A passage to India
The European Guest House stood two hundred feet above the water,
on the crest of a rocky and wooded spur that jutted from the
jungle. By the time Aziz arrived, the water had paled to a film of
mauve-grey, and the boat vanished entirely. A sentry slept in the
Guest House porch, lamps burned in the cruciform of the deserted
rooms. He went from one room to another, inquisitive, and malicious.
Two letters lying on the piano rewarded him, and he pounced and
read them promptly. He was not ashamed to do this. The sanctity of
private correspondence has never been ratified by the East.
Moreover, Mr. McBryde had read all his letters in the past, and
spread their contents. One letter—the more interesting of the
two—was from Heaslop to Fielding. It threw light on the mentality
of his former friend, and it hardened him further against him. Much
of it was about Ralph Moore, who appeared to be almost an imbecile.
“Hand on my brother whenever suits you. I write to you because he
is sure to make a bad bunderbust.” Then: “I quite agree—life is
too short to cherish grievances, also I’m relieved you feel able
to come into line with the Oppressors of India to some extent. We
need all the support we can get. I hope that next time Stella comes
my way she will bring you with her, when I will make you as
comfortable as a bachelor can—it’s certainly time we met. My
sister’s marriage to you coming after my mother’s death and my own
difficulties did upset me, and I was unreasonable. It is about time
we made it up properly, as you say—let us leave it at faults on
both sides. Glad about your son and heir. When next any of you
write to Adela, do give her some sort of message from me, for I
should like to make my peace with her too. You are lucky to be out
of British India at the present moment. Incident after incident,
all due to propaganda, but we can’t lay our hands on the connecting
thread. The longer one lives here, the more certain one gets that
everything hangs together. My personal opinion is, it’s the Jews.”
Thus far the red-nosed boy. Aziz was distracted for a moment by
blurred sounds coming from over the water; the procession was under
way. The second letter was from Miss Quested to Mrs. Fielding. It
contained one or two interesting touches. The writer hoped that
“Ralph will enjoy his India more than I did mine,” and appeared to
have given him money for this purpose—“my debt which I shall never
repay in person.” What debt did Miss Quested imagine she owed the
country? He did not relish the phrase. Talk of Ralph’s health. It
was all “Stella and Ralph,” even “Cyril” and “Ronny”—all so friendly
and sensible, and written in a spirit he could not command. He
envied the easy intercourse that is only possible in a nation whose
women are free. These five people were making up their little
difficulties, and closing their broken ranks against the alien.
Even Heaslop was coming in. Hence the strength of England, and in
a spurt of temper he hit the piano, and since the notes had swollen
and stuck together in groups of threes, he produced a remarkable
noise.
“Oh, oh, who is that?” said a nervous and respectful voice; he
could not remember where he had heard its tones before. Something
moved in the twilight of an adjoining room. He replied, “State
doctor, ridden over to enquire, very little English,” slipped the
letters into his pocket, and to show that he had free entry to the
Guest House, struck the piano again.
Ralph Moore came into the light.
What a strange-looking youth, tall, prematurely aged, the big blue
eyes faded with anxiety, the hair impoverished and tousled! Not a
type that is often exported imperially. The doctor in Aziz thought,
“Born of too old a mother,” the poet found him rather beautiful.
“I was unable to call earlier owing to pressure of work. How are
the celebrated bee-stings?” he asked patronizingly.
“I—I was resting, they thought I had better; they throb rather.”
His timidity and evident “newness” had complicated effects on the
malcontent. Speaking threateningly, he said, “Come here, please,
allow me to look.” They were practically alone, and he could treat
the patient as Callendar had treated Nureddin.
“You said this morning——”
“The best of doctors make mistakes. Come here, please, for the
diagnosis under the lamp. I am pressed for time.”
“Aough——”
“What is the matter, pray?”
“Your hands are unkind.”
He started and glanced down at them. The extraordinary youth was
right, and he put them behind his back before replying with outward
anger: “What the devil have my hands to do with you? This is a most
strange remark. I am a qualified doctor, who will not hurt you.”
“I don’t mind pain, there is no pain.”
“No pain?”
“Not really.”
“Excellent news,” sneered Aziz.
“But there is cruelty.”
“I have brought you some salve, but how to put it on in your
present nervous state becomes a problem,” he continued, after a
pause.
“Please leave it with me.”
“Certainly not. It returns to my dispensary at once.” He stretched
forward, and the other retreated to the farther side of a table.
“Now, do you want me to treat your stings, or do you prefer an
English doctor? There is one at Asirgarh. Asirgarh is forty miles
away, and the Ringnod dam broken. Now you see how you are placed.
I think I had better see Mr. Fielding about you; this is really
great nonsense, your present behaviour.”
“They are out in a boat,” he replied, glancing about him for
support.
Aziz feigned intense surprise. “They have not gone in the direction
of Mau, I hope. On a night like this the people become most
fanatical.” And, as if to confirm him, there was a sob, as though
the lips of a giant had parted; the procession was approaching the
Jail.
“You should not treat us like this,” he challenged, and this time
Aziz was checked, for the voice, though frightened, was not weak.
“Like what?”
“Dr. Aziz, we have done you no harm.”
“Aha, you know my name, I see. Yes, I am Aziz. No, of course your
great friend Miss Quested did me no harm at the Marabar.”
Drowning his last words, all the guns of the State went off. A
rocket from the Jail garden gave the signal. The prisoner had been
released, and was kissing the feet of the singers. Rose-leaves fall
from the houses, sacred spices and coco-nut are brought forth. . . .
It was the half-way moment; the God had extended His temple,
and paused exultantly. Mixed and confused in their passage, the
rumours of salvation entered the Guest House. They were startled
and moved on to the porch, drawn by the sudden illumination. The
bronze gun up on the fort kept flashing, the town was a blur of
light, in which the houses seemed dancing, and the palace waving
little wings. The water below, the hills and sky above, were not
involved as yet; there was still only a little light and song
struggling among the shapeless lumps of the universe. The song
became audible through much repetition; the choir was repeating
and inverting the names of deities.
“Radhakrishna Radhakrishna,
Radhakrishna Radhakrishna,
Krishnaradha Radhakrishna,
Radhakrishna Radhakrishna,”
they sang, and woke the sleeping sentry in the Guest House; he
leant upon his iron-tipped spear.
“I must go back now, good night,” said Aziz, and held out his hand,
completely forgetting that they were not friends, and focusing his
heart on something more distant than the caves, something beautiful.
His hand was taken, and then he remembered how detestable he had
been, and said gently, “Don’t you think me unkind any more?”
“No.”
“How can you tell, you strange fellow?”
“Not difficult, the one thing I always know.”
“Can you always tell whether a stranger is your friend?”
“Yes.”
“Then you are an Oriental.” He unclasped as he spoke, with a little
shudder. Those words—he had said them to Mrs. Moore in the mosque
in the beginning of the cycle, from which, after so much suffering,
he had got free. Never be friends with the English! Mosque, caves,
mosque, caves. And here he was starting again. He handed the magic
ointment to him. “Take this, think of me when you use it. I shall
never want it back. I must give you one little present, and it is
all I have got; you are Mrs. Moore’s son.”
“I am that,” he murmured to himself; and a part of Aziz’ mind that
had been hidden seemed to move and force its way to the top.
“But you are Heaslop’s brother also, and alas, the two nations
cannot be friends.”
“I know. Not yet.”
“Did your mother speak to you about me?”
“Yes.” And with a swerve of voice and body that Aziz did not follow
he added, “In her letters, in her letters. She loved you.”
“Yes, your mother was my best friend in all the world.” He was
silent, puzzled by his own great gratitude. What did this eternal
goodness of Mrs. Moore amount to? To nothing, if brought to the
test of thought. She had not borne witness in his favour, nor
visited him in the prison, yet she had stolen to the depths of his
heart, and he always adored her. “This is our monsoon, the best
weather,” he said, while the lights of the procession waved as
though embroidered on an agitated curtain. “How I wish she could
have seen them, our rains. Now is the time when all things are
happy, young and old. They are happy out there with their savage
noise, though we cannot follow them; the tanks are all full so they
dance, and this is India. I wish you were not with officials, then
I would show you my country, but I cannot. Perhaps I will just take
you out on the water now, for one short half-hour.”
Was the cycle beginning again? His heart was too full to draw back.
He must slip out in the darkness, and do this one act of homage to
Mrs. Moore’s son. He knew where the oars were—hidden to deter the
visitors from going out—and he brought the second pair, in case
they met the other boat; the Fieldings had pushed themselves out
with long poles, and might get into difficulties, for the wind was
rising.
Once on the water, he became easy. One kind action was with him
always a channel for another, and soon the torrent of his
hospitality gushed forth and he began doing the honours of Mau and
persuading himself that he understood the wild procession, which
increased in lights and sounds as the complications of its ritual
developed. There was little need to row, for the freshening gale
blew them in the direction they desired. Thorns scratched the keel,
they ran into an islet and startled some cranes. The strange
temporary life of the August flood-water bore them up and seemed
as though it would last for ever.
The boat was a rudderless dinghy. Huddled up in the stern, with
the spare pair of oars in his arms, the guest asked no questions
about details. There was presently a flash of lightning, followed
by a second flash—little red scratches on the ponderous sky. “Was
that the Rajah?” he asked.
“What—what do you mean?”
“Row back.”
“But there’s no Rajah—nothing——”
“Row back, you will see what I mean.”
Aziz found it hard work against the advancing wind. But he fixed
his eyes on the pin of light that marked the Guest House and backed
a few strokes.
“There . . .”
Floating in the darkness was a king, who sat under a canopy, in
shining royal robes. . . .
“I can’t tell you what that is, I’m sure,” he whispered. “His
Highness is dead. I think we should go back at once.”
They were close to the promontory of the tombs, and had looked
straight into the chhatri of the Rajah’s father through an opening
in the trees. That was the explanation. He had heard of the
image—made to imitate life at enormous expense—but he had never
chanced to see it before, though he frequently rowed on the lake.
There was only one spot from which it could be seen, and Ralph had
directed him to it. Hastily he pulled away, feeling that his