“Yes, my dear, I have a sincere confidence that my soul, not this miserable wicked body, will live again, and be given an opportunity of being better in another world.”
“Well, at any rate that is a consoling creed. For my own part, I know little about Buddhism, but I can see that the Burmans are a religious people, much given to worship and offerings, and with a good deal of gaiety in their ceremonies; but, Aunt Flora, although they are delightfully picturesque, and so merry and cheerful, as a mass they are terribly pleasure-loving and lazy; no Burman will work if he can help it; even the women are difficult to get hold of. Mrs. Blake, who is in the District, told me that her ayah, who never exerted herself, had put in for a year’s holiday and rest.”
“But what had that to do with religion, my dear?”
“Just this—that they are as a race too indolant and easy-going to study any big question, or to take the trouble to think for themselves.”
“But what about the hundreds and thousands of holy priests who spend all their lives in profound meditation? What do you say to that? Come now.”
“I say that they live a life of incorrigible idleness; they have no need to maintain themselves; they just eat, and sit, and muse; everything is supplied to them, including their yellow robe and betel nut. Their religion is selfish.”
“Well, well, I’m too stupid to argue, my dear child, my brain is like cotton wool; but I have my hopes, my sure hopes. Karl is different. He is cultured, he reads Marx and Hegel, and says we are like cabbages and have no future; when we go it is as a candle that is blown out. Oh, here are visitors! What a bore! I shall not appear! Run and tell the bearer.”
“Oh, but these are your own special old friends, Mrs. Vansittart and Mrs. Dowler. Do let them come in; they will amuse you—poor dears, you know they always call after dark.”
These visitors, friends of former days, were social derelicts, who had, so to speak, “gone ashore” in Rangoon. One was chained to Burma by dire poverty and a drunken husband; the other, who had been a wealthy woman of considerable local importance, was now a childless widow, supporting herself with difficulty by means of a second-rate boarding-house. To these old friends, and in many other cases, Mrs. Krauss had proved a generous and tactful helper. Both visitors were wearing costumes which had been worn and admired at “Heidelberg” and were still fairly presentable.
After a stay of an hour the ladies withdrew, leaving their hostess well entertained but completely exhausted. Then they hastily sought out Sophy in order to express to her, in private, their horror at the terrible change in her aunt.