A Passage to India: Chapters 12–21

A mirror inlaid with lovely colours divides the lovers, delicate stars of pink and grey interpose, exquisite nebulæ, shadings fainter than the tail of a comet or the midday moon, all the evanescent life of the granite, only here visible.

He thought his facile remark had been forgotten.

It was not a long expedition—a train left Chandrapore just before dawn, another would bring them back for tiffin—but he was only a little official still, and feared to acquit himself dishonourably.

He had to ask Major Callendar for half a day’s leave, and be refused because of his recent malingering; despair; renewed approach of Major Callendar through Fielding, and contemptuous snarling permission.

The servants were huddled on the platform, enjoined not to stray.

In a hotel or among smart people he was excellent, but as soon as they consorted with anyone whom he thought second-rate he left them to their disgrace.

She was particularly vexed now because she was both in India and engaged to be married, which double event should have made every instant sublime.

“Oh yes, that’s true,” said Miss Quested, disconcerted.

“Pomper, pomper, pomper,” was the sound that the wheels made as they trundled over the bridge, moving very slowly.

She calls “Come” through her hundred mouths, through objects ridiculous and august.

Behind it, recumbent, were the hills that contained the other caves, isolated each from his neighbour by broad channels of the plain.

The sun rose without splendour. He was presently observed trailing yellowish behind the trees, or against insipid sky, and touching the bodies already at work in the fields.

Films of heat, radiated from the Kawa Dol precipices, increased the confusion.

Occupied by his own munificence, Aziz noticed nothing. His guests noticed a little.

It was natural enough: she had always suffered from faintness, and the cave had become too full, because all their retinue followed them.

There were real difficulties here—Ronny’s limitations and her own—but she enjoyed facing difficulties, and decided that if she could control her peevishness (always her weak point), and neither rail against Anglo-India nor succumb to it, their married life ought to be happy and profitable.

But they could not get a good view of it, because the precipitous bastion curved at the top, so that the base was not easily seen and the car disappeared as it came nearer.

He wanted someone to share the blame, and frowned at Mrs. Moore rather magisterially.

I—I—can’t see the end of this day’s work, Mr. Fielding. You, who are imbued with modern ideas—no doubt you can.

He imparted all he knew without reservations.

I am going through the contents. They are not edifying.

He too loved Aziz, and knew he was calumniated; but faith did not rule his heart, and he prated of “policy” and “evidence” in a way that saddened the Englishman.

He too loved Aziz, and knew he was calumniated; but faith did not rule his heart, and he prated of “policy” and “evidence” in a way that saddened the Englishman.

Aziz had tried to run away from the police, Mohammed Latif had not checked the pilfering.

And now Hamidullah!—instead of raging and denouncing, he temporized.

Fear is everywhere; the British Raj rests on it; the respect and courtesy Fielding himself enjoyed were unconscious acts of propitiation.

He told Hamidullah to cheer up, all would end well; and Hamidullah did cheer up, and became pugnacious and sensible.

Fielding demurred; this seemed to him going to the other extreme.

There was a lugubrious pause.

“Don’t complicate, let the cards play themselves,” entreated Fielding, as he watched the man disappear into dust.

At present there is only vernacular education at Mau.

Although Miss Quested had not made herself popular with the English, she brought out all that was fine in their character. For a few hours an exalted emotion gushed forth, which the women felt even more keenly than the men, if not for so long.

These regrets only lasted in their pure form for a few hours. Before sunset, other considerations adulterated them, and the sense of guilt (so strangely connected with our first sight of any suffering) had begun to wear away.

The rest were silent during the august colloquy.

Its first signs were prosaic and small. Mrs. Turton made her loud, hard jokes at bridge, Mrs. Lesley began to knit a comforter.

He wanted to avenge Miss Quested and punish Fielding, while remaining scrupulously fair.

One soldier was in the room this evening—a stray subaltern from a Gurkha regiment; he was a little drunk, and regarded his presence as providential.

Not only would the Nawab Bahadur and others be angry, but the Government of India itself also watches—and behind it is that caucus of cranks and cravens, the British Parliament.

Miss Quested was only a victim, but young Heaslop was a martyr; he was the recipient of all the evil intended against them by the country they had tried to serve; he was bearing the sahib’s cross. And they fretted because they could do nothing for him in return; they felt so craven sitting on softness and attending the course of the law.

Fielding forgot his anger on poor old Godbole’s behalf, and became thoughtful; the evil was propagating in every direction, it seemed to have an existence of its own, apart from anything that was done or said by individuals, and he understood better why both Aziz and Hamidullah had been inclined to lie down and die.