866 words
New Delhi
13 January 1975
(Antiquarian Henry Joachim REINHARDT, 8 Burgfreiheit, BIELEFELD, Germany, [illegible] Odal)
Dearest young comrade A,
Thanks immensely for your interesting letter and Yuletide gift — such a royal gift, as always. Naturally it (175 dollars) went to Jogen Bose, my printer in Calcutta who — thanks to you — has now printed (about) half the book. He has begun Chapter VII of the ms. (that has twelve chapters), and the last proof he sent me (and which I sent back) stops at p. 154 of ms. (which has 320 typed pages). I typed them myself on the typewriter of the Alliance Française, 1971. The director (of those good days) was kind enough to allow me to type it — without having himself read it (naturally!). Your gift covers the printing of formas 11 and 12 — i.e., up to page 192 of [the] printed book (about) p. 167 of [the] ms., i.e., up to end of Chapter VII.
I think I once gave you Jogen Bose’s address: “Temple Press,” 2 Nayaratna Lane, Syambazar, Calcutta 4 (West Bengal).
If you care to, you can write a word to him saying several people are waiting for it, so he should speed up the printing of the book.
Chapter VIII by the way is on “The Two Great Modern Movements and Tradition,” in other words, “Hitlerism and Marxism in relation to Tradition,” in which I show our faith is in the line with Tradition (which is of more than human origin) while Marxism is definitely against any divinely inspired [illegible].
Chapter VII is about “Technical Development and Struggle ‘Against Time.’” Chapter IX is about “The esoteric aspect of Hitlerism.” You can see that in spite of a few “remembrances” that I recall in it now and then, the book is anything but an “autobiography.”
Thank you a million times for helping it to appear. Hope you’ll — at last!! — have a copy in 1975. In the meantime, I asked a friend in England, Miss Gantry, to look and see whether she has not a copy of Gold in the Furnace lying somewhere, and if so send it to you. It is nonsense to give 95 dollars for such a writing (mere impressions from Germany in 1948). It’s many times more than it is worth. In Indian money about 760 rupees, about twice the money the Alliance Française gave me for a month teaching two classes. Now they cut off one class and at the end of January. I [illegible] 216 rupees — apart from my one private tuition, fortunately (otherwise it would not suffice for my room rent, 250 rupees). Don’t go and pay that. I’ll do my best to get a copy for you from Miss Gantry or anyone else — as my last one I sent to you was lost.
The little picture I started painting for you I did not yet finish. I am cold; my fingers numb — as I told you the room is not heatable on account of the lace-like wall, burning hot in summer (southwards) and freezing from November to the end of February.
Was thrilled at the thought of glorious Lindbergh. I always admired reforming the all-too-human Christian prayers for [illegible] of the Vedas, to be [three illegible words] his grave. My landlord — belonging, as I told you, to the fair elite of India, and an admirer of our Führer — was also thrilled as I told him. I am glad you honored Lindbergh’s memory with a street in Atlanta. I wish he had been president of the USA instead of that “Juden Knecht no. 1” Roosevelt. We should then have smashed Communism once and for all and won the war (with [the] USA kept out of it).
This is but a short note. A longer letter — a real letter — is coming soon. (I’ve not finished it.)
Two of the five cats in my room have died one after the other. One (half a kitten) spotty like a leopard, was killed by one of the fierce dogs downstairs. The other one — a lovely cat, so soft and silky, and so caressing — reddish-yellow — died of feline distemper. It’s hard to see the splendid thick, glossy fur and the lion-like face, lying still forever — irreplaceable as all living creatures are. He [will] never purr again, never put his velvet paws around my neck again. I — and K- — the architects of the Parthenon — could build that marvel. But they could not have made a live kitten — or a live rose — not even one of those black and yellow drones, with transparent wings; nothing alive. It makes me sick to see of how little account are beautiful forms of life in the eyes of so many people. Thanks to the Christian teaching.
I remember how indignant I was, long long ago, when reading in Uncle Tom’s Cabin the statement of a Christian owner of slaves to her son: “You see the starry sky and all the universe without end? Well, it is not worth the ‘soul’ of the least of our own slaves.” That is real slavery — of the Aryan to the unseen Jew — a curse upon him! That is what the Bible preachers did to our brothers and sisters, descendants of the Norsemen of old. A shame! But more soon. Goodbye for just now.
H. H.
Savitri Dêvi Mukherji