We'll stop writing about the Messiah only when the Messiah comes, W. decides. And until then … By what strange chance did it fall to us, who are least qualified to do so, to write about the Messiah? And how, in particular, did I come to write on the Messianic idea, I who am even less qualified to do so than W.? He at least reads Biblical Hebrew; he at least attended lessons on the Talmud; he has some sense of the divine and has always found himself at the brink of belief.
'You're a Hindu,' says W. 'What's a Hindu doing thinking about Messianism?' Of course, I'm not even much of a Hindu, W. says. What relationship do I have with Hinduism? Wasn't I going to learn Sanskrit? Wasn't I going to set out my Hindu stall? I even made noises about becoming a scholar of the Hindu religion, W. says, although it came to nothing. In the end, things have come to a grim pass when a not-quite-Hindu or a non-Hindu with no feeling for religion starts thinking about Messianism, W. says.
What is it that attracts me to the Messianic idea? What beam of light continues to reach me? For it must be quite a beam, W. says, if it's able to pierce the fog of my stupidity. Or perhaps there's something in my stupidity – due, no doubt, to its sheer overwhelming extent, the fact that it seems to cover and occlude the world - that makes a place for the Messiah, he's not sure.
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