The Siege of Krishnapur - J. G. Farrell [48]
The Collector talked on and on but Miriam, soothed by the heat and the poppy fumes, cradled by the worn leather upholstery of the landau, found that her eyelids kept creeping down in spite of herself. Even when the Collector began to shout, as he presently did, about the progress of mankind, about the ventilation of populous quarters of cities, about the conquest of ignorance and prejudice by the glistening sabre of man’s intelligence, she could not manage to keep her eyes properly open.
And so, as the landau creaked away into the distance, dust pouring back from the chimneys of its wheels, the Collector’s shouts rang emptily over the Indian plain which stretched for hundreds of miles in every direction, and Miriam fell at last into a deep sleep.
In the meantime, although Fleury had not yet noticed it, Hari’s good humour had deserted him. He continued to point things out to Fleury...some embroidered rugs and parasols, and a collection of sea-shells, but he did so carelessly, as if it were of no importance to him whether or not Fleury found them of interest.
“You know also how to make daguerrotype, I suppose.”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Not? Ah? But I thought all advance people...” Hari raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“Hari,” said Fleury presently, and from his tone it was hard to tell whether he was breathless with excitement or was simply having trouble keeping up with his host, who was now bounding along a dim inner corridor at the greatest speed. “I say, I hope you don’t mind me calling you Hari, but I feel that we understand each other so well...”
The speed and gloom which attended their progress prevented Fleury from seeing Hari’s frostily raised eyebrow.
“Would you mind if we went a little slower? It’s fearfully hot.” But Hari appeared not to hear this request.
“Do we understand each other? Sit here, please.”
They had entered a whitewashed room giving on to the courtyard Fleury had seen earlier from above. No sooner had he stepped over the threshold than he was seized by a fit of coughing, for the air in here was laden with mercury vapour and a variety of other fumes no less toxic, emanating from crystals and solutions of chlorine, bromine, iodine, and potassium cyanide. On a table there was a mercury bath, a metal container in the shape of an inverted pyramid with a spirit lamp already burning beneath it. A camera box had been placed on an ornate metal stand, pointing at a chair by the window. Still coughing, Fleury was steered towards the chair and made to sit down; it had a rod at the back surmounted by an iron crescent for keeping the sitter’s head still. Fleury’s head was forced firmly back into it and some adjustments were made behind him, tightening two thin metal clamps which nestled in his hair above each ear.
“Of course we do, Hari,” said Fleury warmly, though rather stiffly because of the immobility of his head. “I can see you feel the same about all those not very useful things you have just been showing me as I feel about the sort of junk the Collector has in the Residency. What you and I object to is the emptiness of the life behind all these objects, their materialism in other words. Objects are useless by themselves. How pathetic they are compared with noble feelings! What a poor and limited world they