The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [389]
But one day, in the late seventies, he and Fleury happened to come face to face in Pall Mall and, after a moment, succeeded in recognizing each other. Fleury, too, had grown stout and perhaps rather opinionated; he and Louise had a number of children whom Fleury was inclined to hector with his views, showing extreme displeasure if they disagreed with him. The two men fell into step together; the old gentleman’s pace, however, was a little too slow for Fleury who kept having to master an impulse to stride on firmly, as was his custom. Conversation was more difficult than one might have expected. They exchanged some fragments of personal news. Fleury told the Collector that his brother-in-law, General Dunstaple, who had married Miss Hughes that was, still lived in India and was currently, according to their most recent mail, shooting tigers in Nepal. His own sister, Miriam, the Collector probably did not know, had subsequently married Dr McNab and they, too, had remained in India.
“Ah yes, McNab,” said the Collector thoughtfully. “He was the best of us all. The only one who knew what he was doing.” He smiled, thinking of the invisible cholera cloud, and after a moment he added: “I was fond of your sister. I don’t suppose I shall see her again.”
Half anxious to be on his way, for he had an appointment with a young lady of passionate disposition, Fleury asked the Collector about his collection of sculpture and paintings. The Collector said that he had sold them long ago.
“Culture is a sham,” he said simply. “It’s a cosmetic painted on life by rich people to conceal its ugliness.”
Fleury was taken aback by this remark. He himself had a large collection of artistic objects of which he was very proud.
“There, Mr Hopkins, I cannot agree with you,” he declared loudly. “No, culture gives us an idea of a higher life to which we aspire. And ideas, too, are a part of culture...No one can say that ideas are a sham. Our progress depends on them...Think of their power. Ideas make us what we are. Our society is based on ideas...”
“Oh, ideas...” said the Collector dismissively.
But now Fleury really had to go. The old fellow walked so slowly and he himself was late already. And so Fleury raised his hat, shook hands, and hurried away. He was glad to have met the Collector again, but he had the uncomfortable feeling of many things left unsaid. Well, never mind...nobody has time to settle everything.
The years go by and the Collector undoubtedly felt, as many of us feel, that one uses up so many options, so much energy, simply in trying to find out what life is all about. And as for being able to do anything about it, well...It is hard to tell what he was thinking during this last conversation with Fleury when he said: “Oh, ideas...” After all, McNab had been right, had he not? The invisible cholera cloud had moved on. Perhaps he was thinking again of those two men and two bullocks drawing water from the well every day of their lives. Perhaps, by the very end of his life, in 1880, he had come to believe that a people, a nation, does not create itself according to its own best ideas, but is shaped by other forces, of which it has little knowledge.
Afterword
The reality of the Indian Mutiny constantly defies imagination. Those familiar with the history of the time will recognize countless details in this novel of actual events taken from the mass of diaries, letters and memoirs written by eyewitnesses, in some cases with the words of the witness only slightly modified; certain of my characters also had their beginnings in this material. Among the writers whom I have cannibalized in this way are Maria Germon and the Rev. H. S. Polehampton of Lucknow, F. C. Scherer, and the admirable Mark Thornhill who was the Collector at Muttra at the time of the Mutiny.