The Empire Trilogy

by J. G. Farrell

  In due course they set to work. Miss Staveley, who had seized the spade while Mrs Rice had a little rest, began to dig (and not a minute too soon). But she too was very tired (none of them had slept a wink, having returned from Valebridge to find the Major gone) and tiredness made her clumsier than ever, so that she seemed to be shovelling as much sand back into the hole round the Major as she was taking out of it. When at last the water was beginning to surge round her ankles, Miss Johnston, who had taken charge of the operation and was becoming apoplectic with impatience, seized the spade in her turn and, pneumonia or no pneumonia, began to dig with frenzy. But in the end it was only Miss Bagley (feebly assisted by Mrs Rice)—Miss Bagley whom the Major had never really liked as much as the others—who could muster the strength to lift out the heavy rock which pinned him in his watery grave. The young Cockney, however, was left for a second immersion.

  From a window on the fourth floor of the Majestic a shadowy figure paused to watch the old ladies drag the Major’s inert body back from the advancing sea.

  “Dead!” Murphy’s wrinkled old face convulsed with glee as he wandered on, crooning a song he had learned some fifty years earlier as a young man in Wicklow Town. “Ní shéanfad do ghrá-sa ná do pháirt ’n fhaida mhairfe mé...”

  And as he shuffled from one silent, deserted room to another he watered the carpets with the liquid from the watering-can he was carrying; he sprinkled everything with it, the flowers on the curtains and the coronets on the faded red carpet in the corridor. He soaked the bedding with it and poured it into empty drawers and cupboards, crooning gently all the time. When he came upon a pair of long-abandoned ladies’ shoes in a dusty drawing-room, chuckling, he filled them till they were brimming. Several times he padded slowly down the creaking stairs to fill his watering-can from the tank in the garage. Then the sound of his wheezing breath would alert the cats to the fact that their friend Murphy was back amongst them once more and they would all come galloping up, postponing whatever they had been doing—their bloody territorial battles in the attics or their fierce and appalling carnal endeavours on the battlements.

  “Pussies!” Murphy would mutter. “Have a sup now, will ye?”

  And he would sprinkle the seething quadrupeds until their fur became slick and oily (and the cats inside the fur became definitely displeased). Lick themselves though they might, there was nothing that would make their fur return to normal; howling with grief they slunk away, sticky and wretched.

  “Dead!” said Murphy, standing in a patch of afternoon sunlight. “Sure I’ll drink to that...” And gripping the watering-can, he raised it to his blue lips and began to gulp, pausing every now and then to make a smacking sound, it tasted so good.

  “Now then, where’re me matches?”

  Wearily he turned out his pockets. On to the floor he dropped, one after another, a penknife, a raw potato with a bite out of it, two silver teaspoons, a devotional communication from the Society of the Daughters of the Heart of Mary, a ball of twine, a lump of tobacco, and a dead thrush. But no matches! Murphy scowled and popped the tobacco into his mouth, chewing morosely until he remembered how he used to make fire without matches as a boy. Once more he descended the creaking stairs, this time to Edward’s study where he had seen a magnifying glass. Then up to the sunlight on the fourth floor where he trained the blazing golden eye on a piece of paper. Just as it was beginning to smoke, however, the sun passed behind a cloud. Murphy took another drink and sat down to wait impatiently for it to reappear.

  The Major was not yet dead, however, though by now not very far from it. He was about a mile and a half from the Majestic, lying on Dr Ryan’s kitchen table. The old ladies would never have had the strength to transport him here by themselves. Fortunately they had come upon Seán Murphy who, although he had gone into hiding, had been unable to resist lurking in the vicinity of his familiar potato diggings. At first he had seemed too frightened of the I.R.A. to help, but a brief conversation had convinced him that he was even more terrified of Miss Johnston. So the limp Major had been trundled up to the house in a wheelbarrow and then put in the Standard. The journey had reopened his wound, however, and now as he lay on the table he was once more bleeding copiously.

  While the ladies were trying to staunch the flow of blood with towels the doctor, who was tired and upset by this sudden invasion, wandered away to look for a needle with which to stitch the wound. “Ach, old women! What a fuss they make! Always making a fuss, always talking, gossiping, good for nothing except drinking tea and causing trouble.” It annoyed him to think that he had once actively sought the company of these creatures. What a young fool he must have been! he was thinking as he rummaged through the instruments scattered on his desk (now what was it he was looking for?). A young man is better off minding his studies. The musty, faded smell of old women drifted up out of his imagination as he slumped wearily in his armchair beside the empty grate. Women! Ah, his wife had been different of course, yes, but that had been many years ago. Years before the rise of the new Ireland. The new Ireland would get rid of all these old women. They wouldn’t be allowed. His wife had smelled of skin, like a young girl, not of lavender water and peppermints. Ah, she was different, he was thinking sleepily; “people are insubstantial. They never last. All this fuss, it’s all fuss about nothing. We’re here for a while and then we’re gone. People are insubstantial. They never last at all.” As his ancient wrinkled eyes gently closed, he said to him-self absently: “Now wait, there was something I was going to do...”

  In the kitchen the Major’s face was as grey as oatmeal and the blood was flowing faster than ever, so that the old ladies were beside themselves with desperation. The sight of the blood all over the place would have been enough to make anyone quail, let alone an old lady who was not used to that sort of thing. But they hung on grimly, determined that the Major should live, come what might. By now they were pale and trembling themselves. Mrs Rice had already fainted, revived, fainted again, and now she was drinking a cup of tea to give her strength and courage. Meanwhile, where was that dratted doctor?

  In due course the doctor awoke, refreshed by his nap, and remembered that he had been looking for a needle and that he had to stitch that young fool the Major, who had got himself into a scrape. He had told the silly ass to go while the going was good! He had known that something would happen. Only young fools would get themselves into trouble for nothing. And really, he thought, more disgruntled than ever, it was all for nothing! What purpose did anything serve? It all ended in the graveyard. He ought to know. He’d been to enough funerals in his time. And he tottered peevishly back to the kitchen, muttering: “People are insubstantial. They never last, they never last...”

  “Of course they don’t!” snapped Miss Johnston. “If you treat them all like this!”

  “Old women!” snorted the doctor petulantly, looking more senile than ever. But the hands with which he set to work were surprisingly deft and steady for such an old man.

  Presently the Major, stitched, bandaged, and given some beef tea, had been tucked into bed and his body had at long last been allowed to start on the business of repairing itself. The four ladies had all locked themselves into one of the upstairs bedrooms for fear of being molested by that dreadful old man. The doctor, for similar reasons, had locked himself into his study, and soon everyone was fast asleep. By this time the sun had set and it had grown quite dark. But about an hour later, while down on the beach the young Cockney was being immersed for the third time, yet another sunset lit up the sky, for Murphy had at last realized that the cloud behind which the sun had disappeared was, in fact, a hill to the west. And so he had resorted to matches instead, having come upon a box in an old silk dressing-gown of Edward’s.

  By the time the inhabitants of Kilnalough had noticed the glow in the sky and motored, ridden or walked out to the hotel, the Majestic was an inferno. Streams of fire the size of oak trees blossomed out of the windows of the upper storeys. Caterpillars of flame wriggled
their way down the worn and threadbare carpets and sucked at the banisters and panelling until all the public rooms were ablaze. The heat grew so intense that the spectators were driven back with flushed faces, first to the edge of the gravel, then farther and farther back over the grass, which the heat quickly shrivelled to raffia—until at last they were standing right back among the trees, gazing with shaded eyes at the blinding magnificence of the burning Majestic. By now only the attics under the roof were recognizable, their windows still black and empty.

  It was from these black windows that flaming, shrieking creatures suddenly began to leap—hundreds of them, seething out of the windows on to the gutters and leaping out into the darkness. Those not already ablaze exploded in mid-air or ignited like flares as they hurtled through the great heat towards the earth. Someone in the crowd remarked that it was like watching the fiery demons pouring out of the mouth and nose of a dying Protestant. But that was not all, for now a hideous, cadaverous figure was framed for an instant, poised on the roof, his clothes a cloak of fire, his hair ablaze: Satan himself! Then he vanished and was never seen again in Kilnalough. But he was thought to have swooped down to eat a meal of children in the infernal regions.

  For a few minutes more the Majestic became brighter and brighter until, like a miniature sun, it was impossible to look at for more than a moment with the naked eye. Then with a shuddering roar it caved in upon itself and an immense ladder of sparks climbed into the sky.

  And that was the end of the Majestic. It continued to burn and smoke, however, for two more days and nights. Nobody considered burying the charred and scorched demons that littered the surrounding land. Soon they began to smell atrocious.

  In July Dr Ryan received a visit from Mrs O’Neill and her daughter Viola. He had been asleep on the couch in his study and was displeased at having been woken. For some time it was not clear whether the visit was a social one or whether his professional services were required. Assuming the former, since both mother and daughter looked to be in good health, he showed them into his front room, a damp and depressing place which rarely encouraged visitors to prolong their stay more than was absolutely necessary. Having done this, he sank into a chair and closed his eyes. Mrs O’Neill chatted away sociably about this and that, while Viola smiled prettily, showing her dimples, occasionally directing a meaning glance at her mother (“Is he asleep?”).

  At last, after a long silence which the doctor had found agreeable but which his guests had found disturbing, Mrs O’Neill said: “Viola would like you to recommend a diet for her, Doctor. She finds she’s getting rather plump and needs to lose a bit of weight.”

  With an effort the doctor got to his feet and shuffled off down the corridor to his study followed by Mrs O’Neill and Viola, both of whom wrinkled their noses when they saw the state the place was in. But still, one had to make allowances. He was elderly, and the only doctor in Kilnalough.

  When Viola had partially undressed, the doctor looked briefly at her breasts and at her stomach and then motioned her to get dressed again.

  “Well, Doctor?”

  “She doesn’t need a diet.”

  “But she’s getting fat, Doctor!”

  There was another long silence. The old man stood there wool-gathering, eyes half closed. Mrs O’Neill and Viola exchanged a significant glance. “Impossible,” Mrs O’Neill was thinking, “impossible for him to keep his mind on anything for more than two seconds!”

  “A diet, Doctor,” she reminded him. But the doctor merely sighed and it looked as if they were not ever going to get any sense out of him. At last, however, his trembling, wrinkled lips parted and he said: “Your daughter doesn’t need a diet because she’s pregnant, Mrs O’Neill.”

  “Pregnant! But that’s impossible. Viola is only a child. She doesn’t even know any young men, do you, Viola?”

  “No, Mummy.”

  “There, you see...It’s absurd. And what a thing to say! Really, it’s disgusting!”

  “None the less, Mrs O’Neill, she’s pregnant.”

  “But how many times do I have to tell you...?” And again Mrs O’Neill patiently explained (nothing was achieved by losing one’s temper) that what Viola wanted was a diet, nothing more complicated than that. But the old doctor persisted in being obstinate and senile. Gradually it became clear to Mrs O’Neill that it did no good to explain anything to him, however patiently. The old boy was beyond it. His mind was made up and there was no hope of making him see reason. Dr Ryan, who had served Kilnalough so well for so many years (and this was true, he had done a splendid job, one must give him his due), had at last reached the end of his career in medicine. In some ways it was rather sad. But it was no use complaining.

  Dr Ryan shuffled as far as the gate with his visitors and watched them walk away towards the main street. Then with a sigh he made his slow and laborious way round the house to the back garden, where the Major was sitting in a deck-chair reading a newspaper.

  On his last day in Kilnalough the Major paid a melancholy visit to the charred rubble which was now all that remained of the Majestic. He did not linger there, however, because he had a train to catch. Besides, there was very little to see except that great collection of wash-basins and lavatory bowls which had crashed from one burning floor to another until they reached the ground. He inspected the drips of molten glass which had collected like candle-grease beneath the windows. He noted the large number of delicate little skeletons (the charred and roasted demons had been picked clean by the rats). He stepped from one blackened compartment to another trying to orientate himself and saying: “I’m standing in the residents’ lounge, in the corridor, in the writing-room.” Now that these rooms were open to the mild Irish sky they all seemed much smaller—in fact, quite insignificant. As he was carefully stepping over a large pile of wood-ash (which he suspected must have once been the massive front door) he looked back and happened to notice something white, half concealed by rubble. It was the statue of Venus, strangely undamaged. It was much too heavy for him to lift by himself, but when he got back to Kilnalough he made arrangements for it to be packed and shipped to London.

  As it turned out, this lady of white marble was the only bride the Major succeeded in bringing back with him from Ireland in that year of 1921. But he was still troubled by thoughts of Sarah. His love for her perched inside him, motionless, like a sick bird. For many weeks he continued to think about her painfully. And then one day, without warning, the bird left its perch inside him and flew away into the outer darkness and he was at peace. Yet even many years later he would sometimes think of her. And once or twice he thought he glimpsed her in the street.

  This is a New York Review Book

  Published by The New York Review of Books

  435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

  www.nyrb.com

  Copyright © 1970 by J.G. Farrell

  Introduction copyright © 2002 by John Banville

  All rights reserved.

  Cover photograph: Anonymous, overturned hansom cab with spectators, Edwardian era. Cover design: Katy Homans

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Farrell, J.G. (James Gordon), 1935-

  Troubles / J.G. Farrell ; introduction by John Banville.

  (New York Review Books classics)

  1. Family-owned business enterprises—Fiction. 2. World War,

  1914–1918—Veterans—Fiction. 3. Ireland—History—1910–1921—Fiction.

  4. Hotels—Fiction. I. Title. II. Series.

  PR6056.A75 T76 2002

  823'.914—dc21

  2002002988

  The Siege of Krishnapur

  J.G. Farrell

  Introduction by Pankaj Mishra

  New York Review Books

  New York

  Contents

  Title Page

  Introduction

  THE SIEGE OF KRISHNAPUR

  Dedication

  Part One

  Part Two

 
Part Three

  Afterword

  Copyright

  Introduction

  In 1857, the eighth Earl of Elgin was on his way to punish the Manchu rulers of China for daring to close the city of Canton to British opium traders when he heard about the Indian Mutiny. The anti-British insurrections were confined to North India, especially the Gangetic Plain, from where most of the mutinous sepoys, or Indian soldiers, of the British East India Company had been recruited. But they threatened to undo all that the British had gained in India in the previous hundred years. Elgin immediately diverted his punitive expedition to India and spent a few anxious weeks in Calcutta, waiting for news of British victories, before moving on to deal with the Chinese.

  Elgin was a reluctant imperialist. “I hate the whole thing so much that I cannot trust myself to write about it,” he wrote in his diary as British warships under his command bombarded and killed two hundred civilians in Canton. In Calcutta, living in a mansion modeled on Kedleston Hall in England, he wrote of the three or four hundred servants that surrounded him:

  One moves among them with perfect indifference, treating them not as dogs, because in that case one would whistle to them and pat them, but as machines with which one can have no communion or sympathy. When the passions of fear and hatred are grafted on this indifference, the result is frightful; an absolute callousness as to the sufferings of the objects of those passions....

  As a police officer in Burma, forced to shoot an elephant he didn’t particularly want to shoot, George Orwell felt acutely the degradations colonialism imposed as much on the oppressor as on the oppressed. Trapped into roles and actions not of his choosing, even the reluctant imperialist, Orwell thought, “becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib.... He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it.”