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Ch 6 - A Passage to India · A Passage to India

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  Chapter six. Aziz had not gone to the bridge party. Immediately after his
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  meeting with Missus Moore, he was diverted to other matters. Several surgical cases
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  came in and kept him busy. He ceased to be either outcast or poet,
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  and became the medical student, very gay and full of details of operations,
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  which he poured into the shrinking ears of his friends. His profession fascinated
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  him at times, but he required it to be exciting, and it was
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  his hand, not his mind, that was scientific. The knife he loved
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  and used skillfully, and he also liked pumping in the latest sarums. But
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  the boredom of regime and hygiene repelled him, and after inoculating a man for
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  enteric, he would go away and drink unfiltered water himself. What can you
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  expect from the fellow, said dour major Calendar, No grits, no guts.
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  But in his heart he knew that if Azziz and not he had operated
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  last year on Missus Grayford's appendix, the old lady would probably have lived.
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  And this did not dispose him any better towards his subordinate. There was a
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  row the morning after the mosque. They were always having rows. The major,
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  who had been up half the night, wanted damn well to know why
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  Azziz had not come promptly when summoned, Sir, excuse me I did?
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  I mounted my bike and it bust in front of the cow hospital. So
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  I had to find a tonga bust in front of the cow hospital? Did
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  it? And how did you come to be there? I beg your pardon,
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  Oh lord, oh lord? When I live here he kicked the gravel,
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  and you lived there not ten minutes from me? And the cow hospital
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  is right ever so far away the other side of you there. Then how
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  did you come to be passing the cow hospital on the way to me?
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  Now do some work for a change. He strode away in a temper,
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  without waiting for the excuse, which, as far as it went, was
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  a sound one. The cow hospital was in a straight line between Hamidullah's house
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  and his own, so Aziz had naturally passed it. He never realized that
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  the educated Indians visited one another constantly and were weaving, however painfully. A
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  new social fabric cast or something of the would prevent them. He only knew
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  that no one ever told him the truth, although he had been in the
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  country for twenty years, Aziz watched him go with amusement. When his spirits
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  were up. He felt that the English are a comic institution, and he
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  enjoyed being misunderstood by them. But it was an amusement of the emotions and
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  nerves which an accident or the passage of time might destroy. It was apart
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  from the fundamental gaiety that he reached when he was with those whom he trusted.
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  A disobliging simile involving missus calendar occurred to his fancy. I must tell
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  that to Mahmoud Ali. It'll make him laugh, he thought. Then he
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  got to work. He was competent and indispensable, and he knew it.
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  The simile passed from his mind while he exercised his professional skill. During these
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  pleasant and busy days, he heard vaguely that the collector was giving a party,
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  and that the Nawab Bahadur said everyone ought to go to it. His
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  fellow assistant, doctor Pana Lal, was in ecstasies at the prospect and was
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  urgent that they should attend it together in his new Tum Tum. The arrangement
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  suited them both. Aziz was spared the indignity of a bicycle or the expense
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  of hiring. While doctor Pana Lal, who was timid and elderly, secured
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  someone who could manage his horse. He could manage it himself, but only
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  just, and he was afraid of the motors and of the unknown. Turn
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  into the club grounds. Disaster may come, he said, politely, But
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  we shall let all events get their safe even if we do not get back.
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  And with more logic it will, I think create a good impression.
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  Show'd two doctors arrive at the same time. But when the time came,
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  Aziz was seized with a revulsion and determined not to go. For one thing,
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  his spell of work lately concluded left him independent and healthy for another.
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  The day chanced to fall on the anniversary of his wife's death. She had
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  died soon after he had fallen in love with her. He had not loved
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  her at first, touched by a western feeling, he disliked union with a
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  woman whom he had never seen. Moreover, when he did see her,
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  she disappointed him, and he begat his first child in mere animality. The
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  change began after its birth. He was won by her love for him,
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  by a loyalty that implied something more than submission, and by her efforts to
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  educate herself against the lifting of the porda that would come in the next generation,
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  if not in theirs. She was intelligent, yet had old fashioned grace.
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  Gradually he lost the feeling that his relatives had chosen wrongly for him.
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  Sensuous enjoyment. Well, even if he had had it, it would have
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  dulled in a year, and he had gained something instead, which seemed to
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  increase the longer they lived together. She became the mother of a son,
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  and in giving him a second son, she died. Then he realized what
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  he had lost, and that no woman could ever take her place. A
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  friend would come nearer to her than another woman. She had gone. There
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  was no one like her, And what is that uniqueness but love? He
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  amused himself. He forgot her at times, but at other times he felt
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  that she had sent all the beauty and joy of the world into paradise,
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  and he meditated suicide. Would he meet her beyond the tomb? Is there
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  such a meeting place? Though Orthodox, he did not know God's unity was
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  indubitable and indubitably announced. But on all other points he wavered like the average
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  Christian, his belief in the life to come would pale to a hope vanish
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  reappear all in a single sentence or a dozen heartbeats, so that the corpuscles
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  of his blood. Rather that he seemed to decide which opinion he should hold,
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  and for how long. It was So with all his opinions, nothing
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  stayed, nothing passed that did not return. The circulation was ceaseless and kept
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  him young. And he mourned his wife the more sincerely because he mourned her
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  seldom. It would have been simpler to tell Doctor Law that he had changed
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  his mind about the party, But until the last minute he did not know
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  that he had changed it. Indeed, he didn't change it. It changed
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  itself, unconquerable aversion welled, missus callender, missus leslie. No, he
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  couldn't stand them in his sorrow. They would guess it, for he dowered
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  the British matron with strange insight, and would delight in torturing him. They
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  would mock him to their husbands. When he should have been ready, he
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  stood at the post office writing a telegram to his children, and found on
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  his return that Doctor Lal had called for him and gone on. Well,
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  let him go on as befitted the coarseness of his nature. For his own
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  part, he would commune with the dead. And, unlocking a drawer,
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  he took out his wife's photograph. He gazed at it, and tears spouted
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  from his eyes. He thought, how unhappy I am, But because he
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  really was unhappy, another emotion soon mingled with his self pity. He desired
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  to remember his wife and could not. Why could he remember people whom he
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  did not love? They were always so vivid to him. Whereas more he
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  looked at this photograph, the less he saw. She had eluded him thus
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  ever since they had carried her to her tomb. He had known that she
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  would pass from his hands and eyes, but had thought she could live in
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  his mind, not realizing that the very fact that we have loved the dead
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  increases their unreality, and that the more passionately we invoke them, the further
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  they recede. A piece of brown cardboard and three children that was all that
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  was left of his wife. It was unbearable, and he thought again how
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  unhappy I am, and became happier. He had breathed for an instant the
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  mortal air that surrounds orientals and all men, and he drew back from it
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  with a gasp, for he was young. Never, never shall I get
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  over this, he told himself. Most certainly my career is a failure,
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  and my sons will be badly brought up. Since it was certain, he
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  strove to avert it and looked at some notes he had made on a case
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  at the hospital. Perhaps some day a rich person might require this particular operation,
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  and he gained a large sum. The notes interested him on their own
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  account. He locked the photograph up again. Its moment was over, and
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  he did not think about his wife anymore. After tea, his spirits improved,
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  and he went round to see Hamidullah. Hamidula had gone to the party,
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  but his pony had not, so Azzi's borrowed it. Also his friend's
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  writing breeches and polo mallet. He repaired to the Maidan. It was deserted
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  except at its rims, where some bazaar youths were training, training for what.
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  They would have found it hard to say, but the word had got
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  into the air. Round They ran weedy and knock kneed. The local physique
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  was wretched, with an expression on their faces, not so much of determination
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  as of a determination to be determined, Maharaja Salam. He called for a
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  joke. The youths stopped and laughed. He advised them not to exert themselves.
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  They promised they would not, and ran on. Riding into the middle.
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  He began to knock the ball about. He could not play, but
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  his pony could, and he set himself to learn free from all human tension.
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  He forgot the whole damned business of living as he scurried over the brown
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  platter of the maida, with the evening wind on his forehead and the encircling
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  trees soothing his eyes, the ball shot away towards astray subaltern, who was
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  also practicing. He hit it back to Aziz and called, send it along
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  again. All right. The newcomer had some notion of what to do,
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  but his horse had none, and forces were equal. Concentrated on the ball,
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  they somehow became fond of one another and smiled when they drew rein to
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  rest. Aziz liked soldiers. They either accepted you or swore at you,
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  which was preferable to the civilians. Hauteur, and the subaltern liked anyone who
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  could ride often play. He asked, never, let's have another chucker as
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  he hit his horse bucked and off he went and cried, oh God,
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  and jumped on again. Don't you ever fall off? Plenty, not you.
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  They reined up again, the fire of good fellowship in their eyes,
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  but it cooled with their bodies, for athletics can only raise a temporary glow.
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  Nationality was returning, but before it could exert its poison, they parted,
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  saluting each other. If only they were all like that, each thought.
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  Now it was sunset, A few of his co religionists had come to
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  the maidan and were praying with their faces towards Mecca. A brahminy bull walked
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  towards them, and Aziz, though inclined to pray himself, did not see
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  why they should be bothered with the clumsy and idolatrous animal. He gave it
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  a tap with his polo mallet. As he did so, a voice from
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  the road hailed him. It was doctor Pana Law, returning in high distress
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  from the collector's party. Doctor Aziz, Doctor Aziz, where you've been?
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  I waited ten full minutes time at your house? Then I went. I
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  am so awfully sorry. I was compelled to go to the post office.
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  One of his own circle would have accepted this as meaning that he had changed
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  his mind, an event to common to hear at censure. But doctor Law,
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  being of low extraction, was not sure whether an insult had not been
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  intended, And he was further annoyed because Aziz had buff to the Brahmini Bull
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  post office. Do you not send your servants? He said, I have
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  so few. My scale is very small. Your servant spoke to me.
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  I saw your servant. But Doctor Lal consider, how could I send my
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  servant when you were coming? You come, we go. My house is
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  left alone, my servant comes back perhaps, and all my portable property has
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  been carried away by bad characters in the meantime. Would you have that the
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  cook is deaf? I can never count on my cook, and the boy
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  is only a little boy. Never, never do I and Hassan leave the
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  house at the same time together. It is my fixed rule. He said
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  all this and much more out of civility to save Doctor Lal's face. It
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  was not offered as truth and should not have been criticized as such, but
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  the other demolished it an easy and ignoble task. Even if this is so,
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  what prevents leaving a chit, saying where you are going and so on.
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  Azis detested ill breeding and made his pony caper farther away. Or mine
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  will start out of sympathy, he wailed, revealing the true source of his
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  irritation. It has been so rough and wild this afternoon. It spoiled some
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  most valuable blossoms in the club garden and had to be dragged back by four
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  men, English ladies and gentlemen looking on, and the collector Sahib himself taking
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  a note. But doctor Aziz, I'll not take up your valuable time.
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  This will not interest you, who have so many engagements and telegrams. I
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  am just a poor old doctor who thought right to pay my respects when I
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  was asked and where I was asked. Your absence, I may remark,
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  drew commentaries. They can damn well comment It is fine to be young.
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  Damned well, oh very fine. Damn whom I go or not as I
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  please? Yet you promise me and then fabricate this tale of a telegram.
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  Go forward, dabble they went, and Azzi's had a wild desire to make
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  an enemy for life. He could do it so easily by galloping near them.
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  He did it dapple bolted. He thundered back onto the maidan. The
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  glory of his play with the subaltern remained for a little. He galloped and
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  swooped till he poured with sweat, and until he returned the pony to Hamidullah's
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  stable. He felt the equal of any man. Once on his feet,
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  he had creeping fears. Was he in bad odor? With the powers that
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  be? Had he offended the collector by absenting himself. Doctor Panalal was a
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  person of no importance, Yet was it wise to have quarreled even with him?
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  The complexion of his mind turned from human to political. He thought,
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  no longer can I get on with people? But are they stronger than I?
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  Breathing the prevalent miasthma. At his home, a chip was awaiting him,
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  bearing the government stamp. It lay on his table like a high explosive
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  which at a touch might blow his flimsy bungalow to bits. He was going
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  to be cashiered because he had not turned up at the party. When he
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  opened the note, it proved to be quite different. An invitation from mister
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  Fielding, the principle of Government College, asking him to come to tea the
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  day after tomorrow, his spirits revived with violence. They would have revived in
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  any case, for he possessed a soul that could suffer but not stifle,
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  and led a steady life beneath his mutability. But this invitation gave him particular
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  joy because Fielding had asked him to tea a month ago, and he had
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  forgotten about it, never answered, never gone, just forgotten. And here
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  came a second invitation, without a rebuke or even an allusion to his slip.
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  Here was true courtesy, the civil deed that shows the good heart.
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  And snatching up his pen, he wrote an affectionate reply and hurried back for
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  news to Hamidullah's, for he had never met the principle and believed that though
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  one serious gap in his life was going to be filled, he longed to
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  know everything about the splendid fellow, his salary, preferences, anecdotes, how
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  best one might please him. But Hamidula was still out, and mahmoud Ali,
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  who was in, would only make silly, rude jokes about the party.
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  End of Chapter six