There was a row the morning after the mosque—they were always having rows. The Major, who had been up half the night, wanted damn well to know why Aziz had not come promptly11 when summoned.
“Sir, excuse me, I did. I mounted my bike, and it bust12 in front of the Cow Hospital. So I had to find a tonga.”
“Bust in front of the Cow Hospital, did it? And how did you come to be there?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Oh Lord, oh Lord! When I live here”—he kicked the gravel—“and you live there—not ten minutes from me—and the Cow Hospital is right ever so far away the other side of you—there—then how did you come to be passing the Cow Hospital on the way to me? Now do some work for a change.”
He strode away in a temper, without waiting for the excuse, which as far as it went was a sound one: the Cow Hospital was in a straight line between Hamidullah’s house and his own, so Aziz had naturally passed it. He never realized that the educated Indians visited one another constantly, and were weaving, however painfully, a new social fabric13. Caste “or something of the sort” would prevent them. He only knew that no one ever told him the truth, although he had been in the country for twenty years.
Aziz watched him go with amusement. When his spirits were up he felt that the English are a comic institution, and he enjoyed being misunderstood by them. But it was an amusement of the emotions and nerves, which an accident or the passage of time might destroy; it was apart from the fundamental gaiety that he reached when he was with those whom he trusted. A disobliging simile14 involving Mrs. Callendar occurred to his fancy. “I must tell that to Mahmoud Ali, it’ll make him laugh,” he thought. Then he got to work. He was competent and indispensable, and he knew it. The simile passed from his mind while he exercised his professional skill.
During these pleasant and busy days, he heard vaguely15 that the Collector was giving a party, and that the Nawab Bahadur said every one ought to go to it. His fellow-assistant, Doctor Panna Lal, was in ecstasies16 at the prospect17, and was urgent that they should attend it together in his new tum-tum. The arrangement suited them both. Aziz was spared the indignity18 of a bicycle or the expense of hiring, while Dr. Panna Lal, who was timid and elderly, secured someone who could manage his horse. He could manage it himself, but only just, and he was afraid of the motors and of the unknown turn into the club grounds. “Disaster may come,” he said politely, “but we shall at all events get there safe, even if we do not get back.” And with more logic19: “It will, I think, create a good impression should two doctors arrive at the same time.”
But when the time came, Aziz was seized with a revulsion, and determined20 not to go. For one thing his spell of work, lately concluded, left him independent and healthy. For another, the day chanced to fall on the anniversary of his wife’s death. She had died soon after he had fallen in love with her; he had not loved her at first. Touched by Western feeling, he disliked union with a woman whom he had never seen; moreover, when he did see her, she disappointed him, and he begat his first child in mere21 animality. The change began after its birth. He was won by her love for him, by a loyalty22 that implied something more than submission23, and by her efforts to educate herself against that lifting of the purdah that would come in the next generation if not in theirs. She was intelligent, yet had old-fashioned grace. Gradually he lost the feeling that his relatives had chosen wrongly for him. Sensuous24 enjoyment—well, even if he had had it, it would have dulled in a year, and he had gained something instead, which seemed to increase the longer they lived together. She became the mother of a son . . . and in giving him a second son she died. Then he realized what he had lost, and that no woman could ever take her place; a friend would come nearer to her than another woman. She had gone, there was no one like her, and what is that uniqueness but love? He amused himself, he forgot her at times: but at other times he felt that she had sent all the beauty and joy of the world into Paradise, and he meditated25 suicide. Would he meet her beyond the tomb? Is there such a meeting-place? Though orthodox, he did not know. God’s unity26 was indubitable and indubitably announced, but on all other points he wavered like the average Christian27; his belief in the life to come would pale to a hope, vanish, reappear, all in a single sentence or a dozen heart-beats, so that the corpuscles of his blood rather than he seemed to decide which opinion he should hold, and for how long. It was so with all his opinions. Nothing stayed, nothing passed that did not return; the circulation was ceaseless and kept him young, and he mourned his wife the more sincerely because he mourned her seldom.
It would have been simpler to tell Dr. Lal that he had changed his mind about the party, but until the last minute he did not know that he had changed it; indeed, he didn’t change it, it changed itself. Unconquerable aversion welled. Mrs. Callendar, Mrs. Lesley—no, he couldn’t stand them in his sorrow: they would guess it—for he dowered the British matron with strange insight—and would delight in torturing him, they would mock him to their husbands. When he should have been ready, he stood at the Post Office, writing a telegram to his children, and found on his return that Dr. Lal had called for him, and gone on. Well, let him go on, as befitted the coarseness of his nature. For his own part, he would commune with the dead.
And unlocking a drawer, he took out his wife’s photograph. He gazed at it, and tears spouted28 from his eyes. He thought, “How unhappy I am!” But because he really was unhappy, another emotion soon mingled29 with his self-pity: he desired to remember his wife and could not. Why could he remember people whom he did not love? They were always so vivid to him, whereas the more he looked at this photograph, the less he saw. She had eluded30 him thus, ever since they had carried her to her tomb. He had known that she would pass from his hands and eyes, but had thought she could live in his mind, not realizing that the very fact that we have loved the dead increases their unreality, and that the more passionately31 we invoke32 them the further they recede33. A piece of brown cardboard and three children—that was all that was left of his wife. It was unbearable34, and he thought again, “How unhappy I am!” and became happier. He had breathed for an instant the mortal air that surrounds Orientals and all men, and he drew back from it with a gasp35, for he was young. “Never, never shall I get over this,” he told himself. “Most certainly my career is a failure, and my sons will be badly brought up.” Since it was certain, he strove to avert36 it, and looked at some notes he had made on a case at the hospital. Perhaps some day a rich person might require this particular operation, and he gain a large sum. The notes interesting him on their own account, he locked the photograph up again. Its moment was over, and he did not think about his wife any more.
After tea his spirits improved, and he went round to see Hamidullah. Hamidullah had gone to the party, but his pony37 had not, so Aziz borrowed it, also his friend’s riding breeches and polo mallet38. He repaired to the Maidan. It was deserted39 except at its rim40, where some bazaar41 youths were training. Training for what? They would have found it hard to say, but the word had got into the air. Round they ran, weedy and knock-kneed—the local physique was wretched—with an expression on their faces not so much of determination as of a determination to be determined. “Maharajah, salaam,” he called for a joke. The youths stopped and laughed. He advised them not to exert themselves. They promised they would not, and ran on.
Riding into the middle, he began to knock the ball about. He could not play, but his pony could, and he set himself to learn, free from all human tension. He forgot the whole damned business of living as he scurried42 over the brown platter of the Maidan, with the evening wind on his forehead, and the encircling trees soothing43 his eyes. The ball shot away towards a stray subaltern who was also practising; he hit it back to Aziz and called, “Send it along again.”
“All right.”
The new-comer had some notion of what to do, but his horse had none, and forces were equal. Concentrated on the ball, they somehow became fond of one another, and smiled when they drew rein44 to rest. Aziz liked soldiers—they either accepted you or swore at you, which was preferable to the civilian’s hauteur—and the subaltern liked anyone who could ride.
“Often play?” he asked.
“Never.”
“Let’s have another chukker.”
As he hit, his horse bucked45 and off he went, cried, “Oh God!” and jumped on again. “Don’t you ever fall off?”
“Plenty.”
“Not you.”
They reined46 up again, the fire of good fellowship in their eyes. But it cooled with their bodies, for athletics47 can only raise a temporary glow. Nationality was returning, but before it could exert its poison they parted, saluting48 each other. “If only they were all like that,” each thought.
Now it was sunset. A few of his co-religionists had come to the Maidan, and were praying with their faces towards Mecca. A Brahminy Bull walked towards them, and Aziz, though disinclined to pray himself, did not see why they should be bothered with the clumsy and idolatrous animal. He gave it a tap with his polo mallet. As he did so, a voice from the road hailed him: it was Dr. Panna Lal, returning in high distress49 from the Collector’s party.
“Dr. Aziz, Dr. Aziz, where you been? I waited ten full minutes’ time at your house, then I went.”
“I am so awfully50 sorry—I was compelled to go to the Post Office.”
One of his own circle would have accepted this as meaning that he had changed his mind, an event too common to merit censure51. But Dr. Lal, being of low extraction, was not sure whether an insult had not been intended, and he was further annoyed because Aziz had buffeted52 the Brahminy Bull. “Post Office? Do you not send your servants?” he said.
“I have so few—my scale is very small.”
“Your servant spoke53 to me. I saw your servant.”
“But, Dr. Lal, consider. How could I send my servant when you were coming: you come, we go, my house is left alone, my servant comes back perhaps, and all my portable property has been carried away by bad characters in the meantime. Would you have that? The cook is deaf—I can never count on my cook—and the boy is only a little boy. Never, never do I and Hassan leave the house at the same time together. It is my fixed54 rule.” He said all this and much more out of civility, to save Dr. Lal’s face. It was not offered as truth and should not have been criticized as such. But the other demolished55 it—an easy and ignoble56 task. “Even if this so, what prevents leaving a chit saying where you go?” and so on. Aziz detested57 ill breeding, and made his pony caper58. “Farther away, or mine will start out of sympathy,” he wailed59, revealing the true source of his irritation60. “It has been so rough and wild this afternoon. It spoiled some most valuable blossoms in the club garden, and had to be dragged back by four men. English ladies and gentlemen looking on, and the Collector Sahib himself taking a note. But, Dr. Aziz, I’ll not take up your valuable time. This will not interest you, who have so many engagements and telegrams. I am just a poor old doctor who thought right to pay my respects when I was asked and where I was asked. Your absence, I may remark, drew commentaries.”
“They can damn well comment.”
“It is fine to be young. Damn well! Oh, very fine. Damn whom?”
“I go or not as I please.”
“Yet you promise me, and then fabricate this tale of a telegram. Go forward, Dapple.”
They went, and Aziz had a wild desire to make an enemy for life. He could do it so easily by galloping61 near them. He did it. Dapple bolted. He thundered back on to the Maidan. The glory of his play with the subaltern remained for a little, he galloped62 and swooped63 till he poured with sweat, and until he returned the pony to Hamidullah’s stable he felt the equal of any man. Once on his feet, he had creeping fears. Was he in bad odour with the powers that be? Had he offended the Collector by absenting himself? Dr. Panna Lal was a person of no importance, yet was it wise to have quarrelled even with him? The complexion64 of his mind turned from human to political. He thought no longer, “Can I get on with people?” but “Are they stronger than I?” breathing the prevalent miasma65.
At his home a chit was awaiting him, bearing the Government stamp. It lay on his table like a high explosive, which at a touch might blow his flimsy bungalow66 to bits. He was going to be cashiered because he had not turned up at the party. When he opened the note, it proved to be quite different; an invitation from Mr. Fielding, the Principal of Government College, asking him to come to tea the day after to-morrow. His spirits revived with violence. They would have revived in any case, for he possessed67 a soul that could suffer but not stifle68, and led a steady life beneath his mutability. But this invitation gave him particular joy, because Fielding had asked him to tea a month ago, and he had forgotten about it—never answered, never gone, just forgotten.
And here came a second invitation, without a rebuke69 or even an allusion70 to his slip. Here was true courtesy—the civil deed that shows the good heart—and snatching up his pen he wrote an affectionate reply, and hurried back for news to Hamidullah’s. For he had never met the Principal, and believed that the one serious gap in his life was going to be filled. He longed to know everything about the splendid fellow—his salary, preferences, antecedents, how best one might please him. But Hamidullah was still out, and Mahmoud Ali, who was in, would only make silly rude jokes about the party.
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1
surgical
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| adj.外科的，外科医生的，手术上的 | |
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skilfully
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| adv. (美skillfully)熟练地 | |
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serums
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| n.（动物体内的）浆液( serum的名词复数 )；血清；（一剂）免疫血清 | |
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boredom
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| n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊 | |
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hygiene
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| n.健康法，卫生学 （a.hygienic） | |
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repelled
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| v.击退( repel的过去式和过去分词 )；使厌恶；排斥；推开 | |
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inoculating
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| v.给…做预防注射( inoculate的现在分词 ) | |
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dour
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| adj.冷酷的，严厉的；（岩石）嶙峋的；顽强不屈 | |
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grits
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| n.粗磨粉；粗面粉；粗燕麦粉；粗玉米粉；细石子，砂粒等( grit的名词复数 )；勇气和毅力v.以沙砾覆盖（某物），撒沙砾于( grit的第三人称单数 )；咬紧牙关 | |
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10
guts
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| v.狼吞虎咽，贪婪地吃，飞碟游戏（比赛双方每组5人，相距15码，互相掷接飞碟）；毁坏（建筑物等）的内部( gut的第三人称单数 )；取出…的内脏n.勇气( gut的名词复数 )；内脏；消化道的下段；肠 | |
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11
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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bust
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| vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部 | |
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13
fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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simile
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| n.直喻，明喻 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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16
ecstasies
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| 狂喜( ecstasy的名词复数 )； 出神； 入迷； 迷幻药 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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indignity
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| n.侮辱，伤害尊严，轻蔑 | |
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logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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21
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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23
submission
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| n.服从，投降；温顺，谦虚；提出 | |
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24
sensuous
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| adj.激发美感的；感官的，感觉上的 | |
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25
meditated
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| 深思，沉思，冥想( meditate的过去式和过去分词 )； 内心策划，考虑 | |
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26
unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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28
spouted
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| adj.装有嘴的v.（指液体）喷出( spout的过去式和过去分词 )；滔滔不绝地讲；喋喋不休地说；喷水 | |
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29
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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30
eluded
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| v.（尤指机敏地）避开( elude的过去式和过去分词 )；逃避；躲避；使达不到 | |
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31
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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32
invoke
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| v.求助于(神、法律)；恳求，乞求 | |
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recede
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| vi.退(去)，渐渐远去；向后倾斜，缩进 | |
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unbearable
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| adj.不能容忍的；忍受不住的 | |
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gasp
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| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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36
avert
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| v.防止，避免；转移(目光、注意力等) | |
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pony
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| adj.小型的；n.小马 | |
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mallet
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| n.槌棒 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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rim
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| n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界 | |
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bazaar
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| n.集市，商店集中区 | |
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42
scurried
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| v.急匆匆地走( scurry的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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43
soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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44
rein
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| n.疆绳，统治，支配；vt.以僵绳控制，统治 | |
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45
bucked
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| adj.快v.（马等）猛然弓背跃起( buck的过去式和过去分词 )；抵制；猛然震荡；马等尥起后蹄跳跃 | |
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46
reined
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| 勒缰绳使（马）停步( rein的过去式和过去分词 )； 驾驭； 严格控制； 加强管理 | |
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47
athletics
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| n.运动，体育，田径运动 | |
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48
saluting
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| v.欢迎，致敬( salute的现在分词 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
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49
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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50
awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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51
censure
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| v./n.责备；非难；责难 | |
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52
buffeted
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| 反复敲打( buffet的过去式和过去分词 )； 连续猛击； 打来打去； 推来搡去 | |
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53
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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54
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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55
demolished
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| v.摧毁( demolish的过去式和过去分词 )；推翻；拆毁（尤指大建筑物）；吃光 | |
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56
ignoble
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| adj.不光彩的，卑鄙的；可耻的 | |
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57
detested
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| v.憎恶，嫌恶，痛恨( detest的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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58
caper
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| v.雀跃，欢蹦；n.雀跃，跳跃；续随子，刺山柑花蕾；嬉戏 | |
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59
wailed
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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60
irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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61
galloping
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| adj. 飞驰的, 急性的 动词gallop的现在分词形式 | |
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62
galloped
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| （使马）飞奔，奔驰( gallop的过去式和过去分词 )； 快速做[说]某事 | |
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63
swooped
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| 俯冲，猛冲( swoop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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64
complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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65
miasma
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| n.毒气；不良气氛 | |
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66
bungalow
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| n.平房，周围有阳台的木造小平房 | |
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67
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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68
stifle
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| vt.使窒息；闷死；扼杀；抑止，阻止 | |
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69
rebuke
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| v.指责，非难，斥责 [反]praise | |
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70
allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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