A passage to India
“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