The months I spent in the Himalayas, in a bungalow between Almora and Ranikhet, are too sad and too serene for me to recount, as an unnatural consequence of my love and separation from Maitreyi.

I arrived here after fleeing, one after another, from Delhi, Simla, Naini-Tal, where I encountered too many people, and above all, too many whites. I was afraid of people, because I had to answer their greetings, to speak of things of no importance, to waste my time; and thus, I could not remain as alone

as much as I wished. Solitude was now both my comfort and my sustenance. Few modern men, I believe, have known a loneliness harsher and more desperate than mine. From October until February I saw only one person: the bungalow’s watchman. Only he was allowed to enter my wooden room, only with him did I speak, once or twice a day, when he brought me food or changed my water jug. I spent all my time in the forest, for the surroundings of Almora hold the most beautiful pine woods in all the Himalayas, and I wandered through them, back and forth, endlessly replaying the same inner film of my love for Maitreyi, imagining all sorts of happenings, each more fantastic than the last, through which the two of us would find happiness, meeting in an impenetrable solitude, or in that dead citadel of Fatehpur-Sikhri, or in some abandoned hut in the jungle.

All day long I witnessed the unfolding of the same fantastic dream, which isolated the two of us, myself and Maitreyi, from the rest of the world. Deeds long forgotten regained their freshness, and my imagination fulfilled them, deepened them, wove them together. Details I had not noticed at the time now changed the entire landscape of my inner vision. Wherever I went, I encountered her—among the pines and birches, on the rocks, along the paths. I lived so intensely with this marvelous story that any call from the outside world frightened me, almost caused me physical pain. I knew that Maitreyi, too, there in her cell in Bhowanipore, was thinking just as deeply of me, of our life together, and this communion in imagination seemed to bind us above the events, to bind us in spite of separation and death.

When the moon was out, I would walk through the forest down to the stream in the valley, and linger long on a rock, watching the water, calling out: “Maitreyi! Maitreyi!” until I grew tired and heard my voice growing fainter and fainter, almost a whisper. Then I would return home, along the same path, with an unspeakable peace in my soul, for it seemed to me that Maitreyi had heard my call, that my words had been carried by water and wind to her. I do not know whether I truly lived or not, in those many months of complete solitude, but this was my only means of survival. I was no longer the vigorous