The heat had leapt forward in the last hour, the street
was deserted as if a catastrophe had cleaned off humanity
during the inconclusive talk. Opposite Aziz’ bungalow
stood a large unfinished house belonging to two brothers,
astrologers, and a squirrel hung head-downwards on
it, pressing its belly against burning scaffolding and
twitching a mangy tail. It seemed the only occupant
of the house, and the squeals it gave were in tune with
the infinite, no doubt, but not attractive except to other
squirrels. More noises came from a dusty tree, where
brown birds creaked and floundered about looking
for insects; another bird, the invisible coppersmith,
had started his “ponk ponk.” It matters so little
to the majority of living beings what the minority,
that calls itself human, desires or decides. Most of the
inhabitants of India do not mind how India is governed.
Nor are the lower animals of England concerned about
England, but in the tropics the indifference is more
prominent, the inarticulate world is closer at hand and
readier to resume control as soon as men are tired. When
the seven gentlemen who had held such various opinions
inside the bungalow came out of it, they were aware of a
common burden, a vague threat which they called “the
bad weather coming.” They felt that they could not
do their work, or would not be paid enough for doing
it. The space between them and their carriages, instead
of being empty, was clogged with a medium that
pressed against their flesh, the carriage cushions scalded
their trousers, their eyes pricked, domes of hot water
accumulated under their head-gear and poured down
their cheeks. Salaaming feebly, they dispersed for the
interior of other bungalows, to recover their self-esteem
and the qualities that distinguished them from each
other.
All over the city and over much of India the same
retreat on the part of humanity was beginning, into
cellars, up hills, under trees. April, herald of horrors,
is at hand. The sun was returning to his kingdom with
power but without beauty—that was the sinister feature.
If only there had been beauty! His cruelty would have
been tolerable then. Through excess of light, he failed
to triumph, he also; in his yellowy-white overflow not
only matter, but brightness itself lay drowned. He was
not the unattainable friend, either of men or birds or
other suns, he was not the eternal promise, the
never-withdrawn suggestion that haunts our consciousness;
he was merely a creature, like the rest, and so debarred
from glory.
