Durtal had resolved not to answer Mme. Chantelouve's letters. Every day,
since their rupture, she had sent him an inflamed missive, but, as he
soon noticed, her Mænad cries were subsiding into plaints and
reproaches. She now accused him of ingratitude, and repented having
listened to him and having permitted him to participate in sacrileges
for which she would have to answer before the heavenly tribunal. She
pleaded to see him once more. Then she was silent for a while week.
Finally, tired, no doubt, of writing unanswered letters, she admitted,
in a last epistle, that all was over.
After agreeing with him that their temperaments were incompatible, she
ended:
"Thanks for the trig little love, ruled like music-paper, that
you gave me. My heart cannot be so straitly measured, it
requires more latitude--"
"Her heart!" he laughed, then he continued to read:
"I understand that it is not your earthly mission to satisfy my
heart but you might at least have conceded me a frank
comradeship which would have permitted me to leave my sex at
home and to come and spend an evening with you now and then.
This, seemingly, so simple, you have rendered impossible.
Farewell forever. I have only to renew my pact with Solitude, to
which I have tried to be unfaithful--"
"With solitude! and that complaisant and paternal cuckold, her husband!
Well, he is the one most to be pitied now. Thanks to me, he had evenings
of quiet. I restored his wife, pliant and satisfied. He profited by my
fatigues, that sacristan. Ah, when I think of it, his sly, hypocritical
eyes, when he looked at me, told me a great deal.
"Well, the little romance is over. It's a good thing to have your heart
on strike. In my brain I still have a house of ill fame, which sometimes
catches fire, but the hired myrmidons will stamp out the blaze in a
hurry.
"When I was young and ardent the women laughed at me. Now that I am old
and stale I laugh at them. That's more in my character, old fellow," he
said to the cat, which, with ears pricked up, was listening to the
soliloquy. "Truly, Gilles de Rais is a great deal more interesting than
Mme. Chantelouve. Unfortunately, my relations with him are also drawing
to a close. Only a few more pages and the book is done. Oh, Lord! Here
comes Rateau to knock my house to pieces."
Sure enough, the concierge entered, made an excuse for being late, took
off his vest, and cast a look of defiance at the furniture. Then he
hurled himself at the bed, grappled with the mattress, got a half-Nelson
on it, and balancing himself, turning half around, hurled it onto the
springs.
Durtal, followed by his cat, went into the other room, but suddenly
Rateau ceased wrestling and came and stood before Durtal.
"Monsieur, do you know what has happened?" he blubbered.
"Why, no."
"My wife has left me."
"Left you! but she must be over sixty."
Rateau raised his eyes to heaven.
"And she ran off with another man?"
Rateau, disconsolate, let the feather duster fall from his listless
hand.
"The devil! Then, in spite of her age, your wife had needs which you
were unable to satisfy?"
The concierge shook his head and finally succeeded in saying, "It was
the other way around."
"Oh," said Durtal, considering the old caricature, shrivelled by bad air
and "three-six," "but if she is tired of that sort of thing, why did she
run off with a man?"
Rateau made a grimace of pitying contempt, "Oh, he's impotent. Good for
nothing--"
"Ah!"
"It's my job I'm sore about. The landlord won't keep a concierge that
hasn't a wife."
"Dear Lord," thought Durtal, "how hast thou answered my prayers!--Come
on, let's go over to your place," he said to Des Hermies, who, finding
Rateau's key in the door, had walked in.
"Righto! since your housecleaning isn't done yet, descend like a god
from your clouds of dust, and come on over to the house."
On the way Durtal recounted his concierge's conjugal misadventure.
"Oh!" said Des Hermies, "many a woman would be happy to wreathe with
laurel the occiput of so combustible a sexagenarian.--Look at that!
Isn't it revolting?" pointing to the walls covered with posters.
It was a veritable debauch of placards. Everywhere on lurid coloured
paper in box car letters were the names of Boulanger and Jacques.
"Thank God, this will be over tomorrow."
"There is one resource left," said Des Hermies. "To escape the horrors
of present day life never raise your eyes. Look down at the sidewalk
always, preserving the attitude of timid modesty. When you look only at
the pavement you see the reflections of the sky signs in all sorts of
fantastic shapes; alchemic symbols, talismanic characters, bizarre
pantacles with suns, hammers, and anchors, and you can imagine yourself
right in the midst of the Middle Ages."
"Yes, but to keep from seeing the disenchanting crowd you would have to
wear a long-vizored cap like a jockey and blinkers like a horse."
Des Hermies sighed. "Come in," he said, opening the door. They went in
and sitting down in easy chairs they lighted their cigarettes.
"I haven't got over that conversation we had with Gévingey the other
night at Carhaix's," said Durtal. "Strange man, that Dr. Johannès. I
can't keep from thinking about him. Look here, do you sincerely believe
in his miraculous cures?"
"I am obliged to. I didn't tell you all about him, for a physician can't
lightly make these dangerous admissions. But you may as well know that
this priest heals hopeless cases.
"I got acquainted with him when he was still a member of the Parisian
clergy. It came about by one of those miracles of his which I don't
pretend to understand.
"My mother's maid had a granddaughter who was paralyzed in her arms and
legs and suffered death and destruction in her chest and howled when you
touched her there. She had been in this condition two years. It had come
on in one night, how produced nobody knows. She was sent away from the
Lyons hospitals as incurable. She came to Paris, underwent treatment at
La Salpêtrière, and was discharged when nobody could find out what was
the matter with her nor what medication would give her any relief. One
day she spoke to me of this abbé Johannès, who, she said, had cured
persons in as bad shape as she. I did not believe a word, but hearing
that the priest refused to take any money for his services I did not
dissuade her from visiting him, and out of curiosity I went along.
"They placed her in a chair. The ecclesiastic, little, active,
energetic, took her hand and applied to it, one after the other, three
precious stones. Then he said coolly, 'Mademoiselle, you are the victim
of consanguineal sorcery.'
"I could hardly keep from laughing.
"'Remember,' he said, 'two years back, for that is when your paralytic
stroke came on. You must have had a quarrel with a kinsman or
kinswoman?'
"It was true. Poor Marie had been unjustly accused of the theft of a
watch which was an heirloom belonging to an aunt of hers. The aunt had
sworn vengeance.
"'Your aunt lives in Lyons?'
"She nodded.
"'Nothing astonishing about that,' continued the priest. 'In Lyons,
among the lower orders, there are witch doctors who know a little about
the witchcraft practised in the country. But be reassured. These people
are not powerful. They know little more than the A B C's of the art.
Then, mademoiselle, you wish to be cured?'
"And after she replied that she did, he said gently, 'That is all. You
may go.'
"He did not touch her, did not prescribe any remedy. I came away
persuaded that he was a mountebank. But when, three days later, the girl
was able to raise her arms, and all her pain had left her, and when, at
the end of a week, she could walk, I had to yield in face of the
evidence. I went back to see him, had occasion to do him a service; and
thus our relations began."
"But what are his methods?"
"He opens, like the curate of Ars, with prayer. Then he evokes the
militant archangels, then he breaks the magic circles and
chases--'classes,' as he says--the spirits of Evil. I know very well
that this is confounding. Whenever I speak of this man's potency to my
confrères they smile with a superior air or serve up to me the specious
arguments which they have fabricated to explain the cures wrought by
Christ and the Virgin. The method they have imagined consists in
striking the patient's imagination, suggesting to him the will to be
cured, persuading him that he is well, hypnotizing him in a waking
state--so to speak. This done--say they--the twisted legs straighten,
the sores disappear, the consumption-torn lungs are patched up, the
cancers become benign pimples, and the blind eyes see. This procedure
they attribute to miracle workers to explain away the supernatural--why
don't they use the method themselves if it is so simple?"
"But haven't they tried?"
"After a fashion. I was present myself at an experiment attempted by Dr.
Luys. Ah, it was inspiring! At the charity hospital there was a poor
girl paralyzed in both legs. She was put to sleep and commanded to rise.
She struggled in vain. Then two interns held her up in a standing
posture, but her lifeless legs bent useless under her weight. Need I
tell you that she could not walk, and that after they had held her up
and pushed her along a few steps, they put her to bed again, having
obtained no result whatever."
"But Dr. Johannès does not cure all sufferers, without discrimination?"
"No. He will not meddle with any ailments which are not the result of
spells. He says he can do nothing with natural ills, which are the
province of the physician. He is a specialist in Satanic affections. He
has most to do with the possessed whose neuroses have proved obdurate to
hydrotherapeutic treatment."
"What does he do with the precious stones you mentioned?"
"First, before answering your question, I must explain the significance
and virtue of these stones. I shall be telling you nothing new when I
say that Aristotle, Pliny, all the sages of antiquity, attributed
medical and divine virtues to them. According to the pagans, agate and
carnelian stimulate, topaz consoles, jasper cures languor, hyacinth
drives away insomnia, turquoise prevents falls or lightens the shock,
amethyst combats drunkenness.
"Catholic symbolism, in its turn, takes over the precious stones and
sees in them emblems of the Christian virtues. Then, sapphire represents
the lofty aspirations of the soul, chalcedony charity, sard and onyx
candor, beryl allegorizes theological science, hyacinth humility, while
the ruby appeases wrath, and emerald 'lapidifies' incorruptible faith.
"Now in magic," Des Hermies rose and took from a shelf a very small
volume bound like a prayer book. He showed Durtal the title: _Natural
magic, or: The secrets and miracles of nature, in four volumes, by
Giambattista Porta of Naples. Paris. Nicolas Bonjour, rue Neuve Nostre
Dame at the sign Saint Nicolas_. 1584.
"Natural magic," said Des Hermies, "which was merely the medicine of the
time, ascribes a new meaning to gems. Listen to this. After first
celebrating an unknown stone, the Alectorius, which renders its
possessor invincible if it has been taken out of the stomach of a cock
caponized four years before or if it has been ripped out of the
ventricle of a hen, Porta informs us that chalcedony wins law suits,
that carnelian stops bloody flux 'and is exceeding useful to women who
are sick of their flower,' that hyacinth protects against lightning and
keeps away pestilence and poison, that topaz quells 'lunatic' passions,
that turquoise is of advantage against melancholy, quartan fever, and
heart failure. He attests finally that sapphire preserves courage and
keeps the members vigorous, while emerald, hung about one's neck, keeps
away Saint John's evil and breaks when the wearer is unchaste.
"You see, antique philosophy, mediæval Christianity, and sixteenth
century magic do not agree on the specific virtues of every stone.
Almost in every case the significations, more or less far-fetched,
differ. Dr. Johannès has revised these beliefs, adopted and rejected
great numbers of them, finally he has, on his own authority, admitted
new acceptations. According to him, amethyst does cure drunkenness; but
moral drunkenness, pride; ruby relieves sex pressure; beryl fortifies
the will; sapphire elevates the thoughts and turns them toward God.
"In brief, he believes that every stone corresponds to a species of
malady, and also to a class of sins; and he affirms that when we have
chemically got possession of the active principle of gems we shall have
not only antidotes but preventatives. While waiting for this chimerical
dream to be realized and for our medicine to become the mock of lapidary
chemists, he uses precious stones to formulate diagnoses of illnesses
produced by sorcery."
"How?"
"He claims that when such or such a stone is placed in the hand or on
the affected part of the bewitched a fluid escapes from the stone into
his hands, and that by examining this fluid he can tell what is the
matter. In this connection he told me that a woman whom he did not know
came to him one day to consult him about a malady, pronounced incurable,
from which she had suffered since childhood. He could not get any
precise answers to his questions. He saw no signs of venefice. After
trying out his whole array of stones he placed in her hand lapis lazuli,
which, he says, corresponds to the sin of incest. He examined the stone.
"'Your malady,' he said, 'is the consequence of an act of incest.'
"'Well,' she said, 'I did not come here to confessional,' but she
finally admitted that her father had violated her before she attained
the age of puberty.
"That, of course, is against reason and contrary to all accepted ideas,
but there is no getting around the fact that this priest cures patients
whom we physicians have given up for lost."
"Such as the only astrologer Paris now can boast, the astounding
Gévingey, who would have been dead without his aid. I wonder how
Gévingey came to cast the Empress Eugenie's horoscope."
"Oh, I told you. Under the Empire the Tuileries was a hotbed of magic.
Home, the American, was revered as the equal of a god. In addition to
spiritualistic séances he evoked demons at court. One evocation had
fatal consequences. A certain marquis, whose wife had died, implored
Home to let him see her again. Home took him to a room, put him in bed,
and left him. What ensued? What dreadful phantom rose from the tomb? Was
the story of Ligeia re-enacted? At any rate, the marquis was found dead
at the foot of the bed. This story has recently been reported by Le
Figaro from unimpeachable documents.
"You see it won't do to play with the world spirits of Evil. I used to
know a rich bachelor who had a mania for the occult sciences. He was
president of a theosophic society and he even wrote a little book on the
esoteric doctrine, in the Isis series. Well, he could not, like the
Péladan and Papus tribe, be content with knowing nothing, so he went to
Scotland, where Diabolism is rampant. There he got in touch with the man
who, if you stake him, will initiate you into the Satanic arcana. My
friend made the experiment. Did he see him whom Bulwer Lytton in
_Zanoni_ calls 'the dweller of the threshold'? I don't know, but certain
it is that he fainted from horror and returned to France exhausted, half
dead."
"Evidently all is not rosy in that line of work," said Durtal. "But it
is only spirits of Evil that can be evoked?"
"Do you suppose that the Angels, who, of earth, obey only the saints,
would ever consent to take orders from the first comer?"
"But there must be an intermediate order of angels, who are neither
celestial nor infernal, who, for instance, commit the well-known
asininities in the spiritist séances."
"A priest told me one day that the neuter larvæ inhabit an invisible,
neutral territory, something like a little island, which is beseiged on
all sides by the good and evil spirits. The larvæ cannot long hold out
and are soon forced into one or the other camp. Now, because it is these
larvæ they evoke, the occultists, who cannot, of course, draw down the
angels, always get the ones who have joined the party of Evil, so
unconsciously and probably involuntarily the spiritist is always
diabolizing."
"Yes, and if one admits the disgusting idea that an imbecile medium can
bring back the dead, one must, in reason, recognize the stamp of Satan
on these practises."
"However viewed, Spiritism is an abomination."
"So you don't believe in theurgy, white magic?"
"It's a joke. Only a Rosicrucian who wants to hide his more repulsive
essays at black magic ever hints at such a thing. No one dare confess
that he satanizes. The Church, not duped by these hair-splitting
distinctions, condemns black and white magic indifferently."
"Well," said Durtal, lighting a cigarette, after a silence, "this is a
better topic of conversation than politics or the races, but where does
it get us? Half of these doctrines are absurd, the other half so
mysterious as to produce only bewilderment. Shall we grant Satanism?
Well, gross as it is, it seems a sure thing. And if it is, and one is
consistent, one must also grant Catholicism--for Buddhism and the like
are not big enough to be substituted for the religion of Christ."
"All right. Believe."
"I can't. There are so many discouraging and revolting dogmas in
Christianity--"
"I am uncertain about a good many things, myself," said Des Hermies,
"and yet there are moments when I feel that the obstacles are giving
way, that I almost believe. Of one thing I _am_ sure. The supernatural
does exist, Christian or not. To deny it is to deny evidence--and who
wants to be a materialist, one of these silly freethinkers?"
"It is mighty tiresome to be vacillating forever. How I envy Carhaix his
robust faith!"
"You don't want much!" said Des Hermies. "Faith is the breakwater of the
soul, affording the only haven in which dismasted man can glide along in
peace."