A passage to India
for his son. A death far more difficult than battle. They were
caught in the heat. They should have gone back to Kabul for the
bad weather, but could not for reasons of state, and at Agra
Humayun fell sick. Babur walked round the bed three times, and
said, ‘I have borne it away,’ and he did bear it away; the fever
left his son and came to him instead, and he died. That is why I
prefer Babur to Alamgir. I ought not to do so, but I do. However,
I mustn’t delay you. I see you are ready to start.”
“Not at all,” she said, sitting down by Mrs. Moore again. “We enjoy
talk like this very much.” For at last he was talking about what
he knew and felt, talking as he had in Fielding’s garden-house; he
was again the Oriental guide whom they appreciated.
“I always enjoy conversing about the Moguls. It is the chief
pleasure I know. You see, those first six emperors were all most
wonderful men, and as soon as one of them is mentioned, no matter
which, I forget everything else in the world except the other five.
You could not find six such kings in all the countries of the
earth, not, I mean, coming one after the other—father, son.”
“Tell us something about Akbar.”
“Ah, you have heard the name of Akbar. Good. Hamidullah—whom you
shall meet—will tell you that Akbar is the greatest of all. I say,
‘Yes, Akbar is very wonderful, but half a Hindu; he was not a true
Moslem, which makes Hamidullah cry, ‘No more was Babur, he drank
wine.’ But Babur always repented afterwards, which makes the entire
difference, and Akbar never repented of the new religion he invented
instead of the Holy Koran.”
“But wasn’t Akbar’s new religion very fine? It was to embrace the
whole of India.”
“Miss Quested, fine but foolish. You keep your religion, I mine.
That is the best. Nothing embraces the whole of India, nothing,
nothing, and that was Akbar’s mistake.”
“Oh, do you feel that, Dr. Aziz?” she said thoughtfully. “I hope
you’re not right. There will have to be something universal in this
country—I don’t say religion, for I’m not religious, but something,
or how else are barriers to be broken down?”
She was only recommending the universal brotherhood he sometimes
dreamed of, but as soon as it was put into prose it became untrue.
“Take my own case,” she continued—it was indeed her own case that
had animated her. “I don’t know whether you happen to have heard,
but I’m going to marry Mr. Heaslop.”
“On which my heartiest congratulations.”
“Mrs. Moore, may I put our difficulty to Dr. Aziz—I mean our
Anglo-Indian one?”
“It is your difficulty, not mine, my dear.”
“Ah, that’s true. Well, by marrying Mr. Heaslop, I shall become
what is known as an Anglo-Indian.”
He held up his hand in protest. “Impossible. Take back such a
terrible remark.”
“But I shall; it’s inevitable. I can’t avoid the label. What I do
hope to avoid is the mentality. Women like——” She stopped, not
quite liking to mention names; she would boldly have said “Mrs.
Turton and Mrs. Callendar” a fortnight ago. “Some women are so—well,
ungenerous and snobby about Indians, and I should feel too ashamed
for words if I turned like them, but—and here’s my difficulty—there’s
nothing special about me, nothing specially good or strong, which
will help me to resist my environment and avoid becoming like them.
I’ve most lamentable defects. That’s why I want Akbar’s ‘universal
religion’ or the equivalent to keep me decent and sensible. Do you
see what I mean?”
Her remarks pleased him, but his mind shut up tight because she
had alluded to her marriage. He was not going to be mixed up in
that side of things. “You are certain to be happy with any relative
of Mrs. Moore’s,” he said with a formal bow.
“Oh, my happiness—that’s quite another problem. I want to consult
you about this Anglo-Indian difficulty. Can you give me any advice?”
“You are absolutely unlike the others, I assure you. You will never
be rude to my people.”
“I am told we all get rude after a year.”
“Then you are told a lie,” he flashed, for she had spoken the truth
and it touched him on the raw; it was itself an insult in these
particular circumstances. He recovered himself at once and laughed,
but her error broke up their conversation—their civilization it
had almost been—which scattered like the petals of a desert flower,
and left them in the middle of the hills. “Come along,” he said,
holding out a hand to each. They got up a little reluctantly, and
addressed themselves to sightseeing.
The first cave was tolerably convenient. They skirted the puddle
of water, and then climbed up over some unattractive stones, the
sun crashing on their backs. Bending their heads, they disappeared
one by one into the interior of the hills. The small black hole
gaped where their varied forms and colours had momentarily
functioned. They were sucked in like water down a drain. Bland and
bald rose the precipices; bland and glutinous the sky that connected
the precipices; solid and white, a Brahminy kite flapped between
the rocks with a clumsiness that seemed intentional. Before man,
with his itch for the seemly, had been born, the planet must have
looked thus. The kite flapped away. . . . Before birds, perhaps. . . .
And then the hole belched and humanity returned.
A Marabar cave had been horrid as far as Mrs. Moore was concerned,
for she had nearly fainted in it, and had some difficulty in
preventing herself from saying so as soon as she got into the air
again. It was natural enough: she had always suffered from
faintness, and the cave had become too full, because all their
retinue followed them. Crammed with villagers and servants, the
circular chamber began to smell. She lost Aziz and Adela in the
dark, didn’t know who touched her, couldn’t breathe, and some vile
naked thing struck her face and settled on her mouth like a pad.
She tried to regain the entrance tunnel, but an influx of villagers
swept her back. She hit her head. For an instant she went mad,
hitting and gasping like a fanatic. For not only did the crush and
stench alarm her; there was also a terrifying echo.
Professor Godbole had never mentioned an echo; it never impressed
him, perhaps. There are some exquisite echoes in India; there is
the whisper round the dome at Bijapur; there are the long, solid
sentences that voyage through the air at Mandu, and return unbroken
to their creator. The echo in a Marabar cave is not like these, it
is entirely devoid of distinction. Whatever is said, the same
monotonous noise replies, and quivers up and down the walls until
it is absorbed into the roof. “Boum” is the sound as far as the
human alphabet can express it, or “bou-oum,” or “ou-boum,”—utterly
dull. Hope, politeness, the blowing of a nose, the squeak of a
boot, all produce “boum.” Even the striking of a match starts a
little worm coiling, which is too small to complete a circle but
is eternally watchful. And if several people talk at once, an
overlapping howling noise begins, echoes generate echoes, and the
cave is stuffed with a snake composed of small snakes, which writhe
independently.
After Mrs. Moore all the others poured out. She had given the
signal for the reflux. Aziz and Adela both emerged smiling and she
did not want him to think his treat was a failure, so smiled too.
As each person emerged she looked for a villain, but none was
there, and she realized that she had been among the mildest
individuals, whose only desire was to honour her, and that the
naked pad was a poor little baby, astride its mother’s hip. Nothing
evil had been in the cave, but she had not enjoyed herself; no,
she had not enjoyed herself, and she decided not to visit a second
one.
“Did you see the reflection of his match—rather pretty?” asked
Adela.
“I forget . . .”
“But he says this isn’t a good cave, the best are on the Kawa Dol.”
“I don’t think I shall go on to there. I dislike climbing.”
“Very well, let’s sit down again in the shade until breakfast’s
ready.”
“Ah, but that’ll disappoint him so; he has taken such trouble. You
should go on; you don’t mind.”
“Perhaps I ought to,” said the girl, indifferent to what she did,
but desirous of being amiable.
The servants, etc., were scrambling back to the camp, pursued by
grave censures from Mohammed Latif. Aziz came to help the guests
over the rocks. He was at the summit of his powers, vigorous and
humble, too sure of himself to resent criticism, and he was
sincerely pleased when he heard they were altering his plans.
“Certainly, Miss Quested, so you and I will go together, and leave
Mrs. Moore here, and we will not be long, yet we will not hurry,
because we know that will be her wish.”
“Quite right. I’m sorry not to come too, but I’m a poor walker.”
“Dear Mrs. Moore, what does anything matter so long as you are my
guests? I am very glad you are _not_ coming, which sounds strange,
but you are treating me with true frankness, as a friend.”
“Yes, I am your friend,” she said, laying her hand on his sleeve,
and thinking, despite her fatigue, how very charming, how very
good, he was, and how deeply she desired his happiness. “So may I
make another suggestion? Don’t let so many people come with you
this time. I think you may find it more convenient.”
“Exactly, exactly,” he cried, and, rushing to the other extreme,
forbade all except one guide to accompany Miss Quested and him to
the Kawa Dol. “Is that all right?” he enquired.
“Quite right, now enjoy yourselves, and when you come back tell me
all about it.” And she sank into the deck-chair.
If they reached the big pocket of caves, they would be away nearly
an hour. She took out her writing-pad, and began, “Dear Stella,
Dear Ralph,” then stopped, and looked at the queer valley and their
feeble invasion of it. Even the elephant had become a nobody. Her
eye rose from it to the entrance tunnel. No, she did not wish to
repeat that experience. The more she thought over it, the more
disagreeable and frightening it became. She minded it much more
now than at the time. The crush and the smells she could forget,
but the echo began in some indescribable way to undermine her hold
on life. Coming at a moment when she chanced to be fatigued, it
had managed to murmur, “Pathos, piety, courage—they exist, but are
identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, nothing has value.”
If one had spoken vileness in that place, or quoted lofty poetry,
the comment would have been the same—“ou-boum.” If one had spoken
with the tongues of angels and pleaded for all the unhappiness and
misunderstanding in the world, past, present, and to come, for all
the misery men must undergo whatever their opinion and position,
and however much they dodge or bluff—it would amount to the same,
the serpent would descend and return to the ceiling. Devils are of
the North, and poems can be written about them, but no one could
romanticize the Marabar because it robbed infinity and eternity of
their vastness, the only quality that accommodates them to mankind.
She tried to go on with her letter, reminding herself that she was
only an elderly woman who had got up too early in the morning and
journeyed too far, that the despair creeping over her was merely
her despair, her personal weakness, and that even if she got a
sunstroke and went mad the rest of the world would go on. But
suddenly, at the edge of her mind, Religion appeared, poor little
talkative Christianity, and she knew that all its divine words from
“Let there be Light” to “It is finished” only amounted to “boum.”
Then she was terrified over an area larger than usual; the universe,
never comprehensible to her intellect, offered no repose to her
soul, the mood of the last two months took definite form at last,
and she realized that she didn’t want to write to her children,