116 HIS MAJESTY’S OPPONENT
from Kitty Kurti about Jung’s shift of emphasis to the soul from Freud’s
focus on the sexual instinct, and about Jung’s theory of the collective
unconscious. He eagerly asked her if she had gone to meet Jung in
Switzerland, and what she could tell him about his recent works. He
also inquired about her impressions of Freud and his family in Vi-
enna.^94
All of Bose’s letters had to pass through police censors and bear the
stamp of approval of the superintendent of police in Darjeeling. Sub-
has and Emilie used formal modes of address—“Fräulein Schenkl” and
“Mr. Bose”—when writing to each other, but still managed to exchange
fairly detailed news. Each of Emilie’s long letters could cause a welcome
break in his “monstrous life” and could take his “thoughts away to Vi-
enna for a while.” The letters they exchanged between April and De-
cember 1936 touched on a va ri ety of topics—Austrian politics, books,
music, the charms of Budapest and Prague, jokes in Viennese cafés,
spirituality, and concern for each other’s fragile health. In the closest
thing to a love letter, he asked Emilie to find the German original of an
En glish translation he sent her of Goethe’s poem inspired by Kalidasa’s
drama Shakuntala:
Wouldst thou the young year’s blossoms and the fruits of its decline,
And all whereby the soul is enraptured, feasted, fed;
Wouldst thou the heaven and earth in one sole name combine,
I name thee, oh Shakuntala! And all at once is said.Subhas noted that Emilie was becoming interested in matters spiritual
and received assurances that she was not going to give up the world
completely. She reported a funny dream that she was in the Himalayan
Mountains, “somewhere high up near the highest summits.” Subhas
told her that the most im por tant chapter in the Gita was the second
one, on karma yoga, or worship or union with the Beloved through
work. Emilie had “not so much affection for Austria” as she should,
while Subhas was more of a nationalist and hoped that India, which
was doing badly in the 1936 Olympics, would “be able to retain the
championship in hockey at least.” She enclosed in one of her letters a
Glücksklee, a four- leafed clover, which would bring him luck. He re-