130 HIS MAJESTY’S OPPONENT
tionship and marriage a closely guarded secret. Emilie’s explanation
was simple. “Country came first” for Subhas, and any public announce-
ment at that stage would have caused unnecessary “upheaval.”^131 Bad-
gastein was more im por tant in Bose’s life than simply the place where
he wrote his autobiography. It was the place where he forged a relation-
ship of rare beauty, high purpose, and, in the end, deep tragedy. In the
Austrian mountains outside Salzburg, he was making a private com-
mitment to the woman he loved, a commitment he could only redeem
in public once he had done his duty by his country, his “first love.”
Emilie brought to the relationship her qualities of enormous courage,
utmost dignity, and spirit of high sac ri fice. Did the fact that Emilie was
European have anything to do with the decision to keep the marriage a
secret? She had once called him pranadhik—a Bengali term meaning
“more precious than my own life”—tutored no doubt by Subhas in the
nuances of selfless love. Europeans have a “different tradition,” he had
said, and asked, “Why should you love me more than your own life?”
Yet he had chosen to transcend the differences of countries and tradi-
tions, habits and customs, in order to love the woman in her, the soul
in her. He had quoted to her Goethe’s translation of the ode to Shakun-
tala, by the ancient Indian poet Kalidasa. Their love was all about
translation. Goethe was the one German poet who evoked “die ewige
Weibliche”—“the eternal feminine”—and its uplifting qualities. In The
Merchant of Venice (Act 5, scene 1), Shakespeare had depicted a mar-
riage that would not be allowed to fail in the act of translation between
black and white, two cultures, Lorenzo and Jessica, Christian and Jew:
Sit Jessica: look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold;
There’s not the smallest orb, which thou behold’st.
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to young- eyed cherubins:
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.To a literary scholar eavesdropping on their conversations, there could
be no doubt that Subhas and Emilie “heard the music of the Spheres.”