A passage to India
companion was not so much a visitor as a guide. He remarked, “Shall
we go back now?”
“There is still the procession.”
“I’d rather not go nearer—they have such strange customs, and might
hurt you.”
“A little nearer.”
Aziz obeyed. He knew with his heart that this was Mrs. Moore’s son,
and indeed until his heart was involved he knew nothing.
“Radhakrishna Radhakrishna Radhakrishna Radhakrishna Krishnaradha,”
went the chant, then suddenly changed, and in the interstice he
heard, almost certainly, the syllables of salvation that had
sounded during his trial at Chandrapore.
“Mr. Moore, don’t tell anyone that the Rajah is dead. It is a
secret still, I am supposed not to say. We pretend he is alive
until after the festival, to prevent unhappiness. Do you want to
go still nearer?”
“Yes.”
He tried to keep the boat out of the glare of the torches that
began to star the other shore. Rockets kept going off, also the
guns. Suddenly, closer than he had calculated, the palanquin of
Krishna appeared from behind a ruined wall, and descended the
carven glistening water-steps. On either side of it the singers
tumbled, a woman prominent, a wild and beautiful young saint with
flowers in her hair. She was praising God without attributes—thus
did she apprehend Him. Others praised Him without attributes,
seeing Him in this or that organ of the body or manifestation of
the sky. Down they rushed to the foreshore and stood in the small
waves, and a sacred meal was prepared, of which those who felt
worthy partook. Old Godbole detected the boat, which was drifting
in on the gale, and he waved his arms—whether in wrath or joy Aziz
never discovered. Above stood the secular power of Mau—elephants,
artillery, crowds—and high above them a wild tempest started,
confined at first to the upper regions of the air. Gusts of wind
mixed darkness and light, sheets of rain cut from the north,
stopped, cut from the south, began rising from below, and across
them struggled the singers, sounding every note but terror, and
preparing to throw God away, God Himself, (not that God can be
thrown) into the storm. Thus was He thrown year after year, and
were others thrown—little images of Ganpati, baskets of ten-day
corn, tiny tazias after Mohurram—scapegoats, husks, emblems of
passage; a passage not easy, not now, not here, not to be
apprehended except when it is unattainable; the God to be thrown
was an emblem of that.
The village of Gokul reappeared upon its tray. It was the substitute
for the silver image, which never left its haze of flowers; on
behalf of another symbol, it was to perish. A servitor took it in
his hands, and tore off the blue and white streamers. He was naked,
broad-shouldered, thin-waisted—the Indian body again triumphant—and
it was his hereditary office to close the gates of salvation. He
entered the dark waters, pushing the village before him, until the
clay dolls slipped off their chairs and began to gutter in the
rain, and King Kansa was confounded with the father and mother of
the Lord. Dark and solid, the little waves sipped, then a great
wave washed and then English voices cried “Take care!”
The boats had collided with each other.
The four outsiders flung out their arms and grappled, and, with
oars and poles sticking out, revolved like a mythical monster in
the whirlwind. The worshippers howled with wrath or joy, as they
drifted forward helplessly against the servitor. Who awaited them,
his beautiful dark face expressionless, and as the last morsels
melted on his tray, it struck them.
The shock was minute, but Stella, nearest to it, shrank into her
husband’s arms, then reached forward, then flung herself against
Aziz, and her motions capsized them. They plunged into the warm,
shallow water, and rose struggling into a tornado of noise. The
oars, the sacred tray, the letters of Ronny and Adela, broke loose
and floated confusedly. Artillery was fired, drums beaten, the
elephants trumpeted, and drowning all an immense peal of thunder,
unaccompanied by lightning, cracked like a mallet on the dome.
That was the climax, as far as India admits of one. The rain
settled in steadily to its job of wetting everybody and everything
through, and soon spoiled the cloth of gold on the palanquin and
the costly disc-shaped banners. Some of the torches went out,
fireworks didn’t catch, there began to be less singing, and the
tray returned to Professor Godbole, who picked up a fragment of
the mud adhering and smeared it on his forehead without much
ceremony. Whatever had happened had happened, and while the
intruders picked themselves up, the crowds of Hindus began a
desultory move back into the town. The image went back too, and on
the following day underwent a private death of its own, when some
curtains of magenta and green were lowered in front of the dynastic
shrine. The singing went on even longer . . . ragged edges of
religion . . . unsatisfactory and undramatic tangles. . . . “God
is love.” Looking back at the great blur of the last twenty-four
hours, no man could say where was the emotional centre of it, any
more than he could locate the heart of a cloud.
CHAPTER XXXVII
Friends again, yet aware that they could meet no more, Aziz and
Fielding went for their last ride in the Mau jungles. The floods
had abated and the Rajah was officially dead, so the Guest House
party were departing next morning, as decorum required. What with
the mourning and the festival, the visit was a failure.
Fielding had scarcely seen Godbole, who promised every day to show
him over the King-Emperor George Fifth High School, his main
objective, but always made some excuse. This afternoon Aziz let
out what had happened: the King-Emperor had been converted into a
granary, and the Minister of Education did not like to admit this
to his former Principal. The school had been opened only last year
by the Agent to the Governor-General, and it still flourished on
paper; he hoped to start it again before its absence was remarked
and to collect its scholars before they produced children of their
own. Fielding laughed at the tangle and waste of energy, but he
did not travel as lightly as in the past; education was a continuous
concern to him, because his income and the comfort of his family
depended on it. He knew that few Indians think education good in
itself, and he deplored this now on the widest grounds. He began
to say something heavy on the subject of Native States, but the
friendliness of Aziz distracted him. This reconciliation was a
success, anyhow. After the funny shipwreck there had been no more
nonsense or bitterness, and they went back laughingly to their old
relationship as if nothing had happened. Now they rode between
jolly bushes and rocks. Presently the ground opened into full
sunlight and they saw a grassy slope bright with butterflies, also
a cobra, which crawled across doing nothing in particular, and
disappeared among some custard apple trees. There were round white
clouds in the sky, and white pools on the earth; the hills in the
distance were purple. The scene was as park-like as England, but
did not cease being queer. They drew rein, to give the cobra
elbow-room, and Aziz produced a letter that he wanted to send to
Miss Quested. A charming letter. He wanted to thank his old enemy
for her fine behaviour two years back: perfectly plain was it now
that she had behaved well. “As I fell into our largest Mau tank
under circumstances our other friends will relate, I thought how
brave Miss Quested was, and decided to tell her so, despite my
imperfect English. Through you I am happy here with my children
instead of in a prison, of that I make no doubt. My children shall
be taught to speak of you with the greatest affection and respect.”
“Miss Quested will be greatly pleased. I am glad you have seen her
courage at last.”
“I want to do kind actions all round and wipe out the wretched
business of the Marabar for ever. I have been so disgracefully
hasty, thinking you meant to get hold of my money: as bad a mistake
as the cave itself.”
“Aziz, I wish you would talk to my wife. She too believes that the
Marabar is wiped out.”
“How so?”
“I don’t know, perhaps she might tell you, she won’t tell me. She
has ideas I don’t share—indeed, when I’m away from her I think them
ridiculous. When I’m with her, I suppose because I’m fond of her,
I feel different, I feel half dead and half blind. My wife’s after
something. You and I and Miss Quested are, roughly speaking, not
after anything. We jog on as decently as we can, you a little in
front—a laudable little party. But my wife is not with us.”
“What are you meaning? Is Stella not faithful to you, Cyril? This
fills me with great concern.”
Fielding hesitated. He was not quite happy about his marriage. He
was passionate physically again—the final flare-up before the
clinkers of middle age—and he knew that his wife did not love him
as much as he loved her, and he was ashamed of pestering her. But
during the visit to Mau the situation had improved. There seemed
a link between them at last—that link outside either participant
that is necessary to every relationship. In the language of
theology, their union had been blessed. He could assure Aziz that
Stella was not only faithful to him, but likely to become more so;
and trying to express what was not clear to himself, he added dully
that different people had different points of view. “If you won’t
talk about the Marabar to Stella, why won’t you talk to Ralph? He
is a wise boy really. And (same metaphor) he rides a little behind
her, though with her.”
“Tell him also, I have nothing to say to him, but he is indeed a
wise boy and has always one Indian friend. I partly love him
because he brought me back to you to say good-bye. For this is
good-bye, Cyril, though to think about it will spoil our ride and
make us sad.”
“No, we won’t think about it.” He too felt that this was their last
free intercourse. All the stupid misunderstandings had been cleared
up, but socially they had no meeting-place. He had thrown in his
lot with Anglo-India by marrying a countrywoman, and he was
acquiring some of its limitations, and already felt surprise at
his own past heroism. Would he to-day defy all his own people for
the sake of a stray Indian? Aziz was a memento, a trophy, they were
proud of each other, yet they must inevitably part. And, anxious
to make what he could of this last afternoon, he forced himself to
speak intimately about his wife, the person most dear to him. He
said: “From her point of view, Mau has been a success. It calmed
her—both of them suffer from restlessness. She found something
soothing, some solution of her queer troubles here.” After a
silence—myriads of kisses around them as the earth drew the water
in—he continued: “Do you know anything about this Krishna business?”
“My dear chap, officially they call it Gokul Ashtami. All the State
offices are closed, but how else should it concern you and me?”
“Gokul is the village where Krishna was born—well, more or less
born, for there’s the same hovering between it and another village
as between Bethlehem and Nazareth. What I want to discover is its
spiritual side, if it has one.”
“It is useless discussing Hindus with me. Living with them teaches
me no more. When I think I annoy them, I do not. When I think I
don’t annoy them, I do. Perhaps they will sack me for tumbling on
to their dolls’-house; on the other hand, perhaps they will double
my salary. Time will prove. Why so curious about them?”
“It’s difficult to explain. I never really understood or liked
them, except an occasional scrap of Godbole. Does the old fellow
still say ‘Come, come?’”
“Oh, presumably.”
Fielding sighed, opened his lips, shut them, then said with a