“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 larvae? 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 , 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 Caesaraeus 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 . 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
