A Passage to India - E. M. Forster [104]
“In the course of a long talk with Miss Quested …”
“I don’t want to hear your long talks.”
“Be quiet. In the course of a long talk with Miss Quested I have begun to understand her character. It’s not an easy one, she being a prig. But she is perfectly genuine and very brave. When she saw she was wrong, she pulled herself up with a jerk and said so. I want you to realize what that means. All her friends around her, the entire British Raj pushing her forward. She stops, sends the whole thing to smithereens. In her place I should have funked it. But she stopped, and almost did she become a national heroine, but my students ran us down a side street before the crowd caught flame. Do treat her considerately. She really mustn’t get the worst of both worlds. I know what all these”—he indicated the shrouded forms on the roof—” will want, but you mustn’t listen to them. Be merciful. Act like one of your six Mogul Emperors, or all the six rolled into one.”
“Not even Mogul Emperors showed mercy until they received an apology.”
“She’ll apologize if that’s the trouble,” he cried, sitting up. “Look, I’ll make you an offer. Dictate to me whatever form of words you like, and this time to-morrow I’ll bring it back signed. This is not instead of any public apology she may make you in law. It’s an addition.”
“‘Dear Dr. Aziz, I wish you had come into the cave; I am an awful old hag, and it is my last chance.’ Will she sign that?”
“Well good night, good night, it’s time to go to sleep, after that.”
“Good night, I suppose it is.”
“Oh, I wish you wouldn’t make that kind of remark,” he continued after a pause. “It is the one thing in you I can’t put up with.”
“I put up with all things in you, so what is to be done?”
“Well, you hurt me by saying it; good night.”
There was silence, then dreamily but with deep feeling the voice said: “Cyril, I have had an idea which will satisfy your tender mind: I shall consult Mrs. Moore.”
Opening his eyes, and beholding thousands of stars, he could not reply, they silenced him.
“Her opinion will solve everything; I can trust her so absolutely. If she advises me to pardon this girl, I shall do so. She will counsel me nothing against my real and true honour, as you might.”
“Let us discuss that to-morrow morning.”
“Is it not strange? I keep on forgetting she has left India. During the shouting of her name in court I fancied she was present. I had shut my eyes, I confused myself on purpose to deaden the pain. Now this very instant I forgot again. I shall be obliged to write. She is now far away, well on her way towards Ralph and Stella.”
“To whom?”
“To those other children.”
“I have not heard of other children.”
“Just as I have two boys and a girl, so has Mrs. Moore. She told me in the mosque.”
“I knew her so slightly.”
“I have seen her but three times, but I know she is an Oriental.”
“You are so fantastic… . Miss Quested, you won’t treat her generously; while over Mrs. Moore there is this elaborate chivalry. Miss Quested anyhow behaved decently this morning, whereas the old lady never did anything for you at all, and it’s pure conjecture that she would have come forward in your favour, it only rests on servants’ gossip. Your emotions never seem in proportion to their objects, Aziz.”
“Is emotion a sack of potatoes, so much the pound, to be measured out? Am I a machine? I shall be told I can use up my emotions by using them, next.”
“I should have thought you would. It sounds common sense. You can’t eat your cake and have it, even in the world of the spirit.”
“If you are right, there is no point in any friendship; it all comes down to give and tak