Читать книгу A Passage to India онлайн

66 страница из 94

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 promptly when summoned.

“Sir, excuse me, I did. I mounted my bike, and it bust 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 fabric. 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.