第 八 章 · Chapter VIII

. Chapter VIII

Although Miss Quested had known Ronny well in England, she felt

well advised to visit him before deciding to be his wife. India

had developed sides of his character that she had never admired.

His self-complacency, his censoriousness, his lack of subtlety,

all grew vivid beneath a tropic sky; he seemed more indifferent

than of old to what was passing in the minds of his fellows, more

certain that he was right about them or that if he was wrong it

didn’t matter. When proved wrong, he was particularly exasperating;

he always managed to suggest that she needn’t have bothered to

prove it. The point she made was never the relevant point, her

arguments conclusive but barren, she was reminded that he had

expert knowledge and she none, and that experience would not help

her because she could not interpret it. A Public School, London

University, a year at a crammer’s, a particular sequence of posts

in a particular province, a fall from a horse and a touch of fever

were presented to her as the only training by which Indians and

all who reside in their country can be understood; the only training

she could comprehend, that is to say, for of course above Ronny

there stretched the higher realms of knowledge, inhabited by

Callendars and Turtons, who had been not one year in the country

but twenty and whose instincts were superhuman. For himself he made

no extravagant claims; she wished he would. It was the qualified

bray of the callow official, the “I am not perfect, but——” that

got on her nerves.

How gross he had been at Mr. Fielding’s—spoiling the talk and

walking off in the middle of the haunting song! As he drove them

away in the tum-tum, her irritation became unbearable, and she did

not realize that much of it was directed against herself. She

longed for an opportunity to fly out at him, and since he felt

cross too, and they were both in India, an opportunity soon

occurred. They had scarcely left the College grounds before she

heard him say to his mother, who was with him on the front seat,

“What was that about caves?” and she promptly opened fire.

“Mrs. Moore, your delightful doctor has decided on a picnic,

instead of a party in his house; we are to meet him out there—you,

myself, Mr. Fielding, Professor Godbole—exactly the same party.”

“Out where?” asked Ronny.

“The Marabar Caves.”

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

any details?”

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

them.”

He shook his head laughing.

“Have I said anything funny?”

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

neck.”

“I thought you were discussing the caves.”

“So I am. Aziz was exquisitely dressed, from tie-pin to spats, but

he had forgotten his back collar-stud, and there you have the

Indian all over: inattention to detail; the fundamental slackness

that reveals the race. Similarly, to ‘meet’ in the caves as if they

were the clock at Charing Cross, when they’re miles from a station

and each other.”

“Have you been to them?”

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

“Oh naturally!”

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

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

“Certainly not to this polo. Will you drive up to the bungalow

first, and drop me there, please? I prefer to rest.”

“Drop me too,” said Adela. “I don’t want to watch polo either, I’m

sure.”

“Simpler to drop the polo,” said Ronny. Tired and disappointed, he

quite lost self-control, and added in a loud lecturing voice, “I

won’t have you messing about with Indians any more! If you want to

go to the Marabar Caves, you’ll go under British auspices.”

“I’ve never heard of these caves, I don’t know what or where they

are,” said Mrs. Moore, “but I really can’t have”—she tapped the

cushion beside her—“so much quarrelling and tiresomeness!”

The young people were ashamed. They dropped her at the bungalow

and drove on together to the polo, feeling it was the least they

could do. Their crackling bad humour left them, but the heaviness

of their spirit remained; thunderstorms seldom clear the air. Miss

Quested was thinking over her own behaviour, and didn’t like it at

all. Instead of weighing Ronny and herself, and coming to a reasoned

conclusion about marriage, she had incidentally, in the course of

a talk about mangoes, remarked to mixed company that she didn’t

mean to stop in India. Which meant that she wouldn’t marry Ronny:

but what a way to announce it, what a way for a civilized girl to

behave! She owed him an explanation, but unfortunately there was

nothing to explain. The “thorough talk” so dear to her principles

and temperament had been postponed until too late. There seemed no

point in being disagreeable to him and formulating her complaints

against his character at this hour of the day, which was the

evening. . . . The polo took place on the Maidan near the entrance

of Chandrapore city. The sun was already declining and each of the

trees held a premonition of night. They walked away from the

governing group to a distant seat, and there, feeling that it was

his due and her own, she forced out of herself the undigested

remark: “We must have a thorough talk, Ronny, I’m afraid.”

“My temper’s rotten, I must apologize,” was his reply. “I didn’t

mean to order you and mother about, but of course the way those

Bengalis let you down this morning annoyed me, and I don’t want

that sort of thing to keep happening.”

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

“No, but Aziz would make some similar muddle over the caves. He

meant nothing by the invitation, I could tell by his voice; it’s

just their way of being pleasant.”

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

wanted to talk over with you.” She gazed at the colourless grass.

“I’ve finally decided we are not going to be married, my dear boy.”

The news hurt Ronny very much. He had heard Aziz announce that she

would not return to the country, but had paid no attention to the

remark, for he never dreamt that an Indian could be a channel of

communication between two English people. He controlled himself

and said gently, “You never said we should marry, my dear girl;

you never bound either yourself or me—don’t let this upset you.”

She felt ashamed. How decent he was! He might force his opinions

down her throat, but did not press her to an “engagement,” because

he believed, like herself, in the sanctity of personal relationships:

it was this that had drawn them together at their first meeting,

which had occurred among the grand scenery of the English Lakes.

Her ordeal was over, but she felt it should have been more painful

and longer. Adela will not marry Ronny. It seemed slipping away

like a dream. She said, “But let us discuss things; it’s all so

frightfully important, we mustn’t make false steps. I want next to

hear your point of view about me—it might help us both.”

His manner was unhappy and reserved. “I don’t much believe in this

discussing—besides, I’m so dead with all this extra work Mohurram’s

bringing, if you’ll excuse me.”

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

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

“But I haven’t got any questions. You’ve acted within your rights,

you were quite right to come out and have a look at me doing my

work, it was an excellent plan, and anyhow it’s no use talking

further—we should only get up steam.” He felt angry and bruised;

he was too proud to tempt her back, but he did not consider that

she had behaved badly, because where his compatriots were concerned

he had a generous mind.

“I suppose that there is nothing else; it’s unpardonable of me to

have given you and your mother all this bother,” said Miss Quested

heavily, and frowned up at the tree beneath which they were sitting.

A little green bird was observing her, so brilliant and neat that

it might have hopped straight out of a shop. On catching her eye

it closed its own, gave a small skip and prepared to go to bed.

Some Indian wild bird. “Yes, nothing else,” she repeated, feeling

that a profound and passionate speech ought to have been delivered

by one or both of them. “We’ve been awfully British over it, but

I suppose that’s all right.”

“As we are British, I suppose it is.”

“Anyhow we’ve not quarrelled, Ronny.”

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

“I think we shall keep friends.”

“I know we shall.”

“Quite so.”

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

passed through them both, and then transformed itself into a wave

of tenderness, and passed back. They were softened by their own

honesty, and began to feel lonely and unwise. Experiences, not

character, divided them; they were not dissimilar, as humans go;

indeed, when compared with the people who stood nearest to them in

point of space they became practically identical. The Bhil who was

holding an officer’s polo pony, the Eurasian who drove the Nawab

Bahadur’s car, the Nawab Bahadur himself, the Nawab Bahadur’s

debauched grandson—none would have examined a difficulty so frankly

and coolly. The mere fact of examination caused it to diminish. Of

course they were friends, and for ever. “Do you know what the name

of that green bird up above us is?” she asked, putting her shoulder

rather nearer to his.

“Bee-eater.”

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

“Parrot,” he hazarded.

“Good gracious no.”

The bird in question dived into the dome of the tree. It was of no

importance, yet they would have liked to identify it, it would

somehow have solaced their hearts.

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

causes it to disappear or to merge in something else.

“McBryde has an illustrated bird book,” he said dejectedly. “I’m

no good at all at birds, in fact I’m useless at any information

outside my own job. It’s a great pity.”

“So am I. I’m useless at everything.”

“What do I hear?” shouted the Nawab Bahadur at the top of his

voice, causing both of them to start. “What most improbable

statement have I heard? An English lady useless? No, no, no, no,

no.” He laughed genially, sure, within limits, of his welcome.

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

tepidly.

“I have, sahib, I have.”

“How do you do?” said Adela, likewise pulling herself together.

She held out her hand. The old gentleman judged from so wanton a

gesture that she was new to his country, but he paid little heed.

Women who exposed their face became by that one act so mysterious

to him that he took them at the valuation of their men folk rather

than at his own. Perhaps they were not immoral, and anyhow they

were not his affair. On seeing the City Magistrate alone with a

maiden at twilight, he had borne down on them with hospitable

intent. He had a new little car, and wished to place it at their

disposal; the City Magistrate would decide whether the offer was

acceptable.

Ronny was by this time rather ashamed of his curtness to Aziz and

Godbole, and here was an opportunity of showing that he could treat

Indians with consideration when they deserved it. So he said to

Adela, with the same sad friendliness that he had employed when

discussing the bird, “Would half an hour’s spin entertain you at

all?”

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

“Why?” He gazed at her.

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

plans.”

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

“Let me take you to the bungalow, and first the little spin,” cried

the old man, and hastened to the car.

“He may show you some aspect of the country I can’t, and he’s a

real loyalist. I thought you might care for a bit of a change.”

Determined to give him no more trouble, she agreed, but her desire

to see India had suddenly decreased. There had been a factitious

element in it.

How should they seat themselves in the car? The elegant grandson

had to be left behind. The Nawab Bahadur got up in front, for he

had no intention of neighbouring an English girl. “Despite my

advanced years, I am learning to drive,” he said. “Man can learn

everything if he will but try.” And foreseeing a further difficulty,

he added, “I do not do the actual steering. I sit and ask my

chauffeur questions, and thus learn the reason for everything that

is done before I do it myself. By this method serious and I may

say ludicrous accidents, such as befell one of my compatriots

during that delightful reception at the English Club, are avoided.

Our good Panna Lal! I hope, sahib, that great damage was not done

to your flowers. Let us have our little spin down the Gangavati

road. Half one league onwards!” He fell asleep.

Ronny instructed the chauffeur to take the Marabar road rather than

the Gangavati, since the latter was under repair, and settled

himself down beside the lady he had lost. The car made a burring

noise and rushed along a chaussée that ran upon an embankment above

melancholy fields. Trees of a poor quality bordered the road,

indeed the whole scene was inferior, and suggested that the

country-side was too vast to admit of excellence. In vain did each

item in it call out, “Come, come.”

There was not enough god to go round. The two young people conversed

feebly and felt unimportant. When the darkness began, it seemed to

well out of the meagre vegetation, entirely covering the fields

each side of them before it brimmed over the road. Ronny’s face

grew dim—an event that always increased her esteem for his

character. Her hand touched his, owing to a jolt, and one of the

thrills so frequent in the animal kingdom passed between them, and

announced that all their difficulties were only a lovers’ quarrel.

Each was too proud to increase the pressure, but neither withdrew

it, and a spurious unity descended on them, as local and temporary

as the gleam that inhabits a firefly. It would vanish in a moment,

perhaps to reappear, but the darkness is alone durable. And the

night that encircled them, absolute as it seemed, was itself only

a spurious unity, being modified by the gleams of day that leaked

up round the edges of the earth, and by the stars.

They gripped . . . bump, jump, a swerve, two wheels lifted in the

air, breaks on, bump with tree at edge of embankment, standstill.

An accident. A slight one. Nobody hurt. The Nawab Bahadur awoke.

He cried out in Arabic, and violently tugged his beard.

“What’s the damage?” enquired Ronny, after the moment’s pause that

he permitted himself before taking charge of a situation. The

Eurasian, inclined to be flustered, rallied to the sound of his

voice, and, every inch an Englishman, replied, “You give me five

minutes’ time, I’ll take you any dam anywhere.”

“Frightened, Adela?” He released her hand.

“Not a bit.”

“I consider not to be frightened the height of folly,” cried the

Nawab Bahadur quite rudely.

“Well, it’s all over now, tears are useless,” said Ronny,

dismounting. “We had some luck butting that tree.”

“All over . . . oh yes, the danger is past, let us smoke cigarettes,

let us do anything we please. Oh yes . . . enjoy ourselves—oh my

merciful God . . .” His words died into Arabic again.

“Wasn’t the bridge. We skidded.”

“We didn’t skid,” said Adela, who had seen the cause of the

accident, and thought everyone must have seen it too. “We ran into

an animal.”

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

and ridiculous.

“An animal?”

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

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

“By Jove, sir, your lady is right,” echoed the Eurasian. Just by

the hinges of the door was a dent, and the door opened with

difficulty.

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

“I say, Adela, what was it?”

“I don’t know the animals any better than the birds here—too big

for a goat.”

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

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

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

The English people walked a few steps back into the darkness,

united and happy. Thanks to their youth and upbringing, they were

not upset by the accident. They traced back the writhing of the

tyres to the source of their disturbance. It was just after the

exit from a bridge; the animal had probably come up out of the

nullah. Steady and smooth ran the marks of the car, ribbons neatly

nicked with lozenges, then all went mad. Certainly some external

force had impinged, but the road had been used by too many objects

for any one track to be legible, and the torch created such high

lights and black shadows that they could not interpret what it

revealed. Moreover, Adela in her excitement knelt and swept her

skirts about, until it was she if anyone who appeared to have

attacked the car. The incident was a great relief to them both.

They forgot their abortive personal relationship, and felt

adventurous as they muddled about in the dust.

“I believe it was a buffalo,” she called to their host, who had

not accompanied them.

“Exactly.”

“Unless it was a hyena.”

Ronny approved this last conjecture. Hyenas prowl in nullahs and

headlights dazzle them.

“Excellent, a hyena,” said the Indian with an angry irony and a

gesture at the night. “Mr. Harris!”

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

“Sahib says hyena.”

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

well done!”

“A smash, sahib, that would not have taken place had he obeyed and

taken us Gangavati side, instead of Marabar.”

“My fault that. I told him to come this way because the road’s

better. Mr. Lesley has made it pukka right up to the hills.”

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

he apologized slowly and elaborately for the accident. Ronny

murmured, “Not at all,” but apologies were his due, and should have

started sooner: because English people are so calm at a crisis, it

is not to be assumed that they are unimportant. The Nawab Bahadur

had not come out very well.

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

Ronny advanced a few steps down the road, and with authority in

his voice and gesture stopped it. It bore the inscription “Mudkul

State” across its bonnet. All friskiness and friendliness, Miss

Derek sat inside.

“Mr. Heaslop, Miss Quested, what are you holding up an innocent

female for?”

“We’ve had a breakdown.”

“But how putrid!”

“We ran into a hyena!”

“How absolutely rotten!”

“Can you give us a lift?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“Take me too,” said the Nawab Bahadur.

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

“Now what’s all this? I’m not an omnibus,” said Miss Derek with

decision. “I’ve a harmonium and two dogs in here with me as it is.

I’ll take three of you if one’ll sit in front and nurse a pug. No

more.”

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

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

“Heh no, what about my dinner? I can’t be left alone all the

night.” Trying to look and feel like a European, the chauffeur

interposed aggressively. He still wore a topi, despite the darkness,

and his face, to which the Ruling Race had contributed little

beyond bad teeth, peered out of it pathetically, and seemed to say,

“What’s it all about? Don’t worry me so, you blacks and whites.

Here I am, stuck in dam India same as you, and you got to fit me

in better than this.”

“Nussu will bring you out some suitable dinner upon a bicycle,”

said the Nawab Bahadur, who had regained his usual dignity. “I

shall despatch him with all possible speed. Meanwhile, repair my

car.”

They sped off, and Mr. Harris, after a reproachful glance, squatted

down upon his hams. When English and Indians were both present, he

grew self-conscious, because he did not know to whom he belonged.

For a little he was vexed by opposite currents in his blood, then

they blended, and he belonged to no one but himself.

But Miss Derek was in tearing spirits. She had succeeded in stealing

the Mudkul car. Her Maharajah would be awfully sick, but she didn’t

mind, he could sack her if he liked. “I don’t believe in these

people letting you down,” she said. “If I didn’t snatch like the

devil, I should be nowhere. He doesn’t want the car, silly fool!

Surely it’s to the credit of his State I should be seen about in

it at Chandrapore during my leave. He ought to look at it that way.

Anyhow he’s got to look at it that way. My Maharani’s different—my

Maharani’s a dear. That’s her fox terrier, poor little devil. I

fished them out both with the driver. Imagine taking dogs to a

Chiefs’ Conference! As sensible as taking Chiefs, perhaps.” She

shrieked with laughter. “The harmonium—the harmonium’s my little

mistake, I own. They rather had me over the harmonium. I meant it

to stop on the train. Oh lor’!”

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

taking service under the Native States, where they obtain a certain

amount of influence, but at the expense of the general prestige.

The humorous triumphs of a free lance are of no assistance to an

administrator, and he told the young lady that she would outdo

Indians at their own game if she went on much longer.

“They always sack me before that happens, and then I get another

job. The whole of India seethes with Maharanis and Ranis and Begums

who clamour for such as me.”

“Really. I had no idea.”

“How could you have any idea, Mr. Heaslop? What should he know

about Maharanis, Miss Quested? Nothing. At least I should hope

not.”

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

said Adela, quietly, disliking the young woman’s tone. Her hand

touched Ronny’s again in the darkness, and to the animal thrill

there was now added a coincidence of opinion.

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

“I would scarcely call her wrong,” broke out the Nawab Bahadur,

from his isolation on the front seat, whither they had relegated

him. “A Native State, a Hindu State, the wife of a ruler of a Hindu

State, may beyond doubt be a most excellent lady, and let it not

be for a moment supposed that I suggest anything against the

character of Her Highness the Maharani of Mudkul. But I fear she

will be uneducated, I fear she will be superstitious. Indeed, how

could she be otherwise? What opportunity of education has such a

lady had? Oh, superstition is terrible, terrible! oh, it is the

great defect in our Indian character!”—and as if to point his

criticism, the lights of the civil station appeared on a rise to

the right. He grew more and more voluble. “Oh, it is the duty of

each and every citizen to shake superstition off, and though I have

little experience of Hindu States, and none of this particular one,

namely Mudkul (the Ruler, I fancy, has a salute of but eleven

guns)—yet I cannot imagine that they have been as successful as

British India, where we see reason and orderliness spreading in

every direction, like a most health-giving flood!”

Miss Derek said “Golly!”

Undeterred by the expletive, the old man swept on. His tongue had

been loosed and his mind had several points to make. He wanted to

endorse Miss Quested’s remark that big people are not interesting,

because he was bigger himself than many an independent chief; at

the same time, he must neither remind nor inform her that he was

big, lest she felt she had committed a discourtesy. This was the

groundwork of his oration; worked in with it was his gratitude to

Miss Derek for the lift, his willingness to hold a repulsive dog

in his arms, and his general regret for the trouble he had caused

the human race during the evening. Also he wanted to be dropped

near the city to get hold of his cleaner, and to see what mischief

his grandson was up to. As he wove all these anxieties into a

single rope, he suspected that his audience felt no interest, and

that the City Magistrate fondled either maiden behind the cover of

the harmonium, but good breeding compelled him to continue; it was

nothing to him if they were bored, because he did not know what

boredom is, and it was nothing to him if they were licentious,

because God has created all races to be different. The accident

was over, and his life, equably useful, distinguished, happy, ran

on as before and expressed itself in streams of well-chosen words.

When this old geyser left them, Ronny made no comment, but talked

lightly about polo; Turton had taught him that it is sounder not

to discuss a man at once, and he reserved what he had to say on

the Nawab’s character until later in the evening. His hand, which

he had removed to say good-bye, touched Adela’s again; she caressed

it definitely, he responded, and their firm and mutual pressure

surely meant something. They looked at each other when they reached

the bungalow, for Mrs. Moore was inside it. It was for Miss Quested

to speak, and she said nervously, “Ronny, I should like to take

back what I said on the Maidan.” He assented, and they became

engaged to be married in consequence.

Neither had foreseen such a consequence. She had meant to revert

to her former condition of important and cultivated uncertainty,

but it had passed out of her reach at its appropriate hour. Unlike

the green bird or the hairy animal, she was labelled now. She felt

humiliated again, for she deprecated labels, and she felt too that

there should have been another scene between her lover and herself

at this point, something dramatic and lengthy. He was pleased

instead of distressed, he was surprised, but he had really nothing

to say. What indeed is there to say? To be or not to be married,

that was the question, and they had decided it in the affirmative.

“Come along and let’s tell the mater all this”—opening the

perforated zinc door that protected the bungalow from the swarms

of winged creatures. The noise woke the mater up. She had been

dreaming of the absent children who were so seldom mentioned, Ralph

and Stella, and did not at first grasp what was required of her.

She too had become used to thoughtful procrastination, and felt

alarmed when it came to an end.

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

remark. “Look here, both of you, see India if you like and as you

like—I know I made myself rather ridiculous at Fielding’s, but . . .

it’s different now. I wasn’t quite sure of myself.”

“My duties here are evidently finished, I don’t want to see India

now; now for my passage back,” was Mrs. Moore’s thought. She

reminded herself of all that a happy marriage means, and of her

own happy marriages, one of which had produced Ronny. Adela’s

parents had also been happily married, and excellent it was to see

the incident repeated by the younger generation. On and on! the

number of such unions would certainly increase as education spread

and ideals grew loftier, and characters firmer. But she was tired

by her visit to Government College, her feet ached, Mr. Fielding

had walked too fast and far, the young people had annoyed her in

the tum-tum, and given her to suppose they were breaking with each

other, and though it was all right now she could not speak as

enthusiastically of wedlock or of anything as she should have done.

Ronny was suited, now she must go home and help the others, if they

wished. She was past marrying herself, even unhappily; her function

was to help others, her reward to be informed that she was

sympathetic. Elderly ladies must not expect more than this.

They dined alone. There was much pleasant and affectionate talk

about the future. Later on they spoke of passing events, and Ronny

reviewed and recounted the day from his own point of view. It was

a different day from the women’s, because while they had enjoyed

themselves or thought, he had worked. Mohurram was approaching,

and as usual the Chandrapore Mohammedans were building paper towers

of a size too large to pass under the branches of a certain pepul

tree. One knew what happened next; the tower stuck, a Mohammedan

climbed up the pepul and cut the branch off, the Hindus protested,

there was a religious riot, and Heaven knew what, with perhaps the

troops sent for. There had been deputations and conciliation

committees under the auspices of Turton, and all the normal work

of Chandrapore had been hung up. Should the procession take another

route, or should the towers be shorter? The Mohammedans offered

the former, the Hindus insisted on the latter. The Collector had

favoured the Hindus, until he suspected that they had artificially

bent the tree nearer the ground. They said it sagged naturally.

Measurements, plans, an official visit to the spot. But Ronny had

not disliked his day, for it proved that the British were necessary

to India; there would certainly have been bloodshed without them.

His voice grew complacent again; he was here not to be pleasant

but to keep the peace, and now that Adela had promised to be his

wife, she was sure to understand.

“What does our old gentleman of the car think?” she asked, and her

negligent tone was exactly what he desired.

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

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

“Have I really?”

“I’m afraid so. Incredible, aren’t they, even the best of them?

They’re all—they all forget their back collar studs sooner or

later. You’ve had to do with three sets of Indians to-day, the

Bhattacharyas, Aziz, and this chap, and it really isn’t a

coincidence that they’ve all let you down.”

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

“When the animal runs into us the Nawab loses his head, deserts

his unfortunate chauffeur, intrudes upon Miss Derek . . . no great

crimes, no great crimes, but no white man would have done it.”

“What animal?”

“Oh, we had a small accident on the Marabar road. Adela thinks it

was a hyena.”

“An accident?” she cried.

“Nothing; no one hurt. Our excellent host awoke much rattled from

his dreams, appeared to think it was our fault, and chanted exactly,

exactly.”

Mrs. Moore shivered, “A ghost!” But the idea of a ghost scarcely

passed her lips. The young people did not take it up, being occupied

with their own outlooks, and deprived of support it perished, or

was reabsorbed into the part of the mind that seldom speaks.

“Yes, nothing criminal,” Ronny summed up, “but there’s the native,

and there’s one of the reasons why we don’t admit him to our clubs,

and how a decent girl like Miss Derek can take service under

natives puzzles me. . . . But I must get on with my work. Krishna!”

Krishna was the peon who should have brought the files from his

office. He had not turned up, and a terrific row ensued. Ronny

stormed, shouted, howled, and only the experienced observer could

tell that he was not angry, did not much want the files, and only

made a row because it was the custom. Servants, quite understanding,

ran slowly in circles, carrying hurricane lamps. Krishna the earth,

Krishna the stars replied, until the Englishman was appeased by

their echoes, fined the absent peon eight annas, and sat down to

his arrears in the next room.

“Will you play Patience with your future mother-in-law, dear Adela,

or does it seem too tame?”

“I should like to—I don’t feel a bit excited—I’m just glad it’s

settled up at last, but I’m not conscious of vast changes. We are

all three the same people still.”

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

row of “demon.”

“I suppose so,” said the girl thoughtfully.

“I feared at Mr. Fielding’s that it might be settled the other way

. . . black knave on a red queen. . . .” They chatted gently about

the game.

Presently Adela said: “You heard me tell Aziz and Godbole I wasn’t

stopping in their country. I didn’t mean it, so why did I say it?

I feel I haven’t been—frank enough, attentive enough, or something.

It’s as if I got everything out of proportion. You have been so

very good to me, and I meant to be good when I sailed, but somehow

I haven’t been. . . . Mrs. Moore, if one isn’t absolutely honest,

what is the use of existing?”

She continued to lay out her cards. The words were obscure, but

she understood the uneasiness that produced them. She had

experienced it twice herself, during her own engagements—this vague

contrition and doubt. All had come right enough afterwards and

doubtless would this time—marriage makes most things right enough.

“I wouldn’t worry,” she said. “It’s partly the odd surroundings;

you and I keep on attending to trifles instead of what’s important;

we are what the people here call ‘new.’”

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

“India’s——” She stopped.

“What made you call it a ghost?”

“Call what a ghost?”

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

passing.”

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

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

“Ah, very likely.”

And they went on with their Patience. Down in Chandrapore the Nawab

Bahadur waited for his car. He sat behind his town house (a small

unfurnished building which he rarely entered) in the midst of the

little court that always improvises itself round Indians of

position. As if turbans were the natural product of darkness a

fresh one would occasionally froth to the front, incline itself

towards him, and retire. He was preoccupied, his diction was

appropriate to a religious subject. Nine years previously, when

first he had had a car, he had driven it over a drunken man and

killed him, and the man had been waiting for him ever since. The

Nawab Bahadur was innocent before God and the Law, he had paid

double the compensation necessary; but it was no use, the man

continued to wait in an unspeakable form, close to the scene of

his death. None of the English people knew of this, nor did the

chauffeur; it was a racial secret communicable more by blood than

speech. He spoke now in horror of the particular circumstances; he

had led others into danger, he had risked the lives of two innocent

and honoured guests. He repeated, “If I had been killed, what

matter? it must happen sometime; but they who trusted me——”

The company shuddered and invoked the mercy of God. Only Aziz held

aloof, because a personal experience restrained him: was it not by

despising ghosts that he had come to know Mrs. Moore? “You know,

Nureddin,” he whispered to the grandson—an effeminate youth whom

he seldom met, always liked, and invariably forgot—“you know, my

dear fellow, we Moslems simply must get rid of these superstitions,

or India will never advance. How long must I hear of the savage

pig upon the Marabar Road?” Nureddin looked down. Aziz continued:

“Your grandfather belongs to another generation, and I respect and

love the old gentleman, as you know. I say nothing against him,

only that it is wrong for us, because we are young. I want you to

promise me—Nureddin, are you listening?—not to believe in Evil

Spirits, and if I die (for my health grows very weak) to bring up

my three children to disbelieve in them too.” Nureddin smiled, and

a suitable answer rose to his pretty lips, but before he could make

it the car arrived, and his grandfather took him away.

The game of Patience up in the civil lines went on longer than

this. Mrs. Moore continued to murmur “Red ten on a black knave,”

Miss Quested to assist her, and to intersperse among the intricacies

of the play details about the hyena, the engagement, the Maharani

of Mudkul, the Bhattacharyas, and the day generally, whose rough

desiccated surface acquired as it receded a definite outline, as

India itself might, could it be viewed from the moon. Presently

the players went to bed, but not before other people had woken up

elsewhere, people whose emotions they could not share, and whose

existence they ignored. Never tranquil, never perfectly dark, the

night wore itself away, distinguished from other nights by two or

three blasts of wind, which seemed to fall perpendicularly out of

the sky and to bounce back into it, hard and compact, leaving no

freshness behind them: the hot weather was approaching.