of the little room in which we are sitting are crammed with photographs. Every branch of the family is represented, it is like a cross section of the Indian empire. For the most part the members of this genealogical tree look like withered leaves: the women are frail and they have a startled, frightened look in their eyes: the men have a keen, intelligent look, like educated chimpanzees. They are all there, about ninety of them, with their white bullocks, their dung cakes, their skinny legs, their old-fashioned spectacles; in the background, now and then, one catches a glimpse of the parched soil, of a crumbling pediment, of an idol with crooked arms, a sort of human centipede. There is something so fantastic, so incongruous about this gallery that one is reminded inevitably of the great spawn of temples which stretch from the Himalayas to the tip of Ceylon, a vast jumble of architecture, staggering in beauty and at the same time monstrous, hideously monstrous because the fecundity which seethes and ferments in the myriad ramifications of design seems to have exhausted the very soil of India itself. Looking at the seething hive of figures which swarm the façades of the temples one is overwhelmed by the potency of those dark, handsome peoples who mingled their mysterious streams in a sexual embrace that has lasted thirty centuries or more. These frail men and women with piercing eyes who stare out of the photographs seem like the emaciated shadows of those virile, massive figures who incarnated themselves in stone and fresco from one end of India to the other in order that the heroic myths of the races who here intermingled should remain forever entwined in the hearts of their countrymen. When I look at only a fragment of these spacious dreams of stone, these toppling, sluggish edifices studded with gems, coagulated with human sperm, I am overwhelmed by the dazzling splendor of those imaginative flights which enabled half a billion people of diverse origins to thus incarnate the most fugitive expressions of their longing.
It is a strange, inexplicable medley of feelings which assails me now as Nanantatee prattles on about the sister who died in childbirth. There she is on the wall, a frail, timid thing of twelve or thirteen clinging to the arm of a dotard. At ten years of age she was given in wedlock to this old roué who had already buried five wives. She had seven children, only one of whom survived her. She was given to the aged gorilla in order to keep the pearls in the family. As she was passing away, so Nanantatee puts it, she whispered to the doctor: «I am tired of this fucking… I don’t want to fuck any more, doctor.» As he relates this to me he scratches his head solemnly with his withered arm. «The fucking business is bad, Endree,» he says. «But I will give you a word that will always make you lucky; you must say it every day, over and over, a million times you must say it. It is the best word there is, Endree … say it now …OOMAHARUMOOMA!»
«OOMARABOO…»
«No, Endree … like this … OOMAHARUMOOMA!»
«OOMAMABOOMBA…»
«No, Endree … like this….»
…But what with the murky light, the botchy print, the tattered cover, the jigjagged page, the fumbling fingers, the fox-trotting fleas, the lie-a-bed lice, the scum on his tongue, the drop in his eye, the lump in his throat, the drink in his pottle, the itch in his palm, the wail of his wind, the grief from his breath, the fog of his brainfag, the tic of his conscience, the height of his rage, the gush of his fundament, the fire in his gorge, the tickle of his tail, the rats in his garret, the hullabaloo and the dust in his ears, since it took him a month to steal a march, he was hard-set to memorize more than a word a week.

I suppose I would never have gotten out of Nanantatee’s clutches if fate hadn’t intervened. One night, as luck would have it, Kepi asked me if I wouldn’t take one of his clients to a whorehouse nearby. The young man had just come from India and he had not very much money to spend. He was one of Gandhi’s men, one of that little band who made the historic march to the sea during the salt trouble. A very gay disciple of Gandhi’s I must say, despite the vows of abstinence he had taken. Evidently he hadn’t looked at a woman for ages. It was all I could do to get him as far as the Rue Laferrière; he was like a dog with his tongue hanging out. And a pompous, vain little devil to boot! He had decked himself out in a corduroy suit, a beret, a cane, a Windsor tie; he had bought himself two fountain pens, a kodak, and some fancy underwear. The money he was spending was a gift from the merchants of Bombay; they were sending him to England to spread the gospel of Gandhi.
Once inside Miss Hamilton’s joint he began to lose his sang-froid. When suddenly he found himself surrounded by a bevy of naked women he looked at me in consternation. «Pick one out,» I said. «You can have your choice.» He had become so rattled that he could scarcely look at them. «You do it for me,» he murmured, blushing violently. I looked them over coolly and picked out a plump young wench who seemed full of feathers. We sat down in the reception room and waited for the drinks. The madam wanted to know why I didn’t take a girl also. «Yes, you take one too,» said the young Hindu. «I don’t want to be alone with her.» So the girls were brought in again and I chose one for myself, a rather tall, thin one with melancholy eyes. We were left alone, the four of us, in the reception room. After a few moments my young Gandhi leans over and whispers something in my ear. «Sure, if you like her better, take her,» I said, and so, rather awkwardly and considerably embarrassed, I explained to the girls that we would like to switch. I saw at once that we had made a faux pas, but by now my young friend had become gay and lecherous and nothing would do but to get upstairs quickly and have it over with.
We took adjoining rooms with a connecting door between. I think my companion had in mind to make another switch once he had satisfied his sharp, gnawing hunger. At any rate, no sooner had the girls left the room to prepare themselves than I hear him knocking on the door. «Where is the toilet, please?» he asks. Not thinking that it was anything serious I urge him to do in the bidet. The girls return with towels in their hands. I hear him giggling in the next room.
As I’m putting on my pants suddenly I hear a commotion in the next room. The girl is bawling him out, calling him a pig, a dirty little pig. I can’t imagine what he has done to warrant such an outburst. I’m standing there with one foot in my trousers listening attentively. He’s trying to explain to her in English, raising his voice louder and louder until it becomes a shriek.
I hear a door slam and in another moment the madam bursts into my room, her face as red as a beet, her arms gesticulating wildly. «You ought to be ashamed of yourself,» she screams, «bringing a man like that to my place! He’s a barbarian … he’s a pig … he’s a…!» My companion is standing behind her, in the doorway, a look of utmost discomfiture on his face. «What did you do?» I ask.
«What did he do?» yells the madam. «I’ll show you… Come here!» And grabbing me by the arm she drags me into the next room. «There! There!» she screams, pointing to the bidet.
«Come on, let’s get out,» says the Hindu boy.
«Wait a minute, you can’t get out as easily as all that.»
The madam is standing by the bidet, fuming and spitting. The girls are standing there too, with towels in their hands. The five of us are standing there looking at the bidet. There are two enormous turds floating in the water. The madam bends down and puts a towel over it. «Frightful! Frightful!» she wails. «Never have I seen anything like this! A pig! A dirty little pig!»
The Hindu boy looks at me reproachfully. «You should have told me!» he says. «I didn’t know it wouldn’t go down. I asked you where to go and you told me to use that.» He is almost in tears.
Finally the madam takes me to one side. She has become a little more reasonable now. After all, it was a mistake. Perhaps the gentlemen would like to come downstairs and order another drink — for the girls. It was a great shock to the girls. They are not used to such things. And if the good gentlemen will be so land as to remember the femme de chambre… It is not so pretty for the femme de chambre — that mess, that ugly mess. She shrugs her shoulders and winks her eye. A lamentable incident. But an accident. If the gentlemen will wait here a few moments the maid wiill bring the drinks. Would the gentlemen like to have some champagne? Yes?
«I’d like to get out of here,» says the Hindu boy weakly.
«Don’t feel so badly