A Passage to India. Edward Morgan Forster
you really want to meet the Aryan Brother, Miss Quested? That can be easily fixed up. I didn’t realize he’d amuse you.” He thought a moment. “You can practically see any type you like. Take your choice. I know the Government people and the landowners, Heaslop here can get hold of the barrister crew, while if you want to specialize on education, we can come down on Fielding.”
“I’m tired of seeing picturesque figures pass before me as a frieze,” the girl explained. “It was wonderful when we landed, but that superficial glamour soon goes.”
Her impressions were of no interest to the Collector; he was only concerned to give her a good time. Would she like a Bridge Party? He explained to her what that was—not the game, but a party to bridge the gulf between East and West; the expression was his own invention, and amused all who heard it.
“I only want those Indians whom you come across socially—as your friends.”
“Well, we don’t come across them socially,” he said, laughing. “They’re full of all the virtues, but we don’t, and it’s now eleven-thirty, and too late to go into the reasons.”
“Miss Quested, what a name!” remarked Mrs. Turton to her husband as they drove away. She had not taken to the new young lady, thinking her ungracious and cranky. She trusted that she hadn’t been brought out to marry nice little Heaslop, though it looked like it. Her husband agreed with her in his heart, but he never spoke against an Englishwoman if he could avoid doing so, and he only said that Miss Quested naturally made mistakes. He added: “India does wonders for the judgment, especially during the hot weather; it has even done wonders for Fielding.” Mrs. Turton closed her eyes at this name and remarked that Mr. Fielding wasn’t pukka, and had better marry Miss Quested, for she wasn’t pukka. Then they reached their bungalow, low and enormous, the oldest and most uncomfortable bungalow in the civil station, with a sunk soup plate of a lawn, and they had one drink more, this time of barley water, and went to bed. Their withdrawal from the club had broken up the evening, which, like all gatherings, had an official tinge. A community that bows the knee to a Viceroy and believes that the divinity that hedges a king can be transplanted, must feel some reverence for any viceregal substitute. At Chandrapore the Turtons were little gods; soon they would retire to some suburban villa, and die exiled from glory.
“It’s decent of the Burra Sahib,” chattered Ronny, much gratified at the civility that had been shown to his guests. “Do you know he’s never given a Bridge Party before? Coming on top of the dinner too! I wish I could have arranged something myself, but when you know the natives better you’ll realize it’s easier for the Burra Sahib than for me. They know him—they know he can’t be fooled—I’m still fresh comparatively. No one can even begin to think of knowing this country until he has been in it twenty years. —Hullo, the mater! Here’s your cloak. —Well: for an example of the mistakes one makes. Soon after I came out I asked one of the Pleaders to have a smoke with me—only a cigarette, mind. I found afterwards that he had sent touts all over the bazaar to announce the fact—told all the litigants, ‘Oh, you’d better come to my Vakil5 Mahmoud Ali—he’s in with the City Magistrate.’ Ever since then I’ve dropped on him in Court as hard as I could. It’s taught me a lesson, and I hope him.”
“Isn’t the lesson that you should invite all the Pleaders to have a smoke with you?”
“Perhaps, but time’s limited and the flesh weak. I prefer my smoke at the club amongst my own sort, I’m afraid.”
“Why not ask the Pleaders to the club?” Miss Quested persisted.
“Not allowed.” He was pleasant and patient, and evidently understood why she did not understand. He implied that he had once been as she, though not for long. Going to the verandah, he called firmly to the moon. His sais6 answered, and without lowering his head, he ordered his trap to be brought round.
Mrs. Moore, whom the club had stupefied, woke up outside. She watched the moon, whose radiance stained with primrose the purple of the surrounding sky. In England, the moon had seemed dead and alien; here she was caught in the shawl of night together with earth and all the other stars. A sudden sense of unity, of kinship with the heavenly bodies, passed into the old woman and out, like water through a tank, leaving a strange freshness behind. She did not dislike Cousin Kate or the National Anthem, but their note had died into a new one, just as cocktails and cigars had died into invisible flowers. When the mosque, long and domeless, gleamed at the turn of the road, she exclaimed, “Oh, yes—that’s where I got to—that’s where I’ve been.”
“Been there when?” asked her son.
“Between the acts.”
“But, mother, you can’t do that sort of thing.”
“Can’t mother?” she replied.
“No, really not in this country. It’s not done. There’s the danger from snakes for one thing. They are apt to lie out in the evening.”
“Ah yes, so the young man there said.”
“This sounds very romantic,” said Miss Quested, who was exceedingly fond of Mrs. Moore, and was glad she should have had this little escapade. “You meet a young man in a mosque, and then never let me know!”
“I was going to tell you, Adela, but something changed the conversation and I forgot. My memory grows deplorable.”
“Was he nice?”
She paused, then said emphatically: “Very nice.”
“Who was he?” Ronny enquired.
“A doctor. I don’t know his name.”
“A doctor? I know of no young doctor in Chandrapore. How odd! What was he like?”
“Rather small, with a little moustache and quick eyes. He called out to me when I was in the dark part of the mosque—about my shoes. That was how we began talking. He was afraid I had them on, but I remembered luckily. He told me about his children, and then we walked back to the club. He knows you well.”
“I wish you had pointed him out to me. I can’t make out who he is.”
“He didn’t come into the club. He said he wasn’t allowed to.”
Thereupon the truth struck him, and he cried, “Oh, good gracious! Not a Mohammedan? Why ever didn’t you tell me you’d been talking to a native? I was going all wrong.”
“A Mohammedan! How perfectly magnificent!” exclaimed Miss Quested. “Ronny, isn’t that like your mother? While we talk about seeing the real India, she goes and sees it, and then forgets she’s seen it.”
But Ronny was ruffled. From his mother’s description, he had thought the doctor might be young Muggins from over the Ganges, and had brought out all the comradely emotions. What a mix-up! Why hadn’t she indicated by the tone of her voice that she was talking about an Indian? Scratchy and dictatorial, he began to question her. “He called to you in the mosque, did he? How? Impudently? What was he doing there himself at that time of night? —No, it’s not their prayer time.”—This in answer to a suggestion of Miss Quested’s, who showed the keenest interest. “So he called to you over your shoes. Then it was impudence. It’s an old trick. I wish you had had them on.”
“I think it was impudence, but I don’t know about a trick,” said Mrs. Moore. “His nerves were all on edge—I could tell from his voice. As soon as I answered he altered.”
“You oughtn’t to have answered.”
“Now look here,” said the logical girl, “wouldn’t you expect a Mohammedan to answer if you asked him to take off his hat in church?”
“It’s different, it’s different; you don’t understand.”
“I know I don’t, and I want to. What is the difference, please?”
He wished she wouldn’t interfere. His mother did not signify—she was just a globe-trotter, a temporary escort,