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"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 ca
"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."
CHAPTER XXII
"You like that?" asked Mme. Carhaix. "For a change I served the broth yesterday and kept the beef for tonight. So we'll have vermicelli soup, a salad of cold meat with pickled herring and celery, some nice mashed potatoes au gratin, and a dessert. And then you shall taste the new cider we just got."
"Oh!" and "Ah!" exclaimed Des Hermies and Durtal, who, while waiting for di
"Oh, you are joking. I wonder what is keeping Louis."
"Somebody is coming upstairs," said Durtal, hearing the creaking of shoes in the tower.
"No, it isn't his step," and she went and opened the door. "It's Monsieur Gévingey."
And indeed, clad in his blue cape, with his soft black hat on his head, the astrologer entered, made a bow, like an actor taking a curtain call, nibbed his great knuckles against his massive rings, and asked where the bell-ringer was.
"He is at the carpenter's. The oak beams holding up the big bell are cracked and Louis is afraid they will break down."
"Any news of the election?" and Gévingey took out his pipe and filled it.
"No. In this quarter we shan't know the results until nearly ten o'clock. There's no doubt about the outcome, though, because Paris is strong for this democratic stuff. General Boulanger will win hands down."
"This certainly is the age of universal imbecility."
Carhaix entered and apologized for being so late. While his wife brought in the soup he took off his goloshes and said, in answer to his friends' questions, "Yes; the dampness had rusted the frets and warped the beams. It was time for the carpenter to intervene. He finally promised that he would be here tomorrow and bring his men without fail. Well, I am mighty glad to get back. In the streets everything whirls in front of my eyes. I am dizzy. I don't know what to do. The only places where I am at home are the belfry and this room. Here, wife, let me do that," and he pushed her aside and began to stir the salad.
"How good it smells!" said Durtal, drinking in the incisive tang of the herring. "Do you know what this perfume suggests? A basket fu
"We'll make it again for you, Monsieur Durtal," said Mme. Carhaix, "you are not hard to please."
"Alas!" said her husband, "his palate isn't, but his soul is. When I think of his despairing aphorisms of the other night! However, we are praying God to enlighten him. I'll tell you," he said to his wife, "we will invoke Saint Nolasque and Saint Theodulus, who are always represented with bells. They sort of belong to the family, and they will certainly be glad to intercede for people who revere them and their emblems."
"It would take a stu
"Bells have been known to perform them," said the astrologer. "I remember to have read, though I forget where, that angels tolled the knell when Saint Isidro of Madrid was dying."
"And there are many other cases," said Carhaix. "Of their own accord the bells chimed when Saint Sigisbert chanted the De Profundis over the corpse of the martyr Placidus, and when the body of Saint E
"Do you know what I think?" asked Des Hermies, looking at Carhaix. "I think you ought to prepare a compendium of hagiography or a really informative work on heraldry."
"What makes you think that?"
"Well, you are, thank God, remote from this epoch and fond of things which it knows nothing about or execrates, and a work of that kind would take you still further away. My good friend, you are the man forever unintelligible to the coming generations. To ring bells because you love them, to give yourself over to the abandoned study of feudal art or monasticism would make you complete-take you clear out of Paris, out of the world, back into the Middle Ages."
"Alas," said Carhaix, "I am only a poor ignorant man. But the type you speak of does exist. In Switzerland, I believe, a bell-ringer has for years been collecting material for a heraldic memorial. I should think," he continued, laughing, "that his avocation would interfere with his vocation."