"but daydream is the only good thing
in life.
Everything else is vulgar and empty.[114]
"His behavior was like that of the conscious or
unconscious demonomaniacs who do evil for evil's sake. They
are no more mad than the rapt monk in his cell, than the -
man who does good for good's sake. Anybody but a medical
theorist can see that the desire for good and the desire for
evil simply form the two opposing poles of the soul. In the
fifteenth century these extremes were represented by Jeanne
d'Arc and the Marshal de Rais. Now there is no more reason
for attributing madness to Gilles than there is for
attributing it to Jeanne d'Arc, whose admirable excesses
certainly have no connection with vesania and delirium.[108]
It has even gone so far as to adulterate excrement. Yes,
in 1888 the two houses of parliament had to pass a law
destined to suppress the falsification of fertilizer. Now
that's the limit." [117]
"For Sinistrari d'Ameno," observed Durtal,
"the incubi and succubi are not precisely demons, but
animal spirits, intermediate between the demon and the angel,
a sort of satyr or faun, such as were revered in the time of
paganism, a sort of imp, such as were exorcised in the Middle
Ages. Sinistrari adds that they do not need to pollute a
sleeping man, since they possess genitals and are endowed
with prolificacy." [135]
