الفصل الفصل 16 · Chapter XVI

. Chapter XVI

He waited in his cave a minute, and lit a cigarette, so that he

could remark on rejoining her, “I bolted in to get out of the

draught,” or something of the sort. When he returned, he found the

guide, alone, with his head on one side. He had heard a noise, he

said, and then Aziz heard it too: the noise of a motor-car. They

were now on the outer shoulder of the Kawa Dol, and by scrambling

twenty yards they got a glimpse of the plain. A car was coming

towards the hills down the Chandrapore road. But they could not

get a good view of it, because the precipitous bastion curved at

the top, so that the base was not easily seen and the car

disappeared as it came nearer. No doubt it would stop almost

exactly beneath them, at the place where the pukka road degenerated

into a path, and the elephant had turned to sidle into the hills.

He ran back, to tell the strange news to his guest. The guide

explained that she had gone into a cave. “Which cave?”

He indicated the group vaguely.

“You should have kept her in sight, it was your duty,” said Aziz

severely. “Here are twelve caves at least. How am I to know which

contains my guest? Which is the cave I was in myself?”

The same vague gesture. And Aziz, looking again, could not even be

sure he had returned to the same group. Caves appeared in every

direction—it seemed their original spawning place—and the orifices

were always the same size. He thought, “Merciful Heavens, Miss

Quested is lost,” then pulled himself together, and began to look

for her calmly.

“Shout!” he commanded.

When they had done this for awhile, the guide explained that to

shout is useless, because a Marabar cave can hear no sound but its

own. Aziz wiped his head, and sweat began to stream inside his

clothes. The place was so confusing; it was partly a terrace,

partly a zigzag, and full of grooves that led this way and that

like snake-tracks. He tried to go into every one, but he never knew

where he had started. Caves got behind caves or confabulated in

pairs, and some were at the entrance of a gully.

“Come here!” he called gently, and when the guide was in reach, he

struck him in the face for a punishment. The man fled, and he was

left alone. He thought, “This is the end of my career, my guest is

lost.” And then he discovered the simple and sufficient explanation

of the mystery.

Miss Quested wasn’t lost. She had joined the people in the

car—friends of hers, no doubt, Mr. Heaslop perhaps. He had a sudden

glimpse of her, far down the gully—only a glimpse, but there she

was quite plain, framed between rocks, and speaking to another

lady. He was so relieved that he did not think her conduct odd.

Accustomed to sudden changes of plan, he supposed that she had run

down the Kawa Dol impulsively, in the hope of a little drive. He

started back alone towards his camp, and almost at once caught

sight of something which would have disquieted him very much a

moment before: Miss Quested’s field-glasses. They were lying at

the verge of a cave, half-way down an entrance tunnel. He tried to

hang them over his shoulder, but the leather strap had broken, so

he put them into his pocket instead. When he had gone a few steps,

he thought she might have dropped something else, so he went back

to look.

But the previous difficulty recurred: he couldn’t identify the

cave. Down in the plain he heard the car starting; however, he

couldn’t catch a second glimpse of that. So he scrambled down the

valley-face of the hill towards Mrs. Moore, and here he was more

successful: the colour and confusion of his little camp soon

appeared, and in the midst of it he saw an Englishman’s topi, and

beneath it—oh joy!—smiled not Mr. Heaslop, but Fielding.

“Fielding! Oh, I have so wanted you!” he cried, dropping the “Mr.”

for the first time.

And his friend ran to meet him, all so pleasant and jolly, no

dignity, shouting explanations and apologies about the train.

Fielding had come in the newly arrived car—Miss Derek’s car—that

other lady was Miss Derek. Chatter, chatter, all the servants

leaving their cooking to listen. Excellent Miss Derek! She had met

Fielding by chance at the post office, said, “Why haven’t you gone

to the Marabar?” heard how he missed the train, offered to run him

there and then. Another nice English lady. Where was she? Left with

car and chauffeur while Fielding found camp. Car couldn’t get

up—no, of course not—hundreds of people must go down to escort Miss

Derek and show her the way. The elephant in person. . . .

“Aziz, can I have a drink?”

“Certainly not.” He flew to get one.

“Mr. Fielding!” called Mrs. Moore, from her patch of shade; they

had not spoken yet, because his arrival had coincided with the

torrent from the hill.

“Good morning again!” he cried, relieved to find all well.

“Mr. Fielding, have you seen Miss Quested?”

“But I’ve only just arrived. Where is she?”

“I do not know.”

“Aziz! Where have you put Miss Quested to?” Aziz, who was returning

with a drink in his hand, had to think for a moment. His heart was

full of new happiness. The picnic, after a nasty shock or two, had

developed into something beyond his dreams, for Fielding had not

only come, but brought an uninvited guest. “Oh, she’s all right,”

he said; “she went down to see Miss Derek. Well, here’s luck!

Chin-chin!”

“Here’s luck, but chin-chin I do refuse,” laughed Fielding, who

detested the phrase. “Here’s to India!”

“Here’s luck, and here’s to England!”

Miss Derek’s chauffeur stopped the cavalcade which was starting to

escort his mistress up, and informed it that she had gone back with

the other young lady to Chandrapore; she had sent him to say so.

She was driving herself.

“Oh yes, that’s quite likely,” said Aziz. “I knew they’d gone for

a spin.”

“Chandrapore? The man’s made a mistake,” Fielding exclaimed.

“Oh no, why?” He was disappointed, but made light of it; no doubt

the two young ladies were great friends. He would prefer to give

breakfast to all four; still, guests must do as they wish, or they

become prisoners. He went away cheerfully to inspect the porridge

and the ice.

“What’s happened?” asked Fielding, who felt at once that something

had gone queer. All the way out Miss Derek had chattered about the

picnic, called it an unexpected treat, and said that she preferred

Indians who didn’t invite her to their entertainments to those who

did it. Mrs. Moore sat swinging her foot, and appeared sulky and

stupid. She said: “Miss Derek is most unsatisfactory and restless,

always in a hurry, always wanting something new; she will do

anything in the world except go back to the Indian lady who pays

her.”

Fielding, who didn’t dislike Miss Derek, replied: “She wasn’t in

a hurry when I left her. There was no question of returning to

Chandrapore. It looks to me as if Miss Quested’s in the hurry.”

“Adela?—she’s never been in a hurry in her life,” said the old lady

sharply.

“I say it’ll prove to be Miss Quested’s wish, in fact I know it

is,” persisted the schoolmaster. He was annoyed—chiefly with

himself. He had begun by missing a train—a sin he was never guilty

of—and now that he did arrive it was to upset Aziz’ arrangements

for the second time. He wanted someone to share the blame, and

frowned at Mrs. Moore rather magisterially. “Aziz is a charming

fellow,” he announced.

“I know,” she answered, with a yawn.

“He has taken endless trouble to make a success of our picnic.”

They knew one another very little, and felt rather awkward at being

drawn together by an Indian. The racial problem can take subtle

forms. In their case it had induced a sort of jealousy, a mutual

suspicion. He tried to goad her enthusiasm; she scarcely spoke.

Aziz fetched them to breakfast.

“It is quite natural about Miss Quested,” he remarked, for he had

been working the incident a little in his mind, to get rid of its

roughnesses. “We were having an interesting talk with our guide,

then the car was seen, so she decided to go down to her friend.”

Incurably inaccurate, he already thought that this was what had

occurred. He was inaccurate because he was sensitive. He did not

like to remember Miss Quested’s remark about polygamy, because it

was unworthy of a guest, so he put it from his mind, and with it

the knowledge that he had bolted into a cave to get away from her.

He was inaccurate because he desired to honour her, and—facts being

entangled—he had to arrange them in her vicinity, as one tidies

the ground after extracting a weed. Before breakfast was over, he

had told a good many lies. “She ran to her friend, I to mine,” he

went on, smiling. “And now I am with my friends and they are with

me and each other, which is happiness.”

Loving them both, he expected them to love each other. They didn’t

want to. Fielding thought with hostility, “I knew these women would

make trouble,” and Mrs. Moore thought, “This man, having missed

the train, tries to blame us”; but her thoughts were feeble; since

her faintness in the cave she was sunk in apathy and cynicism. The

wonderful India of her opening weeks, with its cool nights and

acceptable hints of infinity, had vanished.

Fielding ran up to see one cave. He wasn’t impressed. Then they

got on the elephant and the picnic began to unwind out of the

corridor and escaped under the precipice towards the railway

station, pursued by stabs of hot air. They came to the place where

he had quitted the car. A disagreeable thought now struck him, and

he said: “Aziz, exactly where and how did you leave Miss Quested?”

“Up there.” He indicated the Kawa Dol cheerfully.

“But how——” A gully, or rather a crease, showed among the rocks at

this place; it was scurfy with cactuses. “I suppose the guide

helped her.”

“Oh, rather, most helpful.”

“Is there a path off the top?”

“Millions of paths, my dear fellow.”

Fielding could see nothing but the crease. Everywhere else the

glaring granite plunged into the earth.

“But you saw them get down safe?”

“Yes, yes, she and Miss Derek, and go off in the car.”

“Then the guide came back to you?”

“Exactly. Got a cigarette?”

“I hope she wasn’t ill,” pursued the Englishman. The crease

continued as a nullah across the plain, the water draining off this

way towards the Ganges.

“She would have wanted me, if she was ill, to attend her.”

“Yes, that sounds sense.”

“I see you’re worrying, let’s talk of other things,” he said

kindly. “Miss Quested was always to do what she wished, it was our

arrangement. I see you are worrying on my account, but really I

don’t mind, I never notice trifles.”

“I do worry on your account. I consider they have been impolite!”

said Fielding, lowering his voice. “She had no right to dash away

from your party, and Miss Derek had no right to abet her.”

So touchy as a rule, Aziz was unassailable. The wings that uplifted

him did not falter, because he was a Mogul emperor who had done

his duty. Perched on his elephant, he watched the Marabar Hills

recede, and saw again, as provinces of his kingdom, the grim untidy

plain, the frantic and feeble movements of the buckets, the white

shrines, the shallow graves, the suave sky, the snake that looked

like a tree. He had given his guests as good a time as he could,

and if they came late or left early that was not his affair. Mrs.

Moore slept, swaying against the rods of the howdah, Mohammed Latif

embraced her with efficiency and respect, and by his own side sat

Fielding, whom he began to think of as “Cyril.”

“Aziz, have you figured out what this picnic will cost you?”

“Sh! my dear chap, don’t mention that part. Hundreds and hundreds

of rupees. The completed account will be too awful; my friends’

servants have robbed me right and left, and as for an elephant,

she apparently eats gold. I can trust you not to repeat this. And

M.L.—please employ initials, he listens—is far the worst of all.”

“I told you he’s no good.”

“He is plenty of good for himself; his dishonesty will ruin me.”

“Aziz, how monstrous!”

“I am delighted with him really, he has made my guests comfortable;

besides, it is my duty to employ him, he is my cousin. If money

goes, money comes. If money stays, death comes. Did you ever hear

that useful Urdu proverb? Probably not, for I have just invented

it.”

“My proverbs are: A penny saved is a penny earned; A stitch in time

saves nine; Look before you leap; and the British Empire rests on

them. You will never kick us out, you know, until you cease

employing M.L.’s and such.”

“Oh, kick you out? Why should I trouble over that dirty job? Leave

it to the politicians. . . . No, when I was a student I got excited

over your damned countrymen, certainly; but if they’ll let me get

on with my profession and not be too rude to me officially, I

really don’t ask for more.”

“But you do; you take them to a picnic.”

“This picnic is nothing to do with English or Indian; it is an

expedition of friends.”

So the cavalcade ended, partly pleasant, partly not; the Brahman

cook was picked up, the train arrived, pushing its burning throat

over the plain, and the twentieth century took over from the

sixteenth. Mrs. Moore entered her carriage, the three men went to

theirs, adjusted the shutters, turned on the electric fan and tried

to get some sleep. In the twilight, all resembled corpses, and the

train itself seemed dead though it moved—a coffin from the

scientific north which troubled the scenery four times a day. As

it left the Marabars, their nasty little cosmos disappeared, and

gave place to the Marabars seen from a distance, finite and rather

romantic. The train halted once under a pump, to drench the stock

of coal in its tender. Then it caught sight of the main line in

the distance, took courage, and bumped forward, rounded the civil

station, surmounted the level-crossing (the rails were scorching

now), and clanked to a stand-still. Chandrapore, Chandrapore! The

expedition was over.

And as it ended, as they sat up in the gloom and prepared to enter

ordinary life, suddenly the long drawn strangeness of the morning

snapped. Mr. Haq, the Inspector of Police, flung open the door of

their carriage and said in shrill tones: “Dr. Aziz, it is my highly

painful duty to arrest you.”

“Hullo, some mistake,” said Fielding, at once taking charge of the

situation.

“Sir, they are my instructions. I know nothing.”

“On what charge do you arrest him?”

“I am under instructions not to say.”

“Don’t answer me like that. Produce your warrant.”

“Sir, excuse me, no warrant is required under these particular

circumstances. Refer to Mr. McBryde.”

“Very well, so we will. Come along, Aziz, old man; nothing to fuss

about, some blunder.”

“Dr. Aziz, will you kindly come?—a closed conveyance stands in

readiness.”

The young man sobbed—his first sound—and tried to escape out of

the opposite door on to the line.

“That will compel me to use force,” Mr. Haq wailed.

“Oh, for God’s sake——” cried Fielding, his own nerves breaking

under the contagion, and pulled him back before a scandal started,

and shook him like a baby. A second later, and he would have been

out, whistles blowing, a man-hunt. . . . “Dear fellow, we’re coming

to McBryde together, and enquire what’s gone wrong—he’s a decent

fellow, it’s all unintentional . . . he’ll apologize. Never, never

act the criminal.”

“My children and my name!” he gasped, his wings broken.

“Nothing of the sort. Put your hat straight and take my arm. I’ll

see you through.”

“Ah, thank God, he comes,” the Inspector exclaimed. They emerged

into the midday heat, arm in arm. The station was seething.

Passengers and porters rushed out of every recess, many Government

servants, more police. Ronny escorted Mrs. Moore. Mohammed Latif

began wailing. And before they could make their way through the

chaos, Fielding was called off by the authoritative tones of Mr.

Turton, and Aziz went on to prison alone.