India Song Page #2

- His first time here?

Yes.

He'll come again.

- He'll go to the islands.

- How can you tell?

The anguish in his eyes.

She can't bear people

who get used to India.

The Ambassador asks people

to the islands for his wife.

She goes alone to the islands.

The Ambassador goes hunting

in Nepal.

They say her lovers are English,

don't mix with the embassies,

and that the Ambassador knows.

A friend of the Stretters'.

Unknown in Calcutta.

With this humidity

the pianos are detuned.

The French Vice-Consul

has just entered the park.

At the last minute

she sent him a card: "Come".

Just what did he do?

The worst... killed.

- In Lahore.

- The official version?

Nerves gave way.

Often happens.

- Easy to say.

- Yes.

His face... as if grafted.

Very pale.

She could have spared us

his presence.

An outcast in Lahore too?

There too.

He just escaped being dismissed.

The ambassador intervened.

Closed circles in India

make me think of leprosy.

- Perhaps he drank? - No. Drunkenness is

the same for us all here.

We talk about going home.

No, he didn't drink.

The Ambassador

asked the young attach

to have a word with him.

He tries.

He turns away.

Can't bear it.

Any of it.

He laughs.

As if he were suddenly

mad with joy.

Look...

Perhaps he's just seen

Madame Stretter... perhaps.

- You mean...

- I wonder... perhaps.

Did he talk about Lahore?

Only to her.

Near dawn.

He fired at night,

on the Shalimar Gardens...

...on lepers, dogs.

But they found bullets in the mirrors

in his house in Lahore, too.

Shooting at himself...

Roses arrived every day from Nepal.

She gave them out

at the end of the ball.

After lunch, people sink...

Heavy sleep.

Yet everyone waits

for something like that.

Storms are expected.

Just a hole in the sky.

It fills in straight away.

How white she is!

How white they are,

the women of Calcutta!

For six months,

out only in the evening

Fleeing the sun.

Seems imprisoned

in a kind of suffering.

No one really knows

what goes on behind these walls.

What she does.

Cycling very early in the morning,

in the grounds.

Playing tennis,

She reads, they say.

Parcels of books

come from Venice for her.

She goes to the islands.

Appearances...

Only one person sees him.

The director of the European club.

A drunkard.

All he said to the director

was repeated to the Ambassador.

- It's horrid!

- You don't understand.

He knew it would be repeated.

That's why he spoke to the director.

A way to reach her,

this woman.

He said he was entitled

to Madame Stretter's attentions,

to her love,

as much as the others...

Her lovers from Calcutta...

At night, near the tennis courts...

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