Madame Zattiany explained in the simplest language she could command the meaning and the function of the ductless glands. The more intelligent among them looked gratified, for the painless achievement of fresh knowledge is a pleasant thing. Madame Zattiany went on patiently: "These glands in my case had undergone a natural process of exhaustion. In women the slower functioning of the endocrines is coincident with the climacteric, as they have been dependent for stimulation upon certain ovarian cells. The idea involved is that the stimulation of these exhausted cells would cause the other glands to function once more at full strength and a certain rejuvenation ensue as a matter of course; unless, of course, they had withered beyond the power of science. I was a promising subject, for examination proved that my organs were healthy, my arteries soft; and I was not yet sixty. Only experimentation could reveal whether or not there was still any life left in the cells, although I responded favorably to the preliminary tests. The upshot was that I consented to the treatment----"
"Yes? Yes?" Every woman in the room now sat forward, no longer old friends or rivals, affectionate or resentful, nor the victims of convention solidified into sharp black and white by the years. They were composite female.
"It consisted of the concentration of powerful Rontgen--what you call X-Rays--on that portion of the body covering the ovaries----"
"How horrible!" "Did you feel as if you were being electrocuted?" "Are you terribly scarred?"
"Not at all. I felt nothing whatever, and there was nothing to cause scars----"
"But I thought that the X-Rays----"
"Oh, do be quiet, Louisa," exclaimed Mrs. Tracy impatiently. "Please go on, Countess Zattiany."
"As I said, the application was painless, and if no benefit results, neither will any harm be done when the Rays are administered by a conscientious expert. My final consent, as I told you, was due to the desire to regain my old will power and vitality. I was extremely skeptical about any effect on my personal appearance. During the first month I felt so heavy and dull that, in spite of a.s.surances that these were favorable symptoms, I was secretly convinced that I had forfeited what little mental health I had retained; but was consoled by the fact that I slept all night and a part of the day: I had suffered from insomnia since my duties at the hospital had ended----"
"But surely you must have been nervous and terrified?" All of these women had seen and suffered illness, but all from time-honored visitations, even if under new and technical names, and they had suffered in common with millions of others, which, if it offended their sense of exclusiveness, at least held the safeguard of normalcy. They felt a chill of terror, in some cases of revulsion, as Madame Zattiany went on to picture this abnormal renaissance going on in the body unseen and unfelt; in the body of one who had been cast in the common mould, subject to the common fate, and whom they had visioned--when they thought about her at all--as growing old with themselves; as any natural Christian woman would. It was not only mysterious and terrifying but subtly indecent. Mrs. Vane drew back from her eager poise. Almost it seemed to the amused Mrs. Oglethorpe that she withdrew her skirts. Drama was for the stage or the movies; at all events drama in private life, among the elect, was objective, external, and, however offensive, particularly when screamed in the divorce court, it was, at least, like the old diseases, remarkably normal. But an interior drama; not to put too fine a point on it, a drama of one"s insides, and especially one that dealt with the raising from the dead of that section which refined women ceased to discuss after they had got rid of it--it was positively ghoulish. Drama of any sort in this respectable old drawing-room, which might have been photographed as the sarcophagus of all the Respectabilities, was extremely offensive. And what a drama! Never had these old walls listened to such a tale. Mrs. Vane and others like her had long since outgrown the prudery of their mothers, who had alluded in the most distant manner to the most decent of their internal organs, and called a leg a limb; but the commonplace was their rock, and they had a sense of sinking foundations.
Madame Zattiany, who knew exactly what was pa.s.sing in their minds, continued placidly: "Almost suddenly at the end of the fourth or fifth week, it seemed to me that an actual physical weight that had depressed my brain lifted, and I experienced a decided activity of mind and body, foreign to both for many years. Nevertheless, the complete reenergizing of both was very slow, the rejuvenation of appearance slower still.
Worn-out cells do not expand rapidly. The mental change was p.r.o.nounced long before the physical, except that I rarely felt fatigue, although I spent many hours a day at the relief stations."
She paused and let her cool ironic glance wander over the intent faces before her. "Not only," she went on with a slow emphasis, which made them p.r.i.c.k up their ears, "was the renewed power manifest in mental activity, in concentration, in memory, but that distaste for new ideas, for reorientation, had entirely disappeared. People growing old are condemned for prejudice, smugness, hostility to progress, to the purposes and enthusiasms of youth; but this att.i.tude is due to aging glands alone, all things being equal. They _cannot_ dig up the sunken tracks from the ruts in their brain and lay them elsewhere; and they instinctively protect themselves by an affectation of calm and scornful superiority, of righteous conservatism, which deceives themselves; much as I had a.s.sumed--and learned to feel--an att.i.tude of profound indifference to my vanished youth, and refused to attempt any transparent disguise with cosmetics."
Intentness relaxed once more. Twelve pairs of eyes expressed at least half as many sentiments. Mrs. Vane gazed at Mary Ogden, whose insolence she had never forgotten, with indignant hostility; Mrs. Poole, who always dressed as if she had a tumor, but whose remnant of a once lovely complexion indicated perfect health, maintained her slight tolerant smile; its effect somewhat abridged by the fact that the small turban of bright blue feathers topping her large face had slipped to one side.
Mrs. Goodrich looked startled and gazed deprecatingly at her friends.
Mrs. Lawrence"s eyes snapped, and Mrs. de Lacey looked thoughtful. Only Mrs. Tracy spoke.
"Wonderful! I feel more like Methuselah than ever. But it certainly is a relief to know what is the matter with me. Do go on, Mary--I may call you Mary? I only came out the year you were married--and you cannot imagine what a satisfaction it is to know that I am younger than you--were once. I"ve never done any of those things one reads about to keep looking young except cold cream my face at night, but I"ve often felt as if I"d like to----"
"Do stop babbling, Lily Tracy!" exclaimed Mrs. Vane, who, however disgusted, was quite as curious as the others to hear the rest of the tale. And Mrs. Goodrich said softly:
"Yes, go on, Mary, darling. I am sure the most thrilling part is yet to come. You see how interested your old friends all are."
Madame Zattiany moved her cool insolent eyes to Mrs. Vane"s set visage.
"The time came when I knew that youth was returning to my face as well as to the hidden processes of my body; and I can a.s.sure you that it excited me far more than the renewed functioning of my brain. The treatment induces flesh, and as I had been excessively thin, my skin, as flesh acc.u.mulated, grew taut and lines disappeared. My eyes, which had long been dull, had regained something of their old brilliancy under the renaissance of brain and blood, and that was accentuated. My hair----"
"Do you mean to say that it restores hair to its natural color?" demanded Mrs. Tracy, who had been plucking out bleached hairs for the past year.
"That would----"
"It does not. But my hair is the shade that never turns gray; and of course my teeth had always been kept in perfect order. I should never in any circ.u.mstances be a fat woman, but the active functioning of the glands gave me just enough flesh to complete the outer renovation. My complexion, after so many years of neglect, naturally needed scientific treatment of another sort, but that was still to be had in Vienna."
"Ah!" The exclamation was sharp. Here, at least, was something they knew all about and systematically discountenanced. "Do you mean that you had your skin ripped off?" asked Mrs. Ruyler.
"Certainly not. The skin was simply softened and reinvigorated by ma.s.sage and the proper applications."
They were too proud to ask for details, and Mrs. de Lacey, who was stout, glanced triumphantly at Mrs. Ruyler, who was stouter. "You mean, Mary, that one has to be thin for this treatment to be a success?"
"That I cannot say. I really do not know what the treatment would do to a stout woman of middle or old age. The internal change would be the same, but, although additional flesh can be kept down by medicaments and diet, I doubt if there would be a complete restoration of the outlines of face and neck. A woman of sixty, with sagging flesh and distended skin, might once more look forty, if the treatment were successful, but hardly as young as I do. I was particularly fortunate in having withered.
Still, I cannot say. As I told you, many women of all ages and sizes took the treatment while I was in Vienna. But they are too scattered for me at least to obtain any data on the results. I knew none of them personally and I was too busy to seek them out and compare notes... .
But with me----" She leaned back and lit a cigarette, looking over her audience with mischievous eyes. "With me it has been a complete success--mentally, physically----"
"Yes, and how long will it last?" shot out Mrs. Ruyler. She was as strong as a horse and as alert mentally as she had ever been, and her complete indifference to rejuvenation in any of its forms gave her a feeling of superior contempt for all those European women who had swarmed to Vienna like greedy flies at the scent of mola.s.ses--no doubt to undergo terrible torments that Mary Zattiany would not admit. But her objective curiosity on the subject of youth was insatiable and she read everything that appeared in the newspapers and magazines about it, not neglecting the advertis.e.m.e.nts. If she had sent for a facial ma.s.seuse she would have felt that she had planted a worm at the root of the family tree, but the subject was unaccountably interesting.
Mary Zattiany, who understood her complex perfectly, shrugged her graceful shoulders. "It is too soon to reply with a.s.surance. The method was only discovered some six years ago. But the eminent biologists who have given profound study to the subject estimate that it will last for ten years at least, when it can be renewed once at all events. Of course the end must come. It was not intended that man should live for ever.
And who would wish it?"
"Not I, certainly," said Mrs. Ruyler sententiously. "Well, I must admit it has been a complete success in your case. That is not saying I approve of what you have done. You know how we have always regarded such things. If you had lived your life in New York instead of in Europe--notoriously loose in such matters--I feel convinced that you would never have done such a thing--exhausted or not. Moreover, I am a religious woman and I do not believe in interfering with the will of the Almighty."
"Then why have a doctor when you are ill? Are not illnesses the act of G.o.d? They certainly are processes of nature."
"I have always believed in letting nature take her course," said Mrs.
Ruyler firmly. "But of course when one is ill, that is another matter----"
"Is it?" Madame Zattiany"s eye showed a militant spark. "Or is it merely that you are so accustomed to the convention of calling in a doctor that you have never wasted thought on the subject? But is not medicine a science? When you are ill you invoke the aid of science in the old way precisely as I did in the new one. The time will come when this treatment I have undergone will be so much a matter of course that it will cause no more discussion than going under the knife for cancer--or for far less serious ailments. I understand that you, Polly, had an operation two years ago for gastric ulcer, an operation called by the very long and very unfamiliar name, gastroenterostomy. Did you feel--for I a.s.sume that you agree with Isabel in most things--that you were flying in the face of the Almighty? Or were you only too glad to take advantage of the progress of science?"
Mrs. Vane merely grunted. Mrs. Ruyler exclaimed crossly, "Oh, no one ever could argue with you, Mary Ogden. The truth is," she added, in a sudden burst of enlightenment that astonished herself, "I don"t suppose any of us would mind if you didn"t look younger than our daughters. That sticks in our craw. Why not admit it?"
Mrs. Oglethorpe chuckled. She and Isabel Ruyler snapped at each other like two belligerent old cats every time they crossed each other"s path, but, with the exception of Mary Ogden, whom she loved, she liked her better than any of her old friends.
But once more Mrs. Vane drew herself up (figuratively). "Speak for yourself. It may be that I am too old to accept new ideas, but this one certainly seems to me downright immoral and indecent. This is not intended to reflect on you personally, Mary, and of course you were more or less demoralized by your close contact with the war. I mean the idea--the thing--itself. We may call in doctors and surgeons when we are in bodily discomfort, and be thankful that they are more advanced than in our mothers" time, when people died of appendicitis every day in the week and called it inflammation of the bowels. But no one can tell me that rejuvenation is not against the laws of nature. What are you going to do with this new youth--I never saw any one look less indifferent to life!--make fools of men again--of our sons?"
"Who can tell?" asked Mary maliciously. "Could anything be more amusing than to come back to New York after thirty-four years and be a belle again, with the sons and grandsons of my old friends proposing to me?"
"Do you really mean that?" Mrs. Vane almost rose. She recalled that her youngest son had met Madame Zattiany in Mrs. Oglethorpe"s box on Monday night and had been mooning about the house ever since. "If I thought that----"
"Well, what would you do, Polly?" Mary laughed outright. "Your son--Harry is his name, is it not?--is remarkably good-looking and very charming. After all, where could you find a safer and more understanding wife for him than a woman who has had not only the opportunity to know the world and men like the primer, but looks--is--so young that he is bound to forget it and be led like a lamb? Girls, those uncharted seas, are always a risk----"
"Stop tormenting Polly," exclaimed Mrs. Oglethorpe. "Mary has no intention of marrying any one. She"s only waiting for her estate to be settled in order to return to Europe and devote herself to certain plans of reconstruction----"
"Is that true?"
"Quite true," said Madame Zattiany, smiling. "Don"t worry, Polly. If I marry it will be some one you are not interested in too personally, and it is doubtful if I ever marry at all. There"s a tremendous work to be done in Europe, and so far as lies in my power I shall do my share. If I marry it will be some one who can help me. I can a.s.sure you I long since ceased to be susceptible, particularly to young men. Remember that while my _brain_ has been rejuvenated with the rest of my physical structure, my _mind_ is as old as it was before the treatment." She gave a slight unnoticed shiver. "My memory, that for years before the war was dull and inactive, is now as vigorous as ever."
Several of the women recalled those old stories of Countess Zattiany"s youth, and looked at her sharply. There was a general atmosphere of uneasiness in the large respectable room. But whether or not they gave her the benefit of the doubt, they had always given her due credit for neither being found out nor embarra.s.sing her virtuous friends with confidences.
Mrs. Tracy was the first to break the silence. "But you will come to all of us as long as you do stay, will you not? I do so want to give you a dinner next week."
"Yes, yes, indeed." The chorus was eager, and sincere enough. After all, nothing could alter the fact that she was one of them.
"Oh, I have enjoyed meeting you all again, and I am hoping to see more of you." Madame Zattiany felt that she could do no less than be gracious.
"I have become a very quiet person, but I will go with pleasure."
"You must let us see you daily while you are with us," cried Mrs.
Goodrich, her spirits soaring at the prospect. As Mary stood up and adjusted her hat before the mirror she felt that she had successfully distracted their attention from a quick sigh of utter boredom. "You are too kind, Nelly," she murmured, "but then you always were."
"Yes, go, Mary," said Mrs. Oglethorpe peremptorily, and rising also.
"Clear out and let them talk you over. They"ll burst if you don"t.
Human nature can stand just so much and no more."