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Ch 17 - A Passage to India · A Passage to India

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  Chapter seventeen. The collector had watched the arrest from the interior of the waiting
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  room, and throwing open its perforated doors of zinc, he was now revealed
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  like a god in a shrine. When Fielding entered, the doors clapped too,
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  and were guarded by a servant, while Apunka, to mark the importance
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  of the moment, flapped dirty petticoats over their heads. The collector could not
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  speak at first. His face was white and rather beautiful, the expression that
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  all English faces were to wear at Chandrapur for many days. Always brave and
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  unselfish, he was now fused by some white and generous heat. He would
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  have killed himself, obviously, if he had thought it right to do so.
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  He spoke. At last, The worst thing in my whole career has
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  happened, he said, misquested, has been insulted in one of the Marabar
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  caves. Oh no, oh no, no, gasped the other, feeling
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  sicki ish she escaped by God's grace. Oh no no, but not Aziz,
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  not Azis. He nodded, Absolutely impossible, grotesque. I called you
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  to preserve you from the odium that would attach to you if you were seen
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  accompanying him to the police station, said Turton, paying no attention to his
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  protest, indeed scarcely hearing it, He repeated, oh no, like a
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  fool. He couldn't frame other words. He felt that a mass of madness
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  had arisen and tried to overwhelm them all. It had to be shoved back
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  into its pit somehow, and he didn't know how to do it because he
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  did not understand madness. He had always gone about sensibly and quietly until a
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  difficulty came right Who lodges this infamous charge? He asked, pulling himself together
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  Miss Derrek and the victim herself, he nearly broke down, unable to repeat.
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  The girl's name, misquested herself, definitely accuses him of He nodded and
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  turned his face away. Then she's mad. I cannot pass that last remark,
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  said the collector, waking up to the knowledge that they differed, and
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  trembling with fury. You will draw it instantly. It is the type of
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  remark you have permitted yourself to make ever since you came to Chandraport. I'm
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  excessively sorry, sir. I certainly withdraw it unconditionally, For the man was
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  half mad himself. Pray, mister Fielding, what induced you to speak to
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  me in such a tone? The news gave me a very great shock,
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  so I must ask you to forgive me. I cannot believe that doctor Azziz
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  is guilty. He slammed his hand on the table. That that is a
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  repetition of your insult in an aggravated form, if I may venture to say
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  so, no, said Fielding, also going white, but sticking to his
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  point. I make no reflection on the good faith of the two ladies.
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  But the charge they are bringing against disease rests upon some mistake, and five
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  minutes will clear it up. The man's manner is perfectly natural. Besides,
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  I know him to be incapable of infamy. It does indeed rest upon a
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  mistake. Came the thin, biting voice of the other. It does.
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  Indeed. I have had twenty five years experience of this country. He paused,
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  and twenty five years seemed to fill the waiting room with their staleness and
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  ungenerosity. And during those twenty five years I have never known anything but disaster
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  results when english People and Indians attempt to be intimate socially. Intercourse, Yes,
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  courtesy by all means intimacy. Never. Never, the whole weight of
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  my authority is against it. I have been in charge at Chandrapur for six
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  years, and if everything has gone smoothly, if there has been mutual respect
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  and esteem, it is because both peoples kept to this simple rule. Newcomers
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  set our traditions aside, and in an instant what you see happens. The
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  work of years is undone, and the good name of my district ruined for
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  a generation. I can't see the end of this day's work, mister Fielding,
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  You who are imbued with modern ideas, no doubt you can. I
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  wish I had never lived to see its beginning. I know that it is
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  the end of me that a lady, that a young lady engaged to my
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  most valued subordinate, that she an English girl fresh from England, that I
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  should have lived. Involved in his own emotions, he broke down. What
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  he had said was both dignified and pathetic. But had it anything to do
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  with azif nothing at all, If feeling was right. It is impossible to
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  regard a tragedy from two points of view. And whereas Turton had decided to
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  avenge the girl he hoped to save the man. He wanted to get away
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  and talk to mc bride, who had always been friendly to him, was
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  on the whole sensible and could anyhow be trusted to keep cool. I came
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  down, particularly on your account, while poor Heslop got his mother away.
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  I regarded it as the most friendly thing I could do. I meant to
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  tell you that there will be an informal meeting at the club this evening to
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  discuss the situation, but I am doubtful whether you will care to come.
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  Your visits there are always infrequent. I shall certainly come, sir, and
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  I am most grateful to you for all the trouble you have taken over me.
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  May I venture to ask where misquested is? He replied with a gesture.
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  She was ill, worse and worse. Appalling, he said feelingly.
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  But the collector looked at him sternly, because he was keeping his head.
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  He had not gone mad at the phrase an English girl fresh from England.
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  He had not rallied to the manner of race. He was still after facts,
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  though the herd had decided on emotion. Nothing enrages Anglo India more than
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  the lantern of reason if it is exhibited for one moment after its extinction is
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  decreed. All over Chandrapur that day, the Europeans were putting aside their normal
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  personalities and sinking themselves in their community. Pity, wrath, heroism filled them,
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  but the power of putting two and two together was annihilated. Terminating the
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  interview, the collector walked onto the platform. The confusion there was revolting.
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  A Chuprassi of Rani's had been told to bring up some trifles belonging to the
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  ladies, and was appropriating for himself various articles to which she had no right.
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  He was a camp follower of the angry English. Mohammed Latif made no
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  attempt to resist him. Hasan flung off his turban and wept. All the
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  comforts that had been provided so liberally were rolled about and wasted in the sun.
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  The collector took in the situation at a glance, and his sense of
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  justice functioned. Though he was insane with rage. He spoke the necessary word
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  and eluting stopped. Then he drove off to his bungalow and gave rein to
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  his passions again. When he saw the coolies asleep in the ditches, or
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  the shopkeepers rising to salute him on their little platforms. He said to himself,
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  I know what you're like. At last, you shall pay for this.
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  You shall squeal. End of Chapter seventeen.