Since that day so much has happened in the life of Conningsfield, Soldier of the Fortune. I cannot count the battles, the campaigns, the retreats and victories.

That same day, as I stood watching the taxi disappear, and with little more than four hundred rupees in my pocket, I remembered a letter of introduction I possessed from a swami at the Ramakrishna Mission in Calcutta to their mission in Ceylon. So there I went to spend two of the most comfortable months of my life, free of charge, peaceful, undisturbed, and who would think I was there?

At this restful place I slowly recovered my peace of mind. I tell you, the Indian philosophies have many good things to offer to the Western countries (materialist, but also good) on a spiritual level. The high concept of Man as an indivisible unity of body, mind and spirit. The concept of Man as a divine creature, as part of the Deity, that we are not a little mortal being that shall perish and disappear as if we had never lived, but that the real thing in us, on which all depends, our consciousness, our Soul, always has been and always will be. That the single consciousness is the same as the world consciousness, that the single Soul is the world Soul. What a sublime, noble philosophy.

On the first of March, so generous was the mission, I left for Madras with the same amount of money with which I had arrived there. Fifteen hours after my arrival in India I was, to my complete surprise, arrested by the Crime Investigation Department. The whole story concerned the sarees which I had bought in Benares on a kind of credit. I had never hidden or refused to pay, there was a haystack of letters to each of the four merchants which proved my will to pay, and a small amount had been paid at the time of purchase. In spite of this I was accused of cheating (!) Also there was something from Interpol concerning cheques to an amount, rumours were saying, of 25,000 rupees. So my situation was very serious.

The detention prison was worse than a zoo. Dachau or Auschwitz were paradise compared with this. After three days I got ill, luckily, and was taken to hospital, under guard, was in a good hospital for fifteen days, and then, only thanks to a pitying doctor, I succeeded in going to a hospital for the poor and not in that horrible fortress prison.

During this time I was thirty days in two hospitals, fifteen days in detention in police stations and the fortress prison — against any law, without any sentence. It never even came to a trial, very much against my will, because we would have won. Finally a compromise was made and I was honourably acquitted.

Only now I was totally bankrupt, so it was necessary once again to withdraw to the philosophical life for a short while until I could reorganize my scattered and demoralized forces.

It was in the Hindu ashram at Tiruvanamalai (so much warmer hearts there than in Villefranche) that I read for the first time the many notes I had made when I knew Deborah. Already how far away that seemed, like a different world. And how many things I saw as I read that I had never seen at the time. Then I had thought her a beautiful and very intelligent and kind-hearted, but rather silly young woman who did not know where she was going, untrained in any discipline, perhaps her greatest advantage in life that she, unlike myself, came from such a great country with unlimited opportunities.

But reading the notes I, like the trained psychologist that I am, saw so much more. I saw a definite behavior pattern. Suddenly I knew what it really was she had so long been seeking, and with this the answer to the riddle of the Mother of Villefranche.

Then I would tell her, but to do so must write her a letter and send it to this highly numerical address, the street having, including her father's, at least 19856 houses on it (!), then five figures also following the name of the state.

Dear Deborah,

How long ago seem those days of monsoon when we were together on that so idyllic yet criminal island in the south. I shall never forget on that last day your eyes which nearly destroyed for me my exile. Le souvenir que je garde de votre personne ne s’effacera jamais. I think it is best that fate has arranged our parting. My exile road is hard and full of stones. The enemy is everywhere at hand (you yourself have seen him), the fighting is sometimes fierce (you know this, too), the goals often dismal or obscured. I benefit from moments of repose, withdrawing occasionally into an ashram, there to reconstruct my battered forces with the help of the Almighty and His swamis.

So much I have seen and experienced since our last day in Ceylon, yet am no closer to the final solution. You know something of my life, so I can speak to you frankly of my prospects. A few weeks ago while reading a newspaper (quite by chance some finger of Fate left this particular newspaper where I found it — a sign?), God sent me an interesting discovery. I enclose the article. The key phrase: Thanks to the complicated administrative procedures ... old coins worth lakhs of dollars are reduced to metal because of lack of appreciation of their real worth. Numismatists all over the world are prepared to pay fancy prices for ancient coins from India. (!)

So much governmental red tape to send these ancient coins out of the country. I think that the world-famous numismatist, Prof. Dr. Flaminio de Conningsfield, could find a way to help bring them out with no paper-work at all.

But now you are probably saying to yourself: That scoundrel Flaminio is up to his illegal tricks again. Perhaps it is illegal, but I think — as did your American poet-philosopher H. D. Thoreau (1817-62) — that, when the laws are wrong, it is the duty of the people to disobey. Is it right that these precious old coins be melted and lost to the world, sacrificed for the worth of the basic metal they contain? I am sure not.

And now more recently I have heard that I, at the excavations at Taxila, near Rawalpindi, Pakistan, can get ancient Greek gold and silver coins for very little. With all carefulness it seems that if I can get 700 pounds sterling at least, then I will pass Scylla and Charybdis. I have written to my mother, begging her to send me this sum. Otherwise I may have to spend the rest of my days doing meditations and pujas in this ashram. (It is a good place, with genuine kindly souls, but not much actions.)

So you see, Conningsfield, Soldier of the Fortune, also has some prospects.

And now I turn to you, dear Deborah, to tell you of a so interesting and important thing that I have discovered concerning you. Please forgive me in advance for talking on a very personal level with you, but we have passed some moments together which I think permit me to speak frankly on certain matters. Particularly since I am, as you know, a trained psychologist, even if my study was not done in what is called a "state-recognized university." (You understand, it is only in my most backward and stuffy country that such distinctions have any importance.)

You did not know, I think, that during the time I knew you I kept a sort of diary, which was an experiment for me in ways to avoid what could be called loneliness or nervous depression. I sometimes begin such diaries, but they never last more than a week or two (too lazy). Then the other day I was reading and found it was all written about you. Nothing nosy, only a so partially developed picture of you like a map with many important things missing but some large roads and mountains marked.

Then I saw so clearly what you were seeking, as if I had the map and you had none, you going here and there rather blind. You will forgive me, I hope, if I tell you what I saw.

In the center was the Mother. (Do not throw down this letter now, but be patient and read on.) Dear Deborah, I know that in your very American and most modern and pragmatic soul you will find the courage to admit that we are born out of mothers, so these are very important things in our lives. Without our mothers, who are we? Where do we come from? You (American pragmatist) would say (forgive me) that where we come from is not important, it only matters what we will achieve. But this is only the half of life.

I have had long talks here with a swami. He is the personal guru of a wealthy American woman (rather ugly, I have seen her photograph), who goes about to the different ashrams taking him along. Now she is home for one month to New York for business affairs, so he is resting. He is very modern in his outlook, reads Time and Life magazines so is not without good knowledge of relativity theory (!) thermodynamics (!) etc.

So many interesting things he has talked of: that the Soul is part of the infinite cosmic energy. The energy of the Soul is what gets things done. "If you really want a thing, you will get it," he told me (good news for Flaminio!). The Soul, if it is energy, can be conserved (Conservation of Energy theory). And matter is energy too (E = mc²). Then matter also can be conserved. Thus the amount of energy in the universe is constant, and what is matter one day can perhaps be Soul the next? I wonder. Then the electric energy in a wooden tree can, in another time, come back as a Soul, the tree of course being burned to release the energy. Could then the tree not come back even as a poem? The poem as a tree?

I think, then, that we can be haunted by matter. I think, my dear Deborah, that you (forgive me) are haunted by matter. By your disappeared mother's body for which you are obliged to endlessly, endlessly seek, just as Hamlet's father's ghost was seeking his revenge in a reverse situation. But you cannot find your mother because she is dead and her material body is lost. So you look here and there. You come to Villefranche. You look at the old lady. No, it is not your mother, but almost. A so old and sick lady with grey eyes. She looks into your eyes and says: No. (Only the fools think that she is saying Yes. The fools remain.)

But then why does the learned Prof. Dr. come to these conclusions? So strange, in the diary one thing so often recurred: the twin in the head; "Where none can watch her, in some close corner of my brain."

Q. What is this hidden thing in the head?

A. The deadly tumour in a mother's brain.

This, dear Deborah, is what you have been seeking so long in ever-widening circles. You have been seeking your mother on the other side of her death. Once you have even tried to join her there. DO NOT TRY THIS AGAIN OR YOU MAY SUCCEED! Now tell me that matter is unimportant, that a dead body is without cosmic significance. Would it not be better to have a pretty grave to visit, there to bring flowers, perhaps cry some sentimental tears, then go away renewed to your daily labours?

It is important to be able to reach out and touch the past. I swear it. A so old tree gives renewal when walking under it. Even old beams to hold up a roof give inspiration to persons living beneath. Any country graveyard, or the tombs of emperors, do so a thousandfold.

Now you will laugh and say: Flaminio is from an old country and a bit queer in the head and old-fashioned in his ideas. Perhaps it is true. (It is clear at least he is a military megalomaniac.) Perhaps my love of history, philosophy, and literature will forever prohibit me from gaining the wealth, power and fame that I seek. Or the need I have (even stronger) for love and tenderness will bring me finally to compromise on the rest. (Perhaps you will learn, as I have, that the sea snake may be ourself.)

Your Ladyship (I call you this with deep respect and affection), I will finish now. Evening comes and it is still very hot. If I keep the light on for writing, the mosquitoes will fly in.

I hope this letter finds you in good health and happy. Perhaps you will forgive me for talking of such private (to you) matters. Or you may perhaps learn something you had not known. If you have the time, I hope you will write an even so short reply, if only saying you are not angry at my presumptions.

I sincerely wish you all the absolute best.

Flaminio

Three weeks after sending this letter I received from my mother some money in the form of an airlines ticket home. This I was able to change into its cash value in Madras. It was not enough money to make a "big splash" in the rare coin market, but enough to take me to New Delhi and have cleaned my "uniform" so as to present myself in full battle dress for a meeting with the leading numismatist (mentioned in the newspaper article) Mr. Benegal. This gentleman was kind enough to give me a letter of introduction (being highly impressed with my calling card) to some of the maharajas in Rajasthan in whose palaces lie heaps of precious old coins waiting to be melted down. Mr. Benegal, hoping eventually to be able to save many of these coins and thus gain valuable foreign exchange for his country through legal export means, had of course no idea of the much quicker and more direct intentions of Prof. Dr. Conningsfield.

Then again a day of fun and triumph. I visited the National Museum and the Archaeological Survey of India. Though I only thought to see a little inspector for the coin-collection, both the Director (N.M.) and the Director (ASofI) insisted on having long talks with me, and in the National Museum they were quite mad eager on an exchange basis to sell the whole museum for things for their Western collection. On leaving, I was followed and escorted to the doors by the directors!! My taxi arriving, I waved with my white gloved hands and my baton, fighting against a roar of laughter in my interior. For here I am, a would-be semi-smuggler, and they are extremely eager after pleasing me! Ah, India! What a country for every psychopath of the self-assertive, baton-swinging type!

Several days later I was in Rajasthan living rather well in the palaces of these maharajas who are often very simple, good men, fearing mainly to lose their privy purses because of socialist policies of the Prime Minister. (What a stain on the name of Indian justice to take away these government-promised rights.) Yes, the coins are definitely there, but I will need more money to bring off the coup.

So I have returned to New Delhi where I hope to find a "gang" which is willing to finance a traveler check "loss," but on better conditions for me than I was given by those rascals in Colombo. All this takes much time, and I have already spent five weeks in a good but bomb-shelter-like room, always in electric light, uncertain economy, and the feeling of being entangled in crime.

And of course there is still one question remaining. That day on the street in Ceylon when for the first time Deborah looked into my eyes and thanked me. Was this the look? Was this the blessing? Perhaps. Only then, when she said goodbye, did I realize that the Mariner in the poem, though loving the sea snakes (how comical!), did not decide to stay with them, but sailed away. So now I am most anxious to receive the reply to the letter I have written to Deborah. It is not important where she is or with whom she sleeps. The important thing is that she does not become an exile, forever lost upon the planet.

This morning at the Royal Embassy of G-- I found my letter to Deborah has been returned. ADDRESSEE UNKNOWN. How ill and dizzy I felt, looking at that envelope addressed in my own particular handwriting (red ink), so covered now with marks and stempels. I put it into my pocket, trembling.

Evening. Perhaps because of the presence in my room of this unopened letter, I am thinking all the time of Deborah. I ask myself: Was knowing her a plus or a minus experience? I think in most ways a plus. It is not every day in the life of a Soldier of the Fortune that a beautiful woman looks with tears into his eyes. Alone, that is worth something. She has taught me that to love Flaminio is to be saved. And were Flaminio to love Flaminio? The same? I wonder.

Well, I will now finish this diary. It has served its purpose. Was it Deborah who not long ago suggested that I write for profit something concerning myself? A book of exemplary manners for young boys? Perhaps something more human, to make even its reader love Flaminio, and thus be saved. (Though I in this diary, as a thorough scientist, noted many things down and made many observations in spite of my mood, I know that I could write at least one novel about that wild and exotic adventure that is my life.)

Concerning Conningsfield: the Memoirs of a Knight of the Fortune. Some excerpts: