A passage to India
limited and his method inaccurate, and that no one is India.
He was now much excited, chattering away hard, and even saying damn
when he got mixed up in his sentences. He told them of his
profession, and of the operations he had witnessed and performed,
and he went into details that scared Mrs. Moore, though Miss
Quested mistook them for proofs of his broad-mindedness; she had
heard such talk at home in advanced academic circles, deliberately
free. She supposed him to be emancipated as well as reliable, and
placed him on a pinnacle which he could not retain. He was high
enough for the moment, to be sure, but not on any pinnacle. Wings
bore him up, and flagging would deposit him.
The arrival of Professor Godbole quieted him somewhat, but it
remained his afternoon. The Brahman, polite and enigmatic, did not
impede his eloquence, and even applauded it. He took his tea at a
little distance from the outcasts, from a low table placed slightly
behind him, to which he stretched back, and as it were encountered
food by accident; all feigned indifference to Professor Godbole’s
tea. He was elderly and wizen with a grey moustache and grey-blue
eyes, and his complexion was as fair as a European’s. He wore a
turban that looked like pale purple macaroni, coat, waistcoat,
dhoti, socks with clocks. The clocks matched the turban, and his
whole appearance suggested harmony—as if he had reconciled the
products of East and West, mental as well as physical, and could
never be discomposed. The ladies were interested in him, and hoped
that he would supplement Dr. Aziz by saying something about
religion. But he only ate—ate and ate, smiling, never letting his
eyes catch sight of his hand.
Leaving the Mogul Emperors, Aziz turned to topics that could
distress no one. He described the ripening of the mangoes, and how
in his boyhood he used to run out in the Rains to a big mango grove
belonging to an uncle and gorge there. “Then back with water
streaming over you and perhaps rather a pain inside. But I did not
mind. All my friends were paining with me. We have a proverb in
Urdu: ‘What does unhappiness matter when we are all unhappy
together?’ which comes in conveniently after mangoes. Miss Quested,
do wait for mangoes. Why not settle altogether in India?”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” said Adela. She made the remark
without thinking what it meant. To her, as to the three men, it
seemed in key with the rest of the conversation, and not for
several minutes—indeed, not for half an hour—did she realize that
it was an important remark, and ought to have been made in the
first place to Ronny.
“Visitors like you are too rare.”
“They are indeed,” said Professor Godbole. “Such affability is
seldom seen. But what can we offer to detain them?”
“Mangoes, mangoes.”
They laughed. “Even mangoes can be got in England now,” put in
Fielding. “They ship them in ice-cold rooms. You can make India in
England apparently, just as you can make England in India.”
“Frightfully expensive in both cases,” said the girl.
“I suppose so.”
“And nasty.”
But the host wouldn’t allow the conversation to take this heavy
turn. He turned to the old lady, who looked flustered and put
out—he could not imagine why—and asked about her own plans. She
replied that she should like to see over the College. Everyone
immediately rose, with the exception of Professor Godbole, who was
finishing a banana.
“Don’t you come too, Adela; you dislike institutions.”
“Yes, that is so,” said Miss Quested, and sat down again.
Aziz hesitated. His audience was splitting up. The more familiar
half was going, but the more attentive remained. Reflecting that
it was an “unconventional” afternoon, he stopped.
Talk went on as before. Could one offer the visitors unripe mangoes
in a fool? “I speak now as a doctor: no.” Then the old man said,
“But I will send you up a few healthy sweets. I will give myself
that pleasure.”
“Miss Quested, Professor Godbole’s sweets are delicious,” said Aziz
sadly, for he wanted to send sweets too and had no wife to cook
them. “They will give you a real Indian treat. Ah, in my poor
position I can give you nothing.”
“I don’t know why you say that, when you have so kindly asked us
to your house.”
He thought again of his bungalow with horror. Good heavens, the
stupid girl had taken him at his word! What was he to do? “Yes,
all that is settled,” he cried.
“I invite you all to see me in the Marabar Caves.”
“I shall be delighted.”
“Oh, that is a most magnificent entertainment compared to my poor
sweets. But has not Miss Quested visited our caves already?”
“No. I’ve not even heard of them.”
“Not heard of them?” both cried. “The Marabar Caves in the Marabar
Hills?”
“We hear nothing interesting up at the club. Only tennis and
ridiculous gossip.”
The old man was silent, perhaps feeling that it was unseemly of
her to criticize her race, perhaps fearing that if he agreed she
would report him for disloyalty. But the young man uttered a rapid
“I know.”
“Then tell me everything you will, or I shall never understand
India. Are they the hills I sometimes see in the evening? What are
these caves?”
Aziz undertook to explain, but it presently appeared that he had
never visited the caves himself—had always been “meaning” to go,
but work or private business had prevented him, and they were so
far. Professor Godbole chaffed him pleasantly. “My dear young sir,
the pot and the kettle! Have you ever heard of that useful proverb?”
“Are they large caves?” she asked.
“No, not large.”
“Do describe them, Professor Godbole.”
“It will be a great honour.” He drew up his chair and an expression
of tension came over his face. Taking the cigarette box, she
offered to him and to Aziz, and lit up herself. After an impressive
pause he said: “There is an entrance in the rock which you enter,
and through the entrance is the cave.”
“Something like the caves at Elephanta?”
“Oh no, not at all; at Elephanta there are sculptures of Siva and
Parvati. There are no sculptures at Marabar.”
“They are immensely holy, no doubt,” said Aziz, to help on the
narrative.
“Oh no, oh no.”
“Still, they are ornamented in some way.”
“Oh no.”
“Well, why are they so famous? We all talk of the famous Marabar
Caves. Perhaps that is our empty brag.”
“No, I should not quite say that.”
“Describe them to this lady, then.”
“It will be a great pleasure.” He forewent the pleasure, and Aziz
realized that he was keeping back something about the caves. He
realized because he often suffered from similar inhibitions himself.
Sometimes, to the exasperation of Major Callendar, he would pass
over the one relevant fact in a position, to dwell on the hundred
irrelevant. The Major accused him of disingenuousness, and was
roughly right, but only roughly. It was rather that a power he
couldn’t control capriciously silenced his mind. Godbole had been
silenced now; no doubt not willingly, he was concealing something.
Handled subtly, he might regain control and announce that the
Marabar Caves were—full of stalactites, perhaps; Aziz led up to
this, but they weren’t.
The dialogue remained light and friendly, and Adela had no
conception of its underdrift. She did not know that the comparatively
simple mind of the Mohammedan was encountering Ancient Night. Aziz
played a thrilling game. He was handling a human toy that refused
to work—he knew that much. If it worked, neither he nor Professor
Godbole would be the least advantaged, but the attempt enthralled
him and was akin to abstract thought. On he chattered, defeated at
every move by an opponent who would not even admit that a move had
been made, and further than ever from discovering what, if anything,
was extraordinary about the Marabar Caves.
Into this Ronny dropped.
With an annoyance he took no trouble to conceal, he called from
the garden: “What’s happened to Fielding? Where’s my mother?”
“Good evening!” she replied coolly.
“I want you and mother at once. There’s to be polo.”
“I thought there was to be no polo.”
“Everything’s altered. Some soldier men have come in. Come along
and I’ll tell you about it.”
“Your mother will return shortly, sir,” said Professor Godbole,
who had risen with deference. “There is but little to see at our
poor college.”
Ronny took no notice, but continued to address his remarks to
Adela; he had hurried away from his work to take her to see the
polo, because he thought it would give her pleasure. He did not
mean to be rude to the two men, but the only link he could be
conscious of with an Indian was the official, and neither happened
to be his subordinate. As private individuals he forgot them.
Unfortunately Aziz was in no mood to be forgotten. He would not
give up the secure and intimate note of the last hour. He had not
risen with Godbole, and now, offensively friendly, called from his
seat, “Come along up and join us, Mr. Heaslop; sit down till your
mother turns up.”
Ronny replied by ordering one of Fielding’s servants to fetch his
master at once.
“He may not understand that. Allow me——” Aziz repeated the order
idiomatically.
Ronny was tempted to retort; he knew the type; he knew all the
types, and this was the spoilt Westernized. But he was a servant
of the Government, it was his job to avoid “incidents,” so he said
nothing, and ignored the provocation that Aziz continued to offer.
Aziz was provocative. Everything he said had an impertinent flavour
or jarred. His wings were failing, but he refused to fall without
a struggle. He did not mean to be impertinent to Mr. Heaslop, who
had never done him harm, but here was an Anglo-Indian who must
become a man before comfort could be regained. He did not mean to
be greasily confidential to Miss Quested, only to enlist her
support; nor to be loud and jolly towards Professor Godbole. A
strange quartette—he fluttering to the ground, she puzzled by the
sudden ugliness, Ronny fuming, the Brahman observing all three,
but with downcast eyes and hands folded, as if nothing was
noticeable. A scene from a play, thought Fielding, who now saw them
from the distance across the garden grouped among the blue pillars
of his beautiful hall.
“Don’t trouble to come, mother,” Ronny called; “we’re just
starting.” Then he hurried to Fielding, drew him aside and said
with pseudo-heartiness, “I say, old man, do excuse me, but I think
perhaps you oughtn’t to have left Miss Quested alone.”
“I’m sorry, what’s up?” replied Fielding, also trying to be genial.
“Well . . . I’m the sun-dried bureaucrat, no doubt; still, I don’t
like to see an English girl left smoking with two Indians.”
“She stopped, as she smokes, by her own wish, old man.”
“Yes, that’s all right in England.”
“I really can’t see the harm.”
“If you can’t see, you can’t see. . . . Can’t you see that fellow’s
a bounder?”
Aziz flamboyant, was patronizing Mrs. Moore.
“He isn’t a bounder,” protested Fielding. “His nerves are on edge,
that’s all.”
“What should have upset his precious nerves?”
“I don’t know. He was all right when I left.”
“Well, it’s nothing I’ve said,” said Ronny reassuringly. “I never
even spoke to him.”
“Oh well, come along now, and take your ladies away; the catastrophe
over.”
“Fielding . . . don’t think I’m taking it badly, or anything of
that sort. . . . I suppose you won’t come on to the polo with us?
We should all be delighted.”
“I’m afraid I can’t, thanks all the same. I’m awfully sorry you
feel I’ve been remiss. I didn’t mean to be.”
So the leave-taking began. Every one was cross or wretched. It was
as if irritation exuded from the very soil. Could one have been so
petty on a Scotch moor or an Italian alp? Fielding wondered
afterwards. There seemed no reserve of tranquillity to draw upon
in India.