A Passage to India by E. M. Forster (top novels to read .txt) 📕

dispensary you require? Take every cursed bottle.” Agitated, but alert, he saw them smile at his indifferent English, and suddenly he started playing the buffoon, flung down his umbrella, trod through it, and struck himself upon the nose. He knew what he was doing, and so did they. There was nothing pathetic or eternal in the degradation of such a man. Of ignoble origin, Dr. Panna Lal possessed nothing that could be disgraced, and he wisely decided to make the other Indians feel like kings, because it would put them into better tempers. When he found they wanted Nureddin, he skipped like a goat, he scuttled like a hen to do their bidding, the hospital was saved, and to the end of his life he could not understand why he had not obtained promotion on the morning’s work. “Promptness, sir, promptness similar to you,” was the argument he employed to Major Callendar when claiming it.

When Nureddin emerged, his face all bandaged, there was a roar of relief as though the Bastille had fallen. It was the crisis of the march, and the Nawab Bahadur managed to get the situation into hand. Embracing the young man publicly, he began a speech about Justice, Courage, Liberty, and Prudence, ranged under heads, which cooled the passion of the crowd. He further announced that he should give up his British-conferred title, and live as a private gentleman, plain Mr. Zulfiqar, for which reason he was instantly proceeding to his country seat. The landau turned, the crowd accompanied it, the crisis was over. The Marabar caves had been a terrible strain on the local administration; they altered a good many lives and wrecked several careers, but they did not break up a continent or even dislocate a district.

“We will have rejoicings tonight,” the old man said. “Mr. Hamidullah, I depute you to bring out our friends Fielding and Amritrao, and to discover whether the latter will require special food. The others will keep with me. We shall not go out to Dilkusha until the cool of the evening, of course. I do not know the feelings of other gentlemen; for my own part, I have a slight headache, and I wish I had thought to ask our good Panna Lal for aspirin.”

For the heat was claiming its own. Unable to madden, it stupefied, and before long most of the Chandrapore combatants were asleep. Those in the civil station kept watch a little, fearing an attack, but presently they too entered the world of dreams⁠—that world in which a third of each man’s life is spent, and which is thought by some pessimists to be a premonition of eternity.

XXVI

Evening approached by the time Fielding and Miss Quested met and had the first of their numerous curious conversations. He had hoped, when he woke up, to find someone had fetched her away, but the College remained isolated from the rest of the universe. She asked whether she could have “a sort of interview,” and, when he made no reply, said, “Have you any explanation of my extraordinary behaviour?”

“None,” he said curtly. “Why make such a charge if you were going to withdraw it?”

“Why, indeed.”

“I ought to feel grateful to you, I suppose, but⁠—”

“I don’t expect gratitude. I only thought you might care to hear what I have to say.”

“Oh, well,” he grumbled, feeling rather schoolboyish. “I don’t think a discussion between us is desirable. To put it frankly, I belong to the other side in this ghastly affair.”

“Would it not interest you to hear my side?”

“Not much.”

“I shouldn’t tell you in confidence, of course. So you can hand on all my remarks to your side, for there is one great mercy that has come out of all today’s misery: I have no longer any secrets. My echo has gone⁠—I call the buzzing sound in my ears an echo. You see, I have been unwell ever since that expedition to the caves, and possibly before it.”

The remark interested him rather; it was what he had sometimes suspected himself. “What kind of illness?” he enquired.

She touched her head at the side, then shook it.

“That was my first thought, the day of the arrest: hallucination.”

“Do you think that would be so?” she asked with great humility. “What should have given me an hallucination?”

“One of three things certainly happened in the Marabar,” he said, getting drawn into a discussion against his will. “One of four things. Either Aziz is guilty, which is what your friends think; or you invented the charge out of malice, which is what my friends think; or you have had an hallucination. I’m very much inclined”⁠—getting up and striding about⁠—“now that you tell me that you felt unwell before the expedition⁠—it’s an important piece of evidence⁠—I believe that you yourself broke the strap of the field-glasses; you were alone in that cave the whole time.”

“Perhaps.⁠ ⁠…”

“Can you remember when you first felt out of sorts?”

“When I came to tea with you there, in that garden-house.”

“A somewhat unlucky party. Aziz and old Godbole were both ill after it too.”

“I was not ill⁠—it is far too vague to mention: it is all mixed up with my private affairs. I enjoyed the singing⁠ ⁠… but just about then a sort of sadness began that I couldn’t detect at the time⁠ ⁠… no, nothing as solid as sadness: living at half pressure expresses it best. Half pressure. I remember going on to polo with Mr. Heaslop at the Maidan. Various other things happened⁠—it doesn’t matter what, but I was under par for all of them. I was certainly in that state when I saw the caves, and you suggest (nothing shocks or hurts me)⁠—you suggest that I had an hallucination there, the sort of thing⁠—though in an awful form⁠—that makes some women think they’ve had an offer of marriage when none was made.”

“You put it honestly, anyhow.”

“I was brought up to be honest; the trouble is it gets me nowhere.”

Liking her better, he smiled and said, “It’ll get us to heaven.”

“Will it?”

“If heaven existed.”

“Do