CHAPTER FOUR: The Yahi-Bahi Oriental Society of Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown
Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown lived on Plutoria Avenue in a vast sandstonepalace, in which she held those fashionable entertainments which havemade the name of Rasselyer-Brown what it is. Mr. Rasselyer-Brown livedthere also.
The exterior of the house was more or less a model of the facade of anItalian palazzo of the sixteenth century. If one questioned Mrs.Rasselyer-Brown at dinner in regard to this (which was only a fairreturn for drinking five dollar champagne), she answered that thefacade was _cinquecentisti_, but that it reproduced also the Saracenicmullioned window of the Siennese School. But if the guest said later inthe evening to Mr. Rasselyer-Brown that he understood that his housewas _cinquecentisti_, he answered that he guessed it was. After whichremark and an interval of silence, Mr. Rasselyer-Brown would probablyask the guest if he was dry.
So from that one can tell exactly the sort of people theRasselyer-Browns were.
In other words, Mr. Rasselyer-Brown was a severe handicap to Mrs.Rasselyer-Brown. He was more than that; the word isn't strong enough.He was, as Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown herself confessed to her confidentialcircle of three hundred friends, a drag. He was also a tie, and aweight, and a burden, and in Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown's religious moments acrucifix. Even in the early years of their married life, some twenty ortwenty-five years ago, her husband had been a drag on her by being inthe coal and wood business. It is hard for a woman to have to realizethat her husband is making a fortune out of coal and wood and thatpeople know it. It ties one down. What a woman wants most of all--this,of course, is merely a quotation from Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown's ownthoughts as expressed to her three hundred friends--is room to expand,to grow. The hardest thing in the world is to be stifled: and there isnothing more stifling than a husband who doesn't know a Giotto from aCarlo Dolci, but who can distinguish nut coal from egg and is neverasked to dinner without talking about the furnace.
These, of course, were early trials. They had passed to some extent, orwere, at any rate, garlanded with the roses of time.
But the drag remained.
Even when the retail coal and wood stage was long since over, it washard to have to put up with a husband who owned a coal mine and whobought pulp forests instead of illuminated missals of the twelfthcentury. A coal mine is a dreadful thing at a dinner-table. It humblesone so before one's guests.
It wouldn't have been so bad--this Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown herselfadmitted--if Mr. Rasselyer-Brown _did_ anything. This phrase should beclearly understood. It meant if there was any one thing that he _did_.For instance if he had only _collected_ anything. Thus, there was Mr.Lucullus Fyshe, who made soda-water, but at the same time everybodyknew that he had the best collection of broken Italian furniture on thecontinent; there wasn't a sound piece among the lot.
And there was the similar example of old Mr. Feathertop. He didn'texactly _collect_ things; he repudiated the name. He was wont to say,"Don't call me a collector, I'm _not_. I simply pick things up. Justwhere I happen to be, Rome, Warsaw, Bucharest, anywhere"--and it is tobe noted what fine places these are to happen to be. And to think thatMr. Rasselyer-Brown would never put his foot outside of the UnitedStates! Whereas Mr. Feathertop would come back from what he called arun to Europe, and everybody would learn in a week that he had pickedup the back of a violin in Dresden (actually discovered it in a violinshop), and the lid of an Etruscan kettle (he had lighted on it, by purechance, in a kettle shop in Etruria), and Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown wouldfeel faint with despair at the nonentity of her husband.
So one can understand how heavy her burden was.
"My dear," she often said to her bosom friend, Miss Snagg, "I shouldn'tmind things so much" (the things she wouldn't mind were, let us say,the two million dollars of standing timber which Brown Limited, theominous business name of Mr. Rasselyer-Brown, were buying that year)"if Mr. Rasselyer-Brown _did_ anything. But he does _nothing_. Everymorning after breakfast off to his wretched office, and never back tilldinner, and in the evening nothing but his club, or some businessmeeting. One would think he would have more ambition. How I wish I hadbeen a man."
It was certainly a shame.
So it came that, in almost everything she undertook Mrs.Rasselyer-Brown had to act without the least help from her husband.Every Wednesday, for instance, when the Dante Club met at her house(they selected four lines each week to meditate on, and then discussedthem at lunch), Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown had to carry the whole burden ofit--her very phrase, "the whole burden"--alone. Anyone who has carriedfour lines of Dante through a Moselle lunch knows what a weight it is.
In all these things her husband was useless, quite useless. It is notright to be ashamed of one's husband. And to do her justice, Mrs.Rasselyer-Brown always explained to her three hundred intimates thatshe was _not_ ashamed of him; in fact, that she _refused_ to be. But itwas hard to see him brought into comparison at their own table withsuperior men. Put him, for instance, beside Mr. Sikleigh Snoop, thesex-poet, and where was he? Nowhere. He couldn't even understand whatMr. Snoop was saying. And when Mr. Snoop would stand on the hearth-rugwith a cup of tea balanced in his hand, and discuss whether sex was orwas not the dominant note in Botticelli, Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown would beskulking in a corner in his ill-fitting dress suit. His wife wouldoften catch with an agonized ear such scraps of talk as, "When I wasfirst in the coal and wood business," or, "It's a coal that burnsquicker than egg, but it hasn't the heating power of nut," or even in alow undertone the words, "If you're feeling _dry_ while he's reading--"And this at a time when everybody in the room ought to have beenlistening to Mr. Snoop.
Nor was even this the whole burden of Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown. There wasanother part of it which was perhaps more _real_, though Mrs.Rasselyer-Brown herself never put it into words. In fact, of this partof her burden she never spoke, even to her bosom friend Miss Snagg; nordid she talk about it to the ladies of the Dante Club, nor did she makespeeches on it to the members of the Women's Afternoon Art Society, norto the Monday Bridge Club.
But the members of the Bridge Club and the Art Society and the DanteClub all talked about it among themselves.
Stated very simply, it was this: Mr. Rasselyer-Brown drank. It was notmeant that he was a drunkard or that he drank too much, or anything ofthat sort. He drank. That was all.
There was no excess about it. Mr. Rasselyer-Brown, of course, began theday with an eye-opener--and after all, what alert man does not wish hiseyes well open in the morning? He followed it usually just beforebreakfast with a bracer--and what wiser precaution can a businessmantake than to brace his breakfast? On his way to business he generallyhad his motor stopped at the Grand Palaver for a moment, if it was araw day, and dropped in and took something to keep out the damp. If itwas a cold day he took something to keep out the cold, and if it wasone of those clear, sunny days that are so dangerous to the system hetook whatever the bartender (a recognized health expert) suggested totone the system up. After which he could sit down in his office andtransact more business, and bigger business, in coal, charcoal, wood,pulp, pulpwood, and woodpulp, in two hours than any other man in thebusiness could in a week. Naturally so. For he was braced, and propped,and toned up, and his eyes had been opened, and his brain cleared, tilloutside of very big business, indeed, few men were on a footing withhim.
In fact, it was business itself which had compelled Mr. Rasselyer-Brownto drink. It is all very well for a junior clerk on twenty dollars aweek to do his work on sandwiches and malted milk. In big business itis not possible. When a man begins to rise in business, as Mr.Rasselyer-Brown had begun twenty-five years ago, he finds that if hewants to succeed he must cut malted milk clear out. In any position ofresponsibility a man has got to drink. No really big deal can be putthrough without it. If two keen men, sharp as flint, get together tomake a deal in which each intends to outdo the other, the only way tosucceed is for them to adjourn to some such place as the luncheon-roomof the Mausoleum Club and both get partially drunk. This is what iscalled the pers
onal element in business. And, beside it, ploddingindustry is nowhere.
Most of all do these principles hold true in such manly out-of-doorenterprises as the forest and timber business, where one dealsconstantly with chief rangers, and pathfinders, and wood-stalkers,whose very names seem to suggest a horn of whiskey under a hemlock tree.
But--let it be repeated and carefully understood--there was no excessabout Mr. Rasselyer-Brown's drinking. Indeed, whatever he might becompelled to take during the day, and at the Mausoleum Club in theevening, after his return from his club at night Mr. Rasselyer-Brownmade it a fixed rule to take nothing. He might, perhaps, as he passedinto the house, step into the dining-room and take a very small drinkat the sideboard. But this he counted as part of the return itself, andnot after it. And he might, if his brain were over-fatigued, drop downlater in the night in his pajamas and dressing-gown when the house wasquiet, and compose his mind with a brandy and water, or somethingsuitable to the stillness of the hour. But this was not really a drink.Mr. Rasselyer-Brown called it a _nip_; and of course any man may need a_nip_ at a time when he would scorn a drink.
* * * * *
But after all, a woman may find herself again in her daughter. There,at least, is consolation. For, as Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown herselfadmitted, her daughter, Dulphemia, was herself again. There were, ofcourse, differences, certain differences of face and appearance. Mr.Snoop had expressed this fact exquisitely when he said that it was thedifference between a Burne-Jones and a Dante Gabriel Rossetti. But evenat that the mother and daughter were so alike that people, certainpeople, were constantly mistaking them on the street. And as everybodythat mistook them was apt to be asked to dine on five-dollar champagnethere was plenty of temptation towards error.
There is no doubt that Dulphemia Rasselyer-Brown was a girl ofremarkable character and intellect. So is any girl who has beautifulgolden hair parted in thick bands on her forehead, and deep blue eyessoft as an Italian sky.
Even the oldest and most serious men in town admitted that in talkingto her they were aware of a grasp, a reach, a depth that surprisedthem. Thus old Judge Longerstill, who talked to her at dinner for anhour on the jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission, feltsure from the way in which she looked up in his face at intervals andsaid, "How interesting!" that she had the mind of a lawyer. And Mr.Brace, the consulting engineer, who showed her on the table-cloth atdessert with three forks and a spoon the method in which the overflowof the spillway of the Gatun Dam is regulated, felt assured, from theway she leaned her face on her hand sideways and said, "Howextraordinary!" that she had the brain of an engineer. Similarlyforeign visitors to the social circles of the city were delighted withher. Viscount FitzThistle, who explained to Dulphemia for half an hourthe intricacies of the Irish situation, was captivated at the quickgrasp she showed by asking him at the end, without a second'shesitation, "And which are the Nationalists?"
This kind of thing represents female intellect in its best form. Everyman that is really a man is willing to recognize it at once. As to theyoung men, of course they flocked to the Rasselyer-Brown residence inshoals. There were batches of them every Sunday afternoon at fiveo'clock, encased in long black frock-coats, sitting very rigidly inupright chairs, trying to drink tea with one hand. One might seeathletic young college men of the football team trying hard to talkabout Italian music; and Italian tenors from the Grand Opera doingtheir best to talk about college football. There were young men inbusiness talking about art, and young men in art talking aboutreligion, and young clergymen talking about business. Because, ofcourse, the Rasselyer-Brown residence was the kind of cultivated homewhere people of education and taste are at liberty to talk about thingsthey don't know, and to utter freely ideas that they haven't got. Itwas only now and again, when one of the professors from the collegeacross the avenue came booming into the room, that the wholeconversation was pulverized into dust under the hammer of accurateknowledge.
The whole process was what was called, by those who understood suchthings, a _salon_. Many people said that Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown'safternoons at home were exactly like the delightful _salons_ of theeighteenth century: and whether the gatherings were or were not_salons_ of the eighteenth century, there is no doubt that Mr.Rasselyer-Brown, under whose care certain favoured guests droppedquietly into the back alcove of the dining-room, did his best to putthe gathering on a par with the best saloons of the twentieth.
Now it so happened that there had come a singularly slack moment in thesocial life of the City. The Grand Opera had sung itself into a hugedeficit and closed. There remained nothing of it except the efforts ofa committee of ladies to raise enough money to enable Signor Puffi toleave town, and the generous attempt of another committee to gatherfunds in order to keep Signor Pasti in the City. Beyond this, opera wasdead, though the fact that the deficit was nearly twice as large as ithad been the year before showed that public interest in music wasincreasing. It was indeed a singularly trying time of the year. It wastoo early to go to Europe; and too late to go to Bermuda. It was toowarm to go south, and yet still too cold to go north. In fact, one wasalmost compelled to stay at home--which was dreadful.
As a result Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown and her three hundred friends movedbackwards and forwards on Plutoria Avenue, seeking novelty in vain.They washed in waves of silk from tango teas to bridge afternoons. Theypoured in liquid avalanches of colour into crowded receptions, and theysat in glittering rows and listened to lectures on the enfranchisementof the female sex. But for the moment all was weariness.
Now it happened, whether by accident or design, that just at thismoment of general _ennui_ Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown and her three hundredfriends first heard of the presence in the city of Mr. Yahi-Bahi, thecelebrated Oriental mystic. He was so celebrated that nobody eventhought of asking who he was or where he came from. They merely toldone another, and repeated it, that he was _the_ celebrated Yahi-Bahi.They added for those who needed the knowledge that the name waspronounced Yahhy-Bahhy, and that the doctrine taught by Mr. Yahi-Bahiwas Boohooism. This latter, if anyone inquired further, was explainedto be a form of Shoodooism, only rather more intense. In fact, it wasesoteric--on receipt of which information everybody remarked at oncehow infinitely superior the Oriental peoples are to ourselves.
Now as Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown was always a leader in everything that wasdone in the best circles on Plutoria Avenue, she was naturally amongthe first to visit Mr. Yahi-Bahi.
"My dear," she said, in describing afterwards her experience to herbosom friend, Miss Snagg, "it was _most_ interesting. We drove awaydown to the queerest part of the City, and went to the strangest littlehouse imaginable, up the narrowest stairs one ever saw--quite Eastern,in fact, just like a scene out of the Koran."
"How fascinating!" said Miss Snagg. But as a matter of fact, if Mr.Yahi-Bahi's house had been inhabited, as it might have been, by astreetcar conductor or a railway brakesman, Mrs. Rasselyer-Brownwouldn't have thought it in any way peculiar or fascinating.
"It was all hung with curtains inside," she went on, "with figures ofsnakes and Indian gods, perfectly weird."
"And did you see Mr. Yahi-Bahi?" asked Miss Snagg.
"Oh no, my dear. I only saw his assistant Mr. Ram Spudd; such a queerlittle round man, a Bengalee, I believe. He put his back against acurtain and spread out his arms sideways and wouldn't let me pass. Hesaid that Mr. Yahi-Bahi was in meditation and mustn't be disturbed."
"How delightful!" echoed Miss Snagg.
But in reality Mr. Yahi-Bahi was sitting behind the curtain eating aten-cent can of pork and beans.
"What I like most about eastern people," went on Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown,"is their wonderful delicacy of feeling. After I had explained about myinvitation to Mr. Yahi-Bahi to come and speak to us on Boohooism, andwas going away, I took a dollar bill out of my purse and laid it on thetable. You should have seen the way Mr. Ram Spudd took it. He made thedeepest salaam and said, 'Isis guard you, beautiful lady.' Such perfectcourtesy, and yet wit
h the air of scorning the money. As I passed out Icouldn't help slipping another dollar into his hand, and he took it asif utterly unaware of it, and muttered, 'Osiris keep you, O flower ofwomen!' And as I got into the motor I gave him another dollar and hesaid, 'Osis and Osiris both prolong your existence, O lily of thericefield,' and after he had said it he stood beside the door of themotor and waited without moving till I left. He had such a strange,rapt look, as if he were still expecting something!"
"How exquisite!" murmured Miss Snagg. It was her business in life tomurmur such things as this for Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown. On the whole,reckoning Grand Opera tickets and dinners, she did very well out of it.
"Is it not?" said Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown. "So different from our men. Ifelt so ashamed of my chauffeur, our new man, you know; he seemed sucha contrast beside Ram Spudd. The rude way in which the opened the door,and the rude way in which he climbed on to his own seat, and the_rudeness_ with which he turned on the power--I felt positivelyashamed. And he so managed it--I am sure he did it on purpose--that thecar splashed a lot of mud over Mr. Spudd as it started."
Yet, oddly enough, the opinion of other people on this new chauffeur,that of Miss Dulphemia Rasselyer-Brown herself, for example, to whoseservice he was specially attached, was very different.
The great recommendation of him in the eyes of Miss Dulphemia and herfriends, and the thing that gave him a touch of mystery was--and whathigher qualification can a chauffeur want?--that he didn't look like achauffeur at all.
"My dear Dulphie," whispered Miss Philippa Furlong, the rector's sister(who was at that moment Dulphemia's second self), as they sat behindthe new chauffeur, "don't tell me that he is a chauffeur, because he_isn't_. He can chauffe, of course, but that's nothing."
For the new chauffeur had a bronzed face, hard as metal, and a sterneye; and when he put on a chauffeur's overcoat some how it seemed toturn into a military greatcoat; and even when he put on the round clothcap of his profession it was converted straightway into a militaryshako. And by Miss Dulphemia and her friends it was presentlyreported--or was invented?--that he had served in the Philippines;which explained at once the scar upon his forehead, which must havebeen received at Iloilo, or Huila-Huila, or some other suitable place.
But what affected Miss Dulphemia Brown herself was the splendidrudeness of the chauffeur's manner. It was so different from that ofthe young men of the _salon_. Thus, when Mr. Sikleigh Snoop handed herinto the car at any time he would dance about saying, "Allow me," and"Permit me," and would dive forward to arrange the robes. But thePhilippine chauffeur merely swung the door open and said to Dulphemia,"Get in," and then slammed it.
This, of course, sent a thrill up the spine and through the imaginationof Miss Dulphemia Rasselyer-Brown, because it showed that the chauffeurwas a gentleman in disguise. She thought it very probable that he was aBritish nobleman, a younger son, very wild, of a ducal family; and shehad her own theories as to why he had entered the service of theRasselyer-Browns. To be quite candid about it, she expected that thePhilippine chauffeur meant to elope with her, and every time he droveher from a dinner or a dance she sat back luxuriously, wishing andexpecting the elopement to begin.
* * * * *
But for the time being the interest of Dulphemia, as of everybody elsethat was anybody at all, centred round Mr. Yahi-Bahi and the new cultof Boohooism.
After the visit of Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown a great number of ladies, alsoin motors, drove down to the house of Mr. Yahi-Bahi. And all of them,whether they saw Mr. Yahi-Bahi himself or his Bengalee assistant, Mr.Ram Spudd, came back delighted.
"Such exquisite tact!" said one. "Such delicacy! As I was about to go Ilaid a five dollar gold piece on the edge of the little table. Mr.Spudd scarcely seemed to see it. He murmured, 'Osiris help you!' andpointed to the ceiling. I raised my eyes instinctively, and when Ilowered them the money had disappeared. I think he must have caused itto vanish."
"Oh, I'm sure he did," said the listener.
Others came back with wonderful stories of Mr. Yahi-Bahi's occultpowers, especially his marvellous gift of reading the future.
Mrs. Buncomhearst, who had just lost her third husband--by divorce--hadreceived from Mr. Yahi-Bahi a glimpse into the future that was almostuncanny in its exactness. She had asked for a divination, and Mr.Yahi-Bahi had effected one by causing her to lay six ten-dollar pieceson the table arranged in the form of a mystic serpent. Over these hehad bent and peered deeply, as if seeking to unravel their meaning, andfinally he had given her the prophecy, "Many things are yet to happenbefore others begin."
"How _does_ he do it?" asked everybody.
* * * * *
As a result of all this it naturally came about that Mr. Yahi-Bahi andMr. Ram Spudd were invited to appear at the residence of Mrs.Rasselyer-Brown; and it was understood that steps would be taken toform a special society, to be known as the Yahi-Bahi Oriental Society.
Mr. Sikleigh Snoop, the sex-poet, was the leading spirit in theorganization. He had a special fitness for the task: he had actuallyresided in India. In fact, he had spent six weeks there on a stop-overticket of a round-the-world 635 dollar steamship pilgrimage; and heknew the whole country from Jehumbapore in Bhootal to Jehumbalabad inthe Carnatic. So he was looked upon as a great authority on India,China, Mongolia, and all such places, by the ladies of Plutoria Avenue.
Next in importance was Mrs. Buncomhearst, who became later, by aperfectly natural process, the president of the society. She wasalready president of the Daughters of the Revolution, a societyconfined exclusively to the descendants of Washington's officers andothers; she was also president of the Sisters of England, anorganization limited exclusively to women born in England andelsewhere; of the Daughters of Kossuth, made up solely of Hungariansand friends of Hungary and other nations; and of the Circle of FranzJoseph, which was composed exclusively of the partisans, and others, ofAustria. In fact, ever since she had lost her third husband, Mrs.Buncomhearst had thrown herself--that was her phrase--into outsideactivities. Her one wish was, on her own statement, to lose herself. Sovery naturally Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown looked at once to Mrs. Buncomhearstto preside over the meetings of the new society.
* * * * *
The large dining-room at the Rasselyer-Browns' had been cleared out asa sort of auditorium, and in it some fifty or sixty of Mrs.Rasselyer-Brown's more intimate friends had gathered. The whole meetingwas composed of ladies, except for the presence of one or two men whorepresented special cases. There was, of course, little Mr. Spillikins,with his vacuous face and football hair, who was there, as everybodyknew, on account of Dulphemia; and there was old Judge Longerstill, whosat leaning on a gold-headed stick with his head sideways, trying tohear some fraction of what was being said. He came to the gathering inthe hope that it would prove a likely place for seconding a vote ofthanks and saying a few words--half an hour's talk, perhaps--on theconstitution of the United States. Failing that, he felt sure that atleast someone would call him "this eminent old gentleman," and eventhat was better than staying at home.
But for the most part the audience was composed of women, and they satin a little buzz of conversation waiting for Mr. Yahi-Bahi.
"I wonder," called Mrs. Buncomhearst from the chair, "if some ladywould be good enough to write minutes? Miss Snagg, I wonder if youwould be kind enough to write minutes? Could you?"
"I shall be delighted," said Miss Snagg, "but I'm afraid there's hardlytime to write them before we begin, is there?"
"Oh, but it would be all right to write them _afterwards_," chorussedseveral ladies who understood such things; "it's quite often done thatway."
"And I should like to move that we vote a constitution," said a stoutlady with a double eye-glass.
"Is that carried?" said Mrs. Buncomhearst. "All those in favour pleasesignify."
Nobody stirred.
"Carried," said the president. "And perhaps you would be good enough,Mrs. Fyshe," she said, turning towards t
he stout lady, "to _write_ theconstitution."
"Do you think it necessary to _write_ it?" said Mrs. Fyshe. "I shouldlike to move, if I may, that I almost wonder whether it is necessary towrite the constitution--unless, of course, anybody thinks that wereally ought to."
"Ladies," said the president, "you have heard the motion. All thoseagainst it--"
There was no sign.
"All those in favour of it--"
There was still no sign.
"Lost," she said.
Then, looking across at the clock on the mantel-piece, and realizingthat Mr. Yahi-Bahi must have been delayed and that something must bedone, she said:
"And now, ladies, as we have in our midst a most eminent gentleman whoprobably has thought more deeply about constitutions than--"
All eyes turned at once towards Judge Longerstill, but as fortune hadit at this very moment Mr. Sikleigh Snoop entered, followed by Mr.Yahi-Bahi and Mr. Ram Spudd.
Mr. Yahi-Bahi was tall. His drooping Oriental costume made him tallerstill. He had a long brown face and liquid brown eyes of such depththat when he turned them full upon the ladies before him a shiver ofinterest and apprehension followed in the track of his glance.
"My dear," said Miss Snagg afterwards, "he seemed simply to see rightthrough us."
This was correct. He did.
Mr. Ram Spudd presented a contrast to his superior. He was short andround, with a dimpled mahogany face and eyes that twinkled in it likelittle puddles of molasses. His head was bound in a turban and his bodywas swathed in so many bands and sashes that he looked almost circular.The clothes of both Mr. Yahi-Bahi and Ram Spudd were covered with themystic signs of Buddha and the seven serpents of Vishnu.
It was impossible, of course, for Mr. Yahi-Bahi or Mr. Ram Spudd toaddress the audience. Their knowledge of English was known to be tooslight for that. Their communications were expressed entirely throughthe medium of Mr. Snoop, and even he explained afterwards that it wasvery difficult. The only languages of India which he was able to speak,he said, with any fluency were Gargamic and Gumaic both of these beingold Dravidian dialects with only two hundred and three words in each,and hence in themselves very difficult to converse in. Mr. Yahi-Bahianswered in what Mr. Snoop understood to be the Iramic of the Vedas, avery rich language, but one which unfortunately he did not understand.The dilemma is one familiar to all Oriental scholars.
All of this Mr. Snoop explained in the opening speech which heproceeded to make. And after this he went on to disclose, amid deepinterest, the general nature of the cult of Boohooism. He said thatthey could best understand it if he told them that its central doctrinewas that of Bahee. Indeed, the first aim of all followers of the cultwas to attain to Bahee. Anybody who could spend a certain number ofhours each day, say sixteen, in silent meditation on Boohooism wouldfind his mind gradually reaching a condition of Bahee. The chief aim ofBahee itself was sacrifice: a true follower of the cult must be willingto sacrifice his friends, or his relatives, and even strangers, inorder to reach Bahee. In this way one was able fully to realize oneselfand enter into the Higher Indifference. Beyond this, further meditationand fasting--by which was meant living solely on fish, fruit, wine, andmeat--one presently attained to complete Swaraj or Control of Self, andmight in time pass into the absolute Nirvana, or the Negation ofEmptiness, the supreme goal of Boohooism.
As a first step to all this, Mr. Snoop explained, each neophyte orcandidate for holiness must, after searching his own heart, send tendollars to Mr. Yahi-Bahi. Gold, it appeared, was recognized in the cultof Boohooism as typifying the three chief virtues, whereas silver orpaper money did not; even national banknotes were only regarded as door, a halfway palliation; and outside currencies such as Canadian orMexican bills were looked upon as entirely boo, or contemptible. TheOriental view of money, said Mr. Snoop, was far superior to our own,but it also might be attained by deep thought, and, as a beginning, bysending ten dollars to Mr. Yahi-Bahi.
After this Mr. Snoop, in conclusion, read a very beautiful Hindu poem,translating it as he went along. It began, "O cow, standing beside theGanges, and apparently without visible occupation," and it was votedexquisite by all who heard it. The absence of rhyme and the entireremoval of ideas marked it as far beyond anything reached as yet byOccidental culture.
When Mr. Snoop had concluded, the president called upon JudgeLongerstill for a few words of thanks, which he gave, followed by abrief talk on the constitution of the United States.
After this the society was declared constituted, Mr. Yahi-Bahi madefour salaams, one to each point of the compass, and the meetingdispersed.
And that evening, over fifty dinner tables, everybody discussed thenature of Bahee, and tried in vain to explain it to men too stupid tounderstand.
* * * * *
Now it so happened that on the very afternoon of this meeting at Mrs.Rasselyer-Brown's, the Philippine chauffeur did a strange and peculiarthing. He first asked Mr. Rasselyer-Brown for a few hours' leave ofabsence to attend the funeral of his mother in-law. This was a requestwhich Mr. Rasselyer-Brown, on principle, never refused to a man-servant.
Whereupon, the Philippine chauffeur, no longer attired as one, visitedthe residence of Mr. Yahi-Bahi. He let himself in with a marvellouslittle key which he produced from a very wonderful bunch of such. Hewas in the house for nearly half an hour, and when he emerged, thenotebook in his breast pocket, had there been an eye to read it, wouldhave been seen to be filled with stranger details in regard to Orientalmysticism than even Mr. Yahi-Bahi had given to the world. So strangewere they that before the Philippine chauffeur returned to theRasselyer-Brown residence he telegraphed certain and sundry parts ofthem to New York. But why he should have addressed them to the head ofa detective bureau instead of to a college of Oriental research itpasses the imagination to conceive. But as the chauffeur dulyreappeared at motor-time in the evening the incident passed unnoticed.
* * * * *
It is beyond the scope of the present narrative to trace the progressof Boohooism during the splendid but brief career of the Yahi-BahiOriental Society. There could be no doubt of its success. Itsprinciples appealed with great strength to all the more cultivatedamong the ladies of Plutoria Avenue. There was something in theOriental mysticism of its doctrines which rendered previous beliefstale and puerile. The practice of the sacred rites began at once. Theladies' counters of the Plutorian banks were inundated with requestsfor ten-dollar pieces in exchange for banknotes. At dinner in the besthouses nothing was eaten except a thin soup (or bru), followed by fish,succeeded by meat or by game, especially such birds as are particularlypleasing to Buddha, as the partridge, the pheasant, and the woodcock.After this, except for fruits and wine, the principle of Swaraj, ordenial of self, was rigidly imposed. Special Oriental dinners of thissort were given, followed by listening to the reading of Orientalpoetry, with closed eyes and with the mind as far as possible in astate of Stoj, or Negation of Thought.
By this means the general doctrine of Boohooism spread rapidly. Indeed,a great many of the members of the society soon attained to a stage ofBahee, or the Higher Indifference, that it would have been hard toequal outside of Juggapore or Jumbumbabad. For example, when Mrs.Buncomhearst learned of the remarriage of her second husband--she hadlost him three years before, owing to a difference of opinion on theemancipation of women--she showed the most complete Bahee possible. Andwhen Miss Snagg learned that her brother in Venezuela had died--a verysudden death brought on by drinking rum for seventeen years--and hadleft her ten thousand dollars, the Bahee which she exhibited almostamounted to Nirvana.
In fact, the very general dissemination of the Oriental idea becamemore and more noticeable with each week that passed. Some membersattained to so complete a Bahee, or Higher Indifference, that they evenceased to attend the meetings of the society; others reached a Swaraj,or Control of Self, so great that they no longer read its pamphlets;while others again actually passed into Nirvana, to a Complete Negatio
nof Self, so rapidly that they did not even pay their subscriptions.
But features of this sort, of course, are familiar wherever asuccessful occult creed makes its way against the prejudices of themultitude.
The really notable part of the whole experience was the marvellousdemonstration of occult power which attended the final seance of thesociety, the true nature of which is still wrapped in mystery.
For some weeks it had been rumoured that a very special feat ordemonstration of power by Mr. Yahi-Bahi was under contemplation. Infact, the rapid spread of Swaraj and of Nirvana among the membersrendered such a feat highly desirable. Just what form the demonstrationwould take was for some time a matter of doubt. It was whispered atfirst that Mr. Yahi-Bahi would attempt the mysterious eastern rite ofburying Ram Spudd alive in the garden of the Rasselyer-Brown residenceand leaving him there in a state of Stoj, or Suspended Inanition, foreight days. But this project was abandoned, owing to some doubt,apparently, in the mind of Mr. Ram Spudd as to his astral fitness forthe high state of Stoj necessitated by the experiment.
At last it became known to the members of the Poosh, or Inner Circle,under the seal of confidence, that Mr. Yahi-Bahi would attempt nothingless than the supreme feat of occultism, namely, a reincarnation, ormore correctly a reastralization of Buddha.
The members of the Inner Circle shivered with a luxurious sense ofmystery when they heard of it.
"Has it ever been done before?" they asked of Mr. Snoop.
"Only a few times," he said; "once, I believe, by Jam-bum, the famousYogi of the Carnatic; once, perhaps twice, by Boohoo, the founder ofthe sect. But it is looked upon as extremely rare. Mr. Yahi tells methat the great danger is that, if the slightest part of the formula isincorrectly observed, the person attempting the astralization isswallowed up into nothingness. However, he declares himself willing totry."
* * * * *
The seance was to take place at Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown's residence, andwas to be at midnight.
"At midnight!" said each member in surprise. And the answer was, "Yes,at midnight. You see, midnight here is exactly midday in Allahabad inIndia."
This explanation was, of course, ample. "Midnight," repeated everybodyto everybody else, "is exactly midday in Allahabad." That made thingsperfectly clear. Whereas if midnight had been midday in Timbuctoo thewhole situation would have been different.
Each of the ladies was requested to bring to the seance some ornamentof gold; but it must be plain gold, without any setting of stones.
It was known already that, according to the cult of Boohooism, gold,plain gold, is the seat of the three virtues--beauty, wisdom and grace.Therefore, according to the creed of Boohooism, anyone who has enoughgold, plain gold, is endowed with these virtues and is all right. Allthat is needed is to have enough of it; the virtues follow as aconsequence.
But for the great experiment the gold used must not be set with stones,with the one exception of rubies, which are known to be endowed withthe three attributes of Hindu worship, modesty, loquacity, andpomposity.
In the present case it was found that as a number of ladies had nothingbut gold ornaments set with diamonds, a second exception was made;especially as Mr. Yahi-Bahi, on appeal, decided that diamonds, thoughless pleasing to Buddha than rubies, possessed the secondary Hinduvirtues of divisibility, movability, and disposability.
On the evening in question the residence of Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown mighthave been observed at midnight wrapped in utter darkness. No lightswere shown. A single taper, brought by Ram Spudd from the Taj Mohal,and resembling in its outer texture those sold at the five-and-tenstore near Mr. Spudd's residence, burned on a small table in the vastdining-room. The servants had been sent upstairs and expressly enjoinedto retire at half past ten. Moreover, Mr. Rasselyer-Brown had had toattend that evening, at the Mausoleum Club, a meeting of the trusteesof the Church of St. Asaph, and he had come home at eleven o'clock, ashe always did after diocesan work of this sort, quite used up; in fact,so fatigued that he had gone upstairs to his own suite of roomssideways, his knees bending under him. So utterly used up was he withhis church work that, as far as any interest in what might be going onin his own residence, he had attained to a state of Bahee, or HigherIndifference, that even Buddha might have envied.
The guests, as had been arranged, arrived noiselessly and on foot. Allmotors were left at least a block away. They made their way up thesteps of the darkened house, and were admitted without ringing, thedoor opening silently in front of them. Mr. Yahi-Bahi and Mr. RamSpudd, who had arrived on foot carrying a large parcel, were alreadythere, and were behind a screen in the darkened room, reported to be inmeditation.
At a whispered word from Mr. Snoop, who did duty at the door, all fursand wraps were discarded in the hall and laid in a pile. Then theguests passed silently into the great dining room. There was no lightin it except the dim taper which stood on a little table. On this tableeach guest, as instructed, laid an ornament of gold, and at the sametime was uttered in a low voice the word Ksvoo. This means, "O Buddha,I herewith lay my unworthy offering at thy feet; take it and keep itfor ever." It was explained that this was only a form.
* * * * *
"What is he doing?" whispered the assembled guests as they saw Mr.Yahi-Bahi pass across the darkened room and stand in front of thesideboard.
"Hush!" said Mr. Snoop; "he's laying the propitiatory offering forBuddha."
"It's an Indian rite," whispered Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown.
Mr. Yahi-Bahi could be seen dimly moving to and fro in front of thesideboard. There was a faint clinking of glass.
"He has to set out a glass of Burmese brandy, powdered over with nutmegand aromatics," whispered Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown. "I had the greatesthunt to get it all for him. He said that nothing but Burmese brandywould do, because in the Hindu religion the god can only be invokedwith Burmese brandy, or, failing that, Hennessy's with three stars,which is not entirely displeasing to Buddha."
"The aromatics," whispered Mr. Snoop, "are supposed to waft a perfumeor incense to reach the nostrils of the god. The glass of propitiatorywine and the aromatic spices are mentioned in the Vishnu-Buddayat."
Mr. Yahi-Bahi, his preparations completed, was now seen to stand infront of the sideboard bowing deeply four times in an Oriental salaam.The light of the single taper had by this time burned so dim that hismovements were vague and uncertain. His body cast great flickeringshadows on the half-seen wall. From his throat there issued a low wailin which the word wah! wah! could be distinguished.
The excitement was intense.
"What does wah mean?" whispered Mr. Spillikins.
"Hush!" said Mr. Snoop; "it means, 'O Buddha, wherever thou art in thylofty Nirvana, descend yet once in astral form before our eyes!'"
Mr. Yahi-Bahi rose. He was seen to place one finger on his lips andthen, silently moving across the room, he disappeared behind thescreen. Of what Mr. Ram Spudd was doing during this period there is norecord. It was presumed that he was still praying.
The stillness was now absolute.
"We must wait in perfect silence," whispered Mr. Snoop from the extremetips of his lips.
Everybody sat in strained intensity, silent, looking towards the vagueoutline of the sideboard.
The minutes passed. No one moved. All were spellbound in expectancy.
Still the minutes passed. The taper had flickered down till the greatroom was almost in darkness.
Could it be that by some neglect in the preparations, the substitutionperhaps of the wrong brandy, the astralization could not be effected?
But no.
Quite suddenly, it seemed, everybody in the darkened room was aware ofa _presence_. That was the word as afterwards repeated in a hundredconfidential discussions. A _presence_. One couldn't call it a body. Itwasn't. It was a figure, an astral form, a presence.
"Buddha!" they gasped as they looked at it.
Just how the figure entered the room, the spectators could neverafter
wards agree. Some thought it appeared through the wall,deliberately astralizing itself as it passed through the bricks. Othersseemed to have seen it pass in at the farther door of the room, as ifit had astralized itself at the foot of the stairs in the back of thehall outside.
Be that as it may, there it stood before them, the astralized shape ofthe Indian deity, so that to every lip there rose the half-articulatedword, "Buddha"; or at least to every lip except that of Mrs.Rasselyer-Brown. From her there came no sound.
The figure as afterwards described was attired in a long _shirak_, suchas is worn by the Grand Llama of Tibet, and resembling, if thecomparison were not profane, a modern dressing-gown. The legs, if onemight so call them, of the apparition were enwrapped in loosepunjahamas, a word which is said to be the origin of the modernpyjamas; while the feet, if they were feet, were encased in looseslippers.
Buddha moved slowly across the room. Arrived at the sideboard theastral figure paused, and even in the uncertain light Buddha was seento raise and drink the propitiatory offering. That much was perfectlyclear. Whether Buddha spoke or not is doubtful. Certain of thespectators thought that he said, 'Must a fagotnit', which isHindustanee for "Blessings on this house." To Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown'sdistracted mind it seemed as if Buddha said, "I must have forgotten it"But this wild fancy she never breathed to a soul.
Silently Buddha recrossed the room, slowly wiping one arm across hismouth after the Hindu gesture of farewell.
For perhaps a full minute after the disappearance of Buddha not a soulmoved. Then quite suddenly Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown, unable to stand thetension any longer, pressed an electric switch and the whole room wasflooded with light.
There sat the affrighted guests staring at one another with pale faces.
But, to the amazement and horror of all, the little table in the centrestood empty--not a single gem, not a fraction of the gold that had lainupon it was left. All had disappeared.
The truth seemed to burst upon everyone at once. There was no doubt ofwhat had happened.
The gold and the jewels had been deastralized. Under the occult powerof the vision they had been demonetized, engulfed into the astral planealong with the vanishing Buddha.
Filled with the sense of horror still to come, somebody pulled asidethe little screen. They fully expected to find the lifeless bodies ofMr. Yahi-Bahi and the faithful Ram Spudd. What they saw before them wasmore dreadful still. The outer Oriental garments of the two devoteeslay strewn upon the floor. The long sash of Yahi-Bahi and the thickturban of Ram Spudd were side by side near them; almost sickening inits repulsive realism was the thick black head of hair of the juniordevotee, apparently torn from his scalp as if by lightning and bearinga horrible resemblance to the cast-off wig of an actor.
The truth was too plain.
"They are engulfed!" cried a dozen voices at once.
It was realized in a flash that Yahi-Bahi and Ram Spudd had paid thepenalty of their daring with their lives. Through some fatal neglect,against which they had fairly warned the participants of the seance,the two Orientals had been carried bodily in the astral plane.
"How dreadful!" murmured Mr. Snoop. "We must have made some awfulerror."
"Are they deastralized?" murmured Mrs. Buncomhearst.
"Not a doubt of it," said Mr. Snoop.
And then another voice in the group was heard to say, "We must hush itup. We _can't_ have it known!"
On which a chorus of voices joined in, everybody urging that it must behushed up.
"Couldn't you try to reastralize them?" said somebody to Mr. Snoop.
"No, no," said Mr. Snoop, still shaking. "Better not try to. We musthush it up if we can."
And the general assent to this sentiment showed that, after all, theprinciples of Bahee, or Indifference to Others, had taken a real rootin the society.
"Hush it up," cried everybody, and there was a general move towards thehall.
"Good Heavens!" exclaimed Mrs. Buncomhearst; "our wraps!"
"Deastralized!" said the guests.
There was a moment of further consternation as everybody gazed at thespot where the ill-fated pile of furs and wraps had lain.
"Never mind," said everybody, "let's go without them--don't stay. Justthink if the police should--"
And at the word police, all of a sudden there was heard in the streetthe clanging of a bell and the racing gallop of the horses of thepolice patrol wagon.
"The police!" cried everybody. "Hush it up! Hush it up!" For of coursethe principles of Bahee are not known to the police.
In another moment the doorbell of the house rang with a long andviolent peal, and in a second as it seemed, the whole hall was filledwith bulky figures uniformed in blue.
"It's all right, Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown," cried a loud, firm voice fromthe sidewalk. "We have them both. Everything is here. We got thembefore they'd gone a block. But if you don't mind, the police must geta couple of names for witnesses in the warrant."
It was the Philippine chauffeur. But he was no longer attired as such.He wore the uniform of an inspector of police, and there was the metalbadge of the Detective Department now ostentatiously outside his coat.
And beside him, one on each side of him, there stood the deastralizedforms of Yahi-Bahi and Ram Spudd. They wore long overcoats, doubtlessthe contents of the magic parcels, and the Philippine chauffeur had agrip of iron on the neck of each as they stood. Mr. Spudd had lost hisOriental hair, and the face of Mr. Yahi-Bahi, perhaps in the strugglewhich had taken place, had been scraped white in patches.
They were making no attempt to break away. Indeed, Mr. Spudd, with thatcomplete Bahee, or Submission to Fate, which is attained only by longservices in state penitentiaries, was smiling and smoking a cigarette.
"We were waiting for them," explained a tall police officer to the twoor three ladies who now gathered round him with a return of courage."They had the stuff in a hand-cart and were pushing it away. The chiefcaught them at the corner, and rang the patrol from there. You'll findeverything all right, I think, ladies," he added, as a burly assistantwas seen carrying an armload of furs up the steps.
Somehow many of the ladies realized at the moment what cheery, safe,reliable people policemen in blue are, and what a friendly, familiarshelter they offer against the wiles of Oriental occultism.
"Are they old criminals?" someone asked.
"Yes, ma'am. They've worked this same thing in four cities already, andboth of them have done time, and lots of it. They've only been out sixmonths. No need to worry over them," he concluded with a shrug of theshoulders.
So the furs were restored and the gold and the jewels parcelled outamong the owners, and in due course Mr. Yahi-Bahi and Mr. Ram Spuddwere lifted up into the patrol wagon where they seated themselves witha composure worthy of the best traditions of Jehumbabah andBahoolapore. In fact, Mr. Spudd was heard to address the police as"boys," and to remark that they had "got them good" that time.
So the seance ended and the guests vanished, and the Yahi-Bahi Societyterminated itself without even a vote of dissolution.
And in all the later confidential discussions of the episode only onepoint of mysticism remained. After they had time really to reflect onit, free from all danger of arrest, the members of the society realizedthat on one point the police were entirely off the truth of things. ForMr. Yahi-Bahi, whether a thief or not, and whether he came from theOrient, or, as the police said, from Missouri, had actually succeededin reastralizing Buddha.
Nor was anyone more emphatic on this point than Mrs. Rasselyer-Brownherself.
"For after all," she said, "if it was not Buddha, who was it?"
And the question was never answered.