Panditji, on the other hand, quiet, self-turned, his face dipping into his chest, withdrawn, with almost a lisp as he spoke, as if he to himself. Whereas Malraux shot his words, as in an artillery, left, right, centre or down, Panditji on the other hand seemed too far away to know if anything was happening at all. Was he thinking of Kamala Nehru in the hospital, or was he wondering what sort of man this was, so supremely arrogant but shy with an innocent university student’s smile? Panditji understood some French and Malraux some English. I was to be their interpreter, but a poor one. Besides, Malraux spoke with such concentrated rapidity, no one, and so many have tried, could follow what he said. Symbol pursued another symbol, broke it to bits, and reconstructed, the camel became a beast, man, an angel, and then a deacon, and afterwards a king, and finally a buffoon. So that Panditji himself would correct me sometimes here and there, when a French word had not the same significance as its English sister vocable, both with similar origins. For example vested interests. I said intérêts investies, but Panditji said, no. We left it at that. But Malraux was impatient. The war had to go on, for the world is a battlefield. His first question—hands firmly clasped in one another and laid heavily on the table, he said looking straight at Panditji—was, ‘I am, as you know, interested in Gandhism. I can understand any intelligent man’s aversion to violence. It is a sort of human castration. But I am an occidental man. I believe in action, in the Act. We in Europe are all in a hurry. But you, you of the East, and especially India, you have the window on eternity. So that my question is, Monsieur Nehru, what relation has metapsychosis with non-violence?’

Panditji had never anticipated such a question. And with those words? What does he mean?

‘I am afraid,’ replied Panditji in his very gentle way, ‘I am afriad I have never thought of it.’