A Passage to India

In "Forster's Women: Eternal Differences," Bonnie Blumenthal Finkelstein postulates an inverse relationship between English and native systems of oppression in the structure of A Passage to India: "Against a background of oppression and manipulation of Indians by their British rulers, a parallel domestic imperialism emerges: Indian men oppress their women, while British women manipulate their men" . Indian women, however, play no central role in the novel, appearing only briefly at the Turtons' "bridge party," and then only to contrast Mrs. Moore's and Adela's genuine goodwill with Mrs. Turton's hostility and condescension The other native women who appear in the novel (though only off stage, as it were) are Dr. Aziz's deceased wife, whose photograph he shows to Fielding, and the "Mohammedan ladies" who fast to protest Aziz's arrest. No liaisons between English men and native women are mentioned in this novel; instead, the primary relationship that developed is the one between the English school  principal Fielding and the Indian physician Aziz. The focus of the novel is the relationship between Aziz and Fielding, and it is this relationship that an English woman, Adela Quested, recklessly destroys. Another English woman, Mrs. Moore, serves a redemptive role, however, and Adela herself appears to have been redeemed by the end of the novel, though the damage done to the friendship between Fielding and Aziz, and by extension between England and India is irremediable.

The older Fielding, principal of Government College in Chandrapore, manages to know India without being corrupted by it: "The world, he believed, is a globe of men who are trying to reach one another and can best do so by the help of good will plus culture and intelligence--a creed ill-suited to Chandrapore, but he had come out too late to lose it" . Though Fielding's faith in the power of good will, culture, and intelligence to bridge the gap between people will indeed prove ill-suited to Chandrapore's climate of mistrust among Hindus, Muslims, and the English, it is not he but Aziz who will suffer as a result of a misunderstanding. The suffering is not the result of venturing beyond the pale (though that is how the English will attempt to characterize it). Instead, the suffering recounted in A Passage to India results from a failure to venture far enough beyond the pale.

The plot structure of A Passage to India resembles that of Burmese Days insofar as the relationship between Flory, Veraswami, and Elizabeth resembles that between Fielding, Aziz, and Adela. However, Fielding never displays any attraction for Adela (though when Fielding and Aziz are briefly reunited at the end of the novel, Aziz has been labouring under the misconception that Fielding has married Adela). But just as Elizabeth functions as the vehicle for the destruction of the friendship between Flory and Veraswami, so Adela disrupts the friendship between Fielding and Aziz. Although in this case neither man is exactly ruined, Aziz feels that his reputation has been shattered by Adela's unsubstantiated allegations. Furthermore, in A Passage to India, the equation between women and civilization is also foregrounded. Only Forster examines imperialist and patriarchal oppression from the perspective of women and provides a range of female characters invested with the same complexity and richness afforded to the male characters of Kipling and Orwell.

Forster's female protagonists Adela and Mrs. Moore, like Orwell's Elizabeth, initially take steps to distinguish themselves from the typical Anglo-Indians. Both Mrs. Moore and Adela escape being molded into memsahibs--Mrs. Moore by death and Adela by alienating herself from the entire English community when she withdraws the assault charges she has brought against Aziz, thus leaving her utterly alone, because she has already alienated herself from the entire Indian community--Hindu and Muslim alike--by bringing

the charges in the first place. It may be argued that the self-sacrifices of Mrs. Moore and Adela save both the English and Indian communities from disaster. For if Adela had not withdrawn the charges, Aziz would almost certainly have been convicted, and had Aziz been convicted, the Indians would almost certainly have rioted for his release, putting Fielding in the same position Flory finds himself in near the end of Burmese Days: he would have had to defend the British, whom he largely despises as they do him, against the natives whom he secretly favours. Conceivably the result would have been tragedy for all involved. All that prevents the fulfillment of this disastrous scenario is Mrs. Moore's influence on Adela, evidently made possible by her death at sea while returning to England, along with Adela's willingness to act in accordance with this influence, regardless of the consequences to herself. The ambiguous status of Adela and Mrs. Moore has led to a great deal of controversy among critics over Forster's portrayal of women. Forster has frequently been lumped together with Kipling and Orwell as a misogynist. In the works examined here, however, the implied authors exhibit considerable sympathy for both native and English women who are victimized by native patriarchy and English imperialism. It is true that in all three works English women are presented as collaborators with the colonial system of cultural segregation. It is important to note that in every oppressive system one finds individuals who collaborate not by choice, but by compulsion and who are thus both villains and victims. And are the Englishmen who created these fictional characters, or the implied authors who tell their stories, also complicit in their victimation? Trejago, Flory, and Fielding can be seen in some sense as projections of Kipling, Orwell, and Forster, and if their stories are to some extent exercises in self-criticism, perhaps to that extent they serve to expiate their authors' evident sense of guilt at being participants, however reluctant, in the system whose evils they so powerfully expose.

E. M. Forster   “A Passage to India”

Abandoning his bicycle, which fell before a servant could catch it, the young man sprang up onto the veranda. He was all animation. 'Hamidullah, Hamidullah! Am I late?' he cried.'Do not apologize,' said his host. 'You are always late.''Kindly answer my question. Am I late? Has Mahmoud Ali eaten all the food? If so I go elsewhere. Mr Mahmoud Ali, how are you?''Thank you, Dr Aziz, I am dying.''Dying before your dinner? Oh, poor Mahmoud Ali!''Hamidullah here is actually dead. He passed away just as you rode up on your bike.''Yes, that is so,' said the other. 'Imagine us both as addressing you from another and a happier world.'Does there happen to be such a thing as a hookah in that happier world of yours?''Aziz, don't chatter. We are having a very sad talk.'The hookah had been packed too tight, as was usual in his friend's house, and bubbled sulkily. He coaxed it. Yielding at last, the tobacco jetted up into his lungs and nostrils, driving out the smoke of burning cow dung that had filled them as he rode through the bazaar. It was delicious. He lay in a trance, sensuous but healthy, through which the talk of the two others did not seem particularly sad   they were discussing as to whether or no it is possible to be friends with an Englishman. Mahmoud Ali argued that it was not, Hamidullah disagreed, but with so many reservations that there was no friction between them. Delicious indeed to lie on the broad veranda with the moon rising in front and the servants, preparing dinner behind, and no trouble happening.'Well, look at my own experience this morning.''I only contend that it is possible in England,' replied Ham idullah, who had been to that country long ago, bifore the big rush, and had received a cordial welcome at CambridgeIt is impossible here. Aziz ! The red nosed boy has again insulted me  in court  I do not blame him. He was told that he ought to insult me.  Until lately he was quite a nice boy, but the others have got hold of him.'Yes, they have no chance here, that is my point. They come out intending to be gentlemen, and are told it will not do. Look at Lesley, look at Blakiston  now it is your red nosed boy, and Fielding will go next. Why, I remember when Turton came out first. It was in another part of the Province. You fellows will not believe me, but I have driven with Turton in his carriage   Turton ! Oh yes, we were once quite intimate. He has shown me his stamp collection!' He would expect you to steal it now. Turton!  But red nosed boy will be far worse than Turton!'I do not think so. They all become exactly the same not worse, not better. I give any . Englishman two years, be he Turton or Burton. it is only the difference of a letter. And I give any Englishwoman six months. All are exactly alikeDo you not agree with me!'I do not,' replied Mahmoud Ali, entering into the bitter fun, and feeling both pain and amusement at each word that was uttered. 'For my own part I find such profound differences among our rulers. Red nose mumbles, Turton talks distinctly, Mrs Turton takes bribes, Mrs Red nose does not and cannot, because so far there is no Mrs Red nose.'' Bribes?''Did you not know that when they were lent to Central India over a canal scheme some rajah or other gave her a sewing machine in solid gold so that the water should run through his state. , And does it?' 'No, that is where Mrs Turton is so skilful. When we poor

blacks take bribes, we perform what we are bribed to perform, and the law discovers us in consequence. The English take and do nothing. I admire them.' 'We all admire them. Aziz, please pass me the hookah.''Oh, not yet   hookah is so jolly now ''You are a very selfish boy.' He raised his voice suddenly, and shouted for dinner. Servants shouted back that it was ready. They meant that they wished it was ready, and were so understood, for nobody moved. Then Hamidullah continued, but with changed manner and evident emotion..'But take my case   the case of young Hugh Bannister. Here is the son of my dear, my dead friends, the Reverend and Mrs Bannister, whose goodness to me in England I shall never forget or describe. They were father and mother to me, I talked to them as I do now. In the vacations their rectory became my home. They entrusted all their children to me   I often carried little Hugh about   I took him up to the funeral of Queen Victoria, and held him in my arms above the crowd.''Queen Victoria was different,' murmured Mahmoud Ali.'I learn now that this boy is in business as a leather merchant at Gawnpore. Imagine how I long to see him and to pay his fare that this house may be his home. But it is useless. The other Anglo Indians will have got hold of him long ago. He will probably think that I want something, and I cannot face that from the son of my old friends. Oh, what in this country has gone wrong with everything, Vakil Sahib? I ask you.'Aziz joined in. 'Why talk about the English? Brrrr ...Why be either friends with the fellows or not friends? Let us shut them out and be jolly. Queen Victoria and Mrs Bannister were the only exceptions, and they're dead.''No, no, I do not admit that, I have met others.''So have I,' said Mahmoud Ali, unexpectedly Veering. 'All ladies are far from alike.' Their mood was changed, and they recalled little kindnesses and courtesies. 'She said "Thank you so much" in the most natural way.' 'She offered me a lozenge when the dust irritated my throat! Harnidullah could remember more important examples of angelic ministration, but the other, who only knew Anglo India, had to ransack his memory for scraps, and it was not surprising that he should return to 'But of course all this is exceptional. The exception does not Prove the rule. The average woman is like Mrs Turton, and, Aziz, you know what she is.' Aziz did not know, but said he did. He too generalized from his disappointments   it is difficult for members of a subject race to do otherwise. Granted the exceptions, he agreed that all Englishwomen are haughty and venal. The gleam passed from the conversation, whose wintry surface unrolled and expanded interminably.A servant announced dinner. They ignored him. The elder men had reached their eternal politics, Aziz drifted into the garden. The trees smelt sweet   green blossomed champak and scraps of Persian poetry came into his head. Dinner, dinner, dinner ... but when he returned to the house for it Mahmoud Ali had drifted away in his turn, to speak to his sais. 'Come and see my wife a little then,' said Hamidullah, and they spent twenty minutes behind the purdah. Hamidullah Begum. was a distant aunt of Aziz, and the only female relative he had in Chandrapore, and she had much to say to him on this occasion about a family circumcision that had been celebrated with imperfect pomp. It was difficult to get away, because until they had had their dinner she would not begin hers, and consequently prolonged her remarks in case they should suppose she was impatient. Having censured the circumcision, she bethought her of kindred topics, and asked Aziz when he was going to be married.Respectful but irritated, he answered, 'Once is enough.''Yes, he has done his duty,' said Hamidullah. 'Do not tease him so. He carries on his family, two boys and their sister.''Aunt, they live most comfortably with my wife's mother, where she was living when she died. I can see them whenever I like. They are such very, very small children.'

'And he sends them the whole of his salary and lives like a low grade clerk, and tells no one the reason. What more do you require him to do?'But this was not Hamidullah Begum's point, and having courteously changed the conversation for a few moments she returned and made it. She said: 'What is to become of all our daughters if men refuse to marry? They will marry beneath them, or  ? And she began the oft told tale of a lady of imperial descent who could find no husband in the narrow circle where her pride permitted her to mate, and had lived on unwed, her age now thirty, and would die unwed, for no one would have her now. While the tale was in progress, it convinced the two men, the tragedy seemed a slur on the whole community; better polygamy almost, than that a woman should die without the joys God has intended her to receive. Wedlock, motherhood, power in the house for what else is she born, and how can the man who has denied them to her stand up to face her creator and his own at the last day? Aziz took his leave saying 'Perhaps ... but later. . .'  his invariable reply to such an appeal.'You mustn't put off what you think right,' said Hamidullah. 'That is why India is in such a plight, because we put off things.' But seeing that his young relative looked worried he added a few soothing words, and thus wiped out any impression that his wife might have made.During their absence, Mahmoud Ali had gone off in his carriage, leaving a message that he should be back in five minutes, but they were on no account to wait. They sat down to meat with a distant cousin of the house, Mohammed Latif, who lived on Hamidullah's bounty and who occupied the position neither of a servant nor of an equal. He did not speak unless spoken to, and since no one spoke kept unoffended silence. Now and then he belched, in compliment to the richness of the food. A gentle, happy and dishonest old man; all his life he had never done a stroke of work. So long as someone of his relatives had a house he was sure of a home, and it was unlikely that so large a family would all go bankrupt. His wife led a similar existence some hundreds of miles away  he did not visit her, owing to the expense of the railway ticket. Presently Aziz chaffed him, also the servants, and then began quoting poetry: Persian, Urdu, a little Arabic. His memory was good, and for so young a man he had read largely; the themes he preferred were the decay of Islam and the brevity of love. They listened delighted, for they took the public view of poetry, not the private which obtains in England. It never bored them to hear words, words; they breathed them with the cool night air, never stopping to analyse; the name of the poet, Hafiz, Hali Iqbal, was sufficient guarantee. India  a hundred Indias whispered outside beneath the indifferent moon, but for the time India seemed one and their own, and they regained their departed greatness by hearing its departure lamented, they felt young again because reminded that youth must fly. A servant in scarlet interrupted him; he was the chuprassy of the Civil Surgeon, and he handed Aziz a note.'Old Callendar wants to see me at his bungalow,' he said, not rising. 'He might have the politeness to say why.''Some case, I dare say.''I dare say not, I dare say nothing. He has found out our dinner hour, that's all, and chooses to interrupt us every time, in order to show his power.''On the one hand he always does this, on the other it may be a serious case, and you cannot know,' said  Hamidullah, considerately paving the way towards obedience. 'Had you not better clean your teeth after pan?''If my teeth are to be cleaned, I don't go at all. I am an Indian, it is an Indian habit to take pan. The Civil Surgeon must put up with it. Mohammed Latif, my bike, please.'The poor relation got up. Slightly immersed in the realms of matter, he laid his hand on the bicycle's saddle, while a servant did the actual wheeling. Between them they took it over a tin tack. Aziz held his hands under the ewer, dried them, fitted on his green felt hat, and then with unexpected energy whizzed out of Hamidullah's compound.

'Aziz, Aziz, imprudent boy. . .'But he was far down the bazaar, riding furiously. He had neither light nor bell nor had he a brake, but what use are such adjuncts in a land where the cyclist's only hope is to coast from face to face, and just before he collides with each it vanishes? And the city was fairly empty at this hour. When his tyre went flat, he leapt off and shouted for a tonga.He did not at first find one, and he had also to dispose of his bicycle at a friend's house. He dallied furthermore to clean his teeth. But at last he was rattling towards the Civil Lines, with a vivid sense of speed. As he entered their arid tidiness, depression suddenly seized him. Ile roads, named after victorious generals and intersecting at right angles, were symbolic of the net Great Britain had thrown over India. He felt caught in their meshes. When he turned into Major Callendar's compound he could with difficulty restrain himself from getting down from the tonga and approaching the bungalow on foot, and this not because his soul was servile but because his feelings   the sensitive edges of him   feared a gross snub. There had been a 'case' last year   an Indian gentleman had driven up to an official's house and been turned back by the servants and told to approach more suitably only one case among thousands of visits to hundreds of officials, but its fame spread wide. The young man shrank from a repetition of it. He compromised, and stopped the driver just outside the flood of light that fell across the veranda.The Civil Surgeon was out.'But the sahib has left me some message?'The servant returned an indifferent 'No'. Aziz was in despair. It was a servant whom he had forgotten to tip, and he could do nothing now because there were people in the hall. He was convinced that there was a message, and that the man was withholding it out of revenge. While they argued, the people came out. Both were ladies. Aziz; lifted his hat. The first, who was in evening dress, glanced at the Indian and turned instinctively away.'Mrs Lesley, it is a tonga,' she cried.'Ours?' inquired the second, also seeing Aziz, and doing likewise.'Take the gifts the gods provide, anyhow,' she screeched, and both jumped in. '0 tonga wallah, Club, Club. Why doesn't the fool go ?''Go, I will pay you tomorrow,' said Aziz; to the driver, and as they went off he called courteously, 'You are most welcome, ladies.' They did not reply, being full of their own affairs.So it had come, the usual thing   just as Mahmoud Ali said. The inevitable snub   his bow ignored, his carriage taken. It might have been worse, for it comforted himsomehow that Mesdames Callendar and Lesley should both be fat and weigh the tonga down behind. Beautiful women would have pained him. He turned to the servant, gave him a couple of rupees, and asked again whether there was a message. The man, now very civil, returned the same answer. Major Callendar had driven away half an hour before.'Saying nothing?'He had as a matter of fact said, 'Damn Aziz'  words that the servant understood, but was too polite to repeat. One can tip too much as well as too little, indeed the coin that buys the exact truth has not yet been minted.'Then I will write him a letter.'He was offered the use of the house, but was too dignified to enter it. Paper and ink were brought onto the veranda. He began: 'Dear Sir,   At your express command I have hastened as a subordinate should  ? and then stopped. 'Tell him I have called, that is sufficient,' he said, tearing the protest up. 'Here is my card. Call me a tonga.''Huzoor, all are at the Club.''Then telephone for one down to the railway station.' And since the man hastened to do this he said, 'Enough, enough,, I prefer to walk.' He commandeered a match and lit a cigarette. These attentions, though purchased, soothed him. They would last as long as he had rupees, which is something. But to shake the dust of Anglo India off his feet! To

escape from the net and be back among manners and gestures that he knew! He began to walk, an unwonted exercise.He was an athletic little man, daintily put together, but really very strong. Nevertheless walking fatigued him, as it fatigues everyone in India except the newcomer. There is something hostile in that soil. It either yields, and die foot sinks into a depression, or else it is unexpectedly, rigid and sharp, pressing stones or crystals against the tread. A series of these little surprises exhausts; and he was wearing pumps, a poor preparation for any country. At the edge of the Civil Station he turned into a mosque to rest.He had always liked this mosque. It was gracious, and the arrangement pleased him. The courtyard   entered through a ruined gate   contained an ablution tank of fresh clear water, which was always in motion, being indeed part of a conduit that. supplied the city. The courtyard was paved with broken slabs. The covered part of the mosque was deeper than is usual; its effect was that of an English parish church whose side has been taken out. Where he sat, he looked into three arcades whose darkness was illuminated by a small hanging lamp and by the moon. The front   in fall moonlight   had the appearance of marble, and the ninety nine names of God on the frieze stood out black, as the frieze stood out white against the sky. The contrast between this dualism and the contention of shadows within pleased Aziz, and he tried to symbolize the whole into some truth of religion or love. A mosque by winning his approval let loose his imagination. The temple of another creed, Hindu, Christian or Greek, would have bored him and failed to awaken his sense of beauty. Here was Islam, his own country, more than a Faith, more than a battle cry, more, much more ... Islam, an attitude towards life both exquisite and durable, where his body and his thoughts found their home.His seat was the low wall that bounded the courtyard on the left. The ground fell away beneath him towards the city, visible as a blur of trees, and in the stillness he heard many small sounds. On the right, over in the Club, the English community contributed an amateur orchestra. Elsewhere some Hindus were drumming   he knew they were Hindus, because the rhythm was uncongenial to him   and others were bewailing a corpse   he knew whose, having certified it in the afternoon. There were owls, the Punjab mail ... and flowers smelt deliciously in the station master' s garden. But the mosque  that alone signified, and he returned to it from the complex appeal of the night, and decked it with meanings the builder had never intended. Some day he too would build a mosque, smaller than this but in perfect taste, so that all who passed by should experience the happiness he felt now. And near it, under a low dome, should be his tomb, with a Persian inscription:

Alas, without me for thousands of years The Rose will blossom and the Spring will bloom, But those who have secretly understood my heart They will approach and visit the grave where I lie.He had seen the quatrain on the tomb of a Deccan king and regarded it as profound philosophy   he always held pathos to be profound. The secret understanding of the heart! He repeated the phrase with tears in his eyes, and as he did so one of the pillars of the mosque seemed to quiver. It swayed in the gloom and detached itself. Belief in ghosts ran in his blood, but he sat firm. Another pillar moved, a third, and then an Englishwoman stepped out into the moonlight. Suddenly he was furiously angry and shouted: 'Madam! Madam! Madam!''Oh ! Oh!' the woman gasped.'Madam, this is a mosque, you have no right here at all; you should have taken off your shoes; this is a holy place for Moslems.''I have taken them off.''You have?''I left them at the entrance.''Then I ask your pardon.'

Still startled, the woman moved out, keeping the ablutiontank between them. He called after her, 'I am truly sorry for speaking.''Yes, I was right, was I not? If I remove my shoes, I am allowed?''Of course, but so few ladies take the trouble, especially if thinking no one is there to see.''That makes no difference. God is here.''Madam!''Please let me go.''Oh, can I do you some service now or at any time?''No, thank you, really none   good night.''May I know your name?'She was now in the shadow of the gateway, so that he could not see her face, but she saw his, and she said with a change of voice, 'Mrs Moore.''Mrs  ' Advancing, he found that she was old. A fabric bigger than the mosque fell to pieces, and he did not know whether he was glad or sorry. She was older than Hamidullah Begum, with a red face and white hair. Her voice had deceived him.'Mrs Moore, I am afraid I startled you. I shall tell our community   my friends   about you. That God is here very good, very fine indeed. I think you are newly arrived in India.''Yes   how did you know?''By the way you address me. No, but can I call you a carriage ?''I have only come from the Club. They are doing a play that I have seen in London, and it was so hot.''What was the name of the play?''Cousin Kate.''I think you ought not to walk at night alone, Mrs Moore. There are bad characters about and leopards may come across from the Marabar Hills. Snakes also.'She exclaimed; she had forgotten the snakes.'For example, a six spot beetle,' he continued. 'You pick it up, it bites, you die.''But you walk alone yourself.''Oh, I am used to it.''Used to snakes?'They both laughed. 'I'm a doctor,' he said. 'Snakes don't dare bite me.' They sat down side by side in the entrance, and slipped on their evening shoes. 'Please may I ask you a question now? Why do you come to India at this time of year, just as the cold weather is ending?''I intended to start earlier, but there was an unavoidable delay.''It will soon be so unhealthy for you! And why ever do you come to Chandrapore?''To visit my son. He is the City Magistrate here.''Oh no, excuse me, that is quite impossible. Our City Magistrate's name is Mr Heaslop. I know him intimately.''He's my son all the same,' she said, smiling.'But, Mrs Moore, how can he be?''I was married twice.''Yes, now I see, and your first husband died.''He did, and so did my second husband.''Then we are in the same box,' he said cryptically. 'Then is the City Magistrate the entire of your family now?''No, there are the younger ones   Ralph and Stella in England.''And the gentleman here, is he Ralph and Stella's halfbrother?''Quite right.''Mrs Moore, this is all extremely strange, because like yourself I have also two sons and a daughter. Is not this the same box with a vengeance?''What are their names? Not also Ronny, Ralph and Stella, surely?'

The suggestion delighted him. 'No, indeed. How funny it sounds! Their names are quite different and will surprise you. Listen, please. I am about to tell you my children's names. The first is called Ahmed, the second is called Karim, the third   she is the eldest  Jamila. Three children are enough. Do not you agree with me?''I do.'They were both silent for a little, thinking of their respective families. She sighed and rose to go.'Would you care to see over the Minto Hospital one morning?' he inquired. 'I have nothing else to offer at Chandrapore.''Thank you, I have seen it already, or I should have liked to come with you very much.''I suppose the Civil Surgeon took you.''Yes, and Mrs Callendar.'His voice altered. 'Ah ! A very charming lady.''Possibly, when one knows her better.''What? What? You didn't like her?''She was certainly intending to be kind, but I did not find her exactly charming.'He burst out with: 'She has just taken my tonga without my permission   do you call that being charming?   and Major Callendar interrupts me night after night from where I am dining with my friends and I go at once, breaking upa most pleasant entertainment, and he is not there and not even a message. Is this charming, pray? But what does it matter? I can do nothing and he knows it. I am just a subordinate, my time is of no value, the veranda is good enough for an Indian, yes, yes, let him stand, and Mrs Callendar takes my carriage and cuts me dead . .She listened.He was excited partly by his wrongs, but much more by the knowledge that someone sympathized with them. It was this that led him to repeat, exaggerate, contradict. She had proved her sympathy by criticizing her fellow countrywoman to him, but even earlier he had known. The flame that not even beauty can nourish was springing up, and though his words were querulous his heart began to glow secretly. Presently it burst into speech.'You understand me, you know what I feel. Oh, if others resembled you!'Rather surprised, she replied: 'I don't think I understand people very well. I only know whether I like or dislike them.''Then you are an Oriental.'She accepted his escort back to the Club, and said at the gate that she wished she was a member, so that she could have asked him in.'Indians are not allowed into the Chandrapore Club even as guests,' he said simply. He did not expatiate on his wrongs now, being happy. As he strolled downhill beneath the lovely moon, and again saw the lovely mosque, he seemed to own the land as much as anyone owned it. What did it matter if a few flabby Hindus had preceded him there, and a few chilly English succeeded?

"Beyond the Pale"

The title of Kipling's narrative, first published in Plain Tales from the Hills Plain Tales from

the Hills (published 1888) is the first collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling. Out of its 40 stories, 29 were initially published in the Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore, British India, (now in Pakistan) between November 1887 and June 1888.  The expression "beyond the pale" originally referred to the areas of France and Ireland that had not submitted to English military authority and were thus beyond the reach of English law The system of law that has developed in England from approximately 1066 to the present.As with many of Kipling's titles, this one appears to involve word play in the double significance of "pale"--the paleness of English culture and women as compared to the darkness of Indian culture and women. The moralistic narrator opens the text with an interpretation of the Hindu proverb that serves as the epigraph--"Love heeds not caste nor sleep a broken bed. I went in search of love and lost myself":

 A man should, whatever happens, keep to his own caste, race and breed. Let the White go to the White and the Black to the Black. Then, whatever trouble falls is in the ordinary course of things--neither sudden, alien nor unexpected. This is the story of a man who wilfully stepped beyond the safe limits of decent everyday society, and paid for it heavily. (189)

The narrator here seems to be a veteran English officer who wishes to dissuade greenhorns from succumbing to the allure of India, its women and its culture. The story is clearly intended as a monitory device, at least at the outset. Trejago, the protagonist, appears to be the typical young British civil servant whose days are filled with the "routine of office work" or "put[ting] on his calling clothes and visit[ing] the ladies of the station". Neither typical nor acceptable to the narrator, however, is Trejago's interest in Indian civilization: "He knew too much in the first instance; and he saw too much in the second. He took too deep an interest in native life, but he will never do so again". Trejago actually leads a double life: he is a proper young office worker and gentleman-caller by day; by night he is a denizen An inhabitant of a particular place. A "denizen of the Internet" is a person who frequently uses the Web or other Internet facilities.  of the streets, lanes, and alleys of "the heart of the City." It is on one of his customary "wanderings" that, while disguised in a boorka, Trejago stumbles into Amir Nath's Gully. Upon hearing a "pretty little laugh," he responds instantly by singing a verse from "The Love Song of Har Dyal," a move that suggests he is knowledgeable of Indian courtship rituals. Furthermore, on the next day when he receives "an innocent unintelligible UNINTELLIGIBLE. That which cannot be understood.    2. When a law, a contract, or will, is unintelligible, it has no effect whatever. Vide Construction, and the authorities there referred to.  lover's epistle epistle (ĭpĭs`əl), in the Bible, a letter of the New Testament. The Pauline Epistles (ascribed to St. Paul) are Romans, First and Second Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, First and Second Thessalonians, First and " in the form of an object-letter, he interprets it correctly, again earning the narrator's censure: "Trejago knew far too much about these things, as I have said. No Englishman should be able to translate object-letters" (191). But Trejago's familiarity with The Arabian Nights Arabian Nights and his literacy in object-letters are keys that gain him entry into the house of Bisesa, a fifteen-year-old widow who serves as a housekeeper for her uncle Durga Charan. Indian social strictures required that women be kept in purdah (Seclusion of women from public observation by means of concealing clothing (including the veil) and walled enclosures as well as screens and curtains within the home), secluded from the eyes of all men save those of their immediate

relatives, and therefore "the walls on either side of the Gully are without windows. Neither Suchet Singh nor Gaur Chand approve of their women-folk looking into the world". Bisesa's uncle Durga Charan, however, has inexplicably placed her in a room affording a view (through a grated window) into the Gully. And as the narrator ominously informs us, if Durga Charan had shared the views of his neighbours, "he would have been a happier man today, and little Bisesa would have been able to knead her bread. Her uncle's failure to maintain strict observance of the traditional seclusion of women offers Bisesa partial access to the world beyond her room.

"Little" Bisesa is portrayed throughout as a childlike innocent; even the narrator's comment that, "she prayed to the Gods, day and night, to send her a lover, for she did not approve of living alone", carries no hint of criticism nor condemnation, but appears rather sympathetic for what fifteen-year-old widow would approve of living alone? Bisesa at first seems to see the affair as nothing more than entertainment and a cure for her loneliness and isolation, not as the prelude to any lasting commitment, and Trejago's attitude is equally cavalier. He continues to call on the English ladies of the Station, and when "the exigencies of his other life [compel] Trejago to be especially attentive" to one of these ladies, the news soon reaches Bisesa's ears. Curiously, Trejago's life as an English civil servant is here designated his "other life," thereby subverting the traditional imperial order in which the native (Spivak's "subaltern") is the other. Furthermore, the exigencies imposed on that other life by the English ladies at the Station are symptomatic of a pattern characteristic of masculine fiction in general and masculine British colonial fiction in particular: the women of the colonizing culture, a representation of the civilization and domestication from which men are forever trying to escape, and fearing the supposedly innate tendency of their men to cast off the vestments of civilization when exposed to the blandishments of native culture, enforce the institutionally mandated separation between colonizing men and colonized women, and thus bear the blame for making intercultural relationships impossible.

Sharpe locates the "stereotype of the memsahib" in "the domestic role of the Anglo-Indian woman":

 A discourse of domesticity, as it is bound up with that of racial superiority, is manifested in the duty of colonial women to maintain a separation of the races ... Because of her strategic positioning within an enforcement of the racial hierarchy, the memsahib is spoken of as embodying the worst evils of the Empire. She is a scapegoat for imperialism, the remedy and poison that both ensures racial separation and threatens to undermine race relations.

In a similar way, Suleri examines the "revelatory pattern of embodiment" in which "Anglo-Indian narrative schematizes the Indian woman into two parallel images: she is either sequestered in the unknowability of the zenana or all too visible in the excessive availability of the professional courtesan. Bisesa, however, seems to embody the contradictory images: sequestered yet easily available; innocent yet exhibiting the charms of the professional courtesan.

The paradox embodied by the Hindu widow has been analyzed by Revathi Krishnaswamy, who links it to the controversy over widow remarriage, immoral, arrogant, and ungovernable or as sexless But since women were excluded from the debate, says Krishnaswamy, "the widow thus became a symbolic site for a power struggle between colonizing and colonized men. By making a widow the unstable site of contention between

Trejago and Durga Charan, Kipling's story symbolically rehearses the ideological roles of white and brown men in a debate that effectively erased the subjectivity of the woman herself" . It is, however, Krishnaswamy's reduction of Bisesa to a field of masculine combat that erases her, not the story itself or its narrator. A more judicious reading of the paradox depicted in Bisesa arises from Suleri's argument that the seductive "nautch girls" of Anglo-Indian narrative "emblematize a peculiarly Indian threat", a threat arising not so much from the seductiveness of the courtesan but from "a hidden recognition that the Indian courtesan provided an uncannily literal replication of the part Anglo-Indian women had been imported to perform". Suleri thus explains how "the colonial sexual dynamic ... places the Anglo-Indian woman in a position of far greater confinement than that of her Indian counterpart". Bisesa then functions as a richly overdetermined symbol of the multiple threats women pose to the work of empire and to cross-cultural understanding: she is both the seductiveness of native culture, embodied by its women, and she is the reaction against and retreat from that seductiveness embodied by the Anglo-Indian woman. Though hidden in the maze of Amir Nath's Gully, Bisesa's seductiveness, like that of Suleri's nautch girls, "has less to do with an Oriental mystery than with the potential vengeance of cultural contagion. In "Beyond the Pale," those who have the most to fear from such contagion, the guardians of native patriarchy and the Englishwomen, exact vengeance.

The zeal of the Englishwomen to prevent the spread of cultural contagion causes Trejago some well-founded concern over how long "the ladies of the Station ... would continue to know him if they knew of poor little Bisesa", but he is wholly unprepared for Bisesa's reaction to the news that he has been paying particular attention to one of the ladies of the Station: she "raged and stormed, and threatened to kill herself if Trejago did not at once drop the alien Memsahib who had come between them". Although Trejago attempts to reason with her, "to show her that she did not understand these things from a Western standpoint", Bisesa remains adamant: "Nothing would satisfy her save that all relations between them should end" . The exact nature of the "Western standpoint" Trejago advocates is not made clear: presumably it is the male standpoint that tolerated Englishmen keeping mistresses while stationed in India. But whatever Trejago's expectations may have been, Bisesa finds it intolerable to share his affections with a memsahib, and it is she that ends the relationship, leaving Trejago to walk home "wondering." His consternation likely arises from a fifteen-year-old Indian widow's unanticipated display of moral principles equal to those he feared among the English ladies of the Station.

Trejago is only momentarily daunted. He continues his frequent night visits to the Gully, but for three weeks his knock at the grated window goes unanswered. On his sixth foray, though, the grate slides open to admit him, and only then does he learn of Bisesa's ghastly punishment: "From the black dark, Bisesa held out her arms into the moonlight. Both hands had been cut off at the wrists, and the stumps were neatly healed" (196). Here I would agree with Krishnaswami: "The final image of Bisesa sticking her stumps out of the window inscribes the Indian woman's sexuality as a corrosive, punishing and punished commodity"(117). Trejago then suffers his own punishment (presumably at the instigation INSTIGATION. The act by which one incites another to do something, as to injure a third person, or to commit some crime or misdemeanor, to commence a suit or to prosecute a criminal. Vide Accomplice.  of Durga Charan), but one decidedly less drastic: out of the darkness a sharp pointed object is thrust into "one of the muscles of his groin," appropriately enough, leaving him with a slight limp that will stay with him "for the rest of his days" (196). Trejago's response is to flee: he casts aside the boorka and thus renounces not only Bisesa, but all of his interest in life beyond the pale as well.

The last lines of the story suggest that Trejago has completely suppressed all memory of his affair with Bisesa: "But Trejago pays his calls regularly, and is reckoned a very decent sort of man. There is nothing peculiar about him, except a slight stiffness, caused by a riding strain, in the right leg". The lie he has told the English ladies to account for his injury has become truth in his mind, and since, apart from the narrator's occasional intrusions, it is through Trejago's eyes that we view the events in the story, it is his version of the truth with which the reader is left. But the irony is clear to any reader (if not to the narrator): although the narrator has at the outset informed us that Trejago "paid for it heavily," in reality it is Bisesa who pays--not only with her hands but with her life, for in a patriarchal society what use is a fifteen-year-old widow who can neither cook nor do housework? Trejago, meanwhile, is allowed to return to English society with nothing more than a slight limp. Thus the rhetorical aims of the narrator and implied author become highly problematic in this story: if we take the opening lines seriously, as do most critics, the story is intended as a warning to young Englishmen of the tragic consequences of venturing beyond the pale, yet the denouement de·noue·ment of the story blatantly undercuts this purpose. What kind of moral lesson is presented by a story that begins, "if one acts in such a way, one will come to ruin," but ends, "Trejago transgressed, but was punished only in a minor way"? Was Kipling so incompetent a storyteller as to be unaware of this contradiction? Or is the implied author in the last lines mocking the sanctimonious tone the narrator has displayed throughout? Sullivan comments, "the production of the role of Englishman as native-lover plays out, in part, an explicit political and cultural interest in preserving the European against local contamination. But since the narrator (and Kipling himself) admit to their own recurring fascination with the contamination, the position of the author is at best finally ambivalent" (94). Sullivan and others have noted how Trejago's nocturnal wanderings replicate Kipling's own behaviour while working as a journalist in Lahore. He describes them in Something of Myself: "I would wander till dawn in all manner of odd places--liquor shops, gambling and opium dens ... or in and about the narrow gullies under the Mosque of Wasir Khan for the sheer sake of looking" (338). According to John A. McClure, however, "Kipling's immersion in the Indian community seems never to have progressed far beyond such excursions ... the routes taken by Trejago ... were avoided by their creator". Since no one can be sure to what extent either Trejago or the story's narrator can be identified with Kipling, Sullivan is correct in characterizing the position of the author as "finally ambivalent." It is noteworthy, though, that the allegedly imperialist and racist Kipling of "white man's burden" notoriety has produced a story demonstrating that the burden of the clash between English and native cultures is borne so disproportionately by the natives. It perhaps goes without saying that the penalty for sexual indiscretions is borne disproportionately by women in both cultures.

In "Beyond the Pale," then, the relationship between Englishmen, English and native women, and British "civilization" seems to be this: Trejago represents "civilized" standards, desires to participate in native culture without abandoning English civilization, but is prevented from doing so by both the guardians of English culture (the ladies of the Station) and of native culture (Durga Charan). But the narrator's warning that Trejago's attempt to navigate both cultures is doomed is not borne out by the denouement. The only real victim in this story is the native woman, Bisesa. But is she a tragic or pathetic character? If she is a tragic figure, is she then responsible for having brought the tragedy on herself through her ignorance, her culturally inappropriate desire for a lover, or through her own boldness in venturing beyond the pale of purdah? Or is she the innocent victim of Indian patriarchy on the one hand, and English exploitation on the other? The narrator provides no answer to these questions, outside of expressing an apparently genuine sympathy for Bisesa and leaving the reader with the impression that Trejago is something of a cad, at best. But whether it is her individual acts or qualities that result in Bisesa's tragedy, or the cultural

systems she and Trejago find themselves locked into, is left unclear. What is clear is that a story that begins by warning Englishmen to avoid contamination by Indian society ends by questioning the purity of English civilization itself, in that both English and Indian society appear complicit in Bisesa's ruin.

But the ambivalence of the narrative stance and structure of the story implicates its readers as well, as Danny Karlin observes:

 The design of 'Beyond the Pale' ... also brings into question the part played by the reader. In exemplary tabloid fashion, the story exploits our appetite for scandal and sensation ... our pleasure as voyeurs and consumers. This pleasure is irresponsible and shameful; no more than the narrator are we to suffer for it as Bisesa and Trejago suffer for theirs. What began as a game for them ends in retribution, but the form of the story opens up this very process to the reader's play of intelligence; the act of understanding may, disconcertingly, be both enlightened and corrupt, morally discriminating and morally unstable.

Trejago knew too much but understood too little. The story's narrator and implied author know all that Trejago knew and understand more. Similarly, we modern readers of the story, armed with a century's worth of historical knowledge and critical methodology, may claim to have a superior understanding of its significance. But, if what began as a game for Bisesa and Trejago ends as a game for the story's readers, a game from which we walk away with nothing more than a slight limp; if we relate to the story as voyeurs and consumers rather than fellow sufferers, then our judgment of that story and its characters is no more enlightened or morally discriminating than the cultures or author that produced them.

Burmese days – plot

Burmese Days is set in 1920s imperial Burma, in the fictional district of Kyauktada. As the

story opens, U Po Kyin, a corrupt Burmese magistrate is planning to destroy the reputation of the Indian Dr. Veraswami. The Doctor's main protection is his friendship with John Flory who, as a pukka sahib (European white man), has higher prestige. U Po Kyin begins his campaign by sending anonymous letters with false stories about the doctor, and he even sends a subtly threatening letter to Flory.

Flory has become disillusioned with his lifestyle, living in a tiresome expatriate community centred round the European Club in a remote part of the country. On the other hand he has become so embedded in Burma that it is impossible for him to leave and return to England. His dilemma seems to be answered when Elizabeth Lackersteen, the orphaned niece of Mr Lackersteen, the local timber firm manager, arrives. Flory saves her when she thinks she is being attacked by a small water buffalo. He is immediately taken with her and they spend some time getting close, culminating in a highly successful shooting expedition. Elizabeth scores a hit with almost her first shot, and Flory shoots a leopard, promising the skin to Elizabeth as a trophy. It seems a match made in heaven. Under the surface, however, Elizabeth is appalled by Flory's relatively egalitarian attitude towards the natives, seeing them as 'beastly' while Flory extolls the virtues of their rich culture. Worse still are his interests in high art and literature which remind Elizabeth of her boondoggling mother who died in disgrace in Paris, poisoned by her painting materials whilst masquerading as a bohemian artist. Despite these reservations, of which Flory is entirely unaware, she is willing to marry him to escape poverty, spinsterhood and the unwelcome advances of her perpetually inebriated uncle.

Flory is about to ask her to marry him, when they are interrupted firstly by her aunt and secondly by an earthquake. Mrs. Lackersteen's interruption is deliberate because she has discovered that a military police lieutenant named Verrall is arriving in Kyauktada. As he comes from an extremely good family, she sees him as a better prospect as a husband for Elizabeth. Mrs. Lackersteen tells Elizabeth that Flory is keeping a Burmese mistress as a deliberate ploy to send her to Verrall. Indeed, he had been keeping one but had dismissed her almost the moment Elizabeth had arrived. No matter, Elizabeth is appalled and falls at the first opportunity for Verrall, who is arrogant and ill-mannered to all but her. Flory is devastated and after a period of exile attempts to make amends by delivering to her the leopard skin but an inexpert curing process has left the skin mangy and stinking and the gesture merely compounds his status as a poor suitor.

U Po Kyin's campaign against Dr. Veraswami turns out to be intended simply to further his aim of becoming a member of the European Club in Kyauktada. The club has been put under pressure to elect a native member and Dr. Veraswami is the most likely candidate. U Po Kyin arranges the escape of a prisoner and plans a rebellion for which he intends that Dr. Veraswami should get the blame. The rebellion begins and is quickly put down, but a native rebel is killed by acting Divisional Forest Officer, Maxwell. A few days later, the body of Maxwell is brought back to the town. This creates a tension between the Burmese and the Europeans, exacerbated by a vicious attack on native children by the spiteful Ellis. A large riot begins and Flory becomes the hero for bringing it under control with some support by Dr. Veraswami. U Po Kyin tries to claim credit but is disbelieved and Dr. Veraswami's prestige is restored.

Verrall leaves Kyauktada without even saying goodbye to Elizabeth and she falls for Flory again. Flory is happy and plans to marry Elizabeth. However, U Po Kyin has not given up; he hires Flory's former Burmese mistress to create a scene in front of Elizabeth during the sermon at Sunday church. Flory is disgraced and Elizabeth refuses to have anything more to do with him. Overcome by the loss and seeing no future for himself, Flory kills himself

and his dog.

Dr. Veraswami is demoted and sent to a different district and U Po Kyin is elected to the Club. U Po Kyin's plans have succeeded and he plans to redeem his life and cleanse his sins by financing pagod

INDIA AND ENGLISH COLONIZATION English colonization in India started at the end of XVIII century when the country was brought under crown control. Britain brought there guns, monarchy and few kinds of

facilities like hospitals, schools, railroads, but unlike English colonists in America, British citizens were sent to India just for a certain number of years: they weren’t determined to stay there forever, their interests were temporary.

In 1859 Darwin published “The Origin of Species” where he expressed his theory about natural selection: among men there is a constant fight to survive, trying to strengthen the ability to adapt oneself to the circumstances. The evolution theory was later applied (against Darwin’s will) to social groups: human society is regulated by the natural kingdom’s rules and the fittest social class overcomes the other ones. These theories have contributed to the development of racism in India, in particular to the extermination of millions of Indians. An Anglo-Indian mentality spread: English people are superior to Indians, whereas in England, after World War 2, the idea had changed. Although British contributed to the spread of racism, before their arrival in India there was already a division into social classes, called castes, which formed a rigorous hierarchy. This system has three main points:

● Endogamy: the wedding is allowed only between people belonging to the same ethnic group.

● Occupation: when you are born in a specific group, you cannot leave it (no possibility to go up or down). This situation is unfavorable for the lower classes, especially for the untouchables, forced to keep their painful conditions forever.

● Ethnicity: the prohibition to mix inferior classes with the upper ones.

Examples of castes are:● the Brahamai (priests and teachers).● the Kshatryia (king warriors).● the Vaishya (traders).● the Sudras (farmers, servants).● the Paria, also known as untouchable.

Among the social classes, a deep racism existed before English colonization and this situation is kept with no changes nowadays; in fact this stiff hierarchy dates back to the Aryan penetration and it was used to separate the roles of rulers from the ruled ones. HINDUISMHinduism, the most ancient religion on Earth, is the principal one in India, even if there are many others. It is an henoteistic religion, that is, you can have one and many gods to venerate.Especially they believe in reincarnation: you belong to a certain caste according to your behaviour in a previous life. The disparity among men depends on your attitude till death, when there will be another reincarnation. Every caste has their own dharma, a divinity dealing with ethic (everyone has to follow some duties). There is Samsara , the cycle of life-death-rebirth, and the Karma, the cycle of cause and effect. To get rid of Samsara, considered very annoying, Indians practice yoga, a special physical training, to reach moksha, the liberation. Another characteristic of Indian religion is vegetarianism. To fast is fundamental for many reasons: there is a principle of nonviolence, called ahimsa, applied to animals, and the Prasad is a mental condition of generosity and purity; besides nonvegetarian diet is detrimental for the mind and spiritual development.

GANDHIGandhi, called also Bapu (“babbo”) or Mahatma (“great soul”) is a relevant character in the

Indian history and he’s famous for his weapons towards British: ● Peaceful resistance to oppression through the non cooperation.● Swaray (swa = home, ray = rule): Indians had the right to govern themselves with

no British intervention.● Swaden Policy: task to boycott the foreign-made goods. There was the idea that

Indian society could do without English items (for instance khadi, the white self-made tunic worn by Gandhi, seen in a lot of photos).

His politics was based on six points:● Satygraha (saty = trouth): devotion to the truth.● Ahimsa: nonviolence and nonresistance (his mottos were “An eye for an eye makes

the whole world blind” and “There are many causes that I am prepared to die for, but no causes that I am prepared to kill for”).

● Vegetarianism.● Brahma Charya: spiritual and practical purity and ascetism.● Simplicity: reducing himself to nothing, totally poor; besides one day per week in

silence to reach an inner peace.● Faith: acceptance of other religions because there are no reasons to fight other

religious creeds.

His battle began in Africa and continued in India, founding the National India Congress, an organization which fought to get the independence of his country. On March 1930 he organized the salt march, protesting against the tax on salt: he covered 400km on foot to reach the sea and get his own salt.During World War 2 Gandhi, determined to get the rights to Indians, stepped up his demands for independence by writing a resolution calling for the British to leave India: Quit India. He urged to nonviolence rebellion and protest meetings, but mass arrests and violence on an unprecedented scale happened. Finally he accepted the division of India with Pakistan to avoid a civil war in 1948.In the same year Gandhi was killed by a fanatic Hindu radical. His ashes were immersed in some of the world’s major rivers.

"Love heeds not caste nor sleep a broken bed.I went in search of love and lost myself."

Hindu Proverb.

A man should, whatever happens, keep to his own caste, race and breed. Let the White go to the White and the Black to the Black. Then, whatever trouble falls is in the ordinary course of things-- neither sudden, alien, nor unexpected.

This is the story of a man who wilfully stepped beyond the safe limits of decent every-day society, and paid for it heavily.

He knew too much in the first instance; and he saw too much in the second. He took too deep an interest in native life; but he will never do so again.

Deep away in the heart of the City, behind Jitha Megji's bustee, lies Amir Nath's Gully, which ends in a dead-wall pierced by one grated window. At the head of the Gully is a big cow-byre, and the walls on either side of the Gully are without windows. Neither Suchet Singh nor Gaur Chand approved of their women-folk looking into the world. If Durga Charan had been of their opinion, he would have been a happier man to-day, and little Biessa would have been able to knead her own bread. Her room looked out through the grated window into the narrow dark Gully where the sun never came and where the buffaloes wallowed in the blue slime. She was a widow, about fifteen years old, and she prayed the Gods, day and night, to send her a lover; for she did not approve of living alone.

One day the man--Trejago his name was--came into Amir Nath's Gully on an aimless wandering; and, after he had passed the buffaloes, stumbled over a big heap of cattle food.

Then he saw that the Gully ended in a trap, and heard a little laugh from behind the grated window. It was a pretty little laugh, and Trejago, knowing that, for all practical purposes, the old Arabian Nights are good guides, went forward to the window, and whispered that verse of "The Love Song of Har Dyal" which begins:

Can a man stand upright in the face of the naked Sun;or a Lover in the Presence of his Beloved?If my feet fail me, O Heart of my Heart, am I to blame,being blinded by the glimpse of your beauty?

There came the faint tchinks of a woman's bracelets from behind the grating, and a little voice went on with the song at the fifth verse:

Alas! alas! Can the Moon tell the Lotus of her love when theGate of Heaven is shut and the clouds gather for the rains?They have taken my Beloved, and driven her with the pack-horsesto the North.There are iron chains on the feet that were set on my heart.Call to the bowman to make ready--

The voice stopped suddenly, and Trejago walked out of Amir Nath's Gully, wondering who in the world could have capped "The Love Song of Har Dyal" so neatly.

Next morning, as he was driving to the office, an old woman threw a packet into his dog-cart. In the packet was the half of a broken glass bangle, one flower of the blood red dhak, a pinch of bhusa or cattle-food, and eleven cardamoms. That packet was a letter--not a clumsy compromising letter, but an innocent, unintelligible lover's epistle.

Trejago knew far too much about these things, as I have said. No Englishman should be able to translate object-letters. But Trejago spread all the trifles on the lid of his office-box and began to puzzle them out.

A broken glass-bangle stands for a Hindu widow all India over; because, when her husband dies a woman's bracelets are broken on her wrists. Trejago saw the meaning of the little bit of the glass. The flower of the dhak means diversely "desire," "come," "write," or "danger," according to the other things with it. One cardamom means "jealousy;" but when any article is duplicated in an object-letter, it loses its symbolic meaning and stands merely for one of a number indicating time, or, if incense, curds, or saffron be sent also, place. The message ran then:--"A widow dhak flower and bhusa--at eleven o'clock." The pinch of bhusa enlightened Trejago. He saw-- this kind of letter leaves much to instinctive knowledge--that the bhusa referred to the big heap of cattle-food over which he had fallen in Amir Nath's Gully, and that the message must come from the person behind the grating; she being a widow. So the message ran then:--"A widow, in the Gully in which is the heap of bhusa, desires you to come at eleven o'clock."

Trejago threw all the rubbish into the fireplace and laughed. He knew that men in the East do not make love under windows at eleven in the forenoon, nor do women fix appointments a week in advance. So he went, that very night at eleven, into Amir Nath's Gully, clad in a boorka, which cloaks a man as well as a woman. Directly the gongs in the City made the hour, the little voice behind the grating took up "The Love Song of Har Dyal" at the verse where the Panthan girl calls upon Har Dyal to return. The song is really pretty in the Vernacular. In English you miss the wail of it. It runs something like this:--

Alone upon the housetops, to the NorthI turn and watch the lightning in the sky,--The glamour of thy footsteps in the North,Come back to me, Beloved, or I die!

Below my feet the still bazar is laidFar, far below the weary camels lie,--The camels and the captives of thy raid,Come back to me, Beloved, or I die!

My father's wife is old and harsh with years,And drudge of all my father's house am I.--My bread is sorrow and my drink is tears,Come back to me, Beloved, or I die!

As the song stopped, Trejago stepped up under the grating and whispered:--"I am here."

Bisesa was good to look upon.

That night was the beginning of many strange things, and of a double life so wild that Trejago to-day sometimes wonders if it were not all a dream. Bisesa or her old handmaiden who had thrown the object-letter had detached the heavy grating from the brick-work of the wall; so that the window slid inside, leaving only a square of raw masonry, into which an active man might climb.

In the day-time, Trejago drove through his routine of office-work, or put on his calling-clothes and called on the ladies of the Station; wondering how long they would know him if they knew of poor little Bisesa. At night, when all the City was still, came the walk under the evil-smelling boorka, the patrol through Jitha Megji's bustee, the quick turn into Amir Nath's Gully between the sleeping cattle and the dead walls, and then, last of all, Bisesa, and the deep, even breathing of the old woman who slept outside the door of the bare little room that Durga Charan allotted to his sister's daughter. Who or what Durga Charan was, Trejago never inquired; and why in the world he was not discovered and knifed never occurred to him till his madness was over, and Bisesa . . . But this comes later.

Bisesa was an endless delight to Trejago. She was as ignorant as a bird; and her distorted versions of the rumors from the outside world that had reached her in her room, amused Trejago almost as much as her lisping attempts to pronounce his name--"Christopher." The first syllable was always more than she could manage, and she made funny little gestures with her rose-leaf hands, as one throwing the name away, and then, kneeling before Trejago, asked him, exactly as an Englishwoman would do, if he were sure he loved her. Trejago swore that he loved her more than any one else in the world. Which was true.

After a month of this folly, the exigencies of his other life compelled Trejago to be especially attentive to a lady of his acquaintance. You may take it for a fact that anything of this kind is not only noticed and discussed by a man's own race, but by some hundred and fifty natives as well. Trejago had to walk with this lady and talk to her at the Band-stand, and once or twice to drive with her; never for an instant dreaming that this would affect his dearer out-of-the-way life. But the news flew, in the usual mysterious fashion, from mouth to mouth, till Bisesa's duenna heard of it and told Bisesa. The child was so troubled that she did the household work evilly, and was beaten by Durga Charan's wife in consequence.

A week later, Bisesa taxed Trejago with the flirtation. She understood no gradations and spoke openly. Trejago laughed and Bisesa stamped her little feet--little feet, light as marigold flowers, that could lie in the palm of a man's one hand.

Much that is written about "Oriental passion and impulsiveness" is exaggerated and compiled at second-hand, but a little of it is true; and when an Englishman finds that little, it is quite as startling as any passion in his own proper life. Bisesa raged and stormed, and finally threatened to kill herself if Trejago did not at once drop the alien Memsahib who had come between them. Trejago tried to explain, and to show her that she did not understand these things from a Western standpoint. Bisesa drew herself up, and said simply:

"I do not. I know only this--it is not good that I should have made you dearer than my own heart to me, Sahib. You are an Englishman. I am only a black girl"--she was fairer than bar-gold in the Mint-- "and the widow of a black man."

Then she sobbed and said: "But on my soul and my Mother's soul, I love you. There shall no harm come to you, whatever happens to me."

Trejago argued with the child, and tried to soothe her, but she seemed quite unreasonably disturbed. Nothing would satisfy her save that all relations between them should end. He was to go away at once. And he went. As he dropped out at the window, she kissed his forehead twice, and he walked away wondering.

A week, and then three weeks, passed without a sign from Bisesa. Trejago, thinking that the rupture had lasted quite long enough, went down to Amir Nath's Gully for the fifth time in the three weeks, hoping that his rap at the sill of the shifting grating would be answered. He was not disappointed.

There was a young moon, and one stream of light fell down into Amir Nath's Gully, and struck the grating, which was drawn away as he knocked. From the black dark, Bisesa held out her arms into the moonlight. Both hands had been cut off at the wrists, and the stumps were nearly healed.

Then, as Bisesa bowed her head between her arms and sobbed, some one in the room grunted like a wild beast, and something sharp--knife, sword or spear--thrust at Trejago in his boorka. The stroke missed his body, but cut into one of the muscles of the groin, and he limped slightly from the wound for the rest of his days.

The grating went into its place. There was no sign whatever from inside the house--nothing but the moonlight strip on the high wall, and the blackness of Amir Nath's Gully behind.

The next thing Trejago remembers, after raging and shouting like a madman between those pitiless walls, is that he found himself near the river as the dawn was breaking, threw away his boorka and went home bareheaded.

What the tragedy was--whether Bisesa had, in a fit of causeless despair, told everything, or the intrigue had been discovered and she tortured to tell, whether Durga Charan knew his name, and what became of Bisesa--Trejago does not know to this day. Something horrible had happened, and the thought of what it must have been comes upon Trejago in the night now and again, and keeps him company till the morning. One special feature of the case is that he does not know where lies the front of Durga Charan's house. It may open on to a courtyard common to two or more houses, or it may lie behind any one of the gates of Jitha Megji's bustee. Trejago cannot tell. He cannot get Bisesa--poor little Bisesa--back again. He has lost her in the City, where each man's house is as guarded and as unknowable as the grave; and the grating that opens into Amir Nath's Gully has been walled up.

But Trejago pays his calls regularly, and is reckoned a very decent sort of man.

There is nothing peculiar about him, except a slight stiffness, caused by a riding-strain, in the right leg.

-THE END-Rudyard Kipling's short story: Beyond The Pale