711 words
New Delhi
30 September 1974
Dearest young comrade A,
This will be a short note, but I must write it at once: today — on my birthday — I received your gorgeous present! I was touched to tears by your kindness. Be sure not a cent of your 200 dollars (two-hundred dollars only) shall be spent on anything else, save on printing costs of my book. (I took out 250 rupees — almost 30 dollars — to pay my house rent as the school will not pay me before Tuesday the 2nd; but I’ll put it back as soon as I get my pay.)
I wrote to the printer, an express letter, asking him to take up the work at once. When half the book is printed — i.e., when Chapter 6 will be (I’ll have twelve chapters) — I’ll send the last to you. Your French is surely good enough to read such easy prose. You more than deserve the “premisesses” of it at any rate.
Did you receive my two letters — one concerning Greece and the Allies during the First World War (in answer to some questions of yours about Cyprus) and the other about Johann von Leers’ book Odal, das Lebensgesetz eines ewigen Deutschland?
I am sorry Mr. Mukherhi expressed some insistence on your writing his full name, Sri Asit Krishna Mukherji, on the envelope. This is the trouble: you apparently sent your letter c/o Jogen Bose at “Temple Press.” Now Sri Jogen Bose’s partner is called M. K. Mukherji (it is doubtless his name that you remembered — that stuck in your subconscious mind — as you saw it along with the usual “copyright” formulas in the first (or second) page of my books — all printed at “Temple Press,” Calcutta, 2 Nayaratna Lane (Shyambazar). When your letter — addressed to M. K. Mukherji — reached the above address, naturally, the man of that name opened it. Only on starting reading it did he find out that it was not for him, but for Sri Asit Krishna Mukherji — Asit Babu, as they would address him in Bengali, when speaking to him. He quickly shut it again and excused himself (when meeting A. K. Mukherji) for having opened it.
Now if there is one thing that annoys Mr. A. K. Mukherji, it is the thought of anyone not concerned reading his letters. And how to convince him that this other Mukherji did not read it? He (my Mukherji) is so distrusting towards practically every person (save a very few), so accustomed to see and stress the least amiable side of mankind. He says we lost the war mainly because our Führer was “too trusting” — which is of course true — see the confidence He had put in the “Sister Nation’s” (England’s) good sense; and in His own generals — so many of whom betrayed him and plotted against him! A. K. M. is, I say, so accustomed to stress the dark side of mankind, that he is often unjust. (I am practically sure M. K. Mukherji did not read the letter, as soon as he found out it was not his.)
So do excuse him if he showed any irritation. He will soon be seventy-one and seems to grow bitterer as he grows old. He missed the wonderful experience I had after the war, of seeing with my own eyes the strength and fortitude of the persecuted élite of Europe, and, I can say, of the whole Aryan race — its stand in silence against the dark forces, after material defeat — in the midst of Germany’s ruins (rubble in the streets up to the third floor!). He never had the honor of meeting those “men of gold and steel, whom defeat cannot crush, whom terror and torture cannot subdue, whom money cannot buy” (to quote my own words in Gold in the Furnace).
I loved your account of your experience at the Externsteine. I knew nothing of it.
Now there shall be no post, no buying and selling, etc. — on account of the anniversary of Gandhi’s birthday. So don’t be annoyed if this letter reaches you with some delay.
Shall write more soon.
With the greeting of the faithful,
H. H.
Savitri
“Mukherji” is not a surname (there are no surnames in India) but the name of the subdivision of Bengali Brahmins to which he (and all Mukherjis) belong.