The Last Samurai

by Helen DeWitt

She had always been unconventional and she got the idea of going out to India just to see the place. At first her father refused his permission, but she turned down three or four offers of marriage and began taking a horse out and setting it at six-foot fences, and when she had broken an arm and a collarbone her father said he supposed he’d better let her go then, before one of the horses got hurt. She sailed to Bombay and it was not at all what she had expected. The Club defied description. So did the people. Also, it was rather hot. That is, she had expected it to be hot, but she had expected it to be cooler. But she looked up the rudest man she had ever met and this time they got on like a house on fire. She said that now that she had set foot in the country she could say whatever she liked and he said he was delighted to hear that she had overcome the diffidence which had afflicted her on a previous occasion. She said something rather cutting and he said something quite rude. She knew he was brilliant because her brother had said he was one of the most brilliant mathematicians he knew, but though he was brilliant and rude he was not condescending. Her brother’s other friends were unfailingly charming, so that she could not talk to one without instantly afterwards taking out a horse and setting it at a six-foot fence. She had never met a man who could open his mouth without imperilling the life of a horse.