112 HIS MAJESTY’S OPPONENT
from yours.... For the moment, I have forgotten all these differences
that separate our countries. I have loved the woman in you—the soul
in you.^74Subhas spent March 17 to March 26, 1936—the last few days before
his departure for India—with Emilie in Badgastein. “Can you please
come here for a week?” Subhas had implored on March 15. “Please
ask your parents if they will allow you to be away from home for one
week or so.”^75 The hills and valleys of Badgastein had enchanted Franz
Schubert in 1825, inspiring him to compose his Piano Sonata in D
and a missing symphony, perhaps his great Symphony in C Major.
Those magic mountains had cast a spell on Subhas as well. From the
Kurhaus Hochland, where they stayed, Subhas and Emilie took long
walks together—all the way to Grüner Baum to have coffee. Together
they enjoyed the quiet beauty of snowy Badgastein, with its invigorat-
ing thermal waters, and created for an ephemeral moment their own
symphony of life.^76
On March 17, Subhas wrote a letter from Badgastein congratulating
a young colleague in India who had recently married. It was very re-
vealing of his priorities and philosophy of life. “Personal and family
happiness,” he wrote, “has hardly any value to me unless personal and
family life is dedicated to the well- being of the country. I shall therefore
particularly pray that your lives may be devoted to the good of your
country and countrymen—you will certainly find true happiness and
bliss only in this.”^77 On March 26, Emilie took the train to Vienna and
Subhas commenced his journey back to India. “I am now on a pilgrim-
age,” he observed that day, “so there is no worry.”^78 Subhas wrote to
Emilie from Villach and Naples, before boarding the Ital ian ship Conte
Verde.^79
“There are many things I want to write to you about,” he wrote from
the boat on March 29, 1936, “but I shall write in a disconnected way—
so please read this letter carefully.”^80 From now on, Emilie would have
to learn to read between the lines to decipher the full import of Sub-
has’s messages. At the end of March 1936, while aboard ship, he wrote
her three letters on three consecutive days; they marked the beginning
of nearly twenty months of geographic separation. At Port Said, police