André Morisset
(André:) “My earliest remembrances date back to the very beginning of this century and lack clearness. They centre round two spots. One is Beaugency, a little town on the river Loire, where I lived with two aunts (my father’s sisters), my grandfather and my nurse. The other is 15 rue Lemercier in Paris where my mother and father had a flat and their painters’ studio which I considered the most wonderful place in the world.
Beaugency is still in my mind for the garden which was at the back of the house and separated from it by a small courtyard. I also have a recollection of my foster sister, Geneviève; but what struck me most were the visits which mother and father paid to us in their motor car. It was a Richard Brazier and had not to bear a number plate because it could not do more than thirty kilometers per hour. I cannot remember if I took this fact as a big advantage or, on the contrary, the sign of an irretrievable inferiority. My parents used to carry with them a couple of bicycles ‘just in case’. As a matter of fact, on the first hundred-and-fifty kilometers trip to Beaugency, the steering gear broke after fifty kilometers, at Etampes, and the car stopped inside a bakery. They stayed there overnight, used the cycles to visit the place and left the next day, the car having been repaired by the local blacksmith. ”[1]
(André:) “Later, my father and mother divorced, and mother married Paul Richard. They came to live at rue du Val de Grace and I used to go and have lunch with them every Sunday. After lunch, specially when the weather was bad, we went to the studio, Paul Richard stretched on a couch, lit his pipe, and they started working. That is, my mother wrote in her own handwriting what he dictated. This small house, at the back of a garden, or more precisely of a fairly large courtyard, with a few trees, stretching in front of a big apartment house, was strikingly cosy and very comfortable.
Then the Richards went to Pondicherry and came back in 1915, Paul Richard having been called as a reservist at Lunel, in the South of France. When he was freed from military service, they settled nearby, at Marsillargues, where I came to stay during the school holidays in July and August. There I heard of Sri Aurobindo for the first time and I learned to play chess with Paul Richard.
The First World War was going on; in the spring of 1916 the Richards went to Japan and I joined the army in October. From then on I always felt protected and the continuous play of ‘luck’ was amazing. Letters from my mother came regularly from Japan but the military rule forced me to destroy them soon after they were received.”[2]
(André:) “My mother went back to Pondicherry and resumed her real work with Sri Aurobindo. She kept me regularly aware of the development of the Ashram and of their Sadhana. I was thus more and more interested until the Second World War broke out and the collapse of France cut all relations between the Mother and me… and this lasted until the liberation of Paris.
Then the opportunity arose for me, in 1949, to make a round trip to India which the Mother monitored through Bombay, Delhi, Agra, Calcutta and Madras, eventually greeting me at the room 3EI at Golconde.”[3]
(André:) “Pavitra told me that Mother was expecting me at Golconde in the room where I was to live for a few days. It was quite dark when I arrived at Golconde, I hastily climbed two storeys and then, in the dim light of the corridor, I saw a white shape with her back against the door in a very familiar attitude.
Though we had not seen each other since Mother left France in 1915, we were at once in full understanding and I had the strong impression of being still a small boy seeking safety in his mother’s lap.”[4]
(Amal Kiran:) “I asked the Mother why André had not come here all those years. She answered: “Why should he have? He had his own life to live in France; and actually, even while he was there, there was no real inner separation. Up till now it was as if there were a screen in my room and André was present behind that screen. What has happened now is simply that he has come out in front.” Talking with André on one occasion I learned from him that a subtle contact always existed between the Mother and him and that even at a distance he would know if she wanted him to do something.”[5]
(Amal Kiran:) “In later years, when André came on long visits to the Ashram I found that communication to and from the Mother could be at its clearest through him. When the Mother in old age, was a little hard of hearing, André's voice and way of speaking seemed to be on a wave-length most attuned to her.”[6]
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