الفصل الفصل 10 · Chapter X

. Chapter X

The heat had leapt forward in the last hour, the street was deserted

as if a catastrophe had cleaned off humanity during the inconclusive

talk. Opposite Aziz’ bungalow stood a large unfinished house

belonging to two brothers, astrologers, and a squirrel hung

head-downwards on it, pressing its belly against burning scaffolding

and twitching a mangy tail. It seemed the only occupant of the

house, and the squeals it gave were in tune with the infinite, no

doubt, but not attractive except to other squirrels. More noises

came from a dusty tree, where brown birds creaked and floundered

about looking for insects; another bird, the invisible coppersmith,

had started his “ponk ponk.” It matters so little to the majority

of living beings what the minority, that calls itself human,

desires or decides. Most of the inhabitants of India do not mind

how India is governed. Nor are the lower animals of England

concerned about England, but in the tropics the indifference is

more prominent, the inarticulate world is closer at hand and

readier to resume control as soon as men are tired. When the seven

gentlemen who had held such various opinions inside the bungalow

came out of it, they were aware of a common burden, a vague threat

which they called “the bad weather coming.” They felt that they

could not do their work, or would not be paid enough for doing it.

The space between them and their carriages, instead of being empty,

was clogged with a medium that pressed against their flesh, the

carriage cushions scalded their trousers, their eyes pricked, domes

of hot water accumulated under their head-gear and poured down

their cheeks. Salaaming feebly, they dispersed for the interior of

other bungalows, to recover their self-esteem and the qualities

that distinguished them from each other.

All over the city and over much of India the same retreat on the

part of humanity was beginning, into cellars, up hills, under

trees. April, herald of horrors, is at hand. The sun was returning

to his kingdom with power but without beauty—that was the sinister

feature. If only there had been beauty! His cruelty would have been

tolerable then. Through excess of light, he failed to triumph, he

also; in his yellowy-white overflow not only matter, but brightness

itself lay drowned. He was not the unattainable friend, either of

men or birds or other suns, he was not the eternal promise, the

never-withdrawn suggestion that haunts our consciousness; he was

merely a creature, like the rest, and so debarred from glory.