"But did you really think that I would speak on a definite date in a large hall before a crowd of people? I began my silence without giving a warning and I will speak in the same way. Who knows when! But when I speak, the whole world will know and recognize who I am."
Half-joking, Baba once remarked to Norina, "When I break my silence, even your eyes will pop !"
The departure preparations began early the next morning, Sunday, 22 October 1933. Baba had special individual and collective meetings with the Kimco group, and the entire staff of Hygeia House came to shake hands with him. Quite taken by Baba, an elderly chambermaid named Dorothy asked Baba to help her child, and he promised that he would. Baba left the hotel at 11:00 A.M. and the staff watched from the window and waved goodbye.
At Victoria Station, a crowd of about 30 was there to see him off, despite the fact that his departure was being kept strictly private. His lovers bid him a tearful farewell as the train left. "He is the One who never leaves!" Age declared. "Yet the birds felt as though their heart was being taken away to some distant place. Everything in life seemed empty and void, without Baba among them."
One of the group later wrote to Baba: "I am sorry I could not stay until the train left but I suddenly felt as if I should burst, and I had to run away. The room where we had all been together with you in London looked like a tomb. I peeped in but quickly ran away. It was too sad — for your light was missing. I am waiting for that moment when I may be allowed to be near you again."
Anita, Norina, Minta, Herbert and Quentin were accompanying Baba and the mandali, along with Tom Sharpley, who went as far as Dover to see them off at the ferry. Although Kitty had made all the arrangements, she remained in London to look after her father and continue her work of teaching piano.
It was a foggy and cold crossing of the English Channel, yet the sea was not rough. They arrived in Calais and traveled on the Continental Express train to Paris, where they arrived at six that evening.
Anita left the group in Paris, since it had been previously decided by Baba that she be sent to Zurich to study art at Otto Haas-Heye's design school.