Tempest laughed. “The one who said we should wish things to be as they are? Ah, well! I am afraid I am not up to that yet.”
“Nor I. But who was he, if one may ask? Not Aristotle?”
“No, but, by the way, do you know whom Aristotle is supposed to be, or rather to have become? Herbert Spencer! An occultist told me. He told me also such a curious story. You have heard, have you not, of Apollonius of Tyana? Then you may remember it is said of him that he healed the sick, raised the dead, knew all things save the caresses of women, and spoke every language including that of colours. Well, the occultist told me that Jesus was a rabbi who surrendered his entity to the Christ, and afterward reappeared here as Apollonius. He said, too, that he was not crucified. Crucifixion, you know, is merely the symbol of initiation.”
“And whom did he say was the Christ?”
“An envoy from a higher sphere.”
Leilah inclined her head. “Yes, and there have, I believe, been others. From zeniths or from nadirs unknown to us, from planes, let us say, where all beatitudes are as usual as all shames are common here, spirits commissioned to regenerate the hearts of man pass into the slums of space. Confident, with a crown of light they come, only to return with one of thorns.”
Tempest turned squarely in his chair. “That is a singularly beautiful idea!”
Again Leilah inclined her head. “It is beautiful. It is beautiful to think that earthward from some chromatic star the soul of Krishna may have sunk. But the idea is not mine. I found it in the Vidyâ.”
This last statement was lost. Mme. de Fresnoy was insisting on Tempest’s attention. Meanwhile a cygnet, its plumage replaced, a pond lily in its ochre beak, had been presented, carved and served. A salad, known as Half-Mourning, a composition of artichoke hearts and Piedmontese truffles, had departed with it. Now sweets had come, pastry light as a caress, volatile as an essence, that pastry of which the art is known only to the Oriental and the occasional cordon bleu.
Devoutly, with an air of invoking the Prophet, the Turk was absorbing it.