The chapter recounts the solitary journey through Pakistan in August 1972, marked by the separation from Pierre (who left for India) and a series of bureaucratic and moral trials.
In Lahore, the narrator narrowly escapes arrest for possession of hashish by bribing the police, then comes up against administrative absurdity when trying to replace stolen traveler’s checks. The contrasts of the country are striking: the Lahore Mall, where alcohol is sold to foreigners under the counter, rubs shoulders with the misery of the streets, while a European meal (chicken, coffee with cream) becomes a nostalgic luxury.
The train journey to Quetta, through deserts at 50°C, reveals the political tensions in Balochistan, where an independence leader explains the secessionist demands to him. In Quetta, an austere city reminiscent of Herat, he strikes up an ambiguous friendship with the Afghan manager of his hotel, a brilliant but desperate young man, ready to go into exile as a “servant” in Europe.
This mirror image of his own freedom plunges him into an existential crisis: he who rejected a promising career in IT to flee the West is now confronted with those who dream of precisely what he has fled. His encounter with French teachers on a “cultural” trip—uneducated and contemptuous—finishes him off.
Sick (fever, cough), physically and morally exhausted (“this world no longer interests me”), he senses the end of his Asian adventure. The text alternates between ethnographic observations (Balochistan, Pakistan’s “internal colony”) and bitter introspection, quoting Flaubert to emphasize his own disorientation. The road to Iran looms as a headlong rush forward, without illusion.