‘Then what is it?’
‘The rope. Not as opposed to the serpent, but the rope just is-and therefore there is no world.’
‘But there can be a Beatrice?’ she implored.
‘Yes,’ I said, after a long while. ‘Yes, where I am not. When I can love the self in Maitreyi, I can be Yagnyavalkya.’
‘Find then, my friend, an Indian Maitreyi. Let me be the woman of the marches.’
‘Una vera Marchosa?’ I smiled.
‘Yes, my prince.’
‘He who is,’ I quoted an ancient text, ‘not the body, not the mind, nor the sense organs; he, the true emperor.’
The battle at last had ended. I must have sat for a very long time in Madeleine’s room, for the moon which I had seen high up in the sky when I came in had set beyond the tower of the cathedral, and the night was musical with the noises of owls, with crickets, and the distant sea. On a quiet night, especially in winter, you could hear the sea from where we were, and whether the world was real or unreal, the sea seemed proof of something unnameable. ‘La mer, la mer toujours récommencée.’
I went down to the town a few days later, and bought Madeleine a pair of strong country shoes, with crepe soles on them. And one evening, when the wound was almost healed, while I was dressing her foot, I said: ‘I have played a trick on you, Madeleine.’
‘What was it?’ she asked, smiling, but weak with so much dieting and lying in bed. Her voice had the gentleness and sorrowfulness that come to those in constant prayer, silence, and askesis.
‘But, first let me tell you a story. It is a story that Ramakrishna Paramahamsa used to repeat a great deal. And it is an old Vedantic parable. It runs thus:
‘“Once upon a time, and that was a long time ago, there was a very good man. He did whatsoever he undertook perfectly”—he was let us imagine a Charentais—”So one day, when the sun was very hot, he said to himself, the sun is hot here in the courtyard, it is hot there on the road — and he looked farther and he said, it is hot there on the stretch of fields, and hot, too, on the hill. It must be hot in the valley below, and beyond the river and the towns it must be hot too. And beyond the palaces of the city and the fields and the mountains, it must be so hot, hot, in the deserts that be, and the wide, dust-bearing plains. Round the whole world it must be hot. So, said he to himself, I must protect myself from this scorchsome heat. I will cover the whole earth with leather; I will cut and sew, and patch every spot of the round earth with good solid leather. And in this wise I could walk where I would. Thus saying, he went up to the loft, and brought down large chunks of animal hide and started cutting and shaping them. The bull, standing in the yard, gave a loud laugh.”
‘“Héo — ho,” he cried.
‘The good man said, “You laugh at me, do you, bull?”
‘“Yes, I do, revered Master. I know what you want to do. You find, like I do, that the whole vast world is very hot, and you want to protect yourself from the heat. So, you want to cover the world with hide!”
‘“Yes, that is precisely what I thought. But how did you know it?”
‘“Well, when I plough the fields, and I drag the cart, the Master does not have to say much to me, does he?”
‘“No, certainly not. You know I want to go to the jackfruit field before I lift my whip, or that I go to the Siddapura or Ramapura fair almost before I jump on the yoke and say ‘hoy’. That is true. But why did you laugh?”
‘“Learned and good Master, I thought how strange that Master should be thinking of covering the world with leather. It will take him all the night and all the day, cutting the hide and stitching it; first in this courtyard, and then on the road with its ruts, on the stretch of fields with their furrows, on the still-standing forests and the sands by the river; and the winter will be gone and then the summer, and the sun will rise and grow hotter and set. The Master will grow old and his children will be born, and they will grow old, stitching and stitching the leather round the earth. And bulls will die, and elephants and horses, too, and sheep, and the earth will take a long time to get covered. It will, of course, be covered with hide, one day after many suns and moons. But if only instead, I thought, the Master who gives me the steel shoes every four months, if only the Master made a pair of nice country slippers, the Master could go in winter and summer, where he would; through furrow or forest, and the sun would not scorch his feet.”
‘The good man was so pleased with the beast’s answer that he mightily patted and caressed him — thus the bull has the hump and dewlap neck. Then he laughed, the Master did, so that all the trees and the hills laughed with him. The wise man put his bullock to his cart, and went to Ramapura Siddapura and made himself a pair of nice slippers. He could walk where he would, and he was greatly pleased with his freedom.
‘And when the bull died he went naturally to the Kailas of Lord Shiva, and became a servant-companion of Nandi.’
Madeleine laughed with me, a gentle laugh, that was like the cry of mice or of little rabbits. I had finished washing her feet. Underneath the wound, the skin was getting red and whole.
‘And so,’ I added, coming back from my room, ‘here are your shoes. I told you India is impitoyable. Like the wise bull we laugh at all good men.’
‘The story is like one of those medieval stories about the curé and his wise dog.’
‘Wisdom, fortunately, is no monopoly of India. But if you start covering the warm earth from Aix—’ She burst out laughing this time, till her belly ached.
‘—you may need a hundred lives and more. Fortunately you believe in reincarnation,’ I teased her.
‘We Europeans believe in being good,’ she added, thoughtfully.
‘We Indians in being wise.’
‘Let me remain the Marchesa,’ she pleaded.
‘And I the Brahmin, the bull.’
She liked my choice of shoes, however — they were beige with a yellow border — and to honour me she put them on, on the clay I was leaving for Paris and London. My main work of research was almost finished, and I only had to consult a few manuscripts at the British Museum and at the Bodleian; then I could start on the thesis, maybe before the vacations began. I put all my papers and important books into my case. I took many warm clothes too; the winter was mild yet, and when it came it might be severer, I thought. My case was very heavy, but Madeleine procured a barrow with cycle tyres from our neighbour, and stopped me from carrying my luggage. ‘I am the foolish good man,’ she said. She brought me to the bus-stop.
On the way she said, ‘I have a trick up my sleeve. I will come and see you off at St Charles.’ So we sat in the bus, warm, very near one another, but with a feeling of the incongruity of destiny.
‘The bus isn’t bad, is it? Why must we always have such expensive ways, and get in and out of taxis, when there are so many who suffer? Your father was not a maharaja, nor my father anything but a good bourgeois.’
‘The bus is all right, but all this smell, and this rubbing against one another…! My olfactory organs, Madeleine, as you know are made of Brahmin substance.’
‘Whereas I, I am the great-granddaughter of serfs freed by the Revolution. For me human self is rich and warm, and even this smell moves me to tears.’
‘Yes, Marchesa,’ I said ironically.
At St Charles I protested against her lifting my heavy luggage. The porters came. I bought myself a first-class ticket.