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Ch 19 - A Passage to India · A Passage to India

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  Chapter nineteen. Hamidullah was the next stage. He was waiting outside the superintendent's
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  office and sprang up respectfully when he saw Fielding to the englishman's passionate it's all
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  a mistake, he answered, Ah, ah, has some evidence come?
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  It will come, said Fielding, holding his hand. Ah. Yes,
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  mister Fielding, but when once an Indian has been arrested, we do not
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  know where it will stop. His manner was deferential. You are very good
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  to greet me in this public fashion. I appreciate it. But mister Fielding,
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  nothing convinces a magistrate accept evidence. Did mister McBride make any remark when
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  my card came in? Do you think my application annoyed him, will prejudice
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  him against my friend at all? If so, I will gladly retire.
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  He's not annoyed, and if he was, what does it matter. Ah.
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  It's all very well for you to speak like that, but we have
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  to live in this country. The leading barrister of Chandrapur, with the dignified
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  manner and Cambridge degree, had been rattled. He too loved uzzies and knew
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  he was calumniated, but faith did not rule his heart, and he prated
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  of policy and evidence in a way that saddened the Englishman. Fielding too had
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  his anxieties. He didn't like the field glasses or the discrepancy over the guide,
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  but he relegated them to the edge of his mind and forbade them to
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  infect its core. Aziz was innocent and all action must be based on that,
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  and the people who said he was guilty were wrong, and it was
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  hopeless to try to propitiate them. At the moment when he was throwing in
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  his lot with the Indians, he realized the profundity of the gulf that divided
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  him from them. They always do something disappointing. Aziz had tried to run
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  away from the police, Mohammed Latif had not checked the pilfering, and now
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  Hamidullah, instead of raging and denouncing, he temporized, are Indians cowards?
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  No, but they are bad starters and occasionally jib fear is everywhere the British
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  Raj rests on it. The respect and courtesy Fielding himself and enjoyed were unconscious
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  acts of propitiation. He told Hamidula to cheer up, all would end well,
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  and Hamidula did cheer up and become pugnacious and sensible. Mister mc bride's
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  remark, if you leave the line, you leave a gap in the line
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  was being illustrated first and foremost to the question of bail application must be made
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  this afternoon. Fielding wanted to stand surety Hamidula thought the Nawah Bahadur should be
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  approached. Why drag him in? Though to drag in every one was precisely
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  the barrister's aim. He then suggested that the lawyer in charge of the case
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  would be a Hindu. The defense would then make a wider appeal. He
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  mentioned one or two names, men from a distance who would not be intimidated
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  by local conditions, and said he should prefer Amra Trau, a Calcutta barrister
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  who had a high reputation professionally and personally, but who was notoriously anti British.
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  Fielding dim herd. This seemed to him going to the other extreme,
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  as these must be cleared but with a minimum of racial hatred. Amri Trau
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  was loathed at the club. His retention would be regarded as a political challenge.
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  Oh no, we must hit with all our strength. When I saw
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  my friend's private paper first carried in just now, in the arms of a
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  dirty policeman, I said to myself, ritrou is the man to clear up
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  this. There was a lugubrious pause. The temple bell continued to jangle harshly.
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  The interminable and disastrous day had scarcely reached its afternoon. Continuing their work,
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  the wheels of dominion now propelled a messenger on a horse from the superintendent
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  to the magistrate with an official report of arrest. Don't complicate, let the
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  cards play themselves, and treated Fielding as he watched the man disappear into dust.
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  We're bound to win. There's nothing else we can do. She will
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  never be able to substantiate the charge. This comfort Hamidullah, who remarked with
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  complete sincerity at a crisis, the English are really unequaled. Good Bye,
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  then, my dear Hamidullah. We must drop the mister. Now, give
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  Aziz my love when you see him, and tell him to keep calm,
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  calm, calm. I shall go back to the college now if you want
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  me, ring me up. If you don't, don't, or I shall
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  be very busy. Goodbye, my dear Fielding. And you actually are on
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  our side against your own people. Yes, definitely, he regretted. Taking
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  sides to slink through India unlabeled was his aim. Henceforward he would be called
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  anti British seditious terms that bored him and diminished his utail. He foresaw that
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  besides being a tragedy, there would be a muddle. Already he saw several
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  tiresome little knots, and each time his eye returned to them, they were
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  larger. Born in freedom. He was not afraid of muddle, but he
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  recognized its existence. This section of the day concluded in a queer vague talk
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  with Professor Goodbully. The interminable affair of the Russell's viper was again in question.
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  Some weeks before, one of the masters at the college, an unpopular
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  Parsi, had found a Russell's viper nosing round his classroom. Perhaps it had
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  crawled in of itself, but perhaps it had knots, and the staff still
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  continued to interview their principle about it, and to take up his time with
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  their theories. The reptile is so poisonous that he did not like to cut
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  them short, and this they knew. Thus, when his mind was bursting
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  with other troubles, and he was debating whether he should compose a letter of
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  appeal to misquested. He was obliged to listen to a speech which lacked both
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  basis and conclusion, and floated through air. At the end of it,
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  God Bullet said, may I now take my leave, always an indication that
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  he had not come to his point yet. Now I take my leave.
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  I must tell you how glad I am to hear that, after all,
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  you succeeded in reaching the Morabar. I feared my unpunctuality had prevented you,
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  but you went a far pleasanter method in Miss Deryck's car. I hope the
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  expedition was a successful one. The news has not reached you yet I can
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  see. Oh yes, no, there has been a terrible catastrophe about Aziz.
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  Oh yes, that is all round the college. Well, the expedition
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  where that occurs can scarcely be called a successful one, said Fielding, with
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  an amazed stare. I cannot say I was not present, he stared again,
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  A most useless operation, for no I could see what lay at the
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  bottom of the Brahmin's mind. And yet he had a mind and a heart
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  too, and all his friends trusted him, without knowing why I'm most frightfully
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  cut up, he said, so I saw at once on entering your office.
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  I must not detain you. But I have a small private difficulty on
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  which I want your help. I am leaving your service shortly, as you
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  know, yes, Alas, and am returning to my birthplace in central India
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  to take charge of education there. I want to start a high school there
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  on sound English lines that shall be as like government college as possible. Well,
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  he sighed, trying to take an interest. At present, there is
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  only vernacular education at Mao. I shall feel it my duty to change all
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  that. I shall advise His Highness to sanction at least a high school in
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  the capitol, and if possible, another in each pargana. Fielding sunk his
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  head on his arms. Really, Indians were sometimes unbearable. The point,
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  the point on which I desire your help, is this, what name should
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  be given to the school? A name? A name for a school,
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  he said, feeling sickish suddenly, as he had done in the waiting room.
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  Yes, a name, A suitable title by which it can be called,
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  by which it may generally be known. Really, I have no names
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  for schools in my head. I can think of nothing but our poor Aziz.
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  Have you grasped that, at the present moment he is in prison?
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  Oh? Yes, Oh no. I do not expect an answer to my
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  question now. I only meant that when you are at leisure, you might
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  think the matter over and suggest two or three alternative titles for schools. I
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  had thought of the Fielding High School. But failing that, the King,
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  Emperor George the fifth god Bully, the old fellow put his hands together and
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  looked sly and charming. Is as he's innocent or guilty. That is for
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  the court to decide. The verdict will be in strict accordance with the evidence.
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  I make no doubt. Yes, yes, but your personal opinion.
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  Here's a man both like, generally esteemed. He lives here quietly doing his
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  work. Well, what's one to make of it? Would he or would
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  he not do such a thing? Ah? That is rather a different question
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  from your previous one, and also more difficult, I mean difficult in our
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  philosophy. Doctor Aziz is a most worthy young man. I have a great
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  regard for him. But I think you are asking me whether the individual can
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  commit good actions or evil actions, and that is rather difficult for us.
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  He spoke without emotion and in short tripping syllables. I ask you, did
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  he do it or not? Is that plain? I know he didn't,
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  And from that I start I mean to get at the true explanation in a
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  couple of days. My last notion is that it's the guide who went round
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  with them malice on Misquested's part. It couldn't be that, though Hamidullah thinks
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  so. She has certainly had some appalling experience. But you tell me,
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  oh, no, because good and evil are the same. No, not
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  exactly. Please, According to our philosophy, because nothing can be performed in
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  isolation, all perform a good action when one is performed, and when an
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  evil action is performed, all perform it. To illustrate my meaning, let
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  me take the case in point as an example. I am in informed that
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  an evil action was performed in the Morabar Hills and that a highly esteemed English
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  lady is now seriously ill in consequence. My answer to that is this,
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  That action was performed by doctor Azziz. He stopped and sucked in his thin
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  cheeks. It was performed by the guide. He stopped again. It was
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  performed by you. Now he had an error of daring and of coyness.
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  It was performed by me, he looked shyly down the sleeve of his own
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  coat, and by my students. It was even performed by the lady herself.
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  When evil occurs, it expresses the whole of the universe. Similarly when
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  good occurs, and similarly when suffering occurs, and so on and so forth.
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  And everything is anything and nothing something, he muttered in his irritation,
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  for he needed the solid ground. Excuse me, you are now again changing
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  the basis of our discussion. We were discussing good and evil. Suffering is
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  merely a matter for the individual. If a young lady has a sunstroke,
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  that is a matter of no significance to the universe. Oh no, not
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  at all. Oh no, not the least. It is an isolated matter.
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  It only concerns herself. If she thought her head did not ache,
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  she would not be ill, and that would end it. But it is
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  far otherwise. In the case of good and evil, they are not what
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  we think them. They are what they are, and each of us has
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  contributed to both. You're preaching that evil and good are the same. Oh
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  no, excuse me. Once again, Good and evil are different, as
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  their names imply, But in my own humble opinion, they are both of
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  them aspects of my Lord. He is present in the one, absent in
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  the other. And the difference between presence and absence is great, as great
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  as my feeble mind can grasp. Yet absence implies presence. Absence is not
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  non existence, and we are therefore entitled to repeat, come, Come,
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  Come, Come, and in the same breath, as if to cancel any
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  beauty his words might have contained, he added, but did you have time
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  to visit any of the interesting Morabar antiquities. Fielding was silent, trying to
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  meditate and rest his brain. Did you not even see the tank by the
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  usual camping ground? He nagged, Yes, yes, he answered, distractedly,
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  wandering over half a dozen things at once. That is good. Then
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  you saw the tank of the dagger. And he related a legend which might
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  have been acceptable if he had told it at the tea party a fortnight ago.
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  It concerned a Hindu raja who had slain his own sister's son, and
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  the dagger with which he performed the deed remained clamped to his hand until in
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  the course of years he came to the Marabar hills where he was thirsty and
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  wanted to drink, but saw a thirsty cow and ordered the water to be
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  offered to her first, which when done dagger fell from his hand, and
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  to commemorate miracle, he built tank. Professor Gourbillay's conversations frequently culminated in a
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  cow fielding received this one in gloomy silence. In the afternoon, he obtained
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  a permit and saw Aziz, but found him unapproachable through misery. You deserted
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  me, was the only coherent remark. He went away to write his letter
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  to misquested. Even if it reaches her, it would do no good,
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  and probably the mc bride's would withhold it. Misquested did pull him up short.
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  She was such a dry, sensible girl, and quite without malice.
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  The last person in Chandrapur wrongfully to accuse an Indian end of Chapter nineteen