“That and the witchcraft and incubacy and succubacy which I will tell you about; or rather, I will get another more expert than I in these matters to tell you about them. Sacrilegious mass, spells, and succubacy. There you have the real quintessence of Satanism.”
“And these hosts consecrated in blasphemous offices, what use is made of them when they are not simply destroyed?”
“But I already told you. They are used to consummate infamous acts. Listen,” and Des Hermies took from the bell-ringers bookshelf the fifth volume of the Mystik of Görres. “Here is the flower of them all:
“ ‘These priests, in their baseness, often go so far as to celebrate the mass with great hosts which then they cut through the middle and afterwards glue to a parchment, similarly cloven, and use abominably to satisfy their passions.’ ”
“Holy sodomy, in other words?”
“Exactly.”
At this moment the bell, set in motion in the tower, boomed out. The chamber in which Durtal and Des Hermies were sitting trembled and a droning filled the air. It seemed that waves of sound came out of the walls, unrolling in a spiral from the very rock, and that one was transported, in a dream, into the inside of one of these shells which, when held up to the ear, simulate the roar of rolling billows. Des Hermies, accustomed to the mighty resonance of the bells at short range, thought only of the coffee, which he had put on the stove to keep hot.
Then the booming of the bell came more slowly. The humming departed from the air. The window panes, the glass of the bookcase, the tumblers on the table, ceased to rattle and gave off only a tenuous tinkling.
A step was heard on the stair. Carhaix entered, covered with snow.
“Cristi, boys, it blows!” He shook himself, threw his heavy outer garments on a chair, and extinguished his lantern. “There were blinding clouds of snow whirling in between the sounding-shutters. I can hardly see. Dog’s weather. The lady has gone to bed? Good. But you haven’t drunk your coffee?” he asked as he saw Durtal filling the glasses.
Carhaix went up to the stove and poked the fire, then dried his eyes, which the bitter cold had filled with tears, and drank a great draught of coffee.
“Now. That hits the spot. How far had you got with your lecture, Des Hermies?”
“I finished the rapid expose of Satanism, but I haven’t yet spoken of the genuine monster, the only real master that exists at the present time, that defrocked abbé—”
“Oh!” exclaimed Carhaix. “Take care. The mere name of that man brings disaster.”
“Bah! Canon Docre—to utter his ineffable name—can do nothing to us. I confess I cannot understand why he should inspire any terror. But never mind. I should like for Durtal, before we hunt up the canon, to see your friend Gévingey, who seems to be best and most intimately acquainted with him. A conversation with Gévingey would considerably amplify my contributions to the study of Satanism, especially as regards venefices and succubacy. Let’s see. Would you mind if we invited him here to dine?”
Carhaix scratched his head, then emptied the ashes of his pipe on his thumbnail.
“Well, you see, the fact is, we have had a slight disagreement.”
“What about?”
“Oh, nothing very serious. I interrupted his experiments here one day. But pour yourself some liqueur, Monsieur Durtal, and you, Des Hermies, why, you aren’t drinking at all,” and while, lighting their cigarettes, both sipped a few drops of almost proof cognac, Carhaix resumed, “Gévingey, who, though an astrologer, is a good Christian and an honest man—whom, indeed, I should be glad to see again—wished to consult my bells.
“That surprises you, but it’s so. Bells formerly played quite an important part in the forbidden science. The art of predicting the future with their sounds is one of the least known and most disused branches of the occult. Gévingey had dug up some documents, and wished to verify them in the tower.”
“Why, what did he do?”
“How do I know? He stood under the bell, at the risk of breaking his bones—a man of his age on the scaffolding there! He was halfway into the bell, the bell like a great hat, you see, coming clear down over his hips. And he soliloquized aloud and listened to the repercussions of his voice making the bronze vibrate.
“He spoke to me also of the interpretation of dreams about bells. According to him, whoever, in his sleep, sees bells swinging, is menaced by an accident; if the bell chimes, it is presage of slander; if it falls, ataxia is certain; if it breaks, it is assurance of afflictions and miseries. Finally he added, I believe, that if the night birds fly around a bell by moonlight one may be sure that sacrilegious robbery will be committed in the church, or that the curate’s life is in danger.
“Be all that as it may, this business of touching the bells, getting up into them—and you know they’re consecrated—of attributing to them the gift of prophecy, of involving them in the interpretation of dream—an art formally forbidden in Leviticus—displeased me, and I demanded, somewhat rudely, that he desist.”
“But you did not quarrel?”
“No, and I confess I regret having been so hasty.”
“Well then, I will arrange it. I shall go see him—agreed?” said Des Hermies.
“By all means.”
“With that we must run along and give you a chance to get to bed, seeing that you have to be up at dawn.”
“Oh, at half-past five for the six o’clock angelus, and then, if I want to, I can go back to bed, for I don’t have to ring again till a quarter to eight, and then all I have to do is sound a couple of times for the curate’s mass. As you can see, I have a pretty easy thing of it.”
“Mmmm!” exclaimed Durtal, “if I had to get up so early!”
“It’s all a matter of habit. But before you go won’t you have another little drink?
