“And sacrilege carries one out of oneself in furious transports, in voluptuous delirium, which nothing can equal. Since the Middle Ages it has been the coward’s crime, for human justice does not prosecute it, and one can commit it with impunity, but it is the most extreme of excesses for a believer, and Docre believes in Christ, or he wouldn’t hate Him so.
“A monster! And what ignoble relations he must have had with Chantelouve’s wife! Now, how shall I make her speak up? She gave me quite clearly to understand, the other day, that she refused to explain herself on this topic. Meanwhile, as I have not intention of submitting to her young girl follies tonight, I will tell her that I am not feeling well, and that absolute rest and quiet are necessary.”
He did so, an hour later when she came in.
She proposed a cup of tea, and when he refused, she embraced him and nursed him like a baby. Then withdrawing a little, “You work too hard. You need some relaxation. Come now, to pass the time you might court me a little, because up to now I have done it all. No? That idea does not amuse him. Let us try something else. Shall we play hide-and-seek with the cat? He shrugs his shoulders. Well, since there is nothing to change your grouchy expression, let us talk. What has become of your friend Des Hermies?”
“Nothing in particular.”
“And his experiments with Mattei medicine?”
“I don’t know whether he continues to prosecute them or not.”
“Well, I see that the conversational possibilities of that topic are exhausted. You know your replies are not very encouraging, dear.”
“But,” he said, “everybody sometimes gets so he doesn’t answer questions at great length. I even know a young woman who becomes excessively laconic when interrogated on a certain subject.”
“Of a canon, for instance.”
“Precisely.”
She crossed her legs, very coolly. “That young woman undoubtedly had reasons for keeping still. But perhaps that young woman is really eager to oblige the person who cross-examines her; perhaps, since she last saw him, she has gone to a great deal of trouble to satisfy his curiosity.”
“Look here, Hyacinthe darling, explain yourself,” he said, squeezing her hands, an expression of joy on his face.
“If I have made your mouth water so as not to have a grouchy face in front of my eyes, I have succeeded remarkably.”
He kept still, wondering whether she was making fun of him or whether she really was ready to tell him what he wanted to know.
“Listen,” she said. “I hold firmly by my decision of the other night. I will not permit you to become acquainted with Canon Docre. But at a settled time I can arrange, without your forming any relations with him, to have you be present at the ceremony you most desire to know about.”
“The Black Mass?”
“Yes. Within a week Docre will have left Paris. If once, in my company, you see him, you will never see him afterward. Keep your evenings free all this week. When the time comes I will notify you. But you may thank me, dear, because to be useful to you I am disobeying the commands of my confessor, whom I dare not see now, so I am damning myself.”
He kissed her, then, “Seriously, that man is really a monster?”
“I fear so. In any case I would not wish anybody the misfortune of having him for an enemy.”
“I should say not, if he poisons people by magic, as he seems to have done Gévingey.”
“And he probably has. I should not like to be in the astrologer’s shoes.”
“You believe in Docre’s potency, then. Tell me, how does he operate, with the blood of mice, with broths, or with oil?”
“So you know about that! He does employ these substances. In fact, he is one of the very few persons who know how to manage them without poisoning themselves. It’s as dangerous as working with explosives. Frequently, though, when attacking defenceless persons, he uses simpler recipes. He distils extracts of poison and adds sulphuric acid to fester the wound, then he dips in this compound the point of a lancet with which he has his victim pricked by a flying spirit or a larva. It is ordinary, well-known magic, that of Rosicrucians and tyros.”
Durtal burst out laughing. “But, my dear, to hear you, one would think death could be sent to a distance like a letter.”
“Well, isn’t cholera transmitted by letters? Ask the sanitary corps. Don’t they disinfect all mail in the time of epidemics?”
“I don’t contradict that, but the case is not the same.”
“It is too, because it is the question of transmission, invisibility, distance, which astonishes you.”
“What astonishes me more than that is to hear of the Rosicrucians actively satanizing. I confess that I had never considered them as anything more than harmless suckers and funereal fakes.”
“But all societies are composed of suckers and the wily leaders who exploit them. That’s the case of the Rosicrucians. Yes, their leaders privately attempt crime. One does not need to be erudite or intelligent to practise the ritual of spells. At any rate, and I affirm this, there is among them a former man of letters whom I know. He lives with a married woman, and they pass the time, he and she, trying to kill the husband by sorcery.”
“Well, it has its advantages over divorce, that system has.”
She pouted. “I shan’t say another word. I think you are making fun of me. You don’t believe in anything—”
“Indeed. I was not laughing at you. I haven’t very precise ideas on this subject. I admit
