The price for all this chutzpah was that Malraux then had to take up the cause of the colonial indigenes as if it really mattered to him.

In New York and Chicago, laws were passed making it illegal to sneeze or cough in public without using a handkerchief. Police dutifully hauled sneezers and coughers to court, where they were given stiff fines.

Next he called on Paul Leblond, the shoemender he had visited before. As with Madame Vauclin, his return had been eagerly awaited and, again, he showed the list. The shoemender knew others, he said, who would be well placed to help: […]

Settlements some centuries old, and still no bigger than pinheads on the untouched expanse of their background.