CHAPTER XXXII

Egypt was charming—a green strip of carpet and walking up and down

it four sorts of animals and one sort of man. Fielding’s business

took him there for a few days. He re-embarked at Alexandria—bright

blue sky, constant wind, clean low coast-line, as against the

intricacies of Bombay. Crete welcomed him next with the long snowy

ridge of its mountains, and then came Venice. As he landed on the

piazzetta a cup of beauty was lifted to his lips, and he drank with

a sense of disloyalty. The buildings of Venice, like the mountains

of Crete and the fields of Egypt, stood in the right place, whereas

in poor India everything was placed wrong. He had forgotten the

beauty of form among idol temples and lumpy hills; indeed, without

form, how can there be beauty? Form stammered here and there in a

mosque, became rigid through nervousness even, but oh these Italian

churches! San Giorgio standing on the island which could scarcely

have risen from the waves without it, the Salute holding the

entrance of a canal which, but for it, would not be the Grand

Canal! In the old undergraduate days he had wrapped himself up in

the many-coloured blanket of St. Mark’s, but something more precious

than mosaics and marbles was offered to him now: the harmony

between the works of man and the earth that upholds them, the

civilization that has escaped muddle, the spirit in a reasonable

form, with flesh and blood subsisting. Writing picture post-cards

to his Indian friends, he felt that all of them would miss the joys

he experienced now, the joys of form, and that this constituted a

serious barrier. They would see the sumptuousness of Venice, not

its shape, and though Venice was not Europe, it was part of the

Mediterranean harmony. The Mediterranean is the human norm. When

men leave that exquisite lake, whether through the Bosphorus or

the Pillars of Hercules, they approach the monstrous and

extraordinary; and the southern exit leads to the strangest

experience of all. Turning his back on it yet again, he took the

train northward, and tender romantic fancies that he thought were

dead for ever, flowered when he saw the buttercups and daisies of

June.

PART III: TEMPLE

CHAPTER XXXIII

Some hundreds of miles westward of the Marabar Hills, and two years

later in time, Professor Narayan Godbole stands in the presence of

God. God is not born yet—that will occur at midnight—but He has

also been born centuries ago, nor can He ever be born, because He

is the Lord of the Universe, who transcends human processes. He

is, was not, is not, was. He and Professor Godbole stood at opposite

ends of the same strip of carpet.

“Tukaram, Tukaram,

Thou art my father and mother and everybody.

Tukaram, Tukaram,

Thou art my father and mother and everybody.

Tukaram, Tukaram,

Thou art my father and mother and everybody.

Tukaram, Tukaram,

Thou art my father and mother and everybody.

Tukaram. . . .”

This corridor in the palace at Mau opened through other corridors

into a courtyard. It was of beautiful hard white stucco, but its

pillars and vaulting could scarcely be seen behind coloured rags,

iridescent balls, chandeliers of opaque pink glass, and murky

photographs framed crookedly. At the end was the small but famous

shrine of the dynastic cult, and the God to be born was largely a

silver image the size of a teaspoon. Hindus sat on either side of

the carpet where they could find room, or overflowed into the

adjoining corridors and the courtyard—Hindus, Hindus only,

mild-featured men, mostly villagers, for whom anything outside

their villages passed in a dream. They were the toiling ryot, whom

some call the real India. Mixed with them sat a few tradesmen out

of the little town, officials, courtiers, scions of the ruling

house. Schoolboys kept inefficient order. The assembly was in a

tender, happy state unknown to an English crowd, it seethed like

a beneficent potion. When the villagers broke cordon for a glimpse

of the silver image, a most beautiful and radiant expression came

into their faces, a beauty in which there was nothing personal,

for it caused them all to resemble one another during the moment

of its indwelling, and only when it was withdrawn did they revert

to individual clods. And so with the music. Music there was, but

from so many sources that the sum-total was untrammelled. The

braying banging crooning melted into a single mass which trailed

round the palace before joining the thunder. Rain fell at intervals

throughout the night.

It was the turn of Professor Godbole’s choir. As Minister of

Education, he gained this special honour. When the previous group

of singers dispersed into the crowd, he pressed forward from the

back, already in full voice, that the chain of sacred sounds might

be uninterrupted. He was barefoot and in white, he wore a pale blue

turban; his gold pince-nez had caught in a jasmine garland, and

lay sideways down his nose. He and the six colleagues who supported

him clashed their cymbals, hit small drums, droned upon a portable

harmonium, and sang:

“Tukaram, Tukaram,

Thou art my father and mother and everybody.

Tukaram, Tukaram,

Thou art my father and mother and everybody.

Tukaram, Tukaram. . . .”

They sang not even to the God who confronted them, but to a saint;

they did not one thing which the non-Hindu would feel dramatically

correct; this approaching triumph of India was a muddle (as we call

it), a frustration of reason and form. Where was the God Himself,

in whose honour the congregation had gathered? Indistinguishable

in the jumble of His own altar, huddled out of sight amid images

of inferior descent, smothered under rose-leaves, overhung by

oleographs, outblazed by golden tablets representing the Rajah’s

ancestors, and entirely obscured, when the wind blew, by the

tattered foliage of a banana. Hundreds of electric lights had been

lit in His honour (worked by an engine whose thumps destroyed the

rhythm of the hymn). Yet His face could not be seen. Hundreds of

His silver dishes were piled around Him with the minimum of effect.

The inscriptions which the poets of the State had composed were

hung where they could not be read, or had twitched their drawing-pins

out of the stucco, and one of them (composed in English to indicate

His universality) consisted, by an unfortunate slip of the

draughtsman, of the words, “God si Love.”

God si Love. Is this the first message of India?

“Tukaram, Tukaram . . .,”

continued the choir, reinforced by a squabble behind the purdah

curtain, where two mothers tried to push their children at the same

moment to the front. A little girl’s leg shot out like an eel. In

the courtyard, drenched by the rain, the small Europeanized band

stumbled off into a waltz. “Nights of Gladness” they were playing.

The singers were not perturbed by this rival, they lived beyond

competition. It was long before the tiny fragment of Professor

Godbole that attended to outside things decided that his pince-nez

was in trouble, and that until it was adjusted he could not choose

a new hymn. He laid down one cymbal, with the other he clashed the

air, with his free hand he fumbled at the flowers round his neck.

A colleague assisted him. Singing into one another’s grey

moustaches, they disentangled the chain from the tinsel into which

it had sunk. Godbole consulted the music-book, said a word to the

drummer, who broke rhythm, made a thick little blur of sound, and

produced a new rhythm. This was more exciting, the inner images it

evoked more definite, and the singers’ expressions became fatuous

and languid. They loved all men, the whole universe, and scraps of

their past, tiny splinters of detail, emerged for a moment to melt

into the universal warmth. Thus Godbole, though she was not

important to him, remembered an old woman he had met in Chandrapore

days. Chance brought her into his mind while it was in this heated

state, he did not select her, she happened to occur among the

throng of soliciting images, a tiny splinter, and he impelled her

by his spiritual force to that place where completeness can be

found. Completeness, not reconstruction. His senses grew thinner,

he remembered a wasp seen he forgot where, perhaps on a stone. He

loved the wasp equally, he impelled it likewise, he was imitating

God. And the stone where the wasp clung—could he . . . no, he could

not, he had been wrong to attempt the stone, logic and conscious

effort had seduced, he came back to the strip of red carpet and

discovered that he was dancing upon it. Up and down, a third of

the way to the altar and back again, clashing his cymbals, his

little legs twinkling, his companions dancing with him and each

other. Noise, noise, the Europeanized band louder, incense on the

altar, sweat, the blaze of lights, wind in the bananas, noise,

thunder, eleven-fifty by his wrist-watch, seen as he threw up his

hands and detached the tiny reverberation that was his soul. Louder

shouts in the crowd. He danced on. The boys and men who were

squatting in the aisles were lifted forcibly and dropped without

changing their shapes into the laps of their neighbours. Down the

path thus cleared advanced a litter. It was the aged ruler of the

state, brought against the advice of his physicians to witness the

Birth ceremony.

No one greeted the Rajah, nor did he wish it; this was no moment

for human glory. Nor could the litter be set down, lest it defiled

the temple by becoming a throne. He was lifted out of it while its

feet remained in air, and deposited on the carpet close to the

altar, his immense beard was straightened, his legs tucked under

him, a paper containing red powder was placed in his hand. There

he sat, leaning against a pillar, exhausted with illness, his eyes

magnified by many unshed tears.

He had not to wait long. In a land where all else was unpunctual,

the hour of the Birth was chronometrically observed. Three minutes

before it was due, a Brahman brought forth a model of the village

of Gokul (the Bethlehem in that nebulous story) and placed it in

front of the altar. The model was on a wooden tray about a yard

square; it was of clay, and was gaily blue and white with streamers

and paint. Here, upon a chair too small for him and with a head

too large, sat King Kansa, who is Herod, directing the murder of

some Innocents, and in a corner, similarly proportioned, stood the

father and mother of the Lord, warned to depart in a dream. The

model was not holy, but more than a decoration, for it diverted

men from the actual image of the God, and increased their sacred

bewilderment. Some of the villagers thought the Birth had occurred,

saying with truth that the Lord must have been born, or they could

not see Him. But the clock struck midnight, and simultaneously the

rending note of the conch broke forth, followed by the trumpeting

of elephants; all who had packets of powder threw them at the

altar, and in the rosy dust and incense, and clanging and shouts,

Infinite Love took upon itself the form of Shri Krishna, and saved

the world. All sorrow was annihilated, not only for Indians, but

for foreigners, birds, caves, railways, and the stars; all became

joy, all laughter; there had never been disease nor doubt,

misunderstanding, cruelty, fear. Some jumped in the air, others

flung themselves prone and embraced the bare feet of the universal

lover; the women behind the purdah slapped and shrieked; the little

girl slipped out and danced by herself, her black pigtails flying.

Not an orgy of the body; the tradition of that shrine forbade it.

But the human spirit had tried by a desperate contortion to ravish

the unknown, flinging down science and history in the struggle,

yes, beauty herself. Did it succeed? Books written afterwards say

“Yes.” But how, if there is such an event, can it be remembered

afterwards? How can it be expressed in anything but itself? Not

only from the unbeliever are mysteries hid, but the adept himself

cannot retain them. He may think, if he chooses, that he has been

with God, but as soon as he thinks it, it becomes history, and

falls under the rules of time.

A cobra of papier-mâché now appeared on the carpet, also a wooden

cradle swinging from a frame. Professor Godbole approached the

latter with a red silk napkin in his arms. The napkin was God, not

that it was, and the image remained in the blur of the altar. It

was just a napkin, folded into a shape which indicated a baby’s.

The Professor dandled it and gave it to the Rajah, who, making a

great effort, said, “I name this child Shri Krishna,” and tumbled

it into the cradle. Tears poured from his eyes, because he had seen

the Lord’s salvation. He was too weak to exhibit the silk baby to

his people, his privilege in former years. His attendants lifted

him up, a new path was cleared through the crowd, and he was

carried away to a less sacred part of the palace. There, in a room

accessible to Western science by an outer staircase, his physician,

Dr. Aziz, awaited him. His Hindu physician, who had accompanied

him to the shrine, briefly reported his symptoms. As the ecstasy

receded, the invalid grew fretful. The bumping of the steam engine

that worked the dynamo disturbed him, and he asked for what reason

it had been introduced into his home. They replied that they would

enquire, and administered a sedative.

Down in the sacred corridors, joy had seethed to jollity. It was

their duty to play various games to amuse the newly born God, and

to simulate his sports with the wanton dairymaids of Brindaban.

Butter played a prominent part in these. When the cradle had been

removed, the principal nobles of the state gathered together for

an innocent frolic. They removed their turbans, and one put a lump

of butter on his forehead, and waited for it to slide down his nose

into his mouth. Before it could arrive, another stole up behind

him, snatched the melting morsel, and swallowed it himself. All

laughed exultantly at discovering that the divine sense of humour

coincided with their own. “God si love!” There is fun in heaven.

God can play practical jokes upon Himself, draw chairs away from

beneath His own posteriors, set His own turbans on fire, and steal

His own petticoats when He bathes. By sacrificing good taste, this

worship achieved what Christianity has shirked: the inclusion of

merriment. All spirit as well as all matter must participate in

salvation, and if practical jokes are banned, the circle is

incomplete. Having swallowed the butter, they played another game

which chanced to be graceful: the fondling of Shri Krishna under

the similitude of a child. A pretty red and gold ball is thrown,

and he who catches it chooses a child from the crowd, raises it in

his arms, and carries it round to be caressed. All stroke the

darling creature for the Creator’s sake, and murmur happy words.

The child is restored to his parents, the ball thrown on, and

another child becomes for a moment the World’s Desire. And the Lord

bounds hither and thither through the aisles, chance, and the sport

of chance, irradiating little mortals with His immortality. . . .

When they had played this long enough—and being exempt from boredom,

they played it again and again, they played it again and again—they

took many sticks and hit them together, whack smack, as though they

fought the Pandava wars, and threshed and churned with them, and

later on they hung from the roof of the temple, in a net, a great

black earthenware jar, which was painted here and there with red,

and wreathed with dried figs. Now came a rousing sport. Springing

up, they struck at the jar with their sticks. It cracked, broke,

and a mass of greasy rice and milk poured on to their faces. They

ate and smeared one another’s mouths, and dived between each

other’s legs for what had been pashed upon the carpet. This way

and that spread the divine mess, until the line of schoolboys, who

had somewhat fended off the crowd, broke for their share. The

corridors, the courtyard, were filled with benign confusion. Also

the flies awoke and claimed their share of God’s bounty. There was

no quarrelling, owing to the nature of the gift, for blessed is

the man who confers it on another, he imitates God. And those

“imitations,” those “substitutions,” continued to flicker through

the assembly for many hours, awaking in each man, according to his

capacity, an emotion that he would not have had otherwise. No

definite image survived; at the Birth it was questionable whether

a silver doll or a mud village, or a silk napkin, or an intangible

spirit, or a pious resolution, had been born. Perhaps all these

things! Perhaps none! Perhaps all birth is an allegory! Still, it

was the main event of the religious year. It caused strange

thoughts. Covered with grease and dust, Professor Godbole had once

more developed the life of his spirit. He had, with increasing

vividness, again seen Mrs. Moore, and round her faintly clinging

forms of trouble. He was a Brahman, she Christian, but it made no

difference, it made no difference whether she was a trick of his

memory or a telepathic appeal. It was his duty, as it was his

desire, to place himself in the position of the God and to love

her, and to place himself in her position and to say to the God,

“Come, come, come, come.” This was all he could do. How inadequate!

But each according to his own capacities, and he knew that his own

were small. “One old Englishwoman and one little, little wasp,” he

thought, as he stepped out of the temple into the grey of a pouring

wet morning. “It does not seem much, still it is more than I am

myself.”

CHAPTER XXXIV

Dr. Aziz left the palace at the same time. As he returned to his

house—which stood in a pleasant garden further up the main street

of the town—he could see his old patron paddling and capering in

the slush ahead. “Hullo!” he called, and it was the wrong remark,

for the devotee indicated by circular gestures of his arms that he

did not desire to be disturbed. He added, “Sorry,” which was right,

for Godbole twisted his head till it didn’t belong to his body,

and said in a strained voice that had no connection with his mind:

“He arrived at the European Guest House perhaps—at least possibly.”

“Did he? Since when?”

But time was too definite. He waved his arm more dimly and

disappeared. Aziz knew who “he” was—Fielding—but he refused to

think about him, because it disturbed his life, and he still

trusted the floods to prevent him from arriving. A fine little

river issued from his garden gate and gave him much hope. It was

impossible that anyone could get across from Deora in such weather

as this. Fielding’s visit was official. He had been transferred

from Chandrapore, and sent on a tour through Central India to see

what the remoter states were doing with regard to English education.

He had married, he had done the expected with Miss Quested, and

Aziz had no wish to see him again.

“Dear old Godbole,” he thought, and smiled. He had no religious

curiosity, and had never discovered the meaning of this annual

antic, but he was well assured that Godbole was a dear old man. He

had come to Mau through him and remained on his account. Without

him he could never have grasped problems so totally different from

those of Chandrapore. For here the cleavage was between Brahman

and non-Brahman; Moslems and English were quite out of the running,

and sometimes not mentioned for days. Since Godbole was a Brahman,

Aziz was one also for purposes of intrigue: they would often joke

about it together. The fissures in the Indian soil are infinite:

Hinduism, so solid from a distance, is riven into sects and clans,

which radiate and join, and change their names according to the

aspect from which they are approached. Study it for years with the

best teachers, and when you raise your head, nothing they have told

you quite fits. Aziz, the day of his inauguration, had remarked:

“I study nothing, I respect”—making an excellent impression. There

was now a minimum of prejudice against him. Nominally under a Hindu

doctor, he was really chief medicine man to the court. He had to

drop inoculation and such Western whims, but even at Chandrapore

his profession had been a game, centring round the operating table,

and here in the backwoods he let his instruments rust, ran his

little hospital at half steam, and caused no undue alarm.

His impulse to escape from the English was sound. They had

frightened him permanently, and there are only two reactions

against fright: to kick and scream on committees, or to retreat to

a remote jungle, where the sahib seldom comes. His old lawyer

friends wanted him to stop in British India and help agitate, and

might have prevailed, but for the treachery of Fielding. The news

had not surprised him in the least. A rift had opened between them

after the trial when Cyril had not joined in his procession; those

advocacies of the girl had increased it; then came the post-cards

from Venice, so cold, so unfriendly that all agreed that something

was wrong; and finally, after a silence, the expected letter from

Hampstead. Mahmoud Ali was with him at the time. “Some news that

will surprise you. I am to marry someone whom you know. . .” He

did not read further. “Here it comes, answer for me——” and he threw

it to Mahmoud Ali. Subsequent letters he destroyed unopened. It

was the end of a foolish experiment. And though sometimes at the

back of his mind he felt that Fielding had made sacrifices for him,

it was now all confused with his genuine hatred of the English. “I

am an Indian at last,” he thought, standing motionless in the rain.

Life passed pleasantly, the climate was healthy so that the children

could be with him all the year round, and he had married again—not

exactly a marriage, but he liked to regard it as one—and he read

his Persian, wrote his poetry, had his horse, and sometimes got

some shikar while the good Hindus looked the other way. His poems

were all on one topic—Oriental womanhood. “The purdah must go,”

was their burden, “otherwise we shall never be free.” And he

declared (fantastically) that India would not have been conquered

if women as well as men had fought at Plassy. “But we do not show

our women to the foreigner”—not explaining how this was to be

managed, for he was writing a poem. Bulbuls and roses would still

persist, the pathos of defeated Islam remained in his blood and

could not be expelled by modernities. Illogical poems—like their

writer. Yet they struck a true note: there cannot be a mother-land

without new homes. In one poem—the only one funny old Godbole

liked—he had skipped over the mother-land (whom he did not truly

love) and gone straight to internationality. “Ah, that is bhakti;

ah, my young friend, that is different and very good. Ah, India,

who seems not to move, will go straight there while the other

nations waste their time. May I translate this particular one into

Hindi? In fact, it might be rendered into Sanskrit almost, it is

so enlightened. Yes, of course, all your other poems are very good

too. His Highness was saying to Colonel Maggs last time he came

that we are proud of you”—simpering slightly.

Colonel Maggs was the Political Agent for the neighbourhood and

Aziz’ dejected opponent. The Criminal Investigation Department kept

an eye on Aziz ever since the trial—they had nothing actionable

against him, but Indians who have been unfortunate must be watched,

and to the end of his life he remained under observation, thanks

to Miss Quested’s mistake. Colonel Maggs learnt with concern that

a suspect was coming to Mau, and, adopting a playful manner,

rallied the old Rajah for permitting a Moslem doctor to approach

his sacred person. A few years ago, the Rajah would have taken the

hint, for the Political Agent then had been a formidable figure,

descending with all the thunders of Empire when it was most

inconvenient, turning the polity inside out, requiring motor-cars

and tiger-hunts, trees cut down that impeded the view from the

Guest House, cows milked in his presence, and generally arrogating

the control of internal affairs. But there had been a change of

policy in high quarters. Local thunders were no longer endorsed,

and the group of little states that composed the agency discovered

this and began comparing notes with fruitful result. To see how

much, or how little, Colonel Maggs would stand, became an agreeable

game at Mau, which was played by all the departments of State. He

had to stand the appointment of Dr. Aziz. The Rajah did not take

the hint, but replied that Hindus were less exclusive than formerly,

thanks to the enlightened commands of the Viceroy, and he felt it

his duty to move with the times.

Yes, all had gone well hitherto, but now, when the rest of the

state was plunged in its festival, he had a crisis of a very

different sort. A note awaited him at his house. There was no doubt

that Fielding had arrived overnight, nor much doubt that Godbole

knew of his arrival, for the note was addressed to him, and he had

read it before sending it on to Aziz, and had written in the

margin, “Is not this delightful news, but unfortunately my religious

duties prevent me from taking any action.” Fielding announced that

he had inspected Mudkul (Miss Derek’s former preserve), that he

had nearly been drowned at Deora, that he had reached Mau according

to time-table, and hoped to remain there two days, studying the

various educational innovations of his old friend. Nor had he come

alone. His wife and her brother accompanied him. And then the note

turned into the sort of note that always did arrive from the State

Guest House. Wanting something. No eggs. Mosquito nets torn. When

would they pay their respects to His Highness? Was it correct that

a torchlight procession would take place? If so, might they view

it? They didn’t want to give trouble, but if they might stand in

a balcony, or if they might go out in a boat. . . . Aziz tore the

note up. He had had enough of showing Miss Quested native life.

Treacherous hideous harridan! Bad people altogether. He hoped to

avoid them, though this might be difficult, for they would certainly

be held up for several days at Mau. Down country, the floods were

even worse, and the pale grey faces of lakes had appeared in the

direction of the Asirgarh railway station.

CHAPTER XXXV

Long before he discovered Mau, another young Mohammedan had retired

there—a saint. His mother said to him, “Free prisoners.” So he took

a sword and went up to the fort. He unlocked a door, and the

prisoners streamed out and resumed their previous occupations, but

the police were too much annoyed and cut off the young man’s head.

Ignoring its absence, he made his way over the rocks that separate

the fort and the town, killing policemen as he went, and he fell

outside his mother’s house, having accomplished her orders.

Consequently there are two shrines to him to-day—that of the Head

above, and that of the Body below—and they are worshipped by the

few Mohammedans who live near, and by Hindus also. “There is no

God but God”; that symmetrical injunction melts in the mild airs

of Mau; it belongs to pilgrimages and universities, not to feudalism

and agriculture. When Aziz arrived, and found that even Islam was

idolatrous, he grew scornful, and longed to purify the place, like

Alamgir. But soon he didn’t mind, like Akbar. After all, this saint

had freed prisoners, and he himself had lain in prison. The Shrine

of the Body lay in his own garden and produced a weekly crop of

lamps and flowers, and when he saw them he recalled his sufferings.

The Shrine of the Head made a nice short walk for the children. He

was off duty the morning after the great pujah, and he told them

to come. Jemila held his hand. Ahmed and Karim ran in front,

arguing what the body looked like as it came staggering down, and

whether they would have been frightened if they met it. He didn’t

want them to grow up superstitious, so he rebuked them, and they

answered yes father, for they were well brought up, but, like

himself, they were impervious to argument, and after a polite pause

they continued saying what their natures compelled them to say.

A slim, tall eight-sided building stood at the top of the slope,

among some bushes. This was the Shrine of the Head. It had not been

roofed, and was indeed merely a screen. Inside it crouched a humble

dome, and inside that, visible through a grille, was a truncated

gravestone, swathed in calico. The inner angles of the screen were

cumbered with bees’ nests, and a gentle shower of broken wings and

other aerial oddments kept falling, and had strewn the damp pavement

with their flue. Ahmed, apprized by Mohammed Latif of the character

of the bee, said, “They will not hurt us, whose lives are chaste,”

and pushed boldly in; his sister was more cautious. From the shrine

they went to a mosque, which, in size and design, resembled a

fire-screen; the arcades of Chandrapore had shrunk to a flat piece

of ornamental stucco, with protuberances at either end to suggest

minarets. The funny little thing didn’t even stand straight, for

the rock on which it had been put was slipping down the hill. It,

and the shrine, were a strange outcome of the protests of Arabia.

They wandered over the old fort, now deserted, and admired the

various views. The scenery, according to their standards, was

delightful—the sky grey and black, bellyfuls of rain all over it,

the earth pocked with pools of water and slimy with mud. A

magnificent monsoon—the best for three years, the tanks already

full, bumper crops possible. Out towards the river (the route by

which the Fieldings had escaped from Deora) the downpour had been

enormous, the mails had to be pulled across by ropes. They could

just see the break in the forest trees where the gorge came through,

and the rocks above that marked the site of the diamond mine,

glistening with wet. Close beneath was the suburban residence of

the Junior Rani, isolated by floods, and Her Highness, lax about

purdah, to be seen paddling with her handmaidens in the garden and

waving her sari at the monkeys on the roof. But better not look

close beneath, perhaps—nor towards the European Guest House either.

Beyond the Guest House rose another grey-green gloom of hills,

covered with temples like little white flames. There were over two

hundred gods in that direction alone, who visited each other

constantly, and owned numerous cows, and all the betel-leaf

industry, besides having shares in the Asirgarh motor omnibus. Many

of them were in the palace at this moment, having the time of their

lives; others, too large or proud to travel, had sent symbols to

represent them. The air was thick with religion and rain.

Their white shirts fluttering, Ahmed and Karim ran about over the

fort, shrieking with joy. Presently they intersected a line of

prisoners, who were looking aimlessly at an old bronze gun. “Which

of you is to be pardoned?” they asked. For to-night was the

procession of the Chief God, when He would leave the palace,

escorted by the whole power of the State, and pass by the Jail,

which stood down in the town now. As He did so, troubling the

waters of our civilization, one prisoner would be released, and

then He would proceed to the great Mau tank that stretched as far

as the Guest House garden, where something else would happen, some

final or subsidiary apotheosis, after which He would submit to the

experience of sleep. The Aziz family did not grasp as much as this,

being Moslem, but the visit to the Jail was common knowledge.

Smiling, with downcast eyes, the prisoners discussed with the

gentry their chances of salvation. Except for the irons on their

legs, they resembled other men, nor did they feel different. Five

of them, who had not yet been brought to trial, could expect no

pardon, but all who had been convicted were full of hope. They did

not distinguish between the God and the Rajah in their minds, both

were too far above them; but the guard was better educated, and

ventured to enquire after His Highness’s health.

“It always improves,” replied the medicine man. As a matter of

fact, the Rajah was dead, the ceremony overnight had overtaxed his

strength. His death was being concealed lest the glory of the

festival were dimmed. The Hindu physician, the Private Secretary,

and a confidential servant remained with the corpse, while Aziz

had assumed the duty of being seen in public, and misleading

people. He had liked the ruler very much, and might not prosper

under his successor, yet he could not worry over such problems yet,

for he was involved in the illusion he helped to create. The

children continued to run about, hunting for a frog to put in

Mohammed Latif’s bed, the little fools. Hundreds of frogs lived in

their own garden, but they must needs catch one up on the fort.

They reported two topis below. Fielding and his brother-in-law,

instead of resting after their journey, were climbing the slope to

the saint’s tomb!

“Throw stones?” asked Karim.

“Put powdered glass in their pan?”

“Ahmed, come here for such wickedness.” He raised his hand to smite

his firstborn, but allowed it to be kissed instead. It was sweet

to have his sons with him at this moment, and to know they were

affectionate and brave. He pointed out that the Englishmen were

State guests, so must not be poisoned, and received, as always,

gentle yet enthusiastic assent to his words.

The two visitors entered the octagon, but rushed out at once

pursued by some bees. Hither and thither they ran, beating their

heads; the children shrieked with derision, and out of heaven, as

if a plug had been pulled, fell a jolly dollop of rain. Aziz had

not meant to greet his former friend, but the incident put him into

an excellent temper. He felt compact and strong. He shouted out,

“Hullo, gentlemen, are you in trouble?”

The brother-in-law exclaimed; a bee had got him.

“Lie down in a pool of water, my dear sir—here are plenty. Don’t

come near me. . . . I cannot control them, they are State bees;

complain to His Highness of their behaviour.” There was no real

danger, for the rain was increasing. The swarm retired to the

shrine. He went up to the stranger and pulled a couple of stings

out of his wrist, remarking, “Come, pull yourself together and be

a man.”

“How do you do, Aziz, after all this time? I heard you were settled

in here,” Fielding called to him, but not in friendly tones. “I

suppose a couple of stings don’t signify.”

“Not the least. I’ll send an embrocation over to the Guest House.

I heard you were settled in there.”

“Why have you not answered my letters?” he asked, going straight

for the point, but not reaching it, owing to buckets of rain. His

companion, new to the country, cried, as the drops drummed on his

topi, that the bees were renewing their attack. Fielding checked

his antics rather sharply, then said: “Is there a short cut down

to our carriage? We must give up our walk. The weather’s

pestilential.”

“Yes. That way.”

“Are you not coming down yourself?”

Aziz sketched a comic salaam; like all Indians, he was skilful in

the slighter impertinences. “I tremble, I obey,” the gesture said,

and it was not lost upon Fielding. They walked down a rough path

to the road—the two men first; the brother-in-law (boy rather than

man) next, in a state over his arm, which hurt; the three Indian

children last, noisy and impudent—all six wet through.

“How goes it, Aziz?”

“In my usual health.”

“Are you making anything out of your life here?”

“How much do you make out of yours?”

“Who is in charge of the Guest House?” he asked, giving up his

slight effort to recapture their intimacy, and growing more

official; he was older and sterner.

“His Highness’s Private Secretary, probably.”

“Where is he, then?”

“I don’t know.”

“Because not a soul’s been near us since we arrived.”

“Really.”

“I wrote beforehand to the Durbar, and asked if a visit was

convenient. I was told it was, and arranged my tour accordingly;

but the Guest House servants appear to have no definite instructions,

we can’t get any eggs, also my wife wants to go out in the boat.”

“There are two boats.”

“Exactly, and no oars.”

“Colonel Maggs broke the oars when here last.”

“All four?”

“He is a most powerful man.”

“If the weather lifts, we want to see your torchlight procession

from the water this evening,” he pursued. “I wrote to Godbole about

it, but he has taken no notice; it’s a place of the dead.”

“Perhaps your letter never reached the Minister in question.”

“Will there be any objection to English people watching the

procession?”

“I know nothing at all about the religion here. I should never

think of watching it myself.”

“We had a very different reception both at Mudkul and Deora, they

were kindness itself at Deora, the Maharajah and Maharani wanted

us to see everything.”

“You should never have left them.”

“Jump in, Ralph”—they had reached the carriage.

“Jump in, Mr. Quested, and Mr. Fielding.”

“Who on earth is Mr. Quested?”

“Do I mispronounce that well known name? Is he not your wife’s

brother?”

“Who on earth do you suppose I’ve married?”

“I’m only Ralph Moore,” said the boy, blushing, and at that moment

there fell another pailful of the rain, and made a mist round their

feet. Aziz tried to withdraw, but it was too late.

“Quested? Quested? Don’t you know that my wife was Mrs. Moore’s

daughter?”

He trembled, and went purplish grey; he hated the news, hated

hearing the name Moore.

“Perhaps this explains your odd attitude?”

“And pray what is wrong with my attitude?”

“The preposterous letter you allowed Mahmoud Ali to write for you.”

“This is a very useless conversation, I consider.”

“However did you make such a mistake?” said Fielding, more friendly

than before, but scathing and scornful. “It’s almost unbelievable.

I should think I wrote you half a dozen times, mentioning my wife

by name. Miss Quested! What an extraordinary notion!” From his

smile, Aziz guessed that Stella was beautiful. “Miss Quested is

our best friend, she introduced us, but . . . what an amazing

notion. Aziz, we must thrash this misunderstanding out later on.

It is clearly some devilry of Mahmoud Ali’s. He knows perfectly

well I married Miss Moore. He called her ‘Heaslop’s sister’ in his

insolent letter to me.”

The name woke furies in him. “So she is, and here is Heaslop’s

brother, and you his brother-in-law, and good-bye.” Shame turned

into a rage that brought back his self-respect. “What does it

matter to me who you marry? Don’t trouble me here at Mau is all I

ask. I do not want you, I do not want one of you in my private

life, with my dying breath I say it. Yes, yes, I made a foolish

blunder; despise me and feel cold. I thought you married my enemy.

I never read your letter. Mahmoud Ali deceived me. I thought you’d

stolen my money, but”—he clapped his hands together, and his

children gathered round him—“it’s as if you stole it. I forgive

Mahmoud Ali all things, because he loved me.” Then pausing, while

the rain exploded like pistols, he said, “My heart is for my own

people henceforward,” and turned away. Cyril followed him through

the mud, apologizing, laughing a little, wanting to argue and

reconstruct, pointing out with irrefragable logic that he had

married, not Heaslop’s betrothed, but Heaslop’s sister. What

difference did it make at this hour of the day? He had built his

life on a mistake, but he had built it. Speaking in Urdu, that the

children might understand, he said: “Please do not follow us,

whomever you marry. I wish no Englishman or Englishwoman to be my

friend.”

He returned to the house excited and happy. It had been an uneasy,

uncanny moment when Mrs. Moore’s name was mentioned, stirring

memories. “Esmiss Esmoor . . .”—as though she was coming to help

him. She had always been so good, and that youth whom he had

scarcely looked at was her son, Ralph Moore, Stella and Ralph, whom

he had promised to be kind to, and Stella had married Cyril.

CHAPTER XXXVI

All the time the palace ceased not to thrum and tum-tum. The

revelation was over, but its effect lasted, and its effect was to

make men feel that the revelation had not yet come. Hope existed

despite fulfilment, as it will be in heaven. Although the God had

been born, His procession—loosely supposed by many to be the

birth—had not taken place. In normal years, the middle hours of

this day were signalized by performances of great beauty in the

private apartments of the Rajah. He owned a consecrated troupe of

men and boys, whose duty it was to dance various actions and

meditations of his faith before him. Seated at his ease, he could

witness the Three Steps by which the Saviour ascended the universe

to the discomfiture of Indra, also the death of the dragon, the

mountain that turned into an umbrella, and the saddhu who (with

comic results) invoked the God before dining. All culminated in

the dance of the milkmaidens before Krishna, and in the still

greater dance of Krishna before the milkmaidens, when the music

and the musicians swirled through the dark blue robes of the actors

into their tinsel crowns, and all became one. The Rajah and his

guests would then forget that this was a dramatic performance, and

would worship the actors. Nothing of the sort could occur to-day,

because death interrupts. It interrupted less here than in Europe,

its pathos was less poignant, its irony less cruel. There were two

claimants to the throne, unfortunately, who were in the palace now

and suspected what had happened, yet they made no trouble, because

religion is a living force to the Hindus, and can at certain

moments fling down everything that is petty and temporary in their

natures. The festival flowed on, wild and sincere, and all men

loved each other, and avoided by instinct whatever could cause

inconvenience or pain.

Aziz could not understand this, any more than an average Christian

could. He was puzzled that Mau should suddenly be purged from

suspicion and self-seeking. Although he was an outsider, and

excluded from their rites, they were always particularly charming

to him at this time; he and his household received small courtesies

and presents, just because he was outside. He had nothing to do

all day, except to send the embrocation over to the Guest House,

and towards sunset he remembered it, and looked round his house

for a local palliative, for the dispensary was shut. He found a

tin of ointment belonging to Mohammed Latif, who was unwilling it

should be removed, for magic words had been spoken over it while

it was being boiled down, but Aziz promised that he would bring it

back after application to the stings: he wanted an excuse for a

ride.

The procession was beginning to form as he passed the palace. A

large crowd watched the loading of the State palanquin, the prow

of which protruded in the form of a silver dragon’s head through

the lofty half-opened door. Gods, big and little, were getting

aboard. He averted his eyes, for he never knew how much he was

supposed to see, and nearly collided with the Minister of Education.

“Ah, you might make me late”—meaning that the touch of a non-Hindu

would necessitate another bath; the words were spoken without moral

heat. “Sorry,” said Aziz. The other smiled, and again mentioned

the Guest House party, and when he heard that Fielding’s wife was

not Miss Quested after all, remarked “Ah, no, he married the sister

of Mr. Heaslop. Ah, exactly, I have known that for over a year”—also

without heat. “Why did you not tell me? Your silence plunged me

into a pretty pickle.” Godbole, who had never been known to tell

anyone anything, smiled again, and said in deprecating tones:

“Never be angry with me. I am, as far as my limitations permit,

your true friend; besides, it is my holy festival.” Aziz always

felt like a baby in that strange presence, a baby who unexpectedly

receives a toy. He smiled also, and turned his horse into a lane,

for the crush increased. The Sweepers’ Band was arriving. Playing

on sieves and other emblems of their profession, they marched

straight at the gate of the palace with the air of a victorious

army. All other music was silent, for this was ritually the moment

of the Despised and Rejected; the God could not issue from his

temple until the unclean Sweepers played their tune, they were the

spot of filth without which the spirit cannot cohere. For an

instant the scene was magnificent. The doors were thrown open, and

the whole court was seen inside, barefoot and dressed in white

robes; in the fairway stood the Ark of the Lord, covered with cloth

of gold and flanked by peacock fans and by stiff circular banners

of crimson. It was full to the brim with statuettes and flowers.

As it rose from the earth on the shoulders of its bearers, the

friendly sun of the monsoons shone forth and flooded the world with

colour, so that the yellow tigers painted on the palace walls

seemed to spring, and pink and green skeins of cloud to link up

the upper sky. The palanquin moved. . . . The lane was full of

State elephants, who would follow it, their howdahs empty out of

humility. Aziz did not pay attention to these sanctities, for they

had no connection with his own; he felt bored, slightly cynical,

like his own dear Emperor Babur, who came down from the north and

found in Hindustan no good fruit, no fresh water or witty

conversation, not even a friend.

The lane led quickly out of the town on to high rocks and jungle.

Here he drew rein and examined the great Mau tank, which lay

exposed beneath him to its remotest curve. Reflecting the evening

clouds, it filled the nether-world with an equal splendour, so that

earth and sky leant toward one another, about to clash in ecstasy.

He spat, cynical again, more cynical than before. For in the centre

of the burnished circle a small black blot was advancing—the Guest

House boat. Those English had improvised something to take the

place of oars, and were proceeding in their work of patrolling

India. The sight endeared the Hindus by comparison, and looking

back at the milk-white hump of the palace, he hoped that they would

enjoy carrying their idol about, for at all events it did not pry

into other people’s lives. This pose of “seeing India” which had

seduced him to Miss Quested at Chandrapore was only a form of

ruling India; no sympathy lay behind it; he knew exactly what was

going on in the boat as the party gazed at the steps down which

the image would presently descend, and debated how near they might

row without getting into trouble officially.

He did not give up his ride, for there would be servants at the

Guest House whom he could question; a little information never

comes amiss. He took the path by the sombre promontory that

contained the royal tombs. Like the palace, they were of snowy

stucco, and gleamed by their internal light, but their radiance

grew ghostly under approaching night. The promontory was covered

with lofty trees, and the fruit-bats were unhooking from the boughs

and making kissing sounds as they grazed the surface of the tank;

hanging upside down all the day, they had grown thirsty. The signs

of the contented Indian evening multiplied; frogs on all sides,

cow-dung burning eternally; a flock of belated hornbills overhead,

looking like winged skeletons as they flapped across the gloaming.

There was death in the air, but not sadness; a compromise had been

made between destiny and desire, and even the heart of man

acquiesced.

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

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

little laugh, “I can’t explain, because it isn’t in words at all,

but why do my wife and her brother like Hinduism, though they take

no interest in its forms? They won’t talk to me about this. They

know I think a certain side of their lives is a mistake, and are

shy. That’s why I wish you would talk to them, for at all events

you’re Oriental.”

Aziz refused to reply. He didn’t want to meet Stella and Ralph

again, knew they didn’t want to meet him, was incurious about their

secrets, and felt good old Cyril to be a bit clumsy. Something—not

a sight, but a sound—flitted past him, and caused him to re-read

his letter to Miss Quested. Hadn’t he wanted to say something else

to her? Taking out his pen, he added: “For my own part, I shall

henceforth connect you with the name that is very sacred in my

mind, namely, Mrs. Moore.” When he had finished, the mirror of the

scenery was shattered, the meadow disintegrated into butterflies.

A poem about Mecca—the Caaba of Union—the thorn-bushes where

pilgrims die before they have seen the Friend—they flitted next;

he thought of his wife; and then the whole semi-mystic, semi-sensuous

overturn, so characteristic of his spiritual life, came to end like

a landslip and rested in its due place, and he found himself riding

in the jungle with his dear Cyril.

“Oh, shut up,” he said. “Don’t spoil our last hour with foolish

questions. Leave Krishna alone, and talk about something sensible.”

They did. All the way back to Mau they wrangled about politics.

Each had hardened since Chandrapore, and a good knock about proved

enjoyable. They trusted each other, although they were going to

part, perhaps because they were going to part. Fielding had “no

further use for politeness,” he said, meaning that the British

Empire really can’t be abolished because it’s rude. Aziz retorted,

“Very well, and we have no use for you,” and glared at him with

abstract hate. Fielding said: “Away from us, Indians go to seed at

once. Look at the King-Emperor High School! Look at you, forgetting

your medicine and going back to charms. Look at your poems.”—“Jolly

good poems, I’m getting published Bombay side.”—“Yes, and what do

they say? Free our women and India will be free. Try it, my lad.

Free your own lady in the first place, and see who’ll wash Ahmed

Karim and Jamila’s faces. A nice situation!”

Aziz grew more excited. He rose in his stirrups and pulled at his

horse’s head in the hope it would rear. Then he should feel in a

battle. He cried: “Clear out, all you Turtons and Burtons. We

wanted to know you ten years back—now it’s too late. If we see you

and sit on your committees, it’s for political reasons, don’t you

make any mistake.” His horse did rear. “Clear out, clear out, I

say. Why are we put to so much suffering? We used to blame you,

now we blame ourselves, we grow wiser. Until England is in

difficulties we keep silent, but in the next European war—aha, aha!

Then is our time.” He paused, and the scenery, though it smiled,

fell like a gravestone on any human hope. They cantered past a

temple to Hanuman—God so loved the world that he took monkey’s

flesh upon him—and past a Saivite temple, which invited to lust,

but under the semblance of eternity, its obscenities bearing no

relation to those of our flesh and blood. They splashed through

butterflies and frogs; great trees with leaves like plates rose

among the brushwood. The divisions of daily life were returning,

the shrine had almost shut.

“Who do you want instead of the English? The Japanese?” jeered

Fielding, drawing rein.

“No, the Afghans. My own ancestors.”

“Oh, your Hindu friends will like that, won’t they?”

“It will be arranged—a conference of Oriental statesmen.”

“It will indeed be arranged.”

“Old story of ‘We will rob every man and rape every woman from

Peshawar to Calcutta,’ I suppose, which you get some nobody to

repeat and then quote every week in the _Pioneer_ in order to

frighten us into retaining you! We know!” Still he couldn’t quite

fit in Afghans at Mau, and, finding he was in a corner, made his

horse rear again until he remembered that he had, or ought to have,

a mother-land. Then he shouted: “India shall be a nation! No

foreigners of any sort! Hindu and Moslem and Sikh and all shall be

one! Hurrah! Hurrah for India! Hurrah! Hurrah!”

India a nation! What an apotheosis! Last comer to the drab

nineteenth-century sisterhood! Waddling in at this hour of the

world to take her seat! She, whose only peer was the Holy Roman

Empire, she shall rank with Guatemala and Belgium perhaps! Fielding

mocked again. And Aziz in an awful rage danced this way and that,

not knowing what to do, and cried: “Down with the English anyhow.

That’s certain. Clear out, you fellows, double quick, I say. We

may hate one another, but we hate you most. If I don’t make you

go, Ahmed will, Karim will, if it’s fifty five-hundred years we

shall get rid of you, yes, we shall drive every blasted Englishman

into the sea, and then”—he rode against him furiously—“and then,”

he concluded, half kissing him, “you and I shall be friends.”

“Why can’t we be friends now?” said the other, holding him

affectionately. “It’s what I want. It’s what you want.”

But the horses didn’t want it—they swerved apart; the earth didn’t

want it, sending up rocks through which riders must pass single

file; the temples, the tank, the jail, the palace, the birds, the

carrion, the Guest House, that came into view as they issued from

the gap and saw Mau beneath: they didn’t want it, they said in

their hundred voices, “No, not yet,” and the sky said, “No, not

there.”

Weybridge, 1924.

[END]

_Mr. E. M. FORSTERS NOVELS_

WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD

“A remarkable book. Not often has the reviewer to welcome a new

writer and a new novel so directly conveying the impression of

power and an easy mastery of material. Here there are qualities of

style and thought which awaken a sense of satisfaction and delight;

a taste in the selection of words; a keen insight into the humour

(and not merely the humours) of life; and a challenge to its

accepted courses. It is told with a deftness, a lightness, a grace

of touch, and a radiant atmosphere of humour which mark a strength

and capacity giving large promise for the future.”—_Daily News._

“Mr. Forster has succeeded, with a cleverness that is almost

uncanny, in illustrating the tragic possibilities that reside in

insignificant and unimportant characters when they seek to

emancipate themselves from the bondage of convention, or to control

those who are dominated by a wholly different set of

traditions.”—_Spectator._

THE LONGEST JOURNEY

“This novel is a very remarkable and distinguished piece of work.

This new book is one of the most promising we have read from a

young writer, not only for many publishing seasons, but even for

many years. Its abundant cleverness fills even the more strenuous

passages with vivacity. The strength of the book consists in its

implicit indictment of the mean conventional, self-deceitful

insincerity of so much of modern English educated middle-class

life. This is certainly one of the cleverest and most original

books that have appeared from a new writer since George Meredith

first took the literary critics into his confidence.”—_Daily

Telegraph._

“It is interesting and living and amusing.”—_The Times._

A ROOM WITH A VIEW

“Mr. Forster’s new novel is not only much the best of the three he

has written, but it clearly admits him to the limited class of

writers who stand above and apart from the manufacturers of

contemporary fiction.”—_Spectator._

“It is packed with wonderful impressions and radiant

sayings.”—_Evening Standard._

“This is one of the cleverest and most entertaining novels we have

read for some time. The characters are as clear and salient as a

portrait by Sargent, and there are many of them. One is continually

moved to appreciative smiles by clever little touches of description

and enlightenment. The story, too, is interesting and real.”—_Daily

Mail._

“This odd title suggests a story rather out of the common, and it

does not prove in the least misleading. The book is both original

and delightful, presenting scenes of everyday life almost

commonplace sometimes in their fidelity to nature, but chronicled

in such a happy vein of quiet humour and with such penetrating

observation as makes each little incident and dialogue a source of

sheer joy to the reader. The characters are admirably drawn.”—_Pall

Mall Gazette._

“We have originality and observation, and a book as clever as the

other books that Mr. Forster has written already.”—_Times._

“Mr. Forster has earned the right to serious criticism. His work

has revealed individuality, distinction, and a power of suggestion

which opens large issues. ‘A Room with a View’ might stand for a

title of all his work. There is a spirit of high comedy in it. Mr.

Forster can describe with sure touch the queer satisfactions and

still queerer repugnances which make up the strange region of

modern things. Had this element been there alone, the book would

have been merely an excellent satirical judgment of manners and

conventions. Had the other elements stood alone—the revelation of

the hidden life—it would have been mystical, intangible, illusory.

By the fusion of the one with the other, he is able to present work

humorous and arresting, with a curious element in it of compelling

strength and emotion.”—_Nation._

HOWARDS END

“‘Howards End’ is packed full of good things. It stands out head

and shoulders above the great mass of fiction now claiming a

hearing. The autumn season has brought us some good novels, but

this is, so far, the best of them. ‘Howards End’ raises its author

to a place among contemporary novelists which few even of those

whose earlier work shows promise succeed in attaining.”—_Daily

Mail._

“There is no doubt about it whatever. Mr. E. M. Forster is one of

the great novelists. His stories are not about life. They are life.

His plots are absorbing because his characters are real. All will

agree as to the value of the book, as to its absorbing interest,

the art and power with which it is put together, and they will feel

with us that it is a book quite out of the common by a writer who

is one of our assets, and is likely to be one of our glories.”—_Daily

Telegraph._

“Mr. E. M. Forster has now done what critical admirers of his

foregoing novels have confidently looked for—he has written a book

in which his highly original talent has found full and ripe

expression. A very remarkable and original book.”—_The Times._

“The clash of modern culture and modern materialism has seldom

found a more vivid interpreter.”—_Spectator._

“There is life, imagination, and the very flame of action giving

quality to this novel over and above the technique with which it

is built up and the wisdom with which it is informed.”—_Daily

News._

“With this book Mr. Forster seems to us to have arrived, and if he

never writes another line, his niche should be secure.”—_Standard._

“‘Howards End’ is a novel of high talent—the highest.”—_Daily

Graphic._

“This novel, taken with its three predecessors, assures its author

a place amongst the handful of living writers who count.”_—Athenæum._

LONDON : EDWARD ARNOLD & CO.