560
PARTISAN REVIEW
Nor did Siam noticeably retighten the screw. The spires of stupas
in the temple enclosures, the lines of bicycle-rickshaws, the saffron–
robed shaved-headed Buddhist monks, the green and orange roofs of the
imperial palace, with the piebald enameled columns and monster
sculptures of warriors, elephants, sages and peacocks, the breeze-played
temple bells and the sacred snake symbols springing from the roof tops,
the brown children slipping in and out of the water of the
klongs
along
the banks of which the brown stilted houses, topped by cocoanut–
hanging palms, stand like friendly fishermen-all this is strange enough
to Western eyes. To meet it as the first acquaintance of the East must
surely be a jolt. But, after India, Bangkok was almost home.
Before the end of the three days in Ceylon, and after only two or
three in Siam, we found that the relief of these departures was also a
let-down. The Indian sauce, it seemed, had stunned, or spoiled, the
taste buds. Even physical objects seemed less solid, as
if
India, by
sustaining a temperature of reality higher than that of its neighbors,
were defying some law of ontodynamics, as if, in fact, reality was here
flowing in reverse, from low to high potential. Escaped from that
metaphysical Kolyma, the spirit's teeth were left with not enough to
chew on; the resistance to reason vanished, not as in the sudden il–
lumination of a form at last intuited, but with the dismaying vacuum
of a judo trick.
I suppose that one can visit India untouched.
It
was done, ap–
parently, by those British nymphs who confined their Indian dance to
compound, club, and viceregal garden.
It
can still be done within the
limits of the new city of Delhi: a Brahman city of government, diplo–
mats, and civil servants, marked off by wide lawns, fountains and
boulevards from the untouchable hinterland which it so precariously
rules. It can be done, but only with the aid of an empty or a very
resolute spirit, for India is as if designed to assault Western sense and
sensibility.
Each sense, and every spiritual rampart is systematically attacked.
The nose is never released by that remarkable smell of the Indian city:
compound of heavy flowers, filth, incense smoking from great piles,
dried excrement and dust, the rotted corruption of half-burned human
entrails, thrown into the river from the funeral
ghats,
uncovered
sewers, fruit and foods displayed on open stands. The sounds seem to
mask a secret, and perhaps a conspiracy: the sad oboe-like pipe of a
watchman in the night, the harsh clacking, as if two boards were being
struck sharply together, which we discovered to be the slapping of
