Madame Blavatsky: The Woman Behind the Myth (58 page)

After their two-year-old daughter had died of diphtheria, he resisted Ella’s demands for another child. He studied Sanskrit and phantasized schemes in which he fled to India without actually committing the sin of marital abandonment. Convinced of Helena’s Masters, he felt that “M and the other are watching me—and maybe helping too—
but they say nothing.”
What he was waiting for, of course, was some sign from the Mahatmas, preferably a command, that would release him from Ella. Finally, in June 1883, on the back of a letter from Damodar, he had found a message in red pencil: “Better come. M.”
¹³
But it was not until February of 1884 that he sailed for Europe. After the reunion with Helena and Olcott, he would go on to Adyar, where he intended to spend the rest of his life.

Killing time while he waited for the arrivals from India, in London, he admitted to feeling “awful. Such an outside pressure on me to go back to the U.S.... suicide, anything,” The magnetic atmosphere of London, he decided, was causing him to suffer continual nightmares and waves of despair. From a tailor on Ludgate Hill, he ordered a pair of trousers for four dollars, at a saving of six dollars, and most evenings, he was invited to dine at Alfred Sinnett’s house where he picked at badly prepared vegetarian meals. Alfred regaled him with inside stories of the Mahatmas and showed him a picture of Koot Hoomi. It was quickly clear to Judge that Sinnett had no great love of Hindus, for when Olcott wrote from Nice that he was sending Sorab Padshah on ahead to London, Sinnett remarked that he couldn’t imagine what Olcott expected
him
to do with Padshah. Now he proposed that Judge be the one to look after the Indian and find him a place to stay. While Judge thought the idea of asking a stranger like himself to show Padshah around London was “ridiculous,”
¹⁴
he agreed, but immediately after began shunning Sinnett’s dinner invitations.

Lady Caithness’s free apartment turned out to be a disappointment. The rue Notre Dame des Champs was a long dreary street on the Left Bank; the building at No. 46 was far from imposing and, worst of all for someone as heavy-set as Helena, one had to climb a steep, dark staircase to get up to the apartment. A Frenchwoman came every day to cook and put the rooms in order, but Madame preferred her meals prepared by Babula. Knowing he slept on the floor outside her room made her feel more secure at night.

The first few days, the apartment was generally full of visitors, which provided Helena with the attention she adored. Judge, on the other hand, was depressed by the clutter of people coming and going, especially since he had hardly managed a private word with Helena since her arrival. Soon he had worked himself into “the most awful blues that ever were,” accompanied by uncontrollable fits of weeping. Recognizing his melancholia and worried that he might do something foolish, Helena told him that he was being attacked by “elementals” and lent him a ring inscribed with the Sanskrit word for life. That helped, as did her assurance that Master K.H. had promised “to do something with and for me.”
¹⁵

That Helena had the patience for soothing Judge is proof of the self-control she denied having: shortly after her arrival in Paris, the mail from Adyar caught up with her. H.P.B. was assaulted with a batch of frenzied letters from Damodar, Hartmann and Emma, all of which related similar stories adding up to impending disaster for Madame Blavatsky. It seemed she had hardly left Bombay when war had erupted between the Coulombs and the Board of Control. The incident that set off the battle was trivial indeed: Hartmann, Lane-Fox, William Brown and Damodar had wanted to hold a business meeting in H.P.B.’s room, but were annoyed to discover that Madame Coulomb was hewing to the letter of Madame’s instructions and refused to unlock the staircase door leading to the roof. This led to insults, which in turn infuriated Emma to the point where she forgot to be cautious. Madame Blavatsky was a fraud, she spat at them recklessly; Madame had forced her husband to build a trapdoor to deliver Mahatma letters and trick apparatus in the Occult Room. For a while Hartmann and Lane-Fox listened to the accusations in disbelief, then they responded in what they believed appropriate fashion by demanding that the Coulombs leave, with Lane-Fox promising Emma two thousand rupees if she would quietly disappear.

To everyone’s surprise, Emma adamantly refused to budge, insisting that she had a home for life at Adyar. She could never be turned out because she knew too much about Madame Blavatsky. Madame had borrowed money from her in Cairo and never repaid it; Madame had once had a husband named Agardi Metrovitch; all of the English were dupes and idiots who had been taken in by H.P.B.’s invented Mahatmas; the
real
purpose of the Theosophical Society was to overthrow British rule in India. Revelation followed ugly revelation, but the only hard facts Hartmann and Lane-Fox gathered from her tirades were that she hated H.P.B. and that she seemed to be waging some sort of vendetta. They decided that Emma and Alexis must be expelled from the compound.

Now it was Damodar who stepped in to save Emma and, he hoped, Madame as well. What, he must have asked himself in anguish, would Madame do if she were here? What would Master Koot Hoomi do? On March 11, Damodar arranged to receive a K.H. letter advising pacification of the rampaging Emma: the Board of Control, said Koot Hoomi, was to keep in mind that she was a sick medium who could not be held responsible for her behavior. All he could advise was charity and forgiveness. The Mahatmic peacemaking pleased no one, least of all Emma, and when Hartmann continued to call her a liar, she coolly informed him that she could substantiate every one of her accusations from Madame’s confidential letters.

While Emma ranted in Adyar, Helena, in Paris, was demonstrating an uncanny ability to face calamity with the serenity of a Mahatma. The result was a strangely compassionate letter to Emma and Alexis, studded with clever double entendres and sincere expressions of sorrow for Emma’s foolishness. She began by addressing herself to both the Coulombs because she wanted them to put their heads together and give her words serious thought. Still, as her pen raced over page after page, the savagery of her feelings conquered her epistolary style, leaving only a desperate Helena Petrovna to speak her piece.

Oh Madame Coulomb! what then have I done to you that you should try to ruin me in this way!

What purpose have you in going and vilifying me secretly to those who love me and who believe in me? What [cause of vengeance] have you against me? What you do will never
ruin the Society,
only me alone, at the most in the estimation of my friends. The public has always looked upon me as
a fraud and an imposter.
By talking and acting as you do you will only gain one end, that is, people will say that you also are
“a fraud
“; and worse than that, that you have done
for your own interests,
what I have not done for myself, since I give all that I have to the Society, for I spend my life for it. They will say that you and M. Coulomb have helped me
not for the sake of friendship...
but in the hopes of
“blackmailing”...
But that is dreadful! You are truly sick. You must be so to do as foolishly as you are doing! Understand then that you cannot at this hour of day injure anyone. That it is too late.

. . .

If you compromise me before Lane-Fox, Hartmann and the others— ah well. I shall never return to Adyar, but will remain here on in London where I will prove by phenomena more marvelous still that they are true and that our Mahatmas exist,
for there is one here at Paris and there will be also in London.
And when I have proved this, where will the
trap-doors
be then?

. . .

Ah my dear friend how miserable and foolish is all this! Come! I have no ill-will against you. I am so much accustomed to terror and suffering that nothing astonishes me. But what truly astonishes me is to see you who are such an intelligent woman doing evil for its own sake, and running the risk of being swallowed up in the pit which you have digged— yourself the first [victim]! Pshaw! Believe both of you that it is a friend who speaks... Undo then the evil which you have unwittingly done. I am sure of this—[you are] carried away by your nerves, your sickness, your sufferings and the anger which you have roused in the board of Trustees who annoy me more than they annoy you. But if you choose to go on disgracing me for no good to yourself— do it—
and may your Christ and God repay you\

After all, I sign myself, with anguish of heart which you can never comprehend

 Forever your friend, H. P. Blavatsky.
¹⁶

Emma might scream her head off in Bombay but she would never take Koot Hoomi and Morya from Madame. The Mahatmas’ existence did not depend on Alexis’s sliding doors and Emma’s sewing abilities. Emma, who always babbled about Christianity, would see that God, if he existed, would not reward her for repaying kindness with evil. In the long run, Emma would suffer.

Meanwhile, H.P.B. braced herself to contend with Henry. The news from Adyar caused the first of many stormy scenes between them and inflicted wounds that would never heal. Henry knew he could not be certain that Emma was lying, since he had always suspected collusion between Helena and her; now, more severe than sympathetic, he demanded that Madame obtain a satisfactory retraction from the Coulombs. Helena held firm to her claim that Emma was mad and exhibited battered feelings over Henry’s lack of trust. By the next day Henry was reassessing the situation calmly and wrote to Emma, giving his view of the matter. Distressed to hear of the unpleasantness, he believed that he must speak his mind plainly: “The Theosophical movement
does not rest at all for its permanency upon phenomena, and that even if you could prove that every supposed phenomena ever witnessed by me or any one else were false it would not alter
my opinion one iota as to the benefit to be derived by the world from our society’s work.” As for Emma’s stories about trickery and trapdoors, he refused to believe that she could utter such falsehoods until she repeated them to his face. No one on earth could harm the Society, “which rests upon the everlasting rock of truth,” and he went on to tell her emphatically that while he lived and fought for the Cause, “it will be impossible to overthrow it.”
¹⁷

Through mutual but probably unspoken consent, Henry and Helena tried to put Adyar from their thoughts and go about their business, although H.P.B. must surely have been far more distressed than she let on. Three days later, anxious to proceed on his commission for the Cingalese Buddhists, Henry left for London with Mohini. Given Helena’s overriding need to convince him that Emma lied, what happened next was not only probable but predictable. Somewhere between Paris and the Channel, as the two men sat alone in the railway carriage, an envelope suddenly dropped from the ceiling. After some advice on Henry’s deportment in London, Koot Hoomi warned, “Do not be surprised at anything you may hear frorn Adyar. You have harbored a traitor and an enemy under your roof for years.”
¹⁸
In this instance there can be no doubt that Mohini acted as special-delivery carrier, and one wonders what exquisite bait persuaded him to go along with the scheme.

That same evening, Helena and Judge sat together in the parlor of the Paris apartment and spoke nostalgically of the Lamasery and the friends they had once shared in New York. The room was cold because Judge could not get the fireplace to work properly and two-thirds of the heat was going up the chimney. Helena shivered uncomfortably. “Judge,” she suddenly said, “the Master asks me to try and guess what would be the most extraordinary thing he could order now.”

“That Mrs. Kingsford should be re-elected president of the London branch,” Judge offered.

“Try again.”

“That H.P.B. should be ordered to go to London.”
¹⁹

Correct, and furthermore she was ordered to go over on the next evening’s 7:45 express, to remain in London only twenty-four hours, and then to return immediately to Paris. Judge recalled that she seemed to dislike the order “awfully” and fumed that she would look a fool: after all her refusals to come to London, Sinnett and the others would think it was done for effect and when Olcott saw her, he would certainly begin swearing. Still, the London situation was serious, and the Masters knew what they were about. The following evening Judge escorted her to the station and settled her in a coach with her overnight bag.

On the evening of April 7, the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society prepared to conduct its annual election of officers, an event that promised to be enlivened by acrimony; for that reason the benches at the Lincoln’s Inn meeting hall were unusually crowded. Seated on the platform, Olcott and Mohini made such a remarkable contrast that the audience could not help murmuring over them—the older man with his balding head and long white beard, the younger with his long black hair and small Indian cap.

By midevening, Henry was still having little success adjudicating the differences between Alfred Sinnett (pro-Mahatma) and Anna Kingsford (anti-Mahatma). Finally, when he proposed giving Anna a charter for her own separate branch called the Hermetic Theosophical Society, she accepted; elections for the London Lodge proceeded. A barrister, Gerard B. Finch, was elected to succeed Anna as president, and Alfred Sinnett was chosen vice-president. Anna, however, continued to show her disgust for the proceedings by interrupting every few minutes. When Olcott showed himself unable to handle her, the members got bored with the bickering and began whispering among themselves. Suddenly Mohini Chatterji sprang from the platform and leapfrogged toward the back of the room.