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Ch 5 - A Passage to India · A Passage to India

• 0:00
  Chapter five. The Bridge party was not a success, at least, it
• 0:08
  was not what missus Moore and Misquested were accustomed to consider a successful party.
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  They arrived early, since it was given in their honor, but most of
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  the Indian guests had arrived even earlier and stood massed at the farther side of
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  the tennis. Laan's doing nothing. It is only just five, said Missus
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  Turton. My husband will be up from his office in a moment and start
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  the thing. I have no idea what we have to do. It's the
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  first time we've ever given a party like this at the club. Mister Heaslop.
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  When I'm dead and gone, will you give parties like this? It's
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  enough to make the old type of Bura Sahib turn in his grave. Ronnie
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  laughed deferentially. You wanted something not to picturesque, and we've provided it,
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  he remarked to Misquested, what do you think of the Arian brother in a
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  topi and spats? Neither she nor his mother answered. They were gazing rather
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  sadly over the tennis lawn. No, it was not picturesque. The East,
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  abandoning its secular magnificence, was descending into a valley whose farther side no
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  man can see. A great point to remember is that no one who's here
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  matters. Those who matter don't come. Isn't that so, missus Turton?
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  Absolutely true, said the great lady, leaning back. She was saving herself
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  up, as she called it, not for anything that would happen that afternoon
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  or even that week, but for some vague future occasion when a high official
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  might come along and tax her social strength. Most of her public appearances were
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  marked by this air of reserve. Assured of her approbation, Ronnie continued,
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  the educated Indians will be no good to us if there's a row. It's
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  simply not worth while conciliating them. That's why they don't matter. Most of
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  the people you see are seditious at heart, and the rest would run squealing.
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  The cultivator, he's another story. The Pathan, he's a man if
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  you like. But these people don't imagine their India. He pointed to the
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  dusky line beyond the court. Here and there it flashed a pass nee or
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  shuffled a shoe, as if aware that he was despising it. European costume
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  had lighted like a leprosy. Few had yielded entirely, but none were untouched.
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  There was a silence when he had finished speaking. On both sides of
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  the court. At least more ladies joined the English group, but their words
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  seemed to die as soon as uttered. Some kites hovered overhead, impartial.
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  Over the kites passed the mass of a vulture, and with an impartiality exceeding
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  all, the sky, not deeply colored but translucent, poured light from its
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  whole circumference. It seemed unlikely that the series stopped here. Beyond the sky.
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  Must not there be something that overarches all the skies, more impartial even
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  than they beyond which again they spoke of cousin Kate. They had tried to
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  reproduce their own attitude to life upon the stage, and to dress up as
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  the middle class English people they actually were. Next year they would do Quality
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  Streets or the Yeomen of the Guard. Save for this annual incursion, they
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  left literature alone. The men had no time for it. The women did
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  nothing that they could not share with the men. Their ignorance of the arts
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  was notable, and they lost no opportunity of proclaiming it to one another.
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  It was the public school attitude flourishing more vigorously than it can yet hope to
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  do in England. If Indians were shop the arts were bad form, and
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  Ronnie had repressed his mother when she inquired after his viola. Viola was almost
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  a d merit, and certainly not the sort of instrument one mentioned in public.
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  She noticed now how tolerant and conventional his judgments had become. When they
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  had seen cousin Kate in London together in the past, he had scorned it.
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  Now he pretended that it was a good play. In order to hurt
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  nobody's feelings. An unkind notice had appeared in the local paper, the sort
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  of thing no white man could have written. As missus Leslie said, the
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  play was praised, to be sure, and so were the stage management and
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  the performance as a whole. But the notice contained the following sentence. Miss
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  Deryck, though she charmingly looked her part, lacked the necessary experience and occasionally
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  forgot her words. This tiny breath of genuine criticism had given deep offense,
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  not indeed to Miss Derrick, who was as hard as nails, but to
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  her friends. Miss Derrick did not belong to chandrapor She was stopping for a
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  fortnight with the McBride's the police people, and she had been so good as
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  to fill up a gap in the cast at the last moment, a nice
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  impression of local hospitality. She would carry away with her to work, Mary,
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  to work, cried the collector, touching his wife on the shoulder with
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  a switch. Missus Turton got up awkwardly. What do you want me to
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  do? Oh? Those perda woman. I never thought any would come,
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  Oh dear. A little group of Indian ladies had been gathering in a third
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  quarter of the grounds, near a rustic summer house in which the more timid
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  of them had already taken refuge. The rest stood with their backs to the
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  company and their faces pressed into a bank of shrubs. At a little distance
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  stood their male relatives watching the venture. The sight was significant, an island
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  bared by the turning tide and bound to grow. I consider they ought to
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  have come over to me. Come along, Mary, get it over.
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  I refuse to shake hands with any of the men, unless it has to
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  be the Nahwa Bahadur, whom have we so far? He glanced along the
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  line. Hmmm, much as one expected. We know why he's here.
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  I think over that contract and he wants to get the right side of me
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  for Mohoram. And he's the astrologer who wants to dodge the municipal building regulations.
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  And he's that parsi and he's hallo. There he goes smash into our
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  hollyacks pulled the left rein when he meant the right as usual. They ought
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  never to have been allowed to drive in. It's so bad for them,
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  said Missus Turton, who had at last begun her progress to the summer house,
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  accompanied by Missus Moore misquested and a terrier. Why they come at all?
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  I don't know. They hate it as much as we do. Talk
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  to Missus McBride. Her husband made her give poor Da parties until she struck
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  this isn't a poor Da party, corrected miss quested, Ah really was the
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  haughty rejoinder. To kindly tell us who these ladies are, asked Missus Moore.
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  You're superior to them anyway. Don't forget that you're superior to everyone in
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  India except one or two of the Ranees, and they're on an equality advancing.
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  She shook hands with the group and said a few words of welcome in
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  Urdu. She had learnt the lingo, but only to speak to her servants,
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  so she knew none of the politer form and of the verbs, only
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  the imperative moon. As soon as her speech was over, she inquired of
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  her companions, is that what you wanted? Please tell the ladies that I
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  wish we could speak their language, but we have only just come to their
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  country. Perhaps we speak yours a little. One of the ladies said,
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  my fancy, she understands, said Missus Turton, Eastbourne, Piccadilly, Hyde
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  Park corner, said another of the ladies. Oh yes, we're English speaking,
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  but now we can talk. How delightful, cried Adela, her face
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  lighting up. She knows Paris also called one of the onlookers. They passed
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  Paris on the way, no doubt, said Missus Turton, as if she
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  was describing the movements of migratory birds. Her manner had grown more distant since
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  she had discovered that some of the group was Westernized and might apply her own
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  standards to her. The shorter lady, she is my wife. She is
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  Missus Batacharia, the onlooker, explained. The taller lady, she is my
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  sister. She is Missus Dawes. The shorter and the taller ladies both adjusted
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  their sorries and smiled. There was a curious uncertainty about their gestures, as
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  if they sought for a new formula, which neither East nor West could provide.
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  When missus Batachari's husband spoke, she turned away from him, but she
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  did not mind seeing the other men. Indeed, all the ladies were uncertain,
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  cowering, recovering, giggling, making tiny gestures of atonement or despair at
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  all that was said, and alternately fondling the terrier or shrinking from him.
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  Miss Quest had now had her desired opportunity. Friendly Indians were before her,
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  and she tried to make them talk, but she failed. She strove in
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  vain against the echoing walls of their civility. Whatever she said produced a murmur
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  of deprecation, varying into a murmur of concern when she dropped her pocket handkerchief.
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  She tried doing nothing to see what that produced, and they too did
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  nothing. Missus Moore was equally unsuccessful. Missus Turton waited for them with a
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  detached expression. She had known what nonsense it all was from the first.
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  When they took their leave, Missus Moore had an impulse and said to Missus
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  Bottacharia, whose face she liked, I wonder whether you would allow us to
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  call on you some day? Luhen, she replied, inclining charmingly. Why
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  never is convenient? All days are convenience A Thursday, most certainly, we
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  shall enjoy it greatly. It would be a real pleasure. What's about the
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  time all hours? Tell us what she would prefer. We are quite strangers
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  to your country. We don't know when you have visitors, said miss quested.
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  Missus Buttacharia seemed not to know either. Her gesture implied that she had
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  known since Thursdays began that English ladies would come to see her on one of
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  them, and so always stayed in. Everything pleased her nothing surprised. She
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  added. We leave for Calcutta to day. Oh do you, said Adela,
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  not at first seeing the implication. Then she cried, oh, but
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  if you do, we shall find you gone. Missus Battacharia did not dispute
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  it, but her husband called from the distance. Yes, yes, you
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  come to us Thursday, but you will be in Calcutta. No, no,
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  we shall not, he said something swiftly to his wife in Bengali.
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  We expect you Thursday, Thursday. The woman echoed, You can't have done
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  such a dreadful thing as to put off going for our sake, exclaimed Missus
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  Moore. No, of course not. We are not such people. He
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  was laughing. I believe that you have. Oh please, it distresses me
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  beyond words. Everyone was laughing now, but with no suggestion that they had
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  blundered. A shapeless discussion occurred, during which Missus Turton retired smiling to herself.
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  The upshot was that they were to come Thursday, but early in the
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  morning, so as to wreck the Butacharia plans as little as possible, and
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  mister Buttacharia would send his carriage to fetch them, with servants to point out
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  the way. Did he know where they lived? Yes, of course he
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  knew, He knew everything, and he laughed again. They left among a
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  flutter of compliments and smiles, and three ladies, who had hitherto taken no
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  part in the reception, suddenly shot out of the summer house like exquisitely colored
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  swallows and salaamed them. Meanwhile, the collector had been going his rounds.
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  He made pleasant remarks and a few jokes, which were applauded lustily. But
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  he knew something to the discredit of nearly every one of his guests, and
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  was consequently perfunctory. When they had not cheated, it was mahag women or
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  worse, and even the desirables wanted to get something out of him. He
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  believed that a bridge party did good rather than harm, or he would not
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  have given one. But he was under no illusions, and at the proper
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  moment he retired to the English side of the lawn. The impressions he left
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  behind him were various. Many of the guests, especially the humbler and less
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  Anglicized, were genuinely grateful to be addressed by so high an official was a
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  permanent asset. They did not mind how long they stood or how little happened,
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  and when seven o'clock struck they had to be turned out. Others were
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  grateful with more intelligence. The Nawab Bahadur, indifferent for himself and for the
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  distinction with which he was greeted, was moved by the mere kindness that must
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  have prompted the invitation. He knew the difficulties. Hamidullah also thought that the
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  collector had played up well, but others, such as Mahmoud Ali, were
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  cynical. They were firmly convinced that Turton had been made to give the party
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  by his official superiors, and was all the time consumed with impotent rage,
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  and they infected some who were inclined to a healthier view. Yet even mahmoud
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  Ali was glad he had come. Shrines are fascinating, especially when rarely opened,
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  and it amused him to note the ritual of the English Club and to
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  caricature it afterwards to his friends. After mister Turton, the official who did
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  his duty best was mister Fielding, the principle of the Little Government College.
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  He knew little of the district and less against the inhabitants, so he was
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  in a less cynical state of mind, athletic and cheerful. He romped about,
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  making numerous mistakes, which the parents of his pupils tried to cover up
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  or he was popular among them. When the moment for refreshments came, he
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  did not move back to the English side, but burnt his mouth with groum.
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  He talked to anyone, and he ate anything amid much that was alien.
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  He learned that the two new ladies from England had been a great success,
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  and that their politeness in wishing to be Missus Battacharia's guests had pleased not
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  only her, but all Indians who heard of it. It pleased mister Fielding
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  also. He scarcely knew the two ladies. Still, he decided to tell
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  them what pleasure they had given by their friendliness. He found the younger of
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  them alone. She was looking through a nick in the cactus hedge at the
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  distant Marabar Hills, which had crept near, as was their custom at sunset.
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  If the sunset had lasted long enough, they would have reached the town,
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  but it was swift, being tropical. He gave her his information,
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  and she was so much pleased and thanked him so heartily that he asked her
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  and the other lady to tea. I'd like to come very much, indeed,
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  and so would missus Moore. I know I'm rather a hermit, you
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  know, much the best thing to be in this place, owing to my
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  work and so on. I don't get up much to the club, I
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  know, I know, and we never get down from it. I envy
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  you being with the Indians. Do you care to meet one or two?
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  Very very much? Indeed, it's what I longed for this party today makes
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  me so angry and miserable. I think my countrymen out here must be mad
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  fancy inviting guests not treating them properly. You and mister Turton, and perhaps
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  mister McBride are the only people who showed any common politeness. The rest make
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  me perfectly ashamed. And it's got worse and worse it had. The english
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  Men had intended to play up better, but had been prevented from doing so
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  by their women folk, whom they had to attend, provide with tea,
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  advise about dogs, etc. When tennis began, the barrier grew impenetrable.
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  It had been hoped to have some sets between east and west, but this
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  was forgotten and the courts were monopolized by the usual club couples. Fielding resented
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  it too, but did not say so to the girl, for he found
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  something theoretical in her outburst. Did she care about Indian music? He inquired?
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  There was an old professor down at the college who sang, oh,
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  just what we wanted to hear. And do you know doctor Aziz? I
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  know all about him. I don't know him. Would you like him?
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  Asked to missus. Moore says, he is so nice, very well,
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  miss quested, Will Thursday suit you? Indeed it will, And that morning
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  we go to this Indian lady's. All the nice things are coming Thursday.
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  I won't ask the city magistrate to bring you. I know he'll be busy
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  at that time. Yes, Ronnie is always hard worked, she replied,
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  contemplating the hills. How lovely they suddenly were, but she couldn't touch them
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  in front. Like a shutter fell a vision of her married life. She
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  and Ronnie would look into the club like this every evening, then drive home
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  to dress. They would see the leslies and the Calenders, and the Turtons
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  and the Burtons, and invite them and be invited by them, while the
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  true India slid by unnoticed. Color would remain the pageant of birds in the
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  early morning, brown bodies, white turbans, idols whose flesh was scarlet or
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  blue. And movement would remain as long as there were crowds in the bazaar
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  and bathers in the tanks. Perched up on the seat of a dog cart,
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  she would see them, but the force that lies behind color and movement
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  would escape her even more effectually than it did now. She would see India
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  always as a frieze, never as a spirit. And she assumed that it
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  was a spirit of which missus Moore had had a glimpse. And sure enough,
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  if they did drive away from the club in a few minutes, and
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  they did dress, and to dinner came Miss Deryck and the mcbrides, and
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  the menu was Julian soup full of bullety bottled pears, pseudo cottage bread fish
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  full of branching bones, pretending to be placed more bottled peas with the cutlets,
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  trifle, sardines on toast. The menu of Anglo India. A dish
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  might be added or subtracted as one rose or fell in the official scale.
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  The peas might rattle less or more, the sardines, and the vermouth be
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  imported by a different firm, but the tradition remained the food of exiles,
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  cooked by servants who did not understand it. Adela thought of the young men
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  and women who had come out before her p and o full after p and
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  o full, and had been set down to the same food and the same
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  ideas, and been snubbed in the same good humored way, until they kept
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  to the accredited themes and began to snub others. I should never get like
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  that, she thought, for she was young herself. All the same,
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  she knew that she had come up against something that was both insidious and tough,
• 23:33
  and against which she needed allies. She must gather around her at chandrapor
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  a few people who felt as she did, and she was glad to have
• 23:42
  met mister Fielding and the Indian lady with the unpronounceable name. Here at all
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  events was a nucleus. She should know much better where she stood. In
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  the course of the next two days, Miss Derrick companioned a maharani in a
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  remote native state. She was genial and gay and made them all laugh about
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  her leave, which she had taken because she felt she deserved it, not
• 24:12
  because the Maharani said she might go now. She wanted to take the maharaja's
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  motor car as well. It had gone to a chief's conference at Delhi,
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  and she had a great scheme for burgling it at the junction as it came
• 24:27
  back in the train. She was also very funny about the bridge party.
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  Indeed, she regarded the entire peninsula as a comic opera. If one couldn't
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  see the laughable side of these people, one would be done for, said
• 24:45
  miss Derrick. Missus McBride. It was she who had been the nurse ceased,
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  not to exclaim, oh Nancy, how topping, oh Nancy, how
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  killing? I wish I could look at things like that. Mister McBride did
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  not speak much, he seemed nice. When the guests had gone and Adela
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  gone to bed, there was another interview between mother and son. He wanted
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  her advice and support while resenting interference. Does Adela talk to you much?
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  He began, I'm so driven with work. I don't see her as much
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  as I hoped, but I hope she finds things comfortable. Antila and I
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  talk mostly about India, dear, since you mention it, you're quite right
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  you ought to be more alone with her than you are. Yes, perhaps,
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  but then people would gossip. Well they must gossip sometime. Let them
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  gossip. People are so odd out here. It's not like home. One's
• 25:55
  always facing the footlights as the Borah Sahib says, I guess so a little
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  example, when Adela went out to the boundary of the club compound and Fielding
• 26:04
  followed her. I saw Missus Callender notice it. They notice everything until they're
• 26:12
  perfectly sure. You're their sort. I don't think Adela will ever be quite
• 26:18
  their sort. She's much too individual. I know that's so remarkable about her,
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  he said thoughtfully. Missus Moore thought him rather absurd. Accustomed to the
• 26:30
  privacy of London, she could not realize that India, seemingly so mysterious,
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  contains none, and that consequently the conventions have greater force. I suppose nothing's
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  on her mind, he continued, ask her, ask her yourself, my
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  dear boy. Probably she's her tails of the heat. But of course I
• 26:55
  should pack her off to the hills every April. I'm not one to keep
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  a white grilling in the plains. Oh, it wouldn't be the weather.
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  There's nothing in Indian but the weather, my dear mother. It's the alpha
• 27:08
  and omega of the whole affair. Yes, as mister McBride was saying,
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  but it's much more the Anglo Indians themselves who are likely to get on Adola's
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  nerves. She doesn't think they behave pleasantly to Indians. You see, what
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  did I tell you, he exclaimed, losing his gentle manner. I knew
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  it last week. Oh, how like a woman to worry over a side
• 27:36
  issue. She forgot about Adela in her surprise. A side issue, A
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  side issue, she repeated, How can it be that we are not out
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  here for the purpose of behaving pleasantly? What do you mean what I say?
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  We're out here to do justice and keep the peace. Them's my sentiment.
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  India isn't a drawing room. Your sentiments are those of a god,
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  she said quietly, But it was his manner rather than his sentiments that annoyed
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  her. Trying to recover his temper, he said, India likes gods and
• 28:18
  Englishmen like posing as gods. There is no point in all this. Here
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  we are and we're going to stop, and the country's got to put up
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  with us gods or no gods. Oh look here, he broke out,
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  rather pathetically. What do you and Adelo want me to do? Go against
• 28:38
  my class, against all the people I respect and admire out here, lose
• 28:45
  such power as I have for doing good in this country because my behavior isn't
• 28:51
  pleasant. You neither of you understand what work is, or you'd never talk
• 28:56
  such eyewash. I hate talking like this, but one must occasionally. It's
• 29:03
  morbidly sensitive to go on as Adela and you do. I noticed you both
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  at the club today after the Bura. Saib had been at all the trouble
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  to amuse you. I am out here to work mind to hold this wretched
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  country by force. I'm not a missionary or a labor member or a vague
• 29:22
  sentimental, sympathetic literary man. I'm just a servant of the government. It's
• 29:29
  the profession you wanted me to choose myself, and that's that. We are
• 29:33
  not pleasant in India, and we don't intend to be pleasant. We've something
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  more important to do, he spoke sincerely. Every day he worked hard in
• 29:45
  the court, trying to decide which of two untrue accounts was the less untrue,
• 29:52
  trying to dispense justice fearlessly, to protect the weak against the less week
• 30:00
  the incoherent against the plausible, surrounded by lies and flattery. That morning he
• 30:07
  had convicted a railway clerk of overcharging pilgrims for their tickets and a pathan of
• 30:15
  attempt at rape. He expected no gratitude, no recognition for this, and
• 30:21
  both clerk and Pathan might appeal, bribe their witnesses more effectually in the interval,
• 30:27
  and get their sentences reversed. It was his duty, but he did
• 30:33
  expect sympathy from his own people, and except from newcomers, he obtained it.
• 30:41
  He did think he ought not to be worried about bridge parties when the
• 30:45
  day's work was over and he wanted to play tennis with his equals or rest
• 30:51
  his legs upon a long chair. He spoke sincerely, but she could have
• 30:56
  wished with Les Gusto. How Ronnie reveled in the drawbacks of his situation.
• 31:03
  How he did rub it in that he was not in India to behave pleasantly
• 31:08
  and derived positive satisfaction therefrom he reminded her of his public school days. The
• 31:15
  traces of young man humanitarianism has left off, and he talked like an intelligent
• 31:22
  and embittered boy. His words without his voice might have impressed her, but
• 31:29
  when she heard the self satisfied lilts of them, when she saw the mouth
• 31:34
  moving so complacently and competently beneath the little red nose, she felt quite illogically
• 31:42
  that this was not the last word on India. One touch of regret,
• 31:51
  not the canny substitute, but the true regret from the heart, would have
• 31:56
  made him a different man, and the British Empire a different institution. I
• 32:01
  am going to argue and indeed dictate, she said, clinking her rings.
• 32:07
  The English are out here to be pleasant. How do you make that out,
• 32:14
  mother? He asked, speaking gently again, for he was ashamed of
• 32:17
  his irritability, Because Hindia is part of the Earth, and God has put
• 32:23
  us on the earth in order to be pleasant to each other. God is
• 32:30
  love. She hesitated, seeing how much he disliked the argument, but something
• 32:36
  made her go on. God has put us on earth to love our neighbors
• 32:42
  and to show it, and he is omnipresent even in India, to see
• 32:46
  how we are succeeding. He looked gloomy and a little anxious. He knew
• 32:52
  this religious strain in her, and that it was a symptom of bad health.
• 32:59
  There been much of it when his stepfather died. He thought, she
• 33:04
  is certainly aging, and I ought not to be vexed with anything. She
• 33:07
  says. The desire to behave pleasantly satisfies God. The sincere, if impotent
• 33:15
  desire wins his blessing. I think everyone fails, but there are so many
• 33:22
  kinds of failure. Goodwill and more goodwill, and more goodwill. Though I
• 33:29
  speak with the tongues of He waited until she had done, and then said
• 33:36
  gently, I quite see that. I suppose I ought to get off to
• 33:40
  my files now, and you'll be going to bed. I suppose, so,
• 33:45
  I suppose. So they did not part for a few minutes, but
• 33:51
  the conversation had become unreal since Christianity had entered it. Ronnie approved of religion
• 33:59
  as long as it endorsed the national anthem, but he objected when it attempted
• 34:04
  to influence his life. Then he would say, in respectfully at decided tones,
• 34:10
  I don't think it does to talk about these things. Every fellow has
• 34:15
  to work out his own religion, and any fellow who heard him muttered here.
• 34:22
  Missus Moore felt that she had made a mistake in mentioning God, but
• 34:27
  she found him increasingly difficult to avoid as she grew older, and he had
• 34:31
  been constantly in her thoughts since she entered India. Though oddly enough, he
• 34:37
  satisfied her less she must needs pronounce his name frequently, as the greatest she
• 34:45
  knew, Yet she had never found it less efficacious. Outside the arch,
• 34:52
  there seemed always an arch beyond the remotest echo a silence, and regretted afterwards
• 35:00
  that she had not kept to the real serious subject that had caused her to
• 35:06
  visit India, namely the relationship between Ronnie and Adela. Would they or would
• 35:13
  they not succeed in becoming engaged to be married end of Chapter five,