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"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 Joha
"I know that priest," remarked Des Hermies.
"And the act is consummated in the same ma
"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 cha
"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 Joha
"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 gehe