hundred thousand pounds and
made Madhoji Sindhia the most powerful man in India. De Boigne’s brigades were given the name of Chiria Fauj for their unmatched
speed, for their propensity to appear unexpectedly on the horizon like a flight of predatory birds, for the headlong velocity
of their marches. Armed with de Boigne’s brigades, Madhoji ruthlessly pursued his dream of founding an independent Maratha
dynasty; village cattle grazed on luxuriant blood-fed flowers; de Boigne, released from his phantasmic demons, discovered
the boredom and banality of everyday life; he rode at the head of a corps, and was famous and rich, but found no release from
the dreary everyday business of living, from the hot summer afternoons when the heat settles in the lungs and rises up the
spine and turns into a humming in the head. He found no comfort, not in the sweat that gathers in that little hollow between
deep breasts or in that heavy sleep that comes from opium. De Boigne prayed to the gods of his new home, but the stone idols
did not move, did not speak; longing, soon enough, for the colours that once burned their way out of the darkness at the centre
of his soul, he fell into a desultory affair with the daughter of one his Hindustani commanders, took her as a wife and fathered
a son and a daughter, but even love and marriage and fatherhood felt like distant fictions, smokey dreams.
One day, unexpectedly, Madhoji Sindhia caught a fever, tossed and burned through the night and died before morning. De Boigne
felt the touch of death hiss by him, for he understood now that there was nolonger a special purpose to his life that protected him from the bullets of the battle-field or the fevers of the hot summer
wind, that nothing but other men stood between him and charging horsemen. De Boigne thought of his three hundred thousand
pounds, and the drawing-rooms of Paris, and the water-mill, and childhood, and the fact that if he stayed he would fight other
battles not knowing why and when and how, not knowing anything for certain, not feeling anything but doubt, and then he decided
to go home, to play the part of the hero, the soldier returned from magical, unreal lands. So he went home, without his Hindustani
wife, who refused to leave her home and her relatives for what seemed a fantasy; de Boigne took his children and returned
to Chambéry (with the slightly-dazed eyes of one who has journeyed far to find a home and has returned in self-exile) and
played the part —he baptized his children and married a seventeen-year-old noblewoman who soon left him for the salons of
Paris. He stumbled for a while through the wilderness of drawing-rooms and huge shining dances and noticed the smirks and
the giggles that appeared when he did something provincial or unintentionally used a word of Urdu or Persian. So de Boigne
lived in seclusion, ignoring summons from Napoleon Bonaparte, who too, it seems, dreamt of the riches and splendours of a
faraway land called Hindustan; sometimes, especially when others who had served in Hindustan came to visit, de Boigne would
speak of his past, but would always speak of himself as if of another, and would always end with the words ‘My life has been
a dream.’ And the visitors would go away, unsatisfied and a little mystified, not knowing that de Boigne went to sleep every
night longing to dream, but saw nothing, that as the years went by he wished that the past would return to him, that calm
grey eyes would haunt his night hours, that something would reassure him that his life had been real, not just necessary,
but no images came, and de Boigne discovered the horror of living solely in the present and for the future, knew that the
present is not enough and the future can use and discard people, and one afternoon de Boigne called his lackeys and caused
himself to be transported to the water-mill of his youth. Going inside, he found again his seat, and
made Madhoji Sindhia the most powerful man in India. De Boigne’s brigades were given the name of Chiria Fauj for their unmatched
speed, for their propensity to appear unexpectedly on the horizon like a flight of predatory birds, for the headlong velocity
of their marches. Armed with de Boigne’s brigades, Madhoji ruthlessly pursued his dream of founding an independent Maratha
dynasty; village cattle grazed on luxuriant blood-fed flowers; de Boigne, released from his phantasmic demons, discovered
the boredom and banality of everyday life; he rode at the head of a corps, and was famous and rich, but found no release from
the dreary everyday business of living, from the hot summer afternoons when the heat settles in the lungs and rises up the
spine and turns into a humming in the head. He found no comfort, not in the sweat that gathers in that little hollow between
deep breasts or in that heavy sleep that comes from opium. De Boigne prayed to the gods of his new home, but the stone idols
did not move, did not speak; longing, soon enough, for the colours that once burned their way out of the darkness at the centre
of his soul, he fell into a desultory affair with the daughter of one his Hindustani commanders, took her as a wife and fathered
a son and a daughter, but even love and marriage and fatherhood felt like distant fictions, smokey dreams.
One day, unexpectedly, Madhoji Sindhia caught a fever, tossed and burned through the night and died before morning. De Boigne
felt the touch of death hiss by him, for he understood now that there was nolonger a special purpose to his life that protected him from the bullets of the battle-field or the fevers of the hot summer
wind, that nothing but other men stood between him and charging horsemen. De Boigne thought of his three hundred thousand
pounds, and the drawing-rooms of Paris, and the water-mill, and childhood, and the fact that if he stayed he would fight other
battles not knowing why and when and how, not knowing anything for certain, not feeling anything but doubt, and then he decided
to go home, to play the part of the hero, the soldier returned from magical, unreal lands. So he went home, without his Hindustani
wife, who refused to leave her home and her relatives for what seemed a fantasy; de Boigne took his children and returned
to Chambéry (with the slightly-dazed eyes of one who has journeyed far to find a home and has returned in self-exile) and
played the part —he baptized his children and married a seventeen-year-old noblewoman who soon left him for the salons of
Paris. He stumbled for a while through the wilderness of drawing-rooms and huge shining dances and noticed the smirks and
the giggles that appeared when he did something provincial or unintentionally used a word of Urdu or Persian. So de Boigne
lived in seclusion, ignoring summons from Napoleon Bonaparte, who too, it seems, dreamt of the riches and splendours of a
faraway land called Hindustan; sometimes, especially when others who had served in Hindustan came to visit, de Boigne would
speak of his past, but would always speak of himself as if of another, and would always end with the words ‘My life has been
a dream.’ And the visitors would go away, unsatisfied and a little mystified, not knowing that de Boigne went to sleep every
night longing to dream, but saw nothing, that as the years went by he wished that the past would return to him, that calm
grey eyes would haunt his night hours, that something would reassure him that his life had been real, not just necessary,
but no images came, and de Boigne discovered the horror of living solely in the present and for the future, knew that the
present is not enough and the future can use and discard people, and one afternoon de Boigne called his lackeys and caused
himself to be transported to the water-mill of his youth. Going inside, he found again his seat, and
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