Chapter Two

This is the Reverse of the Medal. What of its obverse? The story of the spy H21 is incomprehensible without a knowledge of the “Red Dancer.” Unless one understands the extraordinary power of fascination she exercised it is not possible to believe that she could reduce the Second Bureau, the nerve centre of the French army, to temporary impotence; could correspond with her espionage chief on paper that bore the heading of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; could have conducted an intimate intrigue with the head of the War Department; and when an outraged army finally brought her to trial and condemnation, could yet invoke the aid of princes, ambassadors, and scholars. It is only by a knowledge of what she called her artistic life that one can realize the nature and extent of her fatal sorcery. It explains, too, why a band of enthusiastic pseudo-intellectuals are still endeavouring to invest her with an aureole of martyrdom, for she claimed the attributes of a high-priestess of an ancient but little-known religion, and her adorers are willing to 9place her in that office within their own degenerate cult.

Not all her believers are to be classed in this coterie. There still lingers a select band of irreconcilables who steadfastly maintain that Mata Hari’s claims to be a bayadère were perfectly genuine. One still meets in the Parisian haunts of the pseudo-intellectuals an occasional visitor who whispers that on a recent visit to a remote schloss in a secluded part of Austria he was privileged to attend a repetition of one of these religious ceremonies dedicated to the god Siva and presided over by Mata Hari. His words fall on believing ears and there are murmurs of regret that France should have been the chosen instrument for inflicting punishment upon this faithful disciple.

In order to realize how she accomplished these astonishing feats one has to have a picture of her in one of her favourite séances, not a vaudeville appearance this time (for her public appearances were only gestures to the mob of unbelievers), but the type of occasion from which she extracted most enjoyment and most wealth, and which was the foundation of her amazing power over men of position and influence. It is such a scene as might be witnessed in the intimacy of the elegant palaces of, say, the Prince Drago, the Princess Murat, or 10the Duchess of Eckmühl. In the voluptuous abandon of the semi-privacy, before a group of selected guests, reclining in luxurious ease after copious sacramental libations and surrounded by her worshippers, Mata Hari invokes the image of her youth.

“I was born,” she says in a soft, languorous tone which the listeners immediately associated with the mysterious East, “in the south of India on the coast of Malabar, in the holy city of Jaffnapatam, the child of a family within the sacred caste of Brahma. By reason of his piety and pureness of heart my father was called Assirvadam, which means ‘The Blessing of God.’ My mother was a glorious bayadère^[1] in the temple of Kanda Swany. She died when she was fourteen, on the same day I was born. The priests of the temple, having cremated my mother, adopted me under the baptismal name of Mata Hari, which means ‘Eye of the Dawn.’ From the time when I took my first uncertain steps I was shut up in the great subterranean hall of the pagoda of Siva, where I was to be trained to follow in my mother’s footsteps 11through the holy rites of the dance. Of these early years my mind retains only vague recollections of a monotonous existence in which, during the long morning hours, I was taught to imitate automatically the movements of the bayadères, and in the afternoons was allowed to walk in the gardens while weaving garlands of jasmine for decorating the altars. When I reached the threshold of womanhood my foster-mother saw in me a predestined soul and resolved to dedicate me to Siva and to reveal to me the mystery of love and faith on the night of Sakty-pudja, in the coming spring....”

The soft, caressing voice trails off into silence, and at the recollection of this blissful moment a tremor of religious ecstasy passes over the exquisitely moulded, amber-tinted body, daringly revealed for these nocturnal invocations of her sacred youth. Then suddenly she awakens from her reverie to ask:

“Have any of you an idea of the Sakty-pudja of the Kanda Swany?”

The hypnotized audience, which on occasion included well-known Orientalists, are compelled to reply that they possess no intimate knowledge of this festivity of license and religious revelry, so she proceeds to enlighten them.

12“It was on the purple granite altar of the Kanda Swany that, at the age of thirteen, I danced for the first time, completely nude.”

Then, in the midst of the superb luxury of her wealthy patron’s home, inspired by the rich food, by the wines, by the seductive lights, by the sensuous perfumes (all prearranged) she begins to explain the mysteries of the Supreme Night on which the holy men of the temple savour in life the cruel but divine ecstasies of Siva’s paradise, that terrible god Siva who is the god of all sin, of all misunderstanding, of all cruelty. This recital is illustrated by poses and gestures more provocative than plain speech. The earlier stages of this fantastic orgy which she describes are devoted to meditation in an atmosphere of subtle drugs and Oriental languors. As the awaited moment approaches, when the wise men will announce the appearance in the heavens of the sign of the Three Goddesses, the melodious notes of a concealed orchestra begin to breathe haunting, dreamy harmonies. From the dark recesses of the waving jungle a soft voice warns of the awakening of the sacred serpents, who, tempted by the seductive murmur of the instruments, writhe their long slow length to the temple where Siva awaits their homage. And there they dance! Among them whirl the 13curving, undulating bodies of the dainty little bayadères, as clammily chill and as naked as the serpents. The remainder of this festivity is indescribable; it eclipses the bacchanalian fêtes of decadent Rome.

This is the beginning of the legend which has grown up about the modern high-priestess of the dance as a religious rite. In conversation with her many admirers she outlines her life as she would have wished it to be. Having no hand in its origin, the next best thing is to prepare the origin which is best adapted to the rôle she has assumed. The rest followed naturally in a romantic sequence which satisfied her love of the dramatic. Mata Hari told how she followed her profession in the temple until one day a handsome English officer saw her performance and, struck by the sadness of her eyes, ventured to violate the sacred rules of her caste by speaking to her. In accordance with the requirements of romance, they fell in love with each other and the adventurous officer by a display of cunning, courage, and resource rescued the little Mata Hari from the prospect of a life devoted to the adoration of the god Siva, and married her. Shortly after their marriage a son, Norman, was born, and by her own account the young mother’s cup of happiness was filled to the brim with this 14new rapture. However, she said, the child did not live long, for a typically Oriental act of poisoning resulted in his death. During a visit to America Mata Hari described in some detail how this tragedy so infuriated her that the savage within her nature rose in revolt, so that with her own hands she strangled the unfaithful servant who had given the child the poisoned cup.

Thus her own account gives to her life a current of vibrant, barbaric adventure, heavily coloured by the mystery and romance of the unknown East, which was rendered all the more plausible by nature’s gifts. For this Dutch girl, born in Holland of homely parents, was endowed with a strangely Oriental cast of countenance and an amber-tinted body which she inherited, not from her Hindu parents, but from Jewish progenitors.

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