The next morning he woke, thinking of her, just as he had been doing
when he went to sleep. He tried to rationalize 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 advances 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 be no answer, and little by little he
ceased to interrogate himself on the point. He began to be 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.
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 Gévingey 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 Gévingey doesn't keep us waiting too long,
because a _gigot à l'Anglaise_ won't stand being cooked to shreds."
Carhaix's wife looked in.
"Come in," she said. "My husband is here."
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 seconds 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 hardness 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, 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 Gévingey, 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, but 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
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 Gévingey, 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, reproduces the image of the macrocosm, the seal of
Solomon, the grand pantacle. 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.
He 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 purée of turnips sweetened with caper
sauce.
Des Hermies bowed under a storm of compliments. Carhaix filled the
glasses, and, somewhat confused in the presence of Gévingey, 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 Gévingey mounted the rostrum. In a tone of satisfaction 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
augments. The acute crises of fever coincide with the phases of our
satellite. Finally, there are _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 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 seeking 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."
"Péladan, among others. Who does not know that shoddy mage,
commercialized to his fingertips?" cried Durtal.
"Oh, yes, that fellow--"
"Briefly, messieurs," resumed Gévingey, "all these people are incapable
of obtaining in practise 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, declared that no theory
could explain them, Gévingey 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. These 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, Balzac, 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."
Gévingey 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 larvæ? 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 instruments 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 gaze curiously into
space at something that is passing and that we can't see," said the
bell-ringer's wife.
"No, thanks," said Gévingey 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 Cæsaræus 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 important 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
séance 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 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," Gévingey 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. "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 schoolmaster."
"Only one," said Des Hermies to Carhaix, who was holding 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 Gévingey 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."
Gévingey 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 consummate 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 the
demon who copulates with the mother or the man whose semen has been
taken is the father of the child. 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 Gévingey. "Görres, 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 declare itself on this detestable
subject. The existence of succubi and incubi is certified by Saint
Augustine, Saint Thomas, Saint Bonaventure, Denys le Chartreux, Pope
Innocent VIII, and how many others! 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 tells 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 Gévingey, 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 Hermies and Durtal,
"what the books teach, but within a hundred years everything has
changed, and if the facts I am are unknown to the many members of the
clergy, and you will not find them cited in any book whatever.
"At present it is less frequently demons than bodies raised from the
dead which fill the indispensable rôle 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 howling under hydrotherapeutic
douches. There are certain fumigations, certain exsufflations, certain
commandments 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 the impure 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 Johannès, Doctor 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
Gévingey, 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?"
Gévingey was silent, then, "The subject is so grave and I have gone so
far that I had better go the rest of the way. 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 Johannès, 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 Nîmes,
where he formerly resided."
"But what does this abbé 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.
"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, Liégois, Liébaut,
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 practises 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," Gévingey went on, not paying any attention to the words of Des
Hermies, "is the only individual who has rediscovered the ancient
secrets and who obtains results in practise. 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 Gévingey,
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 Gévingey, 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, turning up the
collar of his overcoat. "However, I will admit that Gévingey 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 doctorial. I know, too, that at La Salpêtrière 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 Gévingey 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
Médard, 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 hystero-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 Salpêtrière 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 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 hysterogenic
zones and can, by skilfully 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."