"To my question, whether Madame Blavatsky would receive me, the slovenly figure replied with an '_Entrez, monsieur_,' and vanished with my card, while I was left to wait in a small low room, poorly and insufficiently furnished. "I had not long to wait. The door opened, and she was before me; a rather tall woman, though she produced the impression of being short, on account of her unusual stoutness. Her great head seemed all the greater from her thick and very bright hair, touched with a scarcely perceptible gray, and very slightly frizzed, by nature and not by art, as I subsequently convinced myself. "At the first moment her plain, old earthy-colored face struck me as repulsive; but she fixed on me the gaze of her great, rolling, pale blue eyes, and in these wonderful eyes, with their hidden power, all the rest was forgotten. "I remarked, however, that she was very strangely dressed, in a sort of black sacque, and that all the fingers of her small, soft, and as it were boneless hands, with their slender points and long nails, were covered with great jewelled rings." Madame Blavatsky received Solovyoff kindly, and they became excellent friends. She urged him to join the Theosophical Society, and he expressed himself as favorably impressed with the purposes of the organization. During the interview she produced her astral bell "phenomenon." She excused herself to attend to some domestic duty, and on her return to the sitting-room, the phenomenon took place. Says Solovyoff: "She made a sort of flourish with her hand, raised it upwards and suddenly, I heard distinctly, quite distinctly, somewhere above our heads, near the ceiling, a very melodious sound like a little silver bell or an Aeolian harp. "'What is the meaning of this?' I asked. "'This means only that my master is here, although you and I cannot see him. He tells me that I may trust you, and am to do for you whatever I can. _Vous etes sous sa protection_, henceforth and forever.' "She looked me straight in the eyes, and caressed me with her glance and her kindly smile." This Mahatmic phenomenon ought to have absolutely convinced Solovyoff, but it did not. He asked himself the question: "'Why was the sound of the silver bell not heard at once, but only after she had left the room and come back again?'"