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man trembling, perspiring. She completely forgot that he was a customer. She just made him sit; he wouldn't sit on her bed but she forced him. She said, "You are not in a position to stand, you will fall down, you are shaking so much. You just sit."
He could not say that he could not sit on a prostitute's bed; What will my mother say? I have not looked yet -- he was talking to his mother inside -- I have not yet looked with lustful eyes. This is just an accident; those idiots have forced me here. The woman understood that it seemed he had been forced. She said, "Don't be worried, I'm also a human being. What do you want? Simply tell me and I will do it." But he could not say anything.
The woman said,"It is very difficult now, how .... You don't speak?"
He said, "I ... just ...."
So she said, "You please write."
He had to write on paper, "I have been unnecessarily forced here -- I simply want to go. And I look on you as my sister."
She said, "That's perfectly okay, don't be worried." She opened the door and she said, "Do you have money enough to go to the ship or should I come with you to lead you? -- because Alexandria in the middle of the night is dangerous."
He said, "No" -- now he was able to speak for the first time, seeing that a prostitute is not some dangerous animal. She behaved more humanly than any woman had ever behaved with him. She offered him food. He said, "No, I cannot eat; I am okay." She offered water; he wouldn't drink water from a prostitute's house ... as if water also becomes dirty because it is in a prostitute's house.
In India that happens. In Indian stations you will find people shouting, "Hindu water!" "Mohammedan water!" Water Hindu? Mohammedan? And Jainas of course don't drink either the Hindu water or the Mohammedan water; they carry their own water, Jaina water, because they are such a minority that in stations you won't find Jaina water, so they have to carry their own water.
But Gandhi thanked the woman, and in his autobiography he wrote about that woman and about the whole incident: "How cowardly I was! I could not even speak, could not even say no."
Now these
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