Sacrifice | Page 7

in the polo field.
Now, turning her sharp, dead-white profile to right and left,
encountering everywhere a frivolous eagerness, Madame Zanidov
protested:
"Really, I ask you if this is the proper atmosphere!"
She explained that she regarded very seriously "this gift" of hers, which
had astonished people even in her childhood. She agreed that it was
inexplicable, unless by the theory that the future, if it did not already
exist, was at least somehow prefigured. Yet she believed that this
prearrangement of events was not so rigid as to exclude a certain
amount of free will. In other words, one who had been forewarned of a
special result, if a special course were pursued, might escape the result
by pursuing another course. "For as you know," she added, looking
round her at the women who were losing their smiles, "the impression
that I receive is often far from amusing. How can one tell beforehand?
So I consent to do this only because, if what I see is unpleasant, my
warning may possibly help one to evade it."
A lady objected that prophecy frequently had just the opposite effect.
She referred to the attractive power of anticipation. Then she cited
instances where persons had made every effort to realize even the most

unfortunate predictions, as if hypnotized by their dread into a feeling
that the tragic outcome was inevitable. Of course, on the other hand,
she admitted, a happy prediction might have a tonic effect, heartening
one to pluck victory from apparent failure. Or else, just by setting in
action the magnetic power of expectancy, it might even draw
mysteriously into one's life a wealth or a fame that had seemed
unattainable, a love that had appeared to be impossible.
When she had voiced this last opinion, the other ladies' faces were
softened by a gentle acquiescence. Their necklaces flashed with the
rising of their bosoms; their heads leaned forward in thought; and the
mingled odors of their perfumes were like exhalations from the
innermost recesses of their hearts.
By this time, apparently, the proper atmosphere had been established.
Madame Zanidov consented to display her powers.
All the women drew their chairs closer.
She took the hand of a young girl whose features were alive with an
invincible gay selfishness. Madame Zanidov hardly glanced at the
other's palm. Closing her almond-shaped eyes, contracting her brows,
she let an unnatural fixed smile settle upon her lips. And now, indeed, it
seemed to them that some of the mystery of Asia had informed her
rigid person, or was escaping, together with a thick, sweet scent, from
the folds of her metallic and barbarically painted gown.
"Do not be afraid," she said, without opening her eyes.
Even the girl whose hand she held had ceased to smile.
There was a long silence, pervaded by the faint harmonies of Vienna
Carnival.
"For you have nothing to fear," the Russian quietly announced at last.
"All that you must pass through--how much confusion and twitter I am
conscious of!--will hardly touch you. Few heartaches, few tears. Some
day you will find yourself in a tawny land of harsh outlines: it is

probably southern Spain. There you will meet a man as lithe as a
panther, his shoulders covered with gold, driving his sword through the
neck of a bull. You are speaking to him at night. He kisses your hands.
But that, too, will soon end in laughter. You will marry three times, but
never be a widow."
She opened her eyes, to gaze thoughtfully at Lilla.
They asked Madame Zanidov if she really saw those things. She replied
that her perceptions were at times exactly like pictures. For example,
she had seen the matador's lunge, as a splendid plasticity of violet silk
and tinsel, and then the bright blood gushing from the neck of the bull.
In subdued voices they began to discuss "the possession of human
beings by occult forces." One spoke of astounding passages set down
through automatic writing. Another mentioned psychometry. "But
psychometrists got impressions only from the past!" Whereupon they
stared at the Russian. Their eyes, which had been lightly touched with a
black pencil, were no longer sophisticated. Their rouged lips were
relaxed by that superstitious awe which, even in cultivated societies, is
ever waiting to invade the feminine mind.
Madame Zanidov was still looking at Lilla.
"Yes," some one proposed. "Try her."
"She doesn't wish it," Madame Zanidov remarked.
But after a moment of hesitation Lilla held out her hand. Once more
everybody became silent and intent. The music of Schumann softly
intruded into this stillness.
"Ah," the Russian murmured, "here is something different."
With her eyelids pressed together, she began:
"You are sitting alone. You are writing letters, which will pass through
many hands of different colors. One would think that