scientific understanding of the nature of things... and an ambition toward the better, the finer, and the loftier...

And out of this and that she created for herself a singular personality... a deep one... whose depths none can sound but one long practiced in diving into the deeps, storming obstacles, and leveling difficulties...

*

I had to steal no more than fifteen minutes of her time... for her pro-gram was full... and she had to answer the many invitations addressed to her by the political, liter-ary, scientific, and social bodies among us...

And I decided to speak... of her, first... of them — the women of her country — second... and of us ourselves... third!..

My first question was about her... about her life... her struggle... her fight in the cause of the liberation movement in her country... and the steadfastness, sacrifice, and devotion for which she is known...

She said:

— I was not the only female... the women who fought in the cause of the national liberation movement were many... I and they met every kind of torment... we were imprisoned again and again... persecuted again and again... driven out again and again... but we left no path for despair to seep into our souls... because we never for a day renounced our mission... and despair, as you know, my friend, is

unbelief itself...

— What is the total number of years you spent in prison?...

— Five years... falling between 1930 and 1945...

— How were you treated in prison?

— As criminals are treated...

— Were you required to do some kind of work?..

— I sewed... and darned...

— So you are skilled at sewing, then?

"I take pride in being a human being before being a woman," says the Indian leader!

— I am... I sew my own clothes myself...

— And what household work do you do well, besides sewing?

— Cooking...

— Have you mastered any of the arts?...

— I play the piano well... and I have a taste for the arts in all their kinds... I preside over the governing board of the Indian Handicrafts Council — the council that has helped to revive every sort of traditional village industry in India, after these were on the road to extinction and disappearance... and I am now taking part in a new

movement that aims at reviving the arts in all their kinds and at creating the Indian theater...

— What are the insti-tutions you have helped to found, or which you head, besides the "Indian Handicrafts Council" you have mentioned? And besides your being pres-ident of the Indo-Arab Friendship League, as we know?

— These societies and organizations are nothing but a means of building the Indian homeland... we all work together in this regard...

Mr. Johnson — the chargé d'affaires of the Indian Legation, who was witnessing our conversa-tion — noticed Mrs. Kamala Devi's evasion of my question... and he hurried to my rescue... He said:

— Mrs. Kamala Devi divides her activity among several societies... she is the doyenne of the Indian women's organization, and was at one time its pres-ident... she has, moreover, represented her country at several international women's congresses... and she recently founded the "Indian Cooperative Union," through which she has tried, with desperate persistence, to resettle the refugees on a cooperative basis...

After that I asked her... about them... about the women of her country...

And she saw fit to ques-tion me in my turn...

She said: And what do you know about them?

I said: I know that the