FLORA (Interrupting) Oh … is there one for grey?

DAS Grey is for sorrow.

FLORA Sorrow? I see.

DAS Each one has its own name and its own god, too.

FLORA And some don’t get on, is that it?

DAS Yes. That is it. Some do and some don’t. If you arouse emotions which are in opposition to each other the rasa will not … harmonize, you said.

FLORA Yes.

DAS Your poem is about heat.

FLORA Yes.

DAS But its rasa is perhaps … anger?

FLORA Sex.

DAS (Unhesitatingly) The rasa of erotic love is called Shringara. Its god is Vishnu, and its colour is shyama, which is blue-black. Vishvanata in his book on poetics tells us: Shringara requires, naturally, a lover and his loved one, who may be a courtesan if she is sincerely enamoured, and it is aroused by, for example, the moon, the scent of sandalwood, or being in an empty house. Shringara goes harmoniously with all other rasa and their complementary emotions, with the exception of fear, cruelty, disgust and sloth.

FLORA I see. Thank you. Empty house is very good. Mr Das, you sounded just like somebody else. Yourself, I expect. I knew you could. The other one reminded me of Dr Aziz in Forster’s novel. Have you read it? I kept wanting to kick him.

DAS (Offended) Oh …

FLORA For not knowing his worth.

DAS Then perhaps you didn’t finish it.

FLORA Yes, perhaps. Does he improve?

DAS He alters.

FLORA What is your opinion of A Passage To India?

DAS Was that the delicate question you considered to ask me?

FLORA (Laughs happily) Oh, Mr Das!

Pike enters, dressed for India. He is staying at the best hotel in Jummapur, and looks it. He carries a smart shoulder-bag. He stares around him in a vaguely disappointed way. Modern street sounds, distinctly Indian, accompany Pike’s entrance.

Flora is at her table, writing. Das is at the easel, painting.

FLORA (Writing) ‘Jummapur, Saturday April 5th. Darling Nell. I’m having my portrait painted, I mean the painter is at it as I write, so if you see a picture of me in my cornflower dress you’ll know I was writing this—some of the time anyway. He thinks I’m writing a poem. Posing as a poet, you see, just as the Enemy once said of me in his rotten rag.’

PIKE ‘The Enemy’ was J. C. Squire (1884–1958), poet, critic, literary editor of the New Statesman and editor of the London Mercury. An anonymous editorial in the London Mercury (April 1920) complained about, ‘an outbreak of versifying flappers who should stop posing as poets and confine themselves to posing as railway stations’. The magazine was sued by the poets Elizabeth Paddington (1901–1980) and Meredith Euston (1899–1929), both cases being settled out of court. FC poured a pint of beer over Squire’s head in the Fitzroy Tavern in January 1921.

DILIP enters with a bottle of cola.

DILIP Dr Pike …

PIKE Eldon, please.

DILIP … will you have a cola, Eldon?