“All right.”
The newcomer 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 coreligionists 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. Lal’s 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 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 galloping 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 galloped and swooped 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 complexion 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 miasma.
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 bungalow 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 tomorrow. His spirits revived with violence. They would have revived in any case, for he possessed a soul that could suffer but not stifle, 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 rebuke or even an allusion 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
