A Passage to India - E. M. Forster [40]
“Our old gentleman is helpful and sound, as he always is over public affairs. You’ve seen in him our show Indian.”
“Have I really?”
“I’m afraid so. Incredible, aren’t they, even the best of them? They’re all—they all forget their back collar studs sooner or later. You’ve had to do with three sets of Indians to-day, the Bhattacharyas, Aziz, and this chap, and it really isn’t a coincidence that they’ve all let you down.”
“I like Aziz, Aziz is my real friend,” Mrs. Moore interposed.
“When the animal runs into us the Nawab loses his head, deserts his unfortunate chauffeur, intrudes upon Miss Derek … no great crimes, no great crimes, but no white man would have done it.”
“What animal?”
“Oh, we had a small accident on the Marabar Road. Adela thinks it was a hyena.”
“An accident?” she cried.
“Nothing; no one hurt. Our excellent host awoke much rattled from his dreams, appeared to think it was our fault, and chanted exactly, exactly.”
Mrs. Moore shivered, “A ghost!” But the idea of a ghost scarcely passed her lips. The young people did not take it up, being occupied with their own outlooks, and deprived of support it perished, or was reabsorbed into the part of the mind that seldom speaks.
“Yes, nothing criminal,” Ronny summed up, “but there’s the native, and there’s one of the reasons why we don’t admit him to our clubs, and how a decent girl like Miss Derek can take service under natives puzzles me… . But I must get on with my work. Krishna!”
Krishna was the peon who should have brought the files from his office. He had not turned up, and a terrific row ensued. Ronny stormed, shouted, howled, and only the experienced observer could tell that he was not angry, did not much want the files, and only made a row because it was the custom. Servants, quite understanding, ran slowly in circles, carrying hurricane lamps. Krishna the earth, Krishna the stars replied, until the Englishman was appeased by their echoes, fined the absent peon eight annas, and sat down to his arrears in the next room.
“Will you play Patience with your future mother-in-law, dear Adela, or does it seem too tame?”
“I should like to—I don’t feel a bit excited—I’m just glad it’s settled up at last, but I’m not conscious of vast changes. We are all three the same people still.”
“That’s much the best feeling to have.” She dealt out the first row of “demon.”
“I suppose so,” said the girl thoughtfully.
“I feared at Mr. Fielding’s that it might be settled the other way … black knave on a red queen… .” They chatted gently about the game.
Presently Adela said: “You heard me tell Aziz and Godbole I wasn’t stopping in their country. I didn’t mean it, so why did I say it? I feel I haven’t been—frank enough, attentive enough, or something. It’s as if I got everything out of proportion. You have been so very good to me, and I meant to be good when I sailed, but somehow I haven’t been… . Mrs. Moore, if one isn’t absolutely honest, what is the use of existing?”
She continued to lay out her cards. The words were obscure, but she understood the uneasiness that produced them. She had experienced it twice herself, during her own engagements—this vague contrition and doubt. All had come right enough afterwards and doubtless would this time—marriage makes most things right enough. “I wouldn’t worry,” she said. “It’s partly the odd surroundings; you and I keep on attending to trifles instead of what’s important; we are what the people here call ‘new.’”
“You mean that my bothers are mixed up with India?”
“India’s———” She stopped.
“What made you call it a ghost?”
“Call what a ghost?”
“The animal thing that hit us. Didn’t you say ‘Oh, a ghost,’ in passing.”
“I couldn’t have been thinking of what I was saying.”
“It was probably a hyena, as a matter of fact.”
“Ah, very likely.”
And they went on with their Patience. Down in Chandrapore the Nawab Bahadur waited for his car. He sat behind his town house (a small unfurnished building which he rarely entered) in the midst of the little