The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [282]
“Oh Louise,” he exclaimed, “that is why it’s so important that we bring to India a civilization of the heart, and not only to India but to the whole world...rather than this sordid materialism. Only then will we have a chance of living together in harmony. Will there even be classes and races on that golden day in the future? No! For we shall all be brothers working not to take advantage of each other but for each other’s good!”
Louise was perhaps looking a little taken aback by the excitement she had suddenly aroused in Fleury. She was certainly looking with curiosity at his vehement, perspiring features. But Fleury with an involuntary groan of ecstasy had whipped a folded paper from the pocket of his Tweedside lounging jacket.
“These are the words of a very dear friend of mine from Oxford, a poet (like myself), who is now working as an inspector of schools...” And Fleury began to declaim in such ringing tones that a couple of native pensioners slumbering in the shade of one of the cannons started up, under the impression that they were being ordered to stand to arms.
“Children of the future, whose day has not yet dawned, you, when that day arrives, will hardly believe what obstructions were long suffered to prevent it coming! You who, with all your faults, have neither the avidity of aristocracies, nor the narrowness of middle classes, you, whose power of simple enthusiasm is your great gift, will not comprehend how progress towards man’s best perfection...the adorning and ennobling of his spirit...should have been reluctantly undertaken; how it should have been for years and years retarded by barren commonplaces, by worn out claptraps. You will know nothing of the doubts, fears, prejudices they had to dispel. But you, in your turn, with difficulties of your own, will then be mounting some new step in the arduous ladder whereby man climbs towards his perfection: towards that unattainable but irresistible lodestar, gazed after with earnest longing, and invoked with bitter tears; the longing of thousands of hearts, the tears of many generations.”
Louise did not speak. Her eyes shone, as if with tears. She looked distressed, but perhaps it was simply the strain of listening to Fleury in such a heat. A pariah dog, half bald with manage, as thin as a greyhound, and with a lame back leg, which had been sniffing Fleury’s shoes and had slunk away whining as he began to declaim, now cautiously came hopping back again to investigate. He aimed a kick at it.
“My brother has spoken to me of this poor girl in the dak bungalow,” said Louise hurriedly after a silence. “I’m afraid Father is rather angry with you for suggesting that I should go to the dak to persuade her to come here. But please don’t think that I’m angry too. I think it right that a woman should go to bring the poor sinful creature back into the Residency...Isn’t it punishment enough that she has been dishonoured? And no doubt it was more the man’s fault than her own. And could it not be that she was more foolish than sinful? But, of course I know nothing of these matters as my dear brother is forever telling me.”
Fleury was deeply touched by these sympathetic words; at the same time he was too overwhelmed by Louise’s loveliness to be able to gaze directly at her face. Meanwhile, the pariah dog, which for some reason found him strangely exciting, had again come stealthily hopping back and was attempting to lean lovingly against his ankles.
Word of mutiny at the prison and Treasury reached the Residency an hour before dusk. Not long after five o’clock, when the streets of Krishnapur were most crowded, a strange clinking sound was heard. People wondered at first where it was coming from; it seemed to be all around them. As it grew louder they realized that among the familiar inhabitants of the town a number of strangers had appeared: they moved