for a dark-haired man to step over our threshold, bearing gifts of coal and salt, black buns and shortbread.
I wonder what they do to welcome the New Year in that great house (as I imagine it) in Wiltshire. Are there bonfires on the downs, and bells pealing out? Perhaps Tom Grenville-Smith is alone tonight, as I am, sitting beside the fire with a book on his knee while he dreams about Brazil. But no, most likely there will be a ball, and it will be waltz music that he hears; and he will dance with ladies in low-cut Paris gowns in a blaze of lamplight, under glittering chandeliers.
These winter nights when I am abed with the candle blown out and I am drifting towards sleep, I find myself thinking how it would be to leave this cold grey city and live once again among woods and fields: not in a ploughmanâs cottage as I once did, but in a grand house with servants and many rooms, and one room entirely to myself, with shelves for my books and a desk upon which to write. And sometimes as sleep overtakes me, though I know it is daft to do so, I think of the one person with whom I would wish to share that house â or any house, be it only a ploughmanâs cottage after all.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
M a chère Jeanne ,
Câest impossible. I can no longer remain in dreary Brussels, en famille . And so I have made new plans.
Have I spoken to you of my fatherâs friend Elisée Reclus? He is a famous old radical who fought on the barricades for the Paris Commune. He and his circle are great believers in education for women. They have encouraged me to pursue the interests closest to my heart. Instead of resuming my studies in music, I intend to enroll in the College de France and study Sanskrit under the Tibetan scholar Professor Foucaux. Mrs. Morgan has arranged for me to lodge at the Paris headquarters of the Theosophist Society, and I will write again upon my arrival.
Numéro 30 boulevard Saint-Michel
Chère Jeanne,
So here I am in Paris, in the Latin Quarter, at the lodgings arranged for me by Mrs. Morgan. The Paris headquarters of the Theosophist Society occupies the third floor above a grocery shop. I think I must inform Mrs. Morgan that she has been deceived as to the nature of the accommodation. In comparison, my lodgings at the Supreme Gnosis seem the very height of luxury. There are no other members of the Society in residence at the moment, and I believe I understand the reason.
My room, which opens directly off the dining room, is sparsely furnished and quite shabby. There is no bathtub in the house, merely pitchers and a washbasin on a table in my room. Mme Jourdan, my landlady, has advised me to use the bath establishment down the street. Dinner last night was boiling water, in which there floated a few lonely fragments of potato and a soggy chunk of bread.
When I first arrived, I did not know whether to laugh or to weep. But then I told myself that this is an adventure, and I have never turned away from an adventure. And in any case, Jeanne, you know that I never cry.
Now I must go shopping, for the house is not well heated, and no one has offered me extra bedding. And after that I must look for another place to stay.
Alexandra
CHAPTER TWENTY
Twelfth Night, 1889
T he holly wreath has been taken down from the door; the Christmas cards tied up in ribbon and tucked away in drawers. At home in the Borders, in the long dark days that lie ahead, I would have much to occupy my time: grain sacks to mend, dung to spread on the cold fields, straw to bunch up to make shelters for the lambing. Here, though the Countess finds small tasks for me, I have too much leisure for thinking of the past, and dwelling on the uncertainties that lie ahead.
The year has not begun well for Madame Blavatsky. The Theosophists are in a state of disarray, with HPB in London, and Colonel Olcott in America, battling each other for control. HPB has expelled from the Society both the president of the Blavatsky Lodge and one of
I wonder what they do to welcome the New Year in that great house (as I imagine it) in Wiltshire. Are there bonfires on the downs, and bells pealing out? Perhaps Tom Grenville-Smith is alone tonight, as I am, sitting beside the fire with a book on his knee while he dreams about Brazil. But no, most likely there will be a ball, and it will be waltz music that he hears; and he will dance with ladies in low-cut Paris gowns in a blaze of lamplight, under glittering chandeliers.
These winter nights when I am abed with the candle blown out and I am drifting towards sleep, I find myself thinking how it would be to leave this cold grey city and live once again among woods and fields: not in a ploughmanâs cottage as I once did, but in a grand house with servants and many rooms, and one room entirely to myself, with shelves for my books and a desk upon which to write. And sometimes as sleep overtakes me, though I know it is daft to do so, I think of the one person with whom I would wish to share that house â or any house, be it only a ploughmanâs cottage after all.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
M a chère Jeanne ,
Câest impossible. I can no longer remain in dreary Brussels, en famille . And so I have made new plans.
Have I spoken to you of my fatherâs friend Elisée Reclus? He is a famous old radical who fought on the barricades for the Paris Commune. He and his circle are great believers in education for women. They have encouraged me to pursue the interests closest to my heart. Instead of resuming my studies in music, I intend to enroll in the College de France and study Sanskrit under the Tibetan scholar Professor Foucaux. Mrs. Morgan has arranged for me to lodge at the Paris headquarters of the Theosophist Society, and I will write again upon my arrival.
Numéro 30 boulevard Saint-Michel
Chère Jeanne,
So here I am in Paris, in the Latin Quarter, at the lodgings arranged for me by Mrs. Morgan. The Paris headquarters of the Theosophist Society occupies the third floor above a grocery shop. I think I must inform Mrs. Morgan that she has been deceived as to the nature of the accommodation. In comparison, my lodgings at the Supreme Gnosis seem the very height of luxury. There are no other members of the Society in residence at the moment, and I believe I understand the reason.
My room, which opens directly off the dining room, is sparsely furnished and quite shabby. There is no bathtub in the house, merely pitchers and a washbasin on a table in my room. Mme Jourdan, my landlady, has advised me to use the bath establishment down the street. Dinner last night was boiling water, in which there floated a few lonely fragments of potato and a soggy chunk of bread.
When I first arrived, I did not know whether to laugh or to weep. But then I told myself that this is an adventure, and I have never turned away from an adventure. And in any case, Jeanne, you know that I never cry.
Now I must go shopping, for the house is not well heated, and no one has offered me extra bedding. And after that I must look for another place to stay.
Alexandra
CHAPTER TWENTY
Twelfth Night, 1889
T he holly wreath has been taken down from the door; the Christmas cards tied up in ribbon and tucked away in drawers. At home in the Borders, in the long dark days that lie ahead, I would have much to occupy my time: grain sacks to mend, dung to spread on the cold fields, straw to bunch up to make shelters for the lambing. Here, though the Countess finds small tasks for me, I have too much leisure for thinking of the past, and dwelling on the uncertainties that lie ahead.
The year has not begun well for Madame Blavatsky. The Theosophists are in a state of disarray, with HPB in London, and Colonel Olcott in America, battling each other for control. HPB has expelled from the Society both the president of the Blavatsky Lodge and one of
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