I woke up every morning with a new sense of wonder. My camp bed was right next to the door, and my first glances would discover a strange room, with a tall, barred window, walls painted green, a vast wicker armchair and two stools, beside a work table, a few Bengali lithographs, nailed to the right side of the bookcase. It took me a few minutes

to remind myself where I was, to make sense of those muffled noises that drifted in from outside, through the open window, or from the corridor, through the wide door, which I barred at night with a wooden beam. I would push aside the foamy canopy that hung above the bed and go out to wash in the courtyard, in a tin cabin that sheltered the cement tub, into which the servants poured, the evening before, several dozen buckets of water. This improvised shower in the middle of the courtyard was a new and invigorating ritual. I would scoop the water with a jug and fling it over my body, shivering all over, for it was winter and the courtyard was paved with stone. But I was proud of this courage of mine; the others brought with them a bucket of hot water, and when they found out that I always took a cold shower, they could not hide their astonishment and admiration. For several days, the whole house spoke of nothing but my morning bath, without hot water. I waited for Maitreyi to say something as well, whom I met very early, at tea, in a simple white sari, barefoot. And one day she spoke to me (her first unofficial words): — In your country it must be very cold. That is why you are white... She pronounced the word "white" with a certain envy and melancholy, her gaze lingering, almost involuntarily, for a few moments longer on my arm, as it rested on the table, half bare in my work shirt. I was both surprised and delighted to sense this envy, but in vain did I try to continue the conversation. Maitreyi finished her tea listening to us, to me and to the engineer, and agreed with me whenever I addressed her directly. We almost never spoke together. I would catch a glimpse of her passing in the corridor, hear her singing, knew of her that she spent a good part of the day shut away in her room or on the terrace, and it vexed me terribly, this being so close to me and yet so utterly foreign. It seemed to me, moreover, that I was being watched all the time, not out of any particular suspicion, but because they were all afraid I might feel uncomfortable in my new lodgings. When I was alone, laughing at all that seemed strange and incomprehensible to me, I would receive, every hour, cakes and fruit, tea with milk or coconuts, carefully peeled. A servant would bring them, bare-chested and hairy, the only one