A Passage to India. Edward Morgan Forster
and their faces pressed into a bank of shrubs. At a little distance stood their male relatives, watching the venture. The sight was significant: an island bared by the turning tide, and bound to grow.
“I consider they ought to come over to me.”
“Come along, Mary, get it over.”
“I refuse to shake hands with any of the men, unless it has to be the Nawab Bahadur.”
“Whom have we so far?” He glanced along the line. “H’m! h’m! much as one expected. We know why he’s here, I think—over that contract, and he wants to get the right side of me for Mohurram7, and he’s the astrologer who wants to dodge the municipal building regulations, and he’s that Parsi, and he’s—Hullo! there he goes—smash into our hollyhocks. Pulled the left rein when he meant the right. All as usual.”
“They ought never to have been allowed to drive in; it’s so bad for them,” said Mrs. Turton, who had at last begun her progress to the summer-house, accompanied by Mrs. Moore, Miss Quested, and a terrier. “Why they come at all I don’t know. They hate it as much as we do. Talk to Mrs. McBryde. Her husband made her give purdah parties until she struck.”
“This isn’t a purdah party,” corrected Miss Quested.
“Oh, really,” was the haughty rejoinder.
“Do kindly tell us who these ladies are,” asked Mrs. Moore.
“You’re superior to them, anyway. Don’t forget that. You’re superior to everyone in India except one or two of the Ranis, and they’re on an equality.”
Advancing, she shook hands with the group and said a few words of welcome in Urdu. She had learnt the lingo, but only to speak to her servants, so she knew none of the politer forms and of the verbs only the imperative mood. As soon as her speech was over, she enquired of her companions, “Is that what you wanted?”
“Please tell these ladies that I wish we could speak their language, but we have only just come to their country.”
“Perhaps we speak yours a little,” one of the ladies said.
“Why, fancy, she understands!” said Mrs. Turton.
“Eastbourne, Piccadilly, High Park Corner,” said another of the ladies.
“Oh yes, they’re English-speaking.”
“But now we can talk: how delightful!” cried Adela, her face lighting up.
“She knows Paris also,” called one of the onlookers.
“They pass Paris on the way, no doubt,” said Mrs. Turton, as if she was describing the movements of migratory birds. Her manner had grown more distant since she had discovered that some of the group was Westernized, and might apply her own standards to her.
“The shorter lady, she is my wife, she is Mrs. Bhattacharya,” the onlooker explained. “The taller lady, she is my sister, she is Mrs. Das.”
The shorter and the taller ladies both adjusted their saris, and smiled. There was a curious uncertainty about their gestures, as if they sought for a new formula which neither East nor West could provide. When Mrs. Bhattacharya’s husband spoke, she turned away from him, but she did not mind seeing the other men. Indeed, all the ladies were uncertain, cowering, recovering, giggling, making tiny gestures of atonement or despair at all that was said, and alternately fondling the terrier or shrinking from him. Miss Quested now had her desired opportunity; friendly Indians were before her, and she tried to make them talk, but she failed, she strove in vain against the echoing walls of their civility. Whatever she said produced a murmur of deprecation, varying into a murmur of concern when she dropped her pocket-handkerchief. She tried doing nothing, to see what that produced, and they too did nothing. Mrs. Moore was equally unsuccessful. Mrs. Turton waited for them with a detached expression; she had known what nonsense it all was from the first.
When they took their leave, Mrs. Moore had an impulse, and said to Mrs. Bhattacharya, whose face she liked, “I wonder whether you would allow us to call on you some day.”
“When?” she replied, inclining charmingly.
“Whenever is convenient.”
“All days are convenient.”
“Thursday …”
“Most certainly.”
“We shall enjoy it greatly, it would be a real pleasure. What about the time?”
“All hours.”
“Tell us which you would prefer. We’re quite strangers to your country; we don’t know when you have visitors,” said Miss Quested.
Mrs. Bhattacharya seemed not to know either. Her gesture implied that she had known, since Thursdays began, that English ladies would come to see her on one of them, and so always stayed in. Everything pleased her, nothing surprised. She added, “We leave for Calcutta to-day.”
“Oh, do you?” said Adela, not at first seeing the implication. Then she cried, “Oh, but if you do we shall find you gone.”
Mrs. Bhattacharya did not dispute it. But her husband called from the distance, “Yes, yes, you come to us Thursday.”
“But you’ll be in Calcutta.”
“No, no, we shall not.” He said something swiftly to his wife in Bengali. “We expect you Thursday.”
“Thursday …” the woman echoed.
“You can’t have done such a dreadful thing as to put off going for our sake?” exclaimed Mrs. Moore.
“No, of course not, we are not such people.” He was laughing.
“I believe that you have. Oh, please—it distresses me beyond words.”
Everyone was laughing now, but with no suggestion that they had blundered. A shapeless discussion occurred, during which Mrs. Turton retired, smiling to herself. The upshot was that they were to come Thursday, but early in the morning, so as to wreck the Bhattacharya plans as little as possible, and Mr. Bhattacharya would send his carriage to fetch them, with servants to point out the way. Did he know where they lived? Yes, of course he knew, he knew everything; and he laughed again. They left among a flutter of compliments and smiles, and three ladies, who had hitherto taken no part in the reception, suddenly shot out of the summer-house like exquisitely coloured swallows, and salaamed them.
Meanwhile the Collector had been going his rounds. He made pleasant remarks and a few jokes, which were applauded lustily, but he knew something to the discredit of nearly every one of his guests, and was consequently perfunctory. When they had not cheated, it was bhang, women, or worse, and even the desirables wanted to get something out of him. He believed that a “Bridge Party” did good rather than harm, or he would not have given one, but he was under no illusions, and at the proper moment he retired to the English side of the lawn. The impressions he left behind him were various. Many of the guests, especially the humbler and less Anglicized, were genuinely grateful. To be addressed by so high an official was a permanent asset. They did not mind how long they stood, or how little happened, and when seven o’clock struck, they had to be turned out. Others were grateful with more intelligence. The Nawab Bahadur, indifferent for himself and for the distinction with which he was greeted, was moved by the mere kindness that must have prompted the invitation. He knew the difficulties. Hamidullah also thought that the Collector had played up well. But others, such as Mahmoud Ali, were cynical; they were firmly convinced that Turton had been made to give the party by his official superiors and was all the time consumed with impotent rage, and they infected some who were inclined to a healthier view. Yet even Mahmoud Ali was glad he had come. Shrines are fascinating, especially when rarely opened, and it amused him to note the ritual of the English club, and to caricature it afterwards to his friends.
After Mr. Turton, the official who did his duty best was Mr. Fielding, the Principal of the little Government College. He knew little of the district and less against the inhabitants, so he