الفصل الفصل 24 · Chapter XXIV
. Chapter XXIV
Making sudden changes of gear, the heat accelerated its advance
after Mrs. Moore’s departure until existence had to be endured and
crime punished with the thermometer at a hundred and twelve.
Electric fans hummed and spat, water splashed on to screens, ice
clinked, and outside these defences, between a greyish sky and a
yellowish earth, clouds of dust moved hesitatingly. In Europe life
retreats out of the cold, and exquisite fireside myths have
resulted—Balder, Persephone—but here the retreat is from the source
of life, the treacherous sun, and no poetry adorns it because
disillusionment cannot be beautiful. Men yearn for poetry though
they may not confess it; they desire that joy shall be graceful
and sorrow august and infinity have a form, and India fails to
accommodate them. The annual helter-skelter of April, when
irritability and lust spread like a canker, is one of her comments
on the orderly hopes of humanity. Fish manage better; fish, as the
tanks dry, wriggle into the mud and wait for the rains to uncake
them. But men try to be harmonious all the year round, and the
results are occasionally disastrous. The triumphant machine of
civilization may suddenly hitch and be immobilized into a car of
stone, and at such moments the destiny of the English seems to
resemble their predecessors’, who also entered the country with
intent to refashion it, but were in the end worked into its pattern
and covered with its dust.
Adela, after years of intellectualism, had resumed her morning
kneel to Christianity. There seemed no harm in it, it was the
shortest and easiest cut to the unseen, and she could tack her
troubles on to it. Just as the Hindu clerks asked Lakshmi for an
increase in pay, so did she implore Jehovah for a favourable
verdict. God who saves the King will surely support the police.
Her deity returned a consoling reply, but the touch of her hands
on her face started prickly heat, and she seemed to swallow and
expectorate the same insipid clot of air that had weighed on her
lungs all the night. Also the voice of Mrs. Turton disturbed her.
“Are you ready, young lady?” it pealed from the next room.
“Half a minute,” she murmured. The Turtons had received her after
Mrs. Moore left. Their kindness was incredible, but it was her
position not her character that moved them; she was the English
girl who had had the terrible experience, and for whom too much
could not be done. No one, except Ronny, had any idea of what
passed in her mind, and he only dimly, for where there is
officialism every human relationship suffers. In her sadness she
said to him, “I bring you nothing but trouble; I was right on the
Maidan, we had better just be friends,” but he protested, for the
more she suffered the more highly he valued her. Did she love him?
This question was somehow draggled up with the Marabar, it had been
in her mind as she entered the fatal cave. Was she capable of
loving anyone?
“Miss Quested, Adela, what d’ye call yourself, it’s half-past
seven; we ought to think of starting for that Court when you feel
inclined.”
“She’s saying her prayers,” came the Collector’s voice.
“Sorry, my dear; take your time. . . . Was your chhota hazri all
right?”
“I can’t eat; might I have a little brandy?” she asked, deserting
Jehovah.
When it was brought, she shuddered, and said she was ready to go.
“Drink it up; not a bad notion, a peg.”
“I don’t think it’ll really help me, Burra Sahib.”
“You sent brandy down to the Court, didn’t you, Mary?”
“I should think I did, champagne too.”
“I’ll thank you this evening, I’m all to pieces now,” said the
girl, forming each syllable carefully as if her trouble would
diminish if it were accurately defined. She was afraid of reticence,
in case something that she herself did not perceive took shape
beneath it, and she had rehearsed with Mr. McBryde in an odd,
mincing way her terrible adventure in the cave, how the man had
never actually touched her but dragged her about, and so on. Her
aim this morning was to announce, meticulously, that the strain
was appalling, and she would probably break down under Mr.
Amritrao’s cross-examination and disgrace her friends. “My echo
has come back again badly,” she told them.
“How about aspirin?”
“It is not a headache, it is an echo.”
Unable to dispel the buzzing in her ears, Major Callendar had
diagnosed it as a fancy, which must not be encouraged. So the
Turtons changed the subject. The cool little lick of the breeze
was passing over the earth, dividing night from day; it would fail
in ten minutes, but they might profit by it for their drive down
into the city.
“I am sure to break down,” she repeated.
“You won’t,” said the Collector, his voice full of tenderness.
“Of course she won’t, she’s a real sport.”
“But Mrs. Turton . . .”
“Yes, my dear child?”
“If I do break down, it is of no consequence. It would matter in
some trials, not in this. I put it to myself in the following way:
I can really behave as I like, cry, be absurd, I am sure to get my
verdict, unless Mr. Das is most frightfully unjust.”
“You’re bound to win,” he said calmly, and did not remind her that
there was bound to be an appeal. The Nawab Bahadur had financed
the defence, and would ruin himself sooner than let an “innocent
Moslem perish,” and other interests, less reputable, were in the
background too. The case might go up from court to court, with
consequences that no official could foresee. Under his very eyes,
the temper of Chandrapore was altering. As his car turned out of
the compound, there was a tap of silly anger on its paint—a pebble
thrown by a child. Some larger stones were dropped near the mosque.
In the Maidan, a squad of native police on motor cycles waited to
escort them through the bazaars. The Collector was irritated and
muttered, “McBryde’s an old woman”; but Mrs. Turton said, “Really,
after Mohurram a show of force will do no harm; it’s ridiculous to
pretend they don’t hate us, do give up that farce.” He replied in
an odd, sad voice, “I don’t hate them, I don’t know why,” and he
didn’t hate them; for if he did, he would have had to condemn his
own career as a bad investment. He retained a contemptuous affection
for the pawns he had moved about for so many years, they must be
worth his pains. “After all, it’s our women who make everything
more difficult out here,” was his inmost thought, as he caught
sight of some obscenities upon a long blank wall, and beneath his
chivalry to Miss Quested resentment lurked, waiting its day—perhaps
there is a grain of resentment in all chivalry. Some students had
gathered in front of the City Magistrate’s Court—hysterical boys
whom he would have faced if alone, but he told the driver to work
round to the rear of the building. The students jeered, and Rafi
(hiding behind a comrade that he might not be identified) called
out the English were cowards.
They gained Ronny’s private room, where a group of their own sort
had collected. None were cowardly, all nervy, for queer reports
kept coming in. The Sweepers had just struck, and half the commodes
of Chandrapore remained desolate in consequence—only half, and
Sweepers from the District, who felt less strongly about the
innocence of Dr. Aziz, would arrive in the afternoon, and break
the strike, but why should the grotesque incident occur? And a
number of Mohammedan ladies had sworn to take no food until the
prisoner was acquitted; their death would make little difference,
indeed, being invisible, they seemed dead already, nevertheless it
was disquieting. A new spirit seemed abroad, a rearrangement, which
no one in the stern little band of whites could explain. There was
a tendency to see Fielding at the back of it: the idea that he was
weak and cranky had been dropped. They abused Fielding vigorously:
he had been seen driving up with the two counsels, Amritrao and
Mahmoud Ali; he encouraged the Boy Scout movement for seditious
reasons; he received letters with foreign stamps on them, and was
probably a Japanese spy. This morning’s verdict would break the
renegade, but he had done his country and the Empire incalculable
disservice. While they denounced him, Miss Quested lay back with
her hands on the arms of her chair and her eyes closed, reserving
her strength. They noticed her after a time, and felt ashamed of
making so much noise.
“Can we do nothing for you?” Miss Derek said.
“I don’t think so, Nancy, and I seem able to do nothing for myself.”
“But you’re strictly forbidden to talk like that; you’re wonderful.”
“Yes indeed,” came the reverent chorus.
“My old Das is all right,” said Ronny, starting a new subject in
low tones.
“Not one of them’s all right,” contradicted Major Callendar.
“Das is, really.”
“You mean he’s more frightened of acquitting than convicting,
because if he acquits he’ll lose his job,” said Lesley with a
clever little laugh.
Ronny did mean that, but he cherished “illusions” about his own
subordinates (following the finer traditions of his service here),
and he liked to maintain that his old Das really did possess moral
courage of the Public School brand. He pointed out that—from one
point of view—it was good that an Indian was taking the case.
Conviction was inevitable; so better let an Indian pronounce it,
there would be less fuss in the long run. Interested in the
argument, he let Adela become dim in his mind.
“In fact, you disapprove of the appeal I forwarded to Lady
Mellanby,” said Mrs. Turton with considerable heat. “Pray don’t
apologize, Mr. Heaslop; I am accustomed to being in the wrong.”
“I didn’t mean that . . .”
“All right. I said don’t apologize.”
“Those swine are always on the look-out for a grievance,” said
Lesley, to propitiate her.
“Swine, I should think so,” the Major echoed. “And what’s more,
I’ll tell you what. What’s happened is a damn good thing really,
barring of course its application to present company. It’ll make
them squeal and it’s time they did squeal. I’ve put the fear of
God into them at the hospital anyhow. You should see the grandson
of our so-called leading loyalist.” He tittered brutally as he
described poor Nureddin’s present appearance.
“His beauty’s gone, five upper teeth, two lower and a nostril. . . .
Old Panna Lal brought him the looking-glass yesterday and he
blubbered. . . . I laughed; I laughed, I tell you, and so would
you; that used to be one of these buck niggers, I thought, now he’s
all septic; damn him, blast his soul—er—I believe he was unspeakably
immoral—er——” He subsided, nudged in the ribs, but added, “I wish
I’d had the cutting up of my late assistant too; nothing’s too bad
for these people.”
“At last some sense is being talked,” Mrs. Turton cried, much to
her husband’s discomfort.
“That’s what I say; I say there’s not such a thing as cruelty after
a thing like this.”
“Exactly, and remember it afterwards, you men. You’re weak, weak,
weak. Why, they ought to crawl from here to the caves on their
hands and knees whenever an Englishwoman’s in sight, they oughtn’t
to be spoken to, they ought to be spat at, they ought to be ground
into the dust, we’ve been far too kind with our Bridge Parties and
the rest.”
She paused. Profiting by her wrath, the heat had invaded her. She
subsided into a lemon squash, and continued between the sips to
murmur, “Weak, weak.” And the process was repeated. The issues Miss
Quested had raised were so much more important than she was herself
that people inevitably forgot her.
Presently the case was called.
Their chairs preceded them into the Court, for it was important
that they should look dignified. And when the chuprassies had made
all ready, they filed into the ramshackly room with a condescending
air, as if it was a booth at a fair. The Collector made a small
official joke as he sat down, at which his entourage smiled, and
the Indians, who could not hear what he said, felt that some new
cruelty was afoot, otherwise the sahibs would not chuckle.
The Court was crowded and of course very hot, and the first person
Adela noticed in it was the humblest of all who were present, a
person who had no bearing officially upon the trial: the man who
pulled the punkah. Almost naked, and splendidly formed, he sat on
a raised platform near the back, in the middle of the central
gangway, and he caught her attention as she came in, and he seemed
to control the proceedings. He had the strength and beauty that
sometimes come to flower in Indians of low birth. When that strange
race nears the dust and is condemned as untouchable, then nature
remembers the physical perfection that she accomplished elsewhere,
and throws out a god—not many, but one here and there, to prove to
society how little its categories impress her. This man would have
been notable anywhere: among the thin-hammed, flat-chested
mediocrities of Chandrapore he stood out as divine, yet he was of
the city, its garbage had nourished him, he would end on its
rubbish heaps. Pulling the rope towards him, relaxing it
rhythmically, sending swirls of air over others, receiving none
himself, he seemed apart from human destinies, a male fate, a
winnower of souls. Opposite him, also on a platform, sat the little
assistant magistrate, cultivated, self-conscious, and conscientious.
The punkah wallah was none of these things: he scarcely knew that
he existed and did not understand why the Court was fuller than
usual, indeed he did not know that it was fuller than usual, didn’t
even know he worked a fan, though he thought he pulled a rope.
Something in his aloofness impressed the girl from middle-class
England, and rebuked the narrowness of her sufferings. In virtue
of what had she collected this roomful of people together? Her
particular brand of opinions, and the suburban Jehovah who
sanctified them—by what right did they claim so much importance in
the world, and assume the title of civilization? Mrs. Moore—she
looked round, but Mrs. Moore was far away on the sea; it was the
kind of question they might have discussed on the voyage out before
the old lady had turned disagreeable and queer.
While thinking of Mrs. Moore she heard sounds, which gradually grew
more distinct. The epoch-making trial had started, and the
Superintendent of Police was opening the case for the prosecution.
Mr. McBryde was not at pains to be an interesting speaker; he left
eloquence to the defence, who would require it. His attitude was,
“Everyone knows the man’s guilty, and I am obliged to say so in
public before he goes to the Andamans.” He made no moral or
emotional appeal, and it was only by degrees that the studied
negligence of his manner made itself felt, and lashed part of the
audience to fury. Laboriously did he describe the genesis of the
picnic. The prisoner had met Miss Quested at an entertainment given
by the Principal of Government College, and had there conceived
his intentions concerning her: prisoner was a man of loose life,
as documents found upon him at his arrest would testify, also his
fellow-assistant, Dr. Panna Lal, was in a position to throw light
on his character, and Major Callendar himself would speak. Here
Mr. McBryde paused. He wanted to keep the proceedings as clean as
possible, but Oriental Pathology, his favourite theme, lay around
him, and he could not resist it. Taking off his spectacles, as was
his habit before enunciating a general truth, he looked into them
sadly, and remarked that the darker races are physically attracted
by the fairer, but not _vice versa_—not a matter for bitterness
this, not a matter for abuse, but just a fact which any scientific
observer will confirm.
“Even when the lady is so uglier than the gentleman?” The comment
fell from nowhere, from the ceiling perhaps. It was the first
interruption, and the Magistrate felt bound to censure it. “Turn
that man out,” he said. One of the native policemen took hold of
a man who had said nothing, and turned him out roughly.
Mr. McBryde resumed his spectacles and proceeded. But the comment
had upset Miss Quested. Her body resented being called ugly, and
trembled.
“Do you feel faint, Adela?” asked Miss Derek, who tended her with
loving indignation.
“I never feel anything else, Nancy. I shall get through, but it’s
awful, awful.”
This led to the first of a series of scenes. Her friends began to
fuss around her, and the Major called out, “I must have better
arrangements than this made for my patient; why isn’t she given a
seat on the platform? She gets no air.”
Mr. Das looked annoyed and said: “I shall be happy to accommodate
Miss Quested with a chair up here in view of the particular
circumstances of her health.” The chuprassies passed up not one
chair but several, and the entire party followed Adela on to the
platform, Mr. Fielding being the only European who remained in the
body of the hall.
“That’s better,” remarked Mrs. Turton, as she settled herself.
“Thoroughly desirable change for several reasons,” replied the
Major.
The Magistrate knew that he ought to censure this remark, but did
not dare to. Callendar saw that he was afraid, and called out
authoritatively, “Right, McBryde, go ahead now; sorry to have
interrupted you.”
“Are you all right yourselves?” asked the Superintendent.
“We shall do, we shall do.”
“Go on, Mr. Das, we are not here to disturb you,” said the Collector
patronizingly. Indeed, they had not so much disturbed the trial as
taken charge of it.
While the prosecution continued, Miss Quested examined the
hall—timidly at first, as though it would scorch her eyes. She
observed to left and right of the punkah man many a half-known
face. Beneath her were gathered all the wreckage of her silly
attempt to see India—the people she had met at the Bridge Party,
the man and his wife who hadn’t sent their carriage, the old man
who would lend his car, various servants, villagers, officials,
and the prisoner himself. There he sat—strong, neat little Indian
with very black hair, and pliant hands. She viewed him without
special emotion. Since they last met, she had elevated him into a
principle of evil, but now he seemed to be what he had always
been—a slight acquaintance. He was negligible, devoid of
significance, dry like a bone, and though he was “guilty” no
atmosphere of sin surrounded him. “I suppose he _is_ guilty. Can
I possibly have made a mistake?” she thought. For this question
still occurred to her intellect, though since Mrs. Moore’s departure
it had ceased to trouble her conscience.
Pleader Mahmoud Ali now arose, and asked with ponderous and
ill-judged irony whether his client could be accommodated on the
platform too: even Indians felt unwell sometimes, though naturally
Major Callendar did not think so, being in charge of a Government
Hospital. “Another example of their exquisite sense of humour,”
sang Miss Derek. Ronny looked at Mr. Das to see how he would handle
the difficulty, and Mr. Das became agitated, and snubbed Pleader
Mahmoud Ali severely.
“Excuse me——” It was the turn of the eminent barrister from
Calcutta. He was a fine-looking man, large and bony, with grey
closely cropped hair. “We object to the presence of so many European
ladies and gentlemen upon the platform,” he said in an Oxford
voice. “They will have the effect of intimidating our witnesses.
Their place is with the rest of the public in the body of the hall.
We have no objection to Miss Quested remaining on the platform,
since she has been unwell; we shall extend every courtesy to her
throughout, despite the scientific truths revealed to us by the
District Superintendent of Police; but we do object to the others.”
“Oh, cut the cackle and let’s have the verdict,” the Major growled.
The distinguished visitor gazed at the Magistrate respectfully.
“I agree to that,” said Mr. Das, hiding his face desperately in
some papers. “It was only to Miss Quested that I gave permission
to sit up here. Her friends should be so excessively kind as to
climb down.”
“Well done, Das, quite sound,” said Ronny with devastating honesty.
“Climb down, indeed, what incredible impertinence!” Mrs. Turton
cried.
“Do come quietly, Mary,” murmured her husband.
“Hi! my patient can’t be left unattended.”
“Do you object to the Civil Surgeon remaining, Mr. Amritrao?”
“I should object. A platform confers authority.”
“Even when it’s one foot high; so come along all,” said the
Collector, trying to laugh.
“Thank you very much, sir,” said Mr. Das, greatly relieved. “Thank
you, Mr. Heaslop; thank you ladies all.”
And the party, including Miss Quested, descended from its rash
eminence. The news of their humiliation spread quickly, and people
jeered outside. Their special chairs followed them. Mahmoud Ali
(who was quite silly and useless with hatred) objected even to
these; by whose authority had special chairs been introduced, why
had the Nawab Bahadur not been given one? etc. People began to talk
all over the room, about chairs ordinary and special, strips of
carpet, platforms one foot high.
But the little excursion had a good effect on Miss Quested’s
nerves. She felt easier now that she had seen all the people who
were in the room. It was like knowing the worst. She was sure now
that she should come through “all right”—that is to say, without
spiritual disgrace, and she passed the good news on to Ronny and
Mrs. Turton. They were too much agitated with the defeat to British
prestige to be interested. From where she sat, she could see the
renegade Mr. Fielding. She had had a better view of him from the
platform, and knew that an Indian child perched on his knee. He
was watching the proceedings, watching her. When their eyes met,
he turned his away, as if direct intercourse was of no interest to
him.
The Magistrate was also happier. He had won the battle of the
platform, and gained confidence. Intelligent and impartial, he
continued to listen to the evidence, and tried to forget that later
on he should have to pronounce a verdict in accordance with it.
The Superintendent trundled steadily forward: he had expected these
outbursts of insolence—they are the natural gestures of an inferior
race, and he betrayed no hatred of Aziz, merely an abysmal contempt.
The speech dealt at length with the “prisoner’s dupes,” as they
were called—Fielding, the servant Antony, the Nawab Bahadur. This
aspect of the case had always seemed dubious to Miss Quested, and
she had asked the police not to develop it. But they were playing
for a heavy sentence, and wanted to prove that the assault was
premeditated. And in order to illustrate the strategy, they produced
a plan of the Marabar Hills, showing the route that the party had
taken, and the “Tank of the Dagger” where they had camped.
The Magistrate displayed interest in archæology.
An elevation of a specimen cave was produced; it was lettered
“Buddhist Cave.”
“Not Buddhist, I think, Jain. . . .”
“In which cave is the offence alleged, the Buddhist or the Jain?”
asked Mahmoud Ali, with the air of unmasking a conspiracy.
“All the Marabar caves are Jain.”
“Yes, sir; then in which Jain cave?”
“You will have an opportunity of putting such questions later.”
Mr. McBryde smiled faintly at their fatuity. Indians invariably
collapse over some such point as this. He knew that the defence
had some wild hope of establishing an alibi, that they had tried
(unsuccessfully) to identify the guide, and that Fielding and
Hamidullah had gone out to the Kawa Dol and paced and measured all
one moonlit night. “Mr. Lesley says they’re Buddhist, and he ought
to know if anyone does. But may I call attention to the shape?”
And he described what had occurred there. Then he spoke of Miss
Derek’s arrival, of the scramble down the gully, of the return of
the two ladies to Chandrapore, and of the document Miss Quested
signed on her arrival, in which mention was made of the
field-glasses. And then came the culminating evidence: the discovery
of the field-glasses on the prisoner. “I have nothing to add at
present,” he concluded, removing his spectacles. “I will now call
my witnesses. The facts will speak for themselves. The prisoner is
one of those individuals who have led a double life. I dare say
his degeneracy gained upon him gradually. He has been very cunning
at concealing, as is usual with the type, and pretending to be a
respectable member of society, getting a Government position even.
He is now entirely vicious and beyond redemption, I am afraid. He
behaved most cruelly, most brutally, to another of his guests,
another English lady. In order to get rid of her, and leave him
free for his crime, he crushed her into a cave among his servants.
However, that is by the way.”
But his last words brought on another storm, and suddenly a new
name, Mrs. Moore, burst on the court like a whirlwind. Mahmoud Ali
had been enraged, his nerves snapped; he shrieked like a maniac,
and asked whether his client was charged with murder as well as
rape, and who was this second English lady.
“I don’t propose to call her.”
“You don’t because you can’t, you have smuggled her out of the
country; she is Mrs. Moore, she would have proved his innocence,
she was on our side, she was poor Indians’ friend.”
“You could have called her yourself,” cried the Magistrate. “Neither
side called her, neither must quote her as evidence.”
“She was kept from us until too late—I learn too late—this is
English justice, here is your British Raj. Give us back Mrs. Moore
for five minutes only, and she will save my friend, she will save
the name of his sons; don’t rule her out, Mr. Das; take back those
words as you yourself are a father; tell me where they have put
her, oh, Mrs. Moore. . . .”
“If the point is of any interest, my mother should have reached
Aden,” said Ronny dryly; he ought not to have intervened, but the
onslaught had startled him.
“Imprisoned by you there because she knew the truth.” He was almost
out of his mind, and could be heard saying above the tumult: “I
ruin my career, no matter; we are all to be ruined one by one.”
“This is no way to defend your case,” counselled the Magistrate.
“I am not defending a case, nor are you trying one. We are both of
us slaves.”
“Mr. Mahmoud Ali, I have already warned you, and unless you sit
down I shall exercise my authority.”
“Do so; this trial is a farce, I am going.” And he handed his
papers to Amritrao and left, calling from the door histrionically
yet with intense passion, “Aziz, Aziz—farewell for ever.” The
tumult increased, the invocation of Mrs. Moore continued, and
people who did not know what the syllables meant repeated them like
a charm. They became Indianized into Esmiss Esmoor, they were taken
up in the street outside. In vain the Magistrate threatened and
expelled. Until the magic exhausted itself, he was powerless.
“Unexpected,” remarked Mr. Turton.
Ronny furnished the explanation. Before she sailed, his mother had
taken to talk about the Marabar in her sleep, especially in the
afternoon when servants were on the verandah, and her disjointed
remarks on Aziz had doubtless been sold to Mahmoud Ali for a few
annas: that kind of thing never ceases in the East.
“I thought they’d try something of the sort. Ingenious.” He looked
into their wide-open mouths. “They get just like over their
religion,” he added calmly. “Start and can’t stop. I’m sorry for
your old Das, he’s not getting much of a show.”
“Mr. Heaslop, how disgraceful dragging in your dear mother,” said
Miss Derek, bending forward.
“It’s just a trick, and they happened to pull it off. Now one sees
why they had Mahmoud Ali—just to make a scene on the chance. It is
his speciality.” But he disliked it more than he showed. It was
revolting to hear his mother travestied into Esmiss Esmoor, a Hindu
goddess.
“Esmiss Esmoor
Esmiss Esmoor
Esmiss Esmoor
Esmiss Esmoor. . . .”
“Ronny——”
“Yes, old girl?”
“Isn’t it all queer.”
“I’m afraid it’s very upsetting for you.”
“Not the least. I don’t mind it.”
“Well, that’s good.”
She had spoken more naturally and healthily than usual. Bending
into the middle of her friends, she said: “Don’t worry about me,
I’m much better than I was; I don’t feel the least faint; I shall
be all right, and thank you all, thank you, thank you for your
kindness.” She had to shout her gratitude, for the chant, Esmiss
Esmoor, went on.
Suddenly it stopped. It was as if the prayer had been heard, and
the relics exhibited. “I apologize for my colleague,” said Mr.
Amritrao, rather to everyone’s surprise. “He is an intimate friend
of our client, and his feelings have carried him away.”
“Mr. Mahmoud Ali will have to apologize in person,” the Magistrate
said.
“Exactly, sir, he must. But we had just learnt that Mrs. Moore had
important evidence which she desired to give. She was hurried out
of the country by her son before she could give it; and this
unhinged Mr. Mahmoud Ali—coming as it does upon an attempt to
intimidate our only other European witness, Mr. Fielding. Mr.
Mahmoud Ali would have said nothing had not Mrs. Moore been claimed
as a witness by the police.” He sat down.
“An extraneous element is being introduced into the case,” said
the Magistrate. “I must repeat that as a witness Mrs. Moore does
not exist. Neither you, Mr. Amritrao, nor, Mr. McBryde, you, have
any right to surmise what that lady would have said. She is not
here, and consequently she can say nothing.”
“Well, I withdraw my reference,” said the Superintendent wearily.
“I would have done so fifteen minutes ago if I had been given the
chance. She is not of the least importance to me.”
“I have already withdrawn it for the defence.” He added with
forensic humour: “Perhaps you can persuade the gentlemen outside
to withdraw it too,” for the refrain in the street continued.
“I am afraid my powers do not extend so far,” said Das, smiling.
So peace was restored, and when Adela came to give her evidence
the atmosphere was quieter than it had been since the beginning of
the trial. Experts were not surprised. There is no stay in your
native. He blazes up over a minor point, and has nothing left for
the crisis. What he seeks is a grievance, and this he had found in
the supposed abduction of an old lady. He would now be less
aggrieved when Aziz was deported.
But the crisis was still to come.
Adela had always meant to tell the truth and nothing but the truth,
and she had rehearsed this as a difficult task—difficult, because
her disaster in the cave was connected, though by a thread, with
another part of her life, her engagement to Ronny. She had thought
of love just before she went in, and had innocently asked Aziz what
marriage was like, and she supposed that her question had roused
evil in him. To recount this would have been incredibly painful,
it was the one point she wanted to keep obscure; she was willing
to give details that would have distressed other girls, but this
story of her private failure she dared not allude to, and she
dreaded being examined in public in case something came out. But
as soon as she rose to reply, and heard the sound of her own voice,
she feared not even that. A new and unknown sensation protected
her, like magnificent armour. She didn’t think what had happened,
or even remember in the ordinary way of memory, but she returned
to the Marabar Hills, and spoke from them across a sort of darkness
to Mr. McBryde. The fatal day recurred, in every detail, but now
she was of it and not of it at the same time, and this double
relation gave it indescribable splendour. Why had she thought the
expedition “dull”? Now the sun rose again, the elephant waited,
the pale masses of the rock flowed round her and presented the
first cave; she entered, and a match was reflected in the polished
walls—all beautiful and significant, though she had been blind to
it at the time. Questions were asked, and to each she found the
exact reply; yes, she had noticed the “Tank of the Dagger,” but
not known its name; yes, Mrs. Moore had been tired after the first
cave and sat in the shadow of a great rock, near the dried-up mud.
Smoothly the voice in the distance proceeded, leading along the
paths of truth, and the airs from the punkah behind her wafted her
on. . . .
“. . . the prisoner and the guide took you on to the Kawa Dol, no
one else being present?”
“The most wonderfully shaped of those hills. Yes.” As she spoke,
she created the Kawa Dol, saw the niches up the curve of the stone,
and felt the heat strike her face. And something caused her to add:
“No one else was present to my knowledge. We appeared to be alone.”
“Very well, there is a ledge half-way up the hill, or broken ground
rather, with caves scattered near the beginning of a nullah.”
“I know where you mean.”
“You went alone into one of those caves?”
“That is quite correct.”
“And the prisoner followed you.”
“Now we’ve got ’im,” from the Major.
She was silent. The court, the place of question, awaited her
reply. But she could not give it until Aziz entered the place of
answer.
“The prisoner followed you, didn’t he?” he repeated in the
monotonous tones that they both used; they were employing agreed
words throughout, so that this part of the proceedings held no
surprises.
“May I have half a minute before I reply to that, Mr. McBryde?”
“Certainly.”
Her vision was of several caves. She saw herself in one, and she
was also outside it, watching its entrance, for Aziz to pass in.
She failed to locate him. It was the doubt that had often visited
her, but solid and attractive, like the hills, “I am not——” Speech
was more difficult than vision. “I am not quite sure.”
“I beg your pardon?” said the Superintendent of Police.
“I cannot be sure . . .”
“I didn’t catch that answer.” He looked scared, his mouth shut with
a snap. “You are on that landing, or whatever we term it, and you
have entered a cave. I suggest to you that the prisoner followed
you.”
She shook her head.
“What do you mean, please?”
“No,” she said in a flat, unattractive voice. Slight noises began
in various parts of the room, but no one yet understood what was
occurring except Fielding. He saw that she was going to have a
nervous breakdown and that his friend was saved.
“What is that, what are you saying? Speak up, please.” The
Magistrate bent forward.
“I’m afraid I have made a mistake.”
“What nature of mistake?”
“Dr. Aziz never followed me into the cave.”
The Superintendent slammed down his papers, then picked them up
and said calmly: “Now, Miss Quested, let us go on. I will read you
the words of the deposition which you signed two hours later in my
bungalow.”
“Excuse me, Mr. McBryde, you cannot go on. I am speaking to the
witness myself. And the public will be silent. If it continues to
talk, I have the court cleared. Miss Quested, address your remarks
to me, who am the Magistrate in charge of the case, and realize
their extreme gravity. Remember you speak on oath, Miss Quested.”
“Dr. Aziz never——”
“I stop these proceedings on medical grounds,” cried the Major on
a word from Turton, and all the English rose from their chairs at
once, large white figures behind which the little magistrate was
hidden. The Indians rose too, hundreds of things went on at once,
so that afterwards each person gave a different account of the
catastrophe.
“You withdraw the charge? Answer me,” shrieked the representative
of Justice.
Something that she did not understand took hold of the girl and
pulled her through. Though the vision was over, and she had returned
to the insipidity of the world, she remembered what she had learnt.
Atonement and confession—they could wait. It was in hard prosaic
tones that she said, “I withdraw everything.”
“Enough—sit down. Mr. McBryde, do you wish to continue in the face
of this?”
The Superintendent gazed at his witness as if she was a broken
machine, and said, “Are you mad?”
“Don’t question her, sir; you have no longer the right.”
“Give me time to consider——”
“Sahib, you will have to withdraw; this becomes a scandal,” boomed
the Nawab Bahadur suddenly from the back of the court.
“He shall not,” shouted Mrs. Turton against the gathering tumult.
“Call the other witnesses; we’re none of us safe——” Ronny tried to
check her, and she gave him an irritable blow, then screamed
insults at Adela.
The Superintendent moved to the support of his friends, saying
nonchalantly to the Magistrate as he did so, “Right, I withdraw.”
Mr. Das rose, nearly dead with the strain. He had controlled the
case, just controlled it. He had shown that an Indian can preside.
To those who could hear him he said, “The prisoner is released
without one stain on his character; the question of costs will be
decided elsewhere.”
And then the flimsy framework of the court broke up, the shouts of
derision and rage culminated, people screamed and cursed, kissed
one another, wept passionately. Here were the English, whom their
servants protected, there Aziz fainted in Hamidullah’s arms.
Victory on this side, defeat on that—complete for one moment was
the antithesis. Then life returned to its complexities, person
after person struggled out of the room to their various purposes,
and before long no one remained on the scene of the fantasy but
the beautiful naked god. Unaware that anything unusual had occurred,
he continued to pull the cord of his punkah, to gaze at the empty
dais and the overturned special chairs, and rhythmically to agitate
the clouds of descending dust.