A Passage to India - E. M. Forster [53]
“Mohammed Latif, by the way, what is in these caves, brother? Why are we all going to see them?”
Such a question was beyond the poor relative’s scope. He could only reply that God and the local villagers knew, and that the latter would gladly act as guides.
Chapter 14
MOST of life is so dull that there is nothing to be said about it, and the books and talk that would describe it as interesting are obliged to exaggerate, in the hope of justifying their own existence. Inside its cocoon of work or social obligation, the human spirit slumbers for the most part, registering the distinction between pleasure and pain, but not nearly as alert as we pretend. There are periods in the most thrilling day during which nothing happens, and though we continue to exclaim, “I do enjoy myself,” or, “I am horrified,” we are insincere. “As far as I feel anything, it is enjoyment, horror”—it’s no more than that really, and a perfectly adjusted organism would be silent.
It so happened that Mrs. Moore and Miss Quested had felt nothing acutely for a fortnight. Ever since Professor Godbole had sung his queer little song, they had lived more or less inside cocoons, and the difference between them was that the elder lady accepted her own apathy, while the younger resented hers. It was Adela’s faith that the whole stream of events is important and interesting, and if she grew bored she blamed herself severely and compelled her lips to utter enthusiasms. This was the only insincerity in a character otherwise sincere, and it was indeed the intellectual protest of her youth. She was particularly vexed now because she was both in India and engaged to be married, which double event should have made every instant sublime.
India was certainly dim this morning, though seen under the auspices of Indians. Her wish had been granted, but too late. She could not get excited over Aziz and his arrangements. She was not the least unhappy or depressed, and the various odd objects that surrounded her—the comic “purdah” carriage, the piles of rugs and bolsters, the rolling melons, the scent of sweet oils, the ladder, the brass-bound box, the sudden irruption of Mahmoud Ali’s butler from the lavatory with tea and poached eggs upon a tray—they were all new and amusing, and led her to comment appropriately, but they wouldn’t bite into her mind. So she tried to find comfort by reflecting that her main interest would henceforward be Ronny.
“What a nice cheerful servant! What a relief after Antony!”
“They startle one rather. A strange place to make tea in,” said Mrs. Moore, who had hoped for a nap.
“I want to sack Antony. His behaviour on the platform has decided me.”
Mrs. Moore thought that Antony’s better self would come to the front at Simla. Miss Quested was to be married at Simla; some cousins, with a house looking straight on to Thibet, had invited her.
“Anyhow, we must get a second servant, because at Simla you will be at the hotel, and I don’t think Ronny’s Baldeo …” She loved plans.
“Very well, you get another servant, and I’ll keep Antony with me. I am used to his unappetizing ways. He will see me through the Hot Weather.”
“I don’t believe in the Hot Weather. People like Major Callendar who always talk about it—it’s in the hope of making one feel inexperienced and small, like their everlasting, ‘I’ve been twenty years in this country.’”
“I believe in the Hot Weather, but n