CHAPTER IX - La Bas [DOWN THERE]

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The next morning he woke, thinking of her, just as he had been doing when he went to sleep. He tried to ration-alize the episode and revolved his conjectures over and over. Once again he put himself this question: "Why, when I went to her house, did she not let me see that I pleased her? Never a look, never a word to encourage me. Why this correspondence, when it was so easy to insist on having me to dine, so simple to prepare an occasion which would bring us together, either at her home or elsewhere?" And he answered himself, "It would have been usual and not at all diverting. She is perhaps skilled in these matters. She knows that the unknown frightens a man's reason away, that the unembodied puts the soul in ferment, and she wished to give me a fever before trying an attack-to call her ad-vances by their right name.

"It must be admitted that if my conjectures are correct she is strangely astute. At heart she is, perhaps, quite simply a crazy romantic or a comedian. It amuses her to manufacture little adventures, to throw tantalizing obstacles in the way of the realization of a vulgar desire. And Chantelouve? He is probably aware of his wife's goings on, which perhaps facilitate his career. Otherwise, how could she arrange to come here at nine o'clock at night, instead of the morning or afternoon on pretence of going shopping?"

To this new question there could he no answer, and little by little he ceased to interrogate himself on the point. He began to he obsessed by the real woman as he had been by the imaginary creature. The latter had completely vanished. He did not even remember her physiognomy now. Mme.

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Chantelouve, just as she was in reality, without borrowing the other's features, had complete possession of him and fired his brain and senses to white heat. He began to desire her madly and to wish furiously for tomorrow night. And if she did not Come? He felt cold in the small of his back at the idea that she might be unable to get away from home or that she might wilfully stay away.

"High time it was over and done with," he said, for this Saint Vitus' dance went on not without certain diminution of force, which disturbed him. In fact he feared, after the febrile agitation of his nights, to reveal himself as a sorry paladin when the time came. "But why bother?" he rejoined, as he started toward Carhaix's, where he was to dine with the astrologer Gevingey and Des Hermies.

"I shall be rid of my obsession awhile," he murmured, groping along in the darkness of the tower.

Des Hermies, hearing him come up the stair, opened the door, casting a shaft of light into the spiral. Durtal, reaching the landing, saw his friend in shirt sleeves and enveloped in an apron.

"I am, as you see, in the heat of composition," and upon a stew-pan boiling on the stove Des Hermies cast that brief and sure look which a mechanic gives his machine, then he consulted, as if it were a manometer, his watch, hanging to a nail. "Look," he said, raising the pot lid.

Durtal bent over and through a cloud of vapour he saw a coiled napkin rising and falling with the little billows. "Where is the leg of mutton?"

"It, my friend, is sewn into that cloth so tightly that the air cannot enter. It is cooking in this pretty, singing sauce, into which I have thrown a handful of hay, some pods of garlic and slices of carrot and onion, some grated nutmeg, and laurel and thyme. You will have many compliments to make me if Gevingey doesn't keep us waiting too long, be-cause a gigot a l'Anglaise won't stand being cooked to shreds."

Carhaix's wife looked in.

"Come in," she said. "My husband is here."

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Durtal found him dusting the books. They shook hands. Durtal, at random, looked over some of the dusted books lying on the table.

"Are these," he asked, "technical works about metals and bell-founding or are they about the liturgy of bells?"

"They are not about founding, though there is sometimes reference to the founders, the 'sainterers' as they were called in the good old days. You will discover here and there some details about alloys of red copper and fine tin. You will even find, I believe, that the art of the 'sainterer' has been in decline for three centuries, probably due to the fact that the faithful no longer melt down their ornaments of precious metals, thus modifying the alloy. Or is it because the founders no longer invoke Saint Anthony the Eremite when the bronze is boiling in the furnace? I do not know. It is true, at any rate, that bells are now made in carload lots. Their voices are without personality. They are all the same. They're like docile and indifferent hired girls when formerly they were like those aged servants who became part of the family whose joys and griefs they have shared. But what difference does that make to the clergy and the congregation? At present these auxiliaries devoted to the cult do- not represent any symbol. And that explains the whole difficulty.

"You asked me, a few second ago, whether these books treated of bells from the liturgical point of view. Yes, most of them give tabulated explanations of the significance of the various component parts. The interpretations are simple and offer little variety."

"What are a few of them?"

"I can sum them all up for you in a very few words. According to the Rational of Guillaume Durand, the hard-ness of the metal signifies the force of the preacher. The percussion of the clapper on the sides expresses the idea that the preacher must first scourge himself to correct himself of his own vices before reproaching the vices of others. The wooden frame represents the cross of Christ, and the cord,

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which formerly served to set the bell swinging, allegorizes the science of the Scriptures which flows from the mystery of the Cross itself.

"The most ancient liturgists expound practically the same symbols. Jean Beleth, who lived in 1200, declares also that the bell is the image of the preacher, but adds that its motion to and fro, when it is set swinging, teaches that the preacher must by turns elevate his language and bring it down within reach of the crowd. For Hugo of Saint Victor the clapper is the tongue of the officiating priest, which strikes the two sides - of the vase and announces thus, at the same time, the truth of the two Testaments. Finally, if we consult Fortunatus Amalarius, perhaps the most ancient of the liturgists, we find simply that the body of the bell denotes the mouth of the preacher and the hammer his tongue."

"But," said Durtal, somewhat disappointed, "it isn't - what shall I say ? -very profound."

The door opened.

"Why, how are you!" said Carhaix, shaking hands with Gevingey, and then introducing him to Durtal.

While the bell-ringer's wife finished setting the table, Durtal examined the newcomer. He was a little man, wearing a soft black felt hat and wrapped up like an omnibus conductor in a cape with a military collar of blue cloth.

His head was like an egg with the hollow downward. The skull, waxed as if with siccatif, seemed to have grown up out of the hair, which was hard and like filaments of dried coconut and hung down over his neck. The nose was bony, and the nostrils opened like two hatchways, over a toothless mouth which was hidden by a moustache grizzled like the goatee springing from the short chin. At first glance one would have taken him for an art-worker, a wood engraver or a glider of saints' images, hut on looking at him more closely, observing the eyes, round and grey, set close to the nose, almost crossed, and studying his solemn voice and

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obsequious manners, one asked oneself from. what quite special kind of sacristy the man had issued.

He took off his things and appeared in a black frock coat of square, boxlike cut. A fine gold chain, passed about his neck, lost itself in the bulging pocket of an old vest. Durtal gasped when Gevingey, as soon as he had seated himself, complacently put his hands on exhibition, resting them on his knees. Enormous, freckled with blotches of orange, and terminating in milk-white nails cut to the quick, the fingers were covered with huge rings, the sets of which formed a phalanx.

Seeing Durtal's gaze fixed on his fingers, he smiled. "You examine my valuables, monsieur. They are of three metals, gold, platinum, and silver. This ring bears a Scorpion, the sign under which I was born. That with its two accoupled triangles, one pointing downward and the other upward, r& produces the image of the macrocosm, the seal of Solomon, the grand pentacle. As for the little one you see here," he went on, showing a lady's ring set with a tiny sapphire between two roses, "that is a present from a person whose horoscope I was good enough to cast."

"Ah!" said Durtal, somewhat surprised at the man's self-satisfaction.

"Dinner is ready," said the bell-ringer's wife.

Des Hermies, doffing his apron, appeared in his tight cheviot garments. Lie was not so pale as usual, his cheeks being red from the heat of the stove. He set the chairs around.

Carhaix served the broth, and everyone was silent, taking spoonfuls of the cooler broth at the edge of the bowl. Then madame brought Des Hermies the famous leg of mutton to cut. It was a magnificent red, and large drops flowed beneath the knife. Everybody ecstasized when tasting this robust meat, aromatic with a puree of turnips sweetened with caper sauce.

Des Hermies bowed under a storm of compliments. Carhaix filled the glasses, and, somewhat confused in the pres-

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ence of Gevingey, paid the astrologer effusive attention to make him forget their former ill-feeling. Des Hermies assisted in this good work, and wishing also to. be useful to Durtal, brought the conversation around to the subject of horoscopes.

Then Gevingey mounted the rostrum. In a tone of satis-faction he spoke of his vast labours, of the six months a horoscope required, of the surprise of laymen when he declared that such work was not paid for by the price he asked, five hundred francs.

"But you see I cannot give my science for nothing," he said. "And now people doubt astrology, which was revered in antiquity. Also in the Middle Ages, when it was almost sacred. For instance, messieurs, look at the portal of Notre Dame. The three doors which archeologists-not initiated into the symbolism of Christianity and the occult-designate by the names of the door of Judgment, the door of the Virgin, and the door of Saint Marcel or Saint Anne, really represent Mysticism, Astrology, and Alchemy, the three great sciences of the Middle Ages. Today you find people who say, 'Are you quite sure that the stars have an influence on the destiny of man?' But, messieurs, without entering here into details reserved for the adept, in what way is this spiritual influence stranger than that corporal influence which certain planets, the moon, for example, exercise on the organs of men and women?

"You are a physician, Monsieur Des Hermies, and you are not unaware that the doctors Gillespin, Jackson, and Balfour, of Jamaica, have established the influence of the constellations on human health in the West Indies, At every change of the moon the number of sick people aug-ments. The acute crises of fever coincide with the phases of our satellite. Finally, there are in lunatics. Go out in the country and ascertain at what periods madness becomes epidemic. But does this serve to convince the incredulous?" he asked sorrowfully, contemplating his rings.

"It seems to me, on the contrary, that astrology is picking

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up," said Durtal. "There are now two astrologers casting horoscopes in the next column to the secret remedies on the fourth page of the newspapers."

"And it's a shame! Those people don't even know the first thing about the science. They are simply tricksters who hope thus to pick up some money. What's the use of speaking of them when they don't even exist! Really it must be admitted that only in England and America is there anybody who knows how to establish the genethliac theme and construct a horoscope."

"I am very much afraid," said: Des Hermies, "that not only these so called astrologers, but also all the mages, theosophists, occultists, and cabalists of the present day, know absolutely nothing - those with whom I am acquainted are indubitably, incontestably, ignorant imbeciles. And that is the pure truth, messieurs. These people are, for the most part, down - and - out journalists or broken spendthrifts seek-ing to exploit the taste of a public weary of positivism. They plagiarize Eliphas Levi, steal from Fabre d'Olivet, and write treatises of which they themselves are incapable of making head or tail. It's a real pity, when you come to think of it.

"The more so as they discredit sciences which certainly contain verities omitted in their jumble," said Durtal.

"Then another lamentable thing," said Des Hermies, "is that in addition to the dupes and simpletons, these little sects harbour some frightful charlatans and windbags."

"Peladan, among others. Who does not know that shoddy mage, commercialized to his fingertips?" cried Durtal.

"Oh, yes, that fellow-"

"Briefly, messieurs," resumed Ge vingey, "all these people are incapable of obtaining in practice any effect whatever. The only man in this century who, without being either a saint or a diabolist, has penetrated the mysteries, is William Crookes." And as Durtal, who appeared to doubt the apparitions sworn to by this Englishman, dedared that no

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theory could explain them, Gevingey perorated, "Permit me, messieurs. We have the choice between two diverse, and I venture to say, very clear-cut doctrines. Either the apparition is formed by the fluid disengaged by the medium in trance to combine with the fluid of the persons present; or else there are in the air immaterial beings, elementals as they are called, which manifest themselves under very nearly determinable conditions; or else, and this is the theory of pure spiritism, the phenomena are produced by souls evoked from the dead."

"I know it," Durtal said, "and that horrifies me. I know also the Hindu dogma of the migrations of souls after death. Those disembodied souls stray until they are reincarnated or until they attain, from avatar to avatar, to complete purity. Well, I think it's quite enough to live once. I'd prefer nothingness, a hole in the ground, to all those metamorphoses. It's more consoling to me. As for the evocation of the dead, the mere thought that the butcher on the corner can force the soul of Hugo, Baizac, Baudelaire, to converse with him, would put me beside myself, if I believed it. Ah, no. Materialism, abject as it is, is less vile than that."

"Spiritism," said Carhaix, "is only a new name for the ancient necromancy condemned and cursed by the Church."

Gevingey looked at his rings, then emptied his glass.

"In any case," he returned, "you will admit that these theories can be upheld, especially that of the elementals, which, setting Satanism aside, seems the most veridic, and certainly is the most clear. Space is peopled by microbes. Is it more surprising that space should also be crammed with spirits and larvae? Water and vinegar are alive with animalcules. The microscope shows them to us. Now why should not the air, inaccessible to the sight and to the instru-ments of man, swarm, like the other elements, with beings more or less corporeal, embryos more or less mature?"

"That is probably why cats suddenly look upward and

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gaze curiously into space at something that is passing and that we can t see," said the bell-ringer's wife.

"No, thanks," said Gevingey to "Des Hermies, who was offering him another helping of egg-and-dandelion salad.

"My friends," said the bell-ringer, "you forget only one doctrine, that of the Church, which attributes all these inexplicable phenomena to Satan. Catholicism has known them for a long time. It did not need to wait for the first manifestations of the spirits - which were produced, I believe, in 1847, in the United States, through the Fox family - before decreeing that spirit rapping came from the Devil. You will find in Saint Augustine the proof, for he had to send a priest to put an end to noises and overturning of objects and furniture, in the diocese of Hippo, analogous to those which Spiritism points out. At the time of Theodoric also, Saint Caesaraens ridded a house of lemurs haunting it. You see, there are only the City of God and the City of the Devil. Now, since God is above these cheap manipulations, the occultists and spiritists satanize more or less, whether they wish to or not."

"Nevertheless, Spiritism has accomplished one import-ant thing. It has violated the threshold of the unknown, broken the doors of the sanctuary. It has brought about in the extranatural a revolution similar to that which was effected in the terrestrial order in France in 1789. It has democratized evocation and opened a whole new vista. Only, it has lacked initiates to lead it, and; proceeding at random without science, it has agitated good and bad spirits together. In Spiritism you will find a jumble of everything. It is the hash of mystery, if I may be permitted the expression.

"The saddest thing about it," said Des Hermies, laughing, "is that at a seance one never sees a thing! I know that experiments have been successful, but those which I have witnessed-well, the experimenters seemed to take a long shot and miss."

"That is not surprising," said the astrologer, spreading some firm candied orange jelly on a piece of bread, "the first

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law to observe in magism and Spiritism is to send away the unbelievers, because very often their fluid is antagonistic to that of the clairvoyant or the medium."

"Then how can there be any assurance of the reality of the phenomena?" thought Durtal.

Carhaix rose. "I shall be back in ten minutes." He put on his greatcoat, and soon the sound of his steps was lost in the tower.

"True," murmured Durtal, consulting his watch. "It's a quarter to eight."

There was a moment of silence in the room. As all refused to have any more dessert, Mme. Carhaix took up the tablecloth and spread an oilcloth in its place.

The astrologer played with his rings, turning them about; Durtal was rolling a pellet of crumbled bread between his fingers; Des Hermies, leaning over to one side, pulled from his patch pocket his embossed Japanese pouch and made a cigarette.

Then when the bell-ringer's wife had bidden them good night and retired to her room, Des Hermies got the kettle and the coffee pot.

"Want any help?" Durtal proposed.

"You can get the little glasses and uncork the liqueur bottles, if you will."

As he opened the cupboard, Durtal swayed, dizzy from the strokes of the bells which shook the walls and filled the room with clamour.

"If there are spirits in this room, they must be getting knocked to pieces," he said, setting the liqueur glasses on the table.

"Bells drive phantoms and spectres away," Gevingey answered, doctorally, filling his pipe.

"Here," said Des Hermies, "will you pour hot water slowly into the filter? I've got to feed the stove. It's getting chilly here. My feet are freezing.

Carhaix returned, blowing out his lantern.

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"The bell was in good voice, this clear, dry night," and he took off his mountaineer cap and his overcoat.

"What do you think of him?" Des Hermies asked Durtal in a very low voice, and pointed at the astrologer, now lost in a cloud of pipe smoke.

"In repose he looks like an old owl, and when he speaks he makes me think of a melancholy and discursive school-master."

"Only one," said Des Hermies to Carhaix, who was hold-ing a lump of sugar over Des Hermies's coffee cup.

"I hear, monsieur, that you are occupied with a history of Gilles de Rais," said Gevingey to Durtal.

"Yes, for the time being I am up to my eyes in Satanism with that man."

"And," said Des Hermies, "we were just going to appeal to your extensive knowledge. You only can enlighten my friend on one of the most obscure questions of Diabolism."

"Which one?"

"That of incubacy and succubacy."

Gevingey did not answer at once. "That is a much graver question than Spiritism," he said at last, "and grave in a different way. But monsieur already knows something about it?"

"Only that opinions differ. Del Rio and Bodin, for instance, consider the incubi as masculine demons which couple with women and the succubi as demons who consum-mate the carnal act with men.

"According to their theories the incubi take the semen lost by men in dream and make use of it. So that two questions arise: first, can a child be born of such a union? The possibility of this kind of procreation has been upheld by the Church doctors, who affirm, even, that children of such commerce are heavier than others and can drain three nurses without taking on flesh. The second question is whether tile demon who copulates with the mother or the man whose semen has been taken is the father of the child.

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To which Saint Thomas answers, with more or less subtle arguments, that the real father is not the incubus but the man.

"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."

"Well, there is nothing further," said Gevingey. "Gorres, so learned, so precise, in his Mystik passes rapidly over this question, even neglects it, and the Church, you know, is completely silent, for the Church does not like to treat this subject and views askance the priest who does occupy himself with it."

"I beg your pardon," said Carhaix, always ready to defend the Church. "The Church has never hesitated to de-clare itself on this detestable subject. The existence of succubi and incubi is certified by Saint Augustine, Saint Thoqias, Saint Bonaventure, Denys le Chartreux, Pope Innocent VIII, and how many others I The question is resolutely settled for every Catholic. It also figures in the lives of some of the saints, if I am not, mistaken. Yes, in the legend of Saint Hippolyte, Jacques de Voragine telk how a priest, tempted by a naked succubus, cast his stole at its head and it suddenly became the corpse of some dead woman whom the Devil had animated to seduce him."

"Yes," said Gevingey, whose eyes twinkled. "The Church recognizes succubacy; I grant. But let me speak, and you will see that my observations are not uncalled for.

"You know very well, messieurs," addressing Des Her-mies and Durtal, "what the books teach, hut within a hundred years everything has changed, and if the facts I am

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are unknown to the many members of the clergy, and you will not find them cited in any hook whatever.

"At present it is less frequently demons than bodies raised from the dead which fill the indispensable role of incubus and succubus. In other words, formerly the living being subject to succubacy was known to be possessed. Now that vampirism, by the evocation of the dead, is joined to demonism, the victim is worse than possessed. The Church did not know what to do. Either it must keep silent or reveal the possibility of the evocation of the dead, already forbidden by Moses, and this admission was dangerous, for it popularized the knowledge of acts that are easier to produce now than formerly, since without knowing it Spiritism has traced the way.

"So the Church has kept silent. And Rome is not unaware of the frightful advance incubacy has made in the cloisters in our days."

"That proves that continence is hard to bear in solitude," said Des Hermies.

"It merely proves that the soul is feeble and that people have forgotten how to pray," said Carhaix.

"However that may be, messieurs, to instruct you completely in this matter, I must divide the creatures smitten with incubacy or succubacy into two classes. The first is composed of persons who have directly and voluntarily given themselves over to the demoniac action of the spirits. These persons are quite rare and they all die by suicide or some other form of violent death. The second is composed of persons on whom the visitation of spirits has been imposed by a spell. These are very numerous, especially in the convents dominated by the demoniac societies. Ordinarily these victims end in madness. The psychopathic hospitals are crowded with them; The doctors and the majority of the priests do not know the cause of their madness, but the cases are curable. A thaumaturge of my acquaintance has saved a good many of the bewitched who without his aid would be

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howling under hydrotherapeutic douches. There are certain fumigations, certain exsufflations, certain command-ments written on a sheet of virgin parchment thrice blessed and worn like an amulet which almost always succeed in delivering the patient."

"I want to ask you," said Des Hermies, "does a woman receive the visit of the incubus while she is asleep or while she is awake?"

"A distinction must be made. If the woman is not the victim of a spell, if she voluntarily consorts with tile im-pure spirit, she is always awake when the carnal act takes place. If, on the other hand, the woman is the victim of sorcery, the sin is committed either while she is asleep or while she is awake, but in the latter case she is in a cataleptic state which prevents her from defending herself. The most powerful of present-day exorcists, the man who has gone most thoroughly into this matter, one Johannes, Doc-tor of Theology, told me that he had saved nuns who had been ridden without respite for two, three, even four days by incubi !"

"I know that priest," remarked Des Hermies.

"And the act is consummated in the same manner as the normal human act?"

"Yes and no. Here the dirtiness of the details makes me hesitate," said Gevingey, becoming slightly red. "What I can tell you is more than strange. Know, then, that the organ of the incubus is bifurcated and at the same time penetrates both vases. Formerly it extended, and while one branch of the fork acted in the licit channels, the other at the same time reached up to the lower part of the face. You may imagine, gentlemen, how life must be shortened by. operations which are multiplied through all the senses."

"And you are sure that these are facts?"

"Absolutely."

"But come now, you have proofs?"

Gevingey was silent, then, "The subject is so grave and I have gone so far that I had better go the rest of the way.

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I am not mad nor the victim of hallucination. Well, messieurs, I slept one time in the room of the most redoubtable master Satanism now can claim."

"Canon Docre," Des Hermies interposed.

"Yes, and my sleep was fitful. It was broad daylight. I. swear to you that the succubus came, irritant and palpable and most tenacious. Happily, I remembered the formula of deliverance, which kept me

"So I ran that very day to Doctor Johanne's, of whom I have spoken. He immediately and forever, I hope, liberated me from the spell."

"If I did not fear to be indiscreet, I would ask you what kind of thing this succubus was, whose attack you repulsed."

"Why, it was like any naked woman," said the astrologer hesitantly.

"Curious, now, if it had demanded its little gifts, its little gloves-" said Durtal, biting his lips.

"And do you know what has become of the terrible Docre?" Des Hermies inquired.

"No, thank God. They say he is in the south, somewhere around Nimes, where he formerly resided."

"But what does this abbe do?" inquired Durtal.

"What does he do? He evokes the Devil, and he feeds white mice on the hosts which he consecrates. His frenzy for sacrilege is such that he had the image of Christ tattooed on his heels so that he could always step on the Saviour !"

"Well," murmured Carhaix, whose militant moustache bristled while his great eyes flamed, "if that abominable priest were here, I swear to you that I would respect his feet, but that I would throw him downstairs head first."

"And the black mass?" inquired Des Hermies.

"He celebrates it with foul men and women. He is openly accused of having influenced people to make wills in his favor and of causing inexplicable death. Unfortunately, there are no laws to repress sacrilege, and how can you prosecute a man who sends maladies from a distance and kills slowly in such a way that at the autopsy no traces of poison appear?"

"The modern Gilles de Rais!" exclaimed Durtal.

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"Yes, less savage, less frank, more hypocritically cruel. He does not cut throats. He probably limits himself to sendings' or to causing suicide by suggestion," said Des Hermies, "for he is, I believe, a master hypnotist."

"Could he insinuate into a victim the idea to drink, regularly, in graduated doses, a toxin which he would designate, and which would simulate the phases of a malady?" asked Durtal.

"Nothing simpler. 'Open window burglars' that the physicians of the present day are, they recognize perfectly the ability of a more skilful man to pull off such jobs. The experiments of Beaunis, Liegois, Liebaut, and Bernheim are conclusive: you can even get a person assassinated by another to whom you suggest, without his knowledge, the will to the crime."

"I was thinking of something, myself," said Carhaix, who had been reflecting and not listening to this discussion of hypnotism. "Of the Inquisition. It certainly had its reason for being. It is the only agent that could deal with this fallen priest whom the Church has swept out."

"And remember," said Des Hermies, with his crooked smile playing around the corner of his mouth, "that the ferocity of the Inquisition has been greatly exaggerated. No doubt the benevolent Bodin speaks of driving long needles between the nails and the flesh of the sorcerers' fingers. 'An excellent gehenna,' says he. He eulogizes equally the torture by fire, which he characterizes as 'an exquisite death.' But he wishes only to turn the magicians away from their detestable practices and save their souls. Then Del Rio declares that 'the question' must not be applied to demoniacs after they have eaten, for fear they will vomit. He worried about their stomachs, this worthy man, Wasn't it also he who decreed that the torture must not be repeated twice in the same day, so as to give fear and pain a chance to calm down? Admit that the good Jesuit was not devoid of delicacy !"

"Docre," Gevingey went on, not paying any attention to the words of Des Hermies, "is the only individual who has

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rediscovered the ancient secrets and who obtains results in practice. He is rather more powerful, I would have you believe, than all those fools and quacks of whom we have been speaking. And they know the terrible canon, for he has sent many of them serious attacks of ophthalmia which the oculists cannot cure. So they tremble when the name Docre is pronounced in their presence."

"But how did a priest fall so low?"

"I can't say. If you wish ampler information about him," said Gevingey, addressing Des Hermies, "question your friend Chantelouve."

"Chantelouve !" cried Durtal.

"Yes, he and his wife used to be quite intimate with Canon Docre, but I hope for their sakes that they have long since ceased to have dealings with the monster."

Durtal listened no more. Mme. Chantelouve knew Canon Docre! Ah, was she Satanic, too? No, she certainly did not act like a possessed. "Surely this astrologer is cracked," he thought. She! And he called her image before him, and thought that tomorrow night she would probably give herself to him. Ah, those strange eyes of hers, those dark clouds suddenly cloven by radiant light !

She came now and took complete possession of him, as before he had ascended to the tower. "But if I didn't love you would I have come to you?" That sentence which she had spoken, with a caressing inflection of the voice, he heard again, and again he saw her mocking and tender face.

"Ah, you are dreaming," said Des Hermies, tapping him on the shoulder. "We have to go. It's striking ten."

When they were in the street they said good night to Gevingey, who lived on the other side of the river. Then they walked along a little way.

"Well," said Des Hermies, "are you interested in my astrologer?"

"He is slightly mad, isn't he?"

"Slightly? Humph."

"Well, his stories are incredible."

"Everything is incredible," said Des Hermies placidly,

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turning up the collar of his overcoat. "However, I will admit that Gevingey astounds me when he asserts that he was visited by a succubus. His good faith is not to be doubted, for I know him to be a man who means what he says, though he is vain and doctoral. I know, too, that at La Salpetiere such occurrences are not rare. Women smitten with hystero-epilepsy see phantoms beside them in broad daylight and mate with them in a cataleptic state, and every night couch with visions that must be exactly like the fluid creatures of incubacy. But these women are hystero-epileptics, and Gevingey isn't, for I am his physician. Then, what can be believed and what can be proved? The materialists have taken the trouble to revise the accounts of the sorcery trials of old. They have found in the possession - cases of the Ursulines of Loudun and the nuns of Poitiers, in the history, even, of the convulsionists of Saint Medard, the symptoms of major hysteria, the same contractions of the whole system, the same muscular dissolutions, the same lethargies, even, finally, the famous arc of the circle. And, what does this demonstrate, that these demonomaniacs were hyster-epileptics? Certainly. The observations of Dr. Richet, expert in such matters, are conclusive, but wherein do they invalidate possession? From the fact that the patients of la Salpetrierre are not possessed, though they are hysterical, does it follow that others, smitten with the same malady as they, are not possessed? It would have to be demonstrated also that all demonopathics are hysterical, and that is false, for there are women of sound mind and perfectly good sense who are demonopathic without knowing it. And admitting that the last point is controvertible, there remains this unanswerable question: is a woman possessed because she is hysterical, or is she hysterical because she is possessed? Only the Church can answer. Science cannot

"No, come to think it over, the effrontery of the positivists is appalling. They decree that Satanism does not exist. They lay everything at the account of major hysteria, and they

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don't even know what this frightful malady is and what are its causes. No doubt Charcot determines very well the phases of the attack, notes the nonsensical and passional attitudes, the contortionistic movements; he discovers hystero-genic zones and can, by skillfully manipulating the ovaries, arrest or accelerate the crises, but as for foreseeing them and learning the sources and the motives and curing them, that's another thing. Science goes all to pieces on the question of this inexplicable, stupefying malady, which, consequently, is subject to the most diversified interpretations, not one of which can be declared exact. For the soul enters into this, the soul in conflict with the body, the soul overthrown in the demoralization of the nerves. You see, old man, all this is as dark as a bottle of ink. Mystery is everywhere and reason cannot see its way."

"Mmmm," said Durtal, who was now in front of his door "Since anything can be maintained and nothing is certain, succubacy has it. Basically it is more literary - and cleaner - than positivism."

"I had to occupy myself with Gilles de Rais and the diabolism of the
Middle Ages to get contemporary diabolism revealed to me." j-k h
[I] [II] [III] [IV] [V] [VI] [VII] [VIII] [IX]
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[XVII] [XVIII] [XIX] [XX] [XXI] [XXII]
ricky's La Bas index page.

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