For his first column of 1913, Debussy thus resumed his panegyric, which he had not had occasion to lay out during the previous five years. Moreover, a certain nostalgia emerged in his columns for the S. I. M.: nostalgia for Parsifal and Bayreuth; for Ernest Chausson, whose “charming genius” was unable to be fulfilled; for the Javanese and Vietnamese musics heard in 1889; and for the “storytellers of ballads, fine-throated minstrels who innocently preserved the beauty of their legends.”

Debussy's interest in Asian musics was revitalized in May, when the pianist Walter Rummel proposed bringing some North Indian musicians—Sufis playing religious Islamic music—to the composer's home. “I fear,” Debussy replied, “that [we'd be] overtaxing your remarkable musician-philosopher by having him come with his group at what would be for them an abnormal hour. It would be simpler, I think, if he and his brother were to come here any day they want, around 5 p.m., which seems to be his usual time.” Debussy thus heard Inayat Khan, who at the time was touring in Europe with his two brothers and his cousin, and in turn played his own music for Khan. The younger brother, Musharaff Khan, was said to have shown Debussy how to play his instrument, the vina. Gabriel D'Annunzio had published an enthusiastic account of the concert that Inayat Khan had given in Paris the previous winter, and it is likely that this experience led to the vague “Indian drama” project that D'Annunzio had contemplated undertaking with Debussy at one time—in addition to the idea, also rather vague, of a “Persian ballet” that the composer had discussed with Toulet during the previous year.