My Jesuit friend Paul Varghese has narrated a lovely anecdote in the Gujarati monthly Jankalyan, January 2009, which I translate here.

“The writer Dilip Ranpura went once for a lecture to Bhavnagar. He was walking from the bus station to the hall when, as it was dark already, he stumbled on a sewage hole without a lid, fell down and broke his leg. He had to be taken straight to hospital and he missed his lecture.

Next day the city papers published the news to explain the cancellation of the talk. On that same day in the morning, while the writer was lying down on his bed at the hospital, an unknown man stood at the door of his room and asked permission to come in. The writer told him he didn’t know him but let him come in and asked him what was bringing him there. The unknown man spoke: “I am the cause of your being here in the hospital today.” The writer looked at him surprised and added: “I was the one who fell down the hole through my carelessness, and I don’t see what you may have to do with this matter.” The man explained: “Sir, I am a thief. I had stolen the lid of that sewage hole and had sold it by weight as metal. This morning I have read in the papers about your mishap at the place, and I knew it was the place where I had removed the lid. That is why I have come to ask your pardon.”

There was a mutual silence, and the thief continued: “See, Sir. I am a thief and I steal to eat, so that I cannot stop stealing. But one thing I do promise you. I will never again steal the lid of a sewage hole. You may be sure of that.” The man uttered those words steadfastly, bowed his head, and took his leave.”

An honest thief. I had a similar experience once. I had arrived as a guest at the Biblical Institute of the Jesuits in Rome on my way to Spain from India, had left my clothing and my wallet in my room while I went to the showers, and when I came back my wallet was missing. No Jesuit had taken it, of course, but they explained to me that workers in the house would watch guests and occasionally take undue advantage of them. That was what had happened. But there was a twist to it. The thief had taken my wallet with all that was in it, but he had before taken out my passport, my yellow fever vaccination certificate, and my driving license, and had left them neatly arranged on the table. Another good thief. He profited by his trade, but without causing me unnecessary trouble. A good professional. I couldn’t invite that noon my friend George Ukken, now missionary in Sudan, for lunch at a good Roman restaurant (I had thought of ‘Alfredo’ with its famous fetuccini) as I had promised him. We had to do with a birra.

You have made me laugh, Angela. I don’t know when my turn will come to die, of course, and when I turned 80 I declared I had a right to go without complains; I have lived a full life, have taught, have travelled, had talked, have written more than a hundred books, I’m already ten years in the Web, have helped, cheered up, accompanied many, and I’m surrounded by images of angels I have collected from exotic places. I’m in good company. But your email had gladdened me. You write with tenderness, and that has touched my soul. And then something amusing has happened. I have answered you at once, as I always do, personally, carefully, extensively, but when I’ve tried to send you my answer I’ve realised that your message had no address. If you email me directly, your address comes automatically with your message, and I have only to click on ANSWER and my message reaches you. But if you email me from my website you have to write your address as you are there requested to do, otherwise my answer to you reaches back my own Web and I have no way to reach you. This has happened many times and I feel it as people think I am not answering them, when it is their fault. But your message has charmed me and I don’t want to leave it without an answer, and so I’m going to copy here my answer to you, reproducing of course your message before so that it makes sense, and then adding my answer as I had written it. I understand your reference is to the tenderness I have experienced in my life, of which I had spoken in my previous Web of February 1st.

You write: “Tenderness can also reach you via Internet and you can feel it through these pages fortnight by fortnight. It’s now some time that when I open your page the doubt assaults me, will this be the last? Because of your age, Fr Carlos, the good God may like to take you with him. Then I feel a great uneasiness and I ask myself: ¿Who will help me with his wise advice, who will tell me stories and experiences full of tender love, and how will my Angels, whom he unveiled for me, accompany me if he is no more? Then I think that since you always tell us to live in the present, and as of now and hopefully for a very long time we’ll have you with us, you’ll surely go on teaching, writing, consoling, telling us your stories full of wise advice, and giving us your tender love through Internet. With all my love and for a long, long time to you, my Angel. Angela.”

I answer: “It’s worthwhile having lived so long if only to get those lines from you, Angela. Tenderness is the treasure in life, and I treasure these experiences as you saw precisely in my last Web of February 1st under the heading ‘Doses of tenderness’. I remind you of my own sentence there: ‘I need doses of tenderness to soften down the Darwinian harshness of the struggle for existence.’ It is lovely to discover now that tenderness can also be perceived through Internet. Thank you for this revelation, Angela. It opens up the heart. We men pride ourselves on being tough, and we Jesuits do that all the more. They say Voltaire said of us: ‘They join without knowing each other, live without loving each other, die without mourning each other.’ Of course, Voltaire was a little voltairian and he stretches the point, but tenderness is not our strong point. We do help each other, appreciate each other, support each other and would do any thing for a companion, but we trim our feelings. And maybe it’s not only us who do that. A good Sister has just written to me that she does not feel herself loved by the other Sisters in the convent. We are reserved as we know the dangers, but precisely for that I do appreciate the direct, simple, innocent, delicate, bold and delicate manifestation of sincere affection. Tony de Mello used to repeat to us: ‘If you love someone, tell them.’ So simple, so human, so divine. And then insisted when someone showed us affection and we felt reluctant to acknowledge it: “Take it in! Take it in!” Your message has stirred up all those feelings in me. And I value feelings above ideas. Thank you, Angela. Kisses. Carlos.”