Gandhi reached Bombay on April third. He was followed by a great crowd from the railroad station to the house of his host. Dicky, who had watched from a distance the emerging of the Indian idol from his third-class coach, wondered if he were ever again to get the Little Man alone in a room as in Ahmedabad. He hadn’t been in the hotel an hour, however, before he received a message to accompany bearer to Gandhi’s headquarters.
The native led him through the crowd without difficulty, and to an inner room where Mahatma-ji sat alone, both hands extended. Dicky sat down on the empty cushion before him.
“It is good to see you again, Mr. Cobden.... I regret that I was not in Bombay when you arrived; especially since it happened that Nagarjuna was needed in the north at this time, but we cannot think first of our own affairs. I am expected in Lahore on the tenth, but doubtless you will start for there or for Amritsar, which is very near, before that. Nagarjuna is now in Amritsar.”
“I will wait and travel with you, if you permit,” Dicky began.
The other smiled.
“My way of travel is not yours, I am afraid. It might be interesting enough for just one journey, but I question the judgment of it. To be seen too much with me is to become persona non grata to the English. This would prove a detriment to the work you are to do. Remember that you are an American, and that basically the American spirit is above partisanship.”
Gandhi was slightly changed. The wasted body was even lower on its cushions. The look of intense weariness was still apparent, but the look of fearlessness was enhanced. Dicky heard the humming of the charka in the next room as before. The fragrance returned to his nostrils. The old feeling stole over him of eagerness to do something for the physical welfare of the man before him, something to make the mere enduring of life easier.
“Physicians tell me that I should be very quiet,” Gandhi explained with a smile. “It is true that I was unable to keep all my appointments to speak on the other side of India, but in the main I am very active. The human body may be made to do what is required of it, after a fashion.... Yes, there are many changes. Our position is rapidly becoming one of direct opposition to Government. We were slow to realize these things.... Our movement depends for its success entirely upon perfect self-possession, self-restraint, absolute adherence to truth and unlimited capacity for self-suffering. In this manner only may we dare to oppose the Rowlatt legislation, and resist the spirit of terrorism which lies behind it, and of which it is the most glaring symptom.”
Dicky’s reaction was queer. He understood the point about the Government daring to leave this man at large, but didn’t Government see deeper than this placid mask? Of all keepers of the peace, Gandhi was apparently master; but in the fearlessness of the eyes that gazed on him now, Dicky fancied for a moment, at least, that he saw what British Government did not. The Little Man suddenly appeared to him as the living embodiment of the Enemy to all existing Governments, utterly terrible in stillness and poise. At the same time, Dicky didn’t lose for a moment his feeling of pity for the wasted figure before him, that tenderness which he could not even have explained to an American.
“... I see you have been faithfully at work, Mr. Cobden,” the Little Man was saying now. “Some time I would have you tell me of your days on the French fields—what you found there after India—whatever you care to speak of experiences which evidently have brought you forward in kindness and understanding and peace——”