An involuntary hush fell upon the whole assemblage. Not a man or woman
there but felt their breath come a little quicker, their hearts beat
with suppressed excitement, as that perfect figure, with its magical
indolent grace, swept slowly through the room and into their midst.
It was the usual homage paid to Princess Zairoff, for she possessed that
rare and delicate mixture of indifference, languor, and disdain that is
in itself a distinction, and makes ordinary womanhood and beauty
suddenly feel coarse and commonplace.
She paused before Mrs Ray Jefferson, and greeted her with a soft
indescribable grace, and after a few minutes' conversation permitted
herself to be introduced to a few of the group around the little
American. That perfect ease of manner, which held not a vestige of
condescension, soon exerted its charm. One after another drew near that
envied circle, anxious to pick up some stray pearl of speech from those
lovely lips. The women forgot to be envious, because she never for one
moment forgot or ignored them. Even gouty Mrs Masterman found that her
ailment had been remembered, and was sympathetically enquired about in a
way to which she was entirely unaccustomed. The poet talked as if he
drew in inspiration with every glance from those starry eyes, the
musician at her request moved to the piano and played some of his "Music
of the Future," and it no longer seemed incomprehensible. A sense of
exhilaration, of pleasure, of content, spread through the group, and
animated discussion, and gave even ordinary conversation a sudden grace
and charm.
It was to be expected before the evening was over, that that
conversation would ascend by natural gradations from the ordinary to the
intellectual, yet no one could tell exactly how or when it began to do
so, any more than they could describe the strange yet clear logic by
which this one woman set to rights various perplexing problems, and gave
the key as it were to a nobler and higher order of eclectic philosophy
than they had yet ventured upon.
To Mrs Ray Jefferson, that discussion in the Baths had acted as the
stimulus of an olive to the palate. She was all eagerness to resume it.
"I hope, Madame Zairoff," she said, in her brisk, lively, fashion, "that
you will give me a little enlightenment about what you said yesterday.
This is just a leisure time with most of us, and I suppose mental
culture is not incompatible with hygienic pursuits."
"Assuredly not," said the Princess, smiling. "The more you cultivate
the mind the less you feel or care for the ailments of the body, and to
give those ailments even occasional insignificance, is to first forget,
and then banish them. If you draw your mind away from the thought of
pain, you cease to feel pain."
"But that would require a far stronger mental capacity than we possess,"
said Mrs Masterman. Then she suddenly remembered that she had not felt
a single gouty twinge the whole evening, because her mental
consciousness had been unusually excited. This remembrance made her
grow suddenly thoughtful and attentive to the discussion.
"I think," said Princess Zairoff, gently; "that we all make a great
mistake in setting any absolute limit to our mental capacity. It is
quite within our own power to dwarf or extend it. If we are content to
rest satisfied with a small amount of knowledge we can do so, and even
cease to suffer in our own self-esteem by feeling we are stupid, or
indolent, or ignorant. Our perceptions are gradually blunted, and
society is kind enough to case most of its remarks and opinions in a
sugar-coating, so that the real truth never reaches us. We gradually
find, then, that an opinion that soothes our personal vanity and
self-esteem is a very pleasant opinion. So long as we cherish that
falsehood, so long do we blunt our faculties of progress. Now it seems
a very extraordinary thing to me, who have long been accustomed to
investigate and direct the psychic side of nature, to find such numbers
and numbers of people who don't believe in _any psychic laws at all_,
far less care to investigate them as knowledge. The reason is simply
this, that they all are convinced that _one_ trivial, petty earth-life
is the one life for which they were created and are responsible,
therefore the only one they feel bound to investigate."
She paused and looked at the circle of grave and wondering faces.
"You have heard of the law of Karma, I suppose?" she said.
There was a murmur, vague, spontaneous, or doubtful, according to the
amount of comprehension excited by the question.
"It is a pity," resumed the Princess, "that it is not more generally
understood. What is the difficulty? I learnt it in my childhood just
as your English children learn their catechism. You have taken up the
doctrine of Evolution very strongly, but Karma is its very leading law,
so to speak. Man is perpetually working out and developing afresh the
energies, aspirations, and character with which his spirit was
originally endowed. He becomes, as it were, the product of the better
part of himself, that struggles to the surface again and again during
periods of incarceration in the flesh."
"Then you would convey that we all live over and over again?"
"Most certainly. It is the only rational way to account for the
injustice, the sorrows, and the miseries of earth. It gives long
opportunities for the modification of character; it acts as retribution
to the evil and the vicious and the selfish; it gives a far deeper sense
of responsibility than the shallow acceptance of mere creeds, because a
man's good or evil deeds become a series of actions with inevitable
consequences. If you teach him that he can throw off the results of a
bad life, and of all it has entailed upon his fellow man, by a brief
spell of penitence, or a blind, irrational faith in the sacrifice of a
Being he has neglected and ignored during the greater part of that life,
you really are only pandering to the selfish and cowardly side of his
nature."
A little shudder ran through the group at these bold words. Mrs Ray
Jefferson lifted her head and cast glances of triumph about, as one who
should say, "I told you she would shock you all!"
There was scarcely a man or woman there who did not attend church on
Sundays, and who had not managed to make a comfortable compact between
the tenets of religion and the demands of social and worldly pleasures.
Not one who, if taken to task on the momentous subject of a spiritual
future, could have given any rational explanation of why he or she held
certain vague ideas on the subject of salvation, or put off the deeper
consideration of the subject to some indefinite period when they would
have had their fill of vanities, and lost either the means or the desire
to pursue them.
And yet there was a subtle _frou-frou_ of rustling skirts as the women
drew slightly away, and a decided appearance of discomfort on the faces
of the men, to whom an unpleasant truth was suddenly and sharply
conveyed, and who found themselves strangely powerless to combat, or
argue out its real meaning.