Read Online A Passage to India by E. M. Forster - Free Book Online Page B

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 scurried over the brown platter of the Maidan, with the evening wind on his forehead, and the encircling trees soothing 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 rein 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 bucked and off he went, cried, “Oh God!” and jumped on again. “Don’t you ever fall off?”
    “Plenty.”
    “Not you.”
    They reined up again, the fire of good fellowship in their eyes. But it cooled with their bodies, for athletics can only raise a temporary glow. Nationality was returning, but before it could exert its poison they parted, saluting 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 distress 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 awfully 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 censure. 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 buffeted the Brahminy Bull. “Post Office? Do you not send your servants?” he said.
    “I have so few—my scale is very small.”
    “Your servant spoke 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 fixed rule.” He said all this and much more out of civility, to save Dr. Lals face. It was not offered as truth and should not have been criticized as such. But the other demolished it—an easy and ignoble task. “Even if this so, what prevents leaving a chit saying where you go?” and so on. Aziz detested ill breeding, and made his pony caper. “Farther away, or mine will start out of sympathy,” he wailed, revealing the true source of his irritation. “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