DUKE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 Duke University Libraries 
 
 https://archive.org/details/passagetoindia01fors 
 
9,2 3. "1 1 
 F 72 37 A 
 
 To 
 
 SYED ROSS MASOOD 
 
 AND TO THE SEVENTEEN YEARS 
 OF OUR FRIENDSHIP 
 
 O -ja_ C_J 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 PART I: MOSQUE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 E xcept 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 de' 
 posits 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 
 I 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. Chan- 
 drapore was never large or beautiful, but two hundred 
 I years ago it lay on the road between Upper India, then 
 i imperial, and the sea, and the fine houses date from that 
 j period. The zest for decoration stopped in the eighteenth 
 ; century, nor was it ever democratic. There is no painting 
 I 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 tfiaTmeets 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. * . 
 
 n',r~ 
 
 j T ‘2^ .JBk. 
 
8 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 (^Inland, the prospect alters. There is an oval Maidan, 
 and a long sallow hospital. Houses belonging to Eur- 
 asians 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 low’er 
 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 dowm to acquire dis- 
 illusionment. 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 cemeter}’-, and the bunga- 
 lows are disposed along roads that intersect at right 
 angles. It has nothing hideous in it, and onh’^ the view 
 . is beautiful ; it shares nothing with the city except the 
 ( overarching sky7 
 
 The sky too nas 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 da}^ the blue will pale down 
 into white where it touches the white of the land, after 
 sunset it has a new circumference — orange, melting up- 
 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 9; 
 
 wards into tenderest purple. But the core of blue per- 
 sists, 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-j 
 seasons but when the earth shall be beautiful. By her- 
 self she can do little — only feeble outbursts of flowers. 
 But when the sky chooses, glory can rain into the Chan- 
 drapore 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 in- 
 fringe 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 ex- 
 traordinary caves. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 A bandoning his bicycle, which fell before a ser- 
 vant 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!” 
 
lO 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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-j-they were discussing as to whether or 
 no it is possible to be friends with an Englishman, klah- 
 moud 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. 
 
 I “ 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, be- 
 fore the big rush, and had received a cordial welcome at 
 Cambridge.y 
 
 “ 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, ^^’hy, 
 I remember when Turton came out first. It was in an- 
 other part of the Province. You fellows will not believe 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 II 
 
 me, but I have driven v/ith 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 mum- 
 bles, 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 Cen- 
 tral 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 conse- 
 quence. 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 sud- 
 denly, 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 evi- 
 dent emotion. 
 
12 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 “But take my case — the case of young Hugh Ban- 
 nister. 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.” 
 ueen Victoria was different,” murmured iMahmoud 
 
 “ 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 countr}' 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 ex- 
 ceptions, and they’re dead.” 
 
 “ No, no, ^ do not admit that, I have met others.” 
 
 So have I,” said Mahmoud AH, unexpectedly veer- 
 ing. 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 IMrs. Turton, 
 and, Aziz, you know what she is.” Aziz did not know. 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 13 
 
 but said he did. He too generalized from his disap- 
 pointments — 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 un- 
 rolled and expanded interminably. 
 
 A servant announced dinner. They ignc red him. The 
 elder men had reached their eternal poh’+lcs, Aziz drifted 
 into the garden. The trees smelt sw'iew of yen-blossomed 
 champak — and scraps of Persian \ It never Tie into his 
 head. Dinner, dinner, dinner . . d them ffien he re- 
 turned to the house for it, Mahmce; the, had drifted 
 away in his turn, to speak to his saint gua?;ome and see 
 my wife a little then,” said Hamiduidde bod they spent 
 twenty minutes behind the purdah, -ha ^.idullah Begum 
 was a distant aunt of Aziz, and the oi'art female relative 
 he had in Chandrapore, and she had mi7^ to say to him y 
 on this occasion about a family circun^ ision that had 
 been celebrated with imperfect pomp, of was difficult 
 to get away, because until they had had , dr dinner she 
 would not begin hers, and consequently ' trolonged her 
 remarks in case they should suppose she lias impatient. 
 Having censured the circumcision, she bet' mght her of 
 kindred topics, and asked Aziz when he wa going to be 
 married. bj). 
 
 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, vo.ry 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? ” 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 fut this was not Hamidullah Begum’s point, and hav- 
 ing courteously changed the conversation for a few mo- 
 ments 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, ameld hinl die unwed, for no one would have 
 her now. Wctoria wcale was in progress, it convinced the 
 two men, th y seemed a slur on the whole com- 
 
 munity ; bettow that ^a^v almost, than that a woman • 
 should die wiawnpojne joys God has intended her to re- 
 ceive. WedlO' faraotherhood, power in the house — for 
 what else is sb Torn, and how can the man who has 
 denied them to.ig r stand up to face her creator and his 
 own at the Iasi, aay? Aziz took his leave saying “ Per- 
 haps . . . but liter . . — his invariable reply to such 
 
 an appeal . ) g, 
 
 “ You mud /t put oflf what you think right,” said 
 Hamidullah. ; That is why India is in such a plight, 
 because we jlsit off things.” But seeing that his young 
 relative loolo'il worried, he added a few soothing words, 
 and thus wi td out any impression that his wife might 
 have made.^I 
 
 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 s )oke 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 liad 
 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 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 IS 
 
 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 ser- 
 vants, and th^n 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 jslam and the brevity of Love. They listened 
 deligK^edTmrlKey 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 in- 
 different moon, but for the time India seemed one and 
 their own, and they regained their departed greatness by 
 hearing its departure~Ta'meTTted7-tKey felt^ young again 
 because reminded that youth must fly. /A servant in scar- 
 let interrupted him ; he was the chuprassi of the Civil Sur- 
 geon, 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 obe- 
 dience. “ Had you not better clean your teeth after 
 
 A 
 
 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 
 
i6 
 
 A^PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 'HceaJms of matter, he laid his hand on the bicycle’s saddle, 
 while a servant did the actual wheeling, Betv^^een 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 
 eompound. 
 
 “ 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 ad- 
 juncts 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 further- 
 more 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 
 I 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 bun- 
 galow on foot, and this not because his soul Avas 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 ap- 
 proach 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 com- 
 promised, 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 ? ” 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 17 
 
 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 instinc- 
 tively away. 
 
 “ Mrs. Lesley, it is a tonga,” she cried. 
 
 “ Ours ? ” enquired the second, also seeing Azizt 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. 
 
 r 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 Callen^^ and Lesley ^should 
 both be fat and weigh the tonga down behind^ Beautiful 
 women would have pained him. He turned to the ser- 
 vant, 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 digni- 
 
i8 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 fied to enter it. Paper and ink were brought on to the 
 verandah. He began : “ Dear Sir, — At your express com- 
 mand 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 pur- 
 chased, 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^nd be 
 back among manners ^nd 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, 
 arvi the foot sinks into a depression, or else it is unex- 
 pectedly rigid and sharp, pressing stones or crystals 
 against the tread. A series of these little surprises ex- 
 hausts; 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 — en- 
 tered 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 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 1 1 
 
 the appearance of marble, and the ninety-nine names o 
 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, Chris- 
 tian, or Greek, would have bored him and failed to 
 awaken his sense of beauty. ^Here was Islam, his own i 
 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 tne 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 or- 
 chestra. Elsewhere some Hindus were drumming — he 
 knew they were Hindus, because the rhythm was uncon- 
 genial to him, — and others were bewailing a corpse — he 
 knew whose, having certified it in the afternoon. There 
 w^ere owls, the Punjab mail . . . and flowers smelt de- 
 liciously in the station-master’s garden. But the mosque 
 — that alone signified, and he returned to it from the com- 
 plex 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 ihe 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 
 
20 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 /'' 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. Be- 
 lief 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 1 Madam I Madam I ” 
 
 
 Oh I 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 ablu- 
 tion-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 ? ” 
 
 r “Of course, but so few ladies take the trouble, espe- 
 
 1 daily if thinking no one is there to see.” 
 
 [ “ That makes no difference. God is here.” 
 
 “ Madam 1 ” 
 
 “ 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. 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 21 
 
 I 
 
 “ Mrs. Moore, I am afraid I startled you. I shali 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 unavoid- 
 able 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 inti' 
 mately.” 
 
 “ He’s my son all the same,” she said, smiling. 
 
 “ But, Mrs. Moore, how can he be? ” 
 
 “ I was married twice.” 
 
22 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 “ 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 havt 
 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.” 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 23 
 
 He burst out with ; “ She has just taken my tonga 
 without my permission — do you call that being charm- 
 ing? — 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 charm- 
 ing, 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- 
 countr)rwoman to him, but even earlier he had known. 
 
 The flame that not even beauty can nourish was spring- 
 ing 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 under- 
 stand 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 Clubj O 
 even as guests,” he said simply. He did not expatiate ' \ 
 
 on his wrongs now, being happy. As he strolled down- IL 
 hill beneath the lovely moon, and again saw the lovely TwA 
 mosque, he seemed to own the land as much as anyone 
 owned it. What (Ijd it matter if a few flabby Hindus 
 had preceded him there, and a' few chilly English suc- 
 ceeded? ■ 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 T he 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. Ap- 
 parently 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 drav/n 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 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 his friendly word through red-brick pillars into the dark-^ 
 ness. 
 
 “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. 
 
 terranean and through the sands of Egypt to the harbour 
 of Bombay, to find bnjy. a gridhpn of bungalows at the 
 encTd'f if. 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 appro- 
 priate. 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 de- 
 cided 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 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 a6 
 
 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 
 \J the club that he or she was British and in exil^. It pro- 
 duced a little sentiment and a useful accession of will- 
 power. The meagre tune, the curt series of demands on 
 Jehovah, fused into a prayer unknowm 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 an- 
 other drinks./ 
 
 V “ 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 van- 
 ished. 
 
 “ Who was that? ” 
 
 “ Our schoolmaster — Government College.” 
 
 “As if one could avoid seeing them,” sighed Ikirs. 
 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, 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 27 
 
 more serious, said, “ Let me explain. Natives don’t re- 
 spect 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 posi- 
 tion 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 ? ” 
 
 the kindest thing one can do to a native is to 
 
 Mrs. Callendar. 
 
 '^How if ^le 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 Mis- 
 sionaries,” 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 
 Ixe’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 Field-' 
 ing.” 
 
 “ 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 
 
28 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 was — not the game, but a party to bridge the gu lf be- 
 t ween East and West; tK e ex pre ssion was his own in- 
 vention, and amused all who heard it7"^ ' 
 
 “ 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 )^oung 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 Avith 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 judg- 
 ment, 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 marr}- 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, w'hich, like all gatherings, had an official 
 tinge. C A community that bow’S the knee to a Mceroy 
 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 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 29 
 
 before? Coming on top of the dinner too! I wish I 
 could have arranged something myself, but when you 
 I know the natives better you’ll realize it’s easier for the 
 I 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 I 
 I Here’s your cloak. — Well : for an example of the mis- 
 j takes 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 
 I to have a smoke with you ? ” 
 
 “ Perhaps, but time’s limited and the flesh weak. I 
 I prefer my smoke at the club amongst my own sort, I’m 
 afraid.” 
 
 i “ 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 
 I implied that he had once been as she, though not for 
 i 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. 
 
 I 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 fresh- 
 
30 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 ness 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 de- 
 plorable.” 
 
 “ 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 Chandra- 
 pore. 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 talk- 
 ing. 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.*" 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 3JC 
 
 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 1 ” ex- 
 claimed 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 descrip- 
 tion he had thought the doctor might be young Muggins 
 from over the Ganges, and had brought out all the com- 
 radely emotions. What a mix-up ! Why hadn’t she indi- 
 cated by the tone of her voice that she was talking about 
 an Indian? Scratchy and dictatorial, he began to ques' 
 tion 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.” 
 
 I “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 
 I take off his hat in church ? ” 
 
 i “ It’s different, it’s different; you don’t understand.” 
 
 “ I know I don’t, and I want to. What is the differ- 
 ence, 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 tire- 
 
32 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 some 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 conse- 
 v'quently. 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 IMrs. Aloore had a short 
 interview with her son. 
 
 He wanted to enquire about the Alohammedan doctor 
 in the mosque. It was his duty to report suspicious char- 
 acters 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 Alinto Hos- 
 pital, he was relieved, and said that the fellow’s name 
 must be Aziz, and that he Avas 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 ? ” 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 33 
 
 Ignorant of the force of this question, she rep 
 
 Y£s, quite, after the first moment. 
 
 V I meant , g ener ally . Did he seem to tolerate us- — ^the 
 brutal conqueror, the jsllndried"'b'ureaucrat, 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 ! ” 
 
 0 Nothing’s private in I ndia!? Aziz knew that when he 
 sp^e 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 ir npress you.” 
 
 “ I'don’t know what you mean,' dear. ’ 
 
 ; ‘Tit’s the educated native’s latest dodge. T_^ey, used 
 ito cr inge, but the younger gene falioirbelieve in a show of 
 i manly indepe ndence . They thinlFiFvdlt'^pay' better with 
 (the itinerant M.P. J But whether the native swaggers or 
 ! cringes, there’s always somHhing 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 argU' 
 ments that he had picked up from older officials, and he 
 did not feel quite sure of himself. When he said “ of 
 
34 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 hat^'e 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 iSIrs. Cal- 
 lendar was nice, and then — finding the ground safe — ^liad 
 changed; he had alternateh/ 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. 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 35 
 
 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 Eng- 
 lish wasps, but had long yellow legs which hung down 
 behind when they flew. Perhaps he mistook the peg for 
 a branch — n o Indian animal has any sense of an inte rior. 
 Ba ts, rats, birds, insects will as soon nest i nside a 'Rouse 
 as out; it i^ to Aem a normal growtfUof 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 
 
 T he Collector kept his word. Next day he issued in- 
 vitation 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 sym- 
 pathize, 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 
 
36 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 see why we need discuss it further.” Quotations fol- 
 lowed 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 invi- 
 tation. 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 thfe 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 im- 
 polite 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 cour- 
 teous alternative. J “ I do not see why we should make 
 ourselves cheap. F do not see why we should. The inH- 
 tation 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 
 
MOSQUE 37 
 
 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 hos- 
 pitality 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 clie Ht. 'i i; H f rnts^ w aiting f o r plp^rl- 
 ei:^y-.s at in-the dust — These had not received a 
 
 card from Mr. Turton. And there were circles even be- 
 yond 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 ; per- 
 haps 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 rail- 
 ways, and never came up to the club. In our Father’s 
 house are many mansions, they taught, and there alone 
 
38 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA ' 
 
 will the incompatible multitudes of mankind be welcomed 
 and soothed. Not one shall be turned away by the serv- 
 ants 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? Con- 
 sider, 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 dis- 
 cussions 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 
 
 T he Bridge Party was not a success — at least it was 
 not what Mrs. Moore and Miss Quested were accus- 
 tomed 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. “ ]\Iy hus- 
 band 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. IMr. 
 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 some- 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 qQ 
 
 thing not picturesque and weVe provided it,” he re- 
 marked 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 Eas.t, .abandoning its secular magnifi- 
 cence, 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 siniply not worth while conciliating them, that’s why 
 th ey don’t m atter. Most of th e people you see are sed i- 
 tious at heffi^ , and th e rest ’Id r un squea ling. The culti- 
 vator— loPs^nother 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 costum e had 
 lighted like a leprosy. Few had yieloEdentlfely, but none 
 were untouched.>^ There was a silence when he had fin- 
 ished 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 
 
 V 
 
 V 
 
40 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 stopped here. Beyond the sky must not there be some- 
 thing 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 Eng- 
 lish 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 ^omen did nothing that they could 
 not share with the meri. Their ignorance of the Arts was 
 notable, and they lost Sio opportunity of proclaiming it 
 to one another; it was the Public School attitude; flour- 
 ishing more vigorously than it can yet hope to do in Eng- 
 land. 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 ho^wjslgfant and €Oiiv^ntiOTal-his_j-udgments 
 h^djjecpiup^when they had sitfTC^^usm 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 
 to 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 fort- 
 night 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. 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 41 
 
 ■'‘To work, Mary, to work,” cried the Collector, touch- 
 ing 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, unles^ 
 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 forgH that, 
 
.2 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 ''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 ? ” 
 jf “ 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. Turtoa 
 
 “ Eastbourne, Piccadilly, High Park Corner,” said an- 
 other 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 onlook- 
 ers. 
 
 “/They pass Paris on the way, no doubt,” said Mrs. 
 Turton, as if she was describing the movements of migra- 
 tory birds. Her manner had grown more distant since 
 she had discovered that some of the group was \'^stern- 
 tzed, and might apply her own standards to her^/ 
 
 “ The shorter lady, she is my wife, she is Mrs. Bhatta- 
 charya,” 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 IMrs. Bhatta- 
 charya’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 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 43 
 
 was said, and alternately fondling the terrier or shrinking 
 from him. Miss Quested now had her desired oppor- 
 tunity; 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 niwrh1ir~bT*deprecation, varying into a 
 murmur of concern when she dropped her pocket-hand- 
 kerchief. She tried doing nothing, to see what that pro- 
 duced, and they too did nothing. Mrs. Moore was equally 
 unsuccessful. Mrs. Turton waited for them with a de- 
 tached expression; she had known what nonsense it all 
 was from the first. 
 
 When they took their leave, Mrs. Moore had an im- 
 pulse, 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 Cab 
 cutta to-day.” 
 
 “ Oh, do you ? ” said Adela, not at first seeing the im- 
 plication. Then she cried, “ Oh, but if you do we shall 
 find you gone.” 
 
 Mrs. Bhattacharya did not dispute it. But her husband 
 
44 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 /^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 
 I 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 Air. 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, 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 45 
 
 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 diffi- 
 culties. 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 in- 
 fected 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 carica-- 
 ture 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 numer- 
 ous 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 Eng- 
 lish 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 de- 
 cided to tell them what pleasure they had given by theit 
 friendliness. 
 
 He found the younger of them alone. She was looking 
 through a nick in the cactus hedge at the distant Marabar 
 
46 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 Hills, which had crept near, as was their custom at sun- 
 set; 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’d 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 Air. AIcBryde 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. Field- 
 ing 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 pro- 
 fessor 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 ” 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 47 
 
 “ 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, con- 
 templating 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 Cal- 
 lendars and the Turtons and the Burtons, and invite them 
 and be invited by them, '^ile., the true In dia slid byV 
 unnoticed^ Colour would remain — the pageant of Hirds 
 inThe 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 dog- 
 cart, she would see them. But the force that lies behind 
 colour and movement would escape her even more effec- 
 tually 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* 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 48 
 
 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 Alaharani 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 IMaharani 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 ’Id 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. McBr}^de 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 inter- 
 ference. “ 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 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 you mention it, you’re quite right — you ought to be 
 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 fol- 
 lowed 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 “ 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 Mrs. 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 h^s 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 pleas- 
 antly!” 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 ^re 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 
 g ods. ” 
 
 “ And Englishmen like posing as g ods.” 
 
 “ 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 ’Id 
 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 
 
 / Umuse 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 lit- 
 erary 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 w^ don’t 
 intend to be pleasant. WeVe something rhore important 
 
 \ ‘o 
 
 ' 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 flatter}'. 
 That lOiorning he had convicted a railway clerk of over- 
 charging pilgrims for their tickets, and a Pathan of at- 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 tempted rape. He expected no gratitude, no recognii biQpX 
 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 h_e t alked like an intelligent and embittered bov. 
 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 compe- 
 tently 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 J 
 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 ir- 
 ritability. 
 
 “ 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.” | 
 
52 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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.” i 
 
 “ The desire to behave pleasantly satisfies God. . . . i 
 The sincere if impotent desire wins His blessing. I think t 
 everyone fails, but there are so many kinds of failure. .. 
 Good will and more good will and more good will, j 
 Though I speak with the tongues of ...” i 
 
 [ 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.” PThey 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 men- 
 tioning God, but she found him increasing!)- difficult to 
 avoid as she grew older, and he had been constantly in her v 
 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 Hsit India — namely, 
 the relationship between Ronny and Adela. Would they, 
 or would they not, succeed in becoming engaged to be 
 married ? 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 53 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 A ZIZ 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. Grays- 
 ford’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 gyavel — “ and you live there — not ten minutes from 
 me — ?ind the Cow Hospital is right ever so far away the 
 (Other side of you — there — ^then how did you come to be 
 
54 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 an- 
 other 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. \\Ten his 
 spirits were up he felt that the Eng lish are a comic in- 
 j^itutiopj and he enjoyed being misun<lerstood“byT:hem. 
 Ktrtr it wal'^an' amusement” of The emotions and ne rves. 
 which an-accident~or~th e ]^sa ge^f time might destro y; 
 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 everyone ought to go to it. His fellow- 
 assistant, Doctor Panna Lai, was in ecstasies at the pros- 
 pect, 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 Lai, who was tin'id and 
 elderly, secured someone who could manage his horse. 
 He could manage it himself, but onh' 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 •'..ve do 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 55 
 
 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 revul- 
 sion, 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 
 I first child in mere animality. The change began after 
 i 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 ihother 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 ancMoy of 
 the world into Paradise, and he meditated suicide. iWould 
 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 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 56 
 
 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 seldon^ 
 
 It would have been simpler to tell Dr. Lai 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 chil- 
 dren, and found on his return that Dr. Lai 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 photo- 
 graph. 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 pas- 
 sionately we invoke them the further they recede. A piece 
 of brown cardboard and three children — that was all that 
 Ivas left of his wife. It was unbearable, and he thought 
 again, “ How unhappy I am ! ” and became happier. He 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 5f 
 
 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 inter- 
 esting him on their own account, he locked the photo- 
 graph 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 deter- 
 j mination to be determined. “ Maharajah, salaam,” he 
 I called for a joke. The youths stopped and laughed. He 
 i 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 froni’all human tension. He forgot 
 I the whole damned business of living as he scurried over 
 the brown platter of the Maidan, with the evening wind 
 I on his forehead, and the encircling trees soothing his 
 j 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 
 
58 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 re- 
 turning, but before it could exert its poison they parted, 
 sahtting ‘eaclT other. ' ohlyTh'ey wFre all like that,” 
 each thought, 
 
 fNow 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 idola- 
 trous animal. He gave it a tap with his polo mall et.^ 
 As he did so, a voice from the road hailed him : it was 
 Dr. Panna Lai, returning in high distress from the Col- 
 lector’s party. 
 
 “ Dr. Aziz, Dr. Aziz, where )'Ou 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 mean- 
 ing that he had changed his mind, an event too common 
 to merit censure. But Dr. Lai, being of low extraction, 
 was not sure whether an insult had not been intended, 
 and he was further annoyed because Aziz had buffeted 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 59 
 
 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. Lai, consider. How could I send my serv- 
 ant 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 char- 
 acters 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. Lai’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 
 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 ho 
 
 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 j 
 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 Lai was a 
 -person of no importance, yet was it wise to have quar- 
 relled 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 Gov- 
 ernment 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, wdthout 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 liad never met the Prin- 
 cipal, 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, ante- 
 cedents, how best one might please him. But Hamidullah 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 was still out, and Mahmoud Ali, who was in, would only 
 make silly rude jokes about the party. 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 HIS Mr. Fielding had been caught by India late. He 
 
 A 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 com- 
 partment of his first tropical train. The journey remained 
 in his mind as significant. Of his two carriage com- 
 panions 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 ortho- 
 dox 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 Eielding often attempted analo- 
 gies 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 in- 
 i eluded 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 educa- 
 tion. He did not mind whom he taught; public school- 
 boys, 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, 
 land 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 f what was wrong. He was not 
 
62 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 unpatriotic, he always got on with Englishmen in Eng- ■ 
 land, 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 in- 
 spire 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 Indi^but woe to him 
 through whom they are increased! iThe 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 pri- 
 vate 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 onl}" 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 ad- 
 dressed 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 t.ie male is expected to be 
 lively and helpful. Mr. Fielding never advised one about 
 
MOSQUE 63 
 
 'dogs or horses, or dined, or paid his midday calls, or 
 i decorated trees for one’s children at Christmas, and 
 I though he came to the club, it was only to get his tennis 
 or billiards, and to go. This was true. He had dis- 
 covered that it is possible to keep in with Indians and 
 j Englishmen, but that he who would also keep in with 
 ■; Englishwomen must drop the Indians. The two wouldn’t 
 [icombine. Useless to blame either party, useless to blame 
 them for blaming one another. It just was so, and one 
 jhad to choose. Most Englishmen preferred their own 
 I kinswomen, who, coming out in increasing numbers, 
 jmade life on the home pattern yearly more possible. He 
 ihad found it convenient and pleasant to associate with 
 [Indians and he must pay the price. As a rule no Eng- 
 ilishwoman entered the College except for official func- 
 itions, and if he invited Mrs. Moore and Miss Quested 
 ^to tea, it was because they were new-comerr who would 
 iview everything with an equal if superficial eye, and 
 :would not turn on a special voice when speaking to his 
 lother guests. 
 
 The College itself had been slapped down by the Public 
 I 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 lux- 
 ury in it, but no order — ^nothing to intimidate poor In- 
 5 dians. It was also a very beautiful room, opening into 
 t, the garden through three high arches of wood. “ The 
 i5 :fact is I have long wanted to meet you,” he continued, 
 it I have heard so much about your warm heart from the 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 64 
 
 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 Sur- 
 geon is pale too, ^le 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 ’£ 
 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. 
 
MOSQUE 65 
 
 Come in with it if you don’t mind the unconven- 
 tionality.” 
 
 “ One minute again.” Replacing his collar, he prayed 
 that it would not spring up at the back during tea. Field- 
 ing’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 
 ^e 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 / 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. rSut then the club moved slowly; it still de- 
 clared 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._J 
 
 “ Let me put in your stud. I see . . . the shirt back’s 
 hole is rather small and to rip it wider a pity.” 
 
66 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 “ 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?” 
 
 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 pic- 
 turesque costumes. — Hooray! Stud’s gone in. — Some- 
 times 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 Im- 
 pressionism — a. privilege reserved for the Ruling Race, 
 that. He said stiffly, “ I do not consider ]\Irs. iMoore my 
 friend, I only met her accidentally in my mosque,” and 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 67 
 
 was adding “ a single meeting is too short to make a 
 friend,” but before he could finish the sentence the stiff- 
 ness vanished from it, because he felt Fielding’s funda- 
 mental 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 rela- 
 tions were concerned, and their talk rattled on as before, 
 n* 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 sin- 
 cere chap.^ 
 
 “ Why don’t you fellows run a club J.n Chandrapore, 
 
 At-xzJ 
 
 “ Perhaps — some day . . . just now I see Mrs. Moore 
 and — ^what’s her name — coming.” 
 
68 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 en- 
 tails 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,” 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 69 
 
 f “ 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 wannly, and on learning fragments of the 
 : delinquents’ name pronounced that they were Hindus, 
 
 r^Slack Hindus — they have no idea of society; I know 1 
 i them very well because of a doctor at the hospital. Such I 
 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 
 i grew ashamed of their house and that is why they did 
 not send.”^ 
 
 “ That’s a notion,” said the other man. 
 i “ I do so hate mysteries,” Adela announced. 
 
 I “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 
 
 j Mrs. Moore. 
 
 I “ 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 bettef 
 he would unlock his country for her. His invitation 
 gratified her, and she asked him for his address. 
 
70 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 Aziz thought of his bungalow with horror. It was a 
 detestable shanty near a low bazaar. There was prac- 
 tically 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. IMoore, 
 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 wa^ 
 no knowing who might not come in — and his serv^ants sat 
 on his steps night and day to discourage thieves. Beau- 
 tiful 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. l\Iy 
 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 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 71 
 
 we would sit giving for ever — on a carpet instead of 
 chairs, that is the chief change between now and then, but 
 I I think we would never punish anyone.” 
 
 I The ladies agreed. 
 
 j “ Poor criminal, give him another chance. It only 
 ij makes a man worse to go to prison and be corrupted.” 
 j His face grew very tender — the tenderness of one in- 
 I capable of administration, and unable to grasp that if the 
 I poor criminal is let off he will again rob the poor widow. 
 |: He was tender to everyone except a few family enemies 
 j whom he did not consider human : on these he desired 
 ! revenge. He was even tender to the English; he knew 
 i 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 re- 
 ; peated, “ 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 veran- 
 dah’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 bam- 
 boos 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 ioved wMer. Wherever they went they created 
 fountains, gardens, hammams. I was telling Mr. Field- 
 ing I would give r,ny thing to serve them.” 
 
 He was wrong about ths water, which no Emperor, 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 t^ever skilful, can cause to gravitate uphill; a depres 
 sion of some depth together with the whole of Chandra- 
 pore 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 crav- 
 ing for verbal truth and cared chiefly for truth of mood. 
 
 JXs 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 Indi^ 
 
 He was now much excited, chattering away hard7 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, delib- 
 erately 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 some- 
 what, 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 be- 
 hind him, to which he stretched back, and as it were en- 
 countered 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 
 
» MOSQUE I 73 
 
 A 
 
 I as physical, and could never be discomposed. The Indies* 
 I were interested in him, and hoped that he would supple- 
 j ment Dr. Aziz by saying something about religion. But 
 , he only ate— ate and ate, smiling, never letting his eyes 
 I - catch sight of his hand. 
 
 Leaving the Mogul Emperors, Aziz turned to topics 
 j 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 stream- 
 ing 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 impor- 
 tant 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 de- 
 tain them? ” 
 
 “ Mangoes, mangoes.” 
 
 They laughed. “ Even mangoes can be got in Eng- 
 land 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 
 
1 
 
 74 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 finish- 
 ing 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 w^as splitting up. The 
 more familiar half was going, but the m.ore 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 deli- 
 cious,” said Aziz sadly, for he wanted to send sweets 
 too and had no wife to cook them. “ The}^ 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 com- 
 pared 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.” 
 
 f cThe old man was silent, perhaps feeling that it was 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 75 
 
 unseemly of her to criticize her race, perhaps fearing 
 that if he agreed she would rfepdrt 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 Mara- 
 bar.” 
 
 “ 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 pleas- 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 76 
 
 ure, and ^ziz r ealized that he was keeping back some- 
 thij ^ abou t,J:h.e-^caves. He realized because he often 
 suff^d 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 hun- 
 dred irrelevant. The Major accused him of disingenuous- 
 ness, 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 so mething. 
 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 thrill- 
 ing 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 colleef..” 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 77 
 
 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 th? 
 two men, but the only link he could be conscious of witk 
 
 an Indian was the official, and neither happened 
 
 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 re- 
 fused 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 do 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 down- 
 cast 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. 
 
78 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 “ Don’t trouble to come, mother,” Rortny 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 Airs. Aloore. 
 
 “ 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 mmr or 
 ^n Italian alp? Fielding wondered afterwards. iThere 
 seemed no reserve cf trang uillitv to draw upon in India. 
 Eit hef1tidhe7~or~erse tranquillitv sw a jlow ed.up everything, ' 
 as“it appeared to do for Professor_Godbol^ Here was 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 79 
 
 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 detest- 
 ing 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 after- 
 noon. . . ” 
 
 Good-bye, Miss Quested.” 
 
 “ Good-bye, Dr. Aziz” 
 
 “ Good-bye, Mrs. Moore.” 
 
 “ Good-bye, Dr. Azaz.” 
 
 “ 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, sud-- 
 denly 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 an- 
 other. 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 sul> 
 dominant. 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 8o 
 
 * “ 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 com- 
 panions, 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, per- 
 haps 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. I 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 LTHOUGH 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-com- 
 placency, 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. M'hen proved 
 wrong, he was particularly exasperating ; he always man- 
 aged 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 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 8i 
 
 f! 
 
 ! experience would not help her because she could not in- 
 terpret it. A Public School, London University, a year 
 . at a crammer’s, a particular sequence of posts in a particu- 
 I lar province, a fall from a horse and a touch of fever 
 were presented to her as the only training by which In- 
 ' dians and all who reside in their country can be under-. 
 
 stood; the only training she could comprehend, that is 
 I to say, for of course above Ronny there stretched the 
 i higher realms of knowledge, inhabited by Callendars and 
 f Turtons, who had been not one year in the country but 
 twenty and whose instincts were superhuman. For him- 
 self 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 irrita- 
 tion 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 oc- 
 curred. They had scarcely left the College grounds be- 
 fore 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 ? ” 
 
82 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 “ 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. Simi-~ 
 larly, 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 Mara- 
 bar 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, feel- ' 
 ing it was the least they could do. Their crackling bad 
 humour left them, but the heaviness of their spirit re- 
 mained ; 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 ' 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 83 
 
 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 civi- 
 lized girl to behave! She owed him an explanation, but 
 unfortunately there was nothing to explain. The “ thor- 
 cmgh 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 premo-' 
 nition 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 morn- 
 ing 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 mer,'nt 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 be- 
 tween two English people. He controlled himself and 
 said gently, “ You never said we should marry, my dear 
 
84 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 
 ^Uhe sancti ty of personal relationships : it was this that 
 nau'Hraw 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 
 piuc h b^eve in this discussing— besides, I’m so dea3*w'ith 
 aUthis extra work Mdhurram’s bringing, if you’ll ex- 
 cuse 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 unpardon- 
 able 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 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 85 
 
 to go to bed. Some Indian wild bird. “Yes, nothing 
 else,” she repeated, feeling that a profound and passion- 
 ate 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 Eura- 
 sian who drove the Nawab Bahadur’s car, the Nawab 
 Bahadur himself, the Nawab Bahadur’s debauched grand- 
 son — ^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. 
 
86 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 i ^But nothing in India is identifiable, the mere askiiig of 
 a question causes it to disappear or to merge in some- 
 thing else^ 
 
 ** "^McBryde has an illustrated bird book,” he said de- 
 jectedly. “ I’m no good at all at birds, in fact I’m use- 
 less 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 her- 
 self together. She held out her hand. The old gentle- 
 man judged from so wanton a gesture that she was new 
 to his country, but he paid little heed. r\Vomen 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 affairj On see- 
 ing 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 dis- 
 posal ; the City Magistrate would decide whether the offer 
 was acceptable. 
 
 Ronny was by this time rather ashamed of his curt- 
 ness 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 dis- 
 cussing the bird, “ Would half an hour’s spin entertain 
 you at all ? ” 
 
 “ Oughtn’t we to get back to the bungalow? ” 
 
/ 
 
 MOSQUE 87 
 
 “ Why ? ” He gazed at her. 
 
 “ I think perhaps I ought to see your mother and dis- 
 cuss 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 ele- 
 gant grandson had to be left behind. The Nawab Baha- 
 dur got up in front, for he had no intention of neigh- 
 bouring an English girl. “ Despite my advanced years, I 
 ara learning to drive,” he said. “ Man can learn every- 
 thing 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 juethod serious and I may say ludicrous accidents, 
 such as befell one of my compatriots during that delight- 
 ful reception at the English Club, are avoided. Our 
 good Panna Lai! 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 chaussee 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 countryside was too vast to admit of excellence. 
 In vain did each item in it call out, “ Come, come.” 
 
88 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA" 
 
 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 vege- 
 tation, 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 
 j, 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 diffi- 
 Iculties 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 tempo- 
 rary as the gleam that inhabits a firefly. It w^ould vanish 
 in a moment, perhaps to reappear, but the darkness is 
 alone durable. And the night that encircled them, abso- 
 lute 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 swer\^e, two wheels 
 lifted in the air, brakes 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 min- 
 utes’ time. I’ll take you any dam anywhere.” 
 
 “ Erightened, Adela? ” He released her hand. 
 
 “ Not a bit.” 
 
 “ I consider not to be frightened the height of folR,” 
 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 . . . 
 
MOSQUE 89 
 
 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 re- 
 
90 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 vealed. 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 mud- 
 dled about in the dust. 
 
 “ I believe it was a bufifalo,” 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. “ IMr. 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 Mara- 
 bar.” 
 
 “ 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, iMiss 
 Derek sat inside. 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 91 
 
 " Mr. Heasiop, Miss Quested, what are you holding up 
 an innocent female for ? ’’ 
 
 “ WeVe 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 w'hich 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 suitatJe dinner upon 
 n 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-oinscious, 
 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 him- 
 self if 
 
 But Miss Derek was in tearing spirits. She had suc-= 
 
92 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 ceeded 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 har- 
 monium — 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’ I ” 
 
 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 tri- 
 umphs of a free lance are of no assistance to an adminis- 
 trator, 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 ? Mdiat 
 should he know about Maharanis, Miss Quested ? Noth- 
 ing. 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.” 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 93 
 
 ; “ 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 
 I beyond doubt be a most excellent lady, and let it not be 
 ’ for a moment supposed that I suggest anything against 
 i the character of Her Highness the Maharani of Mudkul. 
 But I fear she will be uneducated, I fear she will be super- 
 stitious. Indeed, how could she be otherwise ? What 
 i opportunity of education has such a lady had? Oh, 
 
 ; su p erstition is terrible, terrible ! oh, it is the great defect 
 iin our Indian character!” — and as if to point his criti- 
 ; cism, the lights of the civil station appeared on a rise 
 : to the right. He grew more and more voluble. “ Oh, 
 
 ' it is the duty oi each and every citizen to shake super- 
 ; stition off, andOhough I have little experience of Hindu 
 i States, and none of this particular one, namely Mudkul 
 ' (the Ruler, I fancy, has a salute of but eleven guns) — 
 
 I yet I cannot imagine that they have been as successful 
 i as British India, where we see reason and orderliness 
 spreading in every direction, like a most health-giving 
 flood I ”j 
 
 i Miss Derek said “ Golly 1 ” 
 
 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 
 I that he was big, lest she felt she had committed a dis- 
 I courtesy. This was the groundwork of his oration; 
 I worked in with it was his ‘gratitude to Miss Derek for 
 I 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 
 I be dropped near the city to get hold of his cleaner, and 
 I to see what mischief his grandson was to. As he 
 
94 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 wove all these anxieties into a single rope, he suspected 
 that his audience felt no interest, and that the City Magis- 
 trate fondled either maiden behind the cover of the har- 
 monium, 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 com- 
 ment, 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 re- 
 moved 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 IMaidan.” 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 humili- 
 ated 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 ” — open- 
 ing the perforated zinc door that protected the bungalow 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 95 
 
 ; from the swarms of winged creatures. The noise woke 
 i the mater up. She had been dreaming of the absent 
 I children who were so seldom mentioned, Ralph and Stella, 
 and did not at first grasp what was required of her. She 
 i 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 
 I 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 
 i to see India now; now for my passage back,” was Mrs. 
 
 I Moore’s thought. She reminded herself of all that a 
 I happy marriage means, and of her own happy mar- 
 i riages, one of which had produced Ronny. Adda’s 
 [parents had also been happily married, and excellent it 
 i was to see the incident repeated by the younger genera- 
 tion. 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 an- 
 noyed her in the tum-tum, and given her to suppose they 
 ’ were breaking with each other, and though it was all right 
 I now she could not speak as enthusiastically of wedlock 
 [ or of anything as she should have done. Ronny was 
 |1 suited, now she must go home and help the others, if they 
 f wished. She was past marrying herself, even unhappily; 
 
 I her function was to help others, her reward to be in- 
 I formed that she was sympathetic. Elderly ladies must 
 : not expect more than this. 
 
 I They dined alone. There was much pleasant and affec- 
 j; tionate talk about the future. Later on they spoke of 
 I 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 them- 
 
96 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 1 
 
 selves or thought, he had worked. fMohurram was ap- 
 proaching, 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 aus- 
 pices 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 iSIoham- 
 medans 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. Measure- 
 ments, 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^nd 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.” 
 
 r 
 
 it 
 
MOSQUE 97 
 
 I “ I like Aziz, Aziz is my real friend,” Mrs, Moore 
 : interposed. 
 
 ‘ “ When the animal runs into us the Nawab loses his 
 
 I head, deserts his unfortunate chauffeur, intrudes upon 
 I Miss Derek ... no great crimes, no great crimes, but 
 I no white man would have done it.” 
 i “What animal?” 
 
 ' “ Oh, we had a small accident on the Marabar Road. 
 
 :IAdela 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 
 jtake it up, being occupied with their own outlooks, and 
 ! deprived of support it perished, or was reabsorbed into 
 lithe 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 
 ij 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 
 irow ensued. Ronny stormed, shouted, howled, and only 
 j the experienced observer could tell that he was not angry, 
 i 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 
 
98 
 
 A PASSAGE 'TO INDIA 
 
 glad it’s settled up at last, but I’m not conscious of vast) 
 changes. We are all three the same people still.” j 
 
 “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 i 
 very good to me, and I meant to be good when I sailed, ' 
 but somehow I haven’t been. . . . Mrs. ]\Ioore^if one , 
 isn’t absolutely hon est, what is. the use of existing? ” T 
 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. “ Ij 
 wouldn’t worry,” she said. “ It’s partly the odd sur- . 
 roundings; you and I keep on attending to trifles in-i 
 stead 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? ” i 
 
 “ Call what a ghost ? ” j 
 
 “ The animal thing that hit us. Didn’t you say ‘ Oh, 
 /a ghost,’ in passing.” 
 
 \ “I couldn’t have been thinking of what I Avas saying.” 
 
 / “ It was probably a hyena, as a matter of fact.” 
 
 [ “ Ah, very likely.” 
 
 And they went on with their Patience. Down in^ 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 99 
 
 ! 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 com- 
 municable 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, 
 
 I what matter? it must happen sometime; but they who 
 
 trusted me ” The company shuddered and invoked 
 
 the mercy of God. Only Ataz held aloof, because a per- 
 sonal 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 gentle- 
 man, as you know. I say nothing against him, only that 
 it is wrong for us, because we are young. I want you to 
 i promise me — Nureddin, are you listening? — not to be- 
 I lieve in Evil Spirits, and if I die (for my health grows 
 
lOO 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 
 ^xnoon. Presently the players went to bed, but not before 
 other people had woken up elsewhere, people whose emo- 
 tions they could not share, and whose existence they 
 
 1 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 perpendicu- 
 larly 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 
 
 A ZIZ 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. 
 
 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? 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 lOI 
 
 He did not object to the first set; the other he ignored, 
 knowing their inefficiency. Old Mr. Graysford and 
 j young Mr. Sorley made converts during a famine, be- ^ 
 i cause 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 
 j wisdomj “ No Englishman understands us except Mr. 
 
 I Fielding,” he thought; “but how shall I see him again? 
 j If he entered this room the disgrace of it would kill me.” 
 
 I He called to Hassan to clear up, but Hassan, who was 
 I testing his wages by ringing them on the step of the 
 Ij verandah, found it possible not to hear him; heard and 
 i{ didn’t hear, just as Aziz had called and hadn’t called. 
 
 ^ “That’s India all over . . . how like us . . . there we 
 i are . . .” He dozed again, and his thoughts wandered 
 ^ over the varied surface of life. 
 
 I Gradually they steadied upon a certain spot — ^the Bot- 
 i tomless Pit according to missionaries, but he had never 
 
 II regarded it as more than a dimple. Yes, he did want to 
 ij spend an evening with some girls, singing and all that, 
 
 !j the vague jollity that would culminate in voluptuousness. 
 
 I Yes, that was what he did want. How could it be man- 
 i aged? 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 
 I made of ice, or that they repaired to the Chandrapore 
 ; bazaars — disgusting ideas both. It was only Mr. Field- 
 
 |j ing who 
 
 “Hassan!” 
 
 ;i 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 elec- 
 tricity. Electricity had paid no attention, and a colony 
 jj of eye-flies had come instead and blackened the coils with 
 { their bodies. 
 
102 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 “ 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 All’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 de- 
 tour. 
 
 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 consti- 
 tution 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 wTong end. It didn’t 
 interpret his experiences when he found them in a Ger- 
 man 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 informa- 
 
MOSQUE 103 
 
 tion 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. ^f Aziz up -~ 
 
 iijjLO.t-in.YesL .them- with 
 
 any moral halo, and it was here tha^he c hiefly diff ered 
 from aiT'English.mam^ Hi^_convanti.ons w ere so cial. 
 ThereT^o 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 unfaith- 
 fubiessY Quite clear about this, he meditated what type 
 of lieTie 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 Cal- 
 lendar, when the noise of wheels was heard in his com- 
 pound. 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, twcp, 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 joljy important, our salaries prove 
 
 it. 
 
 99 
 
 “ Dr. Aziz took tea with our Principal last Thursday 
 afternoon,” piped Rafi, the engineer’s nephew. “ Pro- 
 fessor 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. 
 
104 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 “ 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 en- 
 quire 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 au- 
 thority,” 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 
 “ Diarrhoea,” 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 diarrhoea 
 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 in- 
 formed?” cried Aziz. 
 
 “ Dr. Panna Lai 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 vomit- 
 ing 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 God- 
 bole had diminished his appeal by linking himself with a 
 co-religionist. He moved them less than when he had 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 los 
 
 appeared as a suffering individual. Before long they 
 began to condemn him as a source of infection. “ All 
 illness pr oceed s from _Hindus.” Mr. Hag said. Mr. Sy^ 
 Mohamfhedniad visited religious fairs, at Allahabad and 
 at Ujjain, and described them with biting scorn. At 
 Allahabad there was flowing water, which carried im- 
 purities 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 cowdung 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 ex- 
 citement 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 bj 
 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 be- 
 tween mankind and flowers. The squalid bedroom grew 
 quiet; the silly intrigues, the gossip, the shallow discon- 
 tent 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 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 Jo6 
 
 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 compre- 
 hension of poetry. The minds of the others were inferior 
 and rough. Yet they listened with pleasure, because lit- 
 erature 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 in- 
 fection 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 never- 
 theless, our isolation, our need for^ihe 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. 
 /IHamidullah 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 com- 
 mittee would vanish also^ He was glad that Aziz, whom 
 he loved and whose family was connected with his own, 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 107 
 
 ! took no interest in politics, which ruin the character and 
 i 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 
 .j ago! Politics had not mattered in Mr. and Mrs. Ban- 
 l| nister’s rectory. There, games, work, and pleasant so- 
 j ciety had interwoven, and appeared to be sufficient sub- 
 ,1 structure for a national life. Here all was wire-pulling 
 I aritU 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 
 i goodwill. Little ineffectual unquenchable flames! The 
 company continued to sit on the bed and to chew sugar- 
 cane, which Hassan had run for into the bazaar, and Aziz 
 i drank a cup of spiced milk. Presently there was the 
 / sound of another carriage. Dr. Panna Lai 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 pros- 
 j trate form. 
 
 “ Dr. Aziz, Dr. Aziz, I come to enquire.” 
 
 Aziz presented an expressionless face to the ther- 
 mometer. 
 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 io8 
 
 “ Your hand also, please.” He took it, gazed at the 
 flies on the ceiling, and finally announced, “ Some tem- 
 perature.” 
 
 “ I think not much,” said Ram Chand, desirous of 
 fomenting trouble. 
 
 “ Some ; he should remain in bed,” repeated Dr. Panna 
 Lai, and shook the thermometer down, so that its altitude 
 remained for ever unknown. He loathed his young col- 
 league since the disasters with Dapple, and he would 
 have liked to do him a bad turn and report to Major Cal- 
 lendar that he was shamming. But he might want a 
 day in bed himself soon, — besides, though Major Cal- 
 lendar always believed the worst of natives, he never be- 
 lieved 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 ad- 
 mitted 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 Gov- 
 ernment College now,” said Ram Chand. 
 
 “ You attend Professor Godbole there perhaps? ” 
 
 The doctor looked professional and was silent. 
 
 “ We hope his diarrhoea is ceasing.” 
 
 “ He progresses, but not from diarrhoea.” 
 
 “ We are in some anxiety over him — he and Dr. Aziz 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 109 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 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, “ Haemorrhoids.” 
 
 “ 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 re- 
 ports 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 authorita- 
 tively.” 
 
 “ 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 prop- 
 erly, Rafi, I can see your uncle wishes it,” he said. “ Yo\i 
 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 Lai, 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 ad- 
 vantage of a relative in the Prosperity Printing Press.” 
 
 “ Nor you the advantage of conducting their cases in 
 the Courts any longer.” 
 
no 
 
 A PASSAGE. TO INDIA 
 
 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 up with a sugar-cane at the coil of flies. 
 
 Aziz said, “ Sit down,” coldly. What a room! What 
 a meeting I 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 in- 
 significant Rafi, whom he had laughed at, and allowed to 
 be teased. The boy must be sent away happy, or hospi- 
 tality 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 him- 
 self. 
 
 “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 Lai.” 
 
 “ 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 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 III 
 
 the informality.” He turned away and continued to ad- 
 dress Rafi, who was terrified at the arrival of his Prin- 
 cipal, 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 
 trus t each other. 
 
 The whole world looks to be dying, still it doesn’t die, 
 so we must assume the existence of a beneficent Provi- 
 dence.” 
 
 “ 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. Pm cer- 
 tain 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 “ T told you so ! ” passed round 
 the company, and Aziz looked up for an instant, scan- 
 dalized. “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 mo're fuss was made.’^ 
 
 “ And does noFmorality 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? ” 
 
II2 
 
 A PASSAGE TO 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 
 
 “ Well-qualified Indians also need jobs in the educa- 
 tional.” 
 
 . “ 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 any- 
 thing 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 Jus- 
 tice 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 Eng- 
 lishmen 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. 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 113 
 
 x_ 
 
 “ 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 tme ! ” said the police inspector. 
 / “ Is it true, Mr. Haq? 11 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. Lai ought to be with 
 his patients, he isn’t. So we go on, and so. we shall con- 
 tinue to go, I think, until the end of tim e.”P r 
 
 “ It is not the end of time, it is scarcely ten-thirty, 
 ha, ha ! ” cried Dr. Panna Lai, 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. Lai ! ” 
 
 “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 veran- 
 dah while their conveyances were summoned out of vari- 
 ous 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. 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 1 14 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 T he hr^t had leapt forward in the last hour, the street 
 v/afy 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-down- 
 \vards 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 
 
 I insects; another bird, tl^ invisible coppersmith, had 
 started his “ ponk ponk.” Jjt matters so little to the ma- 
 jority of living beings what the minority, that calls it- 
 self human, desires or decide^ Most of the inhabitants 
 of India do not mind how India is governed, f Nor are 
 "^the lower animals of England concerned about ^England, 
 
 I but in the tropics the indifference is more prominent, the 
 i inarticulate world is closer at hand and readier to resume 
 control as soon as men are tired. ^When the seven gentle- 
 men who had held such various opinions inside the bunga- 
 I low came out of it, they were aware of a common burden, 
 
 , a vague threat which they called “ the bad weather com- 
 ing.” They felt that they could not do their work, or 
 would not be paid enough for doing it. The space be- 
 . tween 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. j Salaaming j 
 feebly, they dispersed for the interior of other bungalows, ! 
 to recover their self-esteem and the qualities that distin- j 
 
 guished them from each otherJ i 
 
 y V 1 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 115 
 
 fl All over the city and over much of India the same re- 
 ji treat on the part of humanity was beginning, into cellars, 
 [j up hills, under trees. April, herald of horrors, is at hand. 
 
 The sun was returning to his kingdom with power but 
 1 1 without beauty — that was the sinister feature. If only 
 I ! there had been beauty ! His cruelty would have been tol- 
 j erable then. Through excess of light, he failed to tri- 
 ij umph, he also; in his yellowy-white overflow not only 
 i| matter, but brightness itself lay drowned. He was not the 
 unattainable friend, either of men or birds or other suns, 
 I he was not the eternal promise, the never-withdrawn sug- 
 [' gestion that haunts our consciousness; he was merely a 
 i! creature, like the rest, and so debarred from glory. 
 
 i| 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 A lthough the Indians had driven off, and Fielding 
 could see his horse standing in a small shed in the 
 I corner of the compound, no one troubled to bring it to 
 i; him. He started to get it himself, but was stopped by a 
 I call from the house. Aziz was sitting up in bed, looking 
 i' dishevelled and sad. “ Here’s your home,” he said sar- 
 I donically. “ Here’s the celebrated hospitality of the East. 
 
 I Look at the flies. Look at the chunam coming off the 
 f walls. Isn’t it jolly? Now I suppose you want to be 
 ' off, having seen an Oriental interior.” 
 j “ Anyhow, you want to rest.” 
 
 i “ I can rest the whole day, thanks to worthy Dr. Lai. 
 
 ■ Major Callendar’s spy, I suppose you know, but this tims 
 I; it didn’t work. I am allowed to have a slight tempera- 
 ture.” 
 
 “ Callendar doesn’t trust anyone, English or Indian: 
 
 ;; that’s his character, and I wish you weren’t under him; 
 
 I but you are, and that’s that.” 
 
 I “ Before you go, for you are evidently in a great hurry, 
 
ii6 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 com- 
 pliment, 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 photo- 
 graph ? ” 
 
 “ 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 
 
MOSQUE 117 
 
 1 do not forget, though we may seem to. Kindness, more | 
 ii kindness, and even after that more kindness. I assure j 
 ! I you it is the only hope.” His voice seemed to arise from 1 
 ' j a dream. Altering it, yet still deep below his normal sur- 
 . I face, he said, “ We can’t build up India except on what 
 we feel. What is the use of all these reforms, and Con- 
 !| ciliation Committees for Mohurram, and shall we cut the 
 I tazia short or shall we carry it another route, and Councils 
 I of Notables and official parties where the English sneer 
 :t at our skins ? ” 
 
 ^ “ It’s beginning at the wrong end, isn’t it? I know, 
 
 '■ but institutions and the governments don’t.” He looked 
 ij again at the photograph. The lady faced the world at 
 'i her husband’s wish and her own, but how bewildering 
 '1 she found it, the echoing contradictory world ! 
 
 “ Put her away, she is of no importance, she is dead,” 
 
 I said Aziz gently. “ I showed her to you because I have 
 j 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 
 li grandmamma, and that is all.” 
 
 ; Fielding sat down by the bed, flattered at the trust 
 ;i reposed in him, yet rather sad. He felt old. He wished 
 I ithat he too could be carried away on waves of emotion. 
 
 ! iThe next time they met, Aziz might be cautious and 
 I standoffish. He realized this, and it made him sad that ? 
 
 : he should realize it. Kindness, kindness, and more kind- 
 i ness — yes, that he might supply, but was that really all 
 ij that the queer nation needed ? Did it not also demand 
 an occasional intoxication of the blood? What had he 
 i 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 pro- 
 duced! There were things in it that he had shown to 
 i 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 off, memories 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 ii8 
 
 of her and thoughts about her had kept him from other 
 women for a time; then indulgence, followed by re- 
 pentance and equilibrium. Meagre really except the 
 equilibrium, and Aziz didn’t want to have that confided 
 to him- — he would have called it “ ever}1;hing ranged 
 coldly on shelves.” 
 
 “ I shall not really be intimate with this fellow,” Field- 
 ing 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 pre- 
 vented him from experiencing something else. 
 
 “ How did you like the two ladies you met last Thurs- 
 day? ” he asked. 
 
 Aziz shook his head distastefully. The question re- 
 minded 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 ? ” 
 
 Eielding 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 illegiti- 
 mate children ? ” 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 119 
 
 “ No. I’d willingly tell you if I had.” 
 
 “ Then your name will entirely die out.” 
 
 I “ It must.” 
 
 : “ Well.” He shook his head. “ This indifference is 
 
 Iwhat the Oriental will never understand.” 
 
 “ I don’t care for children.” 
 
 “ Caring has nothing to do with it,” he said impa- 
 tiently. 
 
 I “ I don’t feel their absence, I don’t want them weeping 
 'around my death-bed and being polite about me after- 
 wards, 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.” 
 i “ 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 Magis- 
 
 I trate.” 
 
 “ Has she indeed? I am so glad! ” he exclaimed with 
 ; relief, for this exempted him from the Marabar expedi- 
 i tion : he would scarcely be expected to entertain regular 
 I Anglo-Indians. 
 
 I “ It’s the old mother’s doing. She was afraid her dear; 
 
120 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 boy would choose for himself, so she brought out the 
 girl on purpose, and flung them together until it hap- 
 pened.” 
 
 “ 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 3'ou 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 per- 
 haps, 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 matri- 
 mony 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 pro- 
 tector who knows the dangers of India and is admoni- 
 tory. “ You can’t be too careful in every way, Mr. Field- 
 ing; whatever you say or do in this damned country 
 there is always some envious fellow on the lookout. You 
 may be surprised to know that there were at least three 
 spies sitting here when j'ou came to enquire. I was really 
 a good deal upset that 3’ou talked in that fashion about 
 God. They will certainly report it.” 
 
 “To whom? ” 
 
 “ That’s all very well, but 3’ou spoke against morality 
 also, and 3^ou said you had come to take other people’s 
 jobs. All that was ver3" unwise. This is an awful place 
 for scandal. Wh3% actually one of 3'our own pupils was 
 listening.” 
 
MOSQUE 
 
 “Thanks for telling me that; yes, I must try ancT'be 
 more careful. If I’m interested, I’m apt to forget my-» 
 self. 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 cnarmed 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 Edu- 
 cation. 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 E^h 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. 
 
122 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 “ 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 IMr. 
 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 admira- 
 tion 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 dis- 
 covered 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 memo- 
 ries of the last tw^o 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 
 
 f 
 
 T he 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 
 yhen 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 con- 
 trived 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 penin- 
 sula 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 
 bn 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 aeons may still discern in their out- 
 lines 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 
 aeons 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 
 
124 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 any- 
 thing dreamt or seen. To call them “ uncanny ” sug- 
 gests 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 arrange- 
 ment 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 Chan- 
 drapore 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 ex- 
 claim “ 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, 
 
CAVES 
 
 125 
 
 iind no eye to see it, until the visitor arrives for his five 
 ® jaiinutes, and strikes a match. Immediately another flame 
 Vises 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 
 "5 (flames approach and strive to unite, but cannot, because 
 one of them breathes air, the other stone. A mirror in- 
 ((aid with lovely colours divides the lovers, delicate stars 
 of pink and grey interpose, exquisite nebulae, 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 im- 
 pinge as an afterthought upon the internal perfection. 
 
 ■i An entrance was necessary, so mankind made one. But 
 ■ [elsewhere, deeper in the granite, are there certain cham- 
 bers 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 thou- 
 sand or million. Nothing is inside them, they were sealed 
 up before the creation of pestilence or treasure; if man- 
 kind 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 
 ithe 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 
 fwind, and even moves when a crow perches upon it: 
 
126 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 hence its name and the name of its stupendous pedestal: 
 the Kawa Dol. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 T hese 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 Air. Fielding’s had 
 said he w'ould arrange something, and that Indians seem 
 rather forgetful. She was overheard by the servant who 
 offered them vermouths. This servant understood Eng- 
 lish. 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. En- 
 dowed 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 God- 
 bole, and then commissioned Fielding to approach Airs. 
 Moore and Miss Quested when they were alone — by this 
 device Ronny, their official protector, could be circum- 
 vented. 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 askeds 
 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 con- 
 sulting Air. Heaslop. Consulted, Ronny raised no objec- 
 
CAVES 
 
 tion, 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 enthusi- 
 astic, yet it took place. 
 
 Aziz was terribly worried. It was not a long expedi- 
 |tion — a train left Chandrapore just before dawn, another 
 
 1 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, 
 land be refused because of his recent malingering; de- 
 spair; renewed approach of Major Callendar through 
 iFielding, and contemptuous snarling permission. He had 
 to borrow cutlery from Mahmoud Ali without inviting 
 him. /Then here was the question of alcohol ; Mr. Field- 
 ;ffig, and perhaps the ladies, were drinkers, so must he 
 provide whisky-sodas and ports ? There was the problem 
 jof transport from the wayside station of Marabar to the 
 leaves. There was the problem of Professor Godbole and 
 ibis food, and of Professor Godbole and other people’s 
 jfood — two problems, not one problem. The Professor 
 Iwas not a very strict Hindu — ^he would take tea, fruit, 
 Jsoda-water and sweets, whoever cooked them, and vege- 
 tables 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 
 bating ham. T rouble after trouble encountered him, be- 
 Jt^aus e he had c.hnilengpri the spirit of the Indian ea rth, 
 j ^which tri es to keen 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 him- 
 
 
128 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 self walked up and down with old Alohammed 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 con- 
 tained 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 mo- 
 ment 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 serv^ant. 
 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 bor- 
 rowed 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 tempo- 
 rary look that indicates its end. Perched on the roof of 
 a shed, the station-master’s hens began to dream of kites i 
 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 pas- 
 sengers in dark corners; heads were unshrouded, teeth 
 cleaned on the twigs of a tree. So convinced was a jimior 
 
CAVES 
 
 129 
 
 iofficial that another sun would rise, that he rang a bell 
 ifwith enthusiasm. This upset the servants. They shrieked' 
 that the train was starting, and ran to both ends of it to 
 ">l intercede. Much had still to enter the purdah carriage — 
 ■s |a box bound with brass, a melon wearing a fez, a towel 
 ontaining guavas, a step-ladder and a gun. The guests 
 ijplayed up all right. They had no race-consciousness — 
 jMrs. 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 
 af which they trusted themselves to be with him a few 
 moments alone. 
 
 “ Send back your servant,” he suggested. “ He is un- 
 I jaecessary. Then we shall all be Aboslems together.” 
 il “ And he is such a horrible servant. Antony, you caa 
 ; 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 
 Ihe 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 
 Isort, he prefers to salaam. There, I told you so. Mo- 
 hammed 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 
 liman? We will have great jokes with him later. He 
 i idoes all sorts of little things. He is not nearly as stupid 
 ;|is you think, and awfully poor. It’s lucky ours is a 
 (large family.” He flung an arm round the grubby neck. 
 
 I 
 
130 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 “ 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 in- 
 decent 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 atten- 
 tion 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 
 
CAVES 
 
 131 
 
 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, “ Fm 
 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. 
 
132 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 “ Get in, Dr. Aziz, you make us giddy,” the ocher 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 some- 
 times said so too. He would show those pessimists that 
 ihe)’- 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 
 
 M ost 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 
 
CAVES 
 
 133 
 
 happens, and though we continue to exclaim, “ I do enjoy 
 myself,” or, “ I am horrified,” we are insincere. “ As 
 far as I feel an3d:hing, 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 Pro' 
 lessor Godbole had sung his queer little song, they had 
 lived more or less inside cocoons, and the difference be- 
 tween 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 in- 
 teresting, 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 amus- 
 ing, 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. 
 
*34 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 “ I want to sack Antony. His behaviour on the plat- 
 form 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 coun- 
 try.’ ” 
 
 “ 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 mar-^ 
 ried 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 hus- 
 bands grilling in the plains. Mrs. McBryde hasn’t stopped 
 down once since she married ; she leaves her quite intelli- 
 gent 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 ofl. Wh^ that 
 
CAVES 
 
 135 
 
 I 
 
 i happens one has again the right to live for oneself — in 
 j 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 
 j he is married no doubt various changes will have to be 
 i 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 
 i nearer to understanding man. And to-day she felt this 
 i with such force that it seemed itself a relationship, itself 
 a person who was trying to take hold of her hand, 
 j “ 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 
 I a nullah. “ Romper, pomper, pomper,” was the sound 
 I that the wheels made as they trundled over the bridge, 
 I' moving very slowly. A hundred yards on came a second 
 ||: nullah, then a third, suggesting the neighbourhood of 
 [i; 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 Ronn)'’’s 
 true worth. Then she went back to her plans ; plans had 
 
136 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 ap- 
 praised 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 under- 
 stood 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? Genera- 
 tions 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 
 ’ ome. /India knows of their trouble. She knows of the 
 whole world’s trouble, to its uttermost' depth, ^e 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 IMrs. !Moore had fallen asleep, 
 
CAVES 
 
 137 
 
 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 tex-- 
 ture, but there it was her other children who were want’ 
 ing 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 neigh- 
 bour 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. 
 
 “ rid 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 with- 
 out splendour. He was presently observed trailing yel- 
 
138 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 lowish behind the trees, or against insipid sky, and touch- 
 ing 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 moun- 
 tains were beloved by them all. Romantic yet manage- 
 able, 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 Chan- 
 drapore without a break. Who knows! ” 
 
 Having wandered off into the plain for a mile, the 
 train slowed up against an elephant. There was a plat- 
 form too, but it shrivelled into insignificance. An ele- 
 phant, waving her painted forehead at the morn ! “ Oh, 
 what a surprise 1 ” 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 Hami- 
 
CAVES 
 
 139 
 
 ! dullah Begum’s, who had been excessively kind and had 
 I promised to call on her provided the broken shutter of 
 the purdah carriage came back soon enough from Cal- 
 cutta. That an elephant should depend from so long 
 I 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 some- 
 j! time, 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 con- 
 sequently he could ride on the howdah instead of follow- 
 ing 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 con- 
 sulting 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 fol- 
 lowed 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, 
 
140 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 crock- 
 ery 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 morn- 
 ing 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. Every- 
 thing 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 j 
 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 water- 
 course, 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 eie- 
 phant. But when she looked through Ronny’s field- 
 glasses, she found it wasn’t a snake, but the withered 
 
CAVES 
 
 141 
 
 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 aban* 
 don 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 say- 
 ing 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, adher- 
 ing 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 evi- 
 dent, 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 Pro- 
 fessor 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 
 
142 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 iMrs. Moore 
 to herself. 
 
 “ How quick your servants are ! ” IMiss Quested ex- 
 claimed. For a cloth had already been laid, with a vase 
 of artificial flowers in its centre, and IMahmoud 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 expedi- 
 tion 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, mis- 
 taking it for intimacy, and not seeing that it is tainted 
 with the sense of possession. It was only when Mrs. 
 
CAVES 
 
 143 
 
 I Moore or Fielding was near him that he saw further, 
 I and knew that it is more blessed to receive than to give. 
 I These two had strange and beautiful effects on him — 
 I they were his friends, his for ever, and he theirs for ever ; 
 I he loved them so much that giving and receiving became 
 I one. He loved them even better than the Hamidullah’s 
 j! because he had surmounted obstacles to meet them, and 
 I this stimulates a generous mind. Their images^, rem ained 
 I so mewhere in h is__souL up to Jiis dym^^ay^ermanent 
 I additioni^ He looked at her now as she sat on a deck- 
 I chair, sipping his tea, and had for a moment a joy that 
 I held the seeds of its own decay, fo r it would lea d him to 
 ; think, “ Oh, what more can I do for her? ” and so back 
 I to the dull round of hospitality. The black bullets of his 
 I 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. 
 
 I “ 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 of 
 hunted or ran away, he would always stop for a time^ 
 among hills, just like us ; he would never let go of hospi- 
 
144 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 tality 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 for- 
 get 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 I^Ioguls. It is 
 the chief pleasure I know. You see, those first six em- 
 perors were all most wonderful men, and as soon as one 
 of them is mentioned, no matter which, I forget every- 
 thing 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 
 
CAVES 
 
 145 
 
 I wonderful, but half a Hindu ; he was not a true Moslem,’ 
 i which makes Hamidullah cry, ‘ No more was Babur, he 
 : drank wine.’ But Babur always repented afterwards, 
 
 ' which makes the entire difference, and Akbar never re-» 
 
 I pented of the new religion he invented instead of the 
 j Holy Koran.” 
 
 j “ But wasn’t Akbar’s new religion very fine ? It was 
 I to embrace the whole of India.” 
 
 I “ Miss Quested, fine but foolish. You keep your re- j 
 j ligion, I mine. That is the best. Not hing embraces t he ! 
 I whole of I^ia, nothing, nothing, and that was Akbar’s 
 j mistake." ^ " 
 
 “ Dh, do you feel that. Dr. Aziz? ” she said thought- , 
 fully. “ I hope you’re not right. There will have to ^ 
 be something ..universal in this country — I don’t say re- 
 ligion, 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 cas'eT she continued — it was indeed 
 i 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. Azi?i 
 — I mean our Anglo-Indian one? ” 
 
 “ It is your difficulty, not mine, my dear.” 
 
 “ A.h, 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 
 
146 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 "*60 — 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. IMoore’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. 
 
 j Can you give me any advice ? ” 
 
 I “ 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 re- 
 covered 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 un- 
 attractive stones, the sun crashing on their backs. Bend- 
 ing 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 func- 
 tioned. 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 
 
CAVES 
 
 147 
 
 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, per- 
 haps. . , . And then the hole belched and humanity re- 
 turned. 
 
 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 fol- 
 lowed 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 
 I same monotonous noise replies, and quivers up and down 
 the walls until it is absorbed into the roof. “ Bourn ” 
 " 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, 
 i all produce “ bourn.” 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 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 generate echoes, and the cave is stuffed with a snake com- 
 posed 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 v^as 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 climb- 
 ing.” 
 
 “ 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 sincerel)' 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, 5’et 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 1 
 poor walker.” 
 
CAVES 
 
 149 
 
 “ 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 
 I his sleeve, and thinking, despite her fatigue, how very 
 i charming, how very good, he was, and how deeply she 
 ! desired his happiness. “ So may I make another sugges- 
 ; tion? Don’t let so many people come with you this 
 i 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 
 1 Quested and him to the Kawa Dol. “ Is that all right ? ” 
 j he enquired. 
 
 “ Quite right, now enjoy yourselves, and when you 
 j come back tell me all about it.” And she sank into the 
 I deck-chair. 
 
 ' If they reached the big pocket of caves, they would 
 
 i be away nearly an hour. She took out her writing-pad, 
 
 i and began, “ Dear Stella, Dear Ralph,” then stopped, 
 i and loojced at the queer valley and their feeble invasion 
 i of it. the elephant had become a nobody. Her 
 
 i eye rose from it to the entrance tunnel. No, she did not 
 ] wish to repeat that experience. The more she thought 
 i over it, the more disagreeable and frightening it became. 
 j:“She minded it much more now than at the time. The | 
 
 I crush and the smells she could forget, but the echo began ' ' 
 
 I in some indescribable wav to undermine hevjK^d on life. ; 
 !~lJoming at a' rnomenTwhe^sHEHiance^ tobe^tigued, it ' 
 i; had managed to murmur, “ Pathos, piety, courage — they a 
 exist, but are identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, \ 
 
 I nothing has value.” If one had spoken vileness in that 
 I 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 
 I and misunderstanding in the world, past, present, and to 
 ' come, for all the misery men must undergo whatever 
 

 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 iso 
 
 
 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 ac- 
 ^commodates 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 “ bourn.”/ Then she was ter- 
 rified over an area larger than usual ; the universe, never 
 comprehensible to her intellect, offered no repose to her 
 souMthe mood of the last two months took definite form 
 at I^t, and she realized that she didn’t want to write to 
 her children, didn’t want to communicate with anyone, 
 .lot even with GodJ 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 sur- 
 rendered 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. 
 
 7 ' 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 M ISS 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 
 ^:\yarm bath into which hotter water is trickling constantly. 
 
CAVES 
 
 151 
 
 the temperature rose and rose, the boulders said, “ I am 
 I alive,” the small stones answered, “ I am almost alive.” 
 j Between the chinks lay the ashes of little plants. They 
 meant to climb to the rocking-stone on the summit, but 
 j it was too far, and they contented themselves with the 
 j big group of caves. En route for these, they encoun- 
 ! tered 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 
 I they should come on some interesting old carvings soon,” 
 i 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 
 I mutton chops, but some Indian dishes to cause conversa- 
 tion, 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 Britisn 
 ! official. 
 
 i Nor had Adela much to say to him. If his mind was 
 I with the breakfast, hers was mainly with her marriage. 
 ; Simla next week, get rid of Antony, a view of Thibet, 
 I tiresome wedding bells, Agra in October, see Mrs. Moore 
 ! comfortably off from Bombay — the procession passed 
 1 before her again, blurred by the heat, and then she turned 
 I to the more serious business of her life at Chandrapore. 
 1 There were real difficulties here — Ronny’s limitations and 
 ! her own — but she enjoyed facing difficulties, and decided 
 i 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 com- 
 mon sense and good will. 
 
 But as she toiled over a rock that resembled an in- 
 
132 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 verted saueer, she thought, “ What about love ? ” The 
 rock was nicked by a double row of footholds, and some- 
 how the question was suggested by them. Where had she 
 seen footholds before? Oh yes, they were the pattern i 
 traced in the dust by the wheels of the Nawab Bahadur’s ! 
 car. She and Ronny — ^no, they did not love each other, j 
 “Do I take you too fast?” enquired Aziz, for she I 
 had paused, a doubtful expression on her face. The dis- I 
 covery had come so suddenly that she felt like a moun- i 
 taineer whose rope had broken. Not to love the man 
 one’s going to marry! Not to find it out till this mo- 
 ment! 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 j 
 would cause so much trouble to others ; besides, she wasn’t j 
 convinced that love is necessary to a successful union. If ] 
 love is everything, few marriages would survive the j 
 honeymoon. “ No, I’m all right, thanks,” she said, and, ] 
 her emotions well under control, resumed the climb, j 
 though she felt a bit dashed. Aziz held her hand, the ! 
 guide adhered to the surface like a lizard and scampered I 
 about as if governed by a personal centre of gravity. , 
 “ Are you married. Dr. Aziz ? ” she asked, stopping j 
 again, and frowning. ! 
 
 “ Yes, indeed, do come and see my wife ” — for he felt I 
 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 < 
 IVas, and no doubt his wife and children were beautiful j 
 
CAVES 
 
 153 
 
 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 
 I guessed he might attract women of his own race and 
 ; rank, and she regretted that neither she nor Ronny had 
 I physical charm. It does make a difference in a relation- 
 ship — beauty, thick hair, a fine skin. I^robably this man 
 ' had several wives — Mohammedans always insist on their 
 ; full four, according to Mrs. Turton. And/having no 
 i one else to speak to on that eternal rock, she gave rein 
 : to the subject of marriage and said in her honest, decent, 
 i inquisitive way: “Have you one wife or more than 
 fVe?” 
 
 |l The question shocked the young man very much. It 
 khallenged a new conviction of his community, and new 
 I convictions are more sensitive than old. If she had said, 
 
 ■ “ Do you worship one god or several ? ” he would not 
 l^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 m}) 
 
 I own particular case,” he sputtered, and let go of her hancl^ 
 Quite a number of caves were at the top of the track, 
 and thinking, “ Damn the English even at their best,” 
 fhe plunged into one of them to recover his balance. She 
 
 i 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 
 Tores me,” and wondering with the other half about mar- 
 friage. j 
 
 I CHAPTER XVI 
 
 m T TE 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. 
 jWhen he returned, he found the guide, alone, with his 
 
<54 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 disap' 
 peared 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, “ Jvlerciful 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 ex- 
 plained 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 con- 
 
CAVES 
 
 155 
 
 fabulated 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 
 j 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 
 I in the car — friends of hers, no doubt, Mr. Heaslop per- 
 haps. 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. 
 i 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 
 I camp, and almost at once caught sight of something which 
 i' would have disquieted him very much a moment before : 
 t Miss Quested’s field glasses. They were lying at the 
 ' verge of a cave, half-way down an entrance tunnel. He 
 jl tried to hang them over his shoulder, but the leather 
 i strap had broken, so he put them into his pocket instead. 
 
 I When he had gone a few steps, he thought she might 
 
 I ' 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 ; 
 I however, he couldn’t catch a second glimpse of that. So 
 I he scrambled down the valley-face of the hill towards 
 ' Mrs. Moore, and here he was more successful : the colour 
 I and confusion of his little camp soon appeared, and in 
 I the midst of it he saw an Englishman’s topi, and be- 
 neath it — oh, joy! — smiled not Mr. Heaslop, but Field- 
 ing. 
 
 “Fielding! Oh, I have so wanted you!” he cried, 
 dropping the “ Mr.” for the first time. 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 156 
 
 And his friend ran to meet him, all so pleasant and 1 
 jolly, no dignity, shouting explanations and apologies ' 
 about the train. Fielding had come in the newly ar- 1 
 rived 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 chauf- 
 feur while Fielding found camp. Car couldn’t get up — 
 no, of course not — hundreds of people must go down to 1 
 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. iMoore, 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 IMiss 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, liad 
 to think for a moment. His heart was full of new happi- 
 ness. The picnic, after a nasty shock or two, had devel- 
 oped 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 I ” 
 
 “ Here’s luck, but chin-chin I do refuse,” laughed Field- 
 ing, who detested the phrase. “ Here’s to India ! ” 
 
 “ Here’s luck, and here’s to England 1 ” 
 
 Miss Derek’s chauffeur stopped the cavalcade which 
 was starting to escort his mistress up, and informed it 
 
CAVES 
 
 157 
 
 that she had gone back with the other young lady to 
 Chandrapore; she had sent him to say so. She was 
 I driving herself. 
 
 I' “ Oh yes, that’s quite likely,” said Aziz. “ I knew 
 they’d gone for a spin.” 
 
 “Chandrapore?. The man’s made a mistake,” Field- 
 ; ing exclaimed. 
 
 I “ 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 
 I must do as they wish, or they become prisoners. He went 
 away cheerfully to inspect the porridge and the ice. 
 i “ What’s happened ? ” asked Fielding, who felt at once 
 j that something had gone queer. All the way out Miss 
 I Derek had chattered about the picnic, called it an un- 
 expected treat, and said that she preferred Indians who 
 I didn’t invite her to their entertainments to those who did 
 f it. Mrs. Moore sat swinging her foot, and appeared sulky 
 li and stupid. She said : “ Miss Derek is most unsatisfac- 
 .Tory 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.” 
 
 1 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 
 
 I 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 
 
 II know it is,” persisted the schoolmaster. He was an- 
 [noyed — chiefly with himself. He had begun by missing 
 jia 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 “ I know,” she answered, with a yawn. 
 
158 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 “ He has taken endless trouble to make a success of 
 our picnic.” 
 
 They knew one another very little, and felt rather awk- 
 ward at being drawn together by an Indian. The racial 
 problem can take subtle forms. In their case it had in- 
 duced a sort of jealousy, a mutual suspicion. He tried j 
 to goad her enthusiasm ; she scarcely spoke. Aziz fetched | 
 them to breakfast. i 
 
 “ 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 in- 
 teresting talk with our guide, then the car was seen, so 
 she decided to go down to her friend.” Incurabl}^ inac* 
 curate, he already thought that this was what had oc- 
 curred. 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 i 
 bolted into a cave to get away from her. He was in- ! 
 accurate 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 i 
 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 l\Irs. 
 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 
 
CAVES 
 
 159 
 
 unwind out of the corridor and escaped under the preci- 
 pice 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. Every- 
 where 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 
 i draining off this way towards the Ganges. 
 
 “ She would have wanted me, if she was ill, to attend 
 : her.” 
 
 I: “ Yes, that sounds sense.” 
 
 i “ I see you’re worrying, let’s talk of other things,” he 
 i said kindly. “ Miss Quested was always to do what she 
 ;• wished, it was our arrangement. I see you are worry- 
 i ing on my account, but really I don’t mind, I never notice 
 Trifles.” 
 
 s “ I do worry on your account. I consider they have 
 I been impolite ! ” said Eielding, lowering his voice. “ She 
 had no right to dash away from your party, and Miss 
 Derek had no right to abet her.” 
 
 I So touchy as a rule, Aziz was unassailable. The wingt 
 that uplifted him did not falter, because he was a Mogul 
 
 ( emperor who had done his duty. Perched on his elephant, 
 
 - 
 
i6o 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 em- 
 braced 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. Hun- 
 dreds 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 I 
 all.” ; 
 
 “ I told you he’s no good.” I 
 
 “ He is plenty of good for himself ; his dishonesty will I 
 ruin me.” 
 
 “ Aziz, how monstrous ! ” 
 
 “ I am delighted with him really, he has made m}' 
 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 AI.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 couiitry- 
 men, certainly; but if they’ll let me get on with my pro- 
 
CAVES i6i 
 
 fession 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 cen- 
 tury 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 dis- 
 appeared, 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 dis- 
 tance, took courage, and bumped forward, rounded the 
 civil station, surmounted the level-crossing (the rails 
 were scorching now), and clanked to a standstill. Chan- 
 drapore, Chandrapore! The expedition was over. 
 
 And as it ended, as they sat up in the gloom and pre- 
 pared to enter ordinary life, suddenly the long drawn 
 strangeness of the morning snapped. Mr. Haq, the In- 
 spector of Police, flung open the door of their carriage 
 and said in shrill tones : “ Dr. Aziz, it is my highly pain- 
 ful 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.” 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 .162 
 
 “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 blow- 
 ing, a man-hunt. . . . “ Dear fellow, we’re coming to j 
 McBryde together, and enquire what’s gone wrong — he’s j 
 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 i 
 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 xvn 
 
 T he Collector had watched the arrest from the in- 
 terior 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 
 
CAVES 
 
 163 
 
 i mark the importance of the moment, flapped dirty petti- 
 I coats over their heads. The Collector could not speak at 
 : first. His face was white, fanatical, and rather beautiful 
 ! . — the expressibiTthat all English faces were to wear at 
 I Chandrapore for many days. Always brave and un- 
 j selfish, lie was now fused by some white and generous 
 j: heat; he would have killed himself, obviously, if he had 
 j thought it right to do so. He spoke at last. “ The worst 
 I thing in my whole career has happened,” he said. “ Miss 
 I 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 
 j would attach to you if you were seen accompanying him 
 I to the Police Station,” said Turton, paying no attention 
 I to his protest, indeed scarcely hearing it. 
 
 He repeated “ Oh no,” like a fool. Pie 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. 
 
 I “ 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 awa}^ 
 i| I “ Then she’s mad.” 
 
 Ilf “ I cannot pass that last remark,” said the Collector, 
 jj* waking up to the knowledge that they differed, and trem- 
 { bling with fury. “ You will withdraw it instantly. It is 
 ■ The type of remark you have permitted yourself to make 
 |v ever since you came to Chandrapore,” 
 
i64 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 “ Fm excessively sorry, sir ; I certainly withdraw it 
 unconditionally.” Fur 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 re- 
 flection 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 wait* 
 ing-room with their staleness and ungenerosity — “ and 
 during those twenty-five years I have never known any- 
 thing but disaster result -when English people and In- 
 dians 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 — • 
 
CAVES 865 
 
 j 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 
 i 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. 
 
 j “ 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 infre- 
 ' quent.” 
 
 “ 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 ihe 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 en- 
 1 rages Anglo-India more than the lantern of reason if it 
 j is exhibited for one moment after its extinction is de- 
 ll creed. All over Chandrapore that day the Europeans 
 were putting aside their normal personalities and sinking 
 themselves in their community. Pity, wrath, heroism, 
 i 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 
 
i66 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 chuprassi of Ronny’s had been told to bring up some 
 trifles belonging to the ladies, and was appropriating for 
 himself various articles to v/hich 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 pro- 
 vided 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 
 
 M r. 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 mar- 
 riage, 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 regulation.^. I 
 am given certain information, and have to act on it — I’m : 
 not your judge.” Aziz was led off weeping. Mr. i 
 McBryde was shocked at his downfall, but no Indian ever j 
 surprised him, because he had a theory about climatic | 
 zones. TJie theory ran : “ All unfortunate natives ave i 
 criminals af~Keart, for the simple reason that they live ( 
 
CAVES 
 
 ■we 
 
 The y are not to blame, th ey have 
 
 ^them if we settled 
 
 seemed” 
 
 •s outh of latitude 30. 
 not a dog’s chance 
 here.” Born at IKarachi, 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 
 io 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 hap- 
 pened to be, and there and then he had taken down the 
 charge and arranged for the arrest at the railway sta- 
 tion. 
 
 “ What is the charge, precisely? 
 
 “ That he followed her into the cave and made insult- 
 ing 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 Mara- 
 bar 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 
 
i68 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 start already.” For a visiting card was brought; Vakil 
 Mahmoud Ali, legal adviser to the prisoner, asked to be 
 allowed to see him. McBryde signed, 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 Dc4 
 and saw Miss Quested running straight down the face of 
 a precipice. WeU. 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 )'Ou 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 
 
CAVES 
 
 thought since: it’s impossible that, having attemptec 
 assault her, he would put her glasses into his pocket.” 
 
 Quite possible, I’m afraid ; when an Indian goes bad, 
 h^goes not only very bad, but very queer.N 
 
 “ I don’t follow.” ^ 
 
 “How should you? When you think of crime you 
 think of English crime. The psychology here is differ- 
 ent, 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 conse- 
 quently 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 ob- 
 jection 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 consid- 
 ered that the conversation had taken a turn that was 
 undesirable. He did not like Fielding’s next remark 
 either. 
 
 
170 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 “Miss Quested really cannot be seen? You do kno'w 
 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 3^ou 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 j'our 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 seri- 
 ously ill.” 
 
 “ He’s sure to refuse, it’s all he exists for,” said the 
 other desperately. 
 
 The expected answer came back: the Major w’^ould 
 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 be- 
 lieves 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.” 
 
 “ Hoav can I not ? ” 
 
 “ I feel that things are rather unsatisfactory as well a* 
 
CAVES 17 1 
 
 I most disastrous. We are heading for a most awful 
 i smash. I can see your prisoner, I suppose.” 
 i He hesitated. “ His own people seem in touch with 
 ' him all right.” 
 
 I “ 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 
 1 what’s the good. Why mix yourself up with pitch ? ” 
 
 1 “ 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, 
 
 1 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 
 I 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 in- 
 ' deed.” 
 
 I ; “ So I have just told you.” 
 
 “ But at a time like this there’s no room for — ^well — ■ 
 f personal views. The man who doesn’t toe the line is 
 li lost.” 
 
 “ I see what you mean.” _ [1 . 
 
 “ No, you don’t see entirely. He not only loses him-„_. ' 
 
 . self, he weakens his friends. If you leave the line, you* i 1 
 leave a gap in the line. These jackals ” — he pointed at 
 the lawyers’ cards — “ are looking with all their eyes for 
 : a gap.” 
 
172 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 “ 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 mag- 
 istrate’s order, but on my own responsibility I don’t feel 
 justified. It might lead to more complications.” 
 
 Fielding 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 weU 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 1 ” 
 
 “ 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 
 
 H AMIDULLAH was the next stage. He Avas 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. 
 
CAVES 
 
 173 
 
 I “ Ah, yes, Mr. Fielding; but when once an Indian has 
 i| been arrested, we do not know where it will stop.^’ His 
 : manner was deferential. “ You are very good to greet 
 1^ me in this public fashion, I appreciate it ; but, Mr. Field- 
 i| ing, nothing convinces a magistrate except evidence. Did 
 I Mr. McBryde make any remark when my card came in ? 
 
 ;l Do you think my application annoyed him, will prejudice 
 ij him against my friend at all? If so, I will gladly retire.” 
 
 I “ He’s not annoyed, and if he was, what does it 
 matter ? ” 
 
 j “ 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 digni- 
 fied manner and Cambridge degree, had been rattled. He 
 too loved Aziz, and knew he was calumniated; but faith 
 i did not rule his heart, and he prated of “ policy ” and 
 ] “ evidence ” in a way that saddened the Englishman. 
 
 I Fielding, too, had his anxieties — ^he didn’t like the field- 
 j glasses or the discrepancy over the guide — ^but he rele- 
 gated 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 
 |B with Indians, he realized the profundity of the gulf that 
 ■ divided him from them. They always do something dis- 
 I appointing. Aziz had tried to run away from the police, 
 I Mohammed Latif had not checked the pilfering. And 
 I now Hamidullah ! — instead of raging and denouncing, he 
 f temporized. Are Indians cowards? No, but they are 
 bad starters and occasionally jib. Fear is everywhere ; 
 
 ! t^ British Raj r ests on it ; the respectahd courtes y h'ield~ 
 i i^ himselF eri^yed were unco nscious acts ot propitia- 
 tiom H e told H amidullah to cheer up. all w^d end 
 well ; and Hamidullah did cheer up, and became pugna- 
 cious and sensible. McBryde’s remark, "If you leave 
 the line, you leave a gap in the line,” was being illustrated. 
 
174 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 “ 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 condi- 
 tions — 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 mini- 
 mum 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 t)-’'* 
 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 con- 
 tinued to jangle harshly. The interminable and dis- 
 astrous day had scarcely reached its afternoon. Con- 
 tinuing their work, the wheels of Dominion now pro- 
 pelled 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,” en- 
 treated 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 com- 
 plete sincerity, “ At a crisis, the English are really un- 
 equalled.” 
 
 “ 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 
 
CAVES 
 
 V‘3?; 
 
 to the College now. If you want me, ring me up; if 
 i, 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.” 
 
 j He regretted -taking sides. To slink through India un- 
 ;i labelled 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 ^ ' 
 :l tragedy, th ere woul d be a muddlej already he saw several ‘ 
 
 J tiresome little knots, and each time his eye returned to 
 them, they were larger. Born in freedom, he was not 
 afraid of the muddle, but he recognized its existence. 
 
 I This section of the day concluded in a queer vague 
 I 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 crav/led in of itself, but perhaps 
 I 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 debat- 
 : ing whether he should compose a letter of appeal to Miss 
 j'. Quested, he was obliged to listen to a speech which lacked 
 1; both basis and conclusion, and floated through air. At the 
 ' end of it Godbole said, “ May I now take my leave ? ” — 
 i always an indication that, he had not come to his point 
 r. 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.” 
 
176 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 “ 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 fright- 
 fully 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 w^ant 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, 
 
CAVES 
 
 17^ 
 
 you might think the matter over, and suggest two or three 
 alternative titles for sdiools. I had thought of the ‘ Mr. 
 Fielding High School,’ but failing that, the ‘ King-Em- 
 peror 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 pre- 
 vious 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 Ouested’s part — it couldn’t be that, though Hami- 
 dullah 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. 
 B^ause nothing can be performed in isolation. All per- 
 form 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 
 
178 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 per- 
 formed by the guide.” He stopped again. “ It was per- 
 formed 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 some- 
 thing,” 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. Suf- 
 fering 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, j 
 It is an isolated matter, it only concerns herself. If she j 
 thought her head did not ache, she would not be ill, i 
 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 differ- 
 ence 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, ‘ Cpme, ^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? ” 
 
CAVES 
 
 179 
 
 I 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 
 i 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 fre- 
 quently culminated in a cow. Fielding received this one 
 in gloomy silence. 4^ 
 
 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 
 
 ! i 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 
 i‘ without malice: the last person in Chandrapore wrong- 
 fully to accuse an Indian. 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 A lthough 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 
 
i8o 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 
 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 ad- 
 mitted 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 cr}^ 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 hospi- 
 tality 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 
 CaUendar implied), well, all is over, and nothing can be 
 done, but they retained some responsibility in her griev- 
 ous 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 invita- 
 tion. “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 sun- 
 set, 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 real- 
 ized 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, w'hich gave the air of the Resi- 
 dency at Lucknow. One young mother — a brainless but 
 
CAVES 
 
 i8i 
 
 most beautiful girl^ — sat on a low ottoman in the smoking- 
 room with her baby in her arms ; her husband was away 
 I in the district, and she dared not return to her bungalow 
 ■ in case the “ niggers attacked.” The wife of a small 
 i! railway official, she was generally snubbed; but this eve- 
 I ning, with her abundant figure and masses of corn-gold 
 ij hair, she symbolized all that is worth fighting and dying 
 ;; for ; more permanent a symbol, perhaps, than poor Adela. 
 
 I “ Don’t worry, Mrs. Blakiston, those drums are only 
 I Mohurram,” the men would tell her. “ Then they’ve 
 I started,” she moaned, clasping the infant and rather wish- 
 I; ing he would not blow bubbles down his chin at such a 
 I moment as this. “ No, of course not, and anyhow, they’re 
 I not coming to the club.” “ And they’re not coming to the 
 I Burra Sahib’s bungalow either, my dear, and that’s where 
 I you and your baby’ll sleep to-night,” answered Mrs. 
 j Turton, towering by her side like Pallas Athene, and 
 1 determining in the future not to be such a snob, 
 j The Collector clapped his hands for silence. He was 
 1 much calmer than when he had flown out at Fielding. 
 
 I He was indeed always calmer when he addressed several 
 ! people than in a tete-a-tete. “ 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 serv- 
 lants. That’s all.” 
 
 “Harry, is there any news from the city? ” asked his 
 " wife, standing at some distance from him, and also as- 
 1 suming her public safety voice. The rest were silent 
 ; during the august colloquy. 
 
 !i “ Everything absolutely normal.” 
 t “ I had gathered as much. Those drums are merely 
 [ Mohurram, of course.” 
 
 ! “ Merely the preparation for it — the Procession is not 
 
 li till next week.” 
 
 I “ Quite so, not till Monday.” 
 
i 82 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 “ 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 diffi- 
 cult time, and you can help us by behaving as if every- 
 thing 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 im- 
 
CAVES 
 
 183 
 
 !' pulses. 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 
 I would lead to a riot or to the necessity for military inter- 
 
 ■ vention. 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 
 I was a little drunk, and regarded his presence as providen- 
 'tial. The Collector sighed. There seemed nothing for it 
 I but the old weary business of compromise and modera- 
 tion. He longed for the good old days when an Eng- 
 
 ilishman could satisfy his own honour and nO' questions 
 ! asked afterwards. Poor young Heaslop had taken a step 
 I 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, 
 ibut the Government of India itself also watches — and be- 
 hind 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, 
 
 I and were replaced by all that is sweetest and warmest 
 I 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. 
 
 I “ 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 
 
1 84 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 Raj- j 
 puts, 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 ” j 
 
 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 contrar5^ 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.” 1 
 
 They murmured, “ Right you are, Burra Sahib. . . • j 
 Angels. . . . Exactly. . . .” From the subaltern: j 
 “ 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 I 
 tvas all right. Any native who plays polo is all right. 
 
CAVES 
 
 185 
 
 j 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 
 i 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 tem- 
 perature,” 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 
 I cross. /And they fretted because they could do nothing 
 for him in return; t’ney 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 re- 
 sponsible, 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 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 1 86 
 
 thoughtfully. Thinking him afraid, the other went on: 
 
 " I understood an Englishman was to accompany the 
 expedition. That is why I gave in.” 
 
 X : No one blames you, my dear Callendar,” said the 
 Collector, looking down. “ W e 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 Col- 
 lector, who knew more, kept silent, for the official in him i 
 still hoped that Fielding would toe the line. /The con- j 
 versation turned to women and children again, and under | 
 its cover Major Callendar got hold of the subaltern, and I 
 set him on to bait the schoolmaster. Pretending to be i 
 more drunk than he really was, he began to make semi- i 
 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, Mo- 
 hammed 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 )'et suspected his integrity. 
 
CAVES 
 
 187 
 
 “ Oh, I’m being misunderstood, apologies,” said the 
 I Major offensively. “ I didn’t mean they bribed Mr. 
 Fielding.” 
 
 “ Then what do you mean ? ” 
 
 ' /“ They paid the other Indian to make you late — God- 
 bole. He was saying his prayers. I know those 
 I prayers ! ”/ 
 
 “ That’s ridiculous . . .” He sat down again, trem- 
 bling 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, 
 j That was the end of her, or would have been only she 
 igot out. Nicely planned, wasn’t it? Neat. Then he 
 could go on with the girl. He and she and a guide, pi 0- 
 ' vided by the same Mohammed Latif. Guide now can’t 
 Ibe found. Pretty.” His voice broke into a roar. “ It’s 
 not the time for sitting down. It’s the time for action. 
 
 I Call in the troops and clear the bazaars.” 
 
 ; The Major’s outbursts were always discounted, but he 
 jimade everyone uneasy on this occasion. The crime was 
 ieven worse than they had supposed — the unspeakable 
 dimit 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, 
 
 II 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 sup- 
 pose 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 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 1 88 
 
 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 mo- 
 ment. 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, ^ut every human act in th e East is tainted 
 with officialism, an d while honou ring him c ondemned 
 Aziz arid Indial Fielding r^lized this, and he remained 
 s^ed. It was an ungracious, a caddish thing to do, per- 
 haps 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 sit- 
 uated. When the verdict is obtained, it will be another | 
 matter.” j 
 
 “You are sure to know best; I have no experience, i 
 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.” 
 
I 
 
 CAVES 
 
 189 
 
 “ 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, 
 
 I speaking in the strictest confidence, don’t take the old 
 I doctor’s opinion too seriously. He’s a blithering idiot, 
 iwe can always leave it at that, but he’ll do the little he 
 
 can towards keeping in quod the ” He broke off 
 
 iwith affected politeness. “ Oh, but he has one of his 
 Triends here.” 
 
 The subaltern called, “ Stand up, you swine.” 
 
 “ Mr. Fielding, what has prevented you from stand- 
 I ing up ? ” said the Collector, entering the fray at last. It 
 I was the attack for which Fielding had waited, and to 
 [which he must reply. 
 
 I “ May I make a statement, sir ? ” 
 
 I “ Certainly.” 
 
 Seasoned and self-contained, devoid of the fervours of 
 I 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.” 
 
 |j “You have a right to hold that opinion if you choose, 
 [but pray is that any reason why you should insult Mr, 
 ‘Heaslop?” 
 
 1 “ May I conclude my statement? ” 
 
 “ Certainly.” 
 
 “ I am waiting for the verdict of the courts. If he is 
 'grilty I resign from my service, and leave India. I 
 Ixesign from the club now.” 
 
 ■ “ Hear, hear ! ” said voices, not entirely hostile, for 
 
 they hked 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.” 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 V90 
 
 “ 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 in- 
 furiated 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 subal- 
 tern had got across his path. 
 
 “ Let him go,” said Ronny, almost in tears. 
 
 It was the only appeal that could have saved the situa- 
 tion. 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 w*re 
 cleaner issues at hand. '3 
 
 However, there it was, done, muddled through, and to?l 
 cool himself and regain mental balance he went on to thej; 
 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 IMonsalvat, Walhalla, : 
 the towers of a cathedral, peopled with saints and heroes, jf 
 and covered with flowers. What miscreant lurked in 
 them, presently to be detected by the activities of the ; 
 
CAVES 
 
 igi 
 
 jlaw? Who was the guide, and had he been found yet? 
 [What was the “echo” of which the girl complained? 
 
 I He did not know, but presently he would know. Great 
 is information, and she shall prevail. It was the last mo- 
 iment 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 pass- 
 ling 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 
 do believe. And he felt dubious and discontented sud-* 
 Idenly, and wondered whether he was really and truly 
 successful as a human being. After forty years’ experi- ; 
 |ence, he had learnt to manage his life and make the best • 
 'of it on advanced European lines, had developed his per- I 
 isonality, explored his limitations, controlled his passions / 
 I' — and he had done it all without becoming either pedantic | 
 lor worldly. A creditable achievement, but as the moment | 
 jpassed, he felt he ought to have been working at some-1 
 i thing else the whole time, — ^he didn’t know at what, never ^ 
 ;Would know, never could know, and that was why he felt / 
 sad. 
 
 i 
 
 I CHAPTER XXI 
 
 D ismissing his regtets, 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 
 ihe had broken with the club, for he would have picked 
 !Up scraps of gossip there, and reported them down in the 
 Gty, and he was glad to be denied this opportunity. He 
 iwould miss his billiards, and occasional tennis, and cracks 
 I with McBryde, but really that was all, so light did he 
 
192 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 crino- 
 line than the tomb of the grandson of the Prophet, done 
 to death at Kerbela. Excited children were pasting col- 
 oured paper over its ribs. The rest of the evening he 
 spent with the Nawab Bahadur, Hamidullah, Mahmoud 
 AH, and others of the confederacy. The campaign was 
 also working up, A telegram had been sent to the 
 famous Amritrao, and his acceptance received. Applica- 
 tion for bail was to be renewed — it could not w^ell 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, con- 
 taining 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 
 hick. 
 
 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 un- 
 molested to his new job in a day or two : he always did 
 possess the knack of slipping off. 
 
 CHAPTER xxn 
 
 A DELA lay for several days in the McBr^-des’ bunga- 
 low. 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. McBrj'de examined hef 
 
CAVES 
 
 193 
 
 •ithrough 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 be- 
 neath their fingers, which developed the shock that had 
 i'.begun in the cave. Hitherto she had not much minded 
 i-whether she was touched or not: her senses were abnor- 
 iimally 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 un- 
 'healthily. People seemed very much alike, except that 
 1 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. 
 ilMoore, the only visitor she wanted, kept away. No ont 
 i; understood her trouble, or knew why she vibrated between 
 lihard commonsense and hysteria. She would begin a 
 I speech as if nothing particular had happened. “ I went 
 I into this detestable cave,” she would say dryly, “ and I 
 (■remember scratching the wall with my finger-nail, to start 
 fithe usual echo, and then as I was saying there was thi^i 
 !; 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 
 imurmur ; “ 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 ad- 
 
194 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 vanced 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, 
 -ind hope her assailant w^ould 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, 
 tintil the intellect, reawakening, pointed out to her that 
 riie was inaccurate here, and set her again upon her sterile 
 found. 
 
 If only she could have seen Mrs. IMoore ! 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 intel- 
 lectually, 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 j 
 she wished she could comfort him ; but intimacy seemed | 
 to caricature itself, and the more they spoke the more 1 
 Ivretched and self-conscious they became. Practical talk i 
 
CAVES 
 
 195 
 
 was the least painful, and he and McBryde now told her 
 lone or two things which they had concealed from her 
 I during the crisis, by the doctor’s orders. / She learnt for 
 tthe 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 — U 
 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-examina- 
 tion by an Indian lawyer. 
 
 i; “ Can Mrs. Moore be with me ? ” was all she said. 
 
 “ Certainly, and I shall be there myself,” Ronny re^ 
 plied. “ The case won’t come before me ; they’ve ob- 
 jected to me on personal grounds. It will be at Chandra- 
 Ipore — 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.” 
 
 i Das was Ronny’s assistant — own brother to the Mrs. 
 iBhattacharya 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; 
 nbut that he should be judge over an English girl had con- 
 4vulsed 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 ar- 
 rangements, and called them “ the fruits of democracy.” 
 Tn 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. 
 
196 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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, tread- 
 ing upon the flowers of the Kashmir carpet that so in- 
 evitably 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 swear 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. 
 
CAVES 
 
 197 
 
 ithen 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, 
 ’’O 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 relation- 
 ships. 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 
 ’ se.” ^ 
 
 ■ Mrs. McBryde wished her an affectionate good-bye — a 
 woman with whom she had nothing in common and 
 j 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 
 I tried to take up a line of her own. Humbled yet repelled, 
 j she gave thanks. “ Oh, we must help one another, we 
 I must take the rough with the smooth,” said Mrs. 
 I McBryde. Miss Derek was there too, still making jokes 
 about her comic Maharajah and Rani. Required as a 
 :t witness at the trial, she had refused to send back the 
 I Mudkul car ; they would be frightfully sick. Both Mrs. 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 igS 
 
 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 ad- 
 vanced, 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 look- 
 ing 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 Callender was not dissatis- 
 "fied. 
 
 “ 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 disappoint- 
 ing 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 
 
CAVES 
 
 199 
 
 I had instructed her to give the girl a pleasant welcome, and 
 i 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 inter- 
 : changeable, so I have a much larger choice of boats home 
 I than I thought.” 
 
 “ We can go into that later, can’t we? ” 
 
 I “ Ralph and Stella may be wanting to know when I 
 arrive.” 
 
 ji “ There is plenty of time for all such plans. How d© 
 I you think our Adela looks ? ” 
 
 “ I am counting on you to help me through ; it is 
 I 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, 
 j A sort of resentment emanated from her. She seemed to 
 say: “Am I to be bothered for ever?” Her Christian 
 j 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, 
 
 I and had refused to leave her bed on the awful last night 
 I of Mohurram, when an attack was expected on the 
 , bungalow. 
 
 “ I know it’s all nothing ; I must be sensible, I do 
 
 I 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: 
 j she could not identify or describe the particular cave, 
 
 I indeed almost refused to have her mind cleared up about 
 I it, and it was recognized that the defence would try to 
 t make capital out of this during the trial. He reassured 
 il her : the Marabar caves were notoriously like one another ; 
 I indeed, in the future they were to be numbered in 
 I sequence with white paint, 
 
 “Yes, I mean that, at least not exactly; but there is 
 I this echo that I keep on hearing.” 
 
200 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 “Oh, what of the echo?” asked Airs. Aloore, 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. 
 
 “ Airs. Aloore, 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 1 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. “ Some- 
 where 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 evi- 
 dence is not the least essential.” 
 
CAVES 
 
 201 
 
 f “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 
 \i 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 yop. . . . 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 
 j say you’re all right and you seem so, in which case I 
 I thought you’ld want to take your part, I did really.” 
 
 “ I’ll not have you worry her whether she’s well or 
 I 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 
 t mother patronizingly. He had never felt easy with her. 
 |i She was by no means the dear old lady outsiders sup- 
 posed, 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 
 ;i 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 
 i 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 
 j) gone ? Why can’t I finish my duties and be gone ? Why 
 , do I get headaches and puff when I walk? And all the 
 i time this to do and that to do and this to do in your 
 i' way and that to do in her way, and everything sympathy 
 f and confusion and bearing one another’s burdens. Why 
 I 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 
 
202 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 mrman 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-com- 
 ing,” he said at last. “ I had no idea she had this up 
 her sleeve.” 
 
 Adela had stopped crying. An extraordinary expres- 
 sion was on her face, half relief, half horror. She re- 
 peated, “ Aziz, Aziz.” 
 
 They all avoided mentioning that name. It had become 
 synonymous with the power of evil. He was “ the pris- 
 oner,” “ the person in question,” “ the defence,” and the 
 sound of it now rang out like the first note of a new sym- 
 phony. 
 
 “ 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. 
 
CAVES 203 
 
 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 dis- 
 turbing 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 con- 
 venient, 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 ! ” 
 
204 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 “ 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 above 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 — ^)"ou 
 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 Eng- 
 lish, 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 under- 
 stand the question and the reason of it had to be ex- 
 plained. 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: 
 
CAVES 
 
 205 / 
 
 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, bul- 
 
 ls 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, hovvT 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 
 t he 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, 
 o . . 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 
 
2o6 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 Avell 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 cer- 
 tain 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 steam- 
 ship 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. 
 
CAVES 
 
 207 
 
 ■'f 
 
 CHAPTER XXm 
 
 L ady MELLANBY, wife to the Lieutenant-Governor 
 ' of the Province, had been gratified by the appeal ad- 
 dressed 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 sym- 
 pathy 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 accommoda- 
 tion in her own reserved cabin. It was like a gift from 
 heaven; humble and grateful, Ronny could not but re- 
 flect 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 re- 
 turn 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 
 
2oS 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 
 ,-—^11 practical endeavour, when the world is to our taste, 
 ^assumes that the world is all. But in the twilight of 
 the double vision, a spi ritua l 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 ? W hat dwelt in the firg;t nf ? Some- 
 
 thing very old and very smalL Before time, it was be. 
 
 , fore spacTalso Something snub-nosed, in capable of gen ^ 
 erosity — ^the undymg_j&:arm- -itself. Since hearing its 
 vorcef^he had nnt entertained one large thougfit, she was 
 actually en vious of Ade la^ All this fuss over^a fright- 
 ened 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 un_speakable attempt presented itself to her as . l o ve j 
 i n a cave7~tn ~ S' cliurcli— Ao um, it' amount lTt.n the. -same. 
 
 ' . Visions are supposed to entail profundity, but ^Vait 
 
 till_ypu. get one, dear reader! The abyss also may be 
 ~^tty, the serpent of eternity made of maggots; her con- 
 stant thought was : “ Less attention should be paid to my 
 future daughter-in-law and more to me, there is no sor- 
 
CAVES 
 
 209 
 
 r 
 
 row 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 Asir- 
 garh 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 plat- 
 
210 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 forms 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 Raj- 
 putana cities nor Kashmir, nor the obscurer marvels that 
 bad 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 
 j in its streets. The feet of the horses moved her on, 
 
 I and presently the boat sailed and thousands of coconut 
 palms appeared all round the anchorage and climbed the 
 hills to wave her farewell. “ S o you thought an echo 
 jw;aS-India.;-youTopk the Marabar caves as final?” they 
 laughed. “ What have we in common with theni? 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 
 
 M aking sudden changes of gear, the heat accel- 
 erated 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 gre)dsh 
 sky and a yellowish earth, clouds of dust moved hesi- 
 tatingly. Europe life retreats out of the cold, and 
 exquisite fireside mjlhs have resulted — Balder, Per- 
 
CAVES 
 
 211 
 
 sephone — ^but here the retreat is from the source of life, 
 the treacherous_sun,_and no poetry adorns it because dls^ 
 illusionment- canno t be beautifu l. 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 tp be harmonious all the year round, 
 and the results are occasionally disastrous. The trium- 
 phant machine of civilization may suddenly hitch and be 
 immobiirzed'lnfo~~a caF of stone, and at such moments 
 the' destiny of the English seems to resemble their prede- 
 cessors’, who also entered the country with intent to re- 
 fashion 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 game 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 
 
212 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 
 i yds 
 
 
 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 trou- 
 ble; 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 
 chota 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 re 
 hearsed 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. 
 
 f' 
 
CAVES 
 
 213 
 
 t 
 
 “ How about aspirin? " 
 
 “ It is not a headache, it is an echo.” 
 
 ' Unable to dispel the buzzing in her ears, Major Cah 
 lendar 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. 1‘urton ...” 
 
 “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 per- 
 ish,” and other interests, less reputable, were in the back- 
 ground 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 slP' 
 
214 A PASSAGE TO'lNDlA 
 
 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 — perha ps there is a grain oX re- 
 sen tment in all chiva lry. “Some students had gathered 
 iiPfront of the City^^agistrate’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 Sweep- 
 ers 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 inci- 
 dent 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 rearrange- 
 ment, which no one in the stern little band of whites 
 could explain. Th ere was a ten denc-v -to-see. Field inp- at 
 t he 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, Amri- 
 trao and Mahmoud Ali; he encouraged the Boy Scout 
 movement for seditious reasons; he received letters with 
 
CAVES 
 
 215 
 
 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 h e cherished “ illusions ” 
 abo ut his own subordinates (Tollowing the finer tradi- 
 tions 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. Co ^iction was inevitable: so better let an Indian 
 pr onounce it, there would be less fuss in the long run. 
 Interested in the argument, he IpjQAdpla Him in 
 
 I 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 accus- 
 tomed to being in the wrong.” 
 
 “I didn’t mean that ...” 
 
2i6 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 “ All right. I said don’t apologize.” 
 
 “ Those swine are always on the lookout for a griev- 
 ance,” 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 Lai brought him the looking-glass yes- 
 terday 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 im- 
 moral — er ” He subsided, nudged in the ribs, but 
 
 added, “ I wish I’d had the cutting up of my late as- 
 sistant too; nothing’s too bad for these people.” 
 
 “ At last some sense is being talked,” Mrs. Turton 
 tried, 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, the}’- ought to crawl 
 from here to the caves on their hands and knees when- 
 ever an Englishwoman’s in sight, they oughtn’t to be ! 
 spoken to, they ought to be spat at, they ought to be f 
 ground into the dust, we’ve been far too kind with our f 
 Bridge Parties and the rest.” 
 
 She paused. Profiting by her wrath, the heat had in- ■ 
 vaded her. She subsided into a lemon squash, and con- i 
 tinned between the sips to murmur, “ Weak, weak.” 
 And the process was repeated. The issues IMiss Quested 
 had raised were so much more important than she wa? 
 herself that people inevitably forgot her. 
 
CAVES 
 
 2l^ 
 
 Presently the case was called. 
 
 Their chairs preceded them into the Court, for it was 
 •mpor tamt that they should look dignified . And when 
 the chuprassies had made all ready, they filed into the 
 ! ramshackly room with a condescendiiigL,aix, as if it was 
 I 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 
 i some new cruelty was afoot, otherwise the sahibs would 
 i 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 offr 
 cially 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 gang- 
 way, 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 t o society how little its categories impres s her. 
 This man would have been notable anywhere : amdng the 
 thin-hammed, flat-chested mediocrities of Chandrapore 
 I h e stood out as div ine, yet he was of the city, its, g arbage 
 hi had no urished him, he would end on its rubbish heaps. 
 
 ' Pulling the r^e towards him, rela^ng it rhythmically, 
 sending swirls of air over others, receiving none himself, 
 li he seemed apart from human destinies, a male fate, a 
 fl winnower of souls. Opposite him, also on a platform, 
 
 ; sat the little assistant magistrate, cultivated, self-con- 
 scious, and conscientious. The^ punkah wallah ^ wajs none 
 of these things : he scarcely knew that he existed and did 
 not understand why the Court was fuller than usual, 
 jndeed he did not know that it was fuller than usual 
 
2i8 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 didn’t even know he worked a fan, though he thought 
 he pulled a rope. Somethin g in h is al_0£>iness im p ressed 
 the girl from mid dle-c lass England, and rebuked the na r- 
 ro wness _p£jE ir~ e ufiferlng s. In virtue of what had she 
 collected this roomful of people together? Her particu- 
 lar 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 civili- 
 zation P^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 open- 
 ing 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, “ Everj'one 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 ap- 
 peal, and it was only by degrees that the studied negli- 
 gence 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 Govern- 
 ment College, and had there conceived his intentions con- 
 cerning her : prisoner was a man of loose life, as docu- 
 ments found upon him at his arrest would testify, also 
 his fellow-assistant. Dr. Panna Lai, was in a position to 
 throw light on his character, and Major Callendar him- 
 self would speak. Here Mr. klcBryde paused. He 
 wanted to keep the proceedings as clean as possible, but 
 Qrie ntaf Patholo gy, his favourite therne. Hv arou nd him, 
 and jhe couldnoLT^ist it . Taking off his spectacles', as 
 was his habit before enunciating a general truth, he 
 looked into them sadly, and remarked that the darker 
 
CAVES 
 
 2ig 
 
 , aces are physically attracted by the fairer, but not vic^ 
 a matter fdFT)itterness this, not”a matter for 
 just a fact which any scientific observer will 
 
 i confirm. 
 
 ! “ Even when the lady is so uglier than the gentleman ? ” 
 
 I The comment fell from nowhere, from the ceiling per- 
 haps. 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 railed 
 ugly, and trembled. 
 
 “ Do you feel'Taint, 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 pa- 
 tient; 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. Field- 
 ing being the only European who remained in the body 
 of the hall. 
 
 i “ That’s better,” remarked Mrs. Turton, as she settled 
 herself. 
 
 “ Thoroughly desirable change for several reasons,” 
 i replied the Major. 
 
 I The Magistrate knew that he ought to censure this 
 ji remark, but did not dare to. Callendar saw that he was 
 I afraid, and called out authoritatively, “ Right, McBryde, 
 I go ahead now; sorry to have interrupted you.” 
 
 ver m — not 
 “abuseT'but 
 
220 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 “Are you all right yourselves?” asked the Superin- 
 tendent. 
 
 “ We shall do, we shall do.” 
 
 “ Go on, Mr. Das, we are not here to disturb you,” 
 said the Collector patronizingly. Tn dped, they had not 
 uch disturbed the trial as taken charge of it. 
 
 While the prosecution continued. Miss guested exam- 
 “ined 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. Bene ath he r vyere gath- 
 ered all the wreck age of her silly attempt to see T ndig — ■ 
 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 acquaint- 
 ance. He was ne gligible, devoid of significa nce, drv like 
 a bone, and though he was " guTlty ” no atmosph ere of 
 5fi n i?f]rroiinded 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. 
 Mnnre’s d eparture it had ce ase d to tr ouble her conscience. 
 
 Pleader Mahmoud ATHlrow 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 Hos- 
 pital. “ Another example of their exquisite sense of 
 humour,” sang Miss Derek. Ronny looked at iSIr. Das 
 to see how he would handle the difficulty, and iSIr. 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 
 
CAVES 
 
 221 
 
 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 remain- 
 j ing on the platform, since she has been unwell; we shall 
 I extend every courtesy to her throughout, despite the scien- 
 i tific 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. 
 
 I The distinguished visitor gazed at the Magistrate re- 
 ' spectfully. 
 
 “ I agree to that,” said Mr. Das, hiding his face des-* 
 perately in some papers. “ It was only to Miss Quested 
 j 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 devas- 
 I tating honesty. 
 
 V “ Climb down, indeed, what incredible impertinence ! ” 
 I Mrs. Turton cried. 
 
 Il; “ Do come quietly, Mary,” murmured her husband. 
 
 ^ “ Hi ! my patient can’t be left unattended.” 
 
 I “ Do you object to the Civil Surgeon remaining, Mr. 
 |Amritrao ? ” 
 
 “ I should object. A platform confers authority.” 
 
 I “ Even when it’s one foot high ; so come along all,” 
 said the Collector, trying t,o laugh. 
 
 “ Thank you very much, sir,” said Mr. Das, greatly 
 relieved. “ Thank you, Mr. Heaslop ; thank you, ladies 
 all.” 
 
 And the part y, includ ing Miss Quested, descpnrlprl 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 
 
-iz22 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 hacLa _good— effect on Miss 
 Quest ed’s nerv es. She felt easier now that she had seen 
 all the people who were in the room. It was like-dcnow- 
 in g t he 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. Intelli- 
 gent and imp artial, he continued to l isten to t he evidence, 
 and''ffied to forget that later oirhe'”sHould have to pro- 
 nounce a verdict in accordance with it. The Superin- 
 tendent 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 “ pris oner’s dup es,” 
 as they were called — Fielding, the servant Antony^The 
 Nawab Bahadur. This aspect of the case had always 
 seemed du bious to Miss Quested, and she had asked the 
 police not to developit 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. 
 
CAVES 
 
 223 
 
 The Magistrate displayed interest in archaeology. 
 
 An elevation of a specimen cave was produced; it wa^ 
 lettered “ Buddhist Cave.” 
 
 ' “ Not Buddhist, I think, Jain. . , .” 
 
 “ In which cave is the offence alleged, the Buddhist or 
 i the Jain ? ” asked Mahmoud Ali, with the air of unmask- 
 ing a conspiracy. 
 
 “ All the Marabar caves are Jain,” 
 
 “Yes, sir; then in which Jain cave? ” 
 
 “ You will have an opportunity of putting such ques- 
 tions later.” 
 
 Mr. Mc Bryde. smiled faintly at the in fatuity .Indians 
 
 invar iably collaps e over some such point as this. He 
 knew that the defence had some~mI3 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 atten- 
 tion to the shape?” And he described what had oc- 
 curred there. Then he spoke of Miss Derek’s arrival, of 
 
 i 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 
 
 I field glasses. And then came the culminating evidence: 
 j the discovery of the field-glasses on the prisoner. “ I 
 have nothing to add at present,” he concluded, removing 
 j his spectacles. “ I will now call my witnesses. The facts 
 j will speak for themselves. The prisoner is one of those 
 
 ii individuals who have led a double life. I dare say his 
 I degeneracy gained upon him gradually. He has been very 
 j cunning at concealing, as is usual with the type, and pre- 
 • tending to be a respectable member of society, getting a 
 , Government position even. He is now entirely vicious 
 I 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. 
 
224 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 free for his crime, he crushed her into a cave among his 
 servants. How^ever, that is by the w^ay.” 
 
 But his last words brought on another storm, and sud- 
 denly a new name, Mrs. Moore, burst on the court like 
 a whirlwind. Mahmoud AH 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.” 
 
 “ Y ou 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 Magis- 
 trate. “ 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. 
 
 f “I am not defending a case, nor are you trying one. 
 We are both of us slaves.’jy 
 
 “ Mr. Mahmoud Ali, I have already warned you, and 
 unless you sit dowm I shall exercise my authority.” ■/ 
 
 “Do so; this trial is a farce, I am going.” And he 
 
CAVES 
 
 225 
 
 ; banded his papers to Amritrao and left, calling from the 
 i door histrionically yet with intense passion, “ Aziz, Aziz 
 < — farewell for ever.” The tumult increased, the invoca- 
 tion 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 ex- 
 hausted itself, he was powerless. 
 
 ; C' “ 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 veranda, and her disjointed remarks on Aziz had 
 ! doubtless been sold to Mahmoud Ali for a few annas: 
 
 I that kind of thing never ceases in the East. 
 
 “ I thought they’d try something of the sort. Ingen- 
 [ ious.” He looked into their wide-open mouths. “ They 
 ^ get just b'kp that nvp_r_ their rf^liginn,” he added calmly. 
 
 “ Start and can’t stop. I’m sorry for your old Das, he’s 
 I not getting much of a show.” 
 
 ! “ Mr. Heaslop, how disgraceful dragging in your dear 
 
 mother,” said Miss Derek, bending forward, 
 j “ 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 specialty.” But he dis- 
 liked it more than he showed. It was rpvnitin g to hpar 
 
 Ij his mo^er travestied int o Esmiss Esmoor, a Hindu god - 
 i dess." 
 
 K “ Esmiss Esmoor 
 
 ^ Esmiss Esmoor 
 
 'fc Esmiss Esmoor 
 
 Esmiss Esmoor. . . 
 
 I “ Ronny ” 
 
 “Yes, old girl?” 
 
 : “ Isn’t it all queer.” 
 
 “ I’m afraid it’s very upsetting for you.” 
 
226 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 “ 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 sur- 
 prise. “ 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 be- 
 fore she could give it; and this unhinged Mr. Mahmoud 
 AH — coming as it does upon an attempt to intimidate 
 our only other European witness, Mr. Fielding. ]SIr. 
 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, j 
 and consequently she can say nothing.” 
 
 “ Well, I withdraw my reference,” said the Superin- ■ 
 tendent wearily. “ I would have done so fifteen minutes | 
 ago if I had been given the cliance. 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 ) 
 
Caves 
 
 the gentlemen outside to withdraw it too,” for the 
 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 tlie trial. Exp_erls_were-^iot-sun- 
 pris ed. There is no sta--^ 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 erfsis-^s yas still to corn e. 
 
 Adela hddj^ 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 con- 
 nected, though by a thread, with another part of her life, 
 her engagement to Ronny. She had thought of love just 
 before she went in, a.id 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 priva te 
 f ailure she dared anndp_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. ' j'he fatal day recurre d, in 
 every detail, but now she was ot 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 
 
228 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 f 
 
 masses of the rock flowed roand her and presented the 
 first cave; s he entere d, and .a match jwas reflected in the 
 polished walls— all beautiful ar.d significant, though she 
 had be^n. blind to it at the time. Questions were asked, 
 and to each she found the e^act reply; yes, she had 
 noticed the “ Tank of the Dagger,” but not known its 
 narrie ; 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 dist ance pro- 
 ceed^, leading along the paths of truth.-andj the airs fro m 
 fhe^punkah behind her_jwa. fted h.^r on . . . . 
 
 “. . . the prisoner- and the guj de t ook you on to the 
 Kawa Dol, no one else being present? ” 
 
 “ The most wonde r fuliy ^'apec'^ those hills. Yes.” 
 As sl^ spoke, sheYfeafed' 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 : “ N^l 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, 
 'iwaited her reply. But she could not give it until Aziz 
 entered the place of answer. 
 
 “ T he prisoner fol lo wed you , didn’t he? ” he repeated 
 jr ^he . monotonous tones that they both used ; they were 
 em^oying agreed words throughout, so that this part of 
 the proceedings held no sur prise s. 
 
 “ May I have half a minute~~bHore I reply to that, 
 Mr. McBryde?” 
 
 “ Certainly.” 
 
 Her vision was of several caves. She saw herself in 
 
CAVES 
 
 f 
 
 l-.'one. 
 
 
 
 . a nd she yms also outside it, watching its entrance, 
 lorA^z to pass in. She failed to locate him. It was the' 
 do^t that'hadrijfterE'vTsited her,nbur solid and attractive, 
 
 l ike the hills. “ I am no t Speech was more difficult 
 
 th an visiom “ I am no r'quite~5Trrev^ — ' 
 
 “ I beg your pardonrr’^~sa:id“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 ^ou that the prisoner followed you.” 
 
 She shpbk her head. 
 
 “ Whgt dp you mean, please? ” 
 
 “ No.” she said in a fiat, unattractive voice. Slighti 
 noises began in varibuY"parts oHthe"room^~bht hdhone 
 yet understood what was occurring except Fielding. He^ 
 sawYha t she^was going Jo 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 a ,fra i d I have made a mistake.” 
 
 “ What nature of mistake?” 
 
 “ Dr. Aziz nevef~ f^lowed me into the cave.” 
 
 TKe’^Su^rintendent slammed down his papers, then 
 picked theiTT'up and said calmly: “Now, Miss Quested, 
 let us go on I wiirYeadyolTthe'Words of the deposition 
 " which yotTsig ned two hours later in my bungalow.” 
 
 '^’E^use me, Mr. McBryde, you cannot go on. ^Lam 
 J speaking to the witness rhyself. And the public will be 
 I sfientr“Hdt-trcrrffinaes't talk, H have the court cleared. 
 i MTsS^Quested, “address y«ur- remarks to me, who am the 
 I' Magistrate't n charge of the case, and realize their ex- 
 ijY t Teme gravity." "Remember you speak on oath, Miss 
 I' Questeo’^ 
 
 y 
 
 Dr. Aziz never 
 
 I stop these proceedings on medical grounds,” cried 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 ifl) _ 
 
 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 after- 
 wards each person gave a different account of the catas- 
 trophe. 
 
 - “ Afou withdraw the^ch arge? An s ^v et i- me, ” shrieked 
 the representative of Justice. 
 
 SornHhi'ngTKaf shedid^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 -m thdraw 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 gath- 
 ering 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'^rlsonef is released without one stain 
 on his character ; tM~~question of costs wall be 'decided 
 elsewhere.” 
 
CAVES 
 
 231 
 
 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 passion- 
 ately. Here were the English, whom their servants pro- 
 tected, 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 con- 
 tinued 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 
 
 lY /T I S^QU-EST ED had ^renounced her own people. 
 J.VX'Tuming 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, inde- 
 scribable 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. Wit hout part in the uni - 
 verse she had created, she was flung against Mr. Fielding. 
 
 “ WEa^t do youTvant here? ” 
 
232 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 hap- 
 pen next. Why don’t you keep to your own people ? ” 
 
 “ Ought I to join them?” she said, without emotion. 
 She felt emptied , valueless; the re was no mo re virtue 
 jn 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 arrange- 
 ments ? ” 
 
 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 sud- 
 denly. “ Playing a game, studying life, or what? ” 
 
CAVES 
 
 233 
 
 “ 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. Th e more t hey hon- 
 oured him the less they obeyed . They lassoed him with 
 jasnlme~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 recan- 
 tation 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 (so me ad drs^'^prl her Mrc; Monreiy, and 
 they garlanded heTto 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 
 Englis h always stick together! That wa s _the criticism . 
 N or 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. H e didn’t want to die fo r-ber— he- 
 wanted to-h€-rej£)ic ing 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 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 23^ 
 
 >xat 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 unah le to^esert h er. 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 j oy w as r^he r .spoilt by bewilder ment. 
 It^as a victory, but such a^queer one. 
 
 ATt hat mome nt Aziz was CTyihg, “ Cyril, Cyril . . 
 Crammed into a carriage with the Nawab Bahadur, Hami- 
 dullah, 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 out- 
 we igh his ow n. “ It is fate,” he said ; and, “ It is fate,” 
 when he veas imprisoned anew after IMohurram. All that i 
 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 ■ 
 
CAVES 
 
 235 
 
 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 noth ing;- was g ;'ainerL _hv 
 attaGkmg.Jthe--£nglish, who had fallen into their own pit 
 and had better be left there; moreover, he had great 
 possessions and deprecated anarchy; 
 
 “ Cy ril, 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 Nured- 
 din.” 
 
 “ 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 de- 
 stroy 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 the spirit 
 
236 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 Cal- 
 lendar in revenge, and then was to come the turn of the 
 civil station generally. 
 
 But disaster was averted, and averted by Dr. Panna 
 Lai. 
 
 Dr . Panna Lai had offered to give witness _jor the 
 prose ^ion m the~Iio^ of pleasing the English, afsB h e- 
 cahse he hated Aziz . When the case broke down, he was 
 inr^a very pa inful positi on. 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 hos- 
 pital he should be safe, for Major Callendar would pro- 
 tect him. But the Major had not come, and now things 
 were worse than ever, for here-was_a.jnob, entirely de- 
 sirous 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 
 
CAVES 
 
 237 
 
 T 
 
 suddenly he started playing the buffoon, flung down his 
 umbrella, trod through it, and struck himself upon the 
 nose. He kne w what he was doing, and so dirl they. 
 There was n othing pathetic or eternal ii^ 
 of such a mail! Of ignoble origin. Dr. Panna Lai pos- 
 SQSse d liothin^ th at coiflld be disgraced, and he wisely 
 deci ded to make~tEe other Indians feel like kings, be- 
 cause it would put them int o bett er 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 an- 
 nounced 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 lo cal admmist'falffig i^HgW aTtered„£l^nd 
 many" lives and wrecked several careers, but they did not 
 break up a continerrt~ t rr- even d rstocate 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 
 ime. We shall not go out to Dilkusha until the cool of 
 rthe evening, of course. I do not know the feelings of 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 gentlemen; for my own part, I have a slight head- 
 ache^ and I wish I had thought to ask our good Panna 
 Lai for aspirin,” 
 
 For^ the heaLwas-elaiTTiing ifs own. Qnable to rnadden, 
 it^ s tupefied, a nd 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 i^ spent, and which is thought by some 
 pessimists to be a premonition of eternity. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 E vening approached by the time Fielding and Miss 
 Quested met and had the first of their numerou s 
 c urious con versations. He had hoped, when he woke 
 :ip, to find someone had fetched her away, but the Col- 
 lege 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 ex- 
 planation 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 
 aflFair.” 
 
 “ Would it not intere st you to hear my side ? ” 
 
 “ ^R^ot miic^h.’’" , 
 
 “ I shouldn’t tell 5^ou 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 
 
CAVES ’ 
 
 I have no longer any secrets. echo has gone — c^ ' 
 the buzzing sound in my ears anec^7~rYbu seeTT have 
 been unwell ever sIhce~thairgxpedifion1;o 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 : 
 h allucination. ” 
 
 “ Do you think that would be so ? ” she asked with 
 great humility. “ What should have given me an hallu- 
 cination ? ” 
 
 “ One of three things certainly happened in the Mara- 
 bar,” 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. Fm very much inclined ” — 
 getting up and striding about — “ now that you tell me 
 that you felt unwell before the expedition — it’s an im- 
 portant piece of evidence — X believ e that you yourself 
 _broke_the strap of the field-glasses; you were alone in 
 : that cave the whole t ime.’ ’ . 
 
 I “ Perhaps. . . .” 
 
 j Can you remember when you first felt out of sorts? ” 
 i “ When I came to tea with you there, in that garden- 
 ] house.” 
 
 “ A somewh at_unluckv. 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_X couldftT detect at the time . . . no, nothing as 
 solid as sadness : living at half pressurei expresses it best. 
 Half pressure. I rSineTriber ^mng on to polo with Mr. 
 Heaslop at the Maidan. Various other things happened 
 
A FA-SSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 1 
 
 ^ 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 — tha^ makes some 
 women think they’ve had an offer of marriage when none 
 wa^sjnaffe.” " " " - . ^ 
 
 “ 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) disappear e d sud denly.” 
 
 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 
 poo r McRry de px orciseT yoii. 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. Aloore does.” 
 
CAVES 
 
 241 
 
 ** 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 diffi 
 cult, 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.” 
 
 ‘^iTTarnot.” 
 
 “ So do I? 
 
 There was a mo men t’s silence, such as often follows 
 the triu mph of ra tionalism. Then he apologized hand- 
 somely enough for~hIi 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 awk- 
 ward, 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 connec- 
 tion with such a hag.” It enragedJhim th at he had bee n 
 accuse d by a woman who had no perso n al beau ty ; sex- 
 ually, -he_was_a^_srKib. This had puzzled and worried r 
 Fielding./ Sensuality, as long as it is straightforward; 
 did not repel him, but this derived sensuality — the sort 
 that classes a mistress among motor-cars if she is beart- 
 tiful, and among eye-flies if she isn’t — was alien to hiS' 
 own emotions, and he felt a barrier between himself anp 
 Aziz when ever it arose. It was, in a new form, the ol^, 
 old trouble that eats the heart out of every civilizatioi 
 snobbery, the desire for poss ession s, creditable appei 
 dages ; and it is to escape this rather than the lusts of th 
 flesh that saints retreat into the Himalayas./ To changd 
 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 haliucina'^ 
 
242 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 tion. There’s a fourth possibility which we must toucK 
 on : was it somebody else ? ” 
 
 “ Exactly, the guide. I often think s o. Unluckily Azi? 
 hit him on the face, and he got a iright 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 Dil- 
 kusha ? ” 
 
 “ 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.” 
 
 “ P erhaps the a ge of miracles has returned. One must 
 be prepared for'everythinguour philosopher^ say.” 
 
CAVES 
 
 243 
 
 “ 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 mis- 
 take, 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 con- 
 ceive 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 interestin g 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 . . 
 
244 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 r 
 
 “ 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 in- 
 dependent 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. IMcBryde keeps plenty 
 j)f roughs for this purpose, and this would be the very 
 opportunity for him.” 
 
 “ Never mind. She is not going to the Dak Bunga- 
 low,” 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 school- 
 mistressy manner remained, she was no longer examining 
 
CAVES 
 
 245 
 
 life, but being examined by it; she had become a real 
 i 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 gen- 
 erosity — ^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 contribu- 
 tion. 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 Col- 
 lector 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 mini- 
 mum of annoyance. 
 
 “ Far better stop here than expose yourself to insults 
 from that preposterous woman.” 
 
246 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 “ 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 dis- 
 guise, 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 youf 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 be- 
 tween 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 badl)’. Besides, 
 Fate has treated him pretty roughly to-day. He has 
 had a cable to the effect that his mother’s dead, poor old 1 
 soul.” i 
 
CAVES 
 
 r: 
 
 247 
 
 “ Oh, really. Mrs. Moore. I’m sorry,” said liami^ 
 dullah 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 re- j 
 member. I do. This is Hg aslop ’ s punishment for _ab’ 1 
 d ucting our witness in order to stop us establishing our | 
 dihL” - 
 
 “ You go rather too far there. The poor old lady’s 
 evidence could have had no value, shout and shriek Mah- 
 moud Ali as he will. She couldn’t see though 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 lo^ed 
 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 ac- 
 quaintance. 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 
 
248 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 to the permanent lines which habit or chance have dic- 
 tated, 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 mis- 
 fortune ? ” 
 
 He bowed. 
 
 “ Ah me I ” 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 quar- 
 ters now ” 
 
 Fielding stopped him courteousl3\ “ Say no more, 
 
CAVES 
 
 249 
 
 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 under- 
 stood, 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 
 I want of proper pride. When they were driving out to 
 Dilkusha, hours late, he said to Amritrao, who accom- 
 panied them : “ Mr. Amritrao, have you considered what 
 sum Miss Quested ought to pay as compensation ? ” 
 
 “ Twenty thousand rupees,” 
 
 I No more was then said, but the remark horrified Field- 
 ing. He couldn’t bear to think of the queer honest girl 
 losing her money and possibly her young man too. She 
 
250 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 
 
 ZIZ, 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, C)Til?” the 
 voice on his left continued. 
 
 “ Are you? ” 
 
 “ Except that I ate too much. ‘ How is stomach, how 
 head ? ’ — I say, Panna Lai 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 
 
CAVES 
 
 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.” 
 
 I “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 
 Igoing 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 misfor- 
 tunes.” 
 
 “ Including knowing me.” 
 
 “ I say, shall we go and pour wafer 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. Field-, 
 ing 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 cos- 
 tume, 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 accom- 
 plished 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 
 
 ! 4 
 
02 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 prepos- 
 terous. 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 my- 
 self 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 Eng- 
 lishmen 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 wdth 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 
 
CAVES 
 
 253 
 
 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 what- 
 ever 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, 
 kfter that.” 
 
 I ‘‘ 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 
 tan’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.” 
 i 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 
 Ishall 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 
 
254 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 propor- 
 tion 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 would. 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 friend- 
 ship; 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 an5i;hing 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 
 
CAVES 
 
 255 
 
 before me, if we are to be friends for ever. You do not 
 Ilike Mrs. Moore, and are annoyed because I do; how- 
 lever, 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 
 italk, and did not want the festive evening spoilt, cried 
 ^from the adjoining bed : “ Aziz, he is trying to pull your 
 ileg; don’t believe him, the villain.” 
 
 “I do not believe him,” said Aziz; he was inured to 
 ipractical 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 misunder- 
 standing 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 con- 
 clusion. 
 
256 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 D ead 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-Gov- 
 ernor 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 need- 
 lessly 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 transi- 
 tion 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 annoy- 
 ance 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 t}"pe 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 
 
CAVES 
 
 257 
 
 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 
 ;heir home in the country-side and appealed to its imagina- 
 tion, 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 philo- 
 sophic Brahm. / 
 
 Ronny reminded himself that his mother had left India 
 at her own wish, but his conscience was not clear. He 
 nad behaved badly to her, and he had either to repent 
 (which involved a mental overturn), or to persist in 
 ankindness 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 
 tp with natives. She could not help it, of course, but 
 she had attempted similar exasperating expeditions in 
 ler lifetime, and he reckoned it against her. The young 
 nan had much to worry him — the heat, the local tension, 
 he approaching visit of the Lieutenant-Governor, the 
 problems of Adela — and threading them all together into 
 i grotesque garland were these Indianizations of Mrs. 
 Moore. What does happen to one’s mother when she 
 lies? Presumably she goes to heaven, anyhow she clears 
 .)ut. R onny’s religio n was of the sterilized Public School 
 ^rand, whirh tipvpr grTps bad, even in the tropics. Wher- 
 i ver he entered, mosque, cave, or temple, he retained the 
 spiritual outlook ’of the Fifth fl''orm7 and condemned as 
 ‘ weakening ” any attempt to understand them. Pulling 
 limself together, he dismissed the matter from his 
 nind. In due time he and his half-brother and sister 
 
258 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 be- 
 trothal 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 
 
 visit of the Lieutenant-Governor of the Province 
 X formed the next stage in the decomposition of the 
 Marabar. Sir Gilbert, though not an enlightened man, 
 
 i held enlightened opinions. Exempted by a long career in 
 the Secretariate from personal contact with tlie peoples 
 of In^dia, he was able to speak of them urbanely, and to 
 deplore racial prejudice. He applauded the outcome ofi 
 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 ” whd 
 did not realize that “the hands of the clock move for-| 
 
 
CAVES 
 
 259 
 
 ward, 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 
 naves — 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 limita- 
 tions, 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 
 ithem they concocted a letter, sincere, and full of moving 
 iphrases, but it was not moving as a letter. “ Shall I 
 iwrite 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 
 icome 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 diffi- / 
 xulty.” He replied : “ Our letter is a failure for a simple 
 I reason which we had better face : you have no real affec- 
 tion for Aziz, or Indians generally.” She assented. 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 first time I saw you, you were wanting to see 
 not Indians, and it occurred to me ; Ah, that won’t 
 far. Indians know whether they are liked or not 
 I — they cannot be fooled here. Justice never satisfies them, 
 I 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 Eng- 
 lish 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 exis- 
 tence. 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 immor- 
 tality 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 impleasant as the sun; and what was 
 next to be done against it W'as 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 con- 
 clude ; “ Can’t you see that I’m grateful to you for your 
 
CAVES 
 
 261' 
 
 lelp 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 
 land suffer 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. 
 jMoore’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 fore- 
 saw, it won him no credit with the English. They still 
 believed he was guilty, they believed it to the end of their 
 yareers, 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 
 
262 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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. i\Iy 
 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. W’eren’t 
 you amazed when our engagement was originally 
 announced ? 
 
 “ Not much^ At my age one’s seldom amazed,” he 
 said, smiling, f” 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.”/ 
 
CAVES 
 
 “ I am not. This false start has been all my owm 
 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 v/ant love,” he said, supplying the word. 
 
 “No more do I. My experiences here have cured me. 
 But I want others to w'ant 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 Tf 1 ranTTly^'’'^ng^ 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.” 
 
 “ Flow could she have known what we don’t ? ” 
 
 “ Telepathy, possibly.” 
 
 ' The pert, meagre word fell to the ground. /Telepatlw? 
 What an explanation! Better withdraw it,— ^ntLAHela 
 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 con- 
 sciousness? They could not tell. They only realized 
 that their outlook was more or less similar, and found in 
 
 this a satisfaction, 
 ijnuddle ; they could not tell. 
 
 11 te. is a myste ry, not a 
 Perhaps the hundred Indiaa” 
 
 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.” 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 264 
 
 “ 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.” 
 y “ But it has made me remember that we must all die : 
 l/a\l 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 
 I powers — sensible, honest, even subtle. They spoke the 
 Ij same language, and held the same opinions, and the 
 I variety of age and sex did not divide them. Yet they 
 j I 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 wTong instability sets up. Not for 
 them was an infinite goal behind the stars, and they never 
 sought it. But wistfulness descended on tliem now, as 
 on other occasions ; the shadow of the shadow of a dream 
 
CAVES 2e^ 
 
 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, b}’ 
 the same route as her dead friend. The final beat up 
 before the monsoon had come. The country was stricker. 
 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 tc 
 the boat and tried to blackmail her. §he ha ^Ubeen Mr. 
 Fielding’s mistress, ^n tony said . Perhaps Antony was 
 discontented wifhrhis 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 everyv 
 thing that was difficult and equivocal, and even Pory. 
 ; Said looked pure and charrning in the light of a rose-grey 
 morning. She went on shore there with an American 
 j missionary, they walked out to the Lesseps statue, thej 
 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 whaf 
 do you return. Every life ought to contain both a turr 
 and a return. This celebrated pioneer (he pointed to the 
 
266 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 statue) will make my question clear. He turns to the 
 East, he returns 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 bright- 
 ness. “ I see,” she replied. Suddenly, in the Mediter- 
 ranean 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 
 
 f \ NOTHER local consequence of the trial was a 
 ./V. Hindu-Moslem entent^Loud protestations of amity 
 were exchanged by pfbmment 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, wEen 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 generall}'-,” he said 
 timidly. ' — 
 
 “ Ther e is no such person in existence as the ge neral 
 Indian.” 
 
 ^TTrere was not, but there may be when you have 
 
CAVES 267 
 
 ^ 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 clear- 
 ; ness. “ And for that reason, if I may say so, do not intro- 
 duce 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 cas’,” 
 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 
 J unknowable easily. The approach is prosaic. “ Excel- 
 
 lent,” 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 
 j smiled wistfully, each spying the thought in the other’s 
 heart, and Das, the more articulate, said : “ Excuse my 
 i mistakes, realize my limitations. Life is not easy as we 
 ; know it on the earth.”/ , 
 
 .1 “ Oh, well, about this poem — how did you hear I some- 
 
 iMimes 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 
 
 7 departure for Mau.” 
 
 ' “ How did he hear ? ” 
 
 “ He too was a poet; do you not divine each other? ” 
 
268 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 Flattered by the invitation, he got to work that eve- 
 ning. The feel of the pen between his fingers generated 
 ^ bulbuls at once. His poem about the decay 
 
 of Islam and the brevity oHlove ; as sad and sweet as he 
 /could confiTve, but not nourished by personaI.£xperience, 
 and of no" interest to these excellent Hin dus. Feeling 
 I? drssatisfie'd, he rushed to the other extreme, and wrote a 
 i 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 unob- 
 served 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 Moham- 
 medans, 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, 
 jbut it had an effect. It led him towards the vague and 
 I bulky figure of a mother-land. He was without natural 
 I affection for the land of his birth, but the Marabar Hills 
 1 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 
 I 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. 
 
CAVES 
 
 26c 
 
 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 Rajas.” 
 
 “ 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, 
 
270 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 ard 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 wTite 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 assist- 
 ance? 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 A\^rning, far too. 
 
CAVES 
 
 271 
 
 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 : Th e Indian lady as she is" 
 and not as she is supposed to be.’’ ' ^ 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 A ZIZ 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 some^ 
 times regarded as shocking, and the Englishman had 
 listened, tolerant, but surrendering nothing in return. 
 
272 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 Chandra- 
 pore 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’s 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 Sur- 
 geon 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 per- 
 fectly 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 reputa- 
 tion. You know, every one is by no means your sup- 
 porter. I have tried all I could to silence such a stoiy.” 
 
 “ Don’t bother. Miss Quested has cleared out at 
 last.” 
 
 “ It is those wLo 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.” 
 
 V Don’t use such exaggerated phrases.” 
 
CAVES 
 
 273 
 
 I As what?” 
 
 I “ 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 
 t up rather crossly. 
 
 ; “ Yes, but the scale, the scale. You always get the 
 
 I; 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.” 
 
 t “ You mind for Miss Quested’s sake, though. I can see 
 (' from your face.” 
 
 I “ As far as I do mind. I travel light.” 
 
 1; “ Cyril, that boastfulness about travelling light will be 
 
 i, your ruin. It is raising up enemies against you on all 
 { sides, and makes me feel excessively uneasy.” 
 i “ What enemies ? ” 
 
 i Since Aziz had only himself in mind, he could not 
 
 ■ reply. Feeling a fool, he became angrier. “ I have 
 I given you list after list of the people who cannot be 
 I trusted in this city. In your position I should have the 
 I sense to know I was surrounded by enemies. You 
 I observe I speak in a low voice. It is because I see your 
 I sais is new. How do I know he isn’t a spy?” He 
 I; lowered his voice : “ Every third servant is a spy.” 
 
 I “ Now, what is the matter? ” he asked, smiling, 
 i' “Do you contradict my last remark?” 
 
 I “ 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.” 
 i “You have. You’re cross with me about something 
 I or other.” 
 
 ! Any direct attack threw him out of action. Presently 
 I 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 
 
274 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 un- 
 intentionally 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 conve}”- 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 lice. 
 
CAVES 
 
 275 
 
 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 
 i 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 eve- 
 ning.” 
 
 “ 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 
 I evening at six. We shall not interfere with your subse- 
 quent 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, 
 I who was the only surviving female. He talked to 
 ! McBryde, who was defiant about his divorce, conscious 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 276 
 
 that he had sinned as a sahib. He talked to Major 
 Roberts, the new Civil Surgeon; and to young Milner, 
 the new City Magistrate ; bu^^e 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 truthj/' 
 
 He found Aziz overtired and dispirited, and he deter- 
 mined 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 awk- 
 wardly they ate their dinner, then went out to sit in the 
 Mogul garden-house. 
 
 “ I am only going for a little time. On official busi- 
 ness. My service is anxious to get me away from Chan- 
 drapore 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 ? ” 
 
CAVES 
 
 ** 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 circum- 
 stanced. Whatever are you to write about? You can- 
 not 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 jiust 
 toiKh 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 r 
 for God. But I do not want to be a religious poet either.”i/ 
 
 “ 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.” , 
 
 
278 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 : “ 1 
 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 Lon- 
 don ” 
 
 “ 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 per- 
 mission, I’ll leave early.” 
 
 “ When would you like the carriage? ” 
 
 “ Don’t trouble— I’ll bike.” 
 
 “ But you haven’t got your bicycle. IMy 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 mis- 
 takes. In a friendship such as ours a few slips are of 
 no consequence.” 
 
CAVES 
 
 279 
 
 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 
 i durry wer*? 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 sus- 
 picious; 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 
 i 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 thou- 
 ‘ sand 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 sus- 
 picions — 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 
 i from different sources, and need never intermingle. Sus- 
 picion in the Oriental is a sort of malignant tumour, a 
 
28 o 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 mental malady, that makes him self-conscious and un- 
 friendly 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. Riic- 
 ulous. 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 Hami- 
 dullah’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 be- 
 cause he was really fond of Aziz his optimism failed him. 
 Travelling light is less easy as soon as affection is in- 
 volved. 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 any- 
 thing 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 dea'd, I 
 am absolutely devoid of morals. Do kindly grasp this 
 about me.” Aziz did not care for the letter at all. It hurt 
 
CAVES 
 
 281 
 
 his delicacy. He liked confidences, however gross, but 
 generalizations and comparisons always repelled him. 
 Life is not a scientific manual. He replied coldly, regret- 
 ting 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 gutter ings of Cham 
 drapore — heaven and earth both looking like toffee — the 
 Indian’s bad fancies were confirmed. His friends en- 
 couraged 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, “ Cer- 
 tainly 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 
 I 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 horntle senseless picnic, and before long he persuaded 
 himself that the wedding had actually taken place. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 E gypt 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 
 
282 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 f 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
 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 beautyi 
 was lifted to his lips, and he drank with a sense of dis- 
 loyalty. /The buildings of Venice, like the mountains of 
 Crete and the fields of Eg}"pt, stood in the right place,;; 
 whereas in poor India everything was placed wrong. 1 
 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 under- 
 graduate 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 Avorks 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 con- 
 stituted a serious barrier. They would see the sumptuous- 
 ness of Venice, not its shape, and though Venice was 
 not Europe, it was part of the Mediterranean narmony. 
 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 ^1./ Turning his back on it yet 
 again, he took the train nbrthward, 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 
 
 POME 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 proc- 
 esses. 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 
 V 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 court- 
 yard — Hindus, Hindus only, mild-featured men, mostly 
 villagers, for whom anything outside their villages passed 
 
 283 
 
284 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 in a dream. They were the toiling ryot, whom some 
 call the real India. Mixed with them sat a few trades- 
 men out of the little town, officials, courtiers, scions of 
 the ruling house. Schoolboys kept inefficient ordtr/f The 'I 
 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 
 C 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 with- 
 [ drawn did they revert to individual clods. And so with 
 V 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 uninter- 
 rupted. 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 everj'body. 
 
 Tukaram, Tukaram. . . .” 
 
 "^They sang not even to the God who confronted them, I 
 but to a saint; they did not one thing which the non- 
 Hindu would feel dramatically correct; this approaching 
 
TEMPLE 
 
 285 
 
 triumph of India was a muddle ( as we call it") . a frustra- / 
 tion of reason and form. Where was the God Himself, 
 in whose honour the congregation had gathered? Indis' / 
 tinguishable 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 inscrip- 
 tions 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 (com- 
 posed 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, Tukarara . . 
 
 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 7 
 singers were not perturbed by this rival, they lived r 
 beyond competition^) It was long before the tiny frag- \ 
 ment of Professor Godbole that attended to outside things 7 
 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 an- 
 
286 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 t 
 
 other’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 
 rit evoked more definite, and the singers’ expressions 
 ibecame 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 Chan- 
 drapore days. Chance brought her into his mind while 
 it was in this heated state, he did not select her, she hap- 
 pened 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. Com- 
 pleteness, 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 like 
 wise, 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 wdth 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. 
 
TEMPLE 
 
 287 
 
 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 chronometri- 
 cally 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 m.en from the actual image 
 of the God, and increased their sacred bewilderment. 
 Some of the villagers thought the Birth had occuired, 
 sa3fing with truth that the Lord must have been born, 
 or they could not see Him. But the clock struck mid- 
 ! night, and simultaneously the rending note of the conch 
 i broke forth, followed by the trumpeting of elephants; all 
 i 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 Shri Krishna, 
 
 I and saved the world. All sorrow was annihilated, not '1 
 only for Indians, but for foreigners, birds, caves, rail* \ 
 
288 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 (ways, 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 them- 
 selves 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 after- 
 wards say “ Yes.” But how, if there is such an event, 
 ■can it be remembered afterwards? How can it be ex- 
 pressed 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-mache 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 tlie ecstasy receded, 
 the invalid grew fretful. The bumping of the steam 
 
TEMPLE 
 
 289 
 
 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 prom- 
 inent 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 / 
 
 1 bathes. By sacrificing good taste, this worship achieved ( 
 
 ! what Christianity has shirked : the inclusion of merri- r 
 i ment. All spirit as well as all matter must participate \ 
 in salvation, and if practical jokes are banned, the circle 1 
 1 is incomplete. Having swallowed the butter, they played j 
 t another game which chanced to be graceful ; the fondling/ 
 of Shri Krishna under the similitude of a child. A prett)i 
 i red and gold ball is thrown, and he who catches it chooses 
 a child from the crowd, raises it in his arms, and carries 
 I it round to be caressed. All stroke the darling creature 
 j for the Creator’s sake, and murmur happy words. The 
 I child is restored to his parents, the ball thrown on, and 
 I another child becomes for a moment the World’s desire. 
 And the Lord bounds hither and thither through the 
 I aisles, chance, and the sport of chance, irradiating little 
 mortals with His immortality. . . . When they had 
 I played this long enough — and being exempt from bore» 
 
290 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 dom, 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 school- 
 boys, 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. Pro- 
 fessor Godbole had once more developed the life of his 
 spirit. He had, with increasing vividness, again seen 
 l\Irs. 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 hc^. and to place himself in her 
 
TEMPLE 
 
 291' 
 
 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 
 
 D r. AZIZ left the palace at the same time. As he 
 I'eturned 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 re- 
 mark, 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 trans- 
 ferred 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 
 
292 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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. With- 
 out 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 : 
 l^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, centering 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 
 
TEMPLE 
 
 293 
 
 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 h6"^ 
 destroyed unopened. It was the end of a foolish experi- 1 
 ment. And though sometimes at the back of his mind ! 
 he felt that Fielding had made sacrifices for him, it was f 
 now all confused with his genuine hatred of the English, t 
 “ I am an Indian at last,” he thought, standing motion- | 
 less in the rain. 
 
 Life passed pleasantly, the climate was healthy so that 
 the children could be with him all the year round, and 
 i he had married again — not exactly a marriage, but he 
 j liked to regard it as one — and he read his Persian, wrote 
 I 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 
 I 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 
 I as men had fought at Plassy. ” But we do net show our 
 t women to the foreigner ” — not explaining how this was 
 [ to be managed, for he was writing a poem. Bulbuls and 
 I roses would still persist, the pathos of defeated Islam re- 
 mained in his blood and could not be expelled by moderni- 
 ties. Illogical poems — like their writer. Yet they struck 
 I 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 
 idid 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. 
 
294 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 May I translate this particular one into Hindi? In fact, 
 it might be rendered into Sanskrit almost, it is so en- 
 lightened. 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 neigh- 
 bourhood 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 Flaggs learnt 
 with concern that a suspect was coming to Mau, and, 
 adopting a playful manner, rallied the old Rajah for per- 
 mitting 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 pres- 
 ence, and generally arrogating the control of internal af- 
 fairs. 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 dis- 
 covered this and began comparing notes with fruitful 
 result. To see how much, or how little. Colonel Flaggs 
 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 exclu- 
 sive 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 
 
TEMPLE 
 
 295 
 
 nf 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 Man 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 some- 
 thing. No eggs. Mosquito nets torn. When would they 
 r pay their respects to His Highness ? Was it correct that 
 I 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. Treacher- 
 ' ous 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 
 
 L ong before he discovered Mau, another young Mo- 
 ^ hammedan 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 pris- 
 oners streamed out and resumed their previous occupa- 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 1 
 
 296 
 
 tions, 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. Conse< 
 quently 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 sym- 
 metrical 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 oujah 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 
 
TEMPLE 
 
 297 
 
 : wings and other aerial oddments kept falling, and had 
 strewn the damp pavement with their flue. Ahmed, ap- 
 prized by Mohammed Latif of the character of the bee, 
 said, “ They will not hurt us, whose lives are chaste,” 
 
 I and pushed boldly in ; his sister was more cautious. From 
 ! the shrine they went to a mosque, which, in size and de- 
 i sign, resembled a fire-screen ; the arcades of Chandrapore 
 had shrunk to a flat piece of ornamental stucco, with pro- 
 tuberances at either end to suggest minarets. The funny 
 little thing didn’t even stand straight, for the rock on 
 I which it had been put was slipping down the hill. It, 
 j and the shrine, were a strange outcome of the protests of 
 : Arabia. 
 
 They wandered over the old fort, now deserted, and 
 J 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 
 i of water and slimy with mud. A magnificent monsoon — > 
 
 ^ the best for three years, the tanks already full, bumpei 
 crops possible. Out towards the river (the route by which 
 i 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. 
 i 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 Asir- 
 I garh motor omnibus. Many of them were in the palace 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 ^98 
 
 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 aim- 
 lessly 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 re- 
 sembled 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 en- 
 quire after His Highness’s health. 
 
 “ It always improves,” replied the medicine man. As 
 a matter of fact, the Rajah was dead, the ceremony over- 
 night 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 
 
TEMPLE 
 
 299' 
 
 *^der 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, in- 
 stead 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 de- 
 rision, 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 excel- 
 lent 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 rne. ... 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 
 
300 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 ser\'ants appear 
 
TEMPLE 
 
 301 
 
 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 
 i question.” 
 
 “ Will there be any objection to English people watch- 
 ing 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 ? ” 
 
302 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 “ The preposterous letter you allowed Mahmoud All to 
 write for you.” 
 
 “ This is a very useless conversation, I consider.” 
 
 “ However did you make such a mistake? ” said Field- 
 ing, more friendly than before, but scathing and scorn- 
 ful. “ 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 mis- 
 understanding out later on. It is clearly some deviltry 
 of Mahmoud Ali’s. He knows perfectly well I married 
 Miss Moore. He called her ‘ Heaslop’s sister ’ in his inso- 
 lent 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 INIau 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. Mah- 
 moud 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, point- 
 ing out with irrefragable logic that he had married, not 
 Heaslop’s betrothed, but Heaslop’s sister. What differ- 
 ence 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 : 
 
TEMPLE 
 
 303 
 
 ’ “ 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 
 I 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 
 
 A ll the time the palace ceased not to thrum and tum- 
 k turn. The revelation was over, but its effect lasted, 
 i 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 
 I 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 
 I the milkmaidens, when the music and the musicians 
 I swirled through the dark blue robes of the actors into 
 their tinsel crowns, and all became one. The Rajah and 
 i his guests would then forget that this was a dramatic 
 performance, and would worship the actors. Nothing of 
 
304 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 inconven- 
 ( ience or pain. 
 
 Aziz could not understand this, any more than an aver- 
 age 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 noth- 
 ing 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 belong- 
 ing 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 ]\Iinister of Educa- 
 tion. “ Ah, you might make me late ” — meaning that 
 the touch of a non-Hindu would necessitate another bath; 
 th<j words were spoken without moral heat. “ Sorry,” 
 
TEMPLE 
 
 305 
 
 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 arriv- 
 ing. Playing on sieves and other emblems of their pro- 
 fession, 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 sim 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 ^eins 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 humilitv. Aziz did not nay attention to these sanc- 
 tities, for they had no connection with his own; he felt 
 bored, slightly cynical, like his own dear Emperor Babur. 
 
3o6 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 wlio 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 rein 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 “ see- 
 ing India ” which had seduced him to Miss Quested at 
 Chandrapore was only a form of ruling India; no sym- 
 pathy 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 in- 
 formation never comes amiss. He took the path by the 
 sombre promontory that contained the royal tombs. Like 
 the palace, they w'ere of snowy stucco, and gleamed by 
 their internal light, but their radiance grew ghostly under 
 approaching night. The promontor}'^ 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. 
 
TEMPLE 
 
 307 
 
 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 corre- 
 spondence has never been ratified by the East. More- 
 over, Mr. McBryde had read all his letters in the past, 
 and spread their contents. One letter — the more inter- 
 esting of the two — was from Heaslop to Fielding. It 
 threw light on the mentality erf 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 
 i 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 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 308 
 
 present moment. Incident after incident, all due to 
 propaganda, but we can’t lay our hands on the connect- 
 ing 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 w'as 
 from Miss Quested to Mrs. Fielding. It contained one 
 or two interesting touches. The writer hoped tha. 
 “ 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 
 dosing their broken ranks against the alien. Even Heas- 
 lop 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 impover- 
 ished and tousled! Not a type that is often exported 
 
TEMPLE 
 
 309 
 
 I imperially. The doctor in Aziz thought, “ Born of too 
 I old a mother,” the poet found him rather beautiful. 
 
 “ I was unable to call earlier owing to pressure of work. 
 
 I How are the celebrated bee-stings ? ” he asked patroniz' 
 
 ! ingly. 
 
 ! “ I — I was resting, they thought I had better ; they 
 
 i 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 CaL 
 lendar 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 
 i for time.” 
 
 “ Aough ” 
 
 “ What is the matter, pray ? ” 
 
 “Your hands are unkind.” 
 
 He started and glanced down at them. The extiaordi^ 
 nary youth was right, and he put them behind his back 
 I before replying with outward anger : “ What the devil 
 I 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.” 
 
 5 “ Excellent news,” sneered Aziz. 
 
 “ But there is cruelty.” , 
 
 1 “ I have brought you some salve, but how to put it on 
 
 i in your present nervous state becomes a problem,” he coa 
 tinued, 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 
 
310 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 your stirxgs, 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 
 oflF. 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 in- 
 volved 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. 
 
TEMPLE 
 
 “ 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 dis- 
 tant 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 
 i got; you are Mrs. Moore’s son.” 
 
 I “ 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 
 1 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^ 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 3t« 
 
 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 grati- 
 tude. 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 pro- 
 cession 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 b^-inning again? His heart was too 
 full to draw back, i 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 de- 
 veloped. There was little need to row, for the freshen- 
 ing 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 
 
TEMPLE 
 
 flood-water bore them up and seemed as though it 
 last for ever. The boat was a rudderless dinghy. Hud- 
 dled 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 . . .” 
 
 I Floating in the darkness was a king, who sat under a 
 I canopy, in shining royal robes. . . . 
 j “ I can’t tell you what that is. I’m sure,” he whispered. 
 
 I “ 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 explana- 
 tion. 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 wa^' 
 ! Mrs. Moore’s son, and indeed until his heart was in- 
 I volved he knew nothing. “ Radhakrishna Radhakrishna 
 
314 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 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 pre- 
 tend he is alive until after the festival, to prevent unhappi- 
 ness. 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 calcu- 
 lated, 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 with- 
 out 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 par- 
 took. Old Godbole detected the boat, which was drifting 
 in on the gale, and he waved his arms — whether in wrath 
 or j oy Aziz ne ver discovered.J Above stood the secular 
 ■pSwer of Mau-^Hephants, ^tillery, 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 appre-. 
 
TEMPLE 
 
 315 
 
 hended 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-shoul- 
 dered, thin-waisted — the Indian body again triumphant — 
 and it was his hereditary office to close the gates of sal- 
 vation. 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 con- 
 founded 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, 
 
 I and, with oars and poles sticking out, revolved like a 
 i mythical monster in the whirlwind. The worshippers 
 ! howled with wrath or joy, as they drifted forward help- 
 j lessly against the servitor. Who awaited them, his beau- 
 1 tiful dark face expressionless, and as the last morsels 
 i, 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 ca BsizerL 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 every-' 
 
 I body and everything through, and soon spoiled the cloth 
 ;of gold on the palanguin and the costly disc-shaped 
 
 il 
 
3i6 a passage to INDIA 
 
 banners. Some of the torches went out, fireworks didn ^ 
 catch, there began to be less singing, and the tray re 
 turned 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 follow- 
 ing 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 si 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 
 
 F riends 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 w'ere de- 
 parting next morning, as decorum required. W'hat 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 
 '/ts absence was remarked and to collect its scholars be- 
 
TEMPLE 
 
 fore they produced children of their own. 
 laughed at the tangle and waste of energy, but he did 
 not travel as lightly as in the past; education was a con- 
 tinuous concern to him, because his income and the com- 
 fort 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 some- 
 thing 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 laughin gly. t Q^their _old rela tionship as i f no thing 
 had happen ed. 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 particu- 
 lar, and disappeared among some custard apple trees. 
 
 I 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 
 j queer. They drew rein, to give the cobra elbow-room, 
 
 ’ and Aziz produced a letter that he wanted to send to Miss 
 i Quested. A charming letter. He wanted to thank his 
 ! old enemy for her fine behaviour two years back: per- 
 fectly plain was it now that she had behaved well. “ As 
 j 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 im- 
 perfect English. Through you I am happy here with my 
 I 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 
 j have seen her courage at last.” 
 
 “ I want to do kind actions all round and wipe out 
 I the wretched business of the Marabar for ever. I have 
 I been so disgracefully hasty, thinking you meant to get 
 
A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 ^old of m y moneAL : as bad a mistake as the cave itself.” 
 ■— rr-^ziz^ I wish you would talk to my wife. She too be- 
 lieves 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 some- 
 thing. You and I and Miss Quested are, roughly speak- 
 ing, 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 par- 
 ticipant 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 dif- 
 ferent 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 
 
TEMPLE 
 
 519 
 
 was their last free intercourse. All the stupid misunder- 
 standings 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 acquir- 
 ing 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 me- 
 mento, 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 rest- 
 lessness. 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 States 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 Naz- 
 areth. 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. Per- 
 haps 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 
 
>20 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 with a little laugh, “ I can’t explain, because it isn’t in 
 W'ords 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 m.eet 
 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 some- 
 thing 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 scen- 
 ery was shattered, the meadow disintegrated into butter- 
 flies. A poem about Mecca — the Caaba of Union — ^the 
 thornbushes 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 land- 
 slip and rested in its due place, and he found himself rid- 
 ing 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 be- 
 cause they were going to part. Fielding had “ no further 
 use for politeness,” he said, meaning that the British Em- 
 pire really can’t be abolished because it’s rude. Aziz re- 
 torted, ” Very well, and we have no use for you,” and 
 glared at him with abstract hate. Fielding said : “ Away 
 
TEMPLE 
 
 321 
 
 from Its, Indians go to seed at once. Look at the 
 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 Bom- 
 bay side.” — “ Yes, and what do they say ? Free our 
 V^^omen 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 Jemila’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 Japa- 
 nese?” 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 states- 
 men.” 
 
 “ It will indeed be arranged.” 
 
 “ Old story of ‘ We will rob every man and rape every 
 
322 
 
 A PASSAGE TO INDIA 
 
 woman from Peshawar to Calcutta,’ I suppose, wh»*h' 
 you get some nobody to repeat and then quote every 
 week in the Pioneer in order to frighten us into retain- 
 ing 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, 
 f| or ought to have, a mother-land. Then he shouted: 
 
 “India shall be a nation! No foreigners of any sort! 
 j 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 
 th’'' 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 ^lien,” he concluded, half kissing him, “ you and I 
 shall be friends.” 
 
 “ Why can’t we be friends now ? ” said the other, hold- 
 ' ing 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 hun- 
 dred voices, “ No, not yet,” and the sky said, “ No, not 
 ihereP 
 
 Weybridge, 1924. 
 

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