

“Aunt, they live most comfortably with my wife’s mother, where she was
living when she died. I can see them whenever I like. They are such very,
very small children.”

“And he sends them the whole of his salary and lives like a low-grade
clerk, and tells no one the reason. What more do you require him to do?”

But this was not Hamidullah Begum’s point, and having courteously
changed the conversation for a few moments she returned and made it. She
said, “What is to become of all our daughters if men refuse to marry? They
will marry beneath them, or——” And she began the oft-told tale of a lady
of Imperial descent who could find no husband in the narrow circle where
her pride permitted her to mate, and had lived on unwed, her age now thirty,
and would die unwed, for no one would have her now. While the tale was in
progress, it convinced the two men, the tragedy seemed a slur on the whole
community; better polygamy almost, than that a woman should die without
the joys God has intended her to receive. Wedlock, motherhood, power in
the house—for what else is she born, and how can the man who has denied
them to her stand up to face her creator and his own at the last day? Aziz
took his leave saying “Perhaps . . . but later . . .” —his invariable reply to
such an appeal.

“You mustn’t put off what you think right,” said Hamidullah. “That is
why India is in such a plight, because we put off things.” But seeing that his
young relative looked worried, he added a few soothing words, and thus
wiped out any impression that his wife might have made.

During their absence, Mahmoud Ali had gone off in his carriage leaving
a message that he should be back in five minutes, but they were on no
account to wait. They sat down to meat with a distant cousin of the house,
Mohammed Latif, who lived on Hamidullah’s bounty and who occupied the
position neither of a servant nor of an equal. He did not speak unless spoken
to, and since no one spoke kept unoffended silence. Now and then he
belched, in compliment to the richness of the food. A gentle, happy and
dishonest old man; all his life he had never done a stroke of work. So long
as some one of his relatives had a house he was sure of a home, and it was
unlikely that so large a family would all go bankrupt. His wife led a similar
existence some hundreds of miles away—he did not visit her, owing to the
expense of the railway ticket. Presently Aziz chaffed him, also the servants,
and then began quoting poetry, Persian, Urdu, a little Arabic. His memory
was good, and for so young a man he had read largely; the themes he
preferred were the decay of Islam and the brevity of love. They listened
delighted, for they took the public view of poetry, not the private which
obtains in England. It never bored them to hear words, words; they breathed
them with the cool night air, never stopping to analyse; the name of the
poet, Hafiz, Hali, Iqbal, was sufficient guarantee. India—a hundred Indias
—whispered outside beneath the indifferent moon, but for the time India
seemed one and their own, and they regained their departed greatness by
hearing its departure lamented, they felt young again because reminded that
youth must fly. A servant in scarlet interrupted him; he was the chuprassi of
the Civil Surgeon, and he handed Aziz a note.

“Old Callendar wants to see me at his bungalow,” he said, not rising. “He
might have the politeness to say why.”

“Some case, I daresay.”

“I daresay not, I daresay nothing. He has found out our dinner hour, that’s
all, and chooses to interrupt us every time, in order to show his power.”

“On the one hand he always does this, on the other it may be a serious
case, and you cannot know,” said Hamidullah, considerately paving the way
towards obedience. “Had you not better clean your teeth after pan?”

“If my teeth are to be cleaned, I don’t go at all. I am an Indian, it is an

Indian habit to take pan. The Civil Surgeon must put up with it. Mohammed
Latif, my bike, please.”

The poor relation got up. Slightly immersed in the realms of matter, he
laid his hand on the bicycle’s saddle, while a servant did the actual
wheeling. Between them they took it over a tintack. Aziz held his hands
under the ewer, dried them, fitted on his green felt hat, and then with
unexpected energy whizzed out of Hamidullah’s compound.
 “Aziz, Aziz, imprudent boy. . . .” But he was far down the bazaar, riding
furiously. He had neither light nor bell nor had he a brake, but what use are
such adjuncts in a land where the cyclist’s only hope is to coast from face to
face, and just before he collides with each it vanishes? And the city was
fairly empty at this hour. When his tyre went flat, he leapt off and shouted
for a tonga.

He did not at first find one, and he had also to dispose of his bicycle at a
friend’s house. He dallied furthermore to clean his teeth. But at last he was
rattling towards the civil lines, with a vivid sense of speed. As he entered
their arid tidiness, depression suddenly seized him. The roads, named after
victorious generals and intersecting at right angles, were symbolic of the net
Great Britain had thrown over India. He felt caught in their meshes. When
he turned into Major Callendar’s compound he could with difficulty restrain
himself from getting down from the tonga and approaching the bungalow
on foot, and this not because his soul was servile but because his feelings—
the sensitive edges of him—feared a gross snub. There had been a “case”
last year—an Indian gentleman had driven up to an official’s house and
been turned back by the servants and been told to approach more suitably—
only one case among thousands of visits to hundreds of officials, but its
fame spread wide. The young man shrank from a repetition of it. He
compromised, and stopped the driver just outside the flood of light that fell
across the verandah.

The Civil Surgeon was out.

“But the sahib has left me some message?”

The servant returned an indifferent “No.” Aziz was in despair. It was a

servant whom he had forgotten to tip, and he could do nothing now because
there were people in the hall. He was convinced that there was a message,
and that the man was withholding it out of revenge. While they argued, the
people came out. Both were ladies. Aziz lifted his hat. The first, who was in
evening dress, glanced at the Indian and turned instinctively away.

“Mrs. Lesley, it is a tonga,” she cried.

“Ours?” enquired the second, also seeing Aziz, and doing likewise.
 “Take the gifts the gods provide, anyhow,” she screeched, and both
jumped in. “O Tonga wallah, club, club. Why doesn’t the fool go?”

“Go, I will pay you to-morrow,” said Aziz to the driver, and as they went
off he called courteously, “You are most welcome, ladies.” They did not
reply, being full of their own affairs.

So it had come, the usual thing—just as Mahmoud Ali said. The

inevitable snub—his bow ignored, his carriage taken. It might have been
worse, for it comforted him somehow that Mesdames Callendar and Lesley
should both be fat and weigh the tonga down behind. Beautiful women
would have pained him. He turned to the servant, gave him a couple of
rupees, and asked again whether there was a message. The man, now very
civil, returned the same answer. Major Callendar had driven away half an
hour before.

“Saying nothing?”

He had as a matter of fact said, “Damn Aziz”—words that the servant

understood, but was too polite to repeat. One can tip too much as well as
too little, indeed the coin that buys the exact truth has not yet been minted.

“Then I will write him a letter.”

He was offered the use of the house, but was too dignified to enter it.
Paper and ink were brought on to the verandah. He began: “Dear Sir,—At
your express command I have hastened as a subordinate should——” and
then stopped. “Tell him I have called, that is sufficient,” he said, tearing the
protest up. “Here is my card. Call me a tonga.”

“Huzoor, all are at the club.”

“Then telephone for one down to the railway station.” And since the man
hastened to do this he said, “Enough, enough, I prefer to walk.” He
commandeered a match and lit a cigarette. These attentions, though
purchased, soothed him. They would last as long as he had rupees, which is
something. But to shake the dust of Anglo-India off his feet! To escape
from the net and be back among manners and gestures that he knew! He
began a walk, an unwonted exercise.

He was an athletic little man, daintily put together, but really very strong.
Nevertheless walking fatigued him, as it fatigues everyone in India except
the new-comer. There is something hostile in that soil. It either yields, and
the foot sinks into a depression, or else it is unexpectedly rigid and sharp,
pressing stones or crystals against the tread. A series of these little surprises
exhausts; and he was wearing pumps, a poor preparation for any country. At
the edge of the civil station he turned into a mosque to rest.

He had always liked this mosque. It was gracious, and the arrangement
pleased him. The courtyard—entered through a ruined gate—contained an
ablution tank of fresh clear water, which was always in motion, being
indeed part of a conduit that supplied the city. The courtyard was paved
with broken slabs. The covered part of the mosque was deeper than is usual;
its effect was that of an English parish church whose side has been taken
out. Where he sat, he looked into three arcades whose darkness was
illuminated by a small hanging lamp and by the moon. The front—in full
moonlight—had the appearance of marble, and the ninety-nine names of
God on the frieze stood out black, as the frieze stood out white against the
sky. The contest between this dualism and the contention of shadows within
pleased Aziz, and he tried to symbolize the whole into some truth of
religion or love. A mosque by winning his approval let loose his
imagination. The temple of another creed, Hindu, Christian, or Greek,
would have bored him and failed to awaken his sense of beauty. Here was
Islam, his own country, more than a Faith, more than a battle-cry, more,
much more . . . Islam, an attitude towards life both exquisite and durable,
where his body and his thoughts found their home.

His seat was the low wall that bounded the courtyard on the left. The
ground fell away beneath him towards the city, visible as a blur of trees, and
in the stillness he heard many small sounds. On the right, over in the club,
the English community contributed an amateur orchestra. Elsewhere some
Hindus were drumming—he knew they were Hindus, because the rhythm
was uncongenial to him,—and others were bewailing a corpse—he knew
whose, having certified it in the afternoon. There were owls, the Punjab
mail . . . and flowers smelt deliciously in the station-master’s garden. But
the mosque—that alone signified, and he returned to it from the complex
appeal of the night, and decked it with meanings the builder had never
intended. Some day he too would build a mosque, smaller than this but in
perfect taste, so that all who passed by should experience the happiness he
felt now. And near it, under a low dome, should be his tomb, with a Persian
inscription:

Alas, without me for thousands of years

The Rose will blossom and the Spring will bloom,
But those who have secretly understood my heart—
They will approach and visit the grave where I lie.

He had seen the quatrain on the tomb of a Deccan king, and regarded it
as profound philosophy—he always held pathos to be profound. The secret
understanding of the heart! He repeated the phrase with tears in his eyes,
and as he did so one of the pillars of the mosque seemed to quiver. It
swayed in the gloom and detached itself. Belief in ghosts ran in his blood,
but he sat firm. Another pillar moved, a third, and then an Englishwoman
stepped out into the moonlight. Suddenly he was furiously angry and
shouted: “Madam! Madam! Madam!”

“Oh! Oh!” the woman gasped.

“Madam, this is a mosque, you have no right here at all; you should have
taken off your shoes; this is a holy place for Moslems.”

“I have taken them off.”

“You have?”

“I left them at the entrance.”

“Then I ask your pardon.”

Still startled, the woman moved out, keeping the ablution-tank between
them. He called after her, “I am truly sorry for speaking.”
 “Yes, I was right, was I not? If I remove my shoes, I am allowed?”

“Of course, but so few ladies take the trouble, especially if thinking no
one is there to see.”

“That makes no difference. God is here.”

“Madam!”

“Please let me go.”

“Oh, can I do you some service now or at any time?”

“No, thank you, really none—good night.”

“May I know your name?”

She was now in the shadow of the gateway, so that he could not see her
face, but she saw his, and she said with a change of voice, “Mrs. Moore.”

“Mrs.——” Advancing, he found that she was old.

A fabric bigger than the mosque fell to pieces, and he did not know
whether he was glad or sorry. She was older than Hamidullah Begum, with
a red face and white hair. Her voice had deceived him.

“Mrs. Moore, I am afraid I startled you. I shall tell my community—our

friends—about you. That God is here—very good, very fine indeed. I think
you are newly arrived in India.”

“Yes—how did you know?”

“By the way you address me. No, but can I call you a carriage?”

“I have only come from the club. They are doing a play that I have seen
in London, and it was so hot.”

“What was the name of the play?”

 “Cousin Kate.”

“I think you ought not to walk at night alone, Mrs. Moore. There are bad
characters about and leopards may come across from the Marabar Hills.
Snakes also.”

She exclaimed; she had forgotten the snakes.

“For example, a six-spot beetle,” he continued, “You pick it up, it bites,

you die.”

“But you walk about yourself.”

“Oh, I am used to it.”

“Used to snakes?”

They both laughed. “I’m a doctor,” he said. “Snakes don’t dare bite me.”
They sat down side by side in the entrance, and slipped on their evening
shoes. “Please may I ask you a question now? Why do you come to India at
this time of year, just as the cold weather is ending?”

“I intended to start earlier, but there was an unavoidable delay.”

“It will soon be so unhealthy for you! And why ever do you come to
Chandrapore?”

“To visit my son. He is the City Magistrate here.”

“Oh no, excuse me, that is quite impossible. Our City Magistrate’s name
is Mr. Heaslop. I know him intimately.”

“He’s my son all the same,” she said, smiling.

“But, Mrs. Moore, how can he be?”

“I was married twice.”

“Yes, now I see, and your first husband died.”

 “He did, and so did my second husband.”

“Then we are in the same box,” he said cryptically. “Then is the City
Magistrate the entire of your family now?”

“No, there are the younger ones—Ralph and Stella in England.”

“And the gentleman here, is he Ralph and Stella’s half-brother?”

“Quite right.”

“Mrs. Moore, this is all extremely strange, because like yourself I have
also two sons and a daughter. Is not this the same box with a vengeance?”

“What are their names? Not also Ronny, Ralph, and Stella, surely?”

The suggestion delighted him. “No, indeed. How funny it sounds! Their
names are quite different and will surprise you. Listen, please. I am about to
tell you my children’s names. The first is called Ahmed, the second is called
Karim, the third—she is the eldest—Jamila. Three children are enough. Do
not you agree with me?”

“I do.”

They were both silent for a little, thinking of their respective families.
She sighed and rose to go.

“Would you care to see over the Minto Hospital one morning?” he
enquired. “I have nothing else to offer at Chandrapore.”

“Thank you, I have seen it already, or I should have liked to come with
you very much.”

“I suppose the Civil Surgeon took you.”

“Yes, and Mrs. Callendar.”

His voice altered. “Ah! A very charming lady.”

 “Possibly, when one knows her better.”

“What? What? You didn’t like her?”

“She was certainly intending to be kind, but I did not find her exactly
charming.”

He burst out with: “She has just taken my tonga without my permission
—do you call that being charming?—and Major Callendar interrupts me
night after night from where I am dining with my friends and I go at once,
breaking up a most pleasant entertainment, and he is not there and not even
a message. Is this charming, pray? But what does it matter? I can do
nothing and he knows it. I am just a subordinate, my time is of no value, the
verandah is good enough for an Indian, yes, yes, let him stand, and Mrs.
Callendar takes my carriage and cuts me dead . . .”

She listened.

He was excited partly by his wrongs, but much more by the knowledge
that someone sympathized with them. It was this that led him to repeat,
exaggerate, contradict. She had proved her sympathy by criticizing her
fellow-countrywoman to him, but even earlier he had known. The flame
that not even beauty can nourish was springing up, and though his words
were querulous his heart began to glow secretly. Presently it burst into
speech.

“You understand me, you know what others feel. Oh, if others resembled
you!”

Rather surprised, she replied: “I don’t think I understand people very

well. I only know whether I like or dislike them.”

“Then you are an Oriental.”

She accepted his escort back to the club, and said at the gate that she
wished she was a member, so that she could have asked him in.
 “Indians are not allowed into the Chandrapore Club even as guests,” he
said simply. He did not expatiate on his wrongs now, being happy. As he
strolled downhill beneath the lovely moon, and again saw the lovely
mosque, he seemed to own the land as much as anyone owned it. What did
it matter if a few flabby Hindus had preceded him there, and a few chilly
English succeeded?
 CHAPTER III

The third act of Cousin Kate was well advanced by the time Mrs. Moore
re-entered the club. Windows were barred, lest the servants should see their
mem-sahibs acting, and the heat was consequently immense. One electric
fan revolved like a wounded bird, another was out of order. Disinclined to
return to the audience, she went into the billiard room, where she was
greeted by “I want to see the real India,” and her appropriate life came back
with a rush. This was Adela Quested, the queer, cautious girl whom Ronny
had commissioned her to bring from England, and Ronny was her son, also
cautious, whom Miss Quested would probably though not certainly marry,
and she herself was an elderly lady.

“I want to see it too, and I only wish we could. Apparently the Turtons
will arrange something for next Tuesday.”

“It’ll end in an elephant ride, it always does. Look at this evening. Cousin
Kate! Imagine, Cousin Kate! But where have you been off to? Did you
succeed in catching the moon in the Ganges?”

The two ladies had happened, the night before, to see the moon’s
reflection in a distant channel of the stream. The water had drawn it out, so
that it had seemed larger than the real moon, and brighter, which had
pleased them.

“I went to the mosque, but I did not catch the moon.”

“The angle would have altered—she rises later.”

“Later and later,” yawned Mrs. Moore, who was tired after her walk. “Let
me think—we don’t see the other side of the moon out here, no.”

“Come, India’s not as bad as all that,” said a pleasant voice. “Other side
of the earth, if you like, but we stick to the same old moon.” Neither of
them knew the speaker nor did they ever see him again. He passed with his
friendly word through red-brick pillars into the darkness.

“We aren’t even seeing the other side of the world; that’s our complaint,”
said Adela. Mrs. Moore agreed; she too was disappointed at the dullness of
their new life. They had made such a romantic voyage across the
Mediterranean and through the sands of Egypt to the harbour of Bombay, to
find only a gridiron of bungalows at the end of it. But she did not take the
disappointment as seriously as Miss Quested, for the reason that she was
forty years older, and had learnt that Life never gives us what we want at
the moment that we consider appropriate. Adventures do occur, but not
punctually. She said again that she hoped that something interesting would
be arranged for next Tuesday.

“Have a drink,” said another pleasant voice. “Mrs. Moore—Miss

Quested—have a drink, have two drinks.” They knew who it was this time
—the Collector, Mr. Turton, with whom they had dined. Like themselves,
he had found the atmosphere of Cousin Kate too hot. Ronny, he told them,
was stage-managing in place of Major Callendar, whom some native
subordinate or other had let down, and doing it very well; then he turned to
Ronny’s other merits, and in quiet, decisive tones said much that was
flattering. It wasn’t that the young man was particularly good at the games
or the lingo, or that he had much notion of the Law, but—apparently a large
but—Ronny was dignified.

Mrs. Moore was surprised to learn this, dignity not being a quality with
which any mother credits her son. Miss Quested learnt it with anxiety, for
she had not decided whether she liked dignified men. She tried indeed to
discuss this point with Mr. Turton, but he silenced her with a good-
humoured motion of his hand, and continued what he had come to say. “The
long and the short of it is Heaslop’s a sahib; he’s the type we want, he’s one
of us,” and another civilian who was leaning over the billiard table said,
“Hear, hear!” The matter was thus placed beyond doubt, and the Collector
passed on, for other duties called him.

Meanwhile the performance ended, and the amateur orchestra played the
National Anthem. Conversation and billiards stopped, faces stiffened. It was
the Anthem of the Army of Occupation. It reminded every member of the
club that he or she was British and in exile. It produced a little sentiment
and a useful accession of will-power. The meagre tune, the curt series of
demands on Jehovah, fused into a prayer unknown in England, and though
they perceived neither Royalty nor Deity they did perceive something, they
were strengthened to resist another day. Then they poured out, offering one
another drinks.

“Adela, have a drink; mother, a drink.”

They refused—they were weary of drinks—and Miss Quested, who

always said exactly what was in her mind, announced anew that she was
desirous of seeing the real India.

Ronny was in high spirits. The request struck him as comic, and he called
out to another passer-by: “Fielding! how’s one to see the real India?”

“Try seeing Indians,” the man answered, and vanished.

“Who was that?”

“Our schoolmaster—Government College.”

“As if one could avoid seeing them,” sighed Mrs. Lesley.

“I’ve avoided,” said Miss Quested. “Excepting my own servant, I’ve

scarcely spoken to an Indian since landing.”

“Oh, lucky you.”

“But I want to see them.”

She became the centre of an amused group of ladies. One said, “Wanting
to see Indians! How new that sounds!” Another, “Natives! why, fancy!” A
third, more serious, said, “Let me explain. Natives don’t respect one any the
more after meeting one, you see.”

“That occurs after so many meetings.”

 But the lady, entirely stupid and friendly, continued: “What I mean is, I
was a nurse before my marriage, and came across them a great deal, so I
know. I really do know the truth about Indians. A most unsuitable position
for any Englishwoman—I was a nurse in a Native State. One’s only hope
was to hold sternly aloof.”

“Even from one’s patients?”

“Why, the kindest thing one can do to a native is to let him die,” said
Mrs. Callendar.

“How if he went to heaven?” asked Mrs. Moore, with a gentle but

crooked smile.

“He can go where he likes as long as he doesn’t come near me. They give
me the creeps.”

“As a matter of fact I have thought what you were saying about heaven,
and that is why I am against Missionaries,” said the lady who had been a
nurse. “I am all for Chaplains, but all against Missionaries. Let me explain.”

But before she could do so, the Collector intervened.

“Do you really want to meet the Aryan Brother, Miss Quested? That can
be easily fixed up. I didn’t realize he’d amuse you.” He thought a moment.
“You can practically see any type you like. Take your choice. I know the
Government people and the landowners, Heaslop here can get hold of the
barrister crew, while if you want to specialize on education, we can come
down on Fielding.”

“I’m tired of seeing picturesque figures pass before me as a frieze,” the

girl explained. “It was wonderful when we landed, but that superficial
glamour soon goes.”

Her impressions were of no interest to the Collector; he was only

concerned to give her a good time. Would she like a Bridge Party? He
explained to her what that was—not the game, but a party to bridge the gulf
between East and West; the expression was his own invention, and amused
all who heard it.

“I only want those Indians whom you come across socially—as your
friends.”

“Well, we don’t come across them socially,” he said, laughing. “They’re

full of all the virtues, but we don’t, and it’s now eleven-thirty, and too late
to go into the reasons.”

“Miss Quested, what a name!” remarked Mrs. Turton to her husband as

they drove away. She had not taken to the new young lady, thinking her
ungracious and cranky. She trusted that she hadn’t been brought out to
marry nice little Heaslop, though it looked like it, Her husband agreed with
her in his heart, but he never spoke against an Englishwoman if he could
avoid doing so, and he only said that Miss Quested naturally made
mistakes. He added: “India does wonders for the judgment, especially
during the hot weather; it has even done wonders for Fielding.” Mrs. Turton
closed her eyes at this name and remarked that Mr. Fielding wasn’t pukka,
and had better marry Miss Quested, for she wasn’t pukka. Then they
reached their bungalow, low and enormous, the oldest and most
uncomfortable bungalow in the civil station, with a sunk soup plate of a
lawn, and they had one drink more, this time of barley water, and went to
bed. Their withdrawal from the club had broken up the evening, which, like
all gatherings, had an official tinge. A community that bows the knee to a
Viceroy and believes that the divinity that hedges a king can be
transplanted, must feel some reverence for any viceregal substitute. At
Chandrapore the Turtons were little gods; soon they would retire to some
suburban villa, and die exiled from glory.

“It’s decent of the Burra Sahib,” chattered Ronny, much gratified at the
civility that had been shown to his guests. “Do you know he’s never given a
Bridge Party before? Coming on top of the dinner too! I wish I could have
arranged something myself, but when you know the natives better you’ll
realize it’s easier for the Burra Sahib than for me. They know him—they
know he can’t be fooled—I’m still fresh comparatively. No one can even
begin to think of knowing this country until he has been in it twenty years.
—Hullo, the mater! Here’s your cloak.—Well: for an example of the
mistakes one makes. Soon after I came out I asked one of the Pleaders to
have a smoke with me—only a cigarette, mind. I found afterwards that he
had sent touts all over the bazaar to announce the fact—told all the litigants,
'Oh, you’d better come to my Vakil Mahmoud Ali—he’s in with the City
Magistrate.’ Ever since then I’ve dropped on him in Court as hard as I
could. It’s taught me a lesson, and I hope him.”

“Isn’t the lesson that you should invite all the Pleaders to have a smoke
with you?”

“Perhaps, but time’s limited and the flesh weak. I prefer my smoke at the
club amongst my own sort, I’m afraid.”

“Why not ask the Pleaders to the club?” Miss Quested persisted.

“Not allowed.” He was pleasant and patient, and evidently understood

why she did not understand. He implied that he had once been as she,
though not for long. Going to the verandah, he called firmly to the moon.
His sais answered, and without lowering his head, he ordered his trap to be
brought round.

Mrs. Moore, whom the club had stupefied, woke up outside. She watched
the moon, whose radiance stained with primrose the purple of the
surrounding sky. In England the moon had seemed dead and alien; here she
was caught in the shawl of night together with earth and all the other stars.
A sudden sense of unity, of kinship with the heavenly bodies, passed into
the old woman and out, like water through a tank, leaving a strange
freshness behind. She did not dislike Cousin Kate or the National Anthem,
but their note had died into a new one, just as cocktails and cigars had died
into invisible flowers. When the mosque, long and domeless, gleamed at the
turn of the road, she exclaimed, “Oh, yes—that’s where I got to—that’s
where I’ve been.”

“Been there when?” asked her son.

“Between the acts.”

“But, mother, you can’t do that sort of thing.”

 “Can’t mother?” she replied.

“No, really not in this country. It’s not done. There’s the danger from
snakes for one thing. They are apt to lie out in the evening.”

“Ah yes, so the young man there said.”

“This sounds very romantic,” said Miss Quested, who was exceedingly
fond of Mrs. Moore, and was glad she should have had this little escapade.
“You meet a young man in a mosque, and then never let me know!”

“I was going to tell you, Adela, but something changed the conversation
and I forgot. My memory grows deplorable.”

“Was he nice?”

She paused, then said emphatically: “Very nice.”

“Who was he?” Ronny enquired.

“A doctor. I don’t know his name.”

“A doctor? I know of no young doctor in Chandrapore. How odd! What

was he like?”

“Rather small, with a little moustache and quick eyes. He called out to
me when I was in the dark part of the mosque—about my shoes. That was
how we began talking. He was afraid I had them on, but I remembered
luckily. He told me about his children, and then we walked back to the club.
He knows you well.”

“I wish you had pointed him out to me. I can’t make out who he is.”

“He didn’t come into the club. He said he wasn’t allowed to.”

Thereupon the truth struck him, and he cried “Oh, good gracious! Not a
Mohammedan? Why ever didn’t you tell me you’d been talking to a native?
I was going all wrong.”
 “A Mohammedan! How perfectly magnificent!” exclaimed Miss
Quested. “Ronny, isn’t that like your mother? While we talk about seeing
the real India, she goes and sees it, and then forgets she’s seen it.”

But Ronny was ruffled. From his mother’s description he had thought the
doctor might be young Muggins from over the Ganges, and had brought out
all the comradely emotions. What a mix-up! Why hadn’t she indicated by
the tone of her voice that she was talking about an Indian? Scratchy and
dictatorial, he began to question her. “He called to you in the mosque, did
he? How? Impudently? What was he doing there himself at that time of
night?—No, it’s not their prayer time.”—This in answer to a suggestion of
Miss Quested’s, who showed the keenest interest. “So he called to you over
your shoes. Then it was impudence. It’s an old trick. I wish you had had
them on.”

“I think it was impudence, but I don’t know about a trick,” said Mrs.
Moore. “His nerves were all on edge—I could tell from his voice. As soon
as I answered he altered.”

“You oughtn’t to have answered.”

“Now look here,” said the logical girl, “wouldn’t you expect a
Mohammedan to answer if you asked him to take off his hat in church?”

“It’s different, it’s different; you don’t understand.”

“I know I don’t, and I want to. What is the difference, please?”

He wished she wouldn’t interfere. His mother did not signify—she was
just a globe-trotter, a temporary escort, who could retire to England with
what impressions she chose. But Adela, who meditated spending her life in
the country, was a more serious matter; it would be tiresome if she started
crooked over the native question. Pulling up the mare, he said, “There’s
your Ganges.”

Their attention was diverted. Below them a radiance had suddenly

appeared. It belonged neither to water nor moonlight, but stood like a
luminous sheaf upon the fields of darkness. He told them that it was where
the new sand-bank was forming, and that the dark ravelled bit at the top was
the sand, and that the dead bodies floated down that way from Benares, or
would if the crocodiles let them. “It’s not much of a dead body that gets
down to Chandrapore.”

“Crocodiles down in it too, how terrible!” his mother murmured. The

young people glanced at each other and smiled; it amused them when the
old lady got these gentle creeps, and harmony was restored between them
consequently. She continued: “What a terrible river! what a wonderful
river!” and sighed. The radiance was already altering, whether through
shifting of the moon or of the sand; soon the bright sheaf would be gone,
and a circlet, itself to alter, be burnished upon the streaming void. The
women discussed whether they would wait for the change or not, while the
silence broke into patches of unquietness and the mare shivered. On her
account they did not wait, but drove on to the City Magistrate’s bungalow,
where Miss Quested went to bed, and Mrs. Moore had a short interview
with her son.

He wanted to enquire about the Mohammedan doctor in the mosque. It

was his duty to report suspicious characters and conceivably it was some
disreputable hakim who had prowled up from the bazaar. When she told
him that it was someone connected with the Minto Hospital, he was
relieved, and said that the fellow’s name must be Aziz, and that he was
quite all right, nothing against him at all.

“Aziz! what a charming name!”

“So you and he had a talk. Did you gather he was well disposed?”

Ignorant of the force of this question, she replied, “Yes, quite, after the
first moment.”

“I meant, generally. Did he seem to tolerate us—the brutal conqueror, the

sundried bureaucrat, that sort of thing?”

“Oh, yes, I think so, except the Callendars—he doesn’t care for the
Callendars at all.”
 “Oh. So he told you that, did he? The Major will be interested. I wonder
what was the aim of the remark.”

“Ronny, Ronny! you’re never going to pass it on to Major Callendar?”

“Yes, rather. I must, in fact!”

“But, my dear boy——”

“If the Major heard I was disliked by any native subordinate of mine, I
should expect him to pass it on to me.”

“But, my dear boy—a private conversation!”

“Nothing’s private in India. Aziz knew that when he spoke out, so don’t
you worry. He had some motive in what he said. My personal belief is that
the remark wasn’t true.”

“How not true?”

“He abused the Major in order to impress you.”

“I don’t know what you mean, dear.”

“It’s the educated native’s latest dodge. They used to cringe, but the
younger generation believe in a show of manly independence. They think it
will pay better with the itinerant M.P. But whether the native swaggers or
cringes, there’s always something behind every remark he makes, always
something, and if nothing else he’s trying to increase his izzat—in plain
Anglo-Saxon, to score. Of course there are exceptions.”

“You never used to judge people like this at home.”

“India isn’t home,” he retorted, rather rudely, but in order to silence her
he had been using phrases and arguments that he had picked up from older
officials, and he did not feel quite sure of himself. When he said “of course
there are exceptions” he was quoting Mr. Turton, while “increasing the
izzat” was Major Callendar’s own. The phrases worked and were in current
use at the club, but she was rather clever at detecting the first from the
second hand, and might press him for definite examples.

She only said, “I can’t deny that what you say sounds very sensible, but
you really must not hand on to Major Callendar anything I have told you
about Doctor Aziz.”

He felt disloyal to his caste, but he promised, adding, “In return please
don’t talk about Aziz to Adela.”

“Not talk about him? Why?”

“There you go again, mother—I really can’t explain every thing. I don’t
want Adela to be worried, that’s the fact; she’ll begin wondering whether
we treat the natives properly, and all that sort of nonsense.”

“But she came out to be worried—that’s exactly why she’s here. She
discussed it all on the boat. We had a long talk when we went on shore at
Aden. She knows you in play, as she put it, but not in work, and she felt she
must come and look round, before she decided—and before you decided.
She is very, very fair-minded.”

“I know,” he said dejectedly.

The note of anxiety in his voice made her feel that he was still a little
boy, who must have what he liked, so she promised to do as he wished, and
they kissed good night. He had not forbidden her to think about Aziz,
however, and she did this when she retired to her room. In the light of her
son’s comment she reconsidered the scene at the mosque, to see whose
impression was correct. Yes, it could be worked into quite an unpleasant
scene. The doctor had begun by bullying her, had said Mrs. Callendar was
nice, and then—finding the ground safe—had changed; he had alternately
whined over his grievances and patronized her, had run a dozen ways in a
single sentence, had been unreliable, inquisitive, vain. Yes, it was all true,
but how false as a summary of the man; the essential life of him had been
slain.
 Going to hang up her cloak, she found that the tip of the peg was
occupied by a small wasp. She had known this wasp or his relatives by day;
they were not as English wasps, but had long yellow legs which hung down
behind when they flew. Perhaps he mistook the peg for a branch—no Indian
animal has any sense of an interior. Bats, rats, birds, insects will as soon
nest inside a house as out; it is to them a normal growth of the eternal
jungle, which alternately produces houses trees, houses trees. There he
clung, asleep, while jackals in the plain bayed their desires and mingled
with the percussion of drums.

“Pretty dear,” said Mrs. Moore to the wasp. He did not wake, but her
voice floated out, to swell the night’s uneasiness.
 CHAPTER IV

The Collector kept his word. Next day he issued invitation cards to
numerous Indian gentlemen in the neighbourhood, stating that he would be
at home in the garden of the club between the hours of five and seven on
the following Tuesday, also that Mrs. Turton would be glad to receive any
ladies of their families who were out of purdah. His action caused much
excitement and was discussed in several worlds.

“It is owing to orders from the L.G.,” was Mahmoud Ali’s explanation.
“Turton would never do this unless compelled. Those high officials are
different—they sympathize, the Viceroy sympathizes, they would have us
treated properly. But they come too seldom and live too far away.
Meanwhile——”

“It is easy to sympathize at a distance,” said an old gentleman with a

beard. “I value more the kind word that is spoken close to my ear. Mr.
Turton has spoken it, from whatever cause. He speaks, we hear. I do not see
why we need discuss it further.” Quotations followed from the Koran.

“We have not all your sweet nature, Nawab Bahadur, nor your learning.”

“The Lieutenant-Governor may be my very good friend, but I give him

no trouble.—How do you do, Nawab Bahadur?—Quite well, thank you, Sir
Gilbert; how are you?—And all is over. But I can be a thorn in Mr. Turton’s
flesh, and if he asks me I accept the invitation. I shall come in from
Dilkusha specially, though I have to postpone other business.”

“You will make yourself chip,” suddenly said a little black man.

There was a stir of disapproval. Who was this ill-bred upstart, that he
should criticize the leading Mohammedan landowner of the district?
Mahmoud Ali, though sharing his opinion, felt bound to oppose it. “Mr.
Ram Chand!” he said, swaying forward stiffly with his hands on his hips.
 “Mr. Mahmoud Ali!”

“Mr. Ram Chand, the Nawab Bahadur can decide what is cheap without
our valuation, I think.”

“I do not expect I shall make myself cheap,” said the Nawab Bahadur to
Mr. Ram Chand, speaking very pleasantly, for he was aware that the man
had been impolite and he desired to shield him from the consequences. It
had passed through his mind to reply, “I expect I shall make myself cheap,”
but he rejected this as the less courteous alternative. “I do not see why we
should make ourselves cheap. I do not see why we should. The invitation is
worded very graciously.” Feeling that he could not further decrease the
social gulf between himself and his auditors, he sent his elegant grandson,
who was in attendance on him, to fetch his car. When it came, he repeated
all that he had said before, though at greater length, ending up with “Till
Tuesday, then, gentlemen all, when I hope we may meet in the flower
gardens of the club.”

This opinion carried great weight. The Nawab Bahadur was a big
proprietor and a philanthropist, a man of benevolence and decision. His
character among all the communities in the province stood high. He was a
straightforward enemy and a staunch friend, and his hospitality was
proverbial. “Give, do not lend; after death who will thank you?” was his
favourite remark. He held it a disgrace to die rich. When such a man was
prepared to motor twenty-five miles to shake the Collector’s hand, the
entertainment took another aspect. For he was not like some eminent men,
who give out that they will come, and then fail at the last moment, leaving
the small fry floundering. If he said he would come, he would come, he
would never deceive his supporters. The gentlemen whom he had lectured
now urged one another to attend the party, although convinced at heart that
his advice was unsound.

He had spoken in the little room near the Courts where the pleaders
waited for clients; clients, waiting for pleaders, sat in the dust outside.
These had not received a card from Mr. Turton. And there were circles even
beyond these—people who wore nothing but a loincloth, people who wore
not even that, and spent their lives in knocking two sticks together before a
scarlet doll—humanity grading and drifting beyond the educated vision,
until no earthly invitation can embrace it.

All invitations must proceed from heaven perhaps; perhaps it is futile for
men to initiate their own unity, they do but widen the gulfs between them
by the attempt. So at all events thought old Mr. Graysford and young Mr.
Sorley, the devoted missionaries who lived out beyond the slaughterhouses,
always travelled third on the railways, and never came up to the club. In our
Father’s house are many mansions, they taught, and there alone will the
incompatible multitudes of mankind be welcomed and soothed. Not one
shall be turned away by the servants on that verandah, be he black or white,
not one shall be kept standing who approaches with a loving heart. And
why should the divine hospitality cease here? Consider, with all reverence,
the monkeys. May there not be a mansion for the monkeys also? Old Mr.
Graysford said No, but young Mr. Sorley, who was advanced, said Yes; he
saw no reason why monkeys should not have their collateral share of bliss,
and he had sympathetic discussions about them with his Hindu friends. And
the jackals? Jackals were indeed less to Mr. Sorley’s mind, but he admitted
that the mercy of God, being infinite, may well embrace all mammals. And
the wasps? He became uneasy during the descent to wasps, and was apt to
change the conversation. And oranges, cactuses, crystals and mud? and the
bacteria inside Mr. Sorley? No, no, this is going too far. We must exclude
someone from our gathering, or we shall be left with nothing.
 CHAPTER V

The Bridge Party was not a success—at least it was not what Mrs. Moore
and Miss Quested were accustomed to consider a successful party. They
arrived early, since it was given in their honour, but most of the Indian
guests had arrived even earlier, and stood massed at the farther side of the
tennis lawns, doing nothing.

“It is only just five,” said Mrs. Turton. “My husband will be up from his
office in a moment and start the thing. I have no idea what we have to do.
It’s the first time we’ve ever given a party like this at the club. Mr. Heaslop,
when I’m dead and gone will you give parties like this? It’s enough to make
the old type of Burra Sahib turn in his grave.”

Ronny laughed deferentially. “You wanted something not picturesque and

we’ve provided it,” he remarked to Miss Quested. “What do you think of
the Aryan Brother in a topi and spats?”

Neither she nor his mother answered. They were gazing rather sadly over
the tennis lawn. No, it was not picturesque; the East, abandoning its secular
magnificence, was descending into a valley whose farther side no man can
see.

“The great point to remember is that no one who’s here matters; those
who matter don’t come. Isn’t that so, Mrs. Turton?”

“Absolutely true,” said the great lady, leaning back. She was “saving
herself up,” as she called it—not for anything that would happen that
afternoon or even that week, but for some vague future occasion when a
high official might come along and tax her social strength. Most of her
public appearances were marked by this air of reserve.

Assured of her approbation, Ronny continued: “The educated Indians

will be no good to us if there’s a row, it’s simply not worth while
conciliating them, that’s why they don’t matter. Most of the people you see
are seditious at heart, and the rest ’ld run squealing. The cultivator—he’s
another story. The Pathan—he’s a man if you like. But these people—don’t
imagine they’re India.” He pointed to the dusky line beyond the court, and
here and there it flashed a pince-nez or shuffled a shoe, as if aware that he
was despising it. European costume had lighted like a leprosy. Few had
yielded entirely, but none were untouched. There was a silence when he had
finished speaking, on both sides of the court; at least, more ladies joined the
English group, but their words seemed to die as soon as uttered. Some kites
hovered overhead, impartial, over the kites passed the mass of a vulture,
and with an impartiality exceeding all, the sky, not deeply coloured but
translucent, poured light from its whole circumference. It seemed unlikely
that the series stopped here. Beyond the sky must not there be something
that overarches all the skies, more impartial even than they? Beyond which
again . . .

They spoke of Cousin Kate.

They had tried to reproduce their own attitude to life upon the stage, and
to dress up as the middle-class English people they actually were. Next year
they would do Quality Street or The Yeomen of the Guard. Save for this
annual incursion, they left literature alone. The men had no time for it, the
women did nothing that they could not share with the men. Their ignorance
of the Arts was notable, and they lost no opportunity of proclaiming it to
one another; it was the Public School attitude, flourishing more vigorously
than it can yet hope to do in England. If Indians were shop, the Arts were
bad form, and Ronny had repressed his mother when she enquired after his
viola; a viola was almost a demerit, and certainly not the sort of instrument
one mentioned in public. She noticed now how tolerant and conventional
his judgments had become; when they had seen Cousin Kate in London
together in the past, he had scorned it; now he pretended that it was a good
play, in order to hurt nobody’s feelings. An “unkind notice” had appeared in
the local paper, “the sort of thing no white man could have written,” as Mrs.
Lesley said. The play was praised, to be sure, and so were the stage
management and the performance as a whole, but the notice contained the
following sentence: “Miss Derek, though she charmingly looked her part,
lacked the necessary experience, and occasionally forgot her words.” This
tiny breath of genuine criticism had given deep offence, not indeed to Miss
Derek, who was as hard as nails, but to her friends. Miss Derek did not
belong to Chandrapore. She was stopping for a fortnight with the
McBrydes, the police people, and she had been so good as to fill up a gap in
the cast at the last moment. A nice impression of local hospitality she would
carry away with her.

“To work, Mary, to work,” cried the Collector, touching his wife on the
shoulder with a switch.

Mrs. Turton got up awkwardly. “What do you want me to do? Oh, those
purdah women! I never thought any would come. Oh dear!”

A little group of Indian ladies had been gathering in a third quarter of the
grounds, near a rustic summer-house in which the more timid of them had
already taken refuge. The rest stood with their backs to the company and
their faces pressed into a bank of shrubs. At a little distance stood their male
relatives, watching the venture. The sight was significant: an island bared
by the turning tide, and bound to grow.

“I consider they ought to come over to me.”

“Come along, Mary, get it over.”

“I refuse to shake hands with any of the men, unless it has to be the
Nawab Bahadur.”

“Whom have we so far?” He glanced along the line. “H’m! h’m! much as
one expected. We know why he’s here, I think—over that contract, and he
wants to get the right side of me for Mohurram, and he’s the astrologer who
wants to dodge the municipal building regulations, and he’s that Parsi, and
he’s—Hullo! there he goes—smash into our hollyhocks. Pulled the left rein
when he meant the right. All as usual.”

“They ought never to have been allowed to drive in; it’s so bad for them,”
said Mrs. Turton, who had at last begun her progress to the summer-house,
accompanied by Mrs. Moore, Miss Quested, and a terrier. “Why they come
at all I don’t know. They hate it as much as we do. Talk to Mrs. McBryde.
Her husband made her give purdah parties until she struck.”

“This isn’t a purdah party,” corrected Miss Quested.

“Oh, really,” was the haughty rejoinder.

“Do kindly tell us who these ladies are,” asked Mrs. Moore.

“You’re superior to them, anyway. Don’t forget that. You’re superior to

everyone in India except one or two of the Ranis, and they’re on an
equality.”

Advancing, she shook hands with the group and said a few words of
welcome in Urdu. She had learnt the lingo, but only to speak to her
servants, so she knew none of the politer forms and of the verbs only the
imperative mood. As soon as her speech was over, she enquired of her
companions, “Is that what you wanted?”

“Please tell these ladies that I wish we could speak their language, but we
have only just come to their country.”

“Perhaps we speak yours a little,” one of the ladies said.

“Why, fancy, she understands!” said Mrs. Turton.

“Eastbourne, Piccadilly, High Park Corner,” said another of the ladies.

“Oh yes, they’re English-speaking.”

“But now we can talk: how delightful!” cried Adela, her face lighting up.

“She knows Paris also,” called one of the onlookers.

“They pass Paris on the way, no doubt,” said Mrs. Turton, as if she was
describing the movements of migratory birds. Her manner had grown more
distant since she had discovered that some of the group was Westernized,
and might apply her own standards to her.
 “The shorter lady, she is my wife, she is Mrs. Bhattacharya,” the
onlooker explained. “The taller lady, she is my sister, she is Mrs. Das.”

The shorter and the taller ladies both adjusted their saris, and smiled.
There was a curious uncertainty about their gestures, as if they sought for a
new formula which neither East nor West could provide. When Mrs.
Bhattacharya’s husband spoke, she turned away from him, but she did not
mind seeing the other men. Indeed all the ladies were uncertain, cowering,
recovering, giggling, making tiny gestures of atonement or despair at all
that was said, and alternately fondling the terrier or shrinking from him.
Miss Quested now had her desired opportunity; friendly Indians were
before her, and she tried to make them talk, but she failed, she strove in vain
against the echoing walls of their civility. Whatever she said produced a
murmur of deprecation, varying into a murmur of concern when she
dropped her pocket-handkerchief. She tried doing nothing, to see what that
produced, and they too did nothing. Mrs. Moore was equally unsuccessful.
Mrs. Turton waited for them with a detached expression; she had known
what nonsense it all was from the first.

When they took their leave, Mrs. Moore had an impulse, and said to Mrs.
Bhattacharya, whose face she liked, “I wonder whether you would allow us
to call on you some day.”

“When?” she replied, inclining charmingly.

“Whenever is convenient.”

“All days are convenient.”

“Thursday . . .”

“Most certainly.”

“We shall enjoy it greatly, it would be a real pleasure. What about the
time?”

“All hours.”
 “Tell us which you would prefer. We’re quite strangers to your country;
we don’t know when you have visitors,” said Miss Quested.

Mrs. Bhattacharya seemed not to know either. Her gesture implied that
she had known, since Thursdays began, that English ladies would come to
see her on one of them, and so always stayed in. Everything pleased her,
nothing surprised. She added, “We leave for Calcutta to-day.”

“Oh, do you?” said Adela, not at first seeing the implication. Then she
cried, “Oh, but if you do we shall find you gone.”

Mrs. Bhattacharya did not dispute it. But her husband called from the
distance, “Yes, yes, you come to us Thursday.”

“But you’ll be in Calcutta.”

“No, no, we shall not.” He said something swiftly to his wife in Bengali.
“We expect you Thursday.”

“Thursday . . .” the woman echoed.

“You can’t have done such a dreadful thing as to put off going for our
sake?” exclaimed Mrs. Moore.

“No, of course not, we are not such people.” He was laughing.

“I believe that you have. Oh, please—it distresses me beyond words.”

Everyone was laughing now, but with no suggestion that they had
blundered. A shapeless discussion occurred, during which Mrs. Turton
retired, smiling to herself. The upshot was that they were to come Thursday,
but early in the morning, so as to wreck the Bhattacharya plans as little as
possible, and Mr. Bhattacharya would send his carriage to fetch them, with
servants to point out the way. Did he know where they lived? Yes, of course
he knew, he knew everything; and he laughed again. They left among a
flutter of compliments and smiles, and three ladies, who had hitherto taken
no part in the reception, suddenly shot out of the summer-house like
exquisitely coloured swallows, and salaamed them.
 Meanwhile the Collector had been going his rounds. He made pleasant
remarks and a few jokes, which were applauded lustily, but he knew
something to the discredit of nearly every one of his guests, and was
consequently perfunctory. When they had not cheated, it was bhang,
women, or worse, and even the desirables wanted to get something out of
him. He believed that a “Bridge Party” did good rather than harm, or he
would not have given one, but he was under no illusions, and at the proper
moment he retired to the English side of the lawn. The impressions he left
behind him were various. Many of the guests, especially the humbler and
less anglicized, were genuinely grateful. To be addressed by so high an
official was a permanent asset. They did not mind how long they stood, or
how little happened, and when seven o’clock struck, they had to be turned
out. Others were grateful with more intelligence. The Nawab Bahadur,
indifferent for himself and for the distinction with which he was greeted,
was moved by the mere kindness that must have prompted the invitation.
He knew the difficulties. Hamidullah also thought that the Collector had
played up well. But others, such as Mahmoud Ali, were cynical; they were
firmly convinced that Turton had been made to give the party by his official
superiors and was all the time consumed with impotent rage, and they
infected some who were inclined to a healthier view. Yet even Mahmoud
Ali was glad he had come. Shrines are fascinating, especially when rarely
opened, and it amused him to note the ritual of the English club, and to
caricature it afterwards to his friends.

After Mr. Turton, the official who did his duty best was Mr. Fielding, the
Principal of the little Government College. He knew little of the district and
less against the inhabitants, so he was in a less cynical state of mind.
Athletic and cheerful, he romped about, making numerous mistakes which
the parents of his pupils tried to cover up, for he was popular among them.
When the moment for refreshments came, he did not move back to the
English side, but burnt his mouth with gram. He talked to anyone and he ate
anything. Amid much that was alien, he learnt that the two new ladies from
England had been a great success, and that their politeness in wishing to be
Mrs. Bhattacharya’s guests had pleased not only her but all Indians who
heard of it. It pleased Mr. Fielding also. He scarcely knew the two new
ladies, still he decided to tell them what pleasure they had given by their
friendliness.
 He found the younger of them alone. She was looking through a nick in
the cactus hedge at the distant Marabar Hills, which had crept near, as was
their custom at sunset; if the sunset had lasted long enough, they would
have reached the town, but it was swift, being tropical. He gave her his
information, and she was so much pleased and thanked him so heartily that
he asked her and the other lady to tea.

“I’ld like to come very much indeed, and so would Mrs. Moore, I know.”

“I’m rather a hermit, you know.”

“Much the best thing to be in this place.”

“Owing to my work and so on, I don’t get up much to the club.”

“I know, I know, and we never get down from it. I envy you being with
Indians.”

“Do you care to meet one or two?”

“Very, very much indeed; it’s what I long for. This party to-day makes me
so angry and miserable. I think my countrymen out here must be mad.
Fancy inviting guests and not treating them properly! You and Mr. Turton
and perhaps Mr. McBryde are the only people who showed any common
politeness. The rest make me perfectly ashamed, and it’s got worse and
worse.”

It had. The Englishmen had intended to play up better, but had been
prevented from doing so by their women folk, whom they had to attend,
provide with tea, advise about dogs, etc. When tennis began, the barrier
grew impenetrable. It had been hoped to have some sets between East and
West, but this was forgotten, and the courts were monopolized by the usual
club couples. Fielding resented it too, but did not say so to the girl, for he
found something theoretical in her outburst. Did she care about Indian
music? he enquired; there was an old professor down at the College, who
sang.

“Oh, just what we wanted to hear. And do you know Doctor Aziz?”
 “I know all about him. I don’t know him. Would you like him asked
too?”

“Mrs. Moore says he is so nice.”

“Very well, Miss Quested. Will Thursday suit you?”

“Indeed it will, and that morning we go to this Indian lady’s. All the nice
things are coming Thursday.”

“I won’t ask the City Magistrate to bring you. I know he’ll be busy at that
time.”

“Yes, Ronny is always hard-worked,” she replied, contemplating the

hills. How lovely they suddenly were! But she couldn’t touch them. In
front, like a shutter, fell a vision of her married life. She and Ronny would
look into the club like this every evening, then drive home to dress; they
would see the Lesleys and the Callendars and the Turtons and the Burtons,
and invite them and be invited by them, while the true India slid by
unnoticed. Colour would remain—the pageant of birds in the early
morning, brown bodies, white turbans, idols whose flesh was scarlet or blue
—and movement would remain as long as there were crowds in the bazaar
and bathers in the tanks. Perched up on the seat of a dogcart, she would see
them. But the force that lies behind colour and movement would escape her
even more effectually than it did now. She would see India always as a
frieze, never as a spirit, and she assumed that it was a spirit of which Mrs.
Moore had had a glimpse.

And sure enough they did drive away from the club in a few minutes, and
they did dress, and to dinner came Miss Derek and the McBrydes, and the
menu was: Julienne soup full of bullety bottled peas, pseudo-cottage bread,
fish full of branching bones, pretending to be plaice, more bottled peas with
the cutlets, trifle, sardines on toast: the menu of Anglo-India. A dish might
be added or subtracted as one rose or fell in the official scale, the peas
might rattle less or more, the sardines and the vermouth be imported by a
different firm, but the tradition remained; the food of exiles, cooked by
servants who did not understand it. Adela thought of the young men and
women who had come out before her, P. & O. full after P. & O. full, and had
been set down to the same food and the same ideas, and been snubbed in
the same good-humoured way until they kept to the accredited themes and
began to snub others. “I should never get like that,” she thought, for she was
young herself; all the same she knew that she had come up against
something that was both insidious and tough, and against which she needed
allies. She must gather around her at Chandrapore a few people who felt as
she did, and she was glad to have met Mr. Fielding and the Indian lady with
the unpronounceable name. Here at all events was a nucleus; she should
know much better where she stood in the course of the next two days.

Miss Derek—she companioned a Maharani in a remote Native State. She

was genial and gay and made them all laugh about her leave, which she had
taken because she felt she deserved it, not because the Maharani said she
might go. Now she wanted to take the Maharajah’s motor-car as well; it had
gone to a Chiefs’ Conference at Delhi, and she had a great scheme for
burgling it at the junction as it came back in the train. She was also very
funny about the Bridge Party—indeed she regarded the entire peninsula as a
comic opera. “If one couldn’t see the laughable side of these people one ’ld
be done for,” said Miss Derek. Mrs. McBryde—it was she who had been
the nurse—ceased not to exclaim, “Oh, Nancy, how topping! Oh, Nancy,
how killing! I wish I could look at things like that.” Mr. McBryde did not
speak much; he seemed nice.

When the guests had gone, and Adela gone to bed, there was another
interview between mother and son. He wanted her advice and support—
while resenting interference. “Does Adela talk to you much?” he began.
“I’m so driven with work, I don’t see her as much as I hoped, but I hope she
finds things comfortable.”

“Adela and I talk mostly about India. Dear, since you mention it, you’re
quite right—you ought to be more alone with her than you are.”

“Yes, perhaps, but then people’ld gossip.”

“Well, they must gossip sometime! Let them gossip.”

“People are so odd out here, and it’s not like home—one’s always facing
the footlights, as the Burra Sahib said. Take a silly little example: when
Adela went out to the boundary of the club compound, and Fielding
followed her. I saw Mrs. Callendar notice it. They notice everything, until
they’re perfectly sure you’re their sort.”

“I don’t think Adela ’ll ever be quite their sort—she’s much too
individual.”

“I know, that’s so remarkable about her,” he said thoughtfully. Mrs.

Moore thought him rather absurd. Accustomed to the privacy of London,
she could not realize that India, seemingly so mysterious, contains none,
and that consequently the conventions have greater force. “I suppose
nothing’s on her mind,” he continued.

“Ask her, ask her yourself, my dear boy.”

“Probably she’s heard tales of the heat, but of course I should pack her
off to the Hills every April—I’m not one to keep a wife grilling in the
Plains.”

“Oh, it wouldn’t be the weather.”

“There’s nothing in India but the weather, my dear mother; it’s the Alpha
and Omega of the whole affair.”

“Yes, as Mr. McBryde was saying, but it’s much more the Anglo-Indians
themselves who are likely to get on Adela’s nerves. She doesn’t think they
behave pleasantly to Indians, you see.”

“What did I tell you?” he exclaimed, losing his gentle manner. “I knew it
last week. Oh, how like a woman to worry over a side-issue!”

She forgot about Adela in her surprise. “A side-issue, a side-issue?” she

repeated. “How can it be that?”

“We’re not out here for the purpose of behaving pleasantly!”

“What do you mean?”

 “What I say. We’re out here to do justice and keep the peace. Them’s my
sentiments. India isn’t a drawing-room.”

“Your sentiments are those of a god,” she said quietly, but it was his
manner rather than his sentiments that annoyed her.

Trying to recover his temper, he said, “India likes gods.”

“And Englishmen like posing as gods.”

“There’s no point in all this. Here we are, and we’re going to stop, and
the country’s got to put up with us, gods or no gods. Oh, look here,” he
broke out, rather pathetically, “what do you and Adela want me to do? Go
against my class, against all the people I respect and admire out here? Lose
such power as I have for doing good in this country because my behaviour
isn’t pleasant? You neither of you understand what work is, or you ’ld never
talk such eyewash. I hate talking like this, but one must occasionally. It’s
morbidly sensitive to go on as Adela and you do. I noticed you both at the
club to-day—after the Burra Sahib had been at all that trouble to amuse
you. I am out here to work, mind, to hold this wretched country by force.
I’m not a missionary or a Labour Member or a vague sentimental
sympathetic literary man. I’m just a servant of the Government; it’s the
profession you wanted me to choose myself, and that’s that. We’re not
pleasant in India, and we don’t intend to be pleasant. We’ve something
more important to do.”

He spoke sincerely. Every day he worked hard in the court trying to

decide which of two untrue accounts was the less untrue, trying to dispense
justice fearlessly, to protect the weak against the less weak, the incoherent
against the plausible, surrounded by lies and flattery. That morning he had
convicted a railway clerk of overcharging pilgrims for their tickets, and a
Pathan of attempted rape. He expected no gratitude, no recognition for this,
and both clerk and Pathan might appeal, bribe their witnesses more
effectually in the interval, and get their sentences reversed. It was his duty.
But he did expect sympathy from his own people, and except from new-
comers he obtained it. He did think he ought not to be worried about
“Bridge Parties” when the day’s work was over and he wanted to play
tennis with his equals or rest his legs upon a long chair.
 He spoke sincerely, but she could have wished with less gusto. How
Ronny revelled in the drawbacks of his situation! How he did rub it in that
he was not in India to behave pleasantly, and derived positive satisfaction
therefrom! He reminded her of his public-schooldays. The traces of young-
man humanitarianism had sloughed off, and he talked like an intelligent and
embittered boy. His words without his voice might have impressed her, but
when she heard the self-satisfied lilt of them, when she saw the mouth
moving so complacently and competently beneath the little red nose, she
felt, quite illogically, that this was not the last word on India. One touch of
regret—not the canny substitute but the true regret from the heart—would
have made him a different man, and the British Empire a different
institution.

“I’m going to argue, and indeed dictate,” she said, clinking her rings.
“The English are out here to be pleasant.”

“How do you make that out, mother?” he asked, speaking gently again,
for he was ashamed of his irritability.

“Because India is part of the earth. And God has put us on the earth in
order to be pleasant to each other. God . . . is . . . love.” She hesitated,
seeing how much he disliked the argument, but something made her go on.
“God has put us on earth to love our neighbours and to show it, and He is
omnipresent, even in India, to see how we are succeeding.”

He looked gloomy, and a little anxious. He knew this religious strain in

her, and that it was a symptom of bad health; there had been much of it
when his stepfather died. He thought, “She is certainly ageing, and I ought
not to be vexed with anything she says.”

“The desire to behave pleasantly satisfies God. . . The sincere if impotent

desire wins His blessing. I think every one fails, but there are so many kinds
of failure. Good will and more good will and more good will. Though I
speak with the tongues of . . .”

He waited until she had done, and then said gently, “I quite see that. I
suppose I ought to get off to my files now, and you’ll be going to bed.”
 “I suppose so, I suppose so.” They did not part for a few minutes, but the
conversation had become unreal since Christianity had entered it. Ronny
approved of religion as long as it endorsed the National Anthem, but he
objected when it attempted to influence his life. Then he would say in
respectful yet decided tones, “I don’t think it does to talk about these things,
every fellow has to work out his own religion,” and any fellow who heard
him muttered, “Hear!”

Mrs. Moore felt that she had made a mistake in mentioning God, but she
found him increasingly difficult to avoid as she grew older, and he had been
constantly in her thoughts since she entered India, though oddly enough he
satisfied her less. She must needs pronounce his name frequently, as the
greatest she knew, yet she had never found it less efficacious. Outside the
arch there seemed always an arch, beyond the remotest echo a silence. And
she regretted afterwards that she had not kept to the real serious subject that
had caused her to visit India—namely the relationship between Ronny and
Adela. Would they, or would they not, succeed in becoming engaged to be
married?
 CHAPTER VI

Aziz had not gone to the Bridge Party. Immediately after his meeting
with Mrs. Moore he was diverted to other matters. Several surgical cases
came in, and kept him busy. He ceased to be either outcaste or poet, and
became the medical student, very gay, and full of details of operations
which he poured into the shrinking ears of his friends. His profession
fascinated him at times, but he required it to be exciting, and it was his
hand, not his mind, that was scientific. The knife he loved and used
skilfully, and he also liked pumping in the latest serums. But the boredom
of regime and hygiene repelled him, and after inoculating a man for enteric,
he would go away and drink unfiltered water himself. “What can you
expect from the fellow?” said dour Major Callendar. “No grits, no guts.”
But in his heart he knew that if Aziz and not he had operated last year on
Mrs. Graysford’s appendix, the old lady would probably have lived. And
this did not dispose him any better towards his subordinate.

There was a row the morning after the mosque—they were always
having rows. The Major, who had been up half the night, wanted damn well
to know why Aziz had not come promptly when summoned.

“Sir, excuse me, I did. I mounted my bike, and it bust in front of the Cow
Hospital. So I had to find a tonga.”

“Bust in front of the Cow Hospital, did it? And how did you come to be
there?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Oh Lord, oh Lord! When I live here”—he kicked the gravel—“and you
live there—not ten minutes from me—and the Cow Hospital is right ever so
far away the other side of you—there—then how did you come to be
passing the Cow Hospital on the way to me? Now do some work for a
change.”
 He strode away in a temper, without waiting for the excuse, which as far
as it went was a sound one: the Cow Hospital was in a straight line between
Hamidullah’s house and his own, so Aziz had naturally passed it. He never
realized that the educated Indians visited one another constantly, and were
weaving, however painfully, a new social fabric. Caste “or something of the
sort” would prevent them. He only knew that no one ever told him the truth,
although he had been in the country for twenty years.

Aziz watched him go with amusement. When his spirits were up he felt
that the English are a comic institution, and he enjoyed being
misunderstood by them. But it was an amusement of the emotions and
nerves, which an accident or the passage of time might destroy; it was apart
from the fundamental gaiety that he reached when he was with those whom
he trusted. A disobliging simile involving Mrs. Callendar occurred to his
fancy. “I must tell that to Mahmoud Ali, it’ll make him laugh,” he thought.
Then he got to work. He was competent and indispensable, and he knew it.
The simile passed from his mind while he exercised his professional skill.

During these pleasant and busy days, he heard vaguely that the Collector
was giving a party, and that the Nawab Bahadur said every one ought to go
to it. His fellow-assistant, Doctor Panna Lal, was in ecstasies at the
prospect, and was urgent that they should attend it together in his new tum-
tum. The arrangement suited them both. Aziz was spared the indignity of a
bicycle or the expense of hiring, while Dr. Panna Lal, who was timid and
elderly, secured someone who could manage his horse. He could manage it
himself, but only just, and he was afraid of the motors and of the unknown
turn into the club grounds. “Disaster may come,” he said politely, “but we
shall at all events get there safe, even if we do not get back.” And with
more logic: “It will, I think, create a good impression should two doctors
arrive at the same time.”

But when the time came, Aziz was seized with a revulsion, and
determined not to go. For one thing his spell of work, lately concluded, left
him independent and healthy. For another, the day chanced to fall on the
anniversary of his wife’s death. She had died soon after he had fallen in
love with her; he had not loved her at first. Touched by Western feeling, he
disliked union with a woman whom he had never seen; moreover, when he
did see her, she disappointed him, and he begat his first child in mere
animality. The change began after its birth. He was won by her love for
him, by a loyalty that implied something more than submission, and by her
efforts to educate herself against that lifting of the purdah that would come
in the next generation if not in theirs. She was intelligent, yet had old-
fashioned grace. Gradually he lost the feeling that his relatives had chosen
wrongly for him. Sensuous enjoyment—well, even if he had had it, it would
have dulled in a year, and he had gained something instead, which seemed
to increase the longer they lived together. She became the mother of a son .
. . and in giving him a second son she died. Then he realized what he had
lost, and that no woman could ever take her place; a friend would come
nearer to her than another woman. She had gone, there was no one like her,
and what is that uniqueness but love? He amused himself, he forgot her at
times: but at other times he felt that she had sent all the beauty and joy of
the world into Paradise, and he meditated suicide. Would he meet her
beyond the tomb? Is there such a meeting-place? Though orthodox, he did
not know. God’s unity was indubitable and indubitably announced, but on
all other points he wavered like the average Christian; his belief in the life
to come would pale to a hope, vanish, reappear, all in a single sentence or a
dozen heart-beats, so that the corpuscles of his blood rather than he seemed
to decide which opinion he should hold, and for how long. It was so with all
his opinions. Nothing stayed, nothing passed that did not return; the
circulation was ceaseless and kept him young, and he mourned his wife the
more sincerely because he mourned her seldom.

It would have been simpler to tell Dr. Lal that he had changed his mind
about the party, but until the last minute he did not know that he had
changed it; indeed, he didn’t change it, it changed itself. Unconquerable
aversion welled. Mrs. Callendar, Mrs. Lesley—no, he couldn’t stand them
in his sorrow: they would guess it—for he dowered the British matron with
strange insight—and would delight in torturing him, they would mock him
to their husbands. When he should have been ready, he stood at the Post
Office, writing a telegram to his children, and found on his return that Dr.
Lal had called for him, and gone on. Well, let him go on, as befitted the
coarseness of his nature. For his own part, he would commune with the
dead.
 And unlocking a drawer, he took out his wife’s photograph. He gazed at
it, and tears spouted from his eyes. He thought, “How unhappy I am!” But
because he really was unhappy, another emotion soon mingled with his self-
pity: he desired to remember his wife and could not. Why could he
remember people whom he did not love? They were always so vivid to him,
whereas the more he looked at this photograph, the less he saw. She had
eluded him thus, ever since they had carried her to her tomb. He had known
that she would pass from his hands and eyes, but had thought she could live
in his mind, not realizing that the very fact that we have loved the dead
increases their unreality, and that the more passionately we invoke them the
further they recede. A piece of brown cardboard and three children—that
was all that was left of his wife. It was unbearable, and he thought again,
“How unhappy I am!” and became happier. He had breathed for an instant
the mortal air that surrounds Orientals and all men, and he drew back from
it with a gasp, for he was young. “Never, never shall I get over this,” he told
himself. “Most certainly my career is a failure, and my sons will be badly
brought up.” Since it was certain, he strove to avert it, and looked at some
notes he had made on a case at the hospital. Perhaps some day a rich person
might require this particular operation, and he gain a large sum. The notes
interesting him on their own account, he locked the photograph up again. Its
moment was over, and he did not think about his wife any more.

After tea his spirits improved, and he went round to see Hamidullah.
Hamidullah had gone to the party, but his pony had not, so Aziz borrowed
it, also his friend’s riding breeches and polo mallet. He repaired to the
Maidan. It was deserted except at its rim, where some bazaar youths were
training. Training for what? They would have found it hard to say, but the
word had got into the air. Round they ran, weedy and knock-kneed—the
local physique was wretched—with an expression on their faces not so
much of determination as of a determination to be determined. “Maharajah,
salaam,” he called for a joke. The youths stopped and laughed. He advised
them not to exert themselves. They promised they would not, and ran on.

Riding into the middle, he began to knock the ball about. He could not
play, but his pony could, and he set himself to learn, free from all human
tension. He forgot the whole damned business of living as he scurried over
the brown platter of the Maidan, with the evening wind on his forehead, and
the encircling trees soothing his eyes. The ball shot away towards a stray
subaltern who was also practising; he hit it back to Aziz and called, “Send it
along again.”

“All right.”

The new-comer had some notion of what to do, but his horse had none,
and forces were equal. Concentrated on the ball, they somehow became
fond of one another, and smiled when they drew rein to rest. Aziz liked
soldiers—they either accepted you or swore at you, which was preferable to
the civilian’s hauteur—and the subaltern liked anyone who could ride.

“Often play?” he asked.

“Never.”

“Let’s have another chukker.”

As he hit, his horse bucked and off he went, cried, “Oh God!” and
jumped on again. “Don’t you ever fall off?”

“Plenty.”

“Not you.”

They reined up again, the fire of good fellowship in their eyes. But it
cooled with their bodies, for athletics can only raise a temporary glow.
Nationality was returning, but before it could exert its poison they parted,
saluting each other. “If only they were all like that,” each thought.

Now it was sunset. A few of his co-religionists had come to the Maidan,
and were praying with their faces towards Mecca. A Brahminy Bull walked
towards them, and Aziz, though disinclined to pray himself, did not see why
they should be bothered with the clumsy and idolatrous animal. He gave it a
tap with his polo mallet. As he did so, a voice from the road hailed him: it
was Dr. Panna Lal, returning in high distress from the Collector’s party.

“Dr. Aziz, Dr. Aziz, where you been? I waited ten full minutes’ time at
your house, then I went.”
 “I am so awfully sorry—I was compelled to go to the Post Office.”

One of his own circle would have accepted this as meaning that he had
changed his mind, an event too common to merit censure. But Dr. Lal,
being of low extraction, was not sure whether an insult had not been
intended, and he was further annoyed because Aziz had buffeted the
Brahminy Bull. “Post Office? Do you not send your servants?” he said.

“I have so few—my scale is very small.”

“Your servant spoke to me. I saw your servant.”

“But, Dr. Lal, consider. How could I send my servant when you were
coming: you come, we go, my house is left alone, my servant comes back
perhaps, and all my portable property has been carried away by bad
characters in the meantime. Would you have that? The cook is deaf—I can
never count on my cook—and the boy is only a little boy. Never, never do I
and Hassan leave the house at the same time together. It is my fixed rule.”
He said all this and much more out of civility, to save Dr. Lal’s face. It was
not offered as truth and should not have been criticized as such. But the
other demolished it—an easy and ignoble task. “Even if this so, what
prevents leaving a chit saying where you go?” and so on. Aziz detested ill
breeding, and made his pony caper. “Farther away, or mine will start out of
sympathy,” he wailed, revealing the true source of his irritation. “It has been
so rough and wild this afternoon. It spoiled some most valuable blossoms in
the club garden, and had to be dragged back by four men. English ladies
and gentlemen looking on, and the Collector Sahib himself taking a note.
But, Dr. Aziz, I’ll not take up your valuable time. This will not interest you,
who have so many engagements and telegrams. I am just a poor old doctor
who thought right to pay my respects when I was asked and where I was
asked. Your absence, I may remark, drew commentaries.”

“They can damn well comment.”

“It is fine to be young. Damn well! Oh, very fine. Damn whom?”

“I go or not as I please.”
 “Yet you promise me, and then fabricate this tale of a telegram. Go
forward, Dapple.”

They went, and Aziz had a wild desire to make an enemy for life. He
could do it so easily by galloping near them. He did it. Dapple bolted. He
thundered back on to the Maidan. The glory of his play with the subaltern
remained for a little, he galloped and swooped till he poured with sweat,
and until he returned the pony to Hamidullah’s stable he felt the equal of
any man. Once on his feet, he had creeping fears. Was he in bad odour with
the powers that be? Had he offended the Collector by absenting himself?
Dr. Panna Lal was a person of no importance, yet was it wise to have
quarrelled even with him? The complexion of his mind turned from human
to political. He thought no longer, “Can I get on with people?” but “Are
they stronger than I?” breathing the prevalent miasma.

At his home a chit was awaiting him, bearing the Government stamp. It
lay on his table like a high explosive, which at a touch might blow his
flimsy bungalow to bits. He was going to be cashiered because he had not
turned up at the party. When he opened the note, it proved to be quite
different; an invitation from Mr. Fielding, the Principal of Government
College, asking him to come to tea the day after to-morrow. His spirits
revived with violence. They would have revived in any case, for he
possessed a soul that could suffer but not stifle, and led a steady life beneath
his mutability. But this invitation gave him particular joy, because Fielding
had asked him to tea a month ago, and he had forgotten about it—never
answered, never gone, just forgotten.

And here came a second invitation, without a rebuke or even an allusion

to his slip. Here was true courtesy—the civil deed that shows the good heart
—and snatching up his pen he wrote an affectionate reply, and hurried back
for news to Hamidullah’s. For he had never met the Principal, and believed
that the one serious gap in his life was going to be filled. He longed to know
everything about the splendid fellow—his salary, preferences, antecedents,
how best one might please him. But Hamidullah was still out, and
Mahmoud Ali, who was in, would only make silly rude jokes about the
party.
 CHAPTER VII

This Mr. Fielding had been caught by India late. He was over forty when
he entered that oddest portal, the Victoria Terminus at Bombay, and—
having bribed a European ticket inspector—took his luggage into the
compartment of his first tropical train. The journey remained in his mind as
significant. Of his two carriage companions one was a youth, fresh to the
East like himself, the other a seasoned Anglo-Indian of his own age. A gulf
divided him from either; he had seen too many cities and men to be the first
or to become the second. New impressions crowded on him, but they were
not the orthodox new impressions; the past conditioned them, and so it was
with his mistakes. To regard an Indian as if he were an Italian is not, for
instance, a common error, nor perhaps a fatal one, and Fielding often
attempted analogies between this peninsula and that other, smaller and more
exquisitely shaped, that stretches into the classic waters of the
Mediterranean.

His career, though scholastic, was varied, and had included going to the
bad and repenting thereafter. By now he was a hard-bitten, good-tempered,
intelligent fellow on the verge of middle age, with a belief in education. He
did not mind whom he taught; public schoolboys, mental defectives and
policemen, had all come his way, and he had no objection to adding
Indians. Through the influence of friends, he was nominated Principal of
the little college at Chandrapore, liked it, and assumed he was a success. He
did succeed with his pupils, but the gulf between himself and his
countrymen, which he had noticed in the train, widened distressingly. He
could not at first see what was wrong. He was not unpatriotic, he always got
on with Englishmen in England, all his best friends were English, so why
was it not the same out here? Outwardly of the large shaggy type, with
sprawling limbs and blue eyes, he appeared to inspire confidence until he
spoke. Then something in his manner puzzled people and failed to allay the
distrust which his profession naturally inspired. There needs must be this
evil of brains in India, but woe to him through whom they are increased!
The feeling grew that Mr. Fielding was a disruptive force, and rightly, for
ideas are fatal to caste, and he used ideas by that most potent method—
interchange. Neither a missionary nor a student, he was happiest in the
give-and-take of a private conversation. The world, he believed, is a globe
of men who are trying to reach one another and can best do so by the help
of good will plus culture and intelligence—a creed ill suited to
Chandrapore, but he had come out too late to lose it. He had no racial
feeling—not because he was superior to his brother civilians, but because
he had matured in a different atmosphere, where the herd-instinct does not
flourish. The remark that did him most harm at the club was a silly aside to
the effect that the so-called white races are really pinko-grey. He only said
this to be cheery, he did not realize that “white” has no more to do with a
colour than “God save the King” with a god, and that it is the height of
impropriety to consider what it does connote. The pinko-grey male whom
he addressed was subtly scandalized; his sense of insecurity was awoken,
and he communicated it to the rest of the herd.

Still, the men tolerated him for the sake of his good heart and strong
body; it was their wives who decided that he was not a sahib really. They
disliked him. He took no notice of them, and this, which would have passed
without comment in feminist England, did him harm in a community where
the male is expected to be lively and helpful. Mr. Fielding never advised
one about dogs or horses, or dined, or paid his midday calls, or decorated
trees for one’s children at Christmas, and though he came to the club, it was
only to get his tennis or billiards, and to go. This was true. He had
discovered that it is possible to keep in with Indians and Englishmen, but
that he who would also keep in with Englishwomen must drop the Indians.
The two wouldn’t combine. Useless to blame either party, useless to blame
them for blaming one another. It just was so, and one had to choose. Most
Englishmen preferred their own kinswomen, who, coming out in increasing
numbers, made life on the home pattern yearly more possible. He had found
it convenient and pleasant to associate with Indians and he must pay the
price. As a rule no Englishwoman entered the College except for official
functions, and if he invited Mrs. Moore and Miss Quested to tea, it was
because they were new-comers who would view everything with an equal if
superficial eye, and would not turn on a special voice when speaking to his
other guests.
 The College itself had been slapped down by the Public Works
Department, but its grounds included an ancient garden and a garden-house,
and here he lived for much of the year. He was dressing after a bath when
Dr. Aziz was announced. Lifting up his voice, he shouted from the
bedroom, “Please make yourself at home.” The remark was
unpremeditated, like most of his actions; it was what he felt inclined to say.

To Aziz it had a very definite meaning. “May I really, Mr. Fielding? It’s
very good of you,” he called back; “I like unconventional behaviour so
extremely.” His spirits flared up, he glanced round the living-room. Some
luxury in it, but no order—nothing to intimidate poor Indians. It was also a
very beautiful room, opening into the garden through three high arches of
wood. “The fact is I have long wanted to meet you,” he continued. “I have
heard so much about your warm heart from the Nawab Bahadur. But where
is one to meet in a wretched hole like Chandrapore?” He came close up to
the door. “When I was greener here, I’ll tell you what. I used to wish you to
fall ill so that we could meet that way.” They laughed, and encouraged by
his success he began to improvise. “I said to myself, How does Mr. Fielding
look this morning? Perhaps pale. And the Civil Surgeon is pale too, he will
not be able to attend upon him when the shivering commences. I should
have been sent for instead. Then we would have had jolly talks, for you are
a celebrated student of Persian poetry.”

“You know me by sight, then.”

“Of course, of course. You know me?”

“I know you very well by name.”

“I have been here such a short time, and always in the bazaar. No wonder
you have never seen me, and I wonder you know my name. I say, Mr.
Fielding?”

“Yes?”

“Guess what I look like before you come out. That will be a kind of
game.”
 “You’re five feet nine inches high,” said Fielding, surmising this much
through the ground glass of the bedroom door.

“Jolly good. What next? Have I not a venerable white beard?”

“Blast!”

“Anything wrong?”

“I’ve stamped on my last collar stud.”

“Take mine, take mine.”

“Have you a spare one?”

“Yes, yes, one minute.”

“Not if you’re wearing it yourself.”

“No, no, one in my pocket.” Stepping aside, so that his outline might
vanish, he wrenched off his collar, and pulled out of his shirt the back stud,
a gold stud, which was part of a set that his brother-in-law had brought him
from Europe. “Here it is,” he cried.

“Come in with it if you don’t mind the unconventionality.”

“One minute again.” Replacing his collar, he prayed that it would not
spring up at the back during tea. Fielding’s bearer, who was helping him to
dress, opened the door for him.

“Many thanks.” They shook hands smiling. He began to look round, as

he would have with any old friend. Fielding was not surprised at the
rapidity of their intimacy. With so emotional a people it was apt to come at
once or never, and he and Aziz, having heard only good of each other, could
afford to dispense with preliminaries.

“But I always thought that Englishmen kept their rooms so tidy. It seems
that this is not so. I need not be so ashamed.” He sat down gaily on the bed;
then, forgetting himself entirely, drew up his legs and folded them under
him. “Everything ranged coldly on shelves was what I thought.—I say, Mr.
Fielding, is the stud going to go in?”

“I hae ma doots.”

“What’s that last sentence, please? Will you teach me some new words
and so improve my English?”

Fielding doubted whether “everything ranged coldly on shelves” could be

improved. He was often struck with the liveliness with which the younger
generation handled a foreign tongue. They altered the idiom, but they could
say whatever they wanted to say quickly; there were none of the babuisms
ascribed to them up at the club. But then the club moved slowly; it still
declared that few Mohammedans and no Hindus would eat at an
Englishman’s table, and that all Indian ladies were in impenetrable purdah.
Individually it knew better; as a club it declined to change.

“Let me put in your stud. I see . . . the shirt back’s hole is rather small
and to rip it wider a pity.”

“Why in hell does one wear collars at all?” grumbled Fielding as he bent
his neck.

“We wear them to pass the Police.”

“What’s that?”

“If I’m biking in English dress—starch collar, hat with ditch—they take
no notice. When I wear a fez, they cry, ‘Your lamp’s out!’ Lord Curzon did
not consider this when he urged natives of India to retain their picturesque
costumes.—Hooray! Stud’s gone in.—Sometimes I shut my eyes and dream
I have splendid clothes again and am riding into battle behind Alamgir. Mr.
Fielding, must not India have been beautiful then, with the Mogul Empire at
its height and Alamgir reigning at Delhi upon the Peacock Throne?”

“Two ladies are coming to tea to meet you—I think you know them.”

“Meet me? I know no ladies.”

 “Not Mrs. Moore and Miss Quested?”

“Oh yes—I remember.” The romance at the mosque had sunk out of his
consciousness as soon as it was over. “An excessively aged lady; but will
you please repeat the name of her companion?”

“Miss Quested.”

“Just as you wish.” He was disappointed that other guests were coming,
for he preferred to be alone with his new friend.

“You can talk to Miss Quested about the Peacock Throne if you like—
she’s artistic, they say.”

“Is she a Post Impressionist?”

“Post Impressionism, indeed! Come along to tea. This world is getting

too much for me altogether.”

Aziz was offended. The remark suggested that he, an obscure Indian, had
no right to have heard of Post Impressionism—a privilege reserved for the
Ruling Race, that. He said stiffly, “I do not consider Mrs. Moore my friend,
I only met her accidentally in my mosque,” and was adding “a single
meeting is too short to make a friend,” but before he could finish the
sentence the stiffness vanished from it, because he felt Fielding’s
fundamental good will. His own went out to it, and grappled beneath the
shifting tides of emotion which can alone bear the voyager to an anchorage
but may also carry him across it on to the rocks. He was safe really—as safe
as the shore-dweller who can only understand stability and supposes that
every ship must be wrecked, and he had sensations the shore-dweller cannot
know. Indeed, he was sensitive rather than responsive. In every remark he
found a meaning, but not always the true meaning, and his life though vivid
was largely a dream. Fielding, for instance, had not meant that Indians are
obscure, but that Post Impressionism is; a gulf divided his remark from
Mrs. Turton’s “Why, they speak English,” but to Aziz the two sounded
alike. Fielding saw that something had gone wrong, and equally that it had
come right, but he didn’t fidget, being an optimist where personal relations
were concerned, and their talk rattled on as before.
 “Besides the ladies I am expecting one of my assistants—Narayan
Godbole.”

“Oho, the Deccani Brahman!”

“He wants the past back too, but not precisely Alamgir.”

“I should think not. Do you know what Deccani Brahmans say? That
England conquered India from them—from them, mind, and not from the
Moguls. Is not that like their cheek? They have even bribed it to appear in
text-books, for they are so subtle and immensely rich. Professor Godbole
must be quite unlike all other Deccani Brahmans from all I can hear say. A
most sincere chap.”

“Why don’t you fellows run a club in Chandrapore, Aziz?”

“Perhaps—some day . . . just now I see Mrs. Moore and—what’s her

name—coming.”

How fortunate that it was an “unconventional” party, where formalities

are ruled out! On this basis Aziz found the English ladies easy to talk to, he
treated them like men. Beauty would have troubled him, for it entails rules
of its own, but Mrs. Moore was so old and Miss Quested so plain that he
was spared this anxiety. Adela’s angular body and the freckles on her face
were terrible defects in his eyes, and he wondered how God could have
been so unkind to any female form. His attitude towards her remained
entirely straightforward in consequence.

“I want to ask you something, Dr. Aziz,” she began. “I heard from Mrs.
Moore how helpful you were to her in the mosque, and how interesting. She
learnt more about India in those few minutes’ talk with you than in the three
weeks since we landed.”

“Oh, please do not mention a little thing like that. Is there anything else I
may tell you about my country?”

“I want you to explain a disappointment we had this morning; it must be

some point of Indian etiquette.”
 “There honestly is none,” he replied. “We are by nature a most informal
people.”

“I am afraid we must have made some blunder and given offence,” said
Mrs. Moore.

“That is even more impossible. But may I know the facts?”

“An Indian lady and gentleman were to send their carriage for us this
morning at nine. It has never come. We waited and waited and waited; we
can’t think what happened.”

“Some misunderstanding,” said Fielding, seeing at once that it was the

type of incident that had better not be cleared up.

“Oh no, it wasn’t that,” Miss Quested persisted. “They even gave up
going to Calcutta to entertain us. We must have made some stupid blunder,
we both feel sure.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that.”

“Exactly what Mr. Heaslop tells me,” she retorted, reddening a little. “If
one doesn’t worry, how’s one to understand?”

The host was inclined to change the subject, but Aziz took it up warmly,
and on learning fragments of the delinquents’ name pronounced that they
were Hindus.

“Slack Hindus—they have no idea of society; I know them very well

because of a doctor at the hospital. Such a slack, unpunctual fellow! It is as
well you did not go to their house, for it would give you a wrong idea of
India. Nothing sanitary. I think for my own part they grew ashamed of their
house and that is why they did not send.”

“That’s a notion,” said the other man.

“I do so hate mysteries,” Adela announced.

“We English do.”

 “I dislike them not because I’m English, but from my own personal point
of view,” she corrected.

“I like mysteries but I rather dislike muddles,” said Mrs. Moore.

“A mystery is a muddle.”

“Oh, do you think so, Mr. Fielding?”

“A mystery is only a high-sounding term for a muddle. No advantage in

stirring it up, in either case. Aziz and I know well that India’s a muddle.”

“India’s—— Oh, what an alarming idea!”

“There’ll be no muddle when you come to see me,” said Aziz, rather out
of his depth. “Mrs. Moore and everyone—I invite you all—oh, please.”

The old lady accepted: she still thought the young doctor excessively
nice; moreover, a new feeling, half languor, half excitement, bade her turn
down any fresh path. Miss Quested accepted out of adventure. She also
liked Aziz, and believed that when she knew him better he would unlock
his country for her. His invitation gratified her, and she asked him for his
address.

Aziz thought of his bungalow with horror. It was a detestable shanty near
a low bazaar. There was practically only one room in it, and that infested
with small black flies. “Oh, but we will talk of something else now,” he
exclaimed. “I wish I lived here. See this beautiful room! Let us admire it
together for a little. See those curves at the bottom of the arches. What
delicacy! It is the architecture of Question and Answer. Mrs. Moore, you
are in India; I am not joking.” The room inspired him. It was an audience
hall built in the eighteenth century for some high official, and though of
wood had reminded Fielding of the Loggia de’ Lanzi at Florence. Little
rooms, now Europeanized, clung to it on either side, but the central hall was
unpapered and unglassed, and the air of the garden poured in freely. One sat
in public—on exhibition, as it were—in full view of the gardeners who
were screaming at the birds and of the man who rented the tank for the
cultivation of water chestnut. Fielding let the mango trees too—there was
no knowing who might not come in—and his servants sat on his steps night
and day to discourage thieves. Beautiful certainly, and the Englishman had
not spoilt it, whereas Aziz in an occidental moment would have hung
Maude Goodmans on the walls. Yet there was no doubt to whom the room
really belonged. . . .

“I am doing justice here. A poor widow who has been robbed comes
along and I give her fifty rupees, to another a hundred, and so on and so on.
I should like that.”

Mrs. Moore smiled, thinking of the modern method as exemplified in her

son. “Rupees don’t last for ever, I’m afraid,” she said.

“Mine would. God would give me more when he saw I gave. Always be
giving, like the Nawab Bahadur. My father was the same, that is why he
died poor.” And pointing about the room he peopled it with clerks and
officials, all benevolent because they lived long ago. “So we would sit
giving for ever—on a carpet instead of chairs, that is the chief change
between now and then, but I think we would never punish anyone.”

The ladies agreed.

“Poor criminal, give him another chance. It only makes a man worse to
go to prison and be corrupted.” His face grew very tender—the tenderness
of one incapable of administration, and unable to grasp that if the poor
criminal is let off he will again rob the poor widow. He was tender to
everyone except a few family enemies whom he did not consider human: on
these he desired revenge. He was even tender to the English; he knew at the
bottom of his heart that they could not help being so cold and odd and
circulating like an ice stream through his land. “We punish no one, no one,”
he repeated, “and in the evening we will give a great banquet with a nautch
and lovely girls shall shine on every side of the tank with fireworks in their
hands, and all shall be feasting and happiness until the next day, when there
shall be justice as before—fifty rupees, a hundred, a thousand—till peace
comes. Ah, why didn’t we live in that time?—But are you admiring Mr.
Fielding’s house? Do look how the pillars are painted blue, and the
verandah’s pavilions—what do you call them?—that are above us inside are
blue also. Look at the carving on the pavilions. Think of the hours it took.
Their little roofs are curved to imitate bamboo. So pretty—and the bamboos
waving by the tank outside. Mrs. Moore! Mrs. Moore!”

“Well?” she said, laughing.

“You remember the water by our mosque? It comes down and fills this
tank—a skilful arrangement of the Emperors. They stopped here going
down into Bengal. They loved water. Wherever they went they created
fountains, gardens, hammams. I was telling Mr. Fielding I would give
anything to serve them.”

He was wrong about the water, which no Emperor, however skilful, can
cause to gravitate uphill; a depression of some depth together with the
whole of Chandrapore lay between the mosque and Fielding’s house. Ronny
would have pulled him up, Turton would have wanted to pull him up, but
restrained himself. Fielding did not even want to pull him up; he had dulled
his craving for verbal truth and cared chiefly for truth of mood. As for Miss
Quested, she accepted everything Aziz said as true verbally. In her
ignorance, she regarded him as “India,” and never surmised that his outlook
was limited and his method inaccurate, and that no one is India.

He was now much excited, chattering away hard, and even saying damn
when he got mixed up in his sentences. He told them of his profession, and
of the operations he had witnessed and performed, and he went into details
that scared Mrs. Moore, though Miss Quested mistook them for proofs of
his broad-mindedness; she had heard such talk at home in advanced
academic circles, deliberately free. She supposed him to be emancipated as
well as reliable, and placed him on a pinnacle which he could not retain. He
was high enough for the moment, to be sure, but not on any pinnacle.
Wings bore him up, and flagging would deposit him.

The arrival of Professor Godbole quieted him somewhat, but it remained

his afternoon. The Brahman, polite and enigmatic, did not impede his
eloquence, and even applauded it. He took his tea at a little distance from
the outcasts, from a low table placed slightly behind him, to which he
stretched back, and as it were encountered food by accident; all feigned
indifference to Professor Godbole’s tea. He was elderly and wizen with a
grey moustache and grey-blue eyes, and his complexion was as fair as a
European’s. He wore a turban that looked like pale purple macaroni, coat,
waistcoat, dhoti, socks with clocks. The clocks matched the turban, and his
whole appearance suggested harmony—as if he had reconciled the products
of East and West, mental as well as physical, and could never be
discomposed. The ladies were interested in him, and hoped that he would
supplement Dr. Aziz by saying something about religion. But he only ate—
ate and ate, smiling, never letting his eyes catch sight of his hand.

Leaving the Mogul Emperors, Aziz turned to topics that could distress no
one. He described the ripening of the mangoes, and how in his boyhood he
used to run out in the Rains to a big mango grove belonging to an uncle and
gorge there. “Then back with water streaming over you and perhaps rather a
pain inside. But I did not mind. All my friends were paining with me. We
have a proverb in Urdu: ‘What does unhappiness matter when we are all
unhappy together?’ which comes in conveniently after mangoes. Miss
Quested, do wait for mangoes. Why not settle altogether in India?”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” said Adela. She made the remark without
thinking what it meant. To her, as to the three men, it seemed in key with
the rest of the conversation, and not for several minutes—indeed, not for
half an hour—did she realize that it was an important remark, and ought to
have been made in the first place to Ronny.

“Visitors like you are too rare.”

“They are indeed,” said Professor Godbole. “Such affability is seldom

seen. But what can we offer to detain them?”

“Mangoes, mangoes.”

They laughed. “Even mangoes can be got in England now,” put in

Fielding. “They ship them in ice-cold rooms. You can make India in
England apparently, just as you can make England in India.”

“Frightfully expensive in both cases,” said the girl.

“I suppose so.”
 “And nasty.”

But the host wouldn’t allow the conversation to take this heavy turn. He
turned to the old lady, who looked flustered and put out—he could not
imagine why—and asked about her own plans. She replied that she should
like to see over the College. Everyone immediately rose, with the exception
of Professor Godbole, who was finishing a banana.

“Don’t you come too, Adela; you dislike institutions.”

“Yes, that is so,” said Miss Quested, and sat down again.

Aziz hesitated. His audience was splitting up. The more familiar half was
going, but the more attentive remained. Reflecting that it was an
“unconventional” afternoon, he stopped.

Talk went on as before. Could one offer the visitors unripe mangoes in a
fool? “I speak now as a doctor: no.” Then the old man said, “But I will send
you up a few healthy sweets. I will give myself that pleasure.”

“Miss Quested, Professor Godbole’s sweets are delicious,” said Aziz

sadly, for he wanted to send sweets too and had no wife to cook them.
“They will give you a real Indian treat. Ah, in my poor position I can give
you nothing.”

“I don’t know why you say that, when you have so kindly asked us to
your house.”

He thought again of his bungalow with horror. Good heavens, the stupid
girl had taken him at his word! What was he to do? “Yes, all that is settled,”
he cried.

“I invite you all to see me in the Marabar Caves.”

“I shall be delighted.”

“Oh, that is a most magnificent entertainment compared to my poor

sweets. But has not Miss Quested visited our caves already?”
 “No. I’ve not even heard of them.”

“Not heard of them?” both cried. “The Marabar Caves in the Marabar
Hills?”

“We hear nothing interesting up at the club. Only tennis and ridiculous
gossip.”

The old man was silent, perhaps feeling that it was unseemly of her to
criticize her race, perhaps fearing that if he agreed she would report him for
disloyalty. But the young man uttered a rapid “I know.”

“Then tell me everything you will, or I shall never understand India. Are
they the hills I sometimes see in the evening? What are these caves?”

Aziz undertook to explain, but it presently appeared that he had never

visited the caves himself—had always been “meaning” to go, but work or
private business had prevented him, and they were so far. Professor
Godbole chaffed him pleasantly. “My dear young sir, the pot and the kettle!
Have you ever heard of that useful proverb?”

“Are they large caves?” she asked.

“No, not large.”

“Do describe them, Professor Godbole.”

“It will be a great honour.” He drew up his chair and an expression of

tension came over his face. Taking the cigarette box, she offered to him and
to Aziz, and lit up herself. After an impressive pause he said: “There is an
entrance in the rock which you enter, and through the entrance is the cave.”

“Something like the caves at Elephanta?”

“Oh no, not at all; at Elephanta there are sculptures of Siva and Parvati.
There are no sculptures at Marabar.”

“They are immensely holy, no doubt,” said Aziz, to help on the narrative.
 “Oh no, oh no.”

“Still, they are ornamented in some way.”

“Oh no.”

“Well, why are they so famous? We all talk of the famous Marabar
Caves. Perhaps that is our empty brag.”

“No, I should not quite say that.”

“Describe them to this lady, then.”

“It will be a great pleasure.” He forewent the pleasure, and Aziz realized
that he was keeping back something about the caves. He realized because
he often suffered from similar inhibitions himself. Sometimes, to the
exasperation of Major Callendar, he would pass over the one relevant fact in
a position, to dwell on the hundred irrelevant. The Major accused him of
disingenuousness, and was roughly right, but only roughly. It was rather
that a power he couldn’t control capriciously silenced his mind. Godbole
had been silenced now; no doubt not willingly, he was concealing
something. Handled subtly, he might regain control and announce that the
Marabar Caves were—full of stalactites, perhaps; Aziz led up to this, but
they weren’t.
 The dialogue remained light and friendly, and Adela had no conception
of its underdrift. She did not know that the comparatively simple mind of
the Mohammedan was encountering Ancient Night. Aziz played a thrilling
game. He was handling a human toy that refused to work—he knew that
much. If it worked, neither he nor Professor Godbole would be the least
advantaged, but the attempt enthralled him and was akin to abstract thought.
On he chattered, defeated at every move by an opponent who would not
even admit that a move had been made, and further than ever from
discovering what, if anything, was extraordinary about the Marabar Caves.

Into this Ronny dropped.

With an annoyance he took no trouble to conceal, he called from the

garden: “What’s happened to Fielding? Where’s my mother?”

“Good evening!” she replied coolly.

“I want you and mother at once. There’s to be polo.”

“I thought there was to be no polo.”

“Everything’s altered. Some soldier men have come in. Come along and
I’ll tell you about it.”

“Your mother will return shortly, sir,” said Professor Godbole, who had
risen with deference. “There is but little to see at our poor college.”

Ronny took no notice, but continued to address his remarks to Adela; he

had hurried away from his work to take her to see the polo, because he
thought it would give her pleasure. He did not mean to be rude to the two
men, but the only link he could be conscious of with an Indian was the
official, and neither happened to be his subordinate. As private individuals
he forgot them.

Unfortunately Aziz was in no mood to be forgotten. He would not give

up the secure and intimate note of the last hour. He had not risen with
Godbole, and now, offensively friendly, called from his seat, “Come along
up and join us, Mr. Heaslop; sit down till your mother turns up.”

Ronny replied by ordering one of Fielding’s servants to fetch his master

at once.

“He may not understand that. Allow me——” Aziz repeated the order
idiomatically.

Ronny was tempted to retort; he knew the type; he knew all the types,
and this was the spoilt Westernized. But he was a servant of the
Government, it was his job to avoid “incidents,” so he said nothing, and
ignored the provocation that Aziz continued to offer. Aziz was provocative.
Everything he said had an impertinent flavour or jarred. His wings were
failing, but he refused to fall without a struggle. He did not mean to be
impertinent to Mr. Heaslop, who had never done him harm, but here was an
Anglo-Indian who must become a man before comfort could be regained.
He did not mean to be greasily confidential to Miss Quested, only to enlist
her support; nor to be loud and jolly towards Professor Godbole. A strange
quartette—he fluttering to the ground, she puzzled by the sudden ugliness,
Ronny fuming, the Brahman observing all three, but with downcast eyes
and hands folded, as if nothing was noticeable. A scene from a play,
thought Fielding, who now saw them from the distance across the garden
grouped among the blue pillars of his beautiful hall.

“Don’t trouble to come, mother,” Ronny called; “we’re just starting.”

Then he hurried to Fielding, drew him aside and said with pseudo-
heartiness, “I say, old man, do excuse me, but I think perhaps you oughtn’t
to have left Miss Quested alone.”

“I’m sorry, what’s up?” replied Fielding, also trying to be genial.

“Well . . . I’m the sun-dried bureaucrat, no doubt; still, I don’t like to see
an English girl left smoking with two Indians.”

“She stopped, as she smokes, by her own wish, old man.”

“Yes, that’s all right in England.”

 “I really can’t see the harm.”

“If you can’t see, you can’t see. . . . Can’t you see that fellow’s a
bounder?”

Aziz flamboyant, was patronizing Mrs. Moore.

“He isn’t a bounder,” protested Fielding. “His nerves are on edge, that’s
all.”

“What should have upset his precious nerves?”

“I don’t know. He was all right when I left.”

“Well, it’s nothing I’ve said,” said Ronny reassuringly. “I never even
spoke to him.”

“Oh well, come along now, and take your ladies away; the catastrophe
over.”

“Fielding . . . don’t think I’m taking it badly, or anything of that sort. . . .

I suppose you won’t come on to the polo with us? We should all be
delighted.”

“I’m afraid I can’t, thanks all the same. I’m awfully sorry you feel I’ve
been remiss. I didn’t mean to be.”

So the leave-taking began. Every one was cross or wretched. It was as if

irritation exuded from the very soil. Could one have been so petty on a
Scotch moor or an Italian alp? Fielding wondered afterwards. There seemed
no reserve of tranquillity to draw upon in India.

Either none, or else tranquillity swallowed up everything, as it appeared

to do for Professor Godbole. Here was Aziz all shoddy and odious, Mrs.
Moore and Miss Quested both silly, and he himself and Heaslop both
decorous on the surface, but detestable really, and detesting each other.

“Good-bye, Mr. Fielding, and thank you so much. . . . What lovely

College buildings!”
 “Good-bye, Mrs. Moore.”

“Good-bye, Mr. Fielding. Such an interesting afternoon. . . .”

“Good-bye, Miss Quested.”

“Good-bye, Dr. Aziz.”

“Good-bye, Mrs. Moore.”

“Good-bye, Dr. Aziz.”

“Good-bye, Miss Quested.” He pumped her hand up and down to show

that he felt at ease. “You’ll jolly jolly well not forget those caves, won’t
you? I’ll fix the whole show up in a jiffy.”

“Thank you. . .

Inspired by the devil to a final effort, he added, “What a shame you leave
India so soon! Oh, do reconsider your decision, do stay.”

“Good-bye, Professor Godbole,” she continued, suddenly agitated. “It’s a

shame we never heard you sing.”

“I may sing now,” he replied, and did.

His thin voice rose, and gave out one sound after another. At times there
seemed rhythm, at times there was the illusion of a Western melody. But the
ear, baffled repeatedly, soon lost any clue, and wandered in a maze of
noises, none harsh or unpleasant, none intelligible. It was the song of an
unknown bird. Only the servants understood it. They began to whisper to
one another. The man who was gathering water chestnut came naked out of
the tank, his lips parted with delight, disclosing his scarlet tongue. The
sounds continued and ceased after a few moments as casually as they had
begun—apparently half through a bar, and upon the subdominant.

“Thanks so much: what was that?” asked Fielding.

 “I will explain in detail. It was a religious song. I placed myself in the
position of a milkmaiden. I say to Shri Krishna, ‘Come! come to me only.’
The god refuses to come. I grow humble and say: ‘Do not come to me only.
Multiply yourself into a hundred Krishnas, and let one go to each of my
hundred companions, but one, O Lord of the Universe, come to me.’ He
refuses to come. This is repeated several times. The song is composed in a
raga appropriate to the present hour, which is the evening.”

“But He comes in some other song, I hope?” said Mrs. Moore gently.

“Oh no, he refuses to come,” repeated Godbole, perhaps not

understanding her question. “I say to Him, Come, come, come, come,
come, come. He neglects to come.”

Ronny’s steps had died away, and there was a moment of absolute
silence. No ripple disturbed the water, no leaf stirred.
 CHAPTER VIII

Although Miss Quested had known Ronny well in England, she felt well
advised to visit him before deciding to be his wife. India had developed
sides of his character that she had never admired. His self-complacency, his
censoriousness, his lack of subtlety, all grew vivid beneath a tropic sky; he
seemed more indifferent than of old to what was passing in the minds of his
fellows, more certain that he was right about them or that if he was wrong it
didn’t matter. When proved wrong, he was particularly exasperating; he
always managed to suggest that she needn’t have bothered to prove it. The
point she made was never the relevant point, her arguments conclusive but
barren, she was reminded that he had expert knowledge and she none, and
that experience would not help her because she could not interpret it. A
Public School, London University, a year at a crammer’s, a particular
sequence of posts in a particular province, a fall from a horse and a touch of
fever were presented to her as the only training by which Indians and all
who reside in their country can be understood; the only training she could
comprehend, that is to say, for of course above Ronny there stretched the
higher realms of knowledge, inhabited by Callendars and Turtons, who had
been not one year in the country but twenty and whose instincts were
superhuman. For himself he made no extravagant claims; she wished he
would. It was the qualified bray of the callow official, the “I am not perfect,
but——” that got on her nerves.

How gross he had been at Mr. Fielding’s—spoiling the talk and walking
off in the middle of the haunting song! As he drove them away in the tum-
tum, her irritation became unbearable, and she did not realize that much of
it was directed against herself. She longed for an opportunity to fly out at
him, and since he felt cross too, and they were both in India, an opportunity
soon occurred. They had scarcely left the College grounds before she heard
him say to his mother, who was with him on the front seat, “What was that
about caves?” and she promptly opened fire.
 “Mrs. Moore, your delightful doctor has decided on a picnic, instead of a
party in his house; we are to meet him out there—you, myself, Mr. Fielding,
Professor Godbole—exactly the same party.”

“Out where?” asked Ronny.

“The Marabar Caves.”

“Well, I’m blessed,” he murmured after a pause. “Did he descend to any

details?”

“He did not. If you had spoken to him, we could have arranged them.”

He shook his head laughing.

“Have I said anything funny?”

“I was only thinking how the worthy doctor’s collar climbed up his
neck.”

“I thought you were discussing the caves.”

“So I am. Aziz was exquisitely dressed, from tie-pin to spats, but he had
forgotten his back collar-stud, and there you have the Indian all over:
inattention to detail; the fundamental slackness that reveals the race.
Similarly, to ‘meet’ in the caves as if they were the clock at Charing Cross,
when they’re miles from a station and each other.”

“Have you been to them?”

“No, but I know all about them, naturally.”

“Oh naturally!”

“Are you too pledged to this expedition, mother?”

“Mother is pledged to nothing,” said Mrs. Moore, rather unexpectedly.

“Certainly not to this polo. Will you drive up to the bungalow first, and
drop me there, please? I prefer to rest.”
 “Drop me too,” said Adela. “I don’t want to watch polo either, I’m sure.”

“Simpler to drop the polo,” said Ronny. Tired and disappointed, he quite
lost self-control, and added in a loud lecturing voice, “I won’t have you
messing about with Indians any more! If you want to go to the Marabar
Caves, you’ll go under British auspices.”

“I’ve never heard of these caves, I don’t know what or where they are,”
said Mrs. Moore, “but I really can’t have”—she tapped the cushion beside
her—“so much quarrelling and tiresomeness!”

The young people were ashamed. They dropped her at the bungalow and
drove on together to the polo, feeling it was the least they could do. Their
crackling bad humour left them, but the heaviness of their spirit remained;
thunderstorms seldom clear the air. Miss Quested was thinking over her
own behaviour, and didn’t like it at all. Instead of weighing Ronny and
herself, and coming to a reasoned conclusion about marriage, she had
incidentally, in the course of a talk about mangoes, remarked to mixed
company that she didn’t mean to stop in India. Which meant that she
wouldn’t marry Ronny: but what a way to announce it, what a way for a
civilized girl to behave! She owed him an explanation, but unfortunately
there was nothing to explain. The “thorough talk” so dear to her principles
and temperament had been postponed until too late. There seemed no point
in being disagreeable to him and formulating her complaints against his
character at this hour of the day, which was the evening. . . . The polo took
place on the Maidan near the entrance of Chandrapore city. The sun was
already declining and each of the trees held a premonition of night. They
walked away from the governing group to a distant seat, and there, feeling
that it was his due and her own, she forced out of herself the undigested
remark: “We must have a thorough talk, Ronny, I’m afraid.”

“My temper’s rotten, I must apologize,” was his reply. “I didn’t mean to
order you and mother about, but of course the way those Bengalis let you
down this morning annoyed me, and I don’t want that sort of thing to keep
happening.”

“It’s nothing to do with them that I . . .”

 “No, but Aziz would make some similar muddle over the caves. He
meant nothing by the invitation, I could tell by his voice; it’s just their way
of being pleasant.”

“It’s something very different, nothing to do with caves, that I wanted to

talk over with you.” She gazed at the colourless grass. “I’ve finally decided
we are not going to be married, my dear boy.”

The news hurt Ronny very much. He had heard Aziz announce that she
would not return to the country, but had paid no attention to the remark, for
he never dreamt that an Indian could be a channel of communication
between two English people. He controlled himself and said gently, “You
never said we should marry, my dear girl; you never bound either yourself
or me—don’t let this upset you.”

She felt ashamed. How decent he was! He might force his opinions down
her throat, but did not press her to an “engagement,” because he believed,
like herself, in the sanctity of personal relationships: it was this that had
drawn them together at their first meeting, which had occurred among the
grand scenery of the English Lakes. Her ordeal was over, but she felt it
should have been more painful and longer. Adela will not marry Ronny. It
seemed slipping away like a dream. She said, “But let us discuss things; it’s
all so frightfully important, we mustn’t make false steps. I want next to hear
your point of view about me—it might help us both.”

His manner was unhappy and reserved. “I don’t much believe in this
discussing—besides, I’m so dead with all this extra work Mohurram’s
bringing, if you’ll excuse me.”

“I only want everything to be absolutely clear between us, and to answer

any questions you care to put to me on my conduct.”

“But I haven’t got any questions. You’ve acted within your rights, you
were quite right to come out and have a look at me doing my work, it was
an excellent plan, and anyhow it’s no use talking further—we should only
get up steam.” He felt angry and bruised; he was too proud to tempt her
back, but he did not consider that she had behaved badly, because where his
compatriots were concerned he had a generous mind.
 “I suppose that there is nothing else; it’s unpardonable of me to have
given you and your mother all this bother,” said Miss Quested heavily, and
frowned up at the tree beneath which they were sitting. A little green bird
was observing her, so brilliant and neat that it might have hopped straight
out of a shop. On catching her eye it closed its own, gave a small skip and
prepared to go to bed. Some Indian wild bird. “Yes, nothing else,” she
repeated, feeling that a profound and passionate speech ought to have been
delivered by one or both of them. “We’ve been awfully British over it, but I
suppose that’s all right.”

“As we are British, I suppose it is.”

“Anyhow we’ve not quarrelled, Ronny.”

“Oh, that would have been too absurd. Why should we quarrel?”

“I think we shall keep friends.”

“I know we shall.”

“Quite so.”

As soon as they had exchanged this admission, a wave of relief passed

through them both, and then transformed itself into a wave of tenderness,
and passed back. They were softened by their own honesty, and began to
feel lonely and unwise. Experiences, not character, divided them; they were
not dissimilar, as humans go; indeed, when compared with the people who
stood nearest to them in point of space they became practically identical.
The Bhil who was holding an officer’s polo pony, the Eurasian who drove
the Nawab Bahadur’s car, the Nawab Bahadur himself, the Nawab
Bahadur’s debauched grandson—none would have examined a difficulty so
frankly and coolly. The mere fact of examination caused it to diminish. Of
course they were friends, and for ever. “Do you know what the name of that
green bird up above us is?” she asked, putting her shoulder rather nearer to
his.

“Bee-eater.”
 “Oh no, Ronny, it has red bars on its wings.”

“Parrot,” he hazarded.

“Good gracious no.”

The bird in question dived into the dome of the tree. It was of no
importance, yet they would have liked to identify it, it would somehow
have solaced their hearts.

But nothing in India is identifiable, the mere asking of a question causes

it to disappear or to merge in something else.

“McBryde has an illustrated bird book,” he said dejectedly. “I’m no good

at all at birds, in fact I’m useless at any information outside my own job.
It’s a great pity.”

“So am I. I’m useless at everything.”

“What do I hear?” shouted the Nawab Bahadur at the top of his voice,
causing both of them to start. “What most improbable statement have I
heard? An English lady useless? No, no, no, no, no.” He laughed genially,
sure, within limits, of his welcome.

“Hallo, Nawab Bahadur! Been watching the polo again?” said Ronny
tepidly.

“I have, sahib, I have.”

“How do you do?” said Adela, likewise pulling herself together. She held
out her hand. The old gentleman judged from so wanton a gesture that she
was new to his country, but he paid little heed. Women who exposed their
face became by that one act so mysterious to him that he took them at the
valuation of their men folk rather than at his own. Perhaps they were not
immoral, and anyhow they were not his affair. On seeing the City
Magistrate alone with a maiden at twilight, he had borne down on them
with hospitable intent. He had a new little car, and wished to place it at their
disposal; the City Magistrate would decide whether the offer was
acceptable.

Ronny was by this time rather ashamed of his curtness to Aziz and
Godbole, and here was an opportunity of showing that he could treat
Indians with consideration when they deserved it. So he said to Adela, with
the same sad friendliness that he had employed when discussing the bird,
“Would half an hour’s spin entertain you at all?”

“Oughtn’t we to get back to the bungalow.”

“Why?” He gazed at her.

“I think perhaps I ought to see your mother and discuss future plans.”

“That’s as you like, but there’s no hurry, is there?”

“Let me take you to the bungalow, and first the little spin,” cried the old
man, and hastened to the car.

“He may show you some aspect of the country I can’t, and he’s a real
loyalist. I thought you might care for a bit of a change.”

Determined to give him no more trouble, she agreed, but her desire to see
India had suddenly decreased. There had been a factitious element in it.

How should they seat themselves in the car? The elegant grandson had to
be left behind. The Nawab Bahadur got up in front, for he had no intention
of neighbouring an English girl. “Despite my advanced years, I am learning
to drive,” he said. “Man can learn everything if he will but try.” And
foreseeing a further difficulty, he added, “I do not do the actual steering. I
sit and ask my chauffeur questions, and thus learn the reason for everything
that is done before I do it myself. By this method serious and I may say
ludicrous accidents, such as befell one of my compatriots during that
delightful reception at the English Club, are avoided. Our good Panna Lal! I
hope, sahib, that great damage was not done to your flowers. Let us have
our little spin down the Gangavati road. Half one league onwards!” He fell
asleep.
 Ronny instructed the chauffeur to take the Marabar road rather than the
Gangavati, since the latter was under repair, and settled himself down
beside the lady he had lost. The car made a burring noise and rushed along
a chaussée that ran upon an embankment above melancholy fields. Trees of
a poor quality bordered the road, indeed the whole scene was inferior, and
suggested that the country-side was too vast to admit of excellence. In vain
did each item in it call out, “Come, come.”

There was not enough god to go round. The two young people conversed
feebly and felt unimportant. When the darkness began, it seemed to well out
of the meagre vegetation, entirely covering the fields each side of them
before it brimmed over the road. Ronny’s face grew dim—an event that
always increased her esteem for his character. Her hand touched his, owing
to a jolt, and one of the thrills so frequent in the animal kingdom passed
between them, and announced that all their difficulties were only a lovers’
quarrel. Each was too proud to increase the pressure, but neither withdrew
it, and a spurious unity descended on them, as local and temporary as the
gleam that inhabits a firefly. It would vanish in a moment, perhaps to
reappear, but the darkness is alone durable. And the night that encircled
them, absolute as it seemed, was itself only a spurious unity, being modified
by the gleams of day that leaked up round the edges of the earth, and by the
stars.

They gripped . . . bump, jump, a swerve, two wheels lifted in the air,
breaks on, bump with tree at edge of embankment, standstill. An accident.
A slight one. Nobody hurt. The Nawab Bahadur awoke. He cried out in
Arabic, and violently tugged his beard.

“What’s the damage?” enquired Ronny, after the moment’s pause that he
permitted himself before taking charge of a situation. The Eurasian, inclined
to be flustered, rallied to the sound of his voice, and, every inch an
Englishman, replied, “You give me five minutes’ time, I’ll take you any
dam anywhere.”

“Frightened, Adela?” He released her hand.

“Not a bit.”
 “I consider not to be frightened the height of folly,” cried the Nawab
Bahadur quite rudely.

“Well, it’s all over now, tears are useless,” said Ronny, dismounting. “We
had some luck butting that tree.”

“All over . . . oh yes, the danger is past, let us smoke cigarettes, let us do
anything we please. Oh yes . . . enjoy ourselves—oh my merciful God . . .”
His words died into Arabic again.

“Wasn’t the bridge. We skidded.”

“We didn’t skid,” said Adela, who had seen the cause of the accident, and
thought everyone must have seen it too. “We ran into an animal.”

A loud cry broke from the old man: his terror was disproportionate and
ridiculous.

“An animal?”

“A large animal rushed up out of the dark on the right and hit us.”

“By Jove, she’s right,” Ronny exclaimed. “The paint’s gone.”

“By Jove, sir, your lady is right,” echoed the Eurasian. Just by the hinges
of the door was a dent, and the door opened with difficulty.

“Of course I’m right. I saw its hairy back quite plainly.”

“I say, Adela, what was it?”

“I don’t know the animals any better than the birds here—too big for a
goat.”

“Exactly, too big for a goat . . .” said the old man.

Ronny said, “Let’s go into this; let’s look for its tracks.”

“Exactly; you wish to borrow this electric torch.”

 The English people walked a few steps back into the darkness, united and
happy. Thanks to their youth and upbringing, they were not upset by the
accident. They traced back the writhing of the tyres to the source of their
disturbance. It was just after the exit from a bridge; the animal had probably
come up out of the nullah. Steady and smooth ran the marks of the car,
ribbons neatly nicked with lozenges, then all went mad. Certainly some
external force had impinged, but the road had been used by too many
objects for any one track to be legible, and the torch created such high lights
and black shadows that they could not interpret what it revealed. Moreover,
Adela in her excitement knelt and swept her skirts about, until it was she if
anyone who appeared to have attacked the car. The incident was a great
relief to them both. They forgot their abortive personal relationship, and felt
adventurous as they muddled about in the dust.

“I believe it was a buffalo,” she called to their host, who had not
accompanied them.

“Exactly.”

“Unless it was a hyena.”

Ronny approved this last conjecture. Hyenas prowl in nullahs and

headlights dazzle them.

“Excellent, a hyena,” said the Indian with an angry irony and a gesture at
the night. “Mr. Harris!”

“Half a mo-ment. Give me ten minutes’ time.”

“Sahib says hyena.”

“Don’t worry Mr. Harris. He saved us from a nasty smash. Harris, well
done!”

“A smash, sahib, that would not have taken place had he obeyed and
taken us Gangavati side, instead of Marabar.”
 “My fault that. I told him to come this way because the road’s better. Mr.
Lesley has made it pukka right up to the hills.”

“Ah, now I begin to understand.” Seeming to pull himself together, he

apologized slowly and elaborately for the accident. Ronny murmured, “Not
at all,” but apologies were his due, and should have started sooner: because
English people are so calm at a crisis, it is not to be assumed that they are
unimportant. The Nawab Bahadur had not come out very well.

At that moment a large car approached from the opposite direction.

Ronny advanced a few steps down the road, and with authority in his voice
and gesture stopped it. It bore the inscription “Mudkul State” across its
bonnet. All friskiness and friendliness, Miss Derek sat inside.

“Mr. Heaslop, Miss Quested, what are you holding up an innocent female
for?”

“We’ve had a breakdown.”

“But how putrid!”

“We ran into a hyena!”

“How absolutely rotten!”

“Can you give us a lift?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“Take me too,” said the Nawab Bahadur.

“Heh, what about me?” cried Mr. Harris.

“Now what’s all this? I’m not an omnibus,” said Miss Derek with
decision. “I’ve a harmonium and two dogs in here with me as it is. I’ll take
three of you if one’ll sit in front and nurse a pug. No more.”

“I will sit in front,” said the Nawab Bahadur.

 “Then hop in: I’ve no notion who you are.”

“Heh no, what about my dinner? I can’t be left alone all the night.”
Trying to look and feel like a European, the chauffeur interposed
aggressively. He still wore a topi, despite the darkness, and his face, to
which the Ruling Race had contributed little beyond bad teeth, peered out
of it pathetically, and seemed to say, “What’s it all about? Don’t worry me
so, you blacks and whites. Here I am, stuck in dam India same as you, and
you got to fit me in better than this.”

“Nussu will bring you out some suitable dinner upon a bicycle,” said the
Nawab Bahadur, who had regained his usual dignity. “I shall despatch him
with all possible speed. Meanwhile, repair my car.”

They sped off, and Mr. Harris, after a reproachful glance, squatted down
upon his hams. When English and Indians were both present, he grew self-
conscious, because he did not know to whom he belonged. For a little he
was vexed by opposite currents in his blood, then they blended, and he
belonged to no one but himself.

But Miss Derek was in tearing spirits. She had succeeded in stealing the
Mudkul car. Her Maharajah would be awfully sick, but she didn’t mind, he
could sack her if he liked. “I don’t believe in these people letting you
down,” she said. “If I didn’t snatch like the devil, I should be nowhere. He
doesn’t want the car, silly fool! Surely it’s to the credit of his State I should
be seen about in it at Chandrapore during my leave. He ought to look at it
that way. Anyhow he’s got to look at it that way. My Maharani’s different—
my Maharani’s a dear. That’s her fox terrier, poor little devil. I fished them
out both with the driver. Imagine taking dogs to a Chiefs’ Conference! As
sensible as taking Chiefs, perhaps.” She shrieked with laughter. “The
harmonium—the harmonium’s my little mistake, I own. They rather had me
over the harmonium. I meant it to stop on the train. Oh lor’!”

Ronny laughed with restraint. He did not approve of English people

taking service under the Native States, where they obtain a certain amount
of influence, but at the expense of the general prestige. The humorous
triumphs of a free lance are of no assistance to an administrator, and he told
the young lady that she would outdo Indians at their own game if she went
on much longer.

“They always sack me before that happens, and then I get another job.
The whole of India seethes with Maharanis and Ranis and Begums who
clamour for such as me.”

“Really. I had no idea.”

“How could you have any idea, Mr. Heaslop? What should he know
about Maharanis, Miss Quested? Nothing. At least I should hope not.”

“I understand those big people are not particularly interesting,” said

Adela, quietly, disliking the young woman’s tone. Her hand touched
Ronny’s again in the darkness, and to the animal thrill there was now added
a coincidence of opinion.

“Ah, there you’re wrong. They’re priceless.”

“I would scarcely call her wrong,” broke out the Nawab Bahadur, from
his isolation on the front seat, whither they had relegated him. “A Native
State, a Hindu State, the wife of a ruler of a Hindu State, may beyond doubt
be a most excellent lady, and let it not be for a moment supposed that I
suggest anything against the character of Her Highness the Maharani of
Mudkul. But I fear she will be uneducated, I fear she will be superstitious.
Indeed, how could she be otherwise? What opportunity of education has
such a lady had? Oh, superstition is terrible, terrible! oh, it is the great
defect in our Indian character!”—and as if to point his criticism, the lights
of the civil station appeared on a rise to the right. He grew more and more
voluble. “Oh, it is the duty of each and every citizen to shake superstition
off, and though I have little experience of Hindu States, and none of this
particular one, namely Mudkul (the Ruler, I fancy, has a salute of but eleven
guns)—yet I cannot imagine that they have been as successful as British
India, where we see reason and orderliness spreading in every direction,
like a most health-giving flood!”

Miss Derek said “Golly!”

 Undeterred by the expletive, the old man swept on. His tongue had been
loosed and his mind had several points to make. He wanted to endorse Miss
Quested’s remark that big people are not interesting, because he was bigger
himself than many an independent chief; at the same time, he must neither
remind nor inform her that he was big, lest she felt she had committed a
discourtesy. This was the groundwork of his oration; worked in with it was
his gratitude to Miss Derek for the lift, his willingness to hold a repulsive
dog in his arms, and his general regret for the trouble he had caused the
human race during the evening. Also he wanted to be dropped near the city
to get hold of his cleaner, and to see what mischief his grandson was up to.
As he wove all these anxieties into a single rope, he suspected that his
audience felt no interest, and that the City Magistrate fondled either maiden
behind the cover of the harmonium, but good breeding compelled him to
continue; it was nothing to him if they were bored, because he did not know
what boredom is, and it was nothing to him if they were licentious, because
God has created all races to be different. The accident was over, and his life,
equably useful, distinguished, happy, ran on as before and expressed itself
in streams of well-chosen words.

When this old geyser left them, Ronny made no comment, but talked
lightly about polo; Turton had taught him that it is sounder not to discuss a
man at once, and he reserved what he had to say on the Nawab’s character
until later in the evening. His hand, which he had removed to say good-bye,
touched Adela’s again; she caressed it definitely, he responded, and their
firm and mutual pressure surely meant something. They looked at each
other when they reached the bungalow, for Mrs. Moore was inside it. It was
for Miss Quested to speak, and she said nervously, “Ronny, I should like to
take back what I said on the Maidan.” He assented, and they became
engaged to be married in consequence.

Neither had foreseen such a consequence. She had meant to revert to her
former condition of important and cultivated uncertainty, but it had passed
out of her reach at its appropriate hour. Unlike the green bird or the hairy
animal, she was labelled now. She felt humiliated again, for she deprecated
labels, and she felt too that there should have been another scene between
her lover and herself at this point, something dramatic and lengthy. He was
pleased instead of distressed, he was surprised, but he had really nothing to
say. What indeed is there to say? To be or not to be married, that was the
question, and they had decided it in the affirmative.

“Come along and let’s tell the mater all this”—opening the perforated
zinc door that protected the bungalow from the swarms of winged creatures.
The noise woke the mater up. She had been dreaming of the absent children
who were so seldom mentioned, Ralph and Stella, and did not at first grasp
what was required of her. She too had become used to thoughtful
procrastination, and felt alarmed when it came to an end.

When the announcement was over, he made a gracious and honest

remark. “Look here, both of you, see India if you like and as you like—I
know I made myself rather ridiculous at Fielding’s, but . . . it’s different
now. I wasn’t quite sure of myself.”

“My duties here are evidently finished, I don’t want to see India now;
now for my passage back,” was Mrs. Moore’s thought. She reminded
herself of all that a happy marriage means, and of her own happy marriages,
one of which had produced Ronny. Adela’s parents had also been happily
married, and excellent it was to see the incident repeated by the younger
generation. On and on! the number of such unions would certainly increase
as education spread and ideals grew loftier, and characters firmer. But she
was tired by her visit to Government College, her feet ached, Mr. Fielding
had walked too fast and far, the young people had annoyed her in the tum-
tum, and given her to suppose they were breaking with each other, and
though it was all right now she could not speak as enthusiastically of
wedlock or of anything as she should have done. Ronny was suited, now
she must go home and help the others, if they wished. She was past
marrying herself, even unhappily; her function was to help others, her
reward to be informed that she was sympathetic. Elderly ladies must not
expect more than this.

They dined alone. There was much pleasant and affectionate talk about
the future. Later on they spoke of passing events, and Ronny reviewed and
recounted the day from his own point of view. It was a different day from
the women’s, because while they had enjoyed themselves or thought, he had
worked. Mohurram was approaching, and as usual the Chandrapore
Mohammedans were building paper towers of a size too large to pass under
the branches of a certain pepul tree. One knew what happened next; the
tower stuck, a Mohammedan climbed up the pepul and cut the branch off,
the Hindus protested, there was a religious riot, and Heaven knew what,
with perhaps the troops sent for. There had been deputations and
conciliation committees under the auspices of Turton, and all the normal
work of Chandrapore had been hung up. Should the procession take another
route, or should the towers be shorter? The Mohammedans offered the
former, the Hindus insisted on the latter. The Collector had favoured the
Hindus, until he suspected that they had artificially bent the tree nearer the
ground. They said it sagged naturally. Measurements, plans, an official visit
to the spot. But Ronny had not disliked his day, for it proved that the British
were necessary to India; there would certainly have been bloodshed without
them. His voice grew complacent again; he was here not to be pleasant but
to keep the peace, and now that Adela had promised to be his wife, she was
sure to understand.

“What does our old gentleman of the car think?” she asked, and her
negligent tone was exactly what he desired.

“Our old gentleman is helpful and sound, as he always is over public

affairs. You’ve seen in him our show Indian.”

“Have I really?”

“I’m afraid so. Incredible, aren’t they, even the best of them? They’re all
—they all forget their back collar studs sooner or later. You’ve had to do
with three sets of Indians to-day, the Bhattacharyas, Aziz, and this chap,
and it really isn’t a coincidence that they’ve all let you down.”

“I like Aziz, Aziz is my real friend,” Mrs. Moore interposed.

“When the animal runs into us the Nawab loses his head, deserts his
unfortunate chauffeur, intrudes upon Miss Derek . . . no great crimes, no
great crimes, but no white man would have done it.”

“What animal?”
 “Oh, we had a small accident on the Marabar road. Adela thinks it was a
hyena.”

“An accident?” she cried.

“Nothing; no one hurt. Our excellent host awoke much rattled from his
dreams, appeared to think it was our fault, and chanted exactly, exactly.”

Mrs. Moore shivered, “A ghost!” But the idea of a ghost scarcely passed
her lips. The young people did not take it up, being occupied with their own
outlooks, and deprived of support it perished, or was reabsorbed into the
part of the mind that seldom speaks.

“Yes, nothing criminal,” Ronny summed up, “but there’s the native, and
there’s one of the reasons why we don’t admit him to our clubs, and how a
decent girl like Miss Derek can take service under natives puzzles me. . . .
But I must get on with my work. Krishna!” Krishna was the peon who
should have brought the files from his office. He had not turned up, and a
terrific row ensued. Ronny stormed, shouted, howled, and only the
experienced observer could tell that he was not angry, did not much want
the files, and only made a row because it was the custom. Servants, quite
understanding, ran slowly in circles, carrying hurricane lamps. Krishna the
earth, Krishna the stars replied, until the Englishman was appeased by their
echoes, fined the absent peon eight annas, and sat down to his arrears in the
next room.

“Will you play Patience with your future mother-in-law, dear Adela, or
does it seem too tame?”

“I should like to—I don’t feel a bit excited—I’m just glad it’s settled up
at last, but I’m not conscious of vast changes. We are all three the same
people still.”

“That’s much the best feeling to have.” She dealt out the first row of
“demon.”

“I suppose so,” said the girl thoughtfully.

 “I feared at Mr. Fielding’s that it might be settled the other way . . . black
knave on a red queen. . . .” They chatted gently about the game.

Presently Adela said: “You heard me tell Aziz and Godbole I wasn’t
stopping in their country. I didn’t mean it, so why did I say it? I feel I
haven’t been—frank enough, attentive enough, or something. It’s as if I got
everything out of proportion. You have been so very good to me, and I
meant to be good when I sailed, but somehow I haven’t been. . . . Mrs.
Moore, if one isn’t absolutely honest, what is the use of existing?”

She continued to lay out her cards. The words were obscure, but she
understood the uneasiness that produced them. She had experienced it twice
herself, during her own engagements—this vague contrition and doubt. All
had come right enough afterwards and doubtless would this time—marriage
makes most things right enough. “I wouldn’t worry,” she said. “It’s partly
the odd surroundings; you and I keep on attending to trifles instead of
what’s important; we are what the people here call ‘new.’”

“You mean that my bothers are mixed up with India?”

“India’s——” She stopped.

“What made you call it a ghost?”

“Call what a ghost?”

“The animal thing that hit us. Didn’t you say ‘Oh, a ghost,’ in passing.”

“I couldn’t have been thinking of what I was saying.”

“It was probably a hyena, as a matter of fact.”

“Ah, very likely.”

And they went on with their Patience. Down in Chandrapore the Nawab
Bahadur waited for his car. He sat behind his town house (a small
unfurnished building which he rarely entered) in the midst of the little court
that always improvises itself round Indians of position. As if turbans were
the natural product of darkness a fresh one would occasionally froth to the
front, incline itself towards him, and retire. He was preoccupied, his diction
was appropriate to a religious subject. Nine years previously, when first he
had had a car, he had driven it over a drunken man and killed him, and the
man had been waiting for him ever since. The Nawab Bahadur was
innocent before God and the Law, he had paid double the compensation
necessary; but it was no use, the man continued to wait in an unspeakable
form, close to the scene of his death. None of the English people knew of
this, nor did the chauffeur; it was a racial secret communicable more by
blood than speech. He spoke now in horror of the particular circumstances;
he had led others into danger, he had risked the lives of two innocent and
honoured guests. He repeated, “If I had been killed, what matter? it must
happen sometime; but they who trusted me——”

The company shuddered and invoked the mercy of God. Only Aziz held
aloof, because a personal experience restrained him: was it not by despising
ghosts that he had come to know Mrs. Moore? “You know, Nureddin,” he
whispered to the grandson—an effeminate youth whom he seldom met,
always liked, and invariably forgot—“you know, my dear fellow, we
Moslems simply must get rid of these superstitions, or India will never
advance. How long must I hear of the savage pig upon the Marabar Road?”
Nureddin looked down. Aziz continued: “Your grandfather belongs to
another generation, and I respect and love the old gentleman, as you know. I
say nothing against him, only that it is wrong for us, because we are young.
I want you to promise me—Nureddin, are you listening?—not to believe in
Evil Spirits, and if I die (for my health grows very weak) to bring up my
three children to disbelieve in them too.” Nureddin smiled, and a suitable
answer rose to his pretty lips, but before he could make it the car arrived,
and his grandfather took him away.

The game of Patience up in the civil lines went on longer than this. Mrs.
Moore continued to murmur “Red ten on a black knave,” Miss Quested to
assist her, and to intersperse among the intricacies of the play details about
the hyena, the engagement, the Maharani of Mudkul, the Bhattacharyas,
and the day generally, whose rough desiccated surface acquired as it
receded a definite outline, as India itself might, could it be viewed from the
moon. Presently the players went to bed, but not before other people had
woken up elsewhere, people whose emotions they could not share, and
whose existence they ignored. Never tranquil, never perfectly dark, the
night wore itself away, distinguished from other nights by two or three
blasts of wind, which seemed to fall perpendicularly out of the sky and to
bounce back into it, hard and compact, leaving no freshness behind them:
the hot weather was approaching.
 CHAPTER IX

Aziz fell ill as he foretold—slightly ill. Three days later he lay abed in his
bungalow, pretending to be very ill. It was a touch of fever, which he would
have neglected if there was anything important at the hospital. Now and
then he groaned and thought he should die, but did not think so for long,
and a very little diverted him. It was Sunday, always an equivocal day in the
East, and an excuse for slacking. He could hear church bells as he drowsed,
both from the civil station and from the missionaries out beyond the
slaughter house—different bells and rung with different intent, for one set
was calling firmly to Anglo-India, and the other feebly to mankind. He did
not object to the first set; the other he ignored, knowing their inefficiency.
Old Mr. Graysford and young Mr. Sorley made converts during a famine,
because they distributed food; but when times improved they were naturally
left alone again, and though surprised and aggrieved each time this
happened, they never learnt wisdom. “No Englishman understands us
except Mr. Fielding,” he thought; “but how shall I see him again? If he
entered this room the disgrace of it would kill me.” He called to Hassan to
clear up, but Hassan, who was testing his wages by ringing them on the step
of the verandah, found it possible not to hear him; heard and didn’t hear,
just as Aziz had called and hadn’t called. “That’s India all over . . . how like
us . . . there we are . . .” He dozed again, and his thoughts wandered over
the varied surface of life.

Gradually they steadied upon a certain spot—the Bottomless Pit

according to missionaries, but he had never regarded it as more than a
dimple. Yes, he did want to spend an evening with some girls, singing and
all that, the vague jollity that would culminate in voluptuousness. Yes, that
was what he did want. How could it be managed? If Major Callendar had
been an Indian, he would have remembered what young men are, and
granted two or three days’ leave to Calcutta without asking questions. But
the Major assumed either that his subordinates were made of ice, or that
they repaired to the Chandrapore bazaars—disgusting ideas both. It was
only Mr. Fielding who——

“Hassan!”

The servant came running.

“Look at those flies, brother;” and he pointed to the horrible mass that
hung from the ceiling. The nucleus was a wire which had been inserted as a
homage to electricity. Electricity had paid no attention, and a colony of eye-
flies had come instead and blackened the coils with their bodies.

“Huzoor, those are flies.”

“Good, good, they are, excellent, but why have I called you?”

“To drive them elsewhere,” said Hassan, after painful thought.

“Driven elsewhere, they always return.”

“Huzoor.”

“You must make some arrangement against flies; that is why you are my
servant,” said Aziz gently.

Hassan would call the little boy to borrow the step-ladder from Mahmoud
Ali’s house; he would order the cook to light the Primus stove and heat
water; he would personally ascend the steps with a bucket in his arms, and
dip the end of the coil into it.

“Good, very good. Now what have you to do?”

“Kill flies.”

“Good. Do it.”

Hassan withdrew, the plan almost lodged in his head, and began to look
for the little boy. Not finding him, his steps grew slower, and he stole back
to his post on the verandah, but did not go on testing his rupees, in case his
master heard them clink. On twittered the Sunday bells; the East had
returned to the East via the suburbs of England, and had become ridiculous
during the detour.

Aziz continued to think about beautiful women.

His mind here was hard and direct, though not brutal. He had learnt all he
needed concerning his own constitution many years ago, thanks to the
social order into which he had been born, and when he came to study
medicine he was repelled by the pedantry and fuss with which Europe
tabulates the facts of sex. Science seemed to discuss everything from the
wrong end. It didn’t interpret his experiences when he found them in a
German manual, because by being there they ceased to be his experiences.
What he had been told by his father or mother or had picked up from
servants—it was information of that sort that he found useful, and handed
on as occasion offered to others.

But he must not bring any disgrace on his children by some silly
escapade. Imagine if it got about that he was not respectable! His
professional position too must be considered, whatever Major Callendar
thought. Aziz upheld the proprieties, though he did not invest them with
any moral halo, and it was here that he chiefly differed from an
Englishman. His conventions were social. There is no harm in deceiving
society as long as she does not find you out, because it is only when she
finds you out that you have harmed her; she is not like a friend or God, who
are injured by the mere existence of unfaithfulness. Quite clear about this,
he meditated what type of lie he should tell to get away to Calcutta, and had
thought of a man there who could be trusted to send him a wire and a letter
that he could show to Major Callendar, when the noise of wheels was heard
in his compound. Someone had called to enquire. The thought of sympathy
increased his fever, and with a sincere groan he wrapped himself in his
quilt.

“Aziz, my dear fellow, we are greatly concerned,” said Hamidullah’s

voice. One, two, three, four bumps, as people sat down upon his bed.

“When a doctor falls ill it is a serious matter,” said the voice of Mr. Syed
Mohammed, the assistant engineer.
 “When an engineer falls ill, it is equally important,” said the voice of Mr.
Haq, a police inspector.

“Oh yes, we are all jolly important, our salaries prove it.”

“Dr. Aziz took tea with our Principal last Thursday afternoon,” piped
Rafi, the engineer’s nephew. “Professor Godbole, who also attended, has
sickened too, which seems rather a curious thing, sir, does it not?”

Flames of suspicion leapt up in the breast of each man.

“Humbug!” exclaimed Hamidullah, in authoritative tones, quenching

them.

“Humbug, most certainly,” echoed the others, ashamed of themselves.

The wicked schoolboy, having failed to start a scandal, lost confidence and
stood up with his back to the wall.

“Is Professor Godbole ill?” enquired Aziz, penetrated by the news. “I am

sincerely sorry.” Intelligent and compassionate, his face peeped out of the
bright crimson folds of the quilt. “How do you do, Mr. Syed Mohammed,
Mr. Haq? How very kind of you to enquire after my health! How do you do,
Hamidullah? But you bring me bad news. What is wrong with him, the
excellent fellow?”

“Why don’t you answer, Rafi? You’re the great authority,” said his uncle.

“Yes, Rafi’s the great man,” said Hamidullah, rubbing it in. “Rafi is the
Sherlock Holmes of Chandrapore. Speak up, Rafi.”

Less than the dust, the schoolboy murmured the word “Diarrhœa,” but
took courage as soon as it had been uttered, for it improved his position.
Flames of suspicion shot up again in the breasts of his elders, though in a
different direction. Could what was called diarrhœa really be an early case
of cholera?

“If this is so, this is a very serious thing: this is scarcely the end of
March. Why have I not been informed?” cried Aziz.
 “Dr. Panna Lal attends him, sir.”

“Oh yes, both Hindus; there we have it; they hang together like flies and
keep everything dark. Rafi, come here. Sit down. Tell me all the details. Is
there vomiting also?”

“Oh yes indeed, sir, and the serious pains.”

“That settles it. In twenty-four hours he will be dead.”

Everybody looked and felt shocked, but Professor Godbole had

diminished his appeal by linking himself with a co-religionist. He moved
them less than when he had appeared as a suffering individual. Before long
they began to condemn him as a source of infection. “All illness proceeds
from Hindus,” Mr. Haq said. Mr. Syed Mohammed had visited religious
fairs, at Allahabad and at Ujjain, and described them with biting scorn. At
Allahabad there was flowing water, which carried impurities away, but at
Ujjain the little river Sipra was banked up, and thousands of bathers
deposited their germs in the pool. He spoke with disgust of the hot sun, the
cow-dung and marigold flowers, and the encampment of saddhus, some of
whom strode stark naked through the streets. Asked what was the name of
the chief idol at Ujjain, he replied that he did not know, he had disdained to
enquire, he really could not waste his time over such trivialities. His
outburst took some time, and in his excitement he fell into Punjabi (he came
from that side) and was unintelligible.

Aziz liked to hear his religion praised. It soothed the surface of his mind,
and allowed beautiful images to form beneath. When the engineer’s noisy
tirade was finished, he said, “That is exactly my own view.” He held up his
hand, palm outward, his eyes began to glow, his heart to fill with
tenderness. Issuing still farther from his quilt, he recited a poem by Ghalib.
It had no connection with anything that had gone before, but it came from
his heart and spoke to theirs. They were overwhelmed by its pathos; pathos,
they agreed, is the highest quality in art; a poem should touch the hearer
with a sense of his own weakness, and should institute some comparison
between mankind and flowers. The squalid bedroom grew quiet; the silly
intrigues, the gossip, the shallow discontent were stilled, while words
accepted as immortal filled the indifferent air. Not as a call to battle, but as
a calm assurance came the feeling that India was one; Moslem; always had
been; an assurance that lasted until they looked out of the door. Whatever
Ghalib had felt, he had anyhow lived in India, and this consolidated it for
them: he had gone with his own tulips and roses, but tulips and roses do not
go. And the sister kingdoms of the north—Arabia, Persia, Ferghana,
Turkestan—stretched out their hands as he sang, sadly, because all beauty is
sad, and greeted ridiculous Chandrapore, where every street and house was
divided against itself, and told her that she was a continent and a unity.

Of the company, only Hamidullah had any comprehension of poetry. The

minds of the others were inferior and rough. Yet they listened with pleasure,
because literature had not been divorced from their civilization. The police
inspector, for instance, did not feel that Aziz had degraded himself by
reciting, nor break into the cheery guffaw with which an Englishman averts
the infection of beauty. He just sat with his mind empty, and when his
thoughts, which were mainly ignoble, flowed back into it they had a
pleasant freshness. The poem had done no “good” to anyone, but it was a
passing reminder, a breath from the divine lips of beauty, a nightingale
between two worlds of dust. Less explicit than the call to Krishna, it voiced
our loneliness nevertheless, our isolation, our need for the Friend who never
comes yet is not entirely disproved. Aziz it left thinking about women
again, but in a different way: less definite, more intense. Sometimes poetry
had this effect on him, sometimes it only increased his local desires, and he
never knew beforehand which effect would ensue: he could discover no rule
for this or for anything else in life.

Hamidullah had called in on his way to a worrying committee of

notables, nationalist in tendency, where Hindus, Moslems, two Sikhs, two
Parsis, a Jain, and a Native Christian tried to like one another more than
came natural to them. As long as someone abused the English, all went
well, but nothing constructive had been achieved, and if the English were to
leave India, the committee would vanish also. He was glad that Aziz, whom
he loved and whose family was connected with his own, took no interest in
politics, which ruin the character and career, yet nothing can be achieved
without them. He thought of Cambridge—sadly, as of another poem that
had ended. How happy he had been there, twenty years ago! Politics had
not mattered in Mr. and Mrs. Bannister’s rectory. There, games, work, and
pleasant society had interwoven, and appeared to be sufficient substructure
for a national life. Here all was wire-pulling and fear. Messrs. Syed
Mohammed and Haq—he couldn’t even trust them, although they had come
in his carriage, and the schoolboy was a scorpion. Bending down, he said,
“Aziz, Aziz, my dear boy, we must be going, we are already late. Get well
quickly, for I do not know what our little circle would do without you.”

“I shall not forget those affectionate words,” replied Aziz.

“Add mine to them,” said the engineer.

“Thank you, Mr. Syed Mohammed, I will.”

“And mine,” “And, sir, accept mine,” cried the others, stirred each
according to his capacity towards goodwill. Little ineffectual unquenchable
flames! The company continued to sit on the bed and to chew sugarcane,
which Hassan had run for into the bazaar, and Aziz drank a cup of spiced
milk. Presently there was the sound of another carriage. Dr. Panna Lal had
arrived, driven by horrid Mr. Ram Chand. The atmosphere of a sick-room
was at once re-established, and the invalid retired under his quilt.

“Gentlemen, you will excuse, I have come to enquire by Major

Callendar’s orders,” said the Hindu, nervous of the den of fanatics into
which his curiosity had called him.

“Here he lies,” said Hamidullah, indicating the prostrate form.

“Dr. Aziz, Dr, Aziz, I come to enquire.”

Aziz presented an expressionless face to the thermometer.

“Your hand also, please.” He took it, gazed at the flies on the ceiling, and
finally announced “Some temperature.”

“I think not much,” said Ram Chand, desirous of fomenting trouble.

“Some; he should remain in bed,” repeated Dr. Panna Lal, and shook the
thermometer down, so that its altitude remained for ever unknown. He
loathed his young colleague since the disasters with Dapple, and he would
have liked to do him a bad turn and report to Major Callendar that he was
shamming. But he might want a day in bed himself soon,—besides, though
Major Callendar always believed the worst of natives, he never believed
them when they carried tales about one another. Sympathy seemed the safer
course. “How is stomach?” he enquired, “how head?” And catching sight of
the empty cup, he recommended a milk diet.

“This is a great relief to us, it is very good of you to call, Doctor Sahib,”
Said Hamidullah, buttering him up a bit.

“It is only my duty.”

“We know how busy you are.”

“Yes, that is true.”

“And how much illness there is in the city.”

The doctor suspected a trap in this remark; if he admitted that there was
or was not illness, either statement might be used against him. “There is
always illness,” he replied, “and I am always busy—it is a doctor’s nature.”

“He has not a minute, he is due double sharp at Government College

now,” said Ram Chand.

“You attend Professor Godbole there perhaps?”

The doctor looked professional and was silent.

“We hope his diarrhœa is ceasing.”

“He progresses, but not from diarrhœa.”

“We are in some anxiety over him—he and Dr. Aziz are great friends. If
you could tell us the name of his complaint we should be grateful to you.”

After a cautious pause he said, “Hæmorrhoids.”

 “And so much, my dear Rafi, for your cholera,” hooted Aziz, unable to
restrain himself.

“Cholera, cholera, what next, what now?” cried the doctor, greatly
fussed. “Who spreads such untrue reports about my patients?”

Hamidullah pointed to the culprit.

“I hear cholera, I hear bubonic plague, I hear every species of lie. Where
will it end, I ask myself sometimes. This city is full of misstatements, and
the originators of them ought to be discovered and punished
authoritatively.”

“Rafi, do you hear that? Now why do you stuff us up with all this
humbug?”

The schoolboy murmured that another boy had told him, also that the bad
English grammar the Government obliged them to use often gave the wrong
meaning for words, and so led scholars into mistakes.

“That is no reason you should bring a charge against a doctor,” said Ram
Chand.

“Exactly, exactly,” agreed Hamidullah, anxious to avoid an

unpleasantness. Quarrels spread so quickly and so far, and Messrs. Syed
Mohammed and Haq looked cross, and ready to fly out. “You must
apologize properly, Rafi, I can see your uncle wishes it,” he said. “You have
not yet said that you are sorry for the trouble you have caused this
gentleman by your carelessness.”

“It is only a boy,” said Dr. Panna Lal, appeased.

“Even boys must learn,” said Ram Chand.

“Your own son failing to pass the lowest standard, I think,” said Syed
Mohammed suddenly.

“Oh, indeed? Oh yes, perhaps. He has not the advantage of a relative in

the Prosperity Printing Press.”
 “Nor you the advantage of conducting their cases in the Courts any
longer.”

Their voices rose. They attacked one another with obscure allusions and
had a silly quarrel. Hamidullah and the doctor tried to make peace between
them. In the midst of the din someone said, “I say! Is he ill or isn’t he ill?”
Mr. Fielding had entered unobserved. All rose to their feet, and Hassan, to
do an Englishman honour, struck with a sugar-cane at the coil of flies.

Aziz said, “Sit down,” coldly. What a room! What a meeting! Squalor
and ugly talk, the floor strewn with fragments of cane and nuts, and spotted
with ink, the pictures crooked upon the dirty walls, no punkah! He hadn’t
meant to live like this or among these third-rate people. And in his
confusion he thought only of the insignificant Rafi, whom he had laughed
at, and allowed to be teased. The boy must be sent away happy, or
hospitality would have failed, along the whole line.

“It is good of Mr. Fielding to condescend to visit our friend,” said the
police inspector. “We are touched by this great kindness.”

“Don’t talk to him like that, he doesn’t want it, and he doesn’t want three
chairs; he’s not three Englishmen,” he flashed. “Rafi, come here. Sit down
again. I’m delighted you could come with Mr. Hamidullah, my dear boy; it
will help me to recover, seeing you.”

“Forgive my mistakes,” said Rafi, to consolidate himself.

“Well, are you ill, Aziz, or aren’t you?” Fielding repeated.

“No doubt Major Callendar has told you that I am shamming.”

“Well, are you?” The company laughed, friendly and pleased. “An
Englishman at his best,” they thought; “so genial.”

“Enquire from Dr. Panna Lal.”

“You’re sure I don’t tire you by stopping?”

 “Why, no! There are six people present in my small room already. Please
remain seated, if you will excuse the informality.” He turned away and
continued to address Rafi, who was terrified at the arrival of his Principal,
remembered that he had tried to spread slander about him, and yearned to
get away.

“He is ill and he is not ill,” said Hamidullah, offering a cigarette. “And I
suppose that most of us are in that same case.”

Fielding agreed; he and the pleasant sensitive barrister got on well. They
were fairly intimate and beginning to trust each other.

“The whole world looks to be dying, still it doesn’t die, so we must

assume the existence of a beneficent Providence.”

“Oh, that is true, how true!” said the policeman, thinking religion had
been praised.

“Does Mr. Fielding think it’s true?.”

“Think which true? The world isn’t dying. I’m certain of that!”

“No, no—the existence of Providence.”

“Well, I don’t believe in Providence.”

“But how then can you believe in God?” asked Syed Mohammed.

“I don’t believe in God.”

A tiny movement as of “I told you so!” passed round the company, and
Aziz looked up for an instant, scandalized. “Is it correct that most are
atheists in England now?” Hamidullah enquired.

“The educated thoughtful people? I should say so, though they don’t like
the name. The truth is that the West doesn’t bother much over belief and
disbelief in these days. Fifty years ago, or even when you and I were young,
much more fuss was made.”
 “And does not morality also decline?”

“It depends what you call—yes, yes, I suppose morality does decline.”

“Excuse the question, but if this is the case, how is England justified in
holding India?”

There they were! Politics again. “It’s a question I can’t get my mind on
to,” he replied. “I’m out here personally because I needed a job. I cannot
tell you why England is here or whether she ought to be here. It’s beyond
me.”

“Well-qualified Indians also need jobs in the educational.”

“I guess they do; I got in first,” said Fielding, smiling.

“Then excuse me again—is it fair an Englishman should occupy one

when Indians are available? Of course I mean nothing personally.
Personally we are delighted you should be here, and we benefit greatly by
this frank talk.”

There is only one answer to a conversation of this type: “England holds

India for her good.” Yet Fielding was disinclined to give it. The zeal for
honesty had eaten him up. He said, “I’m delighted to be here too—that’s my
answer, there’s my only excuse. I can’t tell you anything about fairness. It
mayn’t have been fair I should have been born. I take up some other
fellow’s air, don’t I, whenever I breathe? Still, I’m glad it’s happened, and
I’m glad I’m out here. However big a badmash one is—if one’s happy in
consequence, that is some justification.”

The Indians were bewildered. The line of thought was not alien to them,
but the words were too definite and bleak. Unless a sentence paid a few
compliments to Justice and Morality in passing, its grammar wounded their
ears and paralysed their minds. What they said and what they felt were
(except in the case of affection) seldom the same. They had numerous
mental conventions and when these were flouted they found it very difficult
to function. Hamidullah bore up best. “And those Englishmen who are not
delighted to be in India—have they no excuse?” he asked.
 “None. Chuck ’em out.”

“It may be difficult to separate them from the rest,” he laughed.

“Worse than difficult, wrong,” said Mr. Ram Chand. “No Indian
gentleman approves chucking out as a proper thing. Here we differ from
those other nations. We are so spiritual.”

“Oh that is true, how true!” said the police inspector.

“Is it true, Mr. Haq? I don’t consider us spiritual. We can’t co-ordinate,

we can’t co-ordinate, it only comes to that. We can’t keep engagements, we
can’t catch trains. What more than this is the so-called spirituality of India?
You and I ought to be at the Committee of Notables, we’re not; our friend
Dr. Lal ought to be with his patients, he isn’t. So we go on, and so we shall
continue to go, I think, until the end of time.”
 “It is not the end of time, it is scarcely ten-thirty, ha, ha!” cried Dr. Panna
Lal, who was again in confident mood. “Gentlemen, if I may be allowed to
say a few words, what an interesting talk, also thankfulness and gratitude to
Mr. Fielding in the first place teaches our sons and gives them all the great
benefits of his experience and judgment——”

“Dr. Lal!”

“Dr. Aziz?”

“You sit on my leg.”

“I beg pardon, but some might say your leg kicks.”

“Come along, we tire the invalid in either case,” said Fielding, and they
filed out—four Mohammedans, two Hindus and the Englishman. They
stood on the verandah while their conveyances were summoned out of
various patches of shade.

“Aziz has a high opinion of you, he only did not speak because of his
illness.”

“I quite understand,” said Fielding, who was rather disappointed with his
call. The Club comment, “making himself cheap as usual,” passed through
his mind. He couldn’t even get his horse brought up. He had liked Aziz so
much at their first meeting, and had hoped for developments.
 CHAPTER X

The heat had leapt forward in the last hour, the street was deserted as if a
catastrophe had cleaned off humanity during the inconclusive talk. Opposite
Aziz’ bungalow stood a large unfinished house belonging to two brothers,
astrologers, and a squirrel hung head-downwards on it, pressing its belly
against burning scaffolding and twitching a mangy tail. It seemed the only
occupant of the house, and the squeals it gave were in tune with the infinite,
no doubt, but not attractive except to other squirrels. More noises came
from a dusty tree, where brown birds creaked and floundered about looking
for insects; another bird, the invisible coppersmith, had started his “ponk
ponk.” It matters so little to the majority of living beings what the minority,
that calls itself human, desires or decides. Most of the inhabitants of India
do not mind how India is governed. Nor are the lower animals of England
concerned about England, but in the tropics the indifference is more
prominent, the inarticulate world is closer at hand and readier to resume
control as soon as men are tired. When the seven gentlemen who had held
such various opinions inside the bungalow came out of it, they were aware
of a common burden, a vague threat which they called “the bad weather
coming.” They felt that they could not do their work, or would not be paid
enough for doing it. The space between them and their carriages, instead of
being empty, was clogged with a medium that pressed against their flesh,
the carriage cushions scalded their trousers, their eyes pricked, domes of hot
water accumulated under their head-gear and poured down their cheeks.
Salaaming feebly, they dispersed for the interior of other bungalows, to
recover their self-esteem and the qualities that distinguished them from
each other.

All over the city and over much of India the same retreat on the part of
humanity was beginning, into cellars, up hills, under trees. April, herald of
horrors, is at hand. The sun was returning to his kingdom with power but
without beauty—that was the sinister feature. If only there had been beauty!
His cruelty would have been tolerable then. Through excess of light, he
failed to triumph, he also; in his yellowy-white overflow not only matter,
but brightness itself lay drowned. He was not the unattainable friend, either
of men or birds or other suns, he was not the eternal promise, the never-
withdrawn suggestion that haunts our consciousness; he was merely a
creature, like the rest, and so debarred from glory.
 CHAPTER XI

Although the Indians had driven off, and Fielding could see his horse
standing in a small shed in the corner of the compound, no one troubled to
bring it to him. He started to get it himself, but was stopped by a call from
the house. Aziz was sitting up in bed, looking dishevelled and sad. “Here’s
your home,” he said sardonically. “Here’s the celebrated hospitality of the
East. Look at the flies. Look at the chunam coming off the walls. Isn’t it
jolly? Now I suppose you want to be off, having seen an Oriental interior.”

“Anyhow, you want to rest.”

“I can rest the whole day, thanks to worthy Dr. Lal. Major Callendar’s
spy, I suppose you know, but this time it didn’t work. I am allowed to have
a slight temperature.”

“Callendar doesn’t trust anyone, English or Indian: that’s his character,

and I wish you weren’t under him; but you are, and that’s that.”

“Before you go, for you are evidently in a great hurry, will you please
unlock that drawer? Do you see a piece of brown paper at the top?”

“Yes.”

“Open it.”

“Who is this?”

“She was my wife. You are the first Englishman she has ever come
before. Now put her photograph away.”

He was astonished, as a traveller who suddenly sees, between the stones

of the desert, flowers. The flowers have been there all the time, but
suddenly he sees them. He tried to look at the photograph, but in itself it
was just a woman in a sari, facing the world. He muttered, “Really, I don’t
know why you pay me this great compliment, Aziz, but I do appreciate it.”

“Oh, it’s nothing, she was not a highly educated woman or even
beautiful, but put it away. You would have seen her, so why should you not
see her photograph?”

“You would have allowed me to see her?”

“Why not? I believe in the purdah, but I should have told her you were
my brother, and she would have seen you. Hamidullah saw her, and several
others.”

“Did she think they were your brothers?”

“Of course not, but the word exists and is convenient. All men are my
brothers, and as soon as one behaves as such he may see my wife.”

“And when the whole world behaves as such, there will be no more
purdah?”

“It is because you can say and feel such a remark as that, that I show you
the photograph,” said Aziz gravely.

“It is beyond the power of most men. It is because you behave well while
I behave badly that I show it you. I never expected you to come back just
now when I called you. I thought, ‘He has certainly done with me; I have
insulted him.’ Mr. Fielding, no one can ever realize how much kindness we
Indians need, we do not even realize it ourselves. But we know when it has
been given. We do not forget, though we may seem to. Kindness, more
kindness, and even after that more kindness. I assure you it is the only
hope.” His voice seemed to arise from a dream. Altering it, yet still deep
below his normal surface, he said, “We can’t build up India except on what
we feel. What is the use of all these reforms, and Conciliation Committees
for Mohurram, and shall we cut the tazia short or shall we carry it another
route, and Councils of Notables and official parties where the English sneer
at our skins?”
 “It’s beginning at the wrong end, isn’t it? I know, but institutions and the
governments don’t.” He looked again at the photograph. The lady faced the
world at her husband’s wish and her own, but how bewildering she found it,
the echoing contradictory world!

“Put her away, she is of no importance, she is dead,” said Aziz gently. “I
showed her to you because I have nothing else to show. You may look
round the whole of my bungalow now, and empty everything. I have no
other secrets, my three children live away with their grandmamma, and that
is all.”

Fielding sat down by the bed, flattered at the trust reposed in him, yet
rather sad. He felt old. He wished that he too could be carried away on
waves of emotion. The next time they met, Aziz might be cautious and
standoffish. He realized this, and it made him sad that he should realize it.
Kindness, kindness, and more kindness—yes, that he might supply, but was
that really all that the queer nation needed? Did it not also demand an
occasional intoxication of the blood? What had he done to deserve this
outburst of confidence, and what hostage could he give in exchange? He
looked back at his own life. What a poor crop of secrets it had produced!
There were things in it that he had shown to no one, but they were so
uninteresting, it wasn’t worth while lifting a purdah on their account. He’d
been in love, engaged to be married, lady broke it off, memories of her and
thoughts about her had kept him from other women for a time; then
indulgence, followed by repentance and equilibrium. Meagre really except
the equilibrium, and Aziz didn’t want to have that confided to him—he
would have called it “everything ranged coldly on shelves.”

“I shall not really be intimate with this fellow,” Fielding thought, and
then “nor with anyone.” That was the corollary. And he had to confess that
he really didn’t mind, that he was content to help people, and like them as
long as they didn’t object, and if they objected pass on serenely. Experience
can do much, and all that he had learnt in England and Europe was an
assistance to him, and helped him towards clarity, but clarity prevented him
from experiencing something else.

“How did you like the two ladies you met last Thursday?” he asked.
 Aziz shook his head distastefully. The question reminded him of his rash
remark about the Marabar Caves.

“How do you like Englishwomen generally?”

“Hamidullah liked them in England. Here we never look at them. Oh no,

much too careful. Let’s talk of something else.”

“Hamidullah’s right: they are much nicer in England. There’s something

that doesn’t suit them out here.”

Aziz after another silence said, “Why are you not married?”

Fielding was pleased that he had asked. “Because I have more or less
come through without it,” he replied.

“I was thinking of telling you a little about myself some day if I can
make it interesting enough. The lady I liked wouldn’t marry me—that is the
main point, but that’s fifteen years ago and now means nothing.”

“But you haven’t children.”

“None.”

“Excuse the following question: have you any illegitimate children?”

“No. I’d willingly tell you if I had.”

“Then your name will entirely die out.”

“It must.”

“Well.” He shook his head. “This indifference is what the Oriental will
never understand.”

“I don’t care for children.”

“Caring has nothing to do with it,” he said impatiently.

 “I don’t feel their absence, I don’t want them weeping around my death-
bed and being polite about me afterwards, which I believe is the general
notion. I’d far rather leave a thought behind me than a child. Other people
can have children. No obligation, with England getting so chock-a-block
and overrunning India for jobs.”

“Why don’t you marry Miss Quested?”

“Good God! why, the girl’s a prig.”

“Prig, prig? Kindly explain. Isn’t that a bad word?”

“Oh, I don’t know her, but she struck me as one of the more pathetic
products of Western education. She depresses me.”

“But prig, Mr. Fielding? How’s that?”

“She goes on and on as if she’s at a lecture—trying ever so hard to

understand India and life, and occasionally taking a note.”

“I thought her so nice and sincere.”

“So she probably is,” said Fielding, ashamed of his roughness: any
suggestion that he should marry always does produce overstatements on the
part of the bachelor, and a mental breeze. “But I can’t marry her if I wanted
to, for she has just become engaged to the City Magistrate.”

“Has she indeed? I am so glad!” he exclaimed with relief, for this

exempted him from the Marabar expedition: he would scarcely be expected
to entertain regular Anglo-Indians.

“It’s the old mother’s doing. She was afraid her dear boy would choose
for himself, so she brought out the girl on purpose, and flung them together
until it happened.”

“Mrs. Moore did not mention that to me among her plans.”

“I may have got it wrong—I’m out of club gossip. But anyhow they’re
engaged to be married.”
 “Yes, you’re out of it, my poor chap,” he smiled. “No Miss Quested for
Mr. Fielding. However, she was not beautiful. She has practically no
breasts, if you come to think of it.”

He smiled too, but found a touch of bad taste in the reference to a lady’s
breasts.

“For the City Magistrate they shall be sufficient perhaps, and he for her.
For you I shall arrange a lady with breasts like mangoes. . . .”

“No, you won’t.”

“I will not really, and besides your position makes it dangerous for you.”
His mind had slipped from matrimony to Calcutta. His face grew grave.
Fancy if he had persuaded the Principal to accompany him there, and then
got him into trouble! And abruptly he took up a new attitude towards his
friend, the attitude of the protector who knows the dangers of India and is
admonitory. “You can’t be too careful in every way, Mr. Fielding; whatever
you say or do in this damned country there is always some envious fellow
on the look-out. You may be surprised to know that there were at least three
spies sitting here when you came to enquire. I was really a good deal upset
that you talked in that fashion about God. They will certainly report it.”

“To whom?”

“That’s all very well, but you spoke against morality also, and you said
you had come to take other people’s jobs. All that was very unwise. This is
an awful place for scandal. Why, actually one of your own pupils was
listening.”

“Thanks for telling me that; yes, I must try and be more careful. If I’m
interested, I’m apt to forget myself. Still, it doesn’t do real harm.”

“But speaking out may get you into trouble.”

“It’s often done so in the past.”

“There, listen to that! But the end of it might be that you lost your job.”
 “If I do, I do. I shall survive it. I travel light.”

“Travel light! You are a most extraordinary race,” said Aziz, turning
away as if he were going to sleep, and immediately turning back again. “Is
it your climate, or what?”

“Plenty of Indians travel light too—saddhus and such. It’s one of the
things I admire about your country. Any man can travel light until he has a
wife or children. That’s part of my case against marriage. I’m a holy man
minus the holiness. Hand that on to your three spies, and tell them to put it
in their pipes.”

Aziz was charmed and interested, and turned the new idea over in his
mind. So this was why Mr. Fielding and a few others were so fearless! They
had nothing to lose. But he himself was rooted in society and Islam. He
belonged to a tradition which bound him, and he had brought children into
the world, the society of the future. Though he lived so vaguely in this
flimsy bungalow, nevertheless he was placed, placed.

“I can’t be sacked from my job, because my job’s Education. I believe in

teaching people to be individuals, and to understand other individuals. It’s
the only thing I do believe in. At Government College, I mix it up with
trigonometry, and so on. When I’m a saddhu, I shall mix it up with
something else.”

He concluded his manifesto, and both were silent. The eye-flies became
worse than ever and danced close up to their pupils, or crawled into their
ears. Fielding hit about wildly. The exercise made him hot, and he got up to
go.

“You might tell your servant to bring my horse. He doesn’t seem to

appreciate my Urdu.”

“I know. I gave him orders not to. Such are the tricks we play on
unfortunate Englishmen. Poor Mr. Fielding! But I will release you now. Oh
dear! With the exception of yourself and Hamidullah, I have no one to talk
to in this place. You like Hamidullah, don’t you?”
 “Very much.”

“Do you promise to come at once to us when you are in trouble?”

“I never can be in trouble.”

“There goes a queer chap, I trust he won’t come to grief,” thought Aziz,
left alone. His period of admiration was over, and he reacted towards
patronage. It was difficult for him to remain in awe of anyone who played
with all his cards on the table. Fielding, he discovered on closer
acquaintance, was truly warm-hearted and unconventional, but not what can
be called wise. That frankness of speech in the presence of Ram Chand,
Rafi and Co. was dangerous and inelegant. It served no useful end.

But they were friends, brothers. That part was settled, their compact had
been subscribed by the photograph, they trusted one another, affection had
triumphed for once in a way. He dropped off to sleep amid the happier
memories of the last two hours—poetry of Ghalib, female grace, good old
Hamidullah, good Fielding, his honoured wife and dear boys. He passed
into a region where these joys had no enemies but bloomed harmoniously in
an eternal garden, or ran down watershoots of ribbed marble, or rose into
domes whereunder were inscribed, black against white, the ninety-nine
attributes of God.
PART II: CAVES
 CHAPTER XII

The Ganges, though flowing from the foot of Vishnu and through Siva’s
hair, is not an ancient stream. Geology, looking further than religion, knows
of a time when neither the river nor the Himalayas that nourished it existed,
and an ocean flowed over the holy places of Hindustan. The mountains
rose, their debris silted up the ocean, the gods took their seats on them and
contrived the river, and the India we call immemorial came into being. But
India is really far older. In the days of the prehistoric ocean the southern
part of the peninsula already existed, and the high places of Dravidia have
been land since land began, and have seen on the one side the sinking of a
continent that joined them to Africa, and on the other the upheaval of the
Himalayas from a sea. They are older than anything in the world. No water
has ever covered them, and the sun who has watched them for countless
æons may still discern in their outlines forms that were his before our globe
was torn from his bosom. If flesh of the sun’s flesh is to be touched
anywhere, it is here, among the incredible antiquity of these hills.

Yet even they are altering. As Himalayan India rose, this India, the
primal, has been depressed, and is slowly re-entering the curve of the earth.
It may be that in æons to come an ocean will flow here too, and cover the
sun-born rocks with slime. Meanwhile the plain of the Ganges encroaches
on them with something of the sea’s action. They are sinking beneath the
newer lands. Their main mass is untouched, but at the edge their outposts
have been cut off and stand knee-deep, throat-deep, in the advancing soil.
There is something unspeakable in these outposts. They are like nothing
else in the world, and a glimpse of them makes the breath catch. They rise
abruptly, insanely, without the proportion that is kept by the wildest hills
elsewhere, they bear no relation to anything dreamt or seen. To call them
“uncanny” suggests ghosts, and they are older than all spirit. Hinduism has
scratched and plastered a few rocks, but the shrines are unfrequented, as if
pilgrims, who generally seek the extraordinary, had here found too much of
it. Some saddhus did once settle in a cave, but they were smoked out, and
even Buddha, who must have passed this way down to the Bo Tree of Gya,
shunned a renunciation more complete than his own, and has left no legend
of struggle or victory in the Marabar.

The caves are readily described. A tunnel eight feet long, five feet high,
three feet wide, leads to a circular chamber about twenty feet in diameter.
This arrangement occurs again and again throughout the group of hills, and
this is all, this is a Marabar Cave. Having seen one such cave, having seen
two, having seen three, four, fourteen, twenty-four, the visitor returns to
Chandrapore uncertain whether he has had an interesting experience or a
dull one or any experience at all. He finds it difficult to discuss the caves, or
to keep them apart in his mind, for the pattern never varies, and no carving,
not even a bees’-nest or a bat distinguishes one from another. Nothing,
nothing attaches to them, and their reputation—for they have one—does not
depend upon human speech. It is as if the surrounding plain or the passing
birds have taken upon themselves to exclaim “extraordinary,” and the word
has taken root in the air, and been inhaled by mankind.

They are dark caves. Even when they open towards the sun, very little
light penetrates down the entrance tunnel into the circular chamber. There is
little to see, and no eye to see it, until the visitor arrives for his five minutes,
and strikes a match. Immediately another flame rises in the depths of the
rock and moves towards the surface like an imprisoned spirit: the walls of
the circular chamber have been most marvellously polished. The two flames
approach and strive to unite, but cannot, because one of them breathes air,
the other stone. A mirror inlaid with lovely colours divides the lovers,
delicate stars of pink and grey interpose, exquisite nebulæ, shadings fainter
than the tail of a comet or the midday moon, all the evanescent life of the
granite, only here visible. Fists and fingers thrust above the advancing soil
—here at last is their skin, finer than any covering acquired by the animals,
smoother than windless water, more voluptuous than love. The radiance
increases, the flames touch one another, kiss, expire. The cave is dark again,
like all the caves.

Only the wall of the circular chamber has been polished thus. The sides
of the tunnel are left rough, they impinge as an afterthought upon the
internal perfection. An entrance was necessary, so mankind made one. But
elsewhere, deeper in the granite, are there certain chambers that have no
entrances? Chambers never unsealed since the arrival of the gods. Local
report declares that these exceed in number those that can be visited, as the
dead exceed the living—four hundred of them, four thousand or million.
Nothing is inside them, they were sealed up before the creation of
pestilence or treasure; if mankind grew curious and excavated, nothing,
nothing would be added to the sum of good or evil. One of them is
rumoured within the boulder that swings on the summit of the highest of the
hills; a bubble-shaped cave that has neither ceiling nor floor, and mirrors its
own darkness in every direction infinitely. If the boulder falls and smashes,
the cave will smash too—empty as an Easter egg. The boulder because of
its hollowness sways in the wind, and even moves when a crow perches
upon it: hence its name and the name of its stupendous pedestal: the Kawa
Dol.
 CHAPTER XIII

These hills look romantic in certain lights and at suitable distances, and
seen of an evening from the upper verandah of the club they caused Miss
Quested to say conversationally to Miss Derek that she should like to have
gone, that Dr. Aziz at Mr. Fielding’s had said he would arrange something,
and that Indians seem rather forgetful. She was overheard by the servant
who offered them vermouths. This servant understood English. And he was
not exactly a spy, but he kept his ears open, and Mahmoud Ali did not
exactly bribe him, but did encourage him to come and squat with his own
servants, and would happen to stroll their way when he was there. As the
story travelled, it accreted emotion and Aziz learnt with horror that the
ladies were deeply offended with him, and had expected an invitation daily.
He thought his facile remark had been forgotten. Endowed with two
memories, a temporary and a permanent, he had hitherto relegated the caves
to the former. Now he transferred them once for all, and pushed the matter
through. They were to be a stupendous replica of the tea party. He began by
securing Fielding and old Godbole, and then commissioned Fielding to
approach Mrs. Moore and Miss Quested when they were alone—by this
device Ronny, their official protector, could be circumvented. Fielding
didn’t like the job much; he was busy, caves bored him, he foresaw friction
and expense, but he would not refuse the first favour his friend had asked
from him, and did as required. The ladies accepted. It was a little
inconvenient in the present press of their engagements, still, they hoped to
manage it after consulting Mr. Heaslop. Consulted, Ronny raised no
objection, provided Fielding undertook full responsibility for their comfort.
He was not enthusiastic about the picnic, but, then, no more were the ladies
—no one was enthusiastic, yet it took place.

Aziz was terribly worried. It was not a long expedition—a train left
Chandrapore just before dawn, another would bring them back for tiffin—
but he was only a little official still, and feared to acquit himself
dishonourably. He had to ask Major Callendar for half a day’s leave, and be
refused because of his recent malingering; despair; renewed approach of
Major Callendar through Fielding, and contemptuous snarling permission.
He had to borrow cutlery from Mahmoud Ali without inviting him. Then
there was the question of alcohol; Mr. Fielding, and perhaps the ladies, were
drinkers, so must he provide whisky-sodas and ports? There was the
problem of transport from the wayside station of Marabar to the caves.
There was the problem of Professor Godbole and his food, and of Professor
Godbole and other people’s food—two problems, not one problem. The
Professor was not a very strict Hindu—he would take tea, fruit, soda-water
and sweets, whoever cooked them, and vegetables and rice if cooked by a
Brahman; but not meat, not cakes lest they contained eggs, and he would
not allow anyone else to eat beef: a slice of beef upon a distant plate would
wreck his happiness. Other people might eat mutton, they might eat ham.
But over ham Aziz’ own religion raised its voice: he did not fancy other
people eating ham. Trouble after trouble encountered him, because he had
challenged the spirit of the Indian earth, which tries to keep men in
compartments.

At last the moment arrived.

His friends thought him most unwise to mix himself up with English
ladies, and warned him to take every precaution against unpunctuality.
Consequently he spent the previous night at the station. The servants were
huddled on the platform, enjoined not to stray. He himself walked up and
down with old Mohammed Latif, who was to act as major-domo. He felt
insecure and also unreal. A car drove up, and he hoped Fielding would get
out of it, to lend him solidity. But it contained Mrs. Moore, Miss Quested,
and their Goanese servant. He rushed to meet them, suddenly happy. “But
you’ve come, after all. Oh how very very kind of you!” he cried. “This is
the happiest moment in all my life.”

The ladies were civil. It was not the happiest moment in their lives, still,
they looked forward to enjoying themselves as soon as the bother of the
early start was over. They had not seen him since the expedition was
arranged, and they thanked him adequately.

“You don’t require tickets—please stop your servant. There are no tickets
on the Marabar branch line; it is its peculiarity. You come to the carriage
and rest till Mr. Fielding joins us. Did you know you are to travel purdah?
Will you like that?”

They replied that they should like it. The train had come in, and a crowd
of dependents were swarming over the seats of the carriage like monkeys.
Aziz had borrowed servants from his friends, as well as bringing his own
three, and quarrels over precedence were resulting. The ladies’ servant
stood apart, with a sneering expression on his face. They had hired him
while they were still globe-trotters, at Bombay. In a hotel or among smart
people he was excellent, but as soon as they consorted with anyone whom
he thought second-rate he left them to their disgrace.

The night was still dark, but had acquired the temporary look that
indicates its end. Perched on the roof of a shed, the station-master’s hens
began to dream of kites instead of owls. Lamps were put out, in order to
save the trouble of putting them out later; the smell of tobacco and the
sound of spitting arose from third-class passengers in dark corners; heads
were unshrouded, teeth cleaned on the twigs of a tree. So convinced was a
junior official that another sun would rise, that he rang a bell with
enthusiasm. This upset the servants. They shrieked that the train was
starting, and ran to both ends of it to intercede. Much had still to enter the
purdah carriage—a box bound with brass, a melon wearing a fez, a towel
containing guavas, a step-ladder and a gun. The guests played up all right.
They had no race-consciousness—Mrs. Moore was too old, Miss Quested
too new—and they behaved to Aziz as to any young man who had been
kind to them in the country. This moved him deeply. He had expected them
to arrive with Mr. Fielding, instead of which they trusted themselves to be
with him a few moments alone.

“Send back your servant,” he suggested. “He is unnecessary. Then we

shall all be Moslems together.”

“And he is such a horrible servant. Antony, you can go; we don’t want
you,” said the girl impatiently.

“Master told me to come.”

“Mistress tells you to go.”

 “Master says, keep near the ladies all the morning.”

“Well, your ladies won’t have you.” She turned to the host. “Do get rid of
him, Dr. Aziz!”

“Mohammed Latif!” he called.

The poor relative exchanged fezzes with the melon, and peeped out of the
window of the railway carriage, whose confusion he was superintending.

“Here is my cousin, Mr. Mohammed Latif. Oh no, don’t shake hands. He

is an Indian of the old-fashioned sort, he prefers to salaam. There, I told you
so. Mohammed Latif, how beautifully you salaam. See, he hasn’t
understood; he knows no English.”

“You spick lie,” said the old man gently.

“I spick a lie! Oh, jolly good. Isn’t he a funny old man? We will have
great jokes with him later. He does all sorts of little things. He is not nearly
as stupid as you think, and awfully poor. It’s lucky ours is a large family.”
He flung an arm round the grubby neck. “But you get inside, make
yourselves at home; yes, you lie down.” The celebrated Oriental confusion
appeared at last to be at an end. “Excuse me, now I must meet our other two
guests!”

He was getting nervous again, for it was ten minutes to the time. Still,
Fielding was an Englishman, and they never do miss trains, and Godbole
was a Hindu and did not count, and, soothed by this logic, he grew calmer
as the hour of departure approached. Mohammed Latif had bribed Antony
not to come. They walked up and down the platform, talking usefully. They
agreed that they had overdone the servants, and must leave two or three
behind at Marabar station. And Aziz explained that he might be playing one
or two practical jokes at the caves—not out of unkindness, but to make the
guests laugh. The old man assented with slight sideway motions of the
head: he was always willing to be ridiculed, and he bade Aziz not spare
him. Elated by his importance, he began an indecent anecdote.
 “Tell me another time, brother, when I have more leisure, for now, as I
have already explained, we have to give pleasure to non-Moslems. Three
will be Europeans, one a Hindu, which must not be forgotten. Every
attention must be paid to Professor Godbole, lest he feel that he is inferior
to my other guests.”

“I will discuss philosophy with him.”

“That will be kind of you; but the servants are even more important. We
must not convey an impression of disorganization. It can be done, and I
expect you to do it . . .”

A shriek from the purdah carriage. The train had started.

“Merciful God!” cried Mohammed Latif. He flung himself at the train,

and leapt on to the footboard of a carriage. Aziz did likewise. It was an easy
feat, for a branch-line train is slow to assume special airs. “We’re monkeys,
don’t worry,” he called, hanging on to a bar and laughing. Then he howled,
“Mr. Fielding! Mr. Fielding!”

There were Fielding and old Godbole, held up at the level-crossing.

Appalling catastrophe! The gates had been closed earlier than usual. They
leapt from their tonga; they gesticulated, but what was the good. So near
and yet so far! As the train joggled past over the points, there was time for
agonized words.

“Bad, bad, you have destroyed me.”

“Godbole’s pujah did it,” cried the Englishman.

The Brahman lowered his eyes, ashamed of religion. For it was so: he
had miscalculated the length of a prayer.

“Jump on, I must have you,” screamed Aziz, beside himself.

“Right, give a hand.”

“He’s not to, he’ll kill himself,” Mrs. Moore protested. He jumped, he
failed, missed his friend’s hand, and fell back on to the line. The train
rumbled past. He scrambled on to his feet, and bawled after them, “I’m all
right, you’re all right, don’t worry,” and then they passed beyond range of
his voice.

“Mrs. Moore, Miss Quested, our expedition is a ruin.” He swung himself

along the footboard, almost in tears.

“Get in, get in; you’ll kill yourself as well as Mr. Fielding. I see no ruin.”

“How is that? Oh, explain to me!” he said piteously, like a child.

“We shall be all Moslems together now, as you promised.”

She was perfect as always, his dear Mrs. Moore. All the love for her he
had felt at the mosque welled up again, the fresher for forgetfulness. There
was nothing he would not do for her. He would die to make her happy.

“Get in, Dr. Aziz, you make us giddy,” the other lady called. “If they’re
so foolish as to miss the train, that’s their loss, not ours.”

“I am to blame. I am the host.”

“Nonsense, go to your carriage. We’re going to have a delightful time

without them.”

Not perfect like Mrs. Moore, but very sincere and kind. Wonderful ladies,
both of them, and for one precious morning his guests. He felt important
and competent. Fielding was a loss personally, being a friend, increasingly
dear, yet if Fielding had come, he himself would have remained in leading-
strings. “Indians are incapable of responsibility,” said the officials, and
Hamidullah sometimes said so too. He would show those pessimists that
they were wrong. Smiling proudly, he glanced outward at the country,
which was still invisible except as a dark movement in the darkness; then
upwards at the sky, where the stars of the sprawling Scorpion had begun to
pale. Then he dived through a window into a second-class carriage.

“Mohammed Latif, by the way, what is in these caves, brother? Why are
we all going to see them?”
 Such a question was beyond the poor relative’s scope. He could only
reply that God and the local villagers knew, and that the latter would gladly
act as guides.
 CHAPTER XIV

Most of life is so dull that there is nothing to be said about it, and the
books and talk that would describe it as interesting are obliged to
exaggerate, in the hope of justifying their own existence. Inside its cocoon
of work or social obligation, the human spirit slumbers for the most part,
registering the distinction between pleasure and pain, but not nearly as alert
as we pretend. There are periods in the most thrilling day during which
nothing happens, and though we continue to exclaim, “I do enjoy myself,”
or, “I am horrified,” we are insincere. “As far as I feel anything, it is
enjoyment, horror”—it’s no more than that really, and a perfectly adjusted
organism would be silent.

It so happened that Mrs. Moore and Miss Quested had felt nothing
acutely for a fortnight. Ever since Professor Godbole had sung his queer
little song, they had lived more or less inside cocoons, and the difference
between them was that the elder lady accepted her own apathy, while the
younger resented hers. It was Adela’s faith that the whole stream of events
is important and interesting, and if she grew bored she blamed herself
severely and compelled her lips to utter enthusiasms. This was the only
insincerity in a character otherwise sincere, and it was indeed the
intellectual protest of her youth. She was particularly vexed now because
she was both in India and engaged to be married, which double event
should have made every instant sublime.

India was certainly dim this morning, though seen under the auspices of
Indians. Her wish had been granted, but too late. She could not get excited
over Aziz and his arrangements. She was not the least unhappy or
depressed, and the various odd objects that surrounded her—the comic
“purdah” carriage, the piles of rugs and bolsters, the rolling melons, the
scent of sweet oils, the ladder, the brass-bound box, the sudden irruption of
Mahmoud Ali’s butler from the lavatory with tea and poached eggs upon a
tray—they were all new and amusing, and led her to comment
appropriately, but they wouldn’t bite into her mind. So she tried to find
comfort by reflecting that her main interest would henceforward be Ronny.

“What a nice cheerful servant! What a relief after Antony!”

“They startle one rather. A strange place to make tea in,” said Mrs.
Moore, who had hoped for a nap.

“I want to sack Antony. His behaviour on the platform has decided me.”

Mrs. Moore thought that Antony’s better self would come to the front at
Simla. Miss Quested was to be married at Simla; some cousins, with a
house looking straight on to Thibet, had invited her.

“Anyhow, we must get a second servant, because at Simla you will be at

the hotel, and I don’t think Ronny’s Baldeo . . .” She loved plans.

“Very well, you get another servant, and I’ll keep Antony with me. I am
used to his unappetizing ways. He will see me through the Hot Weather.”

“I don’t believe in the Hot Weather. People like Major Callendar who
always talk about it—it’s in the hope of making one feel inexperienced and
small, like their everlasting, ‘I’ve been twenty years in this country.’”

“I believe in the Hot Weather, but never did I suppose it would bottle me
up as it will.” For owing to the sage leisureliness of Ronny and Adela, they
could not be married till May, and consequently Mrs. Moore could not
return to England immediately after the wedding, which was what she had
hoped to do. By May a barrier of fire would have fallen across India and the
adjoining sea, and she would have to remain perched up in the Himalayas
waiting for the world to get cooler.

“I won’t be bottled up,” announced the girl. “I’ve no patience with these
women here who leave their husbands grilling in the plains. Mrs. McBryde
hasn’t stopped down once since she married; she leaves her quite intelligent
husband alone half the year, and then’s surprised she’s out of touch with
him.”
 “She has children, you see.”

“Oh yes, that’s true,” said Miss Quested, disconcerted.

“It is the children who are the first consideration. Until they are grown
up, and married off. When that happens one has again the right to live for
oneself—in the plains or the hills, as suits.”

“Oh yes, you’re perfectly right. I never thought it out.”

“If one has not become too stupid and old.” She handed her empty cup to
the servant.

“My idea now is that my cousins shall find me a servant in Simla, at all
events to see me through the wedding, after which Ronny means to
reorganize his staff entirely. He does it very well for a bachelor; still, when
he is married no doubt various changes will have to be made—his old
servants won’t want to take their orders from me, and I don’t blame them.”

Mrs. Moore pushed up the shutters and looked out. She had brought
Ronny and Adela together by their mutual wish, but really she could not
advise them further. She felt increasingly (vision or nightmare?) that,
though people are important, the relations between them are not, and that in
particular too much fuss has been made over marriage; centuries of carnal
embracement, yet man is no nearer to understanding man. And to-day she
felt this with such force that it seemed itself a relationship, itself a person
who was trying to take hold of her hand.

“Anything to be seen of the hills?”

“Only various shades of the dark.”

“We can’t be far from the place where my hyena was.” She peered into
the timeless twilight. The train crossed a nullah. “Pomper, pomper,
pomper,” was the sound that the wheels made as they trundled over the
bridge, moving very slowly. A hundred yards on came a second nullah, then
a third, suggesting the neighbourhood of higher ground. “Perhaps this is
mine; anyhow, the road runs parallel with the railway.” Her accident was a
pleasant memory; she felt in her dry, honest way that it had given her a
good shake up, and taught her Ronny’s true worth. Then she went back to
her plans; plans had been a passion with her from girlhood. Now and then
she paid tribute to the present, said how friendly and intelligent Aziz was,
ate a guava, couldn’t eat a fried sweet, practised her Urdu on the servant;
but her thoughts ever veered to the manageable future, and to the Anglo-
Indian life she had decided to endure. And as she appraised it with its
adjuncts of Turtons and Burtons, the train accompanied her sentences,
“pomper, pomper,” the train half asleep, going nowhere in particular and
with no passenger of importance in any of its carriages, the branch-line
train, lost on a low embankment between dull fields. Its message—for it
had one—avoided her well-equipped mind. Far away behind her, with a
shriek that meant business, rushed the Mail, connecting up important towns
such as Calcutta and Lahore, where interesting events occur and
personalities are developed. She understood that. Unfortunately, India has
few important towns. India is the country, fields, fields, then hills, jungle,
hills, and more fields. The branch line stops, the road is only practicable for
cars to a point, the bullock-carts lumber down the side tracks, paths fray out
into the cultivation, and disappear near a splash of red paint. How can the
mind take hold of such a country? Generations of invaders have tried, but
they remain in exile. The important towns they build are only retreats, their
quarrels the malaise of men who cannot find their way home. India knows
of their trouble. She knows of the whole world’s trouble, to its uttermost
depth. She calls “Come” through her hundred mouths, through objects
ridiculous and august. But come to what? She has never defined. She is not
a promise, only an appeal.

“I will fetch you from Simla when it’s cool enough. I will unbottle you in
fact,” continued the reliable girl. “We then see some of the Mogul stuff—
how appalling if we let you miss the Taj!—and then I will see you off at
Bombay. Your last glimpse of this country really shall be interesting.” But
Mrs. Moore had fallen asleep, exhausted by the early start. She was in
rather low health, and ought not to have attempted the expedition, but had
pulled herself together in case the pleasure of the others should suffer. Her
dreams were of the same texture, but there it was her other children who
were wanting something, Stella and Ralph, and she was explaining to them
that she could not be in two families at once. When she awoke, Adela had
ceased to plan, and leant out of a window, saying, “They’re rather
wonderful.”

Astonishing even from the rise of the civil station, here the Marabar were
gods to whom earth is a ghost. Kawa Dol was nearest. It shot up in a single
slab, on whose summit one rock was poised—if a mass so great can be
called one rock. Behind it, recumbent, were the hills that contained the
other caves, isolated each from his neighbour by broad channels of the
plain. The assemblage, ten in all, shifted a little as the train crept past them,
as if observing its arrival.

“I’ld not have missed this for anything,” said the girl, exaggerating her
enthusiasm. “Look, the sun’s rising—this’ll be absolutely magnificent—
come quickly—look. I wouldn’t have missed this for anything. We should
never have seen it if we’d stuck to the Turtons and their eternal elephants.”

As she spoke, the sky to the left turned angry orange. Colour throbbed
and mounted behind a pattern of trees, grew in intensity, was yet brighter,
incredibly brighter, strained from without against the globe of the air. They
awaited the miracle. But at the supreme moment, when night should have
died and day lived, nothing occurred. It was as if virtue had failed in the
celestial fount. The hues in the east decayed, the hills seemed dimmer
though in fact better lit, and a profound disappointment entered with the
morning breeze. Why, when the chamber was prepared, did the bridegroom
not enter with trumpets and shawms, as humanity expects? The sun rose
without splendour. He was presently observed trailing yellowish behind the
trees, or against insipid sky, and touching the bodies already at work in the
fields.

“Ah, that must be the false dawn—isn’t it caused by dust in the upper
layers of the atmosphere that couldn’t fall down during the night? I think
Mr. McBryde said so. Well, I must admit that England has it as regards
sunrises. Do you remember Grasmere?”

“Ah, dearest Grasmere!” Its little lakes and mountains were beloved by
them all. Romantic yet manageable, it sprang from a kindlier planet. Here
an untidy plain stretched to the knees of the Marabar.
 “Good morning, good morning, put on your topis,” shouted Aziz from
farther down the train. “Put on your topis at once, the early sun is highly
dangerous for heads. I speak as a doctor.”

“Good morning, good morning, put on your own.”

“Not for my thick head,” he laughed, banging it and holding up pads of

his hair.

“Nice creature he is,” murmured Adela.

“Listen—Mohammed Latif says ‘Good morning’ next.” Various pointless

jests.

“Dr. Aziz, what’s happened to your hills? The train has forgotten to
stop.”

“Perhaps it is a circular train and goes back to Chandrapore without a

break. Who knows!”

Having wandered off into the plain for a mile, the train slowed up against
an elephant. There was a platform too, but it shrivelled into insignificance.
An elephant, waving her painted forehead at the morn! “Oh, what a
surprise!” called the ladies politely. Aziz said nothing, but he nearly burst
with pride and relief. The elephant was the one grand feature of the picnic,
and God alone knew what he had gone through to obtain her. Semi-official,
she was best approached through the Nawab Bahadur, who was best
approached through Nureddin, but he never answered letters, but his mother
had great influence with him and was a friend of Hamidullah Begum’s, who
had been excessively kind and had promised to call on her provided the
broken shutter of the purdah carriage came back soon enough from
Calcutta. That an elephant should depend from so long and so slender a
string filled Aziz with content, and with humorous appreciation of the East,
where the friends of friends are a reality, where everything gets done
sometime, and sooner or later every one gets his share of happiness. And
Mohammed Latif was likewise content, because two of the guests had
missed the train, and consequently he could ride on the howdah instead of
following in a cart, and the servants were content because an elephant
increased their self-esteem, and they tumbled out the luggage into the dust
with shouts and bangs, issuing orders to one another, and convulsed with
goodwill.

“It takes an hour to get there, an hour to get back, and two hours for the
caves, which we will call three,” said Aziz, smiling charmingly. There was
suddenly something regal about him. “The train back is at eleven-thirty, and
you will be sitting down to your tiffin in Chandrapore with Mr. Heaslop at
exactly your usual hour, namely, one-fifteen. I know everything about you.
Four hours—quite a small expedition—and an hour extra for misfortunes,
which occur somewhat frequently among my people. My idea is to plan
everything without consulting you; but you, Mrs. Moore, or Miss Quested,
you are at any moment to make alterations if you wish, even if it means
giving up the caves. Do you agree? Then mount this wild animal.”

The elephant had knelt, grey and isolated, like another hill. They climbed
up the ladder, and he mounted shikar fashion, treading first on the sharp
edge of the heel and then into the looped-up tail. When Mohammed Latif
followed him, the servant who held the end of the tail let go of it according
to previous instructions, so that the poor relative slipped and had to cling to
the netting over the buttocks. It was a little piece of Court buffoonery, and
distressed only the ladies, whom it was intended to divert. Both of them
disliked practical jokes. Then the beast rose in two shattering movements,
and poised them ten feet above the plain. Immediately below was the scurf
of life that an elephant always collects round its feet—villagers, naked
babies. The servants flung crockery into tongas. Hassan annexed the
stallion intended for Aziz, and defied Mahmoud Ali’s man from its altitude.
The Brahman who had been hired to cook for Professor Godbole was
planted under an acacia tree, to await their return. The train, also hoping to
return, wobbled away through the fields, turning its head this way and that
like a centipede. And the only other movement to be seen was a movement
as of antennae, really the counterpoises of the wells which rose and fell on
their pivots of mud all over the plain and dispersed a feeble flow of water.
The scene was agreeable rather than not in the mild morning air, but there
was little colour in it, and no vitality.
 As the elephant moved towards the hills (the pale sun had by this time
saluted them to the base, and pencilled shadows down their creases) a new
quality occurred, a spiritual silence which invaded more senses than the ear.
Life went on as usual, but had no consequences, that is to say, sounds did
not echo or thoughts develop. Everything seemed cut off at its root, and
therefore infected with illusion. For instance, there were some mounds by
the edge of the track, low, serrated, and touched with whitewash. What were
these mounds—graves, breasts of the goddess Parvati? The villagers
beneath gave both replies. Again, there was a confusion about a snake
which was never cleared up. Miss Quested saw a thin, dark object reared on
end at the farther side of a watercourse, and said, “A snake!” The villagers
agreed, and Aziz explained: yes, a black cobra, very venomous, who had
reared himself up to watch the passing of the elephant, But when she looked
through Ronny’s field-glasses, she found it wasn’t a snake, but the withered
and twisted stump of a toddy-palm. So she said, “It isn’t a snake.” The
villagers contradicted her. She had put the word into their minds, and they
refused to abandon it. Aziz admitted that it looked like a tree through the
glasses, but insisted that it was a black cobra really, and improvised some
rubbish about protective mimicry. Nothing was explained, and yet there was
no romance. Films of heat, radiated from the Kawa Dol precipices,
increased the confusion. They came at irregular intervals and moved
capriciously. A patch of field would jump as if it was being fried, and then
lie quiet. As they drew closer the radiation stopped.

The elephant walked straight at the Kawa Dol as if she would knock for
admission with her forehead, then swerved, and followed a path round its
base. The stones plunged straight into the earth, like cliffs into the sea, and
while Miss Quested was remarking on this, and saying that it was striking,
the plain quietly disappeared, peeled off, so to speak, and nothing was to be
seen on either side but the granite, very dead and quiet. The sky dominated
as usual, but seemed unhealthily near, adhering like a ceiling to the summits
of the precipices. It was as if the contents of the corridor had never been
changed. Occupied by his own munificence, Aziz noticed nothing. His
guests noticed a little. They did not feel that it was an attractive place or
quite worth visiting, and wished it could have turned into some
Mohammedan object, such as a mosque, which their host would have
appreciated and explained. His ignorance became evident, and was really
rather a drawback. In spite of his gay, confident talk, he had no notion how
to treat this particular aspect of India; he was lost in it without Professor
Godbole, like themselves.

The corridor narrowed, then widened into a sort of tray. Here, more or
less, was their goal. A ruined tank held a little water which would do for the
animals, and close above the mud was punched a black hole—the first of
the caves. Three hills encircled the tray. Two of them pumped out heat
busily, but the third was in shadow, and here they camped.

“A horrid, stuffy place really,” murmured Mrs. Moore to herself.

“How quick your servants are!” Miss Quested exclaimed. For a cloth had
already been laid, with a vase of artificial flowers in its centre, and
Mahmoud Ali’s butler offered them poached eggs and tea for the second
time.

“I thought we would eat this before our caves, and breakfast after.”

“Isn’t this breakfast?”

“This breakfast? Did you think I should treat you so strangely?” He had
been warned that English people never stop eating, and that he had better
nourish them every two hours until a solid meal was ready.

“How very well it is all arranged.”

“That you shall tell me when I return to Chandrapore. Whatever

disgraces I bring upon myself, you remain my guests.” He spoke gravely
now. They were dependent on him for a few hours, and he felt grateful to
them for placing themselves in such a position. All was well so far; the
elephant held a fresh cut bough to her lips, the tonga shafts stuck up into the
air, the kitchen-boy peeled potatoes, Hassan shouted, and Mohammed Latif
stood as he ought, with a peeled switch in his hand. The expedition was a
success, and it was Indian; an obscure young man had been allowed to
show courtesy to visitors from another country, which is what all Indians
long to do—even cynics like Mahmoud Ali—but they never have the
chance. Hospitality had been achieved, they were “his” guests; his honour
was involved in their happiness, and any discomfort they endured would
tear his own soul.

Like most Orientals, Aziz overrated hospitality, mistaking it for intimacy,

and not seeing that it is tainted with the sense of possession. It was only
when Mrs. Moore or Fielding was near him that he saw further, and knew
that it is more blessed to receive than to give. These two had strange and
beautiful effects on him—they were his friends, his for ever, and he theirs
for ever; he loved them so much that giving and receiving became one. He
loved them even better than the Hamidullahs, because he had surmounted
obstacles to meet them, and this stimulates a generous mind. Their images
remained somewhere in his soul up to his dying day, permanent additions.
He looked at her now as she sat on a deck-chair, sipping his tea, and had for
a moment a joy that held the seeds of its own decay, for it would lead him
to think, “Oh, what more can I do for her?” and so back to the dull round of
hospitality. The black bullets of his eyes filled with soft expressive light,
and he said, “Do you ever remember our mosque, Mrs. Moore?”

“I do. I do,” she said, suddenly vital and young.

“And how rough and rude I was, and how good you were.”

“And how happy we both were.”

“Friendships last longest that begin like that, I think. Shall I ever
entertain your other children?”

“Do you know about the others? She will never talk about them to me,”
said Miss Quested, unintentionally breaking a spell.

“Ralph and Stella, yes, I know everything about them. But we must not
forget to visit our caves. One of the dreams of my life is accomplished in
having you both here as my guests. You cannot imagine how you have
honoured me. I feel like the Emperor Babur.”

“Why like him?” she enquired, rising.

 “Because my ancestors came down with him from Afghanistan. They
joined him at Herat. He also had often no more elephants than one, none
sometimes, but he never ceased showing hospitality. When he fought or
hunted or ran away, he would always stop for a time among hills, just like
us; he would never let go of hospitality and pleasure, and if there was only a
little food, he would have it arranged nicely, and if only one musical
instrument, he would compel it to play a beautiful tune. I take him as my
ideal. He is the poor gentleman, and he became a great king.”

“I thought another Emperor is your favourite—I forget the name—you

mentioned him at Mr. Fielding’s: what my book calls Aurangzebe.”

“Alamgir? Oh yes, he was of course the more pious. But Babur—never

in his whole life did he betray a friend, so I can only think of him this
morning. And you know how he died? He laid down his life for his son. A
death far more difficult than battle. They were caught in the heat. They
should have gone back to Kabul for the bad weather, but could not for
reasons of state, and at Agra Humayun fell sick. Babur walked round the
bed three times, and said, ‘I have borne it away,’ and he did bear it away;
the fever left his son and came to him instead, and he died. That is why I
prefer Babur to Alamgir. I ought not to do so, but I do. However, I mustn’t
delay you. I see you are ready to start.”

“Not at all,” she said, sitting down by Mrs. Moore again. “We enjoy talk
like this very much.” For at last he was talking about what he knew and felt,
talking as he had in Fielding’s garden-house; he was again the Oriental
guide whom they appreciated.

“I always enjoy conversing about the Moguls. It is the chief pleasure I

know. You see, those first six emperors were all most wonderful men, and
as soon as one of them is mentioned, no matter which, I forget everything
else in the world except the other five. You could not find six such kings in
all the countries of the earth, not, I mean, coming one after the other—
father, son.”

“Tell us something about Akbar.”

 “Ah, you have heard the name of Akbar. Good. Hamidullah—whom you
shall meet—will tell you that Akbar is the greatest of all. I say, ‘Yes, Akbar
is very wonderful, but half a Hindu; he was not a true Moslem, which
makes Hamidullah cry, ‘No more was Babur, he drank wine.’ But Babur
always repented afterwards, which makes the entire difference, and Akbar
never repented of the new religion he invented instead of the Holy Koran.”

“But wasn’t Akbar’s new religion very fine? It was to embrace the whole
of India.”

“Miss Quested, fine but foolish. You keep your religion, I mine. That is
the best. Nothing embraces the whole of India, nothing, nothing, and that
was Akbar’s mistake.”

“Oh, do you feel that, Dr. Aziz?” she said thoughtfully. “I hope you’re
not right. There will have to be something universal in this country—I don’t
say religion, for I’m not religious, but something, or how else are barriers to
be broken down?”

She was only recommending the universal brotherhood he sometimes

dreamed of, but as soon as it was put into prose it became untrue.

“Take my own case,” she continued—it was indeed her own case that had
animated her. “I don’t know whether you happen to have heard, but I’m
going to marry Mr. Heaslop.”

“On which my heartiest congratulations.”

“Mrs. Moore, may I put our difficulty to Dr. Aziz—I mean our Anglo-
Indian one?”

“It is your difficulty, not mine, my dear.”

“Ah, that’s true. Well, by marrying Mr. Heaslop, I shall become what is
known as an Anglo-Indian.”

He held up his hand in protest. “Impossible. Take back such a terrible

remark.”
 “But I shall; it’s inevitable. I can’t avoid the label. What I do hope to
avoid is the mentality. Women like——” She stopped, not quite liking to
mention names; she would boldly have said “Mrs. Turton and Mrs.
Callendar” a fortnight ago. “Some women are so—well, ungenerous and
snobby about Indians, and I should feel too ashamed for words if I turned
like them, but—and here’s my difficulty—there’s nothing special about me,
nothing specially good or strong, which will help me to resist my
environment and avoid becoming like them. I’ve most lamentable defects.
That’s why I want Akbar’s ‘universal religion’ or the equivalent to keep me
decent and sensible. Do you see what I mean?”

Her remarks pleased him, but his mind shut up tight because she had
alluded to her marriage. He was not going to be mixed up in that side of
things. “You are certain to be happy with any relative of Mrs. Moore’s,” he
said with a formal bow.

“Oh, my happiness—that’s quite another problem. I want to consult you

about this Anglo-Indian difficulty. Can you give me any advice?”

“You are absolutely unlike the others, I assure you. You will never be
rude to my people.”

“I am told we all get rude after a year.”

“Then you are told a lie,” he flashed, for she had spoken the truth and it
touched him on the raw; it was itself an insult in these particular
circumstances. He recovered himself at once and laughed, but her error
broke up their conversation—their civilization it had almost been—which
scattered like the petals of a desert flower, and left them in the middle of the
hills. “Come along,” he said, holding out a hand to each. They got up a little
reluctantly, and addressed themselves to sightseeing.

The first cave was tolerably convenient. They skirted the puddle of water,
and then climbed up over some unattractive stones, the sun crashing on
their backs. Bending their heads, they disappeared one by one into the
interior of the hills. The small black hole gaped where their varied forms
and colours had momentarily functioned. They were sucked in like water
down a drain. Bland and bald rose the precipices; bland and glutinous the
sky that connected the precipices; solid and white, a Brahminy kite flapped
between the rocks with a clumsiness that seemed intentional. Before man,
with his itch for the seemly, had been born, the planet must have looked
thus. The kite flapped away. . . . Before birds, perhaps. . . . And then the
hole belched and humanity returned.

A Marabar cave had been horrid as far as Mrs. Moore was concerned, for
she had nearly fainted in it, and had some difficulty in preventing herself
from saying so as soon as she got into the air again. It was natural enough:
she had always suffered from faintness, and the cave had become too full,
because all their retinue followed them. Crammed with villagers and
servants, the circular chamber began to smell. She lost Aziz and Adela in
the dark, didn’t know who touched her, couldn’t breathe, and some vile
naked thing struck her face and settled on her mouth like a pad. She tried to
regain the entrance tunnel, but an influx of villagers swept her back. She hit
her head. For an instant she went mad, hitting and gasping like a fanatic.
For not only did the crush and stench alarm her; there was also a terrifying
echo.

Professor Godbole had never mentioned an echo; it never impressed him,

perhaps. There are some exquisite echoes in India; there is the whisper
round the dome at Bijapur; there are the long, solid sentences that voyage
through the air at Mandu, and return unbroken to their creator. The echo in
a Marabar cave is not like these, it is entirely devoid of distinction.
Whatever is said, the same monotonous noise replies, and quivers up and
down the walls until it is absorbed into the roof. “Boum” is the sound as far
as the human alphabet can express it, or “bou-oum,” or “ou-boum,”—
utterly dull. Hope, politeness, the blowing of a nose, the squeak of a boot,
all produce “boum.” Even the striking of a match starts a little worm
coiling, which is too small to complete a circle but is eternally watchful.
And if several people talk at once, an overlapping howling noise begins,
echoes generate echoes, and the cave is stuffed with a snake composed of
small snakes, which writhe independently.

After Mrs. Moore all the others poured out. She had given the signal for
the reflux. Aziz and Adela both emerged smiling and she did not want him
to think his treat was a failure, so smiled too. As each person emerged she
looked for a villain, but none was there, and she realized that she had been
among the mildest individuals, whose only desire was to honour her, and
that the naked pad was a poor little baby, astride its mother’s hip. Nothing
evil had been in the cave, but she had not enjoyed herself; no, she had not
enjoyed herself, and she decided not to visit a second one.

“Did you see the reflection of his match—rather pretty?” asked Adela.

“I forget . . .”

“But he says this isn’t a good cave, the best are on the Kawa Dol.”

“I don’t think I shall go on to there. I dislike climbing.”

“Very well, let’s sit down again in the shade until breakfast’s ready.”

“Ah, but that’ll disappoint him so; he has taken such trouble. You should
go on; you don’t mind.”

“Perhaps I ought to,” said the girl, indifferent to what she did, but
desirous of being amiable.

The servants, etc., were scrambling back to the camp, pursued by grave
censures from Mohammed Latif. Aziz came to help the guests over the
rocks. He was at the summit of his powers, vigorous and humble, too sure
of himself to resent criticism, and he was sincerely pleased when he heard
they were altering his plans. “Certainly, Miss Quested, so you and I will go
together, and leave Mrs. Moore here, and we will not be long, yet we will
not hurry, because we know that will be her wish.”

“Quite right. I’m sorry not to come too, but I’m a poor walker.”

“Dear Mrs. Moore, what does anything matter so long as you are my
guests? I am very glad you are not coming, which sounds strange, but you
are treating me with true frankness, as a friend.”

“Yes, I am your friend,” she said, laying her hand on his sleeve, and
thinking, despite her fatigue, how very charming, how very good, he was,
and how deeply she desired his happiness. “So may I make another
suggestion? Don’t let so many people come with you this time. I think you
may find it more convenient.”

“Exactly, exactly,” he cried, and, rushing to the other extreme, forbade all
except one guide to accompany Miss Quested and him to the Kawa Dol. “Is
that all right?” he enquired.

“Quite right, now enjoy yourselves, and when you come back tell me all
about it.” And she sank into the deck-chair.

If they reached the big pocket of caves, they would be away nearly an
hour. She took out her writing-pad, and began, “Dear Stella, Dear Ralph,”
then stopped, and looked at the queer valley and their feeble invasion of it.
Even the elephant had become a nobody. Her eye rose from it to the
entrance tunnel. No, she did not wish to repeat that experience. The more
she thought over it, the more disagreeable and frightening it became. She
minded it much more now than at the time. The crush and the smells she
could forget, but the echo began in some indescribable way to undermine
her hold on life. Coming at a moment when she chanced to be fatigued, it
had managed to murmur, “Pathos, piety, courage—they exist, but are
identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, nothing has value.” If one had
spoken vileness in that place, or quoted lofty poetry, the comment would
have been the same—“ou-boum.” If one had spoken with the tongues of
angels and pleaded for all the unhappiness and misunderstanding in the
world, past, present, and to come, for all the misery men must undergo
whatever their opinion and position, and however much they dodge or bluff
—it would amount to the same, the serpent would descend and return to the
ceiling. Devils are of the North, and poems can be written about them, but
no one could romanticize the Marabar because it robbed infinity and
eternity of their vastness, the only quality that accommodates them to
mankind.

She tried to go on with her letter, reminding herself that she was only an
elderly woman who had got up too early in the morning and journeyed too
far, that the despair creeping over her was merely her despair, her personal
weakness, and that even if she got a sunstroke and went mad the rest of the
world would go on. But suddenly, at the edge of her mind, Religion
appeared, poor little talkative Christianity, and she knew that all its divine
words from “Let there be Light” to “It is finished” only amounted to
“boum.” Then she was terrified over an area larger than usual; the universe,
never comprehensible to her intellect, offered no repose to her soul, the
mood of the last two months took definite form at last, and she realized that
she didn’t want to write to her children, didn’t want to communicate with
anyone, not even with God. She sat motionless with horror, and, when old
Mohammed Latif came up to her, thought he would notice a difference. For
a time she thought, “I am going to be ill,” to comfort herself, then she
surrendered to the vision. She lost all interest, even in Aziz, and the
affectionate and sincere words that she had spoken to him seemed no longer
hers but the air’s.
 CHAPTER XV

Miss Quested and Aziz and a guide continued the slightly tedious
expedition. They did not talk much, for the sun was getting high. The air
felt like a warm bath into which hotter water is trickling constantly, the
temperature rose and rose, the boulders said, “I am alive,” the small stones
answered, “I am almost alive.” Between the chinks lay the ashes of little
plants. They meant to climb to the rocking-stone on the summit, but it was
too far, and they contented themselves with the big group of caves. En route
for these, they encountered several isolated caves, which the guide
persuaded them to visit, but really there was nothing to see; they lit a match,
admired its reflection in the polish, tested the echo and came out again.
Aziz was “pretty sure they should come on some interesting old carvings
soon,” but only meant he wished there were some carvings. His deeper
thoughts were about the breakfast. Symptoms of disorganization had
appeared as he left the camp. He ran over the menu: an English breakfast,
porridge and mutton chops, but some Indian dishes to cause conversation,
and pan afterwards. He had never liked Miss Quested as much as Mrs.
Moore, and had little to say to her, less than ever now that she would marry
a British official.

Nor had Adela much to say to him. If his mind was with the breakfast,
hers was mainly with her marriage. Simla next week, get rid of Antony, a
view of Thibet, tiresome wedding bells, Agra in October, see Mrs. Moore
comfortably off from Bombay—the procession passed before her again,
blurred by the heat, and then she turned to the more serious business of her
life at Chandrapore. There were real difficulties here—Ronny’s limitations
and her own—but she enjoyed facing difficulties, and decided that if she
could control her peevishness (always her weak point), and neither rail
against Anglo-India nor succumb to it, their married life ought to be happy
and profitable. She mustn’t be too theoretical; she would deal with each
problem as it came up, and trust to Ronny’s common sense and her own.
Luckily, each had abundance of common sense and good will.
 But as she toiled over a rock that resembled an inverted saucer, she
thought, “What about love?” The rock was nicked by a double row of
footholds, and somehow the question was suggested by them. Where had
she seen footholds before? Oh yes, they were the pattern traced in the dust
by the wheels of the Nawab Bahadur’s car. She and Ronny—no, they did
not love each other.

“Do I take you too fast?” enquired Aziz, for she had paused, a doubtful
expression on her face. The discovery had come so suddenly that she felt
like a mountaineer whose rope had broken. Not to love the man one’s going
to marry! Not to find it out till this moment! Not even to have asked oneself
the question until now! Something else to think out. Vexed rather than
appalled, she stood still, her eyes on the sparkling rock. There was esteem
and animal contact at dusk, but the emotion that links them was absent.
Ought she to break her engagement off? She was inclined to think not—it
would cause so much trouble to others; besides, she wasn’t convinced that
love is necessary to a successful union. If love is everything, few marriages
would survive the honeymoon. “No, I’m all right, thanks,” she said, and,
her emotions well under control, resumed the climb, though she felt a bit
dashed. Aziz held her hand, the guide adhered to the surface like a lizard
and scampered about as if governed by a personal centre of gravity.

“Are you married, Dr. Aziz?” she asked, stopping again, and frowning.

“Yes, indeed, do come and see my wife”—for he felt it more artistic to

have his wife alive for a moment.

“Thank you,” she said absently.

“She is not in Chandrapore just now.”

“And have you children?”

“Yes, indeed, three,” he replied in firmer tones.

“Are they a great pleasure to you?”

“Why, naturally, I adore them,” he laughed.

 “I suppose so.” What a handsome little Oriental he was, and no doubt his
wife and children were beautiful too, for people usually get what they
already possess. She did not admire him with any personal warmth, for
there was nothing of the vagrant in her blood, but she guessed he might
attract women of his own race and rank, and she regretted that neither she
nor Ronny had physical charm. It does make a difference in a relationship
—beauty, thick hair, a fine skin. Probably this man had several wives—
Mohammedans always insist on their full four, according to Mrs. Turton.
And having no one else to speak to on that eternal rock, she gave rein to the
subject of marriage and said in her honest, decent, inquisitive way: “Have
you one wife or more than one?”

The question shocked the young man very much. It challenged a new
conviction of his community, and new convictions are more sensitive than
old. If she had said, “Do you worship one god or several?” he would not
have objected. But to ask an educated Indian Moslem how many wives he
has—appalling, hideous! He was in trouble how to conceal his confusion.
“One, one in my own particular case,” he sputtered, and let go of her hand.
Quite a number of caves were at the top of the track, and thinking, “Damn
the English even at their best,” he plunged into one of them to recover his
balance. She followed at her leisure, quite unconscious that she had said the
wrong thing, and not seeing him, she also went into a cave, thinking with
half her mind “sight-seeing bores me,” and wondering with the other half
about marriage.
 CHAPTER XVI

He waited in his cave a minute, and lit a cigarette, so that he could

remark on rejoining her, “I bolted in to get out of the draught,” or
something of the sort. When he returned, he found the guide, alone, with his
head on one side. He had heard a noise, he said, and then Aziz heard it too:
the noise of a motor-car. They were now on the outer shoulder of the Kawa
Dol, and by scrambling twenty yards they got a glimpse of the plain. A car
was coming towards the hills down the Chandrapore road. But they could
not get a good view of it, because the precipitous bastion curved at the top,
so that the base was not easily seen and the car disappeared as it came
nearer. No doubt it would stop almost exactly beneath them, at the place
where the pukka road degenerated into a path, and the elephant had turned
to sidle into the hills.

He ran back, to tell the strange news to his guest. The guide explained
that she had gone into a cave. “Which cave?”

He indicated the group vaguely.

“You should have kept her in sight, it was your duty,” said Aziz severely.
“Here are twelve caves at least. How am I to know which contains my
guest? Which is the cave I was in myself?”

The same vague gesture. And Aziz, looking again, could not even be sure
he had returned to the same group. Caves appeared in every direction—it
seemed their original spawning place—and the orifices were always the
same size. He thought, “Merciful Heavens, Miss Quested is lost,” then
pulled himself together, and began to look for her calmly.

“Shout!” he commanded.

When they had done this for awhile, the guide explained that to shout is
useless, because a Marabar cave can hear no sound but its own. Aziz wiped
his head, and sweat began to stream inside his clothes. The place was so
confusing; it was partly a terrace, partly a zigzag, and full of grooves that
led this way and that like snake-tracks. He tried to go into every one, but he
never knew where he had started. Caves got behind caves or confabulated
in pairs, and some were at the entrance of a gully.

“Come here!” he called gently, and when the guide was in reach, he
struck him in the face for a punishment. The man fled, and he was left
alone. He thought, “This is the end of my career, my guest is lost.” And
then he discovered the simple and sufficient explanation of the mystery.

Miss Quested wasn’t lost. She had joined the people in the car—friends
of hers, no doubt, Mr. Heaslop perhaps. He had a sudden glimpse of her, far
down the gully—only a glimpse, but there she was quite plain, framed
between rocks, and speaking to another lady. He was so relieved that he did
not think her conduct odd. Accustomed to sudden changes of plan, he
supposed that she had run down the Kawa Dol impulsively, in the hope of a
little drive. He started back alone towards his camp, and almost at once
caught sight of something which would have disquieted him very much a
moment before: Miss Quested’s field-glasses. They were lying at the verge
of a cave, half-way down an entrance tunnel. He tried to hang them over his
shoulder, but the leather strap had broken, so he put them into his pocket
instead. When he had gone a few steps, he thought she might have dropped
something else, so he went back to look.

But the previous difficulty recurred: he couldn’t identify the cave. Down
in the plain he heard the car starting; however, he couldn’t catch a second
glimpse of that. So he scrambled down the valley-face of the hill towards
Mrs. Moore, and here he was more successful: the colour and confusion of
his little camp soon appeared, and in the midst of it he saw an Englishman’s
topi, and beneath it—oh joy!—smiled not Mr. Heaslop, but Fielding.

“Fielding! Oh, I have so wanted you!” he cried, dropping the “Mr.” for
the first time.

And his friend ran to meet him, all so pleasant and jolly, no dignity,
shouting explanations and apologies about the train. Fielding had come in
the newly arrived car—Miss Derek’s car—that other lady was Miss Derek.
Chatter, chatter, all the servants leaving their cooking to listen. Excellent
Miss Derek! She had met Fielding by chance at the post office, said, “Why
haven’t you gone to the Marabar?” heard how he missed the train, offered
to run him there and then. Another nice English lady. Where was she? Left
with car and chauffeur while Fielding found camp. Car couldn’t get up—
no, of course not—hundreds of people must go down to escort Miss Derek
and show her the way. The elephant in person. . . .

“Aziz, can I have a drink?”

“Certainly not.” He flew to get one.

“Mr. Fielding!” called Mrs. Moore, from her patch of shade; they had not
spoken yet, because his arrival had coincided with the torrent from the hill.

“Good morning again!” he cried, relieved to find all well.

“Mr. Fielding, have you seen Miss Quested?”

“But I’ve only just arrived. Where is she?”

“I do not know.”

“Aziz! Where have you put Miss Quested to?” Aziz, who was returning
with a drink in his hand, had to think for a moment. His heart was full of
new happiness. The picnic, after a nasty shock or two, had developed into
something beyond his dreams, for Fielding had not only come, but brought
an uninvited guest. “Oh, she’s all right,” he said; “she went down to see
Miss Derek. Well, here’s luck! Chin-chin!”

“Here’s luck, but chin-chin I do refuse,” laughed Fielding, who detested

the phrase. “Here’s to India!”

“Here’s luck, and here’s to England!”

Miss Derek’s chauffeur stopped the cavalcade which was starting to

escort his mistress up, and informed it that she had gone back with the other
young lady to Chandrapore; she had sent him to say so. She was driving
herself.
 “Oh yes, that’s quite likely,” said Aziz. “I knew they’d gone for a spin.”

“Chandrapore? The man’s made a mistake,” Fielding exclaimed.

“Oh no, why?” He was disappointed, but made light of it; no doubt the
two young ladies were great friends. He would prefer to give breakfast to
all four; still, guests must do as they wish, or they become prisoners. He
went away cheerfully to inspect the porridge and the ice.

“What’s happened?” asked Fielding, who felt at once that something had
gone queer. All the way out Miss Derek had chattered about the picnic,
called it an unexpected treat, and said that she preferred Indians who didn’t
invite her to their entertainments to those who did it. Mrs. Moore sat
swinging her foot, and appeared sulky and stupid. She said: “Miss Derek is
most unsatisfactory and restless, always in a hurry, always wanting
something new; she will do anything in the world except go back to the
Indian lady who pays her.”

Fielding, who didn’t dislike Miss Derek, replied: “She wasn’t in a hurry
when I left her. There was no question of returning to Chandrapore. It looks
to me as if Miss Quested’s in the hurry.”

“Adela?—she’s never been in a hurry in her life,” said the old lady
sharply.

“I say it’ll prove to be Miss Quested’s wish, in fact I know it is,”

persisted the schoolmaster. He was annoyed—chiefly with himself. He had
begun by missing a train—a sin he was never guilty of—and now that he
did arrive it was to upset Aziz’ arrangements for the second time. He
wanted someone to share the blame, and frowned at Mrs. Moore rather
magisterially. “Aziz is a charming fellow,” he announced.

“I know,” she answered, with a yawn.

“He has taken endless trouble to make a success of our picnic.”

They knew one another very little, and felt rather awkward at being
drawn together by an Indian. The racial problem can take subtle forms. In
their case it had induced a sort of jealousy, a mutual suspicion. He tried to
goad her enthusiasm; she scarcely spoke. Aziz fetched them to breakfast.

“It is quite natural about Miss Quested,” he remarked, for he had been
working the incident a little in his mind, to get rid of its roughnesses. “We
were having an interesting talk with our guide, then the car was seen, so she
decided to go down to her friend.” Incurably inaccurate, he already thought
that this was what had occurred. He was inaccurate because he was
sensitive. He did not like to remember Miss Quested’s remark about
polygamy, because it was unworthy of a guest, so he put it from his mind,
and with it the knowledge that he had bolted into a cave to get away from
her. He was inaccurate because he desired to honour her, and—facts being
entangled—he had to arrange them in her vicinity, as one tidies the ground
after extracting a weed. Before breakfast was over, he had told a good many
lies. “She ran to her friend, I to mine,” he went on, smiling. “And now I am
with my friends and they are with me and each other, which is happiness.”

Loving them both, he expected them to love each other. They didn’t want
to. Fielding thought with hostility, “I knew these women would make
trouble,” and Mrs. Moore thought, “This man, having missed the train, tries
to blame us”; but her thoughts were feeble; since her faintness in the cave
she was sunk in apathy and cynicism. The wonderful India of her opening
weeks, with its cool nights and acceptable hints of infinity, had vanished.

Fielding ran up to see one cave. He wasn’t impressed. Then they got on
the elephant and the picnic began to unwind out of the corridor and escaped
under the precipice towards the railway station, pursued by stabs of hot air.
They came to the place where he had quitted the car. A disagreeable
thought now struck him, and he said: “Aziz, exactly where and how did you
leave Miss Quested?”

“Up there.” He indicated the Kawa Dol cheerfully.

“But how——” A gully, or rather a crease, showed among the rocks at

this place; it was scurfy with cactuses. “I suppose the guide helped her.”

“Oh, rather, most helpful.”

 “Is there a path off the top?”

“Millions of paths, my dear fellow.”

Fielding could see nothing but the crease. Everywhere else the glaring
granite plunged into the earth.

“But you saw them get down safe?”

“Yes, yes, she and Miss Derek, and go off in the car.”

“Then the guide came back to you?”

“Exactly. Got a cigarette?”

“I hope she wasn’t ill,” pursued the Englishman. The crease continued as
a nullah across the plain, the water draining off this way towards the
Ganges.

“She would have wanted me, if she was ill, to attend her.”

“Yes, that sounds sense.”

“I see you’re worrying, let’s talk of other things,” he said kindly. “Miss
Quested was always to do what she wished, it was our arrangement. I see
you are worrying on my account, but really I don’t mind, I never notice
trifles.”

“I do worry on your account. I consider they have been impolite!” said

Fielding, lowering his voice. “She had no right to dash away from your
party, and Miss Derek had no right to abet her.”

So touchy as a rule, Aziz was unassailable. The wings that uplifted him
did not falter, because he was a Mogul emperor who had done his duty.
Perched on his elephant, he watched the Marabar Hills recede, and saw
again, as provinces of his kingdom, the grim untidy plain, the frantic and
feeble movements of the buckets, the white shrines, the shallow graves, the
suave sky, the snake that looked like a tree. He had given his guests as good
a time as he could, and if they came late or left early that was not his affair.
Mrs. Moore slept, swaying against the rods of the howdah, Mohammed
Latif embraced her with efficiency and respect, and by his own side sat
Fielding, whom he began to think of as “Cyril.”

“Aziz, have you figured out what this picnic will cost you?”

“Sh! my dear chap, don’t mention that part. Hundreds and hundreds of
rupees. The completed account will be too awful; my friends’ servants have
robbed me right and left, and as for an elephant, she apparently eats gold. I
can trust you not to repeat this. And M.L.—please employ initials, he
listens—is far the worst of all.”

“I told you he’s no good.”

“He is plenty of good for himself; his dishonesty will ruin me.”

“Aziz, how monstrous!”

“I am delighted with him really, he has made my guests comfortable;

besides, it is my duty to employ him, he is my cousin. If money goes,
money comes. If money stays, death comes. Did you ever hear that useful
Urdu proverb? Probably not, for I have just invented it.”

“My proverbs are: A penny saved is a penny earned; A stitch in time

saves nine; Look before you leap; and the British Empire rests on them.
You will never kick us out, you know, until you cease employing M.L.’s
and such.”

“Oh, kick you out? Why should I trouble over that dirty job? Leave it to
the politicians. . . . No, when I was a student I got excited over your damned
countrymen, certainly; but if they’ll let me get on with my profession and
not be too rude to me officially, I really don’t ask for more.”

“But you do; you take them to a picnic.”

“This picnic is nothing to do with English or Indian; it is an expedition of

friends.”
 So the cavalcade ended, partly pleasant, partly not; the Brahman cook
was picked up, the train arrived, pushing its burning throat over the plain,
and the twentieth century took over from the sixteenth. Mrs. Moore entered
her carriage, the three men went to theirs, adjusted the shutters, turned on
the electric fan and tried to get some sleep. In the twilight, all resembled
corpses, and the train itself seemed dead though it moved—a coffin from
the scientific north which troubled the scenery four times a day. As it left
the Marabars, their nasty little cosmos disappeared, and gave place to the
Marabars seen from a distance, finite and rather romantic. The train halted
once under a pump, to drench the stock of coal in its tender. Then it caught
sight of the main line in the distance, took courage, and bumped forward,
rounded the civil station, surmounted the level-crossing (the rails were
scorching now), and clanked to a stand-still. Chandrapore, Chandrapore!
The expedition was over.

And as it ended, as they sat up in the gloom and prepared to enter

ordinary life, suddenly the long drawn strangeness of the morning snapped.
Mr. Haq, the Inspector of Police, flung open the door of their carriage and
said in shrill tones: “Dr. Aziz, it is my highly painful duty to arrest you.”

“Hullo, some mistake,” said Fielding, at once taking charge of the

situation.

“Sir, they are my instructions. I know nothing.”

“On what charge do you arrest him?”

“I am under instructions not to say.”

“Don’t answer me like that. Produce your warrant.”

“Sir, excuse me, no warrant is required under these particular

circumstances. Refer to Mr. McBryde.”

“Very well, so we will. Come along, Aziz, old man; nothing to fuss
about, some blunder.”
 “Dr. Aziz, will you kindly come?—a closed conveyance stands in
readiness.”

The young man sobbed—his first sound—and tried to escape out of the
opposite door on to the line.

“That will compel me to use force,” Mr. Haq wailed.

“Oh, for God’s sake——” cried Fielding, his own nerves breaking under
the contagion, and pulled him back before a scandal started, and shook him
like a baby. A second later, and he would have been out, whistles blowing, a
man-hunt. . . . “Dear fellow, we’re coming to McBryde together, and
enquire what’s gone wrong—he’s a decent fellow, it’s all unintentional . . .
he’ll apologize. Never, never act the criminal.”

“My children and my name!” he gasped, his wings broken.

“Nothing of the sort. Put your hat straight and take my arm. I’ll see you
through.”

“Ah, thank God, he comes,” the Inspector exclaimed. They emerged into
the midday heat, arm in arm. The station was seething. Passengers and
porters rushed out of every recess, many Government servants, more police.
Ronny escorted Mrs. Moore. Mohammed Latif began wailing. And before
they could make their way through the chaos, Fielding was called off by the
authoritative tones of Mr. Turton, and Aziz went on to prison alone.
 CHAPTER XVII

The Collector had watched the arrest from the interior of the waiting-
room, and throwing open its perforated doors of zinc, he was now revealed
like a god in a shrine. When Fielding entered the doors clapped to, and were
guarded by a servant, while a punkah, to mark the importance of the
moment, flapped dirty petticoats over their heads. The Collector could not
speak at first. His face was white, fanatical, and rather beautiful—the
expression that all English faces were to wear at Chandrapore for many
days. Always brave and unselfish, he was now fused by some white and
generous heat; he would have killed himself, obviously, if he had thought it
right to do so. He spoke at last. “The worst thing in my whole career has
happened,” he said. “Miss Quested has been insulted in one of the Marabar
caves.”

“Oh no, oh no, no,” gasped the other, feeling sickish.

“She escaped—by God’s grace.”

“Oh no, no, but not Aziz . . . not Aziz . . .”

He nodded.

“Absolutely impossible, grotesque.”

“I called you to preserve you from the odium that would attach to you if
you were seen accompanying him to the Police Station,” said Turton,
paying no attention to his protest, indeed scarcely hearing it.

He repeated “Oh no,” like a fool. He couldn’t frame other words. He felt
that a mass of madness had arisen and tried to overwhelm them all; it had to
be shoved back into its pit somehow, and he didn’t know how to do it,
because he did not understand madness: he had always gone about sensibly
and quietly until a difficulty came right. “Who lodges this infamous
charge?” he asked, pulling himself together.

“Miss Derek and—the victim herself. . . .” He nearly broke down, unable

to repeat the girl’s name.

“Miss Quested herself definitely accuses him of——”

He nodded and turned his face away.

“Then she’s mad.”

“I cannot pass that last remark,” said the Collector, waking up to the
knowledge that they differed, and trembling with fury. “You will withdraw
it instantly. It is the type of remark you have permitted yourself to make
ever since you came to Chandrapore.”

“I’m excessively sorry, sir; I certainly withdraw it unconditionally.” For

the man was half mad himself.

“Pray, Mr. Fielding, what induced you to speak to me in such a tone?”

“The news gave me a very great shock, so I must ask you to forgive me. I
cannot believe that Dr. Aziz is guilty.”

He slammed his hand on the table. “That—that is a repetition of your

insult in an aggravated form.”

“If I may venture to say so, no,” said Fielding, also going white, but
sticking to his point. “I make no reflection on the good faith of the two
ladies, but the charge they are bringing against Aziz rests upon some
mistake, and five minutes will clear it up. The man’s manner is perfectly
natural; besides, I know him to be incapable of infamy.”

“It does indeed rest upon a mistake,” came the thin, biting voice of the
other. “It does indeed. I have had twenty-five years’ experience of this
country”—he paused, and “twenty-five years” seemed to fill the waiting-
room with their staleness and ungenerosity—“and during those twenty-five
years I have never known anything but disaster result when English people
and Indians attempt to be intimate socially. Intercourse, yes. Courtesy, by
all means. Intimacy—never, never. The whole weight of my authority is
against it. I have been in charge at Chandrapore for six years, and if
everything has gone smoothly, if there has been mutual respect and esteem,
it is because both peoples kept to this simple rule. New-comers set our
traditions aside, and in an instant what you see happens, the work of years
is undone and the good name of my District ruined for a generation. I—I—
can’t see the end of this day’s work, Mr. Fielding. You, who are imbued
with modern ideas—no doubt you can. I wish I had never lived to see its
beginning, I know that. It is the end of me. That a lady, that a young lady
engaged to my most valued subordinate—that she—an English girl fresh
from England—that I should have lived——”

Involved in his own emotions, he broke down. What he had said was
both dignified and pathetic, but had it anything to do with Aziz? Nothing at
all, if Fielding was right. It is impossible to regard a tragedy from two
points of view, and whereas Turton had decided to avenge the girl, he hoped
to save the man. He wanted to get away and talk to McBryde, who had
always been friendly to him, was on the whole sensible, and could, anyhow,
be trusted to keep cool.

“I came down particularly on your account—while poor Heaslop got his

mother away. I regarded it as the most friendly thing I could do. I meant to
tell you that there will be an informal meeting at the club this evening to
discuss the situation, but I am doubtful whether you will care to come. Your
visits there are always infrequent.”

“I shall certainly come, sir, and I am most grateful to you for all the
trouble you have taken over me. May I venture to ask—where Miss
Quested is.”

He replied with a gesture; she was ill.

“Worse and worse, appalling,” he said feelingly.

But the Collector looked at him sternly, because he was keeping his head.
He had not gone mad at the phrase “an English girl fresh from England,” he
had not rallied to the banner of race. He was still after facts, though the herd
had decided on emotion. Nothing enrages Anglo-India more than the
lantern of reason if it is exhibited for one moment after its extinction is
decreed. All over Chandrapore that day the Europeans were putting aside
their normal personalities and sinking themselves in their community. Pity,
wrath, heroism, filled them, but the power of putting two and two together
was annihilated.

Terminating the interview, the Collector walked on to the platform. The

confusion there was revolting. A chuprassi of Ronny’s had been told to
bring up some trifles belonging to the ladies, and was appropriating for
himself various articles to which he had no right; he was a camp follower of
the angry English. Mohammed Latif made no attempt to resist him. Hassan
flung off his turban, and wept. All the comforts that had been provided so
liberally were rolled about and wasted in the sun. The Collector took in the
situation at a glance, and his sense of justice functioned though he was
insane with rage. He spoke the necessary word, and the looting stopped.
Then he drove off to his bungalow and gave rein to his passions again.
When he saw the coolies asleep in the ditches or the shopkeepers rising to
salute him on their little platforms, he said to himself: “I know what you’re
like at last; you shall pay for this, you shall squeal.”
 CHAPTER XVIII

Mr. McBryde, the District Superintendent of Police, was the most

reflective and best educated of the Chandrapore officials. He had read and
thought a good deal, and, owing to a somewhat unhappy marriage, had
evolved a complete philosophy of life. There was much of the cynic about
him, but nothing of the bully; he never lost his temper or grew rough, and
he received Aziz with courtesy, was almost reassuring. “I have to detain you
until you get bail,” he said, “but no doubt your friends will be applying for
it, and of course they will be allowed to visit you, under regulations. I am
given certain information, and have to act on it—I’m not your judge.” Aziz
was led off weeping. Mr. McBryde was shocked at his downfall, but no
Indian ever surprised him, because he had a theory about climatic zones.
The theory ran: “All unfortunate natives are criminals at heart, for the
simple reason that they live south of latitude 30. They are not to blame, they
have not a dog’s chance—we should be like them if we settled here.” Born
at Karachi, he seemed to contradict his theory, and would sometimes admit
as much with a sad, quiet smile.

“Another of them found out,” he thought, as he set to work to draft his

statement to the Magistrate.

He was interrupted by the arrival of Fielding.

He imparted all he knew without reservations. Miss Derek had herself

driven in the Mudkul car about an hour ago, she and Miss Quested both in a
terrible state. They had gone straight to his bungalow where he happened to
be, and there and then he had taken down the charge and arranged for the
arrest at the railway station.

“What is the charge, precisely?”

“That he followed her into the cave and made insulting advances. She hit
at him with her field-glasses; he pulled at them and the strap broke, and that
is how she got away. When we searched him just now, they were in his
pocket.”

“Oh no, oh no, no; it’ll be cleared up in five minutes,” he cried again.

“Have a look at them.”

The strap had been newly broken, the eye-piece was jammed. The logic
of evidence said “Guilty.”

“Did she say any more?”

“There was an echo that appears to have frightened her. Did you go into
those caves?”

“I saw one of them. There was an echo. Did it get on her nerves?”

“I couldn’t worry her overmuch with questions. She’ll have plenty to go

through in the witness-box. They don’t bear thinking about, these next
weeks. I wish the Marabar Hills and all they contain were at the bottom of
the sea. Evening after evening one saw them from the club, and they were
just a harmless name. . . . Yes, we start already.” For a visiting card was
brought; Vakil Mahmoud Ali, legal adviser to the prisoner, asked to be
allowed to see him. McBryde sighed, gave permission, and continued: “I
heard some more from Miss Derek—she is an old friend of us both and
talks freely; well—her account is that you went off to locate the camp, and
almost at once she heard stones falling on the Kawa Dol and saw Miss
Quested running straight down the face of a precipice. Well. She climbed up
a sort of gully to her, and found her practically done for—her helmet off
——”

“Was a guide not with her?” interrupted Fielding.

“No. She had got among some cactuses. Miss Derek saved her life
coming just then—she was beginning to fling herself about. She helped her
down to the car. Miss Quested couldn’t stand the Indian driver, cried, ‘Keep
him away’—and it was that that put our friend on the track of what had
happened. They made straight for our bungalow, and are there now. That’s
the story as far as I know it yet. She sent the driver to join you. I think she
behaved with great sense.”

“I suppose there’s no possibility of my seeing Miss Quested?” he asked

suddenly.

“I hardly think that would do. Surely.”

“I was afraid you’ld say that. I should very much like to.”

“She is in no state to see anyone. Besides, you don’t know her well.”

“Hardly at all. . . . But you see I believe she’s under some hideous
delusion, and that that wretched boy is innocent.”

The policeman started in surprise, and a shadow passed over his face, for
he could not bear his dispositions to be upset. “I had no idea that was in
your mind,” he said, and looked for support at the signed deposition, which
lay before him.

“Those field-glasses upset me for a minute, but I’ve thought since: it’s
impossible that, having attempted to assault her, he would put her glasses
into his pocket.”

“Quite possible, I’m afraid; when an Indian goes bad, he goes not only
very bad, but very queer.”

“I don’t follow.”

“How should you? When you think of crime you think of English crime.
The psychology here is different. I dare say you’ll tell me next that he was
quite normal when he came down from the hill to greet you. No reason he
should not be. Read any of the Mutiny records; which, rather than the
Bhagavad Gita, should be your Bible in this country. Though I’m not sure
that the one and the other are not closely connected. Am I not being
beastly? But, you see, Fielding, as I’ve said to you once before, you’re a
schoolmaster, and consequently you come across these people at their best.
That’s what puts you wrong. They can be charming as boys. But I know
them as they really are, after they have developed into men. Look at this,
for instance.” He held up Aziz’ pocket-case. “I am going through the
contents. They are not edifying. Here is a letter from a friend who
apparently keeps a brothel.”

“I don’t want to hear his private letters.”

“It’ll have to be quoted in Court, as bearing on his morals. He was fixing

up to see women at Calcutta.”

“Oh, that’ll do, that’ll do.”

McBryde stopped, naively puzzled. It was obvious to him that any two
sahibs ought to pool all they knew about any Indian, and he could not think
where the objection came in.

“I dare say you have the right to throw stones at a young man for doing
that, but I haven’t. I did the same at his age.”

So had the Superintendent of Police, but he considered that the

conversation had taken a turn that was undesirable. He did not like
Fielding’s next remark either.

“Miss Quested really cannot be seen? You do know that for a certainty?”

“You have never explained to me what’s in your mind here. Why on earth
do you want to see her?”

“On the off chance of her recanting before you send in that report and
he’s committed for trial, and the whole thing goes to blazes. Old man, don’t
argue about this, but do of your goodness just ring up your wife or Miss
Derek and enquire. It’ll cost you nothing.”

“It’s no use ringing up them,” he replied, stretching out for the telephone.
“Callendar settles a question like that, of course. You haven’t grasped that
she’s seriously ill.”

“He’s sure to refuse, it’s all he exists for,” said the other desperately.
 The expected answer came back: the Major would not hear of the patient
being troubled.

“I only wanted to ask her whether she is certain, dead certain, that it was
Aziz who followed her into the cave.”

“Possibly my wife might ask her that much.”

“But I wanted to ask her. I want someone who believes in him to ask
her.”

“What difference does that make?”

“She is among people who disbelieve in Indians.”

“Well, she tells her own story, doesn’t she?”

“I know, but she tells it to you.”

McBryde raised his eyebrows, murmuring: “A bit too finespun. Anyhow,

Callendar won’t hear of you seeing her. I’m sorry to say he gave a bad
account just now. He says that she is by no means out of danger.”

They were silent. Another card was brought into the office—
Hamidullah’s. The opposite army was gathering.

“I must put this report through now, Fielding.”

“I wish you wouldn’t.”

“How can I not?”

“I feel that things are rather unsatisfactory as well as most disastrous. We

are heading for a most awful smash. I can see your prisoner, I suppose.”

He hesitated. “His own people seem in touch with him all right.”

“Well, when he’s done with them.”

 “I wouldn’t keep you waiting; good heavens, you take precedence of any
Indian visitor, of course. I meant what’s the good. Why mix yourself up
with pitch?”

“I say he’s innocent——”

“Innocence or guilt, why mix yourself up? What’s the good?”

“Oh, good, good,” he cried, feeling that every earth was being stopped.
“One’s got to breathe occasionally, at least I have. I mayn’t see her, and
now I mayn’t see him. I promised him to come up here with him to you, but
Turton called me off before I could get two steps.”

“Sort of all-white thing the Burra Sahib would do,” he muttered

sentimentally. And trying not to sound patronizing, he stretched his hand
over the table, and said: “We shall all have to hang together, old man, I’m
afraid. I’m your junior in years, I know, but very much your senior in
service; you don’t happen to know this poisonous country as well as I do,
and you must take it from me that the general situation is going to be nasty
at Chandrapore during the next few weeks, very nasty indeed.”

“So I have just told you.”

“But at a time like this there’s no room for—well—personal views. The

man who doesn’t toe the line is lost.”

“I see what you mean.”

“No, you don’t see entirely. He not only loses himself, he weakens his
friends. If you leave the line, you leave a gap in the line. These jackals”—
he pointed at the lawyers’ cards—“are looking with all their eyes for a
gap.”

“Can I visit Aziz?” was his answer.

“No.” Now that he knew of Turton’s attitude, the policeman had no

doubts. “You may see him on a magistrate’s order, but on my own
responsibility I don’t feel justified. It might lead to more complications.”
 He paused, reflecting that if he had been either ten years younger or ten
years longer in India, he would have responded to McBryde’s appeal. The
bit between his teeth, he then said, “To whom do I apply for an order?”

“City Magistrate.”

“That sounds comfortable!”

“Yes, one can’t very well worry poor Heaslop.”

More “evidence” appeared at this moment—the table-drawer from Aziz’

bungalow, borne with triumph in a corporal’s arms.

“Photographs of women. Ah!”

“That’s his wife,” said Fielding, wincing.

“How do you know that?”

“He told me.”

McBryde gave a faint, incredulous smile, and started rummaging in the

drawer. His face became inquisitive and slightly bestial. “Wife indeed, I
know those wives!” he was thinking. Aloud he said: “Well, you must trot
off now, old man, and the Lord help us, the Lord help us all. . .”

As if his prayer had been heard, there was a sudden rackety-dacket on a

temple bell.
 CHAPTER XIX

Hamidullah was the next stage. He was waiting outside the

Superintendent’s office, and sprang up respectfully when he saw Fielding.
To the Englishman’s passionate “It’s all a mistake,” he answered, “Ah, ah,
has some evidence come?”

“It will come,” said Fielding, holding his hand.

“Ah, yes, Mr. Fielding; but when once an Indian has been arrested, we do
not know where it will stop.” His manner was deferential. “You are very
good to greet me in this public fashion, I appreciate it; but, Mr. Fielding,
nothing convinces a magistrate except evidence. Did Mr. McBryde make
any remark when my card came in? Do you think my application annoyed
him, will prejudice him against my friend at all? If so, I will gladly retire.”

“He’s not annoyed, and if he was, what does it matter?”

“Ah, it’s all very well for you to speak like that, but we have to live in
this country.”

The leading barrister of Chandrapore, with the dignified manner and

Cambridge degree, had been rattled. He too loved Aziz, and knew he was
calumniated; but faith did not rule his heart, and he prated of “policy” and
“evidence” in a way that saddened the Englishman. Fielding, too, had his
anxieties—he didn’t like the field-glasses or the discrepancy over the guide
—but he relegated them to the edge of his mind, and forbade them to infect
its core. Aziz was innocent, and all action must be based on that, and the
people who said he was guilty were wrong, and it was hopeless to try to
propitiate them. At the moment when he was throwing in his lot with
Indians, he realized the profundity of the gulf that divided him from them.
They always do something disappointing. Aziz had tried to run away from
the police, Mohammed Latif had not checked the pilfering. And now
Hamidullah!—instead of raging and denouncing, he temporized. Are
Indians cowards? No, but they are bad starters and occasionally jib. Fear is
everywhere; the British Raj rests on it; the respect and courtesy Fielding
himself enjoyed were unconscious acts of propitiation. He told Hamidullah
to cheer up, all would end well; and Hamidullah did cheer up, and became
pugnacious and sensible. McBryde’s remark, “If you leave the line, you
leave a gap in the line,” was being illustrated.

“First and foremost, the question of bail . . .”

Application must be made this afternoon. Fielding wanted to stand

surety. Hamidullah thought the Nawab Bahadur should be approached.

“Why drag in him, though?”

To drag in everyone was precisely the barrister’s aim. He then suggested

that the lawyer in charge of the case would be a Hindu; the defence would
then make a wider appeal. He mentioned one or two names—men from a
distance who would not be intimidated by local conditions—and said he
should prefer Amritrao, a Calcutta barrister, who had a high reputation
professionally and personally, but who was notoriously anti-British.

Fielding demurred; this seemed to him going to the other extreme. Aziz
must be cleared, but with a minimum of racial hatred. Amritrao was loathed
at the club. His retention would be regarded as a political challenge.

“Oh no, we must hit with all our strength. When I saw my friend’s
private papers carried in just now in the arms of a dirty policeman, I said to
myself, ‘Amritrao is the man to clear up this.’”

There was a lugubrious pause. The temple bell continued to jangle

harshly. The interminable and disastrous day had scarcely reached its
afternoon. Continuing their work, the wheels of Dominion now propelled a
messenger on a horse from the Superintendent to the Magistrate with an
official report of arrest. “Don’t complicate, let the cards play themselves,”
entreated Fielding, as he watched the man disappear into dust. “We’re
bound to win, there’s nothing else we can do. She will never be able to
substantiate the charge.”
 This comforted Hamidullah, who remarked with complete sincerity, “At
a crisis, the English are really unequalled.”

“Good-bye, then, my dear Hamidullah (we must drop the ‘Mr.’ now).
Give Aziz my love when you see him, and tell him to keep calm, calm,
calm. I shall go back to the College now. If you want me, ring me up; if you
don’t, don’t, for I shall be very busy.”

“Good-bye, my dear Fielding, and you actually are on our side against
your own people?”

“Yes. Definitely.”

He regretted taking sides. To slink through India unlabelled was his aim.
Henceforward he would be called “anti-British,” “seditious”—terms that
bored him, and diminished his utility. He foresaw that besides being a
tragedy, there would be a muddle; already he saw several tiresome little
knots, and each time his eye returned to them, they were larger. Born in
freedom, he was not afraid of muddle, but he recognized its existence.

This section of the day concluded in a queer vague talk with Professor
Godbole. The interminable affair of the Russell’s Viper was again in
question. Some weeks before, one of the masters at the College, an
unpopular Parsi, had found a Russell’s Viper nosing round his class-room.
Perhaps it had crawled in of itself, but perhaps it had not, and the staff still
continued to interview their Principal about it, and to take up his time with
their theories. The reptile is so poisonous that he did not like to cut them
short, and this they knew. Thus when his mind was bursting with other
troubles and he was debating whether he should compose a letter of appeal
to Miss Quested, he was obliged to listen to a speech which lacked both
basis and conclusion, and floated through air. At the end of it Godbole said,
“May I now take my leave?”—always an indication that he had not come to
his point yet. “Now I take my leave, I must tell you how glad I am to hear
that after all you succeeded in reaching the Marabar. I feared my
unpunctuality had prevented you, but you went (a far pleasanter method) in
Miss Derek’s car. I hope the expedition was a successful one.”

“The news has not reached you yet, I can see.”

 “Oh yes.”

“No; there has been a terrible catastrophe about Aziz.”

“Oh yes. That is all round the College.”

“Well, the expedition where that occurs can scarcely be called a

successful one,” said Fielding, with an amazed stare.

“I cannot say. I was not present.”

He stared again—a most useless operation, for no eye could see what lay
at the bottom of the Brahman’s mind, and yet he had a mind and a heart too,
and all his friends trusted him, without knowing why. “I am most frightfully
cut up,” he said.

“So I saw at once on entering your office. I must not detain you, but I
have a small private difficulty on which I want your help; I am leaving your
service shortly, as you know.”

“Yes, alas!”

“And am returning to my birthplace in Central India to take charge of

education there. I want to start a High School there on sound English lines,
that shall be as like Government College as possible.”

“Well?” he sighed, trying to take an interest.

“At present there is only vernacular education at Mau. I shall feel it my

duty to change all that. I shall advise His Highness to sanction at least a
High School in the Capital, and if possible another in each pargana.”

Fielding sunk his head on his arms; really, Indians were sometimes
unbearable.

“The point—the point on which I desire your help is this: what name
should be given to the school?”
 “A name? A name for a school?” he said, feeling sickish suddenly, as he
had done in the waiting-room.

“Yes, a name, a suitable title, by which it can be called, by which it may

be generally known.”

“Really—I have no names for schools in my head. I can think of nothing

but our poor Aziz. Have you grasped that at the present moment he is in
prison?”

“Oh yes. Oh no, I do not expect an answer to my question now. I only

meant that when you are at leisure, you might think the matter over, and
suggest two or three alternative titles for schools. I had thought of the ‘Mr.
Fielding High School,’ but failing that, the ‘King-Emperor George the
Fifth.’”

“Godbole!”

The old fellow put his hands together, and looked sly and charming.

“Is Aziz innocent or guilty?”

“That is for the Court to decide. The verdict will be in strict accordance
with the evidence, I make no doubt.”

“Yes, yes, but your personal opinion. Here’s a man we both like,
generally esteemed; he lives here quietly doing his work. Well, what’s one
to make of it? Would he or would he not do such a thing?”

“Ah, that is rather a different question from your previous one, and also
more difficult: I mean difficult in our philosophy. Dr. Aziz is a most worthy
young man, I have a great regard for him; but I think you are asking me
whether the individual can commit good actions or evil actions, and that is
rather difficult for us.” He spoke without emotion and in short tripping
syllables.

“I ask you: did he do it or not? Is that plain? I know he didn’t, and from
that I start. I mean to get at the true explanation in a couple of days. My last
notion is that it’s the guide who went round with them. Malice on Miss
Quested’s part—it couldn’t be that, though Hamidullah thinks so. She has
certainly had some appalling experience. But you tell me, oh no—because
good and evil are the same.”

“No, not exactly, please, according to our philosophy. Because nothing

can be performed in isolation. All perform a good action, when one is
performed, and when an evil action is performed, all perform it. To
illustrate my meaning, let me take the case in point as an example.

“I am informed that an evil action was performed in the Marabar Hills,

and that a highly esteemed English lady is now seriously ill in consequence.
My answer to that is this: that action was performed by Dr. Aziz.” He
stopped and sucked in his thin cheeks. “It was performed by the guide.” He
stopped again. “It was performed by you.” Now he had an air of daring and
of coyness. “It was performed by me.” He looked shyly down the sleeve of
his own coat. “And by my students. It was even performed by the lady
herself. When evil occurs, it expresses the whole of the universe. Similarly
when good occurs.”

“And similarly when suffering occurs, and so on and so forth, and

everything is anything and nothing something,” he muttered in his irritation,
for he needed the solid ground.

“Excuse me, you are now again changing the basis of our discussion. We
were discussing good and evil. Suffering is merely a matter for the
individual. If a young lady has sunstroke, that is a matter of no significance
to the universe. Oh no, not at all. Oh no, not the least. It is an isolated
matter, it only concerns herself. If she thought her head did not ache, she
would not be ill, and that would end it. But it is far otherwise in the case of
good and evil. They are not what we think them, they are what they are, and
each of us has contributed to both.”

“You’re preaching that evil and good are the same.”

“Oh no, excuse me once again. Good and evil are different, as their
names imply. But, in my own humble opinion, they are both of them
aspects of my Lord. He is present in the one, absent in the other, and the
difference between presence and absence is great, as great as my feeble
mind can grasp. Yet absence implies presence, absence is not non-existence,
and we are therefore entitled to repeat, ‘Come, come, come, come.’” And in
the same breath, as if to cancel any beauty his words might have contained,
he added, “But did you have time to visit any of the interesting Marabar
antiquities?”

Fielding was silent, trying to meditate and rest his brain.

“Did you not even see the tank by the usual camping ground?” he
nagged.

“Yes, yes,” he answered distractedly, wandering over half a dozen things

at once.

“That is good, then you saw the Tank of the Dagger.” And he related a
legend which might have been acceptable if he had told it at the tea-party a
fortnight ago. It concerned a Hindu Rajah who had slain his own sister’s
son, and the dagger with which he performed the deed remained clamped to
his hand until in the course of years he came to the Marabar Hills, where he
was thirsty and wanted to drink but saw a thirsty cow and ordered the water
to be offered to her first, which, when done, “dagger fell from his hand, and
to commemorate miracle he built Tank.” Professor Godbole’s conversations
frequently culminated in a cow. Fielding received this one in gloomy
silence.

In the afternoon he obtained a permit and saw Aziz, but found him
unapproachable through misery. “You deserted me,” was the only coherent
remark. He went away to write his letter to Miss Quested. Even if it reached
her, it would do no good, and probably the McBrydes would withhold it.
Miss Quested did pull him up short. She was such a dry, sensible girl, and
quite without malice: the last person in Chandrapore wrongfully to accuse
an Indian.
 CHAPTER XX

Although Miss Quested had not made herself popular with the English,
she brought out all that was fine in their character. For a few hours an
exalted emotion gushed forth, which the women felt even more keenly than
the men, if not for so long. “What can we do for our sister?” was the only
thought of Mesdames Callendar and Lesley, as they drove through the
pelting heat to enquire. Mrs. Turton was the only visitor admitted to the
sick-room. She came out ennobled by an unselfish sorrow. “She is my own
darling girl,” were the words she spoke, and then, remembering that she had
called her “not pukka” and resented her engagement to young Heaslop, she
began to cry. No one had ever seen the Collector’s wife cry. Capable of
tears—yes, but always reserving them for some adequate occasion, and now
it had come. Ah, why had they not all been kinder to the stranger, more
patient, given her not only hospitality but their hearts? The tender core of
the heart that is so seldom used—they employed it for a little, under the
stimulus of remorse. If all is over (as Major Callendar implied), well, all is
over, and nothing can be done, but they retained some responsibility in her
grievous wrong that they couldn’t define. If she wasn’t one of them, they
ought to have made her one, and they could never do that now, she had
passed beyond their invitation. “Why don’t one think more of other
people?” sighed pleasure-loving Miss Derek. These regrets only lasted in
their pure form for a few hours. Before sunset, other considerations
adulterated them, and the sense of guilt (so strangely connected with our
first sight of any suffering) had begun to wear away.

People drove into the club with studious calm—the jog-trot of country
gentlefolk between green hedgerows, for the natives must not suspect that
they were agitated. They exchanged the usual drinks, but everything tasted
different, and then they looked out at the palisade of cactuses stabbing the
purple throat of the sky; they realized that they were thousands of miles
from any scenery that they understood. The club was fuller than usual, and
several parents had brought their children into the rooms reserved for
adults, which gave the air of the Residency at Lucknow. One young mother
—a brainless but most beautiful girl—sat on a low ottoman in the smoking-
room with her baby in her arms; her husband was away in the district, and
she dared not return to her bungalow in case the “niggers attacked.” The
wife of a small railway official, she was generally snubbed; but this
evening, with her abundant figure and masses of corn-gold hair, she
symbolized all that is worth fighting and dying for; more permanent a
symbol, perhaps, than poor Adela. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Blakiston, those
drums are only Mohurram,” the men would tell her.

“Then they’ve started,” she moaned, clasping the infant and rather
wishing he would not blow bubbles down his chin at such a moment as this.
“No, of course not, and anyhow, they’re not coming to the club.” “And
they’re not coming to the Burra Sahib’s bungalow either, my dear, and
that’s where you and your baby’ll sleep tonight,” answered Mrs. Turton,
towering by her side like Pallas Athene, and determining in the future not to
be such a snob.

The Collector clapped his hands for silence. He was much calmer than
when he had flown out at Fielding. He was indeed always calmer when he
addressed several people than in a tête-à-tête. “I want to talk specially to the
ladies,” he said. “Not the least cause for alarm. Keep cool, keep cool. Don’t
go out more than you can help, don’t go into the city, don’t talk before your
servants. That’s all.”

“Harry, is there any news from the city?” asked his wife, standing at
some distance from him, and also assuming her public-safety voice. The
rest were silent during the august colloquy.

“Everything absolutely normal.”

“I had gathered as much. Those drums are merely Mohurram, of course.”

“Merely the preparations for it—the Procession is not till next week.”

“Quite so, not till Monday.”

 “Mr. McBryde’s down there disguised as a Holy Man,” said Mrs.
Callendar.

“That’s exactly the sort of thing that must not be said,” he remarked,
pointing at her. “Mrs. Callendar, be more careful than that, please, in these
times.”

“I . . . well, I . . .” She was not offended, his severity made her feel safe.

“Any more questions? Necessary questions.”

“Is the—where is he——” Mrs. Lesley quavered.

“Jail. Bail has been refused.”

Fielding spoke next. He wanted to know whether there was an official

bulletin about Miss Quested’s health, or whether the grave reports were due
to gossip. His question produced a bad effect, partly because he had
pronounced her name; she, like Aziz, was always referred to by a
periphrasis.

“I hope Callendar may be able to let us know how things are going
before long.”

“I fail to see how that last question can be termed a necessary question,”
said Mrs. Turton.

“Will all ladies leave the smoking-room now, please?” he cried, clapping
his hands again. “And remember what I have said. We look to you to help
us through a difficult time, and you can help us by behaving as if everything
is normal. It is all I ask. Can I rely on you?”

“Yes, indeed, Burra Sahib,” they chorused out of peaked, anxious faces.
They moved out, subdued yet elated, Mrs. Blakiston in their midst like a
sacred flame. His simple words had reminded them that they were an
outpost of Empire. By the side of their compassionate love for Adela
another sentiment sprang up which was to strangle it in the long run. Its first
signs were prosaic and small. Mrs. Turton made her loud, hard jokes at
bridge, Mrs. Lesley began to knit a comforter.

When the smoking-room was clear, the Collector sat on the edge of a
table, so that he could dominate without formality. His mind whirled with
contradictory impulses. He wanted to avenge Miss Quested and punish
Fielding, while remaining scrupulously fair. He wanted to flog every native
that he saw, but to do nothing that would lead to a riot or to the necessity for
military intervention. The dread of having to call in the troops was vivid to
him; soldiers put one thing straight, but leave a dozen others crooked, and
they love to humiliate the civilian administration. One soldier was in the
room this evening—a stray subaltern from a Gurkha regiment; he was a
little drunk, and regarded his presence as providential. The Collector
sighed. There seemed nothing for it but the old weary business of
compromise and moderation. He longed for the good old days when an
Englishman could satisfy his own honour and no questions asked
afterwards. Poor young Heaslop had taken a step in this direction, by
refusing bail, but the Collector couldn’t feel this was wise of poor young
Heaslop. Not only would the Nawab Bahadur and others be angry, but the
Government of India itself also watches—and behind it is that caucus of
cranks and cravens, the British Parliament. He had constantly to remind
himself that, in the eyes of the law, Aziz was not yet guilty, and the effort
fatigued him.

The others, less responsible, could behave naturally. They had started
speaking of “women and children”—that phrase that exempts the male from
sanity when it has been repeated a few times. Each felt that all he loved best
in the world was at stake, demanded revenge, and was filled with a not
unpleasing glow, in which the chilly and half-known features of Miss
Quested vanished, and were replaced by all that is sweetest and warmest in
the private life. “But it’s the women and children,” they repeated, and the
Collector knew he ought to stop them intoxicating themselves, but he hadn’t
the heart. “They ought to be compelled to give hostages,” etc. Many of the
said women and children were leaving for the Hill Station in a few days,
and the suggestion was made that they should be packed off at once in a
special train.
 “And a jolly suggestion,” the subaltern cried. “The army’s got to come in
sooner or later. (A special train was in his mind inseparable from troops.)
This would never have happened if Barabas Hill was under military control.
Station a bunch of Gurkhas at the entrance of the cave was all that was
wanted.”

“Mrs. Blakiston was saying if only there were a few Tommies,” remarked
someone.

“English no good,” he cried, getting his loyalties mixed. “Native troops

for this country. Give me the sporting type of native, give me Gurkhas, give
me Rajputs, give me Jats, give me the Punjabi, give me Sikhs, give me
Marathas, Bhils, Afridis and Pathans, and really if it comes to that, I don’t
mind if you give me the scums of the bazaars. Properly led, mind. I’d lead
them anywhere——”

The Collector nodded at him pleasantly, and said to his own people:
“Don’t start carrying arms about. I want everything to go on precisely as
usual, until there’s cause for the contrary. Get the womenfolk off to the
hills, but do it quietly, and for Heaven’s sake no more talk of special trains.
Never mind what you think or feel. Possibly I have feelings too. One
isolated Indian has attempted—is charged with an attempted crime.” He
flipped his forehead hard with his finger-nail, and they all realized that he
felt as deeply as they did, and they loved him, and determined not to
increase his difficulties. “Act upon that fact until there are more facts,” he
concluded. “Assume every Indian is an angel.”

They murmured, “Right you are, Burra Sahib. . . . Angels. . . . Exactly. . .

.” From the subaltern: “Exactly what I said. The native’s all right if you get
him alone. Lesley! Lesley! You remember the one I had a knock with on
your Maidan last month. Well, he was all right. Any native who plays polo
is all right. What you’ve got to stamp on is these educated classes, and,
mind, I do know what I’m talking about this time.”

The smoking-room door opened, and let in a feminine buzz. Mrs. Turton
called out, “She’s better,” and from both sections of the community a sigh
of joy and relief rose. The Civil Surgeon, who had brought the good news,
came in. His cumbrous, pasty face looked ill-tempered. He surveyed the
company, saw Fielding crouched below him on an ottoman, and said,
“H’m!”

Everyone began pressing him for details. “No one’s out of danger in this
country as long as they have a temperature,” was his answer. He appeared
to resent his patient’s recovery, and no one who knew the old Major and his
ways was surprised at this.

“Squat down, Callendar; tell us all about it.”

“Take me some time to do that.”

“How’s the old lady?”

“Temperature.”

“My wife heard she was sinking.”

“So she may be. I guarantee nothing. I really can’t be plagued with
questions, Lesley.”

“Sorry, old man.”

“Heaslop’s just behind me.”

At the name of Heaslop a fine and beautiful expression was renewed on

every face. Miss Quested was only a victim, but young Heaslop was a
martyr; he was the recipient of all the evil intended against them by the
country they had tried to serve; he was bearing the sahib’s cross. And they
fretted because they could do nothing for him in return; they felt so craven
sitting on softness and attending the course of the law.

“I wish to God I hadn’t given my jewel of an assistant leave. I’ld cut my

tongue out first. To feel I’m responsible, that’s what hits me. To refuse, and
then give in under pressure. That is what I did, my sons, that is what I did.”

Fielding took his pipe from his mouth and looked at it thoughtfully.
Thinking him afraid, the other went on: “I understood an Englishman was
to accompany the expedition. That is why I gave in.”
 “No one blames you, my dear Callendar,” said the Collector, looking
down. “We are all to blame in the sense that we ought to have seen the
expedition was insufficiently guaranteed, and stopped it. I knew about it
myself; we lent our car this morning to take the ladies to the station. We are
all implicated in that sense, but not an atom of blame attaches to you
personally.”

“I don’t feel that. I wish I could. Responsibility is a very awful thing, and
I’ve no use for the man who shirks it.” His eyes were directed on Fielding.
Those who knew that Fielding had undertaken to accompany and missed
the early train were sorry for him; it was what is to be expected when a man
mixes himself up with natives; always ends in some indignity. The
Collector, who knew more, kept silent, for the official in him still hoped
that Fielding would toe the line. The conversation turned to women and
children again, and under its cover Major Callendar got hold of the
subaltern, and set him on to bait the schoolmaster. Pretending to be more
drunk than he really was, he began to make semi-offensive remarks.

“Heard about Miss Quested’s servant?” reinforced the Major.

“No, what about him?”

“Heaslop warned Miss Quested’s servant last night never to lose sight of
her. Prisoner got hold of this and managed to leave him behind. Bribed him.
Heaslop has just found out the whole story, with names and sums—a well-
known pimp to those people gave the money, Mohammed Latif by name.
So much for the servant. What about the Englishman—our friend here?
How did they get rid of him? Money again.”

Fielding rose to his feet, supported by murmurs and exclamations, for no

one yet suspected his integrity.

“Oh, I’m being misunderstood, apologies,” said the Major offensively. “I

didn’t mean they bribed Mr. Fielding.”

“Then what do you mean?”

 “They paid the other Indian to make you late—Godbole. He was saying
his prayers. I know those prayers!”

“That’s ridiculous . . .” He sat down again, trembling with rage; person

after person was being dragged into the mud.

Having shot this bolt, the Major prepared the next. “Heaslop also found
out something from his mother. Aziz paid a herd of natives to suffocate her
in a cave. That was the end of her, or would have been only she got out.
Nicely planned, wasn’t it? Neat. Then he could go on with the girl. He and
she and a guide, provided by the same Mohammed Latif. Guide now can’t
be found. Pretty.” His voice broke into a roar. “It’s not the time for sitting
down. It’s the time for action. Call in the troops and clear the bazaars.”

The Major’s outbursts were always discounted, but he made everyone

uneasy on this occasion. The crime was even worse than they had supposed
—the unspeakable limit of cynicism, untouched since 1857. Fielding forgot
his anger on poor old Godbole’s behalf, and became thoughtful; the evil
was propagating in every direction, it seemed to have an existence of its
own, apart from anything that was done or said by individuals, and he
understood better why both Aziz and Hamidullah had been inclined to lie
down and die. His adversary saw that he was in trouble, and now ventured
to say, “I suppose nothing that’s said inside the club will go outside the
club?” winking the while at Lesley.
 “Why should it?” responded Lesley.

“Oh, nothing. I only heard a rumour that a certain member here present
has been seeing the prisoner this afternoon. You can’t run with the hare and
hunt with the hounds, at least not in this country.”

“Does anyone here present want to?”

Fielding was determined not to be drawn again. He had something to say,

but it should be at his own moment. The attack failed to mature, because the
Collector did not support it. Attention shifted from him for a time. Then the
buzz of women broke out again. The door had been opened by Ronny.

The young man looked exhausted and tragic, also gentler than usual. He
always showed deference to his superiors, but now it came straight from his
heart. He seemed to appeal for their protection in the insult that had befallen
him, and they, in instinctive homage, rose to their feet. But every human act
in the East is tainted with officialism, and while honouring him they
condemned Aziz and India. Fielding realized this, and he remained seated.
It was an ungracious, a caddish thing to do, perhaps an unsound thing to do,
but he felt he had been passive long enough, and that he might be drawn
into the wrong current if he did not make a stand. Ronny, who had not seen
him, said in husky tones, “Oh please—please all sit down, I only want to
listen what has been decided.”

“Heaslop, I’m telling them I’m against any show of force,” said the
Collector apologetically. “I don’t know whether you will feel as I do, but
that is how I am situated. When the verdict is obtained, it will be another
matter.”

“You are sure to know best; I have no experience, Burra Sahib.”

“How is your mother, old boy?”

“Better, thank you. I wish everyone would sit down.”

“Some have never got up,” the young soldier said.

 “And the Major brings us an excellent report of Miss Quested,” Turton
went on.

“I do, I do, I’m satisfied.”

“You thought badly of her earlier, did you not, Major? That’s why I
refused bail.”

Callendar laughed with friendly inwardness, and said, “Heaslop,

Heaslop, next time bail’s wanted, ring up the old doctor before giving it; his
shoulders are broad, and, speaking in the strictest confidence, don’t take the
old doctor’s opinion too seriously. He’s a blithering idiot, we can always
leave it at that, but he’ll do the little he can towards keeping in quod the
——” He broke off with affected politeness. “Oh, but he has one of his
friends here.”

The subaltern called, “Stand up, you swine.”

“Mr. Fielding, what has prevented you from standing up?” said the
Collector, entering the fray at last. It was the attack for which Fielding had
waited, and to which he must reply.

“May I make a statement, sir?”

“Certainly.”

Seasoned and self-contained, devoid of the fervours of nationality or

youth, the schoolmaster did what was for him a comparatively easy thing.
He stood up and said, “I believe Dr. Aziz to be innocent.”

“You have a right to hold that opinion if you choose, but pray is that any
reason why you should insult Mr. Heaslop?”

“May I conclude my statement?”

“Certainly.”

“I am waiting for the verdict of the courts. If he is guilty I resign from my

service, and leave India. I resign from the club now.”
 “Hear, hear!” said voices, not entirely hostile, for they liked the fellow
for speaking out.

“You have not answered my question. Why did you not stand when Mr.
Heaslop entered?”

“With all deference, sir, I am not here to answer questions, but to make a
personal statement, and I have concluded it.”

“May I ask whether you have taken over charge of this District?”

Fielding moved towards the door.

“One moment, Mr. Fielding. You are not to go yet, please. Before you
leave the club, from which you do very well to resign, you will express
some detestation of the crime, and you will apologize to Mr. Heaslop.”

“Are you speaking to me officially, sir?”

The Collector, who never spoke otherwise, was so infuriated that he lost
his head. He cried, “Leave this room at once, and I deeply regret that I
demeaned myself to meet you at the station. You have sunk to the level of
your associates; you are weak, weak, that is what is wrong with you——”

“I want to leave the room, but cannot while this gentleman prevents me,”
said Fielding lightly; the subaltern had got across his path.

“Let him go,” said Ronny, almost in tears.

It was the only appeal that could have saved the situation. Whatever
Heaslop wished must be done. There was a slight scuffle at the door, from
which Fielding was propelled, a little more quickly than is natural, into the
room where the ladies were playing cards. “Fancy if I’d fallen or got
angry,” he thought. Of course he was a little angry. His peers had never
offered him violence or called him weak before, besides Heaslop had
heaped coals of fire on his head. He wished he had not picked the quarrel
over poor suffering Heaslop, when there were cleaner issues at hand.
 However, there it was, done, muddled through, and to cool himself and
regain mental balance he went on to the upper verandah for a moment,
where the first object he saw was the Marabar Hills. At this distance and
hour they leapt into beauty; they were Monsalvat, Walhalla, the towers of a
cathedral, peopled with saints and heroes, and covered with flowers. What
miscreant lurked in them, presently to be detected by the activities of the
law? Who was the guide, and had he been found yet? What was the “echo”
of which the girl complained? He did not know, but presently he would
know. Great is information, and she shall prevail. It was the last moment of
the light, and as he gazed at the Marabar Hills they seemed to move
graciously towards him like a queen, and their charm became the sky’s. At
the moment they vanished they were everywhere, the cool benediction of
the night descended, the stars sparkled, and the whole universe was a hill.
Lovely, exquisite moment—but passing the Englishman with averted face
and on swift wings. He experienced nothing himself; it was as if someone
had told him there was such a moment, and he was obliged to believe. And
he felt dubious and discontented suddenly, and wondered whether he was
really and truly successful as a human being. After forty years’ experience,
he had learnt to manage his life and make the best of it on advanced
European lines, had developed his personality, explored his limitations,
controlled his passions—and he had done it all without becoming either
pedantic or worldly. A creditable achievement, but as the moment passed,
he felt he ought to have been working at something else the whole time,—
he didn’t know at what, never would know, never could know, and that was
why he felt sad.
 CHAPTER XXI

Dismissing his regrets, as inappropriate to the matter in hand, he

accomplished the last section of the day by riding off to his new allies. He
was glad that he had broken with the club, for he would have picked up
scraps of gossip there, and reported them down in the city, and he was glad
to be denied this opportunity. He would miss his billiards, and occasional
tennis, and cracks with McBryde, but really that was all, so light did he
travel. At the entrance of the bazaars, a tiger made his horse shy—a youth
dressed up as a tiger, the body striped brown and yellow, a mask over the
face. Mohurram was working up. The city beat a good many drums, but
seemed good-tempered. He was invited to inspect a small tazia—a flimsy
and frivolous erection, more like a crinoline than the tomb of the grandson
of the Prophet, done to death at Kerbela. Excited children were pasting
coloured paper over its ribs. The rest of the evening he spent with the
Nawab Bahadur, Hamidullah, Mahmoud Ali, and others of the confederacy.
The campaign was also working up. A telegram had been sent to the
famous Amritrao, and his acceptance received. Application for bail was to
be renewed—it could not well be withheld now that Miss Quested was out
of danger. The conference was serious and sensible, but marred by a group
of itinerant musicians, who were allowed to play in the compound. Each
held a large earthenware jar, containing pebbles, and jerked it up and down
in time to a doleful chant. Distracted by the noise, he suggested their
dismissal, but the Nawab Bahadur vetoed it; he said that musicians, who
had walked many miles, might bring good luck.

Late at night, he had an inclination to tell Professor Godbole of the

tactical and moral error he had made in being rude to Heaslop, and to hear
what he would say. But the old fellow had gone to bed, and slipped off
unmolested to his new job in a day or two: he always did possess the knack
of slipping off.
 CHAPTER XXII

Adela lay for several days in the McBrydes’ bungalow. She had been
touched by the sun, also hundreds of cactus spines had to be picked out of
her flesh. Hour after hour Miss Derek and Mrs. McBryde examined her
through magnifying glasses, always coming on fresh colonies, tiny hairs
that might snap off and be drawn into the blood if they were neglected. She
lay passive beneath their fingers, which developed the shock that had begun
in the cave. Hitherto she had not much minded whether she was touched or
not: her senses were abnormally inert and the only contact she anticipated
was that of mind. Everything now was transferred to the surface of her
body, which began to avenge itself, and feed unhealthily. People seemed
very much alike, except that some would come close while others kept
away. “In space things touch, in time things part,” she repeated to herself
while the thorns were being extracted—her brain so weak that she could not
decide whether the phrase was a philosophy or a pun.

They were kind to her, indeed over-kind, the men too respectful, the
women too sympathetic; whereas Mrs. Moore, the only visitor she wanted,
kept away. No one understood her trouble, or knew why she vibrated
between hard commonsense and hysteria. She would begin a speech as if
nothing particular had happened. “I went into this detestable cave,” she
would say dryly, “and I remember scratching the wall with my finger-nail,
to start the usual echo, and then as I was saying there was this shadow, or
sort of shadow, down the entrance tunnel, bottling me up. It seemed like an
age, but I suppose the whole thing can’t have lasted thirty seconds really. I
hit at him with the glasses, he pulled me round the cave by the strap, it
broke, I escaped, that’s all. He never actually touched me once. It all seems
such nonsense.” Then her eyes would fill with tears. “Naturally I’m upset,
but I shall get over it.” And then she would break down entirely, and the
women would feel she was one of themselves and cry too, and men in the
next room murmur: “Good God, good God!” No one realized that she
thought tears vile, a degradation more subtle than anything endured in the
Marabar, a negation of her advanced outlook and the natural honesty of her
mind. Adela was always trying to “think the incident out,” always
reminding herself that no harm had been done. There was “the shock,” but
what is that? For a time her own logic would convince her, then she would
hear the echo again, weep, declare she was unworthy of Ronny, and hope
her assailant would get the maximum penalty. After one of these bouts, she
longed to go out into the bazaars and ask pardon from everyone she met, for
she felt in some vague way that she was leaving the world worse than she
found it. She felt that it was her crime, until the intellect, reawakening,
pointed out to her that she was inaccurate here, and set her again upon her
sterile round.

If only she could have seen Mrs. Moore! The old lady had not been well
either, and was disinclined to come out, Ronny reported. And consequently
the echo flourished, raging up and down like a nerve in the faculty of her
hearing, and the noise in the cave, so unimportant intellectually, was
prolonged over the surface of her life. She had struck the polished wall—for
no reason—and before the comment had died away, he followed her, and
the climax was the falling of her field-glasses. The sound had spouted after
her when she escaped, and was going on still like a river that gradually
floods the plain. Only Mrs. Moore could drive it back to its source and seal
the broken reservoir. Evil was loose . . . she could even hear it entering the
lives of others. . . . And Adela spent days in this atmosphere of grief and
depression. Her friends kept up their spirits by demanding holocausts of
natives, but she was too worried and weak to do that.

When the cactus thorns had all been extracted, and her temperature fallen
to normal, Ronny came to fetch her away. He was worn with indignation
and suffering, and she wished she could comfort him; but intimacy seemed
to caricature itself, and the more they spoke the more wretched and self-
conscious they became. Practical talk was the least painful, and he and
McBryde now told her one or two things which they had concealed from
her during the crisis, by the doctor’s orders. She learnt for the first time of
the Mohurram troubles. There had nearly been a riot. The last day of the
festival, the great procession left its official route, and tried to enter the civil
station, and a telephone had been cut because it interrupted the advance of
one of the larger paper towers. McBryde and his police had pulled the thing
straight—a fine piece of work. They passed on to another and very painful
subject: the trial. She would have to appear in court, identify the prisoner,
and submit to cross-examination by an Indian lawyer.

“Can Mrs. Moore be with me?” was all she said.

“Certainly, and I shall be there myself,” Ronny replied. “The case won’t
come before me; they’ve objected to me on personal grounds. It will be at
Chandrapore—we thought at one time it would be transferred elsewhere.”

“Miss Quested realizes what all that means, though,” said McBryde
sadly. “The case will come before Das.”

Das was Ronny’s assistant—own brother to the Mrs. Bhattacharya whose

carriage had played them false last month. He was courteous and intelligent,
and with the evidence before him could only come to one conclusion; but
that he should be judge over an English girl had convulsed the station with
wrath, and some of the women had sent a telegram about it to Lady
Mellanby, the wife of the Lieutenant-Governor.

“I must come before someone.”

“That’s—that’s the way to face it. You have the pluck, Miss Quested.” He
grew very bitter over the arrangements, and called them “the fruits of
democracy.” In the old days an Englishwoman would not have had to
appear, nor would any Indian have dared to discuss her private affairs. She
would have made her deposition, and judgment would have followed. He
apologized to her for the condition of the country, with the result that she
gave one of her sudden little shoots of tears. Ronny wandered miserably
about the room while she cried, treading upon the flowers of the Kashmir
carpet that so inevitably covered it or drumming on the brass Benares
bowls. “I do this less every day, I shall soon be quite well,” she said,
blowing her nose and feeling hideous.

“What I need is something to do. That is why I keep on with this

ridiculous crying.”
 “It’s not ridiculous, we think you wonderful,” said the policeman very
sincerely. “It only bothers us that we can’t help you more. Your stopping
here—at such a time—is the greatest honour this house——” He too was
overcome with emotion. “By the way, a letter came here for you while you
were ill,” he continued. “I opened it, which is a strange confession to make.
Will you forgive me? The circumstances are peculiar. It is from Fielding.”

“Why should he write to me?”

“A most lamentable thing has happened. The defence got hold of him.”

“He’s a crank, a crank,” said Ronny lightly.

“That’s your way of putting it, but a man can be a crank without being a
cad. Miss Quested had better know how he behaved to you. If you don’t tell
her, somebody else will.” He told her. “He is now the mainstay of the
defence, I needn’t add. He is the one righteous Englishman in a horde of
tyrants. He receives deputations from the bazaar, and they all chew betel nut
and smear one another’s hands with scent. It is not easy to enter into the
mind of such a man. His students are on strike—out of enthusiasm for him
they won’t learn their lessons. If it weren’t for Fielding one would never
have had the Mohurram trouble. He has done a very grave disservice to the
whole community. The letter lay here a day or two, waiting till you were
well enough, then the situation got so grave that I decided to open it in case
it was useful to us.”

“Is it?” she said feebly.

“Not at all. He only has the impertinence to suggest you have made a
mistake.”

“Would that I had!” She glanced through the letter, which was careful
and formal in its wording. “Dr. Aziz is innocent,” she read. Then her voice
began to tremble again. “But think of his behaviour to you, Ronny. When
you had already to bear so much for my sake! It was shocking of him. My
dear, how can I repay you? How can one repay when one has nothing to
give? What is the use of personal relationships when everyone brings less
and less to them? I feel we ought all to go back into the desert for centuries
and try and get good. I want to begin at the beginning. All the things I
thought I’d learnt are just a hindrance, they’re not knowledge at all. I’m not
fit for personal relationships. Well, let’s go, let’s go. Of course Mr.
Fielding’s letter doesn’t count; he can think and write what he likes, only he
shouldn’t have been rude to you when you had so much to bear. That’s what
matters. . . . I don’t want your arm, I’m a magnificent walker, so don’t touch
me, please.”

Mrs. McBryde wished her an affectionate good-bye—a woman with

whom she had nothing in common and whose intimacy oppressed her. They
would have to meet now, year after year, until one of their husbands was
superannuated. Truly Anglo-India had caught her with a vengeance, and
perhaps it served her right for having tried to take up a line of her own.
Humbled yet repelled, she gave thanks. “Oh, we must help one another, we
must take the rough with the smooth,” said Mrs. McBryde. Miss Derek was
there too, still making jokes about her comic Maharajah and Rani. Required
as a witness at the trial, she had refused to send back the Mudkul car; they
would be frightfully sick. Both Mrs. McBryde and Miss Derek kissed her,
and called her by her Christian name. Then Ronny drove her back. It was
early in the morning, for the day, as the hot weather advanced, swelled like
a monster at both ends, and left less and less room for the movements of
mortals.

As they neared his bungalow, he said: “Mother’s looking forward to

seeing you, but of course she’s old, one mustn’t forget that. Old people
never take things as one expects, in my opinion.” He seemed warning her
against approaching disappointment, but she took no notice. Her friendship
with Mrs. Moore was so deep and real that she felt sure it would last,
whatever else happened. “What can I do to make things easier for you? it’s
you who matter,” she sighed.

“Dear old girl to say so.”

“Dear old boy.” Then she cried: “Ronny, she isn’t ill too?”

He reassured her; Major Callendar was not dissatisfied.

 “But you’ll find her—irritable. We are an irritable family. Well, you’ll
see for yourself. No doubt my own nerves are out of order, and I expected
more from mother when I came in from the office than she felt able to give.
She is sure to make a special effort for you; still, I don’t want your home-
coming to be a disappointing one. Don’t expect too much.”

The house came in sight. It was a replica of the bungalow she had left.
Puffy, red, and curiously severe, Mrs. Moore was revealed upon a sofa. She
didn’t get up when they entered, and the surprise of this roused Adela from
her own troubles.

“Here you are both back,” was the only greeting.

Adela sat down and took her hand. It withdrew, and she felt that just as
others repelled her, so did she repel Mrs. Moore.

“Are you all right? You appeared all right when I left,” said Ronny, trying
not to speak crossly, but he had instructed her to give the girl a pleasant
welcome, and he could not but feel annoyed.

“I am all right,” she said heavily. “As a matter of fact I have been looking
at my return ticket. It is interchangeable, so I have a much larger choice of
boats home than I thought.”

“We can go into that later, can’t we?”

“Ralph and Stella may be wanting to know when I arrive.”

“There is plenty of time for all such plans. How do you think our Adela
looks?”

“I am counting on you to help me through; it is such a blessing to be with

you again, everyone else is a stranger,” said the girl rapidly.

But Mrs. Moore showed no inclination to be helpful. A sort of

resentment emanated from her. She seemed to say: “Am I to be bothered for
ever?” Her Christian tenderness had gone, or had developed into a hardness,
a just irritation against the human race; she had taken no interest at the
arrest, asked scarcely any questions, and had refused to leave her bed on the
awful last night of Mohurram, when an attack was expected on the
bungalow.

“I know it’s all nothing; I must be sensible, I do try——” Adela

continued, working again towards tears.

“I shouldn’t mind if it had happened anywhere else; at least I really don’t

know where it did happen.”

Ronny supposed that he understood what she meant: she could not
identify or describe the particular cave, indeed almost refused to have her
mind cleared up about it, and it was recognized that the defence would try
to make capital out of this during the trial. He reassured her: the Marabar
caves were notoriously like one another; indeed, in the future they were to
be numbered in sequence with white paint.

“Yes, I mean that, at least not exactly; but there is this echo that I keep on
hearing.”

“Oh, what of the echo?” asked Mrs. Moore, paying attention to her for
the first time.

“I can’t get rid of it.”

“I don’t suppose you ever will.”

Ronny had emphasized to his mother that Adela would arrive in a morbid
state, yet she was being positively malicious.

“Mrs. Moore, what is this echo?”

“Don’t you know?”

“No—what is it? oh, do say! I felt you would be able to explain it . . . this
will comfort me so. . . .”

“If you don’t know, you don’t know; I can’t tell you.”
 “I think you’re rather unkind not to say.”

“Say, say, say,” said the old lady bitterly. “As if anything can be said! I
have spent my life in saying or in listening to sayings; I have listened too
much. It is time I was left in peace. Not to die,” she added sourly. “No
doubt you expect me to die, but when I have seen you and Ronny married,
and seen the other two and whether they want to be married—I’ll retire then
into a cave of my own.” She smiled, to bring down her remark into ordinary
life and thus add to its bitterness. “Somewhere where no young people will
come asking questions and expecting answers. Some shelf.”

“Quite so, but meantime a trial is coming on,” said her son hotly, “and
the notion of most of us is that we’d better pull together and help one
another through, instead of being disagreeable. Are you going to talk like
that in the witness-box?”

“Why should I be in the witness-box?”

“To confirm certain points in our evidence.”

“I have nothing to do with your ludicrous law courts,” she said, angry. “I
will not be dragged in at all.”

“I won’t have her dragged in, either; I won’t have any more trouble on
my account,” cried Adela, and again took the hand, which was again
withdrawn. “Her evidence is not the least essential.”

“I thought she would want to give it. No one blames you, mother, but the
fact remains that you dropped off at the first cave, and encouraged Adela to
go on with him alone, whereas if you’d been well enough to keep on too
nothing would have happened. He planned it, I know. Still, you fell into his
trap just like Fielding and Antony before you. . . . Forgive me for speaking
so plainly, but you’ve no right to take up this high and mighty attitude about
law courts. If you’re ill, that’s different; but you say you’re all right and you
seem so, in which case I thought you’ld want to take your part, I did really.”

“I’ll not have you worry her whether she’s well or ill,” said Adela,
leaving the sofa and taking his arm; then dropped it with a sigh and sat
down again. But he was pleased she had rallied to him and surveyed his
mother patronizingly. He had never felt easy with her. She was by no means
the dear old lady outsiders supposed, and India had brought her into the
open.

“I shall attend your marriage, but not your trial,” she informed them,
tapping her knee; she had become very restless, and rather ungraceful.
“Then I shall go to England.”

“You can’t go to England in May, as you agreed.”

“I have changed my mind.”

“Well, we’d better end this unexpected wrangle,” said the young man,
striding about. “You appear to want to be left out of everything, and that’s
enough.”

“My body, my miserable body,” she sighed. “Why isn’t it strong? Oh,
why can’t I walk away and be gone? Why can’t I finish my duties and be
gone? Why do I get headaches and puff when I walk? And all the time this
to do and that to do and this to do in your way and that to do in her way, and
everything sympathy and confusion and bearing one another’s burdens.
Why can’t this be done and that be done in my way and they be done and I
at peace? Why has anything to be done, I cannot see. Why all this marriage,
marriage? . . . The human race would have become a single person
centuries ago if marriage was any use. And all this rubbish about love, love
in a church, love in a cave, as if there is the least difference, and I held up
from my business over such trifles!”

“What do you want?” he said, exasperated. “Can you state it in simple

language? If so, do.”

“I want my pack of patience cards.”

“Very well, get them.”

He found, as he expected, that the poor girl was crying. And, as always,
an Indian close outside the window, a mali in this case, picking up sounds.
Much upset, he sat silent for a moment, thinking over his mother and her
senile intrusions. He wished he had never asked her to visit India, or
become under any obligation to her.

“Well, my dear girl, this isn’t much of a home-coming,” he said at last. “I

had no idea she had this up her sleeve.”

Adela had stopped crying. An extraordinary expression was on her face,

half relief, half horror. She repeated, “Aziz, Aziz.”

They all avoided mentioning that name. It had become synonymous with
the power of evil. He was “the prisoner,” “the person in question,” “the
defence,” and the sound of it now rang out like the first note of new
symphony.

“Aziz . . . have I made a mistake?”

“You’re over-tired,” he cried, not much surprised.

“Ronny, he’s innocent; I made an awful mistake.”

“Well, sit down anyhow.” He looked round the room, but only two
sparrows were chasing one another. She obeyed and took hold of his hand.
He stroked it and she smiled, and gasped as if she had risen to the surface of
the water, then touched her ear.

“My echo’s better.”

“That’s good. You’ll be perfectly well in a few days, but you must save
yourself up for the trial. Das is a very good fellow, we shall all be with
you.”

“But Ronny, dear Ronny, perhaps there oughtn’t to be any trial.”

“I don’t quite know what you’re saying, and I don’t think you do.”

“If Dr. Aziz never did it he ought to be let out.”

 A shiver like impending death passed over Ronny. He said hurriedly, “He
was let out—until the Mohurram riot, when he had to be put in again.” To
divert her, he told her the story, which was held to be amusing. Nureddin
had stolen the Nawab Bahadur’s car and driven Aziz into a ditch in the
dark. Both of them had fallen out, and Nureddin had cut his face open.
Their wailing had been drowned by the cries of the faithful, and it was quite
a time before they were rescued by the police. Nureddin was taken to the
Minto Hospital, Aziz restored to prison, with an additional charge against
him of disturbing the public peace. “Half a minute,” he remarked when the
anecdote was over, and went to the telephone to ask Callendar to look in as
soon as he found it convenient, because she hadn’t borne the journey well.

When he returned, she was in a nervous crisis, but it took a different form
—she clung to him, and sobbed, “Help me to do what I ought. Aziz is good.
You heard your mother say so.”

“Heard what?”

“He’s good; I’ve been so wrong to accuse him.”

“Mother never said so.”

“Didn’t she?” she asked, quite reasonable, open to every suggestion

anyway.

“She never mentioned that name once.”

“But, Ronny, I heard her.”

“Pure illusion. You can’t be quite well, can you, to make up a thing like
that.”

“I suppose I can’t. How amazing of me!”

“I was listening to all she said, as far as it could be listened to; she gets
very incoherent.”

“When her voice dropped she said it—towards the end, when she talked
about love—love—I couldn’t follow, but just then she said: ‘Doctor Aziz
never did it.’”

“Those words?”

“The idea more than the words.”

“Never, never, my dear girl. Complete illusion. His name was not
mentioned by anyone. Look here—you are confusing this with Fielding’s
letter.”

“That’s it, that’s it,” she cried, greatly relieved. “I knew I’d heard his
name somewhere. I am so grateful to you for clearing this up—it’s the sort
of mistake that worries me, and proves I’m neurotic.”

“So you won’t go saying he’s innocent again, will you? for every servant
I’ve got is a spy.” He went to the window. The mali had gone, or rather had
turned into two small children—impossible they should know English, but
he sent them packing. “They all hate us,” he explained. “It’ll be all right
after the verdict, for I will say this for them, they do accept the
accomplished fact; but at present they’re pouring out money like water to
catch us tripping, and a remark like yours is the very thing they look out for.
It would enable them to say it was a put-up job on the part of us officials.
You see what I mean.”

Mrs. Moore came back, with the same air of ill-temper, and sat down
with a flump by the card-table. To clear the confusion up, Ronny asked her
point-blank whether she had mentioned the prisoner. She could not
understand the question and the reason of it had to be explained. She
replied: “I never said his name,” and began to play patience.

“I thought you said, ‘Aziz is an innocent man,’ but it was in Mr.

Fielding’s letter.”

“Of course he is innocent,” she answered indifferently: it was the first

time she had expressed an opinion on the point.

“You see, Ronny, I was right,” said the girl.

 “You were not right, she never said it.”

“But she thinks it.”

“Who cares what she thinks?”

“Red nine on black ten——” from the card-table.

“She can think, and Fielding too, but there’s such a thing as evidence, I
suppose.”

“I know, but——”

“Is it again my duty to talk?” asked Mrs. Moore, looking up.

“Apparently, as you keep interrupting me.”

“Only if you have anything sensible to say.”

“Oh, how tedious . . . trivial . . .” and as when she had scoffed at love,
love, love, her mind seemed to move towards them from a great distance
and out of darkness. “Oh, why is everything still my duty? when shall I be
free from your fuss? Was he in the cave and were you in the cave and on
and on . . . and Unto us a Son is born, unto us a Child is given . . . and am I
good and is he bad and are we saved? . . . and ending everything the echo.”

“I don’t hear it so much,” said Adela, moving towards her. “You send it
away, you do nothing but good, you are so good.”

“I am not good, no, bad.” She spoke more calmly and resumed her cards,
saying as she turned them up, “A bad old woman, bad, bad, detestable. I
used to be good with the children growing up, also I meet this young man in
his mosque, I wanted him to be happy. Good, happy, small people. They do
not exist, they were a dream. . . . But I will not help you to torture him for
what he never did. There are different ways of evil and I prefer mine to
yours.”

“Have you any evidence in the prisoner’s favour?” said Ronny in the
tones of the just official. “If so, it is your bounden duty to go into the
witness-box for him instead of for us. No one will stop you.”
 “One knows people’s characters, as you call them,” she retorted
disdainfully, as if she really knew more than character but could not impart
it. “I have heard both English and Indians speak well of him, and I felt it
isn’t the sort of thing he would do.”

“Feeble, mother, feeble.”

“Most feeble.”

“And most inconsiderate to Adela.”

Adela said: “It would be so appalling if I was wrong. I should take my

own life.”

He turned on her with: “What was I warning you just now? You know
you’re right, and the whole station knows it.”

“Yes, he . . . This is very, very awful. I’m as certain as ever he followed

me . . . only, wouldn’t it be possible to withdraw the case? I dread the idea
of giving evidence more and more, and you are all so good to women here
and you have so much more power than in England—look at Miss Derek’s
motor-car. Oh, of course it’s out of the question, I’m ashamed to have
mentioned it; please forgive me.”

“That’s all right,” he said inadequately. “Of course I forgive you, as you
call it. But the case has to come before a magistrate now; it really must, the
machinery has started.”

“She has started the machinery; it will work to its end.”

Adela inclined towards tears in consequence of this unkind remark, and

Ronny picked up the list of steamship sailings with an excellent notion in
his head. His mother ought to leave India at once: she was doing no good to
herself or to anyone else there.
 CHAPTER XXIII

Lady Mellanby, wife to the Lieutenant-Governor of the Province, had

been gratified by the appeal addressed to her by the ladies of Chandrapore.
She could not do anything—besides, she was sailing for England; but she
desired to be informed if she could show sympathy in any other way. Mrs.
Turton replied that Mr. Heaslop’s mother was trying to get a passage, but
had delayed too long, and all the boats were full; could Lady Mellanby use
her influence? Not even Lady Mellanby could expand the dimensions of a
P. and O., but she was a very, very nice woman, and she actually wired
offering the unknown and obscure old lady accommodation in her own
reserved cabin. It was like a gift from heaven; humble and grateful, Ronny
could not but reflect that there are compensations for every woe. His name
was familiar at Government House owing to poor Adela, and now Mrs.
Moore would stamp it on Lady Mellanby’s imagination, as they journeyed
across the Indian Ocean and up the Red Sea. He had a return of tenderness
for his mother—as we do for our relatives when they receive conspicuous
and unexpected honour. She was not negligible, she could still arrest the
attention of a high official’s wife.

So Mrs. Moore had all she wished; she escaped the trial, the marriage,
and the hot weather; she would return to England in comfort and
distinction, and see her other children. At her son’s suggestion, and by her
own desire, she departed. But she accepted her good luck without
enthusiasm. She had come to that state where the horror of the universe and
its smallness are both visible at the same time—the twilight of the double
vision in which so many elderly people are involved. If this world is not to
our taste, well, at all events there is Heaven, Hell, Annihilation—one or
other of those large things, that huge scenic background of stars, fires, blue
or black air. All heroic endeavour, and all that is known as art, assumes that
there is such a background, just as all practical endeavour, when the world
is to our taste, assumes that the world is all. But in the twilight of the double
vision, a spiritual muddledom is set up for which no high-sounding words
can be found; we can neither act nor refrain from action, we can neither
ignore nor respect Infinity. Mrs. Moore had always inclined to resignation.
As soon as she landed in India it seemed to her good, and when she saw the
water flowing through the mosque-tank, or the Ganges, or the moon, caught
in the shawl of night with all the other stars, it seemed a beautiful goal and
an easy one. To be one with the universe! So dignified and simple. But there
was always some little duty to be performed first, some new card to be
turned up from the diminishing pack and placed, and while she was
pottering about, the Marabar struck its gong.

What had spoken to her in that scoured-out cavity of the granite? What
dwelt in the first of the caves? Something very old and very small. Before
time, it was before space also. Something snub-nosed, incapable of
generosity—the undying worm itself. Since hearing its voice, she had not
entertained one large thought, she was actually envious of Adela. All this
fuss over a frightened girl! Nothing had happened, “and if it had,” she
found herself thinking with the cynicism of a withered priestess, “if it had,
there are worse evils than love.” The unspeakable attempt presented itself to
her as love: in a cave, in a church—Boum, it amounts to the same. Visions
are supposed to entail profundity, but—— Wait till you get one, dear
reader! The abyss also may be petty, the serpent of eternity made of
maggots; her constant thought was: “Less attention should be paid to my
future daughter-in-law and more to me, there is no sorrow like my sorrow,”
although when the attention was paid she rejected it irritably.

Her son couldn’t escort her to Bombay, for the local situation continued
acute, and all officials had to remain at their posts. Antony couldn’t come
either, in case he never returned to give his evidence. So she travelled with
no one who could remind her of the past. This was a relief. The heat had
drawn back a little before its next advance, and the journey was not
unpleasant. As she left Chandrapore the moon, full again, shone over the
Ganges and touched the shrinking channels into threads of silver, then
veered and looked into her window. The swift and comfortable mail-train
slid with her through the night, and all the next day she was rushing through
Central India, through landscapes that were baked and bleached but had not
the hopeless melancholy of the plain. She watched the indestructible life of
man and his changing faces, and the houses he has built for himself and
God, and they appeared to her not in terms of her own trouble but as things
to see. There was, for instance, a place called Asirgarh which she passed at
sunset and identified on a map—an enormous fortress among wooded hills.
No one had ever mentioned Asirgarh to her, but it had huge and noble
bastions and to the right of them was a mosque. She forgot it. Ten minutes
later, Asirgarh reappeared. The mosque was to the left of the bastions now.
The train in its descent through the Vindyas had described a semicircle
round Asirgarh. What could she connect it with except its own name?
Nothing; she knew no one who lived there. But it had looked at her twice
and seemed to say: “I do not vanish.” She woke in the middle of the night
with a start, for the train was falling over the western cliff. Moonlit
pinnacles rushed up at her like the fringes of a sea; then a brief episode of
plain, the real sea, and the soupy dawn of Bombay. “I have not seen the
right places,” she thought, as she saw embayed in the platforms of the
Victoria Terminus the end of the rails that had carried her over a continent
and could never carry her back. She would never visit Asirgarh or the other
untouched places; neither Delhi nor Agra nor the Rajputana cities nor
Kashmir, nor the obscurer marvels that had sometimes shone through men’s
speech: the bilingual rock of Girnar, the statue of Shri Belgola, the ruins of
Mandu and Hampi, temples of Khajraha, gardens of Shalimar. As she drove
through the huge city which the West has built and abandoned with a
gesture of despair, she longed to stop, though it was only Bombay, and
disentangle the hundred Indias that passed each other in its streets. The feet
of the horses moved her on, and presently the boat sailed and thousands of
coco-nut palms appeared all round the anchorage and climbed the hills to
wave her farewell. “So you thought an echo was India; you took the
Marabar caves as final?” they laughed. “What have we in common with
them, or they with Asirgarh? Good-bye!” Then the steamer rounded Colaba,
the continent swung about, the cliff of the Ghats melted into the haze of a
tropic sea. Lady Mellanby turned up and advised her not to stand in the
heat: “We are safely out of the frying-pan,” said Lady Mellanby, “it will
never do to fall into the fire.”
 CHAPTER XXIV

Making sudden changes of gear, the heat accelerated its advance after
Mrs. Moore’s departure until existence had to be endured and crime
punished with the thermometer at a hundred and twelve. Electric fans
hummed and spat, water splashed on to screens, ice clinked, and outside
these defences, between a greyish sky and a yellowish earth, clouds of dust
moved hesitatingly. In Europe life retreats out of the cold, and exquisite
fireside myths have resulted—Balder, Persephone—but here the retreat is
from the source of life, the treacherous sun, and no poetry adorns it because
disillusionment cannot be beautiful. Men yearn for poetry though they may
not confess it; they desire that joy shall be graceful and sorrow august and
infinity have a form, and India fails to accommodate them. The annual
helter-skelter of April, when irritability and lust spread like a canker, is one
of her comments on the orderly hopes of humanity. Fish manage better;
fish, as the tanks dry, wriggle into the mud and wait for the rains to uncake
them. But men try to be harmonious all the year round, and the results are
occasionally disastrous. The triumphant machine of civilization may
suddenly hitch and be immobilized into a car of stone, and at such moments
the destiny of the English seems to resemble their predecessors’, who also
entered the country with intent to refashion it, but were in the end worked
into its pattern and covered with its dust.

Adela, after years of intellectualism, had resumed her morning kneel to

Christianity. There seemed no harm in it, it was the shortest and easiest cut
to the unseen, and she could tack her troubles on to it. Just as the Hindu
clerks asked Lakshmi for an increase in pay, so did she implore Jehovah for
a favourable verdict. God who saves the King will surely support the police.
Her deity returned a consoling reply, but the touch of her hands on her face
started prickly heat, and she seemed to swallow and expectorate the same
insipid clot of air that had weighed on her lungs all the night. Also the voice
of Mrs. Turton disturbed her. “Are you ready, young lady?” it pealed from
the next room.
 “Half a minute,” she murmured. The Turtons had received her after Mrs.
Moore left. Their kindness was incredible, but it was her position not her
character that moved them; she was the English girl who had had the
terrible experience, and for whom too much could not be done. No one,
except Ronny, had any idea of what passed in her mind, and he only dimly,
for where there is officialism every human relationship suffers. In her
sadness she said to him, “I bring you nothing but trouble; I was right on the
Maidan, we had better just be friends,” but he protested, for the more she
suffered the more highly he valued her. Did she love him? This question
was somehow draggled up with the Marabar, it had been in her mind as she
entered the fatal cave. Was she capable of loving anyone?

“Miss Quested, Adela, what d’ye call yourself, it’s half-past seven; we
ought to think of starting for that Court when you feel inclined.”

“She’s saying her prayers,” came the Collector’s voice.

“Sorry, my dear; take your time. . . . Was your chhota hazri all right?”

“I can’t eat; might I have a little brandy?” she asked, deserting Jehovah.

When it was brought, she shuddered, and said she was ready to go.

“Drink it up; not a bad notion, a peg.”

“I don’t think it’ll really help me, Burra Sahib.”

“You sent brandy down to the Court, didn’t you, Mary?”

“I should think I did, champagne too.”

“I’ll thank you this evening, I’m all to pieces now,” said the girl, forming
each syllable carefully as if her trouble would diminish if it were accurately
defined. She was afraid of reticence, in case something that she herself did
not perceive took shape beneath it, and she had rehearsed with Mr.
McBryde in an odd, mincing way her terrible adventure in the cave, how
the man had never actually touched her but dragged her about, and so on.
Her aim this morning was to announce, meticulously, that the strain was
appalling, and she would probably break down under Mr. Amritrao’s cross-
examination and disgrace her friends. “My echo has come back again
badly,” she told them.

“How about aspirin?”

“It is not a headache, it is an echo.”

Unable to dispel the buzzing in her ears, Major Callendar had diagnosed
it as a fancy, which must not be encouraged. So the Turtons changed the
subject. The cool little lick of the breeze was passing over the earth,
dividing night from day; it would fail in ten minutes, but they might profit
by it for their drive down into the city.

“I am sure to break down,” she repeated.

“You won’t,” said the Collector, his voice full of tenderness.

“Of course she won’t, she’s a real sport.”

“But Mrs. Turton . . .”

“Yes, my dear child?”

“If I do break down, it is of no consequence. It would matter in some

trials, not in this. I put it to myself in the following way: I can really behave
as I like, cry, be absurd, I am sure to get my verdict, unless Mr. Das is most
frightfully unjust.”

“You’re bound to win,” he said calmly, and did not remind her that there
was bound to be an appeal. The Nawab Bahadur had financed the defence,
and would ruin himself sooner than let an “innocent Moslem perish,” and
other interests, less reputable, were in the background too. The case might
go up from court to court, with consequences that no official could foresee.
Under his very eyes, the temper of Chandrapore was altering. As his car
turned out of the compound, there was a tap of silly anger on its paint—a
pebble thrown by a child. Some larger stones were dropped near the
mosque. In the Maidan, a squad of native police on motor cycles waited to
escort them through the bazaars. The Collector was irritated and muttered,
“McBryde’s an old woman”; but Mrs. Turton said, “Really, after Mohurram
a show of force will do no harm; it’s ridiculous to pretend they don’t hate
us, do give up that farce.” He replied in an odd, sad voice, “I don’t hate
them, I don’t know why,” and he didn’t hate them; for if he did, he would
have had to condemn his own career as a bad investment. He retained a
contemptuous affection for the pawns he had moved about for so many
years, they must be worth his pains. “After all, it’s our women who make
everything more difficult out here,” was his inmost thought, as he caught
sight of some obscenities upon a long blank wall, and beneath his chivalry
to Miss Quested resentment lurked, waiting its day—perhaps there is a
grain of resentment in all chivalry. Some students had gathered in front of
the City Magistrate’s Court—hysterical boys whom he would have faced if
alone, but he told the driver to work round to the rear of the building. The
students jeered, and Rafi (hiding behind a comrade that he might not be
identified) called out the English were cowards.

They gained Ronny’s private room, where a group of their own sort had
collected. None were cowardly, all nervy, for queer reports kept coming in.
The Sweepers had just struck, and half the commodes of Chandrapore
remained desolate in consequence—only half, and Sweepers from the
District, who felt less strongly about the innocence of Dr. Aziz, would
arrive in the afternoon, and break the strike, but why should the grotesque
incident occur? And a number of Mohammedan ladies had sworn to take no
food until the prisoner was acquitted; their death would make little
difference, indeed, being invisible, they seemed dead already, nevertheless
it was disquieting. A new spirit seemed abroad, a rearrangement, which no
one in the stern little band of whites could explain. There was a tendency to
see Fielding at the back of it: the idea that he was weak and cranky had
been dropped. They abused Fielding vigorously: he had been seen driving
up with the two counsels, Amritrao and Mahmoud Ali; he encouraged the
Boy Scout movement for seditious reasons; he received letters with foreign
stamps on them, and was probably a Japanese spy. This morning’s verdict
would break the renegade, but he had done his country and the Empire
incalculable disservice. While they denounced him, Miss Quested lay back
with her hands on the arms of her chair and her eyes closed, reserving her
strength. They noticed her after a time, and felt ashamed of making so much
noise.

“Can we do nothing for you?” Miss Derek said.

“I don’t think so, Nancy, and I seem able to do nothing for myself.”

“But you’re strictly forbidden to talk like that; you’re wonderful.”

“Yes indeed,” came the reverent chorus.

“My old Das is all right,” said Ronny, starting a new subject in low tones.

“Not one of them’s all right,” contradicted Major Callendar.

“Das is, really.”

“You mean he’s more frightened of acquitting than convicting, because if

he acquits he’ll lose his job,” said Lesley with a clever little laugh.

Ronny did mean that, but he cherished “illusions” about his own
subordinates (following the finer traditions of his service here), and he liked
to maintain that his old Das really did possess moral courage of the Public
School brand. He pointed out that—from one point of view—it was good
that an Indian was taking the case. Conviction was inevitable; so better let
an Indian pronounce it, there would be less fuss in the long run. Interested
in the argument, he let Adela become dim in his mind.

“In fact, you disapprove of the appeal I forwarded to Lady Mellanby,”

said Mrs. Turton with considerable heat. “Pray don’t apologize, Mr.
Heaslop; I am accustomed to being in the wrong.”

“I didn’t mean that . . .”

“All right. I said don’t apologize.”

“Those swine are always on the look-out for a grievance,” said Lesley, to
propitiate her.
 “Swine, I should think so,” the Major echoed. “And what’s more, I’ll tell
you what. What’s happened is a damn good thing really, barring of course
its application to present company. It’ll make them squeal and it’s time they
did squeal. I’ve put the fear of God into them at the hospital anyhow. You
should see the grandson of our so-called leading loyalist.” He tittered
brutally as he described poor Nureddin’s present appearance.

“His beauty’s gone, five upper teeth, two lower and a nostril. . . . Old
Panna Lal brought him the looking-glass yesterday and he blubbered. . . . I
laughed; I laughed, I tell you, and so would you; that used to be one of
these buck niggers, I thought, now he’s all septic; damn him, blast his soul
—er—I believe he was unspeakably immoral—er——” He subsided,
nudged in the ribs, but added, “I wish I’d had the cutting up of my late
assistant too; nothing’s too bad for these people.”

“At last some sense is being talked,” Mrs. Turton cried, much to her
husband’s discomfort.

“That’s what I say; I say there’s not such a thing as cruelty after a thing
like this.”

“Exactly, and remember it afterwards, you men. You’re weak, weak,

weak. Why, they ought to crawl from here to the caves on their hands and
knees whenever an Englishwoman’s in sight, they oughtn’t to be spoken to,
they ought to be spat at, they ought to be ground into the dust, we’ve been
far too kind with our Bridge Parties and the rest.”

She paused. Profiting by her wrath, the heat had invaded her. She
subsided into a lemon squash, and continued between the sips to murmur,
“Weak, weak.” And the process was repeated. The issues Miss Quested had
raised were so much more important than she was herself that people
inevitably forgot her.

Presently the case was called.

Their chairs preceded them into the Court, for it was important that they
should look dignified. And when the chuprassies had made all ready, they
filed into the ramshackly room with a condescending air, as if it was a booth
at a fair. The Collector made a small official joke as he sat down, at which
his entourage smiled, and the Indians, who could not hear what he said, felt
that some new cruelty was afoot, otherwise the sahibs would not chuckle.

The Court was crowded and of course very hot, and the first person
Adela noticed in it was the humblest of all who were present, a person who
had no bearing officially upon the trial: the man who pulled the punkah.
Almost naked, and splendidly formed, he sat on a raised platform near the
back, in the middle of the central gangway, and he caught her attention as
she came in, and he seemed to control the proceedings. He had the strength
and beauty that sometimes come to flower in Indians of low birth. When
that strange race nears the dust and is condemned as untouchable, then
nature remembers the physical perfection that she accomplished elsewhere,
and throws out a god—not many, but one here and there, to prove to society
how little its categories impress her. This man would have been notable
anywhere: among the thin-hammed, flat-chested mediocrities of
Chandrapore he stood out as divine, yet he was of the city, its garbage had
nourished him, he would end on its rubbish heaps. Pulling the rope towards
him, relaxing it rhythmically, sending swirls of air over others, receiving
none himself, he seemed apart from human destinies, a male fate, a
winnower of souls. Opposite him, also on a platform, sat the little assistant
magistrate, cultivated, self-conscious, and conscientious. The punkah
wallah was none of these things: he scarcely knew that he existed and did
not understand why the Court was fuller than usual, indeed he did not know
that it was fuller than usual, didn’t even know he worked a fan, though he
thought he pulled a rope. Something in his aloofness impressed the girl
from middle-class England, and rebuked the narrowness of her sufferings.
In virtue of what had she collected this roomful of people together? Her
particular brand of opinions, and the suburban Jehovah who sanctified them
—by what right did they claim so much importance in the world, and
assume the title of civilization? Mrs. Moore—she looked round, but Mrs.
Moore was far away on the sea; it was the kind of question they might have
discussed on the voyage out before the old lady had turned disagreeable and
queer.

While thinking of Mrs. Moore she heard sounds, which gradually grew
more distinct. The epoch-making trial had started, and the Superintendent
of Police was opening the case for the prosecution.

Mr. McBryde was not at pains to be an interesting speaker; he left

eloquence to the defence, who would require it. His attitude was, “Everyone
knows the man’s guilty, and I am obliged to say so in public before he goes
to the Andamans.” He made no moral or emotional appeal, and it was only
by degrees that the studied negligence of his manner made itself felt, and
lashed part of the audience to fury. Laboriously did he describe the genesis
of the picnic. The prisoner had met Miss Quested at an entertainment given
by the Principal of Government College, and had there conceived his
intentions concerning her: prisoner was a man of loose life, as documents
found upon him at his arrest would testify, also his fellow-assistant, Dr.
Panna Lal, was in a position to throw light on his character, and Major
Callendar himself would speak. Here Mr. McBryde paused. He wanted to
keep the proceedings as clean as possible, but Oriental Pathology, his
favourite theme, lay around him, and he could not resist it. Taking off his
spectacles, as was his habit before enunciating a general truth, he looked
into them sadly, and remarked that the darker races are physically attracted
by the fairer, but not vice versa—not a matter for bitterness this, not a
matter for abuse, but just a fact which any scientific observer will confirm.

“Even when the lady is so uglier than the gentleman?” The comment fell
from nowhere, from the ceiling perhaps. It was the first interruption, and the
Magistrate felt bound to censure it. “Turn that man out,” he said. One of the
native policemen took hold of a man who had said nothing, and turned him
out roughly.

Mr. McBryde resumed his spectacles and proceeded. But the comment
had upset Miss Quested. Her body resented being called ugly, and trembled.

“Do you feel faint, Adela?” asked Miss Derek, who tended her with
loving indignation.

“I never feel anything else, Nancy. I shall get through, but it’s awful,
awful.”

This led to the first of a series of scenes. Her friends began to fuss around
her, and the Major called out, “I must have better arrangements than this
made for my patient; why isn’t she given a seat on the platform? She gets
no air.”

Mr. Das looked annoyed and said: “I shall be happy to accommodate

Miss Quested with a chair up here in view of the particular circumstances of
her health.” The chuprassies passed up not one chair but several, and the
entire party followed Adela on to the platform, Mr. Fielding being the only
European who remained in the body of the hall.

“That’s better,” remarked Mrs. Turton, as she settled herself.

“Thoroughly desirable change for several reasons,” replied the Major.

The Magistrate knew that he ought to censure this remark, but did not
dare to. Callendar saw that he was afraid, and called out authoritatively,
“Right, McBryde, go ahead now; sorry to have interrupted you.”

“Are you all right yourselves?” asked the Superintendent.

“We shall do, we shall do.”

“Go on, Mr. Das, we are not here to disturb you,” said the Collector
patronizingly. Indeed, they had not so much disturbed the trial as taken
charge of it.

While the prosecution continued, Miss Quested examined the hall—

timidly at first, as though it would scorch her eyes. She observed to left and
right of the punkah man many a half-known face. Beneath her were
gathered all the wreckage of her silly attempt to see India—the people she
had met at the Bridge Party, the man and his wife who hadn’t sent their
carriage, the old man who would lend his car, various servants, villagers,
officials, and the prisoner himself. There he sat—strong, neat little Indian
with very black hair, and pliant hands. She viewed him without special
emotion. Since they last met, she had elevated him into a principle of evil,
but now he seemed to be what he had always been—a slight acquaintance.
He was negligible, devoid of significance, dry like a bone, and though he
was “guilty” no atmosphere of sin surrounded him. “I suppose he is guilty.
Can I possibly have made a mistake?” she thought. For this question still
occurred to her intellect, though since Mrs. Moore’s departure it had ceased
to trouble her conscience.

Pleader Mahmoud Ali now arose, and asked with ponderous and ill-
judged irony whether his client could be accommodated on the platform
too: even Indians felt unwell sometimes, though naturally Major Callendar
did not think so, being in charge of a Government Hospital. “Another
example of their exquisite sense of humour,” sang Miss Derek. Ronny
looked at Mr. Das to see how he would handle the difficulty, and Mr. Das
became agitated, and snubbed Pleader Mahmoud Ali severely.

“Excuse me——” It was the turn of the eminent barrister from Calcutta.
He was a fine-looking man, large and bony, with grey closely cropped hair.
“We object to the presence of so many European ladies and gentlemen upon
the platform,” he said in an Oxford voice. “They will have the effect of
intimidating our witnesses. Their place is with the rest of the public in the
body of the hall. We have no objection to Miss Quested remaining on the
platform, since she has been unwell; we shall extend every courtesy to her
throughout, despite the scientific truths revealed to us by the District
Superintendent of Police; but we do object to the others.”

“Oh, cut the cackle and let’s have the verdict,” the Major growled.

The distinguished visitor gazed at the Magistrate respectfully.

“I agree to that,” said Mr. Das, hiding his face desperately in some
papers. “It was only to Miss Quested that I gave permission to sit up here.
Her friends should be so excessively kind as to climb down.”

“Well done, Das, quite sound,” said Ronny with devastating honesty.

“Climb down, indeed, what incredible impertinence!” Mrs. Turton cried.

“Do come quietly, Mary,” murmured her husband.

“Hi! my patient can’t be left unattended.”

“Do you object to the Civil Surgeon remaining, Mr. Amritrao?”

 “I should object. A platform confers authority.”

“Even when it’s one foot high; so come along all,” said the Collector,
trying to laugh.

“Thank you very much, sir,” said Mr. Das, greatly relieved. “Thank you,
Mr. Heaslop; thank you ladies all.”

And the party, including Miss Quested, descended from its rash
eminence. The news of their humiliation spread quickly, and people jeered
outside. Their special chairs followed them. Mahmoud Ali (who was quite
silly and useless with hatred) objected even to these; by whose authority
had special chairs been introduced, why had the Nawab Bahadur not been
given one? etc. People began to talk all over the room, about chairs ordinary
and special, strips of carpet, platforms one foot high.

But the little excursion had a good effect on Miss Quested’s nerves. She
felt easier now that she had seen all the people who were in the room. It was
like knowing the worst. She was sure now that she should come through
“all right”—that is to say, without spiritual disgrace, and she passed the
good news on to Ronny and Mrs. Turton. They were too much agitated with
the defeat to British prestige to be interested. From where she sat, she could
see the renegade Mr. Fielding. She had had a better view of him from the
platform, and knew that an Indian child perched on his knee. He was
watching the proceedings, watching her. When their eyes met, he turned his
away, as if direct intercourse was of no interest to him.

The Magistrate was also happier. He had won the battle of the platform,
and gained confidence. Intelligent and impartial, he continued to listen to
the evidence, and tried to forget that later on he should have to pronounce a
verdict in accordance with it. The Superintendent trundled steadily forward:
he had expected these outbursts of insolence—they are the natural gestures
of an inferior race, and he betrayed no hatred of Aziz, merely an abysmal
contempt.

The speech dealt at length with the “prisoner’s dupes,” as they were
called—Fielding, the servant Antony, the Nawab Bahadur. This aspect of
the case had always seemed dubious to Miss Quested, and she had asked
the police not to develop it. But they were playing for a heavy sentence, and
wanted to prove that the assault was premeditated. And in order to illustrate
the strategy, they produced a plan of the Marabar Hills, showing the route
that the party had taken, and the “Tank of the Dagger” where they had
camped.

The Magistrate displayed interest in archæology.

An elevation of a specimen cave was produced; it was lettered “Buddhist

Cave.”

“Not Buddhist, I think, Jain. . . .”

“In which cave is the offence alleged, the Buddhist or the Jain?” asked
Mahmoud Ali, with the air of unmasking a conspiracy.

“All the Marabar caves are Jain.”

“Yes, sir; then in which Jain cave?”

“You will have an opportunity of putting such questions later.”

Mr. McBryde smiled faintly at their fatuity. Indians invariably collapse

over some such point as this. He knew that the defence had some wild hope
of establishing an alibi, that they had tried (unsuccessfully) to identify the
guide, and that Fielding and Hamidullah had gone out to the Kawa Dol and
paced and measured all one moonlit night. “Mr. Lesley says they’re
Buddhist, and he ought to know if anyone does. But may I call attention to
the shape?” And he described what had occurred there. Then he spoke of
Miss Derek’s arrival, of the scramble down the gully, of the return of the
two ladies to Chandrapore, and of the document Miss Quested signed on
her arrival, in which mention was made of the field-glasses. And then came
the culminating evidence: the discovery of the field-glasses on the prisoner.
“I have nothing to add at present,” he concluded, removing his spectacles.
“I will now call my witnesses. The facts will speak for themselves. The
prisoner is one of those individuals who have led a double life. I dare say
his degeneracy gained upon him gradually. He has been very cunning at
concealing, as is usual with the type, and pretending to be a respectable
member of society, getting a Government position even. He is now entirely
vicious and beyond redemption, I am afraid. He behaved most cruelly, most
brutally, to another of his guests, another English lady. In order to get rid of
her, and leave him free for his crime, he crushed her into a cave among his
servants. However, that is by the way.”

But his last words brought on another storm, and suddenly a new name,
Mrs. Moore, burst on the court like a whirlwind. Mahmoud Ali had been
enraged, his nerves snapped; he shrieked like a maniac, and asked whether
his client was charged with murder as well as rape, and who was this
second English lady.

“I don’t propose to call her.”

“You don’t because you can’t, you have smuggled her out of the country;
she is Mrs. Moore, she would have proved his innocence, she was on our
side, she was poor Indians’ friend.”

“You could have called her yourself,” cried the Magistrate. “Neither side
called her, neither must quote her as evidence.”

“She was kept from us until too late—I learn too late—this is English
justice, here is your British Raj. Give us back Mrs. Moore for five minutes
only, and she will save my friend, she will save the name of his sons; don’t
rule her out, Mr. Das; take back those words as you yourself are a father;
tell me where they have put her, oh, Mrs. Moore. . . .”

“If the point is of any interest, my mother should have reached Aden,”
said Ronny dryly; he ought not to have intervened, but the onslaught had
startled him.

“Imprisoned by you there because she knew the truth.” He was almost
out of his mind, and could be heard saying above the tumult: “I ruin my
career, no matter; we are all to be ruined one by one.”

“This is no way to defend your case,” counselled the Magistrate.

 “I am not defending a case, nor are you trying one. We are both of us
slaves.”

“Mr. Mahmoud Ali, I have already warned you, and unless you sit down
I shall exercise my authority.”

“Do so; this trial is a farce, I am going.” And he handed his papers to
Amritrao and left, calling from the door histrionically yet with intense
passion, “Aziz, Aziz—farewell for ever.” The tumult increased, the
invocation of Mrs. Moore continued, and people who did not know what
the syllables meant repeated them like a charm. They became Indianized
into Esmiss Esmoor, they were taken up in the street outside. In vain the
Magistrate threatened and expelled. Until the magic exhausted itself, he was
powerless.

“Unexpected,” remarked Mr. Turton.

Ronny furnished the explanation. Before she sailed, his mother had taken
to talk about the Marabar in her sleep, especially in the afternoon when
servants were on the verandah, and her disjointed remarks on Aziz had
doubtless been sold to Mahmoud Ali for a few annas: that kind of thing
never ceases in the East.

“I thought they’d try something of the sort. Ingenious.” He looked into

their wide-open mouths. “They get just like over their religion,” he added
calmly. “Start and can’t stop. I’m sorry for your old Das, he’s not getting
much of a show.”
 “Mr. Heaslop, how disgraceful dragging in your dear mother,” said Miss
Derek, bending forward.

“It’s just a trick, and they happened to pull it off. Now one sees why they
had Mahmoud Ali—just to make a scene on the chance. It is his speciality.”
But he disliked it more than he showed. It was revolting to hear his mother
travestied into Esmiss Esmoor, a Hindu goddess.

“Esmiss Esmoor
Esmiss Esmoor
Esmiss Esmoor
Esmiss Esmoor. . . .”

“Ronny——”

“Yes, old girl?”

“Isn’t it all queer.”

“I’m afraid it’s very upsetting for you.”

“Not the least. I don’t mind it.”

“Well, that’s good.”

She had spoken more naturally and healthily than usual. Bending into the
middle of her friends, she said: “Don’t worry about me, I’m much better
than I was; I don’t feel the least faint; I shall be all right, and thank you all,
thank you, thank you for your kindness.” She had to shout her gratitude, for
the chant, Esmiss Esmoor, went on.

Suddenly it stopped. It was as if the prayer had been heard, and the relics
exhibited. “I apologize for my colleague,” said Mr. Amritrao, rather to
everyone’s surprise. “He is an intimate friend of our client, and his feelings
have carried him away.”

“Mr. Mahmoud Ali will have to apologize in person,” the Magistrate

said.
 “Exactly, sir, he must. But we had just learnt that Mrs. Moore had
important evidence which she desired to give. She was hurried out of the
country by her son before she could give it; and this unhinged Mr.
Mahmoud Ali—coming as it does upon an attempt to intimidate our only
other European witness, Mr. Fielding. Mr. Mahmoud Ali would have said
nothing had not Mrs. Moore been claimed as a witness by the police.” He
sat down.

“An extraneous element is being introduced into the case,” said the
Magistrate. “I must repeat that as a witness Mrs. Moore does not exist.
Neither you, Mr. Amritrao, nor, Mr. McBryde, you, have any right to
surmise what that lady would have said. She is not here, and consequently
she can say nothing.”

“Well, I withdraw my reference,” said the Superintendent wearily. “I

would have done so fifteen minutes ago if I had been given the chance. She
is not of the least importance to me.”

“I have already withdrawn it for the defence.” He added with forensic

humour: “Perhaps you can persuade the gentlemen outside to withdraw it
too,” for the refrain in the street continued.

“I am afraid my powers do not extend so far,” said Das, smiling.

So peace was restored, and when Adela came to give her evidence the
atmosphere was quieter than it had been since the beginning of the trial.
Experts were not surprised. There is no stay in your native. He blazes up
over a minor point, and has nothing left for the crisis. What he seeks is a
grievance, and this he had found in the supposed abduction of an old lady.
He would now be less aggrieved when Aziz was deported.

But the crisis was still to come.

Adela had always meant to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, and
she had rehearsed this as a difficult task—difficult, because her disaster in
the cave was connected, though by a thread, with another part of her life,
her engagement to Ronny. She had thought of love just before she went in,
and had innocently asked Aziz what marriage was like, and she supposed
that her question had roused evil in him. To recount this would have been
incredibly painful, it was the one point she wanted to keep obscure; she was
willing to give details that would have distressed other girls, but this story
of her private failure she dared not allude to, and she dreaded being
examined in public in case something came out. But as soon as she rose to
reply, and heard the sound of her own voice, she feared not even that. A
new and unknown sensation protected her, like magnificent armour. She
didn’t think what had happened, or even remember in the ordinary way of
memory, but she returned to the Marabar Hills, and spoke from them across
a sort of darkness to Mr. McBryde. The fatal day recurred, in every detail,
but now she was of it and not of it at the same time, and this double relation
gave it indescribable splendour. Why had she thought the expedition “dull”?
Now the sun rose again, the elephant waited, the pale masses of the rock
flowed round her and presented the first cave; she entered, and a match was
reflected in the polished walls—all beautiful and significant, though she had
been blind to it at the time. Questions were asked, and to each she found the
exact reply; yes, she had noticed the “Tank of the Dagger,” but not known
its name; yes, Mrs. Moore had been tired after the first cave and sat in the
shadow of a great rock, near the dried-up mud. Smoothly the voice in the
distance proceeded, leading along the paths of truth, and the airs from the
punkah behind her wafted her on. . . .

“. . . the prisoner and the guide took you on to the Kawa Dol, no one else
being present?”

“The most wonderfully shaped of those hills. Yes.” As she spoke, she
created the Kawa Dol, saw the niches up the curve of the stone, and felt the
heat strike her face. And something caused her to add: “No one else was
present to my knowledge. We appeared to be alone.”

“Very well, there is a ledge half-way up the hill, or broken ground rather,
with caves scattered near the beginning of a nullah.”

“I know where you mean.”

“You went alone into one of those caves?”

“That is quite correct.”

 “And the prisoner followed you.”

“Now we’ve got ’im,” from the Major.

She was silent. The court, the place of question, awaited her reply. But
she could not give it until Aziz entered the place of answer.

“The prisoner followed you, didn’t he?” he repeated in the monotonous

tones that they both used; they were employing agreed words throughout,
so that this part of the proceedings held no surprises.

“May I have half a minute before I reply to that, Mr. McBryde?”

“Certainly.”

Her vision was of several caves. She saw herself in one, and she was also
outside it, watching its entrance, for Aziz to pass in. She failed to locate
him. It was the doubt that had often visited her, but solid and attractive, like
the hills, “I am not——” Speech was more difficult than vision. “I am not
quite sure.”

“I beg your pardon?” said the Superintendent of Police.

“I cannot be sure . . .”

“I didn’t catch that answer.” He looked scared, his mouth shut with a
snap. “You are on that landing, or whatever we term it, and you have
entered a cave. I suggest to you that the prisoner followed you.”

She shook her head.

“What do you mean, please?”

“No,” she said in a flat, unattractive voice. Slight noises began in various
parts of the room, but no one yet understood what was occurring except
Fielding. He saw that she was going to have a nervous breakdown and that
his friend was saved.
 “What is that, what are you saying? Speak up, please.” The Magistrate
bent forward.

“I’m afraid I have made a mistake.”

“What nature of mistake?”

“Dr. Aziz never followed me into the cave.”

The Superintendent slammed down his papers, then picked them up and
said calmly: “Now, Miss Quested, let us go on. I will read you the words of
the deposition which you signed two hours later in my bungalow.”

“Excuse me, Mr. McBryde, you cannot go on. I am speaking to the

witness myself. And the public will be silent. If it continues to talk, I have
the court cleared. Miss Quested, address your remarks to me, who am the
Magistrate in charge of the case, and realize their extreme gravity.
Remember you speak on oath, Miss Quested.”

“Dr. Aziz never——”

“I stop these proceedings on medical grounds,” cried the Major on a

word from Turton, and all the English rose from their chairs at once, large
white figures behind which the little magistrate was hidden. The Indians
rose too, hundreds of things went on at once, so that afterwards each person
gave a different account of the catastrophe.

“You withdraw the charge? Answer me,” shrieked the representative of

Justice.

Something that she did not understand took hold of the girl and pulled
her through. Though the vision was over, and she had returned to the
insipidity of the world, she remembered what she had learnt. Atonement
and confession—they could wait. It was in hard prosaic tones that she said,
“I withdraw everything.”

“Enough—sit down. Mr. McBryde, do you wish to continue in the face of

this?”
 The Superintendent gazed at his witness as if she was a broken machine,
and said, “Are you mad?”

“Don’t question her, sir; you have no longer the right.”

“Give me time to consider——”

“Sahib, you will have to withdraw; this becomes a scandal,” boomed the
Nawab Bahadur suddenly from the back of the court.

“He shall not,” shouted Mrs. Turton against the gathering tumult. “Call
the other witnesses; we’re none of us safe——” Ronny tried to check her,
and she gave him an irritable blow, then screamed insults at Adela.

The Superintendent moved to the support of his friends, saying

nonchalantly to the Magistrate as he did so, “Right, I withdraw.”

Mr. Das rose, nearly dead with the strain. He had controlled the case, just
controlled it. He had shown that an Indian can preside. To those who could
hear him he said, “The prisoner is released without one stain on his
character; the question of costs will be decided elsewhere.”

And then the flimsy framework of the court broke up, the shouts of
derision and rage culminated, people screamed and cursed, kissed one
another, wept passionately. Here were the English, whom their servants
protected, there Aziz fainted in Hamidullah’s arms. Victory on this side,
defeat on that—complete for one moment was the antithesis. Then life
returned to its complexities, person after person struggled out of the room to
their various purposes, and before long no one remained on the scene of the
fantasy but the beautiful naked god. Unaware that anything unusual had
occurred, he continued to pull the cord of his punkah, to gaze at the empty
dais and the overturned special chairs, and rhythmically to agitate the
clouds of descending dust.
 CHAPTER XXV

Miss Quested had renounced her own people. Turning from them, she
was drawn into a mass of Indians of the shopkeeping class, and carried by
them towards the public exit of the court. The faint, indescribable smell of
the bazaars invaded her, sweeter than a London slum, yet more disquieting:
a tuft of scented cotton wool, wedged in an old man’s ear, fragments of pan
between his black teeth, odorous powders, oils—the Scented East of
tradition, but blended with human sweat as if a great king had been
entangled in ignominy and could not free himself, or as if the heat of the
sun had boiled and fried all the glories of the earth into a single mess. They
paid no attention to her. They shook hands over her shoulder, shouted
through her body—for when the Indian does ignore his rulers, he becomes
genuinely unaware of their existence. Without part in the universe she had
created, she was flung against Mr. Fielding.

“What do you want here?”

Knowing him for her enemy, she passed on into the sunlight without
speaking.

He called after her, “Where are you going, Miss Quested?”

“I don’t know.”

“You can’t wander about like that. Where’s the car you came in?”

“I shall walk.”

“What madness . . . there’s supposed to be a riot on . . . the police have

struck, no one knows what’ll happen next. Why don’t you keep to your own
people?”
 “Ought I to join them?” she said, without emotion. She felt emptied,
valueless; there was no more virtue in her.

“You can’t, it’s too late. How are you to get round to the private entrance
now? Come this way with me—quick—I’ll put you into my carriage.”

“Cyril, Cyril, don’t leave me,” called the shattered voice of Aziz.

“I’m coming back. . . . This way, and don’t argue.” He gripped her arm.
“Excuse manners, but I don’t know anyone’s position. Send my carriage
back any time to-morrow, if you please.”

“But where am I to go in it?”

“Where you like. How should I know your arrangements?”

The victoria was safe in a quiet side lane, but there were no horses, for
the sais, not expecting the trial would end so abruptly, had led them away to
visit a friend. She got into it obediently. The man could not leave her, for
the confusion increased, and spots of it sounded fanatical. The main road
through the bazaars was blocked, and the English were gaining the civil
station by by-ways; they were caught like caterpillars, and could have been
killed off easily.

“What—what have you been doing?” he cried suddenly. “Playing a

game, studying life, or what?”

“Sir, I intend these for you, sir,” interrupted a student, running down the
lane with a garland of jasmine on his arm.

“I don’t want the rubbish; get out.”

“Sir, I am a horse, we shall be your horses,” another cried as he lifted the

shafts of the victoria into the air.

“Fetch my sais, Rafi; there’s a good chap.”

“No, sir, this is an honour for us.”

 Fielding wearied of his students. The more they honoured him the less
they obeyed. They lassoed him with jasmine and roses, scratched the
splash-board against a wall, and recited a poem, the noise of which filled
the lane with a crowd.

“Hurry up, sir; we pull you in a procession.” And, half affectionate, half
impudent, they bundled him in.

“I don’t know whether this suits you, but anyhow you’re safe,” he
remarked. The carriage jerked into the main bazaar, where it created some
sensation. Miss Quested was so loathed in Chandrapore that her recantation
was discredited, and the rumour ran that she had been stricken by the Deity
in the middle of her lies. But they cheered when they saw her sitting by the
heroic Principal (some addressed her as Mrs. Moore!), and they garlanded
her to match him. Half gods, half guys, with sausages of flowers round their
necks, the pair were dragged in the wake of Aziz’ victorious landau. In the
applause that greeted them some derision mingled. The English always
stick together! That was the criticism. Nor was it unjust. Fielding shared it
himself, and knew that if some misunderstanding occurred, and an attack
was made on the girl by his allies, he would be obliged to die in her
defence. He didn’t want to die for her, he wanted to be rejoicing with Aziz.

Where was the procession going? To friends, to enemies, to Aziz’

bungalow, to the Collector’s bungalow, to the Minto Hospital where the
Civil Surgeon would eat dust and the patients (confused with prisoners) be
released, to Delhi, Simla. The students thought it was going to Government
College. When they reached a turning, they twisted the victoria to the right,
ran it by side lanes down a hill and through a garden gate into the mango
plantation, and, as far as Fielding and Miss Quested were concerned, all
was peace and quiet. The trees were full of glossy foliage and slim green
fruit, the tank slumbered; and beyond it rose the exquisite blue arches of the
garden-house. “Sir, we fetch the others; sir, it is a somewhat heavy load for
our arms,” were heard. Fielding took the refugee to his office, and tried to
telephone to McBryde. But this he could not do; the wires had been cut. All
his servants had decamped. Once more he was unable to desert her. He
assigned her a couple of rooms, provided her with ice and drinks and
biscuits, advised her to lie down, and lay down himself—there was nothing
else to do. He felt restless and thwarted as he listened to the retreating
sounds of the procession, and his joy was rather spoilt by bewilderment. It
was a victory, but such a queer one.

At that moment Aziz was crying, “Cyril, Cyril . . .” Crammed into a

carriage with the Nawab Bahadur, Hamidullah, Mahmoud Ali, his own little
boys, and a heap of flowers, he was not content; he wanted to be
surrounded by all who loved him. Victory gave no pleasure, he had suffered
too much. From the moment of his arrest he was done for, he had dropped
like a wounded animal; he had despaired, not through cowardice, but
because he knew that an Englishwoman’s word would always outweigh his
own. “It is fate,” he said; and, “It is fate,” when he was imprisoned anew
after Mohurram. All that existed, in that terrible time, was affection, and
affection was all that he felt in the first painful moments of his freedom.
“Why isn’t Cyril following? Let us turn back.” But the procession could not
turn back. Like a snake in a drain, it advanced down the narrow bazaar
towards the basin of the Maidan, where it would turn about itself, and
decide on its prey.

“Forward, forward,” shrieked Mahmoud Ali, whose every utterance had

become a yell. “Down with the Collector, down with the Superintendent of
Police.”

“Mr. Mahmoud Ali, this is not wise,” implored the Nawab Bahadur: he
knew that nothing was gained by attacking the English, who had fallen into
their own pit and had better be left there; moreover, he had great
possessions and deprecated anarchy.

“Cyril, again you desert,” cried Aziz.

“Yet some orderly demonstration is necessary,” said Hamidullah,

“otherwise they will still think we are afraid.”

“Down with the Civil Surgeon . . . rescue Nureddin.”

“Nureddin?”

“They are torturing him.”

 “Oh, my God . . .”—for this, too, was a friend.

“They are not. I will not have my grandson made an excuse for an attack
on the hospital,” the old man protested.

“They are. Callendar boasted so before the trial. I heard through the
tatties; he said, ‘I have tortured that nigger.’”

“Oh, my God, my God. . . . He called him a nigger, did he?”

“They put pepper instead of antiseptic on the wounds.”

“Mr. Mahmoud Ali, impossible; a little roughness will not hurt the boy,
he needs discipline.”

“Pepper. Civil Surgeon said so. They hope to destroy us one by one; they
shall fail.”

The new injury lashed the crowd to fury. It had been aimless hitherto, and
had lacked a grievance. When they reached the Maidan and saw the sallow
arcades of the Minto they shambled towards it howling. It was near midday.
The earth and sky were insanely ugly, the spirit of evil again strode abroad.
The Nawab Bahadur alone struggled against it, and told himself that the
rumour must be untrue. He had seen his grandson in the ward only last
week. But he too was carried forward over the new precipice. To rescue, to
maltreat Major Callendar in revenge, and then was to come the turn of the
civil station generally.

But disaster was averted, and averted by Dr. Panna Lal.

Dr. Panna Lal had offered to give evidence for the prosecution in the
hope of pleasing the English, also because he hated Aziz. When the case
broke down, he was in a very painful position. He saw the crash coming
sooner than most people, slipped from the court before Mr. Das had
finished, and drove Dapple off through the bazaars, in flight from the wrath
to come. In the hospital he should be safe, for Major Callendar would
protect him. But the Major had not come, and now things were worse than
ever, for here was a mob, entirely desirous of his blood, and the orderlies
were mutinous and would not help him over the back wall, or rather hoisted
him and let him drop back, to the satisfaction of the patients. In agony he
cried, “Man can but die the once,” and waddled across the compound to
meet the invasion, salaaming with one hand and holding up a pale yellow
umbrella in the other. “Oh, forgive me,” he whined as he approached the
victorious landau. “Oh, Dr. Aziz, forgive the wicked lies I told.” Aziz was
silent, the others thickened their throats and threw up their chins in token of
scorn. “I was afraid, I was mislaid,” the suppliant continued. “I was mislaid
here, there, and everywhere as regards your character. Oh, forgive the poor
old hakim who gave you milk when ill! Oh, Nawab Bahadur, whoever
merciful, is it my poor little dispensary you require? Take every cursed
bottle.” Agitated, but alert, he saw them smile at his indifferent English, and
suddenly he started playing the buffoon, flung down his umbrella, trod
through it, and struck himself upon the nose. He knew what he was doing,
and so did they. There was nothing pathetic or eternal in the degradation of
such a man. Of ignoble origin, Dr. Panna Lal possessed nothing that could
be disgraced, and he wisely decided to make the other Indians feel like
kings, because it would put them into better tempers. When he found they
wanted Nureddin, he skipped like a goat, he scuttled like a hen to do their
bidding, the hospital was saved, and to the end of his life he could not
understand why he had not obtained promotion on the morning’s work.
“Promptness, sir, promptness similar to you,” was the argument he
employed to Major Callendar when claiming it.

When Nureddin emerged, his face all bandaged, there was a roar of relief
as though the Bastille had fallen. It was the crisis of the march, and the
Nawab Bahadur managed to get the situation into hand. Embracing the
young man publicly, he began a speech about Justice, Courage, Liberty, and
Prudence, ranged under heads, which cooled the passion of the crowd. He
further announced that he should give up his British-conferred title, and live
as a private gentleman, plain Mr. Zulfiqar, for which reason he was instantly
proceeding to his country seat. The landau turned, the crowd accompanied
it, the crisis was over. The Marabar caves had been a terrible strain on the
local administration; they altered a good many lives and wrecked several
careers, but they did not break up a continent or even dislocate a district.
 “We will have rejoicings to-night,” the old man said. “Mr. Hamidullah, I
depute you to bring out our friends Fielding and Amritrao, and to discover
whether the latter will require special food. The others will keep with me.
We shall not go out to Dilkusha until the cool of the evening, of course. I do
not know the feelings of other gentlemen; for my own part, I have a slight
headache, and I wish I had thought to ask our good Panna Lal for aspirin.”

For the heat was claiming its own. Unable to madden, it stupefied, and
before long most of the Chandrapore combatants were asleep. Those in the
civil station kept watch a little, fearing an attack, but presently they too
entered the world of dreams—that world in which a third of each man’s life
is spent, and which is thought by some pessimists to be a premonition of
eternity.
 CHAPTER XXVI

Evening approached by the time Fielding and Miss Quested met and had
the first of their numerous curious conversations. He had hoped, when he
woke up, to find someone had fetched her away, but the College remained
isolated from the rest of the universe. She asked whether she could have “a
sort of interview,” and, when he made no reply, said, “Have you any
explanation of my extraordinary behaviour?”

“None,” he said curtly. “Why make such a charge if you were going to
withdraw it?”

“Why, indeed.”

“I ought to feel grateful to you, I suppose, but——”

“I don’t expect gratitude. I only thought you might care to hear what I
have to say.”

“Oh, well,” he grumbled, feeling rather schoolboyish. “I don’t think a

discussion between us is desirable. To put it frankly, I belong to the other
side in this ghastly affair.”

“Would it not interest you to hear my side?”

“Not much.”

“I shouldn’t tell you in confidence, of course. So you can hand on all my

remarks to your side, for there is one great mercy that has come out of all
to-day’s misery: I have no longer any secrets. My echo has gone—I call the
buzzing sound in my ears an echo. You see, I have been unwell ever since
that expedition to the caves, and possibly before it.”
 The remark interested him rather; it was what he had sometimes
suspected himself. “What kind of illness?” he enquired.

She touched her head at the side, then shook it.

“That was my first thought, the day of the arrest: hallucination.”

“Do you think that would be so?” she asked with great humility. “What
should have given me an hallucination?”

“One of three things certainly happened in the Marabar,” he said, getting

drawn into a discussion against his will. “One of four things. Either Aziz is
guilty, which is what your friends think; or you invented the charge out of
malice, which is what my friends think; or you have had an hallucination.
I’m very much inclined”—getting up and striding about—“now that you
tell me that you felt unwell before the expedition—it’s an important piece
of evidence—I believe that you yourself broke the strap of the field-glasses;
you were alone in that cave the whole time.”

“Perhaps. . . .”

“Can you remember when you first felt out of sorts?”

“When I came to tea with you there, in that garden-house.”

“A somewhat unlucky party. Aziz and old Godbole were both ill after it
too.”

“I was not ill—it is far too vague to mention: it is all mixed up with my
private affairs. I enjoyed the singing . . . but just about then a sort of sadness
began that I couldn’t detect at the time . . . no, nothing as solid as sadness:
living at half pressure expresses it best. Half pressure. I remember going on
to polo with Mr. Heaslop at the Maidan. Various other things happened—it
doesn’t matter what, but I was under par for all of them. I was certainly in
that state when I saw the caves, and you suggest (nothing shocks or hurts
me)—you suggest that I had an hallucination there, the sort of thing—
though in an awful form—that makes some women think they’ve had an
offer of marriage when none was made.”
 “You put it honestly, anyhow.”

“I was brought up to be honest; the trouble is it gets me nowhere.”

Liking her better, he smiled and said, “It’ll get us to heaven.”

“Will it?”

“If heaven existed.”

“Do you not believe in heaven, Mr. Fielding, may I ask?” she said,
looking at him shyly.

“I do not. Yet I believe that honesty gets us there.”

“How can that be?”

“Let us go back to hallucinations. I was watching you carefully through

your evidence this morning, and if I’m right, the hallucination (what you
call half pressure—quite as good a word) disappeared suddenly.”

She tried to remember what she had felt in court, but could not; the vision
disappeared whenever she wished to interpret it. “Events presented
themselves to me in their logical sequence,” was what she said, but it hadn’t
been that at all.

“My belief—and of course I was listening carefully, in hope you would

make some slip—my belief is that poor McBryde exorcised you. As soon as
he asked you a straightforward question, you gave a straightforward answer,
and broke down.”

“Exorcise in that sense. I thought you meant I’d seen a ghost.”

“I don’t go to that length!”

“People whom I respect very much believe in ghosts,” she said rather
sharply. “My friend Mrs. Moore does.”

“She’s an old lady.”

 “I think you need not be impolite to her, as well as to her son.”

“I did not intend to be rude. I only meant it is difficult, as we get on in

life, to resist the supernatural. I’ve felt it coming on me myself. I still jog on
without it, but what a temptation, at forty-five, to pretend that the dead live
again; one’s own dead; no one else’s matter.”

“Because the dead don’t live again.”

“I fear not.”

“So do I.”

There was a moment’s silence, such as often follows the triumph of

rationalism. Then he apologized handsomely enough for his behaviour to
Heaslop at the club.

“What does Dr. Aziz say of me?” she asked, after another pause.

“He—he has not been capable of thought in his misery, naturally he’s
very bitter,” said Fielding, a little awkward, because such remarks as Aziz
had made were not merely bitter, they were foul. The underlying notion
was, “It disgraces me to have been mentioned in connection with such a
hag.” It enraged him that he had been accused by a woman who had no
personal beauty; sexually, he was a snob. This had puzzled and worried
Fielding. Sensuality, as long as it is straight-forward, did not repel him, but
this derived sensuality—the sort that classes a mistress among motor-cars if
she is beautiful, and among eye-flies if she isn’t—was alien to his own
emotions, and he felt a barrier between himself and Aziz whenever it arose.
It was, in a new form, the old, old trouble that eats the heart out of every
civilization: snobbery, the desire for possessions, creditable appendages;
and it is to escape this rather than the lusts of the flesh that saints retreat
into the Himalayas. To change the subject, he said, “But let me conclude my
analysis. We are agreed that he is not a villain and that you are not one, and
we aren’t really sure that it was an hallucination. There’s a fourth possibility
which we must touch on: was it somebody else?”

“The guide.”
 “Exactly, the guide. I often think so. Unluckily Aziz hit him on the face,
and he got a fright and disappeared. It is most unsatisfactory, and we hadn’t
the police to help us, the guide was of no interest to them.”

“Perhaps it was the guide,” she said quietly; the question had lost interest
for her suddenly.

“Or could it have been one of that gang of Pathans who have been
drifting through the district?”

“Someone who was in another cave, and followed me when the guide
was looking away? Possibly.”

At that moment Hamidullah joined them, and seemed not too pleased to
find them closeted together. Like everyone else in Chandrapore, he could
make nothing of Miss Quested’s conduct. He had overheard their last
remark. “Hullo, my dear Fielding,” he said. “So I run you down at last. Can
you come out at once to Dilkusha?”

“At once?”

“I hope to leave in a moment, don’t let me interrupt,” said Adela.

“The telephone has been broken; Miss Quested can’t ring up her friends,”
he explained.

“A great deal has been broken, more than will ever be mended,” said the
other. “Still, there should be some way of transporting this lady back to the
civil lines. The resources of civilization are numerous.” He spoke without
looking at Miss Quested, and he ignored the slight movement she made
towards him with her hand.

Fielding, who thought the meeting might as well be friendly, said, “Miss
Quested has been explaining a little about her conduct of this morning.”

“Perhaps the age of miracles has returned. One must be prepared for
everything, our philosophers say.”
 “It must have seemed a miracle to the onlookers,” said Adela, addressing
him nervously. “The fact is that I realized before it was too late that I had
made a mistake, and had just enough presence of mind to say so. That is all
my extraordinary conduct amounts to.”

“All it amounts to, indeed,” he retorted, quivering with rage but keeping
himself in hand, for he felt she might be setting another trap. “Speaking as a
private individual, in a purely informal conversation, I admired your
conduct, and I was delighted when our warm-hearted students garlanded
you. But, like Mr. Fielding, I am surprised; indeed, surprise is too weak a
word. I see you drag my best friend into the dirt, damage his health and ruin
his prospects in a way you cannot conceive owing to your ignorance of our
society and religion, and then suddenly you get up in the witness-box: ‘Oh
no, Mr. McBryde, after all I am not quite sure, you may as well let him go.’
Am I mad? I keep asking myself. Is it a dream, and if so, when did it start?
And without doubt it is a dream that has not yet finished. For I gather you
have not done with us yet, and it is now the turn of the poor old guide who
conducted you round the caves.”

“Not at all, we were only discussing possibilities,” interposed Fielding.

“An interesting pastime, but a lengthy one. There are one hundred and
seventy million Indians in this notable peninsula, and of course one or other
of them entered the cave. Of course some Indian is the culprit, we must
never doubt that. And since, my dear Fielding, these possibilities will take
you some time”—here he put his arm over the Englishman’s shoulder and
swayed him to and fro gently—“don’t you think you had better come out to
the Nawab Bahadur’s—or I should say to Mr. Zulfiqar’s, for that is the
name he now requires us to call him by.”

“Gladly, in a minute . . .”

“I have just settled my movements,” said Miss Quested. “I shall go to the

Dak Bungalow.”

“Not the Turtons’?” said Hamidullah, goggle-eyed. “I thought you were

their guest.”
 The Dak Bungalow of Chandrapore was below the average, and certainly
servantless. Fielding, though he continued to sway with Hamidullah, was
thinking on independent lines, and said in a moment: “I have a better idea
than that, Miss Quested. You must stop here at the College. I shall be away
at least two days, and you can have the place entirely to yourself, and make
your plans at your convenience.”

“I don’t agree at all,” said Hamidullah, with every symptom of dismay.

“The idea is a thoroughly bad one. There may quite well be another
demonstration to-night, and suppose an attack is made on the College. You
would be held responsible for this lady’s safety, my dear fellow.”

“They might equally attack the Dak Bungalow.”

“Exactly, but the responsibility there ceases to be yours.”

“Quite so. I have given trouble enough.”

“Do you hear? The lady admits it herself. It’s not an attack from our
people I fear—you should see their orderly conduct at the hospital; what we
must guard against is an attack secretly arranged by the police for the
purpose of discrediting you. McBryde keeps plenty of roughs for this
purpose, and this would be the very opportunity for him.”

“Never mind. She is not going to the Dak Bungalow,” said Fielding. He
had a natural sympathy for the down-trodden—that was partly why he
rallied from Aziz—and had become determined not to leave the poor girl in
the lurch. Also, he had a new-born respect for her, consequent on their talk.
Although her hard schoolmistressy manner remained, she was no longer
examining life, but being examined by it; she had become a real person.

“Then where is she to go? We shall never have done with her!” For Miss
Quested had not appealed to Hamidullah. If she had shown emotion in
court, broke down, beat her breast, and invoked the name of God, she
would have summoned forth his imagination and generosity—he had plenty
of both. But while relieving the Oriental mind, she had chilled it, with the
result that he could scarcely believe she was sincere, and indeed from his
standpoint she was not. For her behaviour rested on cold justice and
honesty; she had felt, while she recanted, no passion of love for those whom
she had wronged. Truth is not truth in that exacting land unless there go
with it kindness and more kindness and kindness again, unless the Word
that was with God also is God. And the girl’s sacrifice—so creditable
according to Western notions—was rightly rejected, because, though it
came from her heart, it did not include her heart. A few garlands from
students was all that India ever gave her in return.

“But where is she to have her dinner, where is she to sleep? I say here,
here, and if she is hit on the head by roughs, she is hit on the head. That is
my contribution. Well, Miss Quested?”

“You are very kind. I should have said yes, I think, but I agree with Mr.
Hamidullah. I must give no more trouble to you. I believe my best plan is to
return to the Turtons, and see if they will allow me to sleep, and if they turn
me away I must go to the Dak. The Collector would take me in, I know, but
Mrs. Turton said this morning that she would never see me again.” She
spoke without bitterness, or, as Hamidullah thought, without proper pride.
Her aim was to cause the minimum of annoyance.

“Far better stop here than expose yourself to insults from that
preposterous woman.”

“Do you find her preposterous? I used to. I don’t now.”

“Well, here’s our solution,” said the barrister, who had terminated his
slightly minatory caress and strolled to the window. “Here comes the City
Magistrate. He comes in a third-class band-ghari for purposes of disguise,
he comes unattended, but here comes the City Magistrate.”

“At last,” said Adela sharply, which caused Fielding to glance at her.

“He comes, he comes, he comes. I cringe. I tremble.”

“Will you ask him what he wants, Mr. Fielding?”

“He wants you, of course.”

 “He may not even know I’m here.”

“I’ll see him first, if you prefer.”

When he had gone, Hamidullah said to her bitingly: “Really, really. Need
you have exposed Mr. Fielding to this further discomfort? He is far too
considerate.” She made no reply, and there was complete silence between
them until their host returned.

“He has some news for you,” he said. “You’ll find him on the verandah.
He prefers not to come in.”

“Does he tell me to come out to him?”

“Whether he tells you or not, you will go, I think,” said Hamidullah.

She paused, then said, “Perfectly right,” and then said a few words of
thanks to the Principal for his kindness to her during the day.

“Thank goodness, that’s over,” he remarked, not escorting her to the

verandah, for he held it unnecessary to see Ronny again.

“It was insulting of him not to come in.”

“He couldn’t very well after my behaviour to him at the Club. Heaslop
doesn’t come out badly. Besides, Fate has treated him pretty roughly to-day.
He has had a cable to the effect that his mother’s dead, poor old soul.”

“Oh, really. Mrs. Moore. I’m sorry,” said Hamidullah rather indifferently.

“She died at sea.”

“The heat, I suppose.”

“Presumably.”

“May is no month to allow an old lady to travel in.”

 “Quite so. Heaslop ought never to have let her go, and he knows it. Shall
we be off?”

“Let us wait until the happy couple leave the compound clear . . . they
really are intolerable dawdling there. Ah well, Fielding, you don’t believe in
Providence, I remember. I do. This is Heaslop’s punishment for abducting
our witness in order to stop us establishing our alibi.”

“You go rather too far there. The poor old lady’s evidence could have had
no value, shout and shriek Mahmoud Ali as he will. She couldn’t see
through the Kawa Dol even if she had wanted to. Only Miss Quested could
have saved him.”

“She loved Aziz, he says, also India, and he loved her.”

“Love is of no value in a witness, as a barrister ought to know. But I see

there is about to be an Esmiss Esmoor legend at Chandrapore, my dear
Hamidullah, and I will not impede its growth.”

The other smiled, and looked at his watch. They both regretted the death,
but they were middle-aged men, who had invested their emotions
elsewhere, and outbursts of grief could not be expected from them over a
slight acquaintance. It’s only one’s own dead who matter. If for a moment
the sense of communion in sorrow came to them, it passed. How indeed is it
possible for one human being to be sorry for all the sadness that meets him
on the face of the earth, for the pain that is endured not only by men, but by
animals and plants, and perhaps by the stones? The soul is tired in a
moment, and in fear of losing the little she does understand, she retreats to
the permanent lines which habit or chance have dictated, and suffers there.
Fielding had met the dead woman only two or three times, Hamidullah had
seen her in the distance once, and they were far more occupied with the
coming gathering at Dilkusha, the “victory” dinner, for which they would
be most victoriously late.

They agreed not to tell Aziz about Mrs. Moore till the morrow, because
he was fond of her, and the bad news might spoil his fun.
 “Oh, this is unbearable!” muttered Hamidullah. For Miss Quested was
back again.

“Mr. Fielding, has Ronny told you of this new misfortune?”

He bowed.

“Ah me!” She sat down, and seemed to stiffen into a monument.

“Heaslop is waiting for you, I think.”

“I do so long to be alone. She was my best friend, far more to me than to

him. I can’t bear to be with Ronny . . . I can’t explain . . . Could you do me
the very great kindness of letting me stop after all?”

Hamidullah swore violently in the vernacular.

“I should be pleased, but does Mr. Heaslop wish it?”

“I didn’t ask him, we are too much upset—it’s so complex, not like what
unhappiness is supposed to be. Each of us ought to be alone, and think. Do
come and see Ronny again.”

“I think he should come in this time,” said Fielding, feeling that this
much was due to his own dignity. “Do ask him to come.”

She returned with him. He was half miserable, half arrogant—indeed, a

strange mix-up—and broke at once into uneven speech. “I came to bring
Miss Quested away, but her visit to the Turtons has ended, and there is no
other arrangement so far, mine are bachelor quarters now——”

Fielding stopped him courteously. “Say no more, Miss Quested stops

here. I only wanted to be assured of your approval. Miss Quested, you had
better send for your own servant if he can be found, but I will leave orders
with mine to do all they can for you, also I’ll let the Scouts know. They
have guarded the College ever since it was closed, and may as well go on. I
really think you’ll be as safe here as anywhere. I shall be back Thursday.”
 Meanwhile Hamidullah, determined to spare the enemy no incidental
pain, had said to Ronny: “We hear, sir, that your mother has died. May we
ask where the cable came from?”

“Aden.”

“Ah, you were boasting she had reached Aden, in court.”

“But she died on leaving Bombay,” broke in Adela. “She was dead when
they called her name this morning. She must have been buried at sea.”

Somehow this stopped Hamidullah, and he desisted from his brutality,

which had shocked Fielding more than anyone else. He remained silent
while the details of Miss Quested’s occupation of the College were
arranged, merely remarking to Ronny, “It is clearly to be understood, sir,
that neither Mr. Fielding nor any of us are responsible for this lady’s safety
at Government College,” to which Ronny agreed. After that, he watched the
semi-chivalrous behavings of the three English with quiet amusement; he
thought Fielding had been incredibly silly and weak, and he was amazed by
the younger people’s want of proper pride. When they were driving out to
Dilkusha, hours late, he said to Amritrao, who accompanied them: “Mr.
Amritrao, have you considered what sum Miss Quested ought to pay as
compensation?”

“Twenty thousand rupees.”

No more was then said, but the remark horrified Fielding. He couldn’t
bear to think of the queer honest girl losing her money and possibly her
young man too. She advanced into his consciousness suddenly. And,
fatigued by the merciless and enormous day, he lost his usual sane view of
human intercourse, and felt that we exist not in ourselves, but in terms of
each others’ minds—a notion for which logic offers no support and which
had attacked him only once before, the evening after the catastrophe, when
from the verandah of the club he saw the fists and fingers of the Marabar
swell until they included the whole night sky.
 CHAPTER XXVII

“Aziz, are you awake?”

“No, so let us have a talk; let us dream plans for the future.”

“I am useless at dreaming.”

“Good night then, dear fellow.”

The Victory Banquet was over, and the revellers lay on the roof of plain
Mr. Zulfiqar’s mansion, asleep, or gazing through mosquito nets at the stars.
Exactly above their heads hung the constellation of the Lion, the disc of
Regulus so large and bright that it resembled a tunnel, and when this fancy
was accepted all the other stars seemed tunnels too.

“Are you content with our day’s work, Cyril?” the voice on his left
continued.

“Are you?”

“Except that I ate too much. ‘How is stomach, how head?’—I say, Panna
Lal and Callendar ’ll get the sack.”

“There’ll be a general move at Chandrapore.”

“And you’ll get promotion.”

“They can’t well move me down, whatever their feelings.”

“In any case we spend our holidays together, and visit Kashmir, possibly
Persia, for I shall have plenty of money. Paid to me on account of the injury
sustained by my character,” he explained with cynical calm. “While with
me you shall never spend a single pie. This is what I have always wished,
and as the result of my misfortunes it has come.”
 “You have won a great victory . . .” began Fielding.

“I know, my dear chap, I know; your voice need not become so solemn
and anxious. I know what you are going to say next: Let, oh let Miss
Quested off paying, so that the English may say, ‘Here is a native who has
actually behaved like a gentleman; if it was not for his black face we would
almost allow him to join our club.’ The approval of your compatriots no
longer interests me, I have become anti-British, and ought to have done so
sooner, it would have saved me numerous misfortunes.”

“Including knowing me.”

“I say, shall we go and pour water on to Mohammed Latif’s face? He is

so funny when this is done to him asleep.”

The remark was not a question but a full-stop. Fielding accepted it as

such and there was a pause, pleasantly filled by a little wind which
managed to brush the top of the house. The banquet, though riotous, had
been agreeable, and now the blessings of leisure—unknown to the West,
which either works or idles—descended on the motley company.
Civilization strays about like a ghost here, revisiting the ruins of empire,
and is to be found not in great works of art or mighty deeds, but in the
gestures well-bred Indians make when they sit or lie down. Fielding, who
had dressed up in native costume, learnt from his excessive awkwardness in
it that all his motions were makeshifts, whereas when the Nawab Bahadur
stretched out his hand for food or Nureddin applauded a song, something
beautiful had been accomplished which needed no development. This
restfulness of gesture—it is the Peace that passeth Understanding, after all,
it is the social equivalent of Yoga. When the whirring of action ceases, it
becomes visible, and reveals a civilization which the West can disturb but
will never acquire. The hand stretches out for ever, the lifted knee has the
eternity though not the sadness of the grave. Aziz was full of civilization
this evening, complete, dignified, rather hard, and it was with diffidence
that the other said: “Yes, certainly you must let off Miss Quested easily. She
must pay all your costs, that is only fair, but do not treat her like a
conquered enemy.”

“Is she wealthy? I depute you to find out.”

 “The sums mentioned at dinner when you all got so excited—they would
ruin her, they are perfectly preposterous. Look here . . .”

“I am looking, though it gets a bit dark. I see Cyril Fielding to be a very

nice chap indeed and my best friend, but in some ways a fool. You think
that by letting Miss Quested off easily I shall make a better reputation for
myself and Indians generally. No, no. It will be put down to weakness and
the attempt to gain promotion officially. I have decided to have nothing
more to do with British India, as a matter of fact. I shall seek service in
some Moslem State, such as Hyderabad, Bhopal, where Englishmen cannot
insult me any more. Don’t counsel me otherwise.”

“In the course of a long talk with Miss Quested . . .”

“I don’t want to hear your long talks.”

“Be quiet. In the course of a long talk with Miss Quested I have begun to
understand her character. It’s not an easy one, she being a prig. But she is
perfectly genuine and very brave. When she saw she was wrong, she pulled
herself up with a jerk and said so. I want you to realize what that means. All
her friends around her, the entire British Raj pushing her forward. She
stops, sends the whole thing to smithereens. In her place I should have
funked it. But she stopped, and almost did she become a national heroine,
but my students ran us down a side street before the crowd caught flame.
Do treat her considerately. She really mustn’t get the worst of both worlds. I
know what all these”—he indicated the shrouded forms on the roof—“will
want, but you mustn’t listen to them. Be merciful. Act like one of your six
Mogul Emperors, or all the six rolled into one.”

“Not even Mogul Emperors showed mercy until they received an

apology.”

“She’ll apologize if that’s the trouble,” he cried, sitting up. “Look, I’ll
make you an offer. Dictate to me whatever form of words you like, and this
time to-morrow I’ll bring it back signed. This is not instead of any public
apology she may make you in law. It’s an addition.”
 “‘Dear Dr. Aziz, I wish you had come into the cave; I am an awful old
hag, and it is my last chance.’ Will she sign that?”

“Well good night, good night, it’s time to go to sleep, after that.”

“Good night, I suppose it is.”

“Oh, I wish you wouldn’t make that kind of remark,” he continued after a
pause. “It is the one thing in you I can’t put up with.”

“I put up with all things in you, so what is to be done?”

“Well, you hurt me by saying it; good night.”

There was silence, then dreamily but with deep feeling the voice said:
“Cyril, I have had an idea which will satisfy your tender mind: I shall
consult Mrs. Moore.” Opening his eyes, and beholding thousands of stars,
he could not reply, they silenced him.

“Her opinion will solve everything; I can trust her so absolutely. If she
advises me to pardon this girl, I shall do so. She will counsel me nothing
against my real and true honour, as you might.”

“Let us discuss that to-morrow morning.”

“Is it not strange? I keep on forgetting she has left India. During the
shouting of her name in court I fancied she was present. I had shut my eyes,
I confused myself on purpose to deaden the pain. Now this very instant I
forgot again. I shall be obliged to write. She is now far away, well on her
way towards Ralph and Stella.”

“To whom?”

“To those other children.”

“I have not heard of other children.”

“Just as I have two boys and a girl, so has Mrs. Moore. She told me in the
mosque.”
 “I knew her so slightly.”

“I have seen her but three times, but I know she is an Oriental.”

“You are so fantastic. . . . Miss Quested, you won’t treat her generously;
while over Mrs. Moore there is this elaborate chivalry. Miss Quested
anyhow behaved decently this morning, whereas the old lady never did
anything for you at all, and it’s pure conjecture that she would have come
forward in your favour, it only rests on servants’ gossip. Your emotions
never seem in proportion to their objects, Aziz.”

“Is emotion a sack of potatoes, so much the pound, to be measured out?

Am I a machine? I shall be told I can use up my emotions by using them,
next.”

“I should have thought you could. It sounds common sense. You can’t eat
your cake and have it, even in the world of the spirit.”

“If you are right, there is no point in any friendship; it all comes down to
give and take, or give and return, which is disgusting, and we had better all
leap over this parapet and kill ourselves. Is anything wrong with you this
evening that you grow so materialistic?”

“Your unfairness is worse than my materialism.”

“I see. Anything further to complain of?” He was good-tempered and

affectionate but a little formidable. Imprisonment had made channels for his
character, which would never fluctuate as widely now as in the past.
“Because it is far better you put all your difficulties before me, if we are to
be friends for ever. You do not like Mrs. Moore, and are annoyed because I
do; however, you will like her in time.”

When a person, really dead, is supposed to be alive, an unhealthiness

infects the conversation. Fielding could not stand the tension any longer and
blurted out: “I’m sorry to say Mrs. Moore’s dead.”

But Hamidullah, who had been listening to all their talk, and did not want
the festive evening spoilt, cried from the adjoining bed: “Aziz, he is trying
to pull your leg; don’t believe him, the villain.”

“I do not believe him,” said Aziz; he was inured to practical jokes, even
of this type.

Fielding said no more. Facts are facts, and everyone would learn of Mrs.
Moore’s death in the morning. But it struck him that people are not really
dead until they are felt to be dead. As long as there is some
misunderstanding about them, they possess a sort of immortality. An
experience of his own confirmed this. Many years ago he had lost a great
friend, a woman, who believed in the Christian heaven, and assured him
that after the changes and chances of this mortal life they would meet in it
again. Fielding was a blank, frank atheist, but he respected every opinion
his friend held: to do this is essential in friendship. And it seemed to him for
a time that the dead awaited him, and when the illusion faded it left behind
it an emptiness that was almost guilt: “This really is the end,” he thought,
“and I gave her the final blow.” He had tried to kill Mrs. Moore this
evening, on the roof of the Nawab Bahadur’s house; but she still eluded
him, and the atmosphere remained tranquil. Presently the moon rose—the
exhausted crescent that precedes the sun—and shortly after men and oxen
began their interminable labour, and the gracious interlude, which he had
tried to curtail, came to its natural conclusion.
 CHAPTER XXVIII

Dead she was—committed to the deep while still on the southward track,
for the boats from Bombay cannot point towards Europe until Arabia has
been rounded; she was further in the tropics than ever achieved while on
shore, when the sun touched her for the last time and her body was lowered
into yet another India—the Indian Ocean. She left behind her sore
discomfort, for a death gives a ship a bad name. Who was this Mrs. Moore?
When Aden was reached, Lady Mellanby cabled, wrote, did all that was
kind, but the wife of a Lieutenant-Governor does not bargain for such an
experience; and she repeated: “I had only seen the poor creature for a few
hours when she was taken ill; really this has been needlessly distressing, it
spoils one’s home-coming.” A ghost followed the ship up the Red Sea, but
failed to enter the Mediterranean. Somewhere about Suez there is always a
social change: the arrangements of Asia weaken and those of Europe begin
to be felt, and during the transition Mrs. Moore was shaken off. At Port
Said the grey blustery north began. The weather was so cold and bracing
that the passengers felt it must have broken in the land they had left, but it
became hotter steadily there in accordance with its usual law.

The death took subtler and more lasting shapes in Chandrapore. A legend
sprang up that an Englishman had killed his mother for trying to save an
Indian’s life—and there was just enough truth in this to cause annoyance to
the authorities. Sometimes it was a cow that had been killed—or a crocodile
with the tusks of a boar had crawled out of the Ganges. Nonsense of this
type is more difficult to combat than a solid lie. It hides in rubbish heaps
and moves when no one is looking. At one period two distinct tombs
containing Esmiss Esmoor’s remains were reported: one by the tannery, the
other up near the goods station. Mr. McBryde visited them both and saw
signs of the beginning of a cult—earthenware saucers and so on. Being an
experienced official, he did nothing to irritate it, and after a week or so, the
rash died down. “There’s propaganda behind all this,” he said, forgetting
that a hundred years ago, when Europeans still made their home in the
country-side and appealed to its imagination, they occasionally became
local demons after death—not a whole god, perhaps, but part of one, adding
an epithet or gesture to what already existed, just as the gods contribute to
the great gods, and they to the philosophic Brahm.

Ronny reminded himself that his mother had left India at her own wish,
but his conscience was not clear. He had behaved badly to her, and he had
either to repent (which involved a mental overturn), or to persist in
unkindness towards her. He chose the latter course. How tiresome she had
been with her patronage of Aziz! What a bad influence upon Adela! And
now she still gave trouble with ridiculous “tombs,” mixing herself up with
natives. She could not help it, of course, but she had attempted similar
exasperating expeditions in her lifetime, and he reckoned it against her. The
young man had much to worry him—the heat, the local tension, the
approaching visit of the Lieutenant-Governor, the problems of Adela—and
threading them all together into a grotesque garland were these
Indianizations of Mrs. Moore. What does happen to one’s mother when she
dies? Presumably she goes to heaven, anyhow she clears out. Ronny’s
religion was of the sterilized Public School brand, which never goes bad,
even in the tropics. Wherever he entered, mosque, cave, or temple, he
retained the spiritual outlook of the Fifth Form, and condemned as
“weakening” any attempt to understand them. Pulling himself together, he
dismissed the mater from his mind. In due time he and his half-brother and -
sister would put up a tablet to her in the Northamptonshire church where
she had worshipped, recording the dates of her birth and death and the fact
that she had been buried at sea. This would be sufficient.

And Adela—she would have to depart too; he hoped she would have
made the suggestion herself ere now. He really could not marry her—it
would mean the end of his career. Poor lamentable Adela. . . . She remained
at Government College, by Fielding’s courtesy—unsuitable and
humiliating, but no one would receive her at the civil station. He postponed
all private talk until the award against her was decided. Aziz was suing her
for damages in the sub-judge’s court. Then he would ask her to release him.
She had killed his love, and it had never been very robust; they would never
have achieved betrothal but for the accident to the Nawab Bahadur’s car.
She belonged to the callow academic period of his life which he had
outgrown—Grasmere, serious talks and walks, that sort of thing.
 CHAPTER XXIX

The visit of the Lieutenant-Governor of the Province formed the next

stage in the decomposition of the Marabar. Sir Gilbert, though not an
enlightened man, held enlightened opinions. Exempted by a long career in
the Secretariate from personal contact with the peoples of India, he was able
to speak of them urbanely, and to deplore racial prejudice. He applauded the
outcome of the trial, and congratulated Fielding on having taken “the broad,
the sensible, the only possible charitable view from the first. Speaking
confidentially . . .” he proceeded. Fielding deprecated confidences, but Sir
Gilbert insisted on imparting them; the affair had been “mishandled by
certain of our friends up the hill” who did not realize that “the hands of the
clock move forward, not back,” etc., etc. One thing he could guarantee: the
Principal would receive a most cordial invitation to rejoin the club, and he
begged, nay commanded him, to accept. He returned to his Himalayan
altitudes well satisfied; the amount of money Miss Quested would have to
pay, the precise nature of what had happened in the caves—these were local
details, and did not concern him.

Fielding found himself drawn more and more into Miss Quested’s affairs.
The College remained closed and he ate and slept at Hamidullah’s, so there
was no reason she should not stop on if she wished. In her place he would
have cleared out, sooner than submit to Ronny’s half-hearted and distracted
civilities, but she was waiting for the hour-glass of her sojourn to run
through. A house to live in, a garden to walk in during the brief moment of
the cool—that was all she asked, and he was able to provide them. Disaster
had shown her her limitations, and he realized now what a fine loyal
character she was. Her humility was touching. She never repined at getting
the worst of both worlds; she regarded it as the due punishment of her
stupidity. When he hinted to her that a personal apology to Aziz might be
seemly, she said sadly: “Of course. I ought to have thought of it myself, my
instincts never help me. Why didn’t I rush up to him after the trial? Yes, of
course I will write him an apology, but please will you dictate it?” Between
them they concocted a letter, sincere, and full of moving phrases, but it was
not moving as a letter. “Shall I write another?” she enquired. “Nothing
matters if I can undo the harm I have caused. I can do this right, and that
right; but when the two are put together they come wrong. That’s the defect
of my character. I have never realized it until now. I thought that if I was
just and asked questions I would come through every difficulty.” He
replied: “Our letter is a failure for a simple reason which we had better face:
you have no real affection for Aziz, or Indians generally.” She assented.
“The first time I saw you, you were wanting to see India, not Indians, and it
occurred to me: Ah, that won’t take us far. Indians know whether they are
liked or not—they cannot be fooled here. Justice never satisfies them, and
that is why the British Empire rests on sand.” Then she said: “Do I like
anyone, though?” Presumably she liked Heaslop, and he changed the
subject, for this side of her life did not concern him.

His Indian friends were, on the other hand, a bit above themselves.
Victory, which would have made the English sanctimonious, made them
aggressive. They wanted to develop an offensive, and tried to do so by
discovering new grievances and wrongs, many of which had no existence.
They suffered from the usual disillusion that attends warfare. The aims of
battle and the fruits of conquest are never the same; the latter have their
value and only the saint rejects them, but their hint of immortality vanishes
as soon as they are held in the hand. Although Sir Gilbert had been
courteous, almost obsequious, the fabric he represented had in no wise
bowed its head. British officialism remained, as all-pervading and as
unpleasant as the sun; and what was next to be done against it was not very
obvious, even to Mahmoud Ali. Loud talk and trivial lawlessness were
attempted, and behind them continued a genuine but vague desire for
education. “Mr. Fielding, we must all be educated promptly.”

Aziz was friendly and domineering. He wanted Fielding to “give in to the

East,” as he called it, and live in a condition of affectionate dependence
upon it. “You can trust me, Cyril.” No question of that, and Fielding had no
roots among his own people. Yet he really couldn’t become a sort of
Mohammed Latif. When they argued about it something racial intruded—
not bitterly, but inevitably, like the colour of their skins: coffee-colour
versus pinko-grey. And Aziz would conclude: “Can’t you see that I’m
grateful to you for your help and want to reward you?” And the other would
retort: “If you want to reward me, let Miss Quested off paying.”

The insensitiveness about Adela displeased him. It would, from every

point of view, be right to treat her generously, and one day he had the notion
of appealing to the memory of Mrs. Moore. Aziz had this high and fantastic
estimate of Mrs. Moore. Her death had been a real grief to his warm heart;
he wept like a child and ordered his three children to weep also. There was
no doubt that he respected and loved her. Fielding’s first attempt was a
failure. The reply was: “I see your trick. I want revenge on them. Why
should I be insulted and suffer and the contents of my pockets read and my
wife’s photograph taken to the police station? Also I want the money—to
educate my little boys, as I explained to her.” But he began to weaken, and
Fielding was not ashamed to practise a little necromancy. Whenever the
question of compensation came up, he introduced the dead woman’s name.
Just as other propagandists invented her a tomb, so did he raise a
questionable image of her in the heart of Aziz, saying nothing that he
believed to be untrue, but producing something that was probably far from
the truth. Aziz yielded suddenly. He felt it was Mrs. Moore’s wish that he
should spare the woman who was about to marry her son, that it was the
only honour he could pay her, and he renounced with a passionate and
beautiful outburst the whole of the compensation money, claiming only
costs. It was fine of him, and, as he foresaw, it won him no credit with the
English. They still believed he was guilty, they believed it to the end of
their careers, and retired Anglo-Indians in Tunbridge Wells or Cheltenham
still murmur to each other: “That Marabar case which broke down because
the poor girl couldn’t face giving her evidence—that was another bad case.”

When the affair was thus officially ended, Ronny, who was about to be
transferred to another part of the Province, approached Fielding with his
usual constraint and said: “I wish to thank you for the help you have given
Miss Quested. She will not of course trespass on your hospitality further;
she has as a matter of fact decided to return to England. I have just arranged
about her passage for her. I understand she would like to see you.”

“I shall go round at once.”

 On reaching the College, he found her in some upset. He learnt that the
engagement had been broken by Ronny. “Far wiser of him,” she said
pathetically. “I ought to have spoken myself, but I drifted on wondering
what would happen. I would willingly have gone on spoiling his life
through inertia—one has nothing to do, one belongs nowhere and becomes
a public nuisance without realizing it.” In order to reassure him, she added:
“I speak only of India. I am not astray in England. I fit in there—no, don’t
think I shall do harm in England. When I am forced back there, I shall settle
down to some career. I have sufficient money left to start myself, and heaps
of friends of my own type. I shall be quite all right.” Then sighing: “But oh,
the trouble I’ve brought on everyone here. . . . I can never get over it. My
carefulness as to whether we should marry or not . . . and in the end Ronny
and I part and aren’t even sorry. We ought never to have thought of
marriage. Weren’t you amazed when our engagement was originally
announced?”

“Not much. At my age one’s seldom amazed,” he said, smiling.

“Marriage is too absurd in any case. It begins and continues for such very
slight reasons. The social business props it up on one side, and the
theological business on the other, but neither of them are marriage, are
they? I’ve friends who can’t remember why they married, no more can their
wives. I suspect that it mostly happens haphazard, though afterwards
various noble reasons are invented. About marriage I am cynical.”

“I am not. This false start has been all my own fault. I was bringing to
Ronny nothing that ought to be brought, that was why he rejected me really.
I entered that cave thinking: Am I fond of him? I have not yet told you that,
Mr. Fielding. I didn’t feel justified. Tenderness, respect, personal
intercourse—I tried to make them take the place—of——”

“I no longer want love,” he said, supplying the word.

“No more do I. My experiences here have cured me. But I want others to
want it.”

“But to go back to our first talk (for I suppose this is our last one)—when
you entered that cave, who did follow you, or did no one follow you? Can
you now say? I don’t like it left in air.”
 “Let us call it the guide,” she said indifferently. “It will never be known.
It’s as if I ran my finger along that polished wall in the dark, and cannot get
further. I am up against something, and so are you. Mrs. Moore—she did
know.”

“How could she have known what we don’t?”

“Telepathy, possibly.”

The pert, meagre word fell to the ground. Telepathy? What an

explanation! Better withdraw it, and Adela did so. She was at the end of her
spiritual tether, and so was he. Were there worlds beyond which they could
never touch, or did all that is possible enter their consciousness? They could
not tell. They only realized that their outlook was more or less similar, and
found in this a satisfaction. Perhaps life is a mystery, not a muddle; they
could not tell. Perhaps the hundred Indias which fuss and squabble so
tiresomely are one, and the universe they mirror is one. They had not the
apparatus for judging.

“Write to me when you get to England.”

“I shall, often. You have been excessively kind. Now that I’m going, I
realize it. I wish I could do something for you in return, but I see you’ve all
you want.”

“I think so,” he replied after a pause. “I have never felt more happy and
secure out here. I really do get on with Indians, and they do trust me. It’s
pleasant that I haven’t had to resign my job. It’s pleasant to be praised by an
L.-G. Until the next earthquake I remain as I am.”

“Of course this death has been troubling me.”

“Aziz was so fond of her too.”

“But it has made me remember that we must all die: all these personal
relations we try to live by are temporary. I used to feel death selected
people, it is a notion one gets from novels, because some of the characters
are usually left talking at the end. Now ‘death spares no one’ begins to be
real.”

“Don’t let it become too real, or you’ll die yourself. That is the objection
to meditating upon death. We are subdued to what we work in. I have felt
the same temptation, and had to sheer off. I want to go on living a bit.”

“So do I.”

A friendliness, as of dwarfs shaking hands, was in the air. Both man and
woman were at the height of their powers—sensible, honest, even subtle.
They spoke the same language, and held the same opinions, and the variety
of age and sex did not divide them. Yet they were dissatisfied. When they
agreed, “I want to go on living a bit,” or, “I don’t believe in God,” the
words were followed by a curious backwash as though the universe had
displaced itself to fill up a tiny void, or as though they had seen their own
gestures from an immense height—dwarfs talking, shaking hands and
assuring each other that they stood on the same footing of insight. They did
not think they were wrong, because as soon as honest people think they are
wrong instability sets up. Not for them was an infinite goal behind the stars,
and they never sought it. But wistfulness descended on them now, as on
other occasions; the shadow of the shadow of a dream fell over their clear-
cut interests, and objects never seen again seemed messages from another
world.

“And I do like you so very much, if I may say so,” he affirmed.

“I’m glad, for I like you. Let’s meet again.”

“We will, in England, if I ever take home leave.”

“But I suppose you’re not likely to do that yet.”

“Quite a chance. I have a scheme on now as a matter of fact.”

“Oh, that would be very nice.”

 So it petered out. Ten days later Adela went off, by the same route as her
dead friend. The final beat up before the monsoon had come. The country
was stricken and blurred. Its houses, trees and fields were all modelled out
of the same brown paste, and the sea at Bombay slid about like broth
against the quays. Her last Indian adventure was with Antony, who
followed her on to the boat and tried to blackmail her. She had been Mr.
Fielding’s mistress, Antony said. Perhaps Antony was discontented with his
tip. She rang the cabin bell and had him turned out, but his statement
created rather a scandal, and people did not speak to her much during the
first part of the voyage. Through the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea she was
left to herself, and to the dregs of Chandrapore.

With Egypt the atmosphere altered. The clean sands, heaped on each side
of the canal, seemed to wipe off everything that was difficult and equivocal,
and even Port Said looked pure and charming in the light of a rose-grey
morning. She went on shore there with an American missionary, they
walked out to the Lesseps statue, they drank the tonic air of the Levant. “To
what duties, Miss Quested, are you returning in your own country after your
taste of the tropics?” the missionary asked.

“Observe, I don’t say to what do you turn, but to what do you re-turn.
Every life ought to contain both a turn and a re-turn. This celebrated
pioneer (he pointed to the statue) will make my question clear. He turns to
the East, he re-turns to the West. You can see it from the cute position of his
hands, one of which holds a string of sausages.” The missionary looked at
her humorously, in order to cover the emptiness of his mind. He had no idea
what he meant by “turn” and “return,” but he often used words in pairs, for
the sake of moral brightness. “I see,” she replied. Suddenly, in the
Mediterranean clarity, she had seen. Her first duty on returning to England
was to look up those other children of Mrs. Moore’s, Ralph and Stella, then
she would turn to her profession. Mrs. Moore had tended to keep the
products of her two marriages apart, and Adela had not come across the
younger branch so far.
 CHAPTER XXX

Another local consequence of the trial was a Hindu-Moslem entente.

Loud protestations of amity were exchanged by prominent citizens, and
there went with them a genuine desire for a good understanding. Aziz,
when he was at the hospital one day, received a visit from rather a
sympathetic figure: Mr. Das. The magistrate sought two favours from him:
a remedy for shingles and a poem for his brother-in-law’s new monthly
magazine. He accorded both.

“My dear Das, why, when you tried to send me to prison, should I try to
send Mr. Bhattacharya a poem? Eh? That is naturally entirely a joke. I will
write him the best I can, but I thought your magazine was for Hindus.”

“It is not for Hindus, but Indians generally,” he said timidly.

“There is no such person in existence as the general Indian.”

“There was not, but there may be when you have written a poem. You are
our hero; the whole city is behind you, irrespective of creed.”

“I know, but will it last?”

“I fear not,” said Das, who had much mental clearness. “And for that
reason, if I may say so, do not introduce too many Persian expressions into
the poem, and not too much about the bulbul.”

“Half a sec,” said Aziz, biting his pencil. He was writing out a
prescription. “Here you are. . . . Is not this better than a poem?”

“Happy the man who can compose both.”

“You are full of compliments to-day.”

 “I know you bear me a grudge for trying that case,” said the other,
stretching out his hand impulsively. “You are so kind and friendly, but
always I detect irony beneath your manner.”

“No, no, what nonsense!” protested Aziz. They shook hands, in a half-
embrace that typified the entente. Between people of distant climes there is
always the possibility of romance, but the various branches of Indians know
too much about each other to surmount the unknowable easily. The
approach is prosaic. “Excellent,” said Aziz, patting a stout shoulder and
thinking, “I wish they did not remind me of cow-dung”; Das thought,
“Some Moslems are very violent.” They smiled wistfully, each spying the
thought in the other’s heart, and Das, the more articulate, said: “Excuse my
mistakes, realize my limitations. Life is not easy as we know it on the
earth.”

“Oh, well, about this poem—how did you hear I sometimes scribbled?”
he asked, much pleased, and a good deal moved—for literature had always
been a solace to him, something that the ugliness of facts could not spoil.

“Professor Godbole often mentioned it, before his departure for Mau.”

“How did he hear?”

“He too was a poet; do you not divine each other?”

Flattered by the invitation, he got to work that evening. The feel of the
pen between his fingers generated bulbuls at once. His poem was again
about the decay of Islam and the brevity of love; as sad and sweet as he
could contrive, but not nourished by personal experience, and of no interest
to these excellent Hindus. Feeling dissatisfied, he rushed to the other
extreme, and wrote a satire, which was too libellous to print. He could only
express pathos or venom, though most of his life had no concern with
either. He loved poetry—science was merely an acquisition, which he laid
aside when unobserved like his European dress—and this evening he
longed to compose a new song which should be acclaimed by multitudes
and even sung in the fields. In what language shall it be written? And what
shall it announce? He vowed to see more of Indians who were not
Mohammedans, and never to look backward. It is the only healthy course.
Of what help, in this latitude and hour, are the glories of Cordova and
Samarcand? They have gone, and while we lament them the English occupy
Delhi and exclude us from East Africa. Islam itself, though true, throws
cross-lights over the path to freedom. The song of the future must transcend
creed.

The poem for Mr. Bhattacharya never got written, but it had an effect. It
led him towards the vague and bulky figure of a mother-land. He was
without natural affection for the land of his birth, but the Marabar Hills
drove him to it. Half closing his eyes, he attempted to love India. She must
imitate Japan. Not until she is a nation will her sons be treated with respect.
He grew harder and less approachable. The English, whom he had laughed
at or ignored, persecuted him everywhere; they had even thrown nets over
his dreams. “My great mistake has been taking our rulers as a joke,” he said
to Hamidullah next day; who replied with a sigh: “It is far the wisest way to
take them, but not possible in the long run. Sooner or later a disaster such as
yours occurs, and reveals their secret thoughts about our character. If God
himself descended from heaven into their club and said you were innocent,
they would disbelieve him. Now you see why Mahmoud Ali and self waste
so much time over intrigues and associate with creatures like Ram Chand.”

“I cannot endure committees. I shall go right away.”

“Where to? Turtons and Burtons, all are the same.”

“But not in an Indian state.”

“I believe the Politicals are obliged to have better manners. It amounts to

no more.”

“I do want to get away from British India, even to a poor job. I think I
could write poetry there. I wish I had lived in Babur’s time and fought and
written for him. Gone, gone, and not even any use to say ‘Gone, gone,’ for
it weakens us while we say it. We need a king, Hamidullah; it would make
our lives easier. As it is, we must try to appreciate these quaint Hindus. My
notion now is to try for some post as doctor in one of their states.”

“Oh, that is going much too far.”

 “It is not going as far as Mr. Ram Chand.”

“But the money, the money—they will never pay an adequate salary,
those savage Rajahs.”

“I shall never be rich anywhere, it is outside my character.”

“If you had been sensible and made Miss Quested pay——”

“I chose not to. Discussion of the past is useless,” he said, with sudden
sharpness of tone. “I have allowed her to keep her fortune and buy herself a
husband in England, for which it will be very necessary. Don’t mention the
matter again.”

“Very well, but your life must continue a poor man’s; no holidays in
Kashmir for you yet, you must stick to your profession and rise to a highly
paid post, not retire to a jungle-state and write poems. Educate your
children, read the latest scientific periodicals, compel European doctors to
respect you. Accept the consequences of your own actions like a man.”

Aziz winked at him slowly and said: “We are not in the law courts. There
are many ways of being a man; mine is to express what is deepest in my
heart.”

“To such a remark there is certainly no reply,” said Hamidullah, moved.

Recovering himself and smiling, he said: “Have you heard this naughty
rumour that Mohammed Latif has got hold of?”

“Which?”

“When Miss Quested stopped in the College, Fielding used to visit her . .
. rather too late in the evening, the servants say.”

“A pleasant change for her if he did,” said Aziz, making a curious face.

“But you understand my meaning?”

The young man winked again and said: “Just! Still, your meaning doesn’t
help me out of my difficulties. I am determined to leave Chandrapore. The
problem is, for where? I am determined to write poetry. The problem is,
about what? You give me no assistance.” Then, surprising both Hamidullah
and himself, he had an explosion of nerves. “But who does give me
assistance? No one is my friend. All are traitors, even my own children. I
have had enough of friends.”

“I was going to suggest we go behind the purdah, but your three

treacherous children are there, so you will not want to.”

“I am sorry, it is ever since I was in prison my temper is strange; take me,

forgive me.”

“Nureddin’s mother is visiting my wife now. That is all right, I think.”

“They come before me separately, but not so far together. You had better
prepare them for the united shock of my face.”

“No, let us surprise them without warning, far too much nonsense still
goes on among our ladies. They pretended at the time of your trial they
would give up purdah; indeed, those of them who can write composed a
document to that effect, and now it ends in humbug. You know how deeply
they all respect Fielding, but not one of them has seen him. My wife says
she will, but always when he calls there is some excuse—she is not feeling
well, she is ashamed of the room, she has no nice sweets to offer him, only
Elephants’ Ears, and if I say Elephants’ Ears are Mr. Fielding’s favourite
sweet, she replies that he will know how badly hers are made, so she cannot
see him on their account. For fifteen years, my dear boy, have I argued with
my begum, for fifteen years, and never gained a point, yet the missionaries
inform us our women are down-trodden. If you want a subject for a poem,
take this: The Indian lady as she is and not as she is supposed to be.”
 CHAPTER XXXI

Aziz had no sense of evidence. The sequence of his emotions decided his
beliefs, and led to the tragic coolness between himself and his English
friend. They had conquered but were not to be crowned. Fielding was away
at a conference, and after the rumour about Miss Quested had been with
him undisturbed for a few days, he assumed it was true. He had no
objection on moral grounds to his friends amusing themselves, and Cyril,
being middle-aged, could no longer expect the pick of the female market,
and must take his amusement where he could find it. But he resented him
making up to this particular woman, whom he still regarded as his enemy;
also, why had he not been told? What is friendship without confidences? He
himself had told things sometimes regarded as shocking, and the
Englishman had listened, tolerant, but surrendering nothing in return.

He met Fielding at the railway station on his return, agreed to dine with
him, and then started taxing him by the oblique method, outwardly merry.
An avowed European scandal there was—Mr. McBryde and Miss Derek.
Miss Derek’s faithful attachment to Chandrapore was now explained: Mr.
McBryde had been caught in her room, and his wife was divorcing him.
“That pure-minded fellow. However, he will blame the Indian climate.
Everything is our fault really. Now, have I not discovered an important
piece of news for you, Cyril?”

“Not very,” said Fielding, who took little interest in distant sins. “Listen
to mine.” Aziz’ face lit up. “At the conference, it was settled. . . .”

“This evening will do for schoolmastery. I should go straight to the Minto

now, the cholera looks bad. We begin to have local cases as well as
imported. In fact, the whole of life is somewhat sad. The new Civil Surgeon
is the same as the last, but does not yet dare to be. That is all any
administrative change amounts to. All my suffering has won nothing for us.
But look here, Cyril, while I remember it. There’s gossip about you as well
as McBryde. They say that you and Miss Quested became also rather too
intimate friends. To speak perfectly frankly, they say you and she have been
guilty of impropriety.”

“They would say that.”

“It’s all over the town, and may injure your reputation. You know,
everyone is by no means your supporter. I have tried all I could to silence
such a story.”

“Don’t bother. Miss Quested has cleared out at last.”

“It is those who stop in the country, not those who leave it, whom such a
story injures. Imagine my dismay and anxiety. I could scarcely get a wink
of sleep. First my name was coupled with her and now it is yours.”

“Don’t use such exaggerated phrases.”

“As what?”

“As dismay and anxiety.”

“Have I not lived all my life in India? Do I not know what produces a
bad impression here?” His voice shot up rather crossly.

“Yes, but the scale, the scale. You always get the scale wrong, my dear
fellow. A pity there is this rumour, but such a very small pity—so small that
we may as well talk of something else.”

“You mind for Miss Quested’s sake, though. I can see from your face.”

“As far as I do mind. I travel light.”

“Cyril, that boastfulness about travelling light will be your ruin. It is

raising up enemies against you on all sides, and makes me feel excessively
uneasy.”

“What enemies?”
 Since Aziz had only himself in mind, he could not reply. Feeling a fool,
he became angrier. “I have given you list after list of the people who cannot
be trusted in this city. In your position I should have the sense to know I
was surrounded by enemies. You observe I speak in a low voice. It is
because I see your sais is new. How do I know he isn’t a spy?” He lowered
his voice: “Every third servant is a spy.”

“Now, what is the matter?” he asked, smiling.

“Do you contradict my last remark?”

“It simply doesn’t affect me. Spies are as thick as mosquitoes, but it’s
years before I shall meet the one that kills me. You’ve something else in
your mind.”

“I’ve not; don’t be ridiculous.”

“You have. You’re cross with me about something or other.”

Any direct attack threw him out of action. Presently he said: “So you and
Madamsell Adela used to amuse one another in the evening, naughty boy.”

Those drab and high-minded talks had scarcely made for dalliance.
Fielding was so startled at the story being taken seriously, and so disliked
being called a naughty boy, that he lost his head and cried: “You little rotter!
Well, I’m damned. Amusement indeed. Is it likely at such a time?”

“Oh, I beg your pardon, I’m sure. The licentious Oriental imagination
was at work,” he replied, speaking gaily, but cut to the heart; for hours after
his mistake he bled inwardly.

“You see, Aziz, the circumstances . . . also the girl was still engaged to
Heaslop, also I never felt . . .”

“Yes, yes; but you didn’t contradict what I said, so I thought it was true.
Oh dear, East and West. Most misleading. Will you please put your little
rotter down at his hospital?”

“You’re not offended?”

 “Most certainly I am not.”

“If you are, this must be cleared up later on.”

“It has been,” he answered, dignified. “I believe absolutely what you say,
and of that there need be no further question.”

“But the way I said it must be cleared up. I was unintentionally rude.
Unreserved regrets.”

“The fault is entirely mine.”

Tangles like this still interrupted their intercourse. A pause in the wrong
place, an intonation misunderstood, and a whole conversation went awry.
Fielding had been startled, not shocked, but how convey the difference?
There is always trouble when two people do not think of sex at the same
moment, always mutual resentment and surprise, even when the two people
are of the same race. He began to recapitulate his feelings about Miss
Quested. Aziz cut him short with: “But I believe you, I believe. Mohammed
Latif shall be severely punished for inventing this.”

“Oh, leave it alone, like all gossip—it’s merely one of those half-alive
things that try to crowd out real life. Take no notice, it’ll vanish, like poor
old Mrs. Moore’s tombs.”

“Mohammed Latif has taken to intriguing. We are already much

displeased with him. Will it satisfy you if we send him back to his family
without a present?”

“We’ll discuss M.L. at dinner.”

His eyes went clotted and hard. “Dinner. This is most unlucky—— I
forgot. I have promised to dine with Das.”

“Bring Das to me.”

“He will have invited other friends.”

 “You are coming to dinner with me as arranged,” said Fielding, looking
away. “I don’t stand this. You are coming to dinner with me. You come.”

They had reached the hospital now. Fielding continued round the Maidan
alone. He was annoyed with himself, but counted on dinner to pull things
straight. At the post office he saw the Collector. Their vehicles were parked
side by side while their servants competed in the interior of the building.
“Good morning; so you are back,” said Turton icily. “I should be glad if you
will put in your appearance at the club this evening.”

“I have accepted re-election, sir. Do you regard it as necessary I should

come? I should be glad to be excused; indeed, I have a dinner engagement
this evening.”

“It is not a question of your feelings, but of the wish of the Lieutenant-
Governor. Perhaps you will ask me whether I speak officially. I do. I shall
expect you this evening at six. We shall not interfere with your subsequent
plans.”

He attended the grim little function in due course. The skeletons of

hospitality rattled—“Have a peg, have a drink.” He talked for five minutes
to Mrs. Blakiston, who was the only surviving female. He talked to
McBryde, who was defiant about his divorce, conscious that he had sinned
as a sahib. He talked to Major Roberts, the new Civil Surgeon; and to young
Milner, the new City Magistrate; but the more the club changed, the more it
promised to be the same thing. “It is no good,” he thought, as he returned
past the mosque, “we all build upon sand; and the more modern the country
gets, the worse’ll be the crash. In the old eighteenth century, when cruelty
and injustice raged, an invisible power repaired their ravages. Everything
echoes now; there’s no stopping the echo. The original sound may be
harmless, but the echo is always evil.” This reflection about an echo lay at
the verge of Fielding’s mind. He could never develop it. It belonged to the
universe that he had missed or rejected. And the mosque missed it too. Like
himself, those shallow arcades provided but a limited asylum. “There is no
God but God” doesn’t carry us far through the complexities of matter and
spirit; it is only a game with words, really, a religious pun, not a religious
truth.
 He found Aziz overtired and dispirited, and he determined not to allude
to their misunderstanding until the end of the evening; it would be more
acceptable then. He made a clean breast about the club—said he had only
gone under compulsion, and should never attend again unless the order was
renewed. “In other words, probably never; for I am going quite soon to
England.”

“I thought you might end in England,” he said very quietly, then changed
the conversation. Rather awkwardly they ate their dinner, then went out to
sit in the Mogul garden-house.

“I am only going for a little time. On official business. My service is

anxious to get me away from Chandrapore for a bit. It is obliged to value
me highly, but does not care for me. The situation is somewhat humorous.”

“What is the nature of the business? Will it leave you much spare time?”

“Enough to see my friends.”

“I expected you to make such a reply. You are a faithful friend. Shall we
now talk about something else?”

“Willingly. What subject?”

“Poetry,” he said, with tears in his eyes. “Let us discuss why poetry has
lost the power of making men brave. My mother’s father was also a poet,
and fought against you in the Mutiny. I might equal him if there was
another mutiny. As it is, I am a doctor, who has won a case and has three
children to support, and whose chief subject of conversation is official
plans.”

“Let us talk about poetry.” He turned his mind to the innocuous subject.
“You people are sadly circumstanced. Whatever are you to write about?
You cannot say, ‘The rose is faded,’ for evermore. We know it’s faded. Yet
you can’t have patriotic poetry of the ‘India, my India’ type, when it’s
nobody’s India.”

“I like this conversation. It may lead to something interesting.”

 “You are quite right in thinking that poetry must touch life. When I knew
you first, you used it as an incantation.”

“I was a child when you knew me first. Everyone was my friend then.
The Friend: a Persian expression for God. But I do not want to be a
religious poet either.”

“I hoped you would be.”

“Why, when you yourself are an atheist?”

“There is something in religion that may not be true, but has not yet been
sung.”

“Explain in detail.”

“Something that the Hindus have perhaps found.”

“Let them sing it.”

“Hindus are unable to sing.”

“Cyril, you sometimes make a sensible remark. That will do for poetry
for the present. Let us now return to your English visit.”

“We haven’t discussed poetry for two seconds,” said the other, smiling.

But Aziz was addicted to cameos. He held the tiny conversation in his
hand, and felt it epitomized his problem. For an instant he recalled his wife,
and, as happens when a memory is intense, the past became the future, and
he saw her with him in a quiet Hindu jungle native state, far away from
foreigners. He said: “I suppose you will visit Miss Quested.”

“If I have time. It will be strange seeing her in Hampstead.”

“What is Hampstead?”

“An artistic and thoughtful little suburb of London——”

 “And there she lives in comfort: you will enjoy seeing her. . . . Dear me,
I’ve got a headache this evening. Perhaps I am going to have cholera. With
your permission, I’ll leave early.”

“When would you like the carriage?”

“Don’t trouble—I’ll bike.”

“But you haven’t got your bicycle. My carriage fetched you—let it take
you away.”

“Sound reasoning,” he said, trying to be gay. “I have not got my bicycle.

But I am seen too often in your carriage. I am thought to take advantage of
your generosity by Mr. Ram Chand.” He was out of sorts and uneasy. The
conversation jumped from topic to topic in a broken-backed fashion. They
were affectionate and intimate, but nothing clicked tight.

“Aziz, you have forgiven me the stupid remark I made this morning?”

“When you called me a little rotter?”

“Yes, to my eternal confusion. You know how fond I am of you.”

“That is nothing, of course, we all of us make mistakes. In a friendship

such as ours a few slips are of no consequence.”

But as he drove off, something depressed him—a dull pain of body or

mind, waiting to rise to the surface. When he reached the bungalow he
wanted to return and say something very affectionate; instead, he gave the
sais a heavy tip, and sat down gloomily on the bed, and Hassan massaged
him incompetently. The eye-flies had colonized the top of an almeira; the
red stains on the durry were thicker, for Mohammed Latif had slept here
during his imprisonment and spat a good deal; the table drawer was scarred
where the police had forced it open; everything in Chandrapore was used
up, including the air. The trouble rose to the surface now: he was
suspicious; he suspected his friend of intending to marry Miss Quested for
the sake of her money, and of going to England for that purpose.
 “Huzoor?”—for he had muttered.

“Look at those flies on the ceiling. Why have you not drowned them?”

“Huzoor, they return.”

“Like all evil things.”

To divert the conversation, Hassan related how the kitchen-boy had killed
a snake, good, but killed it by cutting it in two, bad, because it becomes two
snakes.

“When he breaks a plate, does it become two plates?”

“Glasses and a new teapot will similarly be required, also for myself a
coat.”

Aziz sighed. Each for himself. One man needs a coat, another a rich wife;
each approaches his goal by a clever detour. Fielding had saved the girl a
fine of twenty thousand rupees, and now followed her to England. If he
desired to marry her, all was explained; she would bring him a larger dowry.
Aziz did not believe his own suspicions—better if he had, for then he would
have denounced and cleared the situation up. Suspicion and belief could in
his mind exist side by side. They sprang from different sources, and need
never intermingle. Suspicion in the Oriental is a sort of malignant tumour, a
mental malady, that makes him self-conscious and unfriendly suddenly; he
trusts and mistrusts at the same time in a way the Westerner cannot
comprehend. It is his demon, as the Westerner’s is hypocrisy. Aziz was
seized by it, and his fancy built a satanic castle, of which the foundation had
been laid when he talked at Dilkusha under the stars. The girl had surely
been Cyril’s mistress when she stopped in the College—Mohammed Latif
was right. But was that all? Perhaps it was Cyril who followed her into the
cave. . . . No; impossible. Cyril hadn’t been on the Kawa Dol at all.
Impossible. Ridiculous. Yet the fancy left him trembling with misery. Such
treachery—if true—would have been the worst in Indian history; nothing so
vile, not even the murder of Afzul Khan by Sivaji. He was shaken, as
though by a truth, and told Hassan to leave him.
 Next day he decided to take his children back to Mussoorie. They had
come down for the trial, that he might bid them farewell, and had stayed on
at Hamidullah’s for the rejoicings. Major Roberts would give him leave,
and during his absence Fielding would go off to England. The idea suited
both his beliefs and his suspicions. Events would prove which was right,
and preserve, in either case, his dignity.

Fielding was conscious of something hostile, and because he was really

fond of Aziz his optimism failed him. Travelling light is less easy as soon
as affection is involved. Unable to jog forward in the serene hope that all
would come right, he wrote an elaborate letter in the rather modern style:
“It is on my mind that you think me a prude about women. I had rather you
thought anything else of me. If I live impeccably now, it is only because I
am well on the forties—a period of revision. In the eighties I shall revise
again. And before the nineties come—I shall be revised! But, alive or dead,
I am absolutely devoid of morals. Do kindly grasp this about me.” Aziz did
not care for the letter at all. It hurt his delicacy. He liked confidences,
however gross, but generalizations and comparisons always repelled him.
Life is not a scientific manual. He replied coldly, regretting his inability to
return from Mussoorie before his friend sailed: “But I must take my poor
little holiday while I can. All must be economy henceforward, all hopes of
Kashmir have vanished for ever and ever. When you return I shall be
slaving far away in some new post.”

And Fielding went, and in the last gutterings of Chandrapore—heaven

and earth both looking like toffee—the Indian’s bad fancies were
confirmed. His friends encouraged them, for though they had liked the
Principal, they felt uneasy at his getting to know so much about their
private affairs. Mahmoud Ali soon declared that treachery was afoot.
Hamidullah murmured, “Certainly of late he no longer addressed us with
his former frankness,” and warned Aziz “not to expect too much—he and
she are, after all, both members of another race.” “Where are my twenty
thousand rupees?” he thought. He was absolutely indifferent to money—not
merely generous with it, but promptly paying his debts when he could
remember to do so—yet these rupees haunted his mind, because he had
been tricked about them, and allowed them to escape overseas, like so much
of the wealth of India. Cyril would marry Miss Quested—he grew certain of
it, all the unexplained residue of the Marabar contributing. It was the
natural conclusion of the horrible senseless picnic, and before long he
persuaded himself that the wedding had actually taken place.
 CHAPTER XXXII

Egypt was charming—a green strip of carpet and walking up and down it
four sorts of animals and one sort of man. Fielding’s business took him
there for a few days. He re-embarked at Alexandria—bright blue sky,
constant wind, clean low coast-line, as against the intricacies of Bombay.
Crete welcomed him next with the long snowy ridge of its mountains, and
then came Venice. As he landed on the piazzetta a cup of beauty was lifted
to his lips, and he drank with a sense of disloyalty. The buildings of Venice,
like the mountains of Crete and the fields of Egypt, stood in the right place,
whereas in poor India everything was placed wrong. He had forgotten the
beauty of form among idol temples and lumpy hills; indeed, without form,
how can there be beauty? Form stammered here and there in a mosque,
became rigid through nervousness even, but oh these Italian churches! San
Giorgio standing on the island which could scarcely have risen from the
waves without it, the Salute holding the entrance of a canal which, but for
it, would not be the Grand Canal! In the old undergraduate days he had
wrapped himself up in the many-coloured blanket of St. Mark’s, but
something more precious than mosaics and marbles was offered to him
now: the harmony between the works of man and the earth that upholds
them, the civilization that has escaped muddle, the spirit in a reasonable
form, with flesh and blood subsisting. Writing picture post-cards to his
Indian friends, he felt that all of them would miss the joys he experienced
now, the joys of form, and that this constituted a serious barrier. They
would see the sumptuousness of Venice, not its shape, and though Venice
was not Europe, it was part of the Mediterranean harmony. The
Mediterranean is the human norm. When men leave that exquisite lake,
whether through the Bosphorus or the Pillars of Hercules, they approach the
monstrous and extraordinary; and the southern exit leads to the strangest
experience of all. Turning his back on it yet again, he took the train
northward, and tender romantic fancies that he thought were dead for ever,
flowered when he saw the buttercups and daisies of June.
PART III: TEMPLE
 CHAPTER XXXIII

Some hundreds of miles westward of the Marabar Hills, and two years
later in time, Professor Narayan Godbole stands in the presence of God.
God is not born yet—that will occur at midnight—but He has also been
born centuries ago, nor can He ever be born, because He is the Lord of the
Universe, who transcends human processes. He is, was not, is not, was. He
and Professor Godbole stood at opposite ends of the same strip of carpet.

“Tukaram, Tukaram,
Thou art my father and mother and everybody.
Tukaram, Tukaram,
Thou art my father and mother and everybody.
Tukaram, Tukaram,
Thou art my father and mother and everybody.
Tukaram, Tukaram,
Thou art my father and mother and everybody.
Tukaram. . . .”

This corridor in the palace at Mau opened through other corridors into a
courtyard. It was of beautiful hard white stucco, but its pillars and vaulting
could scarcely be seen behind coloured rags, iridescent balls, chandeliers of
opaque pink glass, and murky photographs framed crookedly. At the end
was the small but famous shrine of the dynastic cult, and the God to be born
was largely a silver image the size of a teaspoon. Hindus sat on either side
of the carpet where they could find room, or overflowed into the adjoining
corridors and the courtyard—Hindus, Hindus only, mild-featured men,
mostly villagers, for whom anything outside their villages passed in a
dream. They were the toiling ryot, whom some call the real India. Mixed
with them sat a few tradesmen out of the little town, officials, courtiers,
scions of the ruling house. Schoolboys kept inefficient order. The assembly
was in a tender, happy state unknown to an English crowd, it seethed like a
beneficent potion. When the villagers broke cordon for a glimpse of the
silver image, a most beautiful and radiant expression came into their faces,
a beauty in which there was nothing personal, for it caused them all to
resemble one another during the moment of its indwelling, and only when it
was withdrawn did they revert to individual clods. And so with the music.
Music there was, but from so many sources that the sum-total was
untrammelled. The braying banging crooning melted into a single mass
which trailed round the palace before joining the thunder. Rain fell at
intervals throughout the night.

It was the turn of Professor Godbole’s choir. As Minister of Education,

he gained this special honour. When the previous group of singers dispersed
into the crowd, he pressed forward from the back, already in full voice, that
the chain of sacred sounds might be uninterrupted. He was barefoot and in
white, he wore a pale blue turban; his gold pince-nez had caught in a
jasmine garland, and lay sideways down his nose. He and the six colleagues
who supported him clashed their cymbals, hit small drums, droned upon a
portable harmonium, and sang:

“Tukaram, Tukaram,
Thou art my father and mother and everybody.
Tukaram, Tukaram,
Thou art my father and mother and everybody.
Tukaram, Tukaram. . . .”

They sang not even to the God who confronted them, but to a saint; they
did not one thing which the non-Hindu would feel dramatically correct; this
approaching triumph of India was a muddle (as we call it), a frustration of
reason and form. Where was the God Himself, in whose honour the
congregation had gathered? Indistinguishable in the jumble of His own
altar, huddled out of sight amid images of inferior descent, smothered under
rose-leaves, overhung by oleographs, outblazed by golden tablets
representing the Rajah’s ancestors, and entirely obscured, when the wind
blew, by the tattered foliage of a banana. Hundreds of electric lights had
been lit in His honour (worked by an engine whose thumps destroyed the
rhythm of the hymn). Yet His face could not be seen. Hundreds of His silver
dishes were piled around Him with the minimum of effect. The inscriptions
which the poets of the State had composed were hung where they could not
be read, or had twitched their drawing-pins out of the stucco, and one of
them (composed in English to indicate His universality) consisted, by an
unfortunate slip of the draughtsman, of the words, “God si Love.”

God si Love. Is this the first message of India?

“Tukaram, Tukaram . . .,”

continued the choir, reinforced by a squabble behind the purdah curtain,

where two mothers tried to push their children at the same moment to the
front. A little girl’s leg shot out like an eel. In the courtyard, drenched by
the rain, the small Europeanized band stumbled off into a waltz. “Nights of
Gladness” they were playing. The singers were not perturbed by this rival,
they lived beyond competition. It was long before the tiny fragment of
Professor Godbole that attended to outside things decided that his pince-nez
was in trouble, and that until it was adjusted he could not choose a new
hymn. He laid down one cymbal, with the other he clashed the air, with his
free hand he fumbled at the flowers round his neck. A colleague assisted
him. Singing into one another’s grey moustaches, they disentangled the
chain from the tinsel into which it had sunk. Godbole consulted the music-
book, said a word to the drummer, who broke rhythm, made a thick little
blur of sound, and produced a new rhythm. This was more exciting, the
inner images it evoked more definite, and the singers’ expressions became
fatuous and languid. They loved all men, the whole universe, and scraps of
their past, tiny splinters of detail, emerged for a moment to melt into the
universal warmth. Thus Godbole, though she was not important to him,
remembered an old woman he had met in Chandrapore days. Chance
brought her into his mind while it was in this heated state, he did not select
her, she happened to occur among the throng of soliciting images, a tiny
splinter, and he impelled her by his spiritual force to that place where
completeness can be found. Completeness, not reconstruction. His senses
grew thinner, he remembered a wasp seen he forgot where, perhaps on a
stone. He loved the wasp equally, he impelled it likewise, he was imitating
God. And the stone where the wasp clung—could he . . . no, he could not,
he had been wrong to attempt the stone, logic and conscious effort had
seduced, he came back to the strip of red carpet and discovered that he was
dancing upon it. Up and down, a third of the way to the altar and back
again, clashing his cymbals, his little legs twinkling, his companions
dancing with him and each other. Noise, noise, the Europeanized band
louder, incense on the altar, sweat, the blaze of lights, wind in the bananas,
noise, thunder, eleven-fifty by his wrist-watch, seen as he threw up his
hands and detached the tiny reverberation that was his soul. Louder shouts
in the crowd. He danced on. The boys and men who were squatting in the
aisles were lifted forcibly and dropped without changing their shapes into
the laps of their neighbours. Down the path thus cleared advanced a litter. It
was the aged ruler of the state, brought against the advice of his physicians
to witness the Birth ceremony.

No one greeted the Rajah, nor did he wish it; this was no moment for
human glory. Nor could the litter be set down, lest it defiled the temple by
becoming a throne. He was lifted out of it while its feet remained in air, and
deposited on the carpet close to the altar, his immense beard was
straightened, his legs tucked under him, a paper containing red powder was
placed in his hand. There he sat, leaning against a pillar, exhausted with
illness, his eyes magnified by many unshed tears.

He had not to wait long. In a land where all else was unpunctual, the hour
of the Birth was chronometrically observed. Three minutes before it was
due, a Brahman brought forth a model of the village of Gokul (the
Bethlehem in that nebulous story) and placed it in front of the altar. The
model was on a wooden tray about a yard square; it was of clay, and was
gaily blue and white with streamers and paint. Here, upon a chair too small
for him and with a head too large, sat King Kansa, who is Herod, directing
the murder of some Innocents, and in a corner, similarly proportioned, stood
the father and mother of the Lord, warned to depart in a dream. The model
was not holy, but more than a decoration, for it diverted men from the
actual image of the God, and increased their sacred bewilderment. Some of
the villagers thought the Birth had occurred, saying with truth that the Lord
must have been born, or they could not see Him. But the clock struck
midnight, and simultaneously the rending note of the conch broke forth,
followed by the trumpeting of elephants; all who had packets of powder
threw them at the altar, and in the rosy dust and incense, and clanging and
shouts, Infinite Love took upon itself the form of S K , and saved
the world. All sorrow was annihilated, not only for Indians, but for
foreigners, birds, caves, railways, and the stars; all became joy, all laughter;
there had never been disease nor doubt, misunderstanding, cruelty, fear.
Some jumped in the air, others flung themselves prone and embraced the
bare feet of the universal lover; the women behind the purdah slapped and
shrieked; the little girl slipped out and danced by herself, her black pigtails
flying. Not an orgy of the body; the tradition of that shrine forbade it. But
the human spirit had tried by a desperate contortion to ravish the unknown,
flinging down science and history in the struggle, yes, beauty herself. Did it
succeed? Books written afterwards say “Yes.” But how, if there is such an
event, can it be remembered afterwards? How can it be expressed in
anything but itself? Not only from the unbeliever are mysteries hid, but the
adept himself cannot retain them. He may think, if he chooses, that he has
been with God, but as soon as he thinks it, it becomes history, and falls
under the rules of time.

A cobra of papier-mâché now appeared on the carpet, also a wooden

cradle swinging from a frame. Professor Godbole approached the latter with
a red silk napkin in his arms. The napkin was God, not that it was, and the
image remained in the blur of the altar. It was just a napkin, folded into a
shape which indicated a baby’s. The Professor dandled it and gave it to the
Rajah, who, making a great effort, said, “I name this child Shri Krishna,”
and tumbled it into the cradle. Tears poured from his eyes, because he had
seen the Lord’s salvation. He was too weak to exhibit the silk baby to his
people, his privilege in former years. His attendants lifted him up, a new
path was cleared through the crowd, and he was carried away to a less
sacred part of the palace. There, in a room accessible to Western science by
an outer staircase, his physician, Dr. Aziz, awaited him. His Hindu
physician, who had accompanied him to the shrine, briefly reported his
symptoms. As the ecstasy receded, the invalid grew fretful. The bumping of
the steam engine that worked the dynamo disturbed him, and he asked for
what reason it had been introduced into his home. They replied that they
would enquire, and administered a sedative.

Down in the sacred corridors, joy had seethed to jollity. It was their duty
to play various games to amuse the newly born God, and to simulate his
sports with the wanton dairymaids of Brindaban. Butter played a prominent
part in these. When the cradle had been removed, the principal nobles of the
state gathered together for an innocent frolic. They removed their turbans,
and one put a lump of butter on his forehead, and waited for it to slide down
his nose into his mouth. Before it could arrive, another stole up behind him,
snatched the melting morsel, and swallowed it himself. All laughed
exultantly at discovering that the divine sense of humour coincided with
their own. “God si love!” There is fun in heaven. God can play practical
jokes upon Himself, draw chairs away from beneath His own posteriors, set
His own turbans on fire, and steal His own petticoats when He bathes. By
sacrificing good taste, this worship achieved what Christianity has shirked:
the inclusion of merriment. All spirit as well as all matter must participate
in salvation, and if practical jokes are banned, the circle is incomplete.
Having swallowed the butter, they played another game which chanced to
be graceful: the fondling of Shri Krishna under the similitude of a child. A
pretty red and gold ball is thrown, and he who catches it chooses a child
from the crowd, raises it in his arms, and carries it round to be caressed. All
stroke the darling creature for the Creator’s sake, and murmur happy words.
The child is restored to his parents, the ball thrown on, and another child
becomes for a moment the World’s Desire. And the Lord bounds hither and
thither through the aisles, chance, and the sport of chance, irradiating little
mortals with His immortality. . . . When they had played this long enough—
and being exempt from boredom, they played it again and again, they
played it again and again—they took many sticks and hit them together,
whack smack, as though they fought the Pandava wars, and threshed and
churned with them, and later on they hung from the roof of the temple, in a
net, a great black earthenware jar, which was painted here and there with
red, and wreathed with dried figs. Now came a rousing sport. Springing up,
they struck at the jar with their sticks. It cracked, broke, and a mass of
greasy rice and milk poured on to their faces. They ate and smeared one
another’s mouths, and dived between each other’s legs for what had been
pashed upon the carpet. This way and that spread the divine mess, until the
line of schoolboys, who had somewhat fended off the crowd, broke for their
share. The corridors, the courtyard, were filled with benign confusion. Also
the flies awoke and claimed their share of God’s bounty. There was no
quarrelling, owing to the nature of the gift, for blessed is the man who
confers it on another, he imitates God. And those “imitations,” those
“substitutions,” continued to flicker through the assembly for many hours,
awaking in each man, according to his capacity, an emotion that he would
not have had otherwise. No definite image survived; at the Birth it was
questionable whether a silver doll or a mud village, or a silk napkin, or an
intangible spirit, or a pious resolution, had been born. Perhaps all these
things! Perhaps none! Perhaps all birth is an allegory! Still, it was the main
event of the religious year. It caused strange thoughts. Covered with grease
and dust, Professor Godbole had once more developed the life of his spirit.
He had, with increasing vividness, again seen Mrs. Moore, and round her
faintly clinging forms of trouble. He was a Brahman, she Christian, but it
made no difference, it made no difference whether she was a trick of his
memory or a telepathic appeal. It was his duty, as it was his desire, to place
himself in the position of the God and to love her, and to place himself in
her position and to say to the God, “Come, come, come, come.” This was
all he could do. How inadequate! But each according to his own capacities,
and he knew that his own were small. “One old Englishwoman and one
little, little wasp,” he thought, as he stepped out of the temple into the grey
of a pouring wet morning. “It does not seem much, still it is more than I am
myself.”
 CHAPTER XXXIV

Dr. Aziz left the palace at the same time. As he returned to his house—
which stood in a pleasant garden further up the main street of the town—he
could see his old patron paddling and capering in the slush ahead. “Hullo!”
he called, and it was the wrong remark, for the devotee indicated by circular
gestures of his arms that he did not desire to be disturbed. He added,
“Sorry,” which was right, for Godbole twisted his head till it didn’t belong
to his body, and said in a strained voice that had no connection with his
mind: “He arrived at the European Guest House perhaps—at least
possibly.”

“Did he? Since when?”

But time was too definite. He waved his arm more dimly and
disappeared. Aziz knew who “he” was—Fielding—but he refused to think
about him, because it disturbed his life, and he still trusted the floods to
prevent him from arriving. A fine little river issued from his garden gate
and gave him much hope. It was impossible that anyone could get across
from Deora in such weather as this. Fielding’s visit was official. He had
been transferred from Chandrapore, and sent on a tour through Central
India to see what the remoter states were doing with regard to English
education. He had married, he had done the expected with Miss Quested,
and Aziz had no wish to see him again.

“Dear old Godbole,” he thought, and smiled. He had no religious

curiosity, and had never discovered the meaning of this annual antic, but he
was well assured that Godbole was a dear old man. He had come to Mau
through him and remained on his account. Without him he could never have
grasped problems so totally different from those of Chandrapore. For here
the cleavage was between Brahman and non-Brahman; Moslems and
English were quite out of the running, and sometimes not mentioned for
days. Since Godbole was a Brahman, Aziz was one also for purposes of
intrigue: they would often joke about it together. The fissures in the Indian
soil are infinite: Hinduism, so solid from a distance, is riven into sects and
clans, which radiate and join, and change their names according to the
aspect from which they are approached. Study it for years with the best
teachers, and when you raise your head, nothing they have told you quite
fits. Aziz, the day of his inauguration, had remarked: “I study nothing, I
respect”—making an excellent impression. There was now a minimum of
prejudice against him. Nominally under a Hindu doctor, he was really chief
medicine man to the court. He had to drop inoculation and such Western
whims, but even at Chandrapore his profession had been a game, centring
round the operating table, and here in the backwoods he let his instruments
rust, ran his little hospital at half steam, and caused no undue alarm.

His impulse to escape from the English was sound. They had frightened
him permanently, and there are only two reactions against fright: to kick
and scream on committees, or to retreat to a remote jungle, where the sahib
seldom comes. His old lawyer friends wanted him to stop in British India
and help agitate, and might have prevailed, but for the treachery of Fielding.
The news had not surprised him in the least. A rift had opened between
them after the trial when Cyril had not joined in his procession; those
advocacies of the girl had increased it; then came the post-cards from
Venice, so cold, so unfriendly that all agreed that something was wrong;
and finally, after a silence, the expected letter from Hampstead. Mahmoud
Ali was with him at the time. “Some news that will surprise you. I am to
marry someone whom you know. . .” He did not read further. “Here it
comes, answer for me——” and he threw it to Mahmoud Ali. Subsequent
letters he destroyed unopened. It was the end of a foolish experiment. And
though sometimes at the back of his mind he felt that Fielding had made
sacrifices for him, it was now all confused with his genuine hatred of the
English. “I am an Indian at last,” he thought, standing motionless in the
rain.

Life passed pleasantly, the climate was healthy so that the children could
be with him all the year round, and he had married again—not exactly a
marriage, but he liked to regard it as one—and he read his Persian, wrote
his poetry, had his horse, and sometimes got some shikar while the good
Hindus looked the other way. His poems were all on one topic—Oriental
womanhood. “The purdah must go,” was their burden, “otherwise we shall
never be free.” And he declared (fantastically) that India would not have
been conquered if women as well as men had fought at Plassy. “But we do
not show our women to the foreigner”—not explaining how this was to be
managed, for he was writing a poem. Bulbuls and roses would still persist,
the pathos of defeated Islam remained in his blood and could not be
expelled by modernities. Illogical poems—like their writer. Yet they struck
a true note: there cannot be a mother-land without new homes. In one poem
—the only one funny old Godbole liked—he had skipped over the mother-
land (whom he did not truly love) and gone straight to internationality. “Ah,
that is bhakti; ah, my young friend, that is different and very good. Ah,
India, who seems not to move, will go straight there while the other nations
waste their time. May I translate this particular one into Hindi? In fact, it
might be rendered into Sanskrit almost, it is so enlightened. Yes, of course,
all your other poems are very good too. His Highness was saying to Colonel
Maggs last time he came that we are proud of you”—simpering slightly.

Colonel Maggs was the Political Agent for the neighbourhood and Aziz’
dejected opponent. The Criminal Investigation Department kept an eye on
Aziz ever since the trial—they had nothing actionable against him, but
Indians who have been unfortunate must be watched, and to the end of his
life he remained under observation, thanks to Miss Quested’s mistake.
Colonel Maggs learnt with concern that a suspect was coming to Mau, and,
adopting a playful manner, rallied the old Rajah for permitting a Moslem
doctor to approach his sacred person. A few years ago, the Rajah would
have taken the hint, for the Political Agent then had been a formidable
figure, descending with all the thunders of Empire when it was most
inconvenient, turning the polity inside out, requiring motor-cars and tiger-
hunts, trees cut down that impeded the view from the Guest House, cows
milked in his presence, and generally arrogating the control of internal
affairs. But there had been a change of policy in high quarters. Local
thunders were no longer endorsed, and the group of little states that
composed the agency discovered this and began comparing notes with
fruitful result. To see how much, or how little, Colonel Maggs would stand,
became an agreeable game at Mau, which was played by all the
departments of State. He had to stand the appointment of Dr. Aziz. The
Rajah did not take the hint, but replied that Hindus were less exclusive than
formerly, thanks to the enlightened commands of the Viceroy, and he felt it
his duty to move with the times.

Yes, all had gone well hitherto, but now, when the rest of the state was
plunged in its festival, he had a crisis of a very different sort. A note
awaited him at his house. There was no doubt that Fielding had arrived
overnight, nor much doubt that Godbole knew of his arrival, for the note
was addressed to him, and he had read it before sending it on to Aziz, and
had written in the margin, “Is not this delightful news, but unfortunately my
religious duties prevent me from taking any action.” Fielding announced
that he had inspected Mudkul (Miss Derek’s former preserve), that he had
nearly been drowned at Deora, that he had reached Mau according to time-
table, and hoped to remain there two days, studying the various educational
innovations of his old friend. Nor had he come alone. His wife and her
brother accompanied him. And then the note turned into the sort of note that
always did arrive from the State Guest House. Wanting something. No eggs.
Mosquito nets torn. When would they pay their respects to His Highness?
Was it correct that a torchlight procession would take place? If so, might
they view it? They didn’t want to give trouble, but if they might stand in a
balcony, or if they might go out in a boat. . . . Aziz tore the note up. He had
had enough of showing Miss Quested native life. Treacherous hideous
harridan! Bad people altogether. He hoped to avoid them, though this might
be difficult, for they would certainly be held up for several days at Mau.
Down country, the floods were even worse, and the pale grey faces of lakes
had appeared in the direction of the Asirgarh railway station.
 CHAPTER XXXV

Long before he discovered Mau, another young Mohammedan had

retired there—a saint. His mother said to him, “Free prisoners.” So he took
a sword and went up to the fort. He unlocked a door, and the prisoners
streamed out and resumed their previous occupations, but the police were
too much annoyed and cut off the young man’s head. Ignoring its absence,
he made his way over the rocks that separate the fort and the town, killing
policemen as he went, and he fell outside his mother’s house, having
accomplished her orders. Consequently there are two shrines to him to-day
—that of the Head above, and that of the Body below—and they are
worshipped by the few Mohammedans who live near, and by Hindus also.
“There is no God but God”; that symmetrical injunction melts in the mild
airs of Mau; it belongs to pilgrimages and universities, not to feudalism and
agriculture. When Aziz arrived, and found that even Islam was idolatrous,
he grew scornful, and longed to purify the place, like Alamgir. But soon he
didn’t mind, like Akbar. After all, this saint had freed prisoners, and he
himself had lain in prison. The Shrine of the Body lay in his own garden
and produced a weekly crop of lamps and flowers, and when he saw them
he recalled his sufferings. The Shrine of the Head made a nice short walk
for the children. He was off duty the morning after the great pujah, and he
told them to come. Jemila held his hand. Ahmed and Karim ran in front,
arguing what the body looked like as it came staggering down, and whether
they would have been frightened if they met it. He didn’t want them to
grow up superstitious, so he rebuked them, and they answered yes father,
for they were well brought up, but, like himself, they were impervious to
argument, and after a polite pause they continued saying what their natures
compelled them to say.

A slim, tall eight-sided building stood at the top of the slope, among
some bushes. This was the Shrine of the Head. It had not been roofed, and
was indeed merely a screen. Inside it crouched a humble dome, and inside
that, visible through a grille, was a truncated gravestone, swathed in calico.
The inner angles of the screen were cumbered with bees’ nests, and a gentle
shower of broken wings and other aerial oddments kept falling, and had
strewn the damp pavement with their flue. Ahmed, apprized by Mohammed
Latif of the character of the bee, said, “They will not hurt us, whose lives
are chaste,” and pushed boldly in; his sister was more cautious. From the
shrine they went to a mosque, which, in size and design, resembled a fire-
screen; the arcades of Chandrapore had shrunk to a flat piece of ornamental
stucco, with protuberances at either end to suggest minarets. The funny
little thing didn’t even stand straight, for the rock on which it had been put
was slipping down the hill. It, and the shrine, were a strange outcome of the
protests of Arabia.

They wandered over the old fort, now deserted, and admired the various
views. The scenery, according to their standards, was delightful—the sky
grey and black, bellyfuls of rain all over it, the earth pocked with pools of
water and slimy with mud. A magnificent monsoon—the best for three
years, the tanks already full, bumper crops possible. Out towards the river
(the route by which the Fieldings had escaped from Deora) the downpour
had been enormous, the mails had to be pulled across by ropes. They could
just see the break in the forest trees where the gorge came through, and the
rocks above that marked the site of the diamond mine, glistening with wet.
Close beneath was the suburban residence of the Junior Rani, isolated by
floods, and Her Highness, lax about purdah, to be seen paddling with her
handmaidens in the garden and waving her sari at the monkeys on the roof.
But better not look close beneath, perhaps—nor towards the European
Guest House either. Beyond the Guest House rose another grey-green
gloom of hills, covered with temples like little white flames. There were
over two hundred gods in that direction alone, who visited each other
constantly, and owned numerous cows, and all the betel-leaf industry,
besides having shares in the Asirgarh motor omnibus. Many of them were
in the palace at this moment, having the time of their lives; others, too large
or proud to travel, had sent symbols to represent them. The air was thick
with religion and rain.

Their white shirts fluttering, Ahmed and Karim ran about over the fort,
shrieking with joy. Presently they intersected a line of prisoners, who were
looking aimlessly at an old bronze gun. “Which of you is to be pardoned?”
they asked. For to-night was the procession of the Chief God, when He
would leave the palace, escorted by the whole power of the State, and pass
by the Jail, which stood down in the town now. As He did so, troubling the
waters of our civilization, one prisoner would be released, and then He
would proceed to the great Mau tank that stretched as far as the Guest
House garden, where something else would happen, some final or
subsidiary apotheosis, after which He would submit to the experience of
sleep. The Aziz family did not grasp as much as this, being Moslem, but the
visit to the Jail was common knowledge. Smiling, with downcast eyes, the
prisoners discussed with the gentry their chances of salvation. Except for
the irons on their legs, they resembled other men, nor did they feel different.
Five of them, who had not yet been brought to trial, could expect no pardon,
but all who had been convicted were full of hope. They did not distinguish
between the God and the Rajah in their minds, both were too far above
them; but the guard was better educated, and ventured to enquire after His
Highness’s health.

“It always improves,” replied the medicine man. As a matter of fact, the
Rajah was dead, the ceremony overnight had overtaxed his strength. His
death was being concealed lest the glory of the festival were dimmed. The
Hindu physician, the Private Secretary, and a confidential servant remained
with the corpse, while Aziz had assumed the duty of being seen in public,
and misleading people. He had liked the ruler very much, and might not
prosper under his successor, yet he could not worry over such problems yet,
for he was involved in the illusion he helped to create. The children
continued to run about, hunting for a frog to put in Mohammed Latif’s bed,
the little fools. Hundreds of frogs lived in their own garden, but they must
needs catch one up on the fort. They reported two topis below. Fielding and
his brother-in-law, instead of resting after their journey, were climbing the
slope to the saint’s tomb!

“Throw stones?” asked Karim.

“Put powdered glass in their pan?”

“Ahmed, come here for such wickedness.” He raised his hand to smite
his firstborn, but allowed it to be kissed instead. It was sweet to have his
sons with him at this moment, and to know they were affectionate and
brave. He pointed out that the Englishmen were State guests, so must not be
poisoned, and received, as always, gentle yet enthusiastic assent to his
words.

The two visitors entered the octagon, but rushed out at once pursued by
some bees. Hither and thither they ran, beating their heads; the children
shrieked with derision, and out of heaven, as if a plug had been pulled, fell
a jolly dollop of rain. Aziz had not meant to greet his former friend, but the
incident put him into an excellent temper. He felt compact and strong. He
shouted out, “Hullo, gentlemen, are you in trouble?”

The brother-in-law exclaimed; a bee had got him.

“Lie down in a pool of water, my dear sir—here are plenty. Don’t come
near me. . . . I cannot control them, they are State bees; complain to His
Highness of their behaviour.” There was no real danger, for the rain was
increasing. The swarm retired to the shrine. He went up to the stranger and
pulled a couple of stings out of his wrist, remarking, “Come, pull yourself
together and be a man.”

“How do you do, Aziz, after all this time? I heard you were settled in
here,” Fielding called to him, but not in friendly tones. “I suppose a couple
of stings don’t signify.”

“Not the least. I’ll send an embrocation over to the Guest House. I heard
you were settled in there.”

“Why have you not answered my letters?” he asked, going straight for
the point, but not reaching it, owing to buckets of rain. His companion, new
to the country, cried, as the drops drummed on his topi, that the bees were
renewing their attack. Fielding checked his antics rather sharply, then said:
“Is there a short cut down to our carriage? We must give up our walk. The
weather’s pestilential.”

“Yes. That way.”

“Are you not coming down yourself?”

 Aziz sketched a comic salaam; like all Indians, he was skilful in the
slighter impertinences. “I tremble, I obey,” the gesture said, and it was not
lost upon Fielding. They walked down a rough path to the road—the two
men first; the brother-in-law (boy rather than man) next, in a state over his
arm, which hurt; the three Indian children last, noisy and impudent—all six
wet through.

“How goes it, Aziz?”

“In my usual health.”

“Are you making anything out of your life here?”

“How much do you make out of yours?”

“Who is in charge of the Guest House?” he asked, giving up his slight

effort to recapture their intimacy, and growing more official; he was older
and sterner.

“His Highness’s Private Secretary, probably.”

“Where is he, then?”

“I don’t know.”

“Because not a soul’s been near us since we arrived.”

“Really.”

“I wrote beforehand to the Durbar, and asked if a visit was convenient. I

was told it was, and arranged my tour accordingly; but the Guest House
servants appear to have no definite instructions, we can’t get any eggs, also
my wife wants to go out in the boat.”

“There are two boats.”

“Exactly, and no oars.”

“Colonel Maggs broke the oars when here last.”

 “All four?”

“He is a most powerful man.”

“If the weather lifts, we want to see your torchlight procession from the
water this evening,” he pursued. “I wrote to Godbole about it, but he has
taken no notice; it’s a place of the dead.”

“Perhaps your letter never reached the Minister in question.”

“Will there be any objection to English people watching the procession?”

“I know nothing at all about the religion here. I should never think of
watching it myself.”

“We had a very different reception both at Mudkul and Deora, they were
kindness itself at Deora, the Maharajah and Maharani wanted us to see
everything.”

“You should never have left them.”

“Jump in, Ralph”—they had reached the carriage.

“Jump in, Mr. Quested, and Mr. Fielding.”

“Who on earth is Mr. Quested?”

“Do I mispronounce that well known name? Is he not your wife’s

brother?”

“Who on earth do you suppose I’ve married?”

“I’m only Ralph Moore,” said the boy, blushing, and at that moment
there fell another pailful of the rain, and made a mist round their feet. Aziz
tried to withdraw, but it was too late.

“Quested? Quested? Don’t you know that my wife was Mrs. Moore’s
daughter?”
 He trembled, and went purplish grey; he hated the news, hated hearing
the name Moore.

“Perhaps this explains your odd attitude?”

“And pray what is wrong with my attitude?”

“The preposterous letter you allowed Mahmoud Ali to write for you.”

“This is a very useless conversation, I consider.”

“However did you make such a mistake?” said Fielding, more friendly
than before, but scathing and scornful. “It’s almost unbelievable. I should
think I wrote you half a dozen times, mentioning my wife by name. Miss
Quested! What an extraordinary notion!” From his smile, Aziz guessed that
Stella was beautiful. “Miss Quested is our best friend, she introduced us,
but . . . what an amazing notion. Aziz, we must thrash this
misunderstanding out later on. It is clearly some devilry of Mahmoud Ali’s.
He knows perfectly well I married Miss Moore. He called her ‘Heaslop’s
sister’ in his insolent letter to me.”

The name woke furies in him. “So she is, and here is Heaslop’s brother,
and you his brother-in-law, and good-bye.” Shame turned into a rage that
brought back his self-respect. “What does it matter to me who you marry?
Don’t trouble me here at Mau is all I ask. I do not want you, I do not want
one of you in my private life, with my dying breath I say it. Yes, yes, I made
a foolish blunder; despise me and feel cold. I thought you married my
enemy. I never read your letter. Mahmoud Ali deceived me. I thought you’d
stolen my money, but”—he clapped his hands together, and his children
gathered round him—“it’s as if you stole it. I forgive Mahmoud Ali all
things, because he loved me.” Then pausing, while the rain exploded like
pistols, he said, “My heart is for my own people henceforward,” and turned
away. Cyril followed him through the mud, apologizing, laughing a little,
wanting to argue and reconstruct, pointing out with irrefragable logic that
he had married, not Heaslop’s betrothed, but Heaslop’s sister. What
difference did it make at this hour of the day? He had built his life on a
mistake, but he had built it. Speaking in Urdu, that the children might
understand, he said: “Please do not follow us, whomever you marry. I wish
no Englishman or Englishwoman to be my friend.”

He returned to the house excited and happy. It had been an uneasy,

uncanny moment when Mrs. Moore’s name was mentioned, stirring
memories. “Esmiss Esmoor . . .”—as though she was coming to help him.
She had always been so good, and that youth whom he had scarcely looked
at was her son, Ralph Moore, Stella and Ralph, whom he had promised to
be kind to, and Stella had married Cyril.
 CHAPTER XXXVI

All the time the palace ceased not to thrum and tum-tum. The revelation
was over, but its effect lasted, and its effect was to make men feel that the
revelation had not yet come. Hope existed despite fulfilment, as it will be in
heaven. Although the God had been born, His procession—loosely
supposed by many to be the birth—had not taken place. In normal years, the
middle hours of this day were signalized by performances of great beauty in
the private apartments of the Rajah. He owned a consecrated troupe of men
and boys, whose duty it was to dance various actions and meditations of his
faith before him. Seated at his ease, he could witness the Three Steps by
which the Saviour ascended the universe to the discomfiture of Indra, also
the death of the dragon, the mountain that turned into an umbrella, and the
saddhu who (with comic results) invoked the God before dining. All
culminated in the dance of the milkmaidens before Krishna, and in the still
greater dance of Krishna before the milkmaidens, when the music and the
musicians swirled through the dark blue robes of the actors into their tinsel
crowns, and all became one. The Rajah and his guests would then forget
that this was a dramatic performance, and would worship the actors.
Nothing of the sort could occur to-day, because death interrupts. It
interrupted less here than in Europe, its pathos was less poignant, its irony
less cruel. There were two claimants to the throne, unfortunately, who were
in the palace now and suspected what had happened, yet they made no
trouble, because religion is a living force to the Hindus, and can at certain
moments fling down everything that is petty and temporary in their natures.
The festival flowed on, wild and sincere, and all men loved each other, and
avoided by instinct whatever could cause inconvenience or pain.

Aziz could not understand this, any more than an average Christian
could. He was puzzled that Mau should suddenly be purged from suspicion
and self-seeking. Although he was an outsider, and excluded from their
rites, they were always particularly charming to him at this time; he and his
household received small courtesies and presents, just because he was
outside. He had nothing to do all day, except to send the embrocation over
to the Guest House, and towards sunset he remembered it, and looked round
his house for a local palliative, for the dispensary was shut. He found a tin
of ointment belonging to Mohammed Latif, who was unwilling it should be
removed, for magic words had been spoken over it while it was being
boiled down, but Aziz promised that he would bring it back after
application to the stings: he wanted an excuse for a ride.

The procession was beginning to form as he passed the palace. A large

crowd watched the loading of the State palanquin, the prow of which
protruded in the form of a silver dragon’s head through the lofty half-
opened door. Gods, big and little, were getting aboard. He averted his eyes,
for he never knew how much he was supposed to see, and nearly collided
with the Minister of Education. “Ah, you might make me late”—meaning
that the touch of a non-Hindu would necessitate another bath; the words
were spoken without moral heat. “Sorry,” said Aziz. The other smiled, and
again mentioned the Guest House party, and when he heard that Fielding’s
wife was not Miss Quested after all, remarked “Ah, no, he married the sister
of Mr. Heaslop. Ah, exactly, I have known that for over a year”—also
without heat. “Why did you not tell me? Your silence plunged me into a
pretty pickle.” Godbole, who had never been known to tell anyone
anything, smiled again, and said in deprecating tones: “Never be angry with
me. I am, as far as my limitations permit, your true friend; besides, it is my
holy festival.” Aziz always felt like a baby in that strange presence, a baby
who unexpectedly receives a toy. He smiled also, and turned his horse into a
lane, for the crush increased. The Sweepers’ Band was arriving. Playing on
sieves and other emblems of their profession, they marched straight at the
gate of the palace with the air of a victorious army. All other music was
silent, for this was ritually the moment of the Despised and Rejected; the
God could not issue from his temple until the unclean Sweepers played
their tune, they were the spot of filth without which the spirit cannot cohere.
For an instant the scene was magnificent. The doors were thrown open, and
the whole court was seen inside, barefoot and dressed in white robes; in the
fairway stood the Ark of the Lord, covered with cloth of gold and flanked
by peacock fans and by stiff circular banners of crimson. It was full to the
brim with statuettes and flowers. As it rose from the earth on the shoulders
of its bearers, the friendly sun of the monsoons shone forth and flooded the
world with colour, so that the yellow tigers painted on the palace walls
seemed to spring, and pink and green skeins of cloud to link up the upper
sky. The palanquin moved. . . . The lane was full of State elephants, who
would follow it, their howdahs empty out of humility. Aziz did not pay
attention to these sanctities, for they had no connection with his own; he felt
bored, slightly cynical, like his own dear Emperor Babur, who came down
from the north and found in Hindustan no good fruit, no fresh water or witty
conversation, not even a friend.

The lane led quickly out of the town on to high rocks and jungle. Here he
drew reign and examined the great Mau tank, which lay exposed beneath
him to its remotest curve. Reflecting the evening clouds, it filled the nether-
world with an equal splendour, so that earth and sky leant toward one
another, about to clash in ecstasy. He spat, cynical again, more cynical than
before. For in the centre of the burnished circle a small black blot was
advancing—the Guest House boat. Those English had improvised
something to take the place of oars, and were proceeding in their work of
patrolling India. The sight endeared the Hindus by comparison, and looking
back at the milk-white hump of the palace, he hoped that they would enjoy
carrying their idol about, for at all events it did not pry into other people’s
lives. This pose of “seeing India” which had seduced him to Miss Quested
at Chandrapore was only a form of ruling India; no sympathy lay behind it;
he knew exactly what was going on in the boat as the party gazed at the
steps down which the image would presently descend, and debated how
near they might row without getting into trouble officially.

He did not give up his ride, for there would be servants at the Guest
House whom he could question; a little information never comes amiss. He
took the path by the sombre promontory that contained the royal tombs.
Like the palace, they were of snowy stucco, and gleamed by their internal
light, but their radiance grew ghostly under approaching night. The
promontory was covered with lofty trees, and the fruit-bats were unhooking
from the boughs and making kissing sounds as they grazed the surface of
the tank; hanging upside down all the day, they had grown thirsty. The signs
of the contented Indian evening multiplied; frogs on all sides, cow-dung
burning eternally; a flock of belated hornbills overhead, looking like
winged skeletons as they flapped across the gloaming. There was death in
the air, but not sadness; a compromise had been made between destiny and
desire, and even the heart of man acquiesced.

The European Guest House stood two hundred feet above the water, on
the crest of a rocky and wooded spur that jutted from the jungle. By the
time Aziz arrived, the water had paled to a film of mauve-grey, and the boat
vanished entirely. A sentry slept in the Guest House porch, lamps burned in
the cruciform of the deserted rooms. He went from one room to another,
inquisitive, and malicious. Two letters lying on the piano rewarded him, and
he pounced and read them promptly. He was not ashamed to do this. The
sanctity of private correspondence has never been ratified by the East.
Moreover, Mr. McBryde had read all his letters in the past, and spread their
contents. One letter—the more interesting of the two—was from Heaslop to
Fielding. It threw light on the mentality of his former friend, and it
hardened him further against him. Much of it was about Ralph Moore, who
appeared to be almost an imbecile. “Hand on my brother whenever suits
you. I write to you because he is sure to make a bad bunderbust.” Then: “I
quite agree—life is too short to cherish grievances, also I’m relieved you
feel able to come into line with the Oppressors of India to some extent. We
need all the support we can get. I hope that next time Stella comes my way
she will bring you with her, when I will make you as comfortable as a
bachelor can—it’s certainly time we met. My sister’s marriage to you
coming after my mother’s death and my own difficulties did upset me, and I
was unreasonable. It is about time we made it up properly, as you say—let
us leave it at faults on both sides. Glad about your son and heir. When next
any of you write to Adela, do give her some sort of message from me, for I
should like to make my peace with her too. You are lucky to be out of
British India at the present moment. Incident after incident, all due to
propaganda, but we can’t lay our hands on the connecting thread. The
longer one lives here, the more certain one gets that everything hangs
together. My personal opinion is, it’s the Jews.”

Thus far the red-nosed boy. Aziz was distracted for a moment by blurred
sounds coming from over the water; the procession was under way. The
second letter was from Miss Quested to Mrs. Fielding. It contained one or
two interesting touches. The writer hoped that “Ralph will enjoy his India
more than I did mine,” and appeared to have given him money for this
purpose—“my debt which I shall never repay in person.” What debt did
Miss Quested imagine she owed the country? He did not relish the phrase.
Talk of Ralph’s health. It was all “Stella and Ralph,” even “Cyril” and
“Ronny”—all so friendly and sensible, and written in a spirit he could not
command. He envied the easy intercourse that is only possible in a nation
whose women are free. These five people were making up their little
difficulties, and closing their broken ranks against the alien. Even Heaslop
was coming in. Hence the strength of England, and in a spurt of temper he
hit the piano, and since the notes had swollen and stuck together in groups
of threes, he produced a remarkable noise.

“Oh, oh, who is that?” said a nervous and respectful voice; he could not
remember where he had heard its tones before. Something moved in the
twilight of an adjoining room. He replied, “State doctor, ridden over to
enquire, very little English,” slipped the letters into his pocket, and to show
that he had free entry to the Guest House, struck the piano again.

Ralph Moore came into the light.

What a strange-looking youth, tall, prematurely aged, the big blue eyes
faded with anxiety, the hair impoverished and tousled! Not a type that is
often exported imperially. The doctor in Aziz thought, “Born of too old a
mother,” the poet found him rather beautiful.

“I was unable to call earlier owing to pressure of work. How are the
celebrated bee-stings?” he asked patronizingly.

“I—I was resting, they thought I had better; they throb rather.”

His timidity and evident “newness” had complicated effects on the

malcontent. Speaking threateningly, he said, “Come here, please, allow me
to look.” They were practically alone, and he could treat the patient as
Callendar had treated Nureddin.

“You said this morning——”

“The best of doctors make mistakes. Come here, please, for the diagnosis
under the lamp. I am pressed for time.”
 “Aough——”

“What is the matter, pray?”

“Your hands are unkind.”

He started and glanced down at them. The extraordinary youth was right,
and he put them behind his back before replying with outward anger: “What
the devil have my hands to do with you? This is a most strange remark. I
am a qualified doctor, who will not hurt you.”

“I don’t mind pain, there is no pain.”

“No pain?”

“Not really.”

“Excellent news,” sneered Aziz.

“But there is cruelty.”

“I have brought you some salve, but how to put it on in your present
nervous state becomes a problem,” he continued, after a pause.

“Please leave it with me.”

“Certainly not. It returns to my dispensary at once.” He stretched

forward, and the other retreated to the farther side of a table. “Now, do you
want me to treat your stings, or do you prefer an English doctor? There is
one at Asirgarh. Asirgarh is forty miles away, and the Ringnod dam broken.
Now you see how you are placed. I think I had better see Mr. Fielding about
you; this is really great nonsense, your present behaviour.”

“They are out in a boat,” he replied, glancing about him for support.

Aziz feigned intense surprise. “They have not gone in the direction of
Mau, I hope. On a night like this the people become most fanatical.” And,
as if to confirm him, there was a sob, as though the lips of a giant had
parted; the procession was approaching the Jail.
 “You should not treat us like this,” he challenged, and this time Aziz was
checked, for the voice, though frightened, was not weak.

“Like what?”

“Dr. Aziz, we have done you no harm.”

“Aha, you know my name, I see. Yes, I am Aziz. No, of course your great
friend Miss Quested did me no harm at the Marabar.”

Drowning his last words, all the guns of the State went off. A rocket from
the Jail garden gave the signal. The prisoner had been released, and was
kissing the feet of the singers. Rose-leaves fall from the houses, sacred
spices and coco-nut are brought forth. . . . It was the half-way moment; the
God had extended His temple, and paused exultantly. Mixed and confused
in their passage, the rumours of salvation entered the Guest House. They
were startled and moved on to the porch, drawn by the sudden illumination.
The bronze gun up on the fort kept flashing, the town was a blur of light, in
which the houses seemed dancing, and the palace waving little wings. The
water below, the hills and sky above, were not involved as yet; there was
still only a little light and song struggling among the shapeless lumps of the
universe. The song became audible through much repetition; the choir was
repeating and inverting the names of deities.

“Radhakrishna Radhakrishna,
Radhakrishna Radhakrishna,
Krishnaradha Radhakrishna,
Radhakrishna Radhakrishna,”

they sang, and woke the sleeping sentry in the Guest House; he leant
upon his iron-tipped spear.

“I must go back now, good night,” said Aziz, and held out his hand,
completely forgetting that they were not friends, and focusing his heart on
something more distant than the caves, something beautiful. His hand was
taken, and then he remembered how detestable he had been, and said gently,
“Don’t you think me unkind any more?”
 “No.”

“How can you tell, you strange fellow?”

“Not difficult, the one thing I always know.”

“Can you always tell whether a stranger is your friend?”

“Yes.”

“Then you are an Oriental.” He unclasped as he spoke, with a little

shudder. Those words—he had said them to Mrs. Moore in the mosque in
the beginning of the cycle, from which, after so much suffering, he had got
free. Never be friends with the English! Mosque, caves, mosque, caves.
And here he was starting again. He handed the magic ointment to him.
“Take this, think of me when you use it. I shall never want it back. I must
give you one little present, and it is all I have got; you are Mrs. Moore’s
son.”

“I am that,” he murmured to himself; and a part of Aziz’ mind that had

been hidden seemed to move and force its way to the top.

“But you are Heaslop’s brother also, and alas, the two nations cannot be
friends.”

“I know. Not yet.”

“Did your mother speak to you about me?”

“Yes.” And with a swerve of voice and body that Aziz did not follow he
added, “In her letters, in her letters. She loved you.”

“Yes, your mother was my best friend in all the world.” He was silent,
puzzled by his own great gratitude. What did this eternal goodness of Mrs.
Moore amount to? To nothing, if brought to the test of thought. She had not
borne witness in his favour, nor visited him in the prison, yet she had stolen
to the depths of his heart, and he always adored her. “This is our monsoon,
the best weather,” he said, while the lights of the procession waved as
though embroidered on an agitated curtain. “How I wish she could have
seen them, our rains. Now is the time when all things are happy, young and
old. They are happy out there with their savage noise, though we cannot
follow them; the tanks are all full so they dance, and this is India. I wish
you were not with officials, then I would show you my country, but I
cannot. Perhaps I will just take you out on the water now, for one short half-
hour.”

Was the cycle beginning again? His heart was too full to draw back. He
must slip out in the darkness, and do this one act of homage to Mrs.
Moore’s son. He knew where the oars were—hidden to deter the visitors
from going out—and he brought the second pair, in case they met the other
boat; the Fieldings had pushed themselves out with long poles, and might
get into difficulties, for the wind was rising.

Once on the water, he became easy. One kind action was with him always
a channel for another, and soon the torrent of his hospitality gushed forth
and he began doing the honours of Mau and persuading himself that he
understood the wild procession, which increased in lights and sounds as the
complications of its ritual developed. There was little need to row, for the
freshening gale blew them in the direction they desired. Thorns scratched
the keel, they ran into an islet and startled some cranes. The strange
temporary life of the August flood-water bore them up and seemed as
though it would last for ever.

The boat was a rudderless dinghy. Huddled up in the stern, with the spare
pair of oars in his arms, the guest asked no questions about details. There
was presently a flash of lightning, followed by a second flash—little red
scratches on the ponderous sky. “Was that the Rajah?” he asked.

“What—what do you mean?”

“Row back.”

“But there’s no Rajah—nothing——”

“Row back, you will see what I mean.”

 Aziz found it hard work against the advancing wind. But he fixed his
eyes on the pin of light that marked the Guest House and backed a few
strokes.

“There . . .”

Floating in the darkness was a king, who sat under a canopy, in shining
royal robes. . . .

“I can’t tell you what that is, I’m sure,” he whispered. “His Highness is
dead. I think we should go back at once.”

They were close to the promontory of the tombs, and had looked straight
into the chhatri of the Rajah’s father through an opening in the trees. That
was the explanation. He had heard of the image—made to imitate life at
enormous expense—but he had never chanced to see it before, though he
frequently rowed on the lake. There was only one spot from which it could
be seen, and Ralph had directed him to it. Hastily he pulled away, feeling
that his companion was not so much a visitor as a guide. He remarked,
“Shall we go back now?”

“There is still the procession.”

“I’d rather not go nearer—they have such strange customs, and might
hurt you.”

“A little nearer.”

Aziz obeyed. He knew with his heart that this was Mrs. Moore’s son, and
indeed until his heart was involved he knew nothing. “Radhakrishna
Radhakrishna Radhakrishna Radhakrishna Krishnaradha,” went the chant,
then suddenly changed, and in the interstice he heard, almost certainly, the
syllables of salvation that had sounded during his trial at Chandrapore.

“Mr. Moore, don’t tell anyone that the Rajah is dead. It is a secret still, I
am supposed not to say. We pretend he is alive until after the festival, to
prevent unhappiness. Do you want to go still nearer?”
 “Yes.”

He tried to keep the boat out of the glare of the torches that began to star
the other shore. Rockets kept going off, also the guns. Suddenly, closer than
he had calculated, the palanquin of Krishna appeared from behind a ruined
wall, and descended the carven glistening water-steps. On either side of it
the singers tumbled, a woman prominent, a wild and beautiful young saint
with flowers in her hair. She was praising God without attributes—thus did
she apprehend Him. Others praised Him without attributes, seeing Him in
this or that organ of the body or manifestation of the sky. Down they rushed
to the foreshore and stood in the small waves, and a sacred meal was
prepared, of which those who felt worthy partook. Old Godbole detected
the boat, which was drifting in on the gale, and he waved his arms—
whether in wrath or joy Aziz never discovered. Above stood the secular
power of Mau—elephants, artillery, crowds—and high above them a wild
tempest started, confined at first to the upper regions of the air. Gusts of
wind mixed darkness and light, sheets of rain cut from the north, stopped,
cut from the south, began rising from below, and across them struggled the
singers, sounding every note but terror, and preparing to throw God away,
God Himself, (not that God can be thrown) into the storm. Thus was He
thrown year after year, and were others thrown—little images of Ganpati,
baskets of ten-day corn, tiny tazias after Mohurram—scapegoats, husks,
emblems of passage; a passage not easy, not now, not here, not to be
apprehended except when it is unattainable; the God to be thrown was an
emblem of that.

The village of Gokul reappeared upon its tray. It was the substitute for
the silver image, which never left its haze of flowers; on behalf of another
symbol, it was to perish. A servitor took it in his hands, and tore off the blue
and white streamers. He was naked, broad-shouldered, thin-waisted—the
Indian body again triumphant—and it was his hereditary office to close the
gates of salvation. He entered the dark waters, pushing the village before
him, until the clay dolls slipped off their chairs and began to gutter in the
rain, and King Kansa was confounded with the father and mother of the
Lord. Dark and solid, the little waves sipped, then a great wave washed and
then English voices cried “Take care!”
 The boats had collided with each other.

The four outsiders flung out their arms and grappled, and, with oars and
poles sticking out, revolved like a mythical monster in the whirlwind. The
worshippers howled with wrath or joy, as they drifted forward helplessly
against the servitor. Who awaited them, his beautiful dark face
expressionless, and as the last morsels melted on his tray, it struck them.

The shock was minute, but Stella, nearest to it, shrank into her husband’s
arms, then reached forward, then flung herself against Aziz, and her
motions capsized them. They plunged into the warm, shallow water, and
rose struggling into a tornado of noise. The oars, the sacred tray, the letters
of Ronny and Adela, broke loose and floated confusedly. Artillery was
fired, drums beaten, the elephants trumpeted, and drowning all an immense
peal of thunder, unaccompanied by lightning, cracked like a mallet on the
dome.

That was the climax, as far as India admits of one. The rain settled in
steadily to its job of wetting everybody and everything through, and soon
spoiled the cloth of gold on the palanquin and the costly disc-shaped
banners. Some of the torches went out, fireworks didn’t catch, there began
to be less singing, and the tray returned to Professor Godbole, who picked
up a fragment of the mud adhering and smeared it on his forehead without
much ceremony. Whatever had happened had happened, and while the
intruders picked themselves up, the crowds of Hindus began a desultory
move back into the town. The image went back too, and on the following
day underwent a private death of its own, when some curtains of magenta
and green were lowered in front of the dynastic shrine. The singing went on
even longer . . . ragged edges of religion . . . unsatisfactory and undramatic
tangles. . . . “God is love.” Looking back at the great blur of the last twenty-
four hours, no man could say where was the emotional centre of it, any
more than he could locate the heart of a cloud.
 CHAPTER XXXVII

Friends again, yet aware that they could meet no more, Aziz and Fielding
went for their last ride in the Mau jungles. The floods had abated and the
Rajah was officially dead, so the Guest House party were departing next
morning, as decorum required. What with the mourning and the festival, the
visit was a failure.

Fielding had scarcely seen Godbole, who promised every day to show
him over the King-Emperor George Fifth High School, his main objective,
but always made some excuse. This afternoon Aziz let out what had
happened: the King-Emperor had been converted into a granary, and the
Minister of Education did not like to admit this to his former Principal. The
school had been opened only last year by the Agent to the Governor-
General, and it still flourished on paper; he hoped to start it again before its
absence was remarked and to collect its scholars before they produced
children of their own. Fielding laughed at the tangle and waste of energy,
but he did not travel as lightly as in the past; education was a continuous
concern to him, because his income and the comfort of his family depended
on it. He knew that few Indians think education good in itself, and he
deplored this now on the widest grounds. He began to say something heavy
on the subject of Native States, but the friendliness of Aziz distracted him.
This reconciliation was a success, anyhow. After the funny shipwreck there
had been no more nonsense or bitterness, and they went back laughingly to
their old relationship as if nothing had happened. Now they rode between
jolly bushes and rocks. Presently the ground opened into full sunlight and
they saw a grassy slope bright with butterflies, also a cobra, which crawled
across doing nothing in particular, and disappeared among some custard
apple trees. There were round white clouds in the sky, and white pools on
the earth; the hills in the distance were purple. The scene was as park-like
as England, but did not cease being queer. They drew rein, to give the cobra
elbow-room, and Aziz produced a letter that he wanted to send to Miss
Quested. A charming letter. He wanted to thank his old enemy for her fine
behaviour two years back: perfectly plain was it now that she had behaved
well. “As I fell into our largest Mau tank under circumstances our other
friends will relate, I thought how brave Miss Quested was, and decided to
tell her so, despite my imperfect English. Through you I am happy here
with my children instead of in a prison, of that I make no doubt. My
children shall be taught to speak of you with the greatest affection and
respect.”

“Miss Quested will be greatly pleased. I am glad you have seen her
courage at last.”

“I want to do kind actions all round and wipe out the wretched business
of the Marabar for ever. I have been so disgracefully hasty, thinking you
meant to get hold of my money: as bad a mistake as the cave itself.”

“Aziz, I wish you would talk to my wife. She too believes that the
Marabar is wiped out.”

“How so?”

“I don’t know, perhaps she might tell you, she won’t tell me. She has
ideas I don’t share—indeed, when I’m away from her I think them
ridiculous. When I’m with her, I suppose because I’m fond of her, I feel
different, I feel half dead and half blind. My wife’s after something. You
and I and Miss Quested are, roughly speaking, not after anything. We jog on
as decently as we can, you a little in front—a laudable little party. But my
wife is not with us.”

“What are you meaning? Is Stella not faithful to you, Cyril? This fills me
with great concern.”

Fielding hesitated. He was not quite happy about his marriage. He was
passionate physically again—the final flare-up before the clinkers of middle
age—and he knew that his wife did not love him as much as he loved her,
and he was ashamed of pestering her. But during the visit to Mau the
situation had improved. There seemed a link between them at last—that
link outside either participant that is necessary to every relationship. In the
language of theology, their union had been blessed. He could assure Aziz
that Stella was not only faithful to him, but likely to become more so; and
trying to express what was not clear to himself, he added dully that different
people had different points of view. “If you won’t talk about the Marabar to
Stella, why won’t you talk to Ralph? He is a wise boy really. And (same
metaphor) he rides a little behind her, though with her.”

“Tell him also, I have nothing to say to him, but he is indeed a wise boy
and has always one Indian friend. I partly love him because he brought me
back to you to say good-bye. For this is good-bye, Cyril, though to think
about it will spoil our ride and make us sad.”

“No, we won’t think about it.” He too felt that this was their last free
intercourse. All the stupid misunderstandings had been cleared up, but
socially they had no meeting-place. He had thrown in his lot with Anglo-
India by marrying a countrywoman, and he was acquiring some of its
limitations, and already felt surprise at his own past heroism. Would he to-
day defy all his own people for the sake of a stray Indian? Aziz was a
memento, a trophy, they were proud of each other, yet they must inevitably
part. And, anxious to make what he could of this last afternoon, he forced
himself to speak intimately about his wife, the person most dear to him. He
said: “From her point of view, Mau has been a success. It calmed her—both
of them suffer from restlessness. She found something soothing, some
solution of her queer troubles here.” After a silence—myriads of kisses
around them as the earth drew the water in—he continued: “Do you know
anything about this Krishna business?”

“My dear chap, officially they call it Gokul Ashtami. All the State offices
are closed, but how else should it concern you and me?”

“Gokul is the village where Krishna was born—well, more or less born,
for there’s the same hovering between it and another village as between
Bethlehem and Nazareth. What I want to discover is its spiritual side, if it
has one.”

“It is useless discussing Hindus with me. Living with them teaches me no
more. When I think I annoy them, I do not. When I think I don’t annoy
them, I do. Perhaps they will sack me for tumbling on to their dolls’-house;
on the other hand, perhaps they will double my salary. Time will prove.
Why so curious about them?”

“It’s difficult to explain. I never really understood or liked them, except

an occasional scrap of Godbole. Does the old fellow still say ‘Come,
come?’”

“Oh, presumably.”

Fielding sighed, opened his lips, shut them, then said with a little laugh,
“I can’t explain, because it isn’t in words at all, but why do my wife and her
brother like Hinduism, though they take no interest in its forms? They
won’t talk to me about this. They know I think a certain side of their lives is
a mistake, and are shy. That’s why I wish you would talk to them, for at all
events you’re Oriental.”

Aziz refused to reply. He didn’t want to meet Stella and Ralph again,
knew they didn’t want to meet him, was incurious about their secrets, and
felt good old Cyril to be a bit clumsy. Something—not a sight, but a sound
—flitted past him, and caused him to re-read his letter to Miss Quested.
Hadn’t he wanted to say something else to her? Taking out his pen, he
added: “For my own part, I shall henceforth connect you with the name that
is very sacred in my mind, namely, Mrs. Moore.” When he had finished, the
mirror of the scenery was shattered, the meadow disintegrated into
butterflies. A poem about Mecca—the Caaba of Union—the thorn-bushes
where pilgrims die before they have seen the Friend—they flitted next; he
thought of his wife; and then the whole semi-mystic, semi-sensuous
overturn, so characteristic of his spiritual life, came to end like a landslip
and rested in its due place, and he found himself riding in the jungle with
his dear Cyril.

“Oh, shut up,” he said. “Don’t spoil our last hour with foolish questions.
Leave Krishna alone, and talk about something sensible.”

They did. All the way back to Mau they wrangled about politics. Each
had hardened since Chandrapore, and a good knock about proved
enjoyable. They trusted each other, although they were going to part,
perhaps because they were going to part. Fielding had “no further use for
politeness,” he said, meaning that the British Empire really can’t be
abolished because it’s rude. Aziz retorted, “Very well, and we have no use
for you,” and glared at him with abstract hate. Fielding said: “Away from
us, Indians go to seed at once. Look at the King-Emperor High School!
Look at you, forgetting your medicine and going back to charms. Look at
your poems.”—“Jolly good poems, I’m getting published Bombay
side.”—“Yes, and what do they say? Free our women and India will be free.
Try it, my lad. Free your own lady in the first place, and see who’ll wash
Ahmed Karim and Jamila’s faces. A nice situation!”

Aziz grew more excited. He rose in his stirrups and pulled at his horse’s
head in the hope it would rear. Then he should feel in a battle. He cried:
“Clear out, all you Turtons and Burtons. We wanted to know you ten years
back—now it’s too late. If we see you and sit on your committees, it’s for
political reasons, don’t you make any mistake.” His horse did rear. “Clear
out, clear out, I say. Why are we put to so much suffering? We used to
blame you, now we blame ourselves, we grow wiser. Until England is in
difficulties we keep silent, but in the next European war—aha, aha! Then is
our time.” He paused, and the scenery, though it smiled, fell like a
gravestone on any human hope. They cantered past a temple to Hanuman—
God so loved the world that he took monkey’s flesh upon him—and past a
Saivite temple, which invited to lust, but under the semblance of eternity, its
obscenities bearing no relation to those of our flesh and blood. They
splashed through butterflies and frogs; great trees with leaves like plates
rose among the brushwood. The divisions of daily life were returning, the
shrine had almost shut.

“Who do you want instead of the English? The Japanese?” jeered

Fielding, drawing rein.

“No, the Afghans. My own ancestors.”

“Oh, your Hindu friends will like that, won’t they?”

“It will be arranged—a conference of Oriental statesmen.”

“It will indeed be arranged.”

 “Old story of ‘We will rob every man and rape every woman from
Peshawar to Calcutta,’ I suppose, which you get some nobody to repeat and
then quote every week in the Pioneer in order to frighten us into retaining
you! We know!” Still he couldn’t quite fit in Afghans at Mau, and, finding
he was in a corner, made his horse rear again until he remembered that he
had, or ought to have, a mother-land. Then he shouted: “India shall be a
nation! No foreigners of any sort! Hindu and Moslem and Sikh and all shall
be one! Hurrah! Hurrah for India! Hurrah! Hurrah!”

India a nation! What an apotheosis! Last comer to the drab nineteenth-

century sisterhood! Waddling in at this hour of the world to take her seat!
She, whose only peer was the Holy Roman Empire, she shall rank with
Guatemala and Belgium perhaps! Fielding mocked again. And Aziz in an
awful rage danced this way and that, not knowing what to do, and cried:
“Down with the English anyhow. That’s certain. Clear out, you fellows,
double quick, I say. We may hate one another, but we hate you most. If I
don’t make you go, Ahmed will, Karim will, if it’s fifty five-hundred years
we shall get rid of you, yes, we shall drive every blasted Englishman into
the sea, and then”—he rode against him furiously—“and then,” he
concluded, half kissing him, “you and I shall be friends.”

“Why can’t we be friends now?” said the other, holding him

affectionately. “It’s what I want. It’s what you want.”

But the horses didn’t want it—they swerved apart; the earth didn’t want
it, sending up rocks through which riders must pass single file; the temples,
the tank, the jail, the palace, the birds, the carrion, the Guest House, that
came into view as they issued from the gap and saw Mau beneath: they
didn’t want it, they said in their hundred voices, “No, not yet,” and the sky
said, “No, not there.”
 W , 1924.

[End]

M . E. M. FORSTERS NOVELS

WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD

“A remarkable book. Not often has the reviewer to welcome a new writer
and a new novel so directly conveying the impression of power and an easy
mastery of material. Here there are qualities of style and thought which
awaken a sense of satisfaction and delight; a taste in the selection of words;
a keen insight into the humour (and not merely the humours) of life; and a
challenge to its accepted courses. It is told with a deftness, a lightness, a
grace of touch, and a radiant atmosphere of humour which mark a strength
and capacity giving large promise for the future.”—Daily News.

“Mr. Forster has succeeded, with a cleverness that is almost uncanny, in

illustrating the tragic possibilities that reside in insignificant and
unimportant characters when they seek to emancipate themselves from the
bondage of convention, or to control those who are dominated by a wholly
different set of traditions.”—Spectator.

THE LONGEST JOURNEY

“This novel is a very remarkable and distinguished piece of work. This

new book is one of the most promising we have read from a young writer,
not only for many publishing seasons, but even for many years. Its
abundant cleverness fills even the more strenuous passages with vivacity.
The strength of the book consists in its implicit indictment of the mean
conventional, self-deceitful insincerity of so much of modern English
educated middle-class life. This is certainly one of the cleverest and most
original books that have appeared from a new writer since George Meredith
first took the literary critics into his confidence.”—Daily Telegraph.

“It is interesting and living and amusing.”—The Times.

A ROOM WITH A VIEW

“Mr. Forster’s new novel is not only much the best of the three he has
written, but it clearly admits him to the limited class of writers who stand
above and apart from the manufacturers of contemporary fiction.”—
Spectator.
 “It is packed with wonderful impressions and radiant sayings.”—Evening
Standard.

“This is one of the cleverest and most entertaining novels we have read
for some time. The characters are as clear and salient as a portrait by
Sargent, and there are many of them. One is continually moved to
appreciative smiles by clever little touches of description and
enlightenment. The story, too, is interesting and real.”—Daily Mail.

“This odd title suggests a story rather out of the common, and it does not
prove in the least misleading. The book is both original and delightful,
presenting scenes of everyday life almost commonplace sometimes in their
fidelity to nature, but chronicled in such a happy vein of quiet humour and
with such penetrating observation as makes each little incident and dialogue
a source of sheer joy to the reader. The characters are admirably drawn.”—
Pall Mall Gazette.

“We have originality and observation, and a book as clever as the other
books that Mr. Forster has written already.”—Times.

“Mr. Forster has earned the right to serious criticism. His work has
revealed individuality, distinction, and a power of suggestion which opens
large issues. ‘A Room with a View’ might stand for a title of all his work.
There is a spirit of high comedy in it. Mr. Forster can describe with sure
touch the queer satisfactions and still queerer repugnances which make up
the strange region of modern things. Had this element been there alone, the
book would have been merely an excellent satirical judgment of manners
and conventions. Had the other elements stood alone—the revelation of the
hidden life—it would have been mystical, intangible, illusory. By the fusion
of the one with the other, he is able to present work humorous and arresting,
with a curious element in it of compelling strength and emotion.”—Nation.

HOWARDS END
 “‘Howards End’ is packed full of good things. It stands out head and
shoulders above the great mass of fiction now claiming a hearing. The
autumn season has brought us some good novels, but this is, so far, the best
of them. ‘Howards End’ raises its author to a place among contemporary
novelists which few even of those whose earlier work shows promise
succeed in attaining.”—Daily Mail.

“There is no doubt about it whatever. Mr. E. M. Forster is one of the great

novelists. His stories are not about life. They are life. His plots are
absorbing because his characters are real. All will agree as to the value of
the book, as to its absorbing interest, the art and power with which it is put
together, and they will feel with us that it is a book quite out of the common
by a writer who is one of our assets, and is likely to be one of our
glories.”—Daily Telegraph.

“Mr. E. M. Forster has now done what critical admirers of his foregoing
novels have confidently looked for—he has written a book in which his
highly original talent has found full and ripe expression. A very remarkable
and original book.”—The Times.

“The clash of modern culture and modern materialism has seldom found
a more vivid interpreter.”—Spectator.

“There is life, imagination, and the very flame of action giving quality to
this novel over and above the technique with which it is built up and the
wisdom with which it is informed.”—Daily News.

“With this book Mr. Forster seems to us to have arrived, and if he never
writes another line, his niche should be secure.”—Standard.

“‘Howards End’ is a novel of high talent—the highest.”—Daily Graphic.

“This novel, taken with its three predecessors, assures its author a place
amongst the handful of living writers who count.”—Athenæum.

LONDON : EDWARD ARNOLD CO.

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