From this scene he had learned an alarming lesson: that the flesh domineers the soul and refuses to admit any schism. The flesh decisively does not intend that one shall get along without it and indulge in out-of-the-world pleasures which it can partake only on condition that it keep quiet. For the first time, reviewing these turpitudes, he really understood the meaning of that now obsolete word chastity, and he savoured it in all its pristine freshness. Just as a man who has drunk too deeply the night before thinks, the morning after, of drinking nothing but mineral water in future, so he dreamed, today, of pure affection far from a bed.
He was still ruminating these thoughts when Des Hermies entered.
They spoke of amorous misadventures. Astonished at once by Durtal’s languor and the ascetic tone of his remarks, Des Hermies exclaimed, "Ah, we had a gay old time last night?"
With the most decisive bad grace Durtal shook his head. "Then," replied Des Hermies, "you are superior and inhuman. To love without hope, immaculately, would be perfect if it did riot induct such brainstorms. There is no excuse for chastity, unless one has a pious end in view, or unless the senses are failing, and if they are one had best see a doctor, who will solve the question more or less unsatisfactorily. To tell the truth, everything on earth culminates in the act you reprove. The heart, which is supposed to be the noble part of man, has the same form as the penis, which is the so — called ignoble part of man. There’s symbolism in that similarity, because every love which is of the heart soon extends to the organ resembling it. The human imagination, the moment it tries to create artificially animated beings, involuntarily reproduces in them the movements of animals propagating. Look at the machines, the action of the piston and the cylinder; Romeos of steel and Juliets of cast iron. Nor do the loftier expressions of the human intellect get away from the advance and withdrawal copied by the machines. One must bow to nature’s law if one is neither impotent nor a saint. Now you are neither the one nor the other, I think, but if, from inconceivable motives, you desire to live in temporary continence, follow the prescription of an occultist of the sixteenth century, the Neapolitan Piperno. He affirms that whoever eats vervain cannot approach a woman for seven days. Buy a jar, and let’s try it."
Durtal laughed. "There is perhaps a middle course:
never consummate the carnal act with her you love, and, to keep yourself quiet, frequent those you do not love. Thus, in a certain measure, you would conjure away possible disgust."
"No, one would never get it out of one’s head that with the woman of whom one was enamoured one would experience carnal delights absolutely different from those which one feels with the others, so your method also would end badly. And too, the women who would not be indifferent to one, have not charity and discretion enough to admire the wisdom of this selfishness, for of course that’s what it is, But what say, now, to putting on your shoes? It’s almost six o’clock and Mama Carhaix’s beef can’t wait."
It had already been taken out of the pot and couched on a platter amid vegetables when they arrived. Carhaix, sprawling in an armchair, was reading his breviary.
"What’s going on in the world?" he asked, closing his book.
"Nothing. Politics doesn’t interest us, and General Boulanger’s American tricks of publicity weary you as much as they do us, I suppose. The other newspaper stories are just a little more shocking or dull than usual. Look out, you’ll burn your mouth," as Durtal was preparing to take a spoonful of soup.
"In fact," said Durtal, grimacing, "this marrowy soup, so artistically golden, is like liquid fire. But speaking of the news, what do you mean by saying there is nothing of pressing importance? And the trial of that astonishing abbé Boudes going on before the Assizes of Aveyron! After trying to poison his curate through the sacramental wine, and committing such other crimes as abortion, rape, flagrant misconduct, forgery, qualified theft and usury, he ended by appropriating the money put in the coin boxes for the souls in purgatory, and pawning the ciborium, chalice, all the holy vessels. That case is worth following."
Carhaix raised his eyes to heaven.
"If he is not sent to jail, there will be one more priest for Paris," said Des Hermies.
"How’s that?"
"Why, all the ecclesiastics who get in bad in the provinces, or who have a serious falling out with the bishop, are sent here where they will be less in view, lost in the crowd, as it were. They form a part of that corporation known as ’scratch priests.’
"What are they?"
"Priests loosely attached to a parish. You know that in addition to a curate, ministrants, vicars, and regular clergy, there are in every church adjunct priests, supply priests. Those are the ones I am talking about. They do the heavy work, celebrate the morning masses when everybody is asleep and the late masses when everybody is doing. It is they who get up at night to take the sacrament to the poor, and who sit up with the corpses of the devout rich and catch cold standing under the dripping church porches at funerals, and get sunstroke or pneumonia in the cemetery. They do all the dirty work. For a five or ten franc fee they act as substitutes for colleagues who have good livings and are tired of service. They are men under a cloud for the most part. Churches take them on, ready to fire them at a moment’s notice, and keep strict watch over them while waiting for them to be interdicted or to have their celebret taken away. I simply mean that the provincial parishes excavate on the city the priests who for one reason or another have ceased to please."
"But what do the curates and other titulary abbés do, if they unload their duties onto the backs of others?"
"They do the elegant, easy work, which requires no effort, no charity. They shrive society women who come to confession in their most stunning gowns; they teach proper little prigs the catechism, and preach, and play the limelight roles in the gala ceremonials which are got up to pander to the tastes of the faithful. At Paris, not counting the scratch priests, the clergy is divided thus: Man-of-the-world priests in easy circumstances: these are placed at la Madeleine and Saint Roch where the congregations are wealthy. They are wined and dined, they pass their lives in drawing-rooms, and comfort only elegant souls. Other priests who are good desk clerks, for the most part, but who have neither the education nor the fortune necessary to participate in the inconsequentialities of the idle rich. They live more in seclusion and visit only among the middle class. They console them-selves for their unfashionableness by playing cards with each other and uttering crude commonplaces at the table."
"Now, Des Hermies," said Carhaix, "you are going too far. I claim to know the clerical world myself, and there are, even in Paris, honest men who do their duty. They are covered with opprobrium and spat on. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry accuses them of the foulest vices. But after all, it must be said that the abbé Boudes and the Canon Docres are exceptions, thank God! and outside of Paris there are veritable saints, especially among the country clergy."
"It’s a fact that Satanic priests are relatively rare, and the lecheries of the clergy and the knaveries of the episcopate are evidently exaggerated by an ignoble press. But that isn’t what I have against them. If only they were gamblers and libertines! But they’re lukewarm, mediocre, lazy, imbeciles. That is their sin against the Holy Ghost, the only sin which the All Merciful does not pardon."
"They are of their time," said Durtal. "You wouldn’t expect to find the soul of the Middle Ages inculcated by the milk-and-water seminaries."
"Then," Carhaix observed, "our friend forgets that there are impeccable monastic orders, the Carthusians, for instance."
"Yes, and the Trappists and the Franciscans. But they are cloistered orders which live in shelter from an infamous century. Take, on the other hand, the order of Saint Dominic, which exists for the fashionable world. That is the order which produces jewelled dudes like Monsabre and Didon. Enough said."
"They are the hussars of religion, the jaunty lancers, the spick and span and primped-up Zouaves, while the good Capuchins are the humble poilus of the soul," said Durtal.
"If only they loved bells," sighed Carhaix, shaking his head. "Well, pass the Coulommiers," he said to his wife, who was taking up the salad bowl and the plates.
In silence they ate this Brie-type cheese. Des Hermies filled the glasses.
"Tell me," Durtal asked Des Hermies, "do you know whether a woman who receives visits from the incubi necessarily has a cold body? In other words, is a cold body a presumable symptom of incubacy, as of old the inability to, shed tears served the Inquisition as proof positive to convict witches?"
"Yes, I can answer you. Formerly women smitten with incubacy had frigid flesh even in the month of August. The books of the specialists bear witness. But now the majority of the creatures who voluntarily or involuntarily summon or receive the amorous larvae have, on the contrary, a skin that is burning and dry to the touch. This transformation is not yet general, but tends to become so. I remember very well that Dr. Johannès, he of whom Gevingey told you, was often obliged, at the moment when he attempted to deliver the patient, to bring the body back to normal temperature with lotions of dilute hydriodate of potassium."
"Ah!" said Durtal, who was thinking of Mme. Chantelouve.
"You don’t know what has become of Dr. Johannès?" asked Carhaix.
"He is living very much in retirement at Lyons. He continues, I believe, to cure venefices, and he preaches the blessed coming of the Paraclete."
"For heaven’s sake, who is this doctor?" asked Durtal.
"He is a very intelligent and learned priest. He was superior of a community, and he directed, here in Paris, the only review which ever was really mystical. He was a theologian much consulted, a recognised master of divine jurisprudence; then he had distressing quarrels with the papal Curia at Rome and with the Cardinal-Archbishop of Paris. His exorcisms and his battles against the incubi, especially in the female convents, ruined him.
"Ah, I remember the last time I saw him, as if it were yesterday. I met him in the rue Grenelle coming out of the Archbishop’s house, the day he quitted the Church, after a scene which he told me all about. Again I can see that priest walking with me along the deserted boulevard des Invalides. He was pale, and his defeated but impressive voice trembled. He had been summoned and commanded to explain his actions in the case of an epileptic woman whom he claimed to have cured with the aid of a relic, the seamless robe of Christ preserved at Argenteuil. The Cardinal, assisted by two grand vicars, listened to him, standing.
"When he had likewise furnished the information which they demanded about his cures of witch spells, Cardinal Guibert said, ’You had best go to La Trappe.’
"And I remember word for word his reply, ’If I have violated the laws of the Church, I am ready to undergo the penalty of my fault. If you think me culpable, pass a canonical judgement and I will execute it, I swear on my sacerdotal honour; but I wish a formal sentence, for, in law, nobody is bound to condemn himself: Nemo se tradere tenetur; says the Corpus Juris Canonici.’
"There was a copy of his review on the table. The Cardinal pointed to a page and asked, ’Did you write that?’
"’Yes, Eminence.’
’Infamous doctrines !’ and he went from his office into the next room, crying, ’Out of my sight!’
"Then Johannes advanced as far as the threshold of the other room, and falling on his knees, he said, ’Eminence, I had no intention of offending. If I have done so, I beg forgiveness.’
"The Cardinal cried more loudly, ’Out of. my sight before I call for assistance!’
"Johannes rose and left.
"’All my old ties are broken,’ he said, as he parted from me. He was so sad that I had not the heart to question him further."
There was a silence. Carhaix went up to his tower to ring a peal. His wife removed the dessert dishes and the cloth. Des Hermies prepared the coffee. Durtal, pensive, rolled his cigarette.
Carhaix, when he returned, as if enveloped in a fog of sounds, exclaimed, "A while ago, Des Hermies, you were speaking of the Franciscans. Do you know that that order, to live up to its professions of poverty, was supposed not to possess even a bell? True, this rule has been relaxed some-what. It was too severe! Now they have a bell, but only one.
"Just like most other abbeys, then."
"No, because all communities have at least three. in honour of the holy and triple Hypostasis."
"Do you mean to say that the number of bells a monastery or church can have is limited by rule?"
"Formerly it was. There was a pious hierarchy of ringing: the bells of a convent could not sound when the bells of a church pealed. They were the vassals, and, respectful and submissive as became their rank, they were silent when the Suzerain spoke to the multitudes. These principles of procedure, consecrated, in 1590, by a canon of the Council of Toulouse and confirmed by two decrees of the Congress of Rites, are no longer followed. The rulings of San Carlo Borromeo, who decreed that a church should have from five to seven bells, a boy’s academy three, and a parochial school two, are abolished. Today churches have more or fewer bells as they are more or less rich... Oh, well, why worry? Where are the little glasses?"
His wife brought them, shook hands with the guests, and retired.
Then. while Carhaix was pouring the cognac, Des Hermies said in a low voice, "I did not want to speak before her, because these matters distress and frighten her, but I received a singular visit this morning from Gevingey, who is running over to Lyons to see Dr. Johannès. He claims to have been bewitched by Canon Docre, who, it seems, is making a flying visit to Paris. What have been their relations? I don’t know. Anyway, Gevingey is in a deplorable state."
"Just what seems to be the matter with him?" asked Durtal.
"I positively do not know. I made a careful auscultation and examined him thoroughly. He complains of needles pricking him around the heart. I observed nervous trouble and nothing else. What? I am most worried about is a state of enfeeblement inexplicable in a man who is neither cancerous nor diabetical."
"Ah," said Carhaix, "I suppose people are not bewitched now with wax images and needles, with the ’Manei’ or the ’Dagyde’ as it was called in the good old days."
"No, those practices are now out of date and almost everywhere fallen into disuse. Gevingey who took me completely into his confidence this morning, told me what extraordinary recipes the frightful canon uses. These are, it seems, the unrevealed secrets of modern magic."
"Ah, that’s what interests me," exclaimed Durtal.
"Of course I limit myself to repeating what was told me," resumed Des Hermies, lighting his cigarette. "Well, Docre keeps white mice in cages, and he takes them along when he travels. He feeds them on consecrated hosts and on pastes impregnated with poisons skilfully dosed. When these unhappy beasts are saturated, he takes them, holds them over a chalice, and with a very sharp instrument he pricks them here and there. The blood flows into the vase and he uses it, in a way which I shall explain in a moment, to strike his enemies with death. Formerly he operated on chickens and guinea pigs, but he used the grease, not the blood, of these animals, become thus execrated and venomous tabernacles.
"Formerly he also used a recipe discovered by the Satanic society of the Re-Theurgistes-Optimates, of which I have spoken before, and he prepared a hash composed of flour, meat, Eucharist bread, mercury, animal semen, human blood, acetate of morphine and aspic oil.
"Latterly, and according to Gevingey this abomination is more perilous yet, he stuffs fishes with communion bread and with toxins skilfully graduated. These toxins are chosen from those which produce madness or lockjaw when absorbed through the pores. Then, when these fishes are thoroughly permeated with the substances sealed by sacrilege, Docre takes them out of the water, lets them rot, distils them, and expresses from them an essential oil one drop of which will produce madness. This drop, it appears, is applied externally, by touching the hair, as in Balzac’s Thirteen."
"Hmmm," said Durtal, "I am afraid that a drop of this oil long ago fell on the scalp of poor old Gevingey."
"What is interesting about this story is not the outlandishness of these diabolical pharmacopoeia so much as the psychology of the persons who invent and manipulate them. Think. This is happening at the present day, and it is the priests who have invented philtres unknown to the sorcerers of the Middle Ages."
"The priests, no! A priest. And what a priest!" remarked Carhaix.
"Gevingey is very precise. He affirms that others use them. Bewitchment by viniferous blood of mice took place in 1879 at Chalons-sur-Marne in a demoniac circle — to which the canon belonged, it is true. In 1883, in Savoy, the oil of which I have spoken was prepared in a group of defrocked abbés. As you see, Docre is not the only one who practices this abominable science. It is known in the convents; some laymen, even, have an inkling of it."
"But now, admitting that these preparations are real and that they are active, you have not explained how one can poison a man with them either from a distance or near at hand."
"Yes, that’s another matter. One has a choice of two methods to reach the enemy one is aiming at. The first and least used is this: the magician employs a voyant, a woman who is known in that world as ’a flying spirit’; she is a somnambulist, who, put into a hypnotic state, can betake herself, in spirit, wherever one wishes her to go. It is then possible to have her transmit the magic poisons to a person whom one designates, hundreds of leagues away. Those who are stricken in this manner have seen no one, and they go mad, or die without suspecting the venefice. But these voyants are not only rare, they are also unreliable, because other persons can likewise fix them in a cataleptic state and extract confessions from them. So you see why persons like Docre have recourse to the second method, which is surer. It consists in evoking, just as in Spiritism, the soul of a dead person and sending it to strike the victim with the prepared spell. The result is the same but the vehicle is different. There," concluded Des Hermies, "reported with painstaking exactness, are the confidences which our friend Gevingey made me this morning."
"And Dr. Johannes cures people poisoned in this manner?" asked Carhaix.
"Yes, Dr. Johannes — to my knowledge — has made inexplicable cures."
"But with what?"
"Gevingey tells me, in this connection, that the doctor celebrates a sacrifice to the glory of Melchisedek. I haven’t the faintest idea what this sacrifice is, but Gevingey will perhaps enlighten us if he returns cured."
"In spite of all, I should not be displeased, once in my life to get a good look at Canon Docre," said Durtal.
"Not I! He is the incarnation of the Accursed on earth I" cried Carhaix, assisting his friends to put on their overcoats.
He lighted his lantern, and while they were descending the stair, as Durtal complained of the cold, Des Hermies burst into a laugh
"If your family had known the magical secrets of the plants, you would not shiver this way," he said. It was learned in the sixteenth century that a child might be immune to heat or cold all his life if his hands were rubbed with juice of absinthe before the twelfth month of his life had passed. That, you see, is a tempting prescription, less dangerous than those which Canon Docre abuses."
Once below, after Carhaix had closed the door of his tower, they hastened their steps, for the north wind swept the square.
"After all," said Des Hermies, "Satanism aside — and yet Satanism also is a phase of religion — admit that, for two miscreants of our sort, we hold singularly pious conversations. I hope they will be counted in our favour up above."
"No merit on our part," replied Durtal, "for what else is there to talk about? Conversations which do not treat of religion or art are so base and vain."
CHAPTER XV
The memory of these frightful magisteria kept racing through his head next day, and, while smoking cigarettes beside the fire, Durtal thought of Docre and Johannes fighting across Gevingey’s back, smiting and parrying with incantations and exorcisms.
"In the Christian symbolism," he said to himself, "the fish is one of the representations of Christ. Doubtless the Canon thinks to aggravate his sacrileges by feeding fishes on genuine hosts. His is the reverse of the system of the mediaeval witches who chose a vile beast dedicated to the Devil to submit the body of the Saviour to the processes of digestion. How real is the pretended power which the deicide chemists are alleged to wield? What faith can we put in the tales of evoked larvae killing a designated person to order with corrosive oil and blood virus? None, unless one is extremely credulous, and even a bit mad.
"And yet, come to think of it, we find today, unexplained and surviving under other names, the mysteries which were so long reckoned the product of mediaeval imagination and superstition, At the charity hospital Dr. Louis transfers maladies from one hypnotised person to another. Wherein is that less miraculous than evocation of demons, than spells cast by magicians or pastors? A larva, a flying spirit, is not, indeed, more extraordinary than a microbe coming from afar and poisoning one without one’s knowledge, and the atmosphere can certainly convey spirits as well as bacilli. Certainly the ether carries, untransformed, emanations, effluences, electricity, for instance, or the fluids of a magnet which sends to a distant subject an order to traverse all Paris to rejoin it. Science has no call to contest these phenomena. On the other hand, Dr. Brown-Sequard rejuvenates infirm old men and revitalises the impotent with distillations from the parts of rabbits and cavies. Were not the elixirs of life and the love philtres which the witches sold to the senile and impotent composed of similar or analogous substances? Human semen entered almost always, in the Middle Ages, into the compounding of these mixtures. Now, hasn’t Dr. Brown-Sequard, after repeated experiments, recently demonstrated the virtues of semen taken from one man and instilled into another?
"Finally, the apparitions, doppelganger, bilocation — to speak thus of the spirits-that terrified antiquity, have not ceased to manifest themselves. It would be difficult to prove that the experiments carried on for three years by Dr. Crookes in the presence of witnesses were cheats. If he has been able to photograph visible and tangible spectres, we must recognise the veracity of the medieval thaumaturges. Incredible, of course — and wasn’t hypnotism, possession of one soul by another which could dedicate it to crime — incredible only ten years ago?
"We are groping in shadow, that is sure. But Des Hermies hit the bull’s-eye when he remarked, ’It is less important to know whether the modern pharmaceutic sacrileges are potent, than to study the motives of the Satanists and fallen priests who prepare them.’
"Ah, if there were some way of getting acquainted with Canon Docre, of insinuating oneself into his confidence, perhaps one would attain clear insight into these questions. I learned long ago that there are no people interesting to know except saints, scoundrels, and cranks. They are the only persons whose conversation amounts to anything. Persons of good sense are necessarily dull, because they revolve over and over again the tedious topics of everyday life. They are the crowd, more or less intelligent, but they are the crowd, and they give me a pain. Yes, but who will put me in touch with this monstrous priest?" and, as he poked the fire, Durtal said to himself, "Chantelouve, if he would, but he won’t. There remains his wife, who used to be well acquainted with Docre. I must interrogate her and find out whether she still corresponds with him and sees him."
The entrance of Mme. Chantelouve into his reflections saddened him. He took out his watch and murmured, "What a bore. She will come again, and again I shall have to-if only there were any possibility of convincing her of the futility of the carnal somersaults! In any case, she can’t be very well pleased, because, to her frantic letter soliciting a meeting, I responded three days later by a brief, dry note, inviting her to come here this evening. It certainly was lacking in lyricism, too much so, perhaps."
He rose and went into his bedroom to make sure that the fire was burning brightly, then he returned and sat down, without even arranging his room as he had the other times. Now that he no longer cared for this woman, gallantry and self-consciousness had fled. He awaited her without impatience, his slippers on his feet.
"To tell the truth, I have had nothing pleasant from Hyacinthe except that kiss we exchanged when her husband was only a few feet away. I certainly shall not again find her lips aflame and fragrant. Here her kiss is insipid."
Mme. Chantelouve rang earlier than usual.
"Well," she said, sitting down. "You wrote me a nice letter."
’How’s that?"
"Confess frankly that you are through with me."
He denied this, but she shook her head.
"Well," he said, "what have you to reproach me with? Having written you only a short note? But there was someone here, I was busy and I didn’t have time to assemble pretty speeches. Not having set a date sooner? I told you our relation necessitates precautions, and we can’t see each other very often. I think I gave you clearly to understand my motive -"
"I am so stupid that I probably did not understand them. You spoke to me of ’family reasons,’ I believe."
"Yes."
"Rather vague."
"Well, I couldn’t go into detail and tell you that -"
He stopped, asking himself whether the time had come to break decisively with her, but he remembered that he wanted her aid in getting information about Docre.
"That what? Tell me."
He shook his head, hesitating, not to tell her a lie, but to insult and humiliate her.
"Well," he went on, "since you force me to do it, I will confess, at whatever cost, that I have had a mistress for several years — I add that our relations are now purely amicable -"
"Very well," she interrupted, "your family reasons are sufficient."
"And then," he pursued, in a lower tone, "if you wish to know all, well-I have a child by her."
"A child! Oh, you poor dear," She rose, "Then there is nothing for me to do but withdraw."
But he seized her hands, and, at the same time satisfied with the success of his deception and ashamed of his brutality, he begged her to stay awhile. She refused. Then he drew her to him, kissed her hair, and cajoled her. Her troubled eyes looked deep into his.
"Ah, then!" she said. "No, let me undress."
"Not for the world!"
"Yes!"
"Oh, the scene of the other night beginning all over again," he murmured, sinking, overwhelmed, into a chair. He felt borne down, burdened by an unspeakable weariness.
He undressed beside the fire and warmed himself while waiting for her to get to bed. When they were in bed she enveloped him with her supple, cold limbs.
"Now is it true that I am to come here no more?"
He did not answer, but understood that she had no intention of going away and that he had to do with a person of the staying kind.
"Tell me."
He buried his head in her breast to keep from having to answer.
"Tell me in my lips."
He beset her furiously, to make her keep silent, then he lay disabused, weary, happy that it was over. When they lay down again she put her arm about his neck and ran her tongue around in his mouth like an auger, but he paid little heed to caresses and remained feeble and pathetic. Then she bent over, reached him, and he groaned.
"Ah!" she exclaimed suddenly, rising, "at last I have heard you cry!"
He lay, broken in body and spirit, incapable of thinking two thoughts in sequence. His brain seemed to whir, undone, in his skull.
He collected himself, however, rose and went into the other room to dress and let her do the same.
Through the drawn portiere separating tile two rooms he saw a little pinhole of light which came from the wax candle placed on the mantel opposite the curtain. Hyacinthe, going back and forth, would momentarily intercept this light, then it would flash out again.
"Ah," she said, "my poor darling, you have a child."
"The shot struck home," said he to himself, and aloud, "Yes, a little girl."
"How old?"
"She will soon be six," and he described her as flaxen-haired, lively, but in very frail health, requiring multiple precautions and constant care.
"You must have very sad evenings," said Mme. Chantelouve, in a voice of emotion, from behind the curtain.
"Oh yes! If I were to die tomorrow, what would become of those two unfortunates?"
His imagination took wing. He began himself to believe the mother and her. His voice trembled. Tears very nearly came to his eyes.
"He is unhappy, my darling is," she’ said, raising the curtain and returning, clothed, into the room. "And that is why he looks so sad, even when he smiles !"
He looked at her. Surely at that moment her affection was not feigned. She really clung to him. Why, oh, why, had she had to have those rages of lust? If it had not been for those they could probably have been good comrades, sip moderately together, and love each other better than if they wallowed in the sty of the senses. But no, such a relation was impossible with her, he concluded, seeing those sulphurous eyes, that ravenous, despoiling mouth.
She had sat down in front of his writing table and was playing with a penholder. "Were you working when I came in? Where are you in your history of Gilles de Rais?"
"I am getting along, but I am hampered. To make a good study of the Satanism of the Middle Ages one ought to get really into the environment, or at least fabricate a similar environment, by becoming acquainted with the practitioners of Satanism all about us — for the psychology is the same, though the operations differ." And looking her straight in the eye; thinking the story of the child had softened her, he hazarded all on a cast, "Ah! if your husband would give me the information be has about Canon Docre!"
She stood motionless, but her eyes clouded over. She did not answer.
"True," he said, "Chantelouve, suspecting our liaison -"
She interrupted him. "My husband has no concern with the relations which may exist between you and me. He evidently suffers when I go out, as tonight, for he knows where I am going; but I admit no right of control either on his part or mine. He is free, and I am free, to go wherever we please. I must keep house for him, watch out for his interests, take care of him, love him like a devoted companion, and that I do, with all my heart. As to being responsible for my acts, they’re none of his business, no more his than anybody else’s."
She spoke in a crisp,’ incisive tone.
"The devil;" said Durtal. "You certainly reduce the importance of the role of husband."
"I know that my ideas are not the ideas of the world I live in, and they appear not to be yours. In my first marriage they were a source of trouble and disaster — but I have an iron will and I bend the people who love me. In addition, I despise deceit, so when a few years after marriage I became smitten on a man I quite frankly told my husband and confessed my fault."
"Dare I ask you in what spirit he received this confidence?"
"He was so grieved that in one night his hair turned white. He could not bear what he called — wrongly, I think — my treason, and he killed himself."
"Ah!" said Durtal, dumbfounded by the placid and resolute air of this woman, "but suppose he had strangled you first?"
She shrugged her shoulders and picket a cat hair off her skirt.
"The result," he resumed after a silence, "being that you are now almost free, that your second husband tolerates -"
"Let us not discuss my second husband. He is an excellent man who deserves a better wife. I have absolutely no reason to speak of Chantelouve otherwise than with praise, and then-oh, let’s talk of something else, for I have had sufficient botheration on this subject from my confessor, who interdicts me from the Holy Table."
He contemplated her, and saw yet another Hyacinthe, a hard, pertinacious woman whom he had not known. Not a sign nor an accent of emotion, nothing, while she was describing the suicide of her first husband she did not even seem to imagine that she had a crime on her conscience. She remained pitiless, and yet, a moment ago, when she was commiserating him because of his fictitious parenthood, he had thought she was trembling. "After all, perhaps she is acting a part — like myself."
He remained awed by the turn the conversation had taken. He sought, mentally, a way of getting back to the subject from which Hyacinthe had diverted him, of the Satanism of Canon Docre.
"Well, let us think of that no more," she said, coming very near. She smiled, and was once more the Hyacinthe he knew.
"But if on my account you can no longer take communion -"
She interrupted him. "Would you be sorry if I did not love you?" and she kissed his eyes. He squeezed her politely in his arms, but he felt her trembling, and from motives of prudence he got away.
"Is he so inexorable, your confessor?"
"He is an incorruptible man, of the old school. I chose him expressly."
"If I were a woman it seems to me I should take, on the contrary, a confessor who was pliable and caressible and who would not violently pillory my dainty little sins. I would have him indulgent, oiling the hinges of confession, enticing forth with beguiling gestures the misdeeds that hung back. It is true there would be risk of seducing a confessor who perhaps would be defenceless -"
"And that would be incest, because the priest is a spiritual father, and it would also be sacrilege, because the priest is consecrated. Oh," speaking to herself, "I was mad, mad -" suddenly carried away.
He observed her; sparks glinted in the myopic eyes of this extraordinary woman. Evidently he had just stumbled, unwittingly, onto a guilty secret of hers.
"Well," and he smiled, "do you still commit infidelities to me with a false me?"
"I do knot understand."
"Do you receive, at night, the visit of the incubus which resembles me?"
"No.’ Since I have been able to possess you in the flesh I have no need to evoke your image."
"What a downright Satanist you are!"
"Maybe. I have been so constantly associated with priests."
"You’re a great one," he said, bowing. "Now listen to me, and do me a great favour. You know Canon Docre ?"
"I should say!"
"Well, what in the world is this man, about whom I hear so much?"
"From whom?"
"Gevingey and Des Hermies."
"Ah, you consult the astrologer! Yes, he met the Canon in my own house, but I didn’t know that Docre was acquainted with Des Hermies, who didn’t attend our receptions in those days."
"Des Hermies has never seen Docre. He knows him, as I do, only by hearsay, from Gevingey. Now, briefly, how much truth is there in the stories of the sacrileges of which this priest is accused?"
"I don’t know. Docre is a gentleman, learned and well bred. He was even the confessor of royalty, and he would certainly have become a bishop if he had not quitted the priesthood. I have heard a great deal of evil spoken about him, but, especially in the clerical world, people are so fond of saying all sorts of things."
"But you knew him personally."
"Yes, I even had him for a confessor."
"Then it isn’t possible that you don’t know what to make of him?"
"Very possible, indeed presumable. Look here, you have been beating around the bush a long time. Exactly what do you want to know?"
"Everything you care to tell me. Is he young or old, handsome or ugly, rich or poor?"
"He is forty years old, very fastidious of his person, and he spends a lot of money."
"Do you believe that he indulges in sorcery, that he celebrates the black mass?"
"It is quite possible."
"Pardon me for dunning you, for extorting information from you as if with forceps-suppose I were to ask you a really personal question — this faculty of incubacy. . . ?"
"Why, certainly I got it from him. I hope you are satisfied."
"Yes and no. Thanks for your kindness in telling me -— I know I am abusing your good nature — — but one more question. Do you know of any way whereby I may see Canon Docre in person?"
"He is at Nimes."
"Pardon me. For the moment, he is in Paris."
"Ah, you know that! Well, if I knew of a way, I would not tell you, be sure. It would not be good for you to get to seeing too much of this priest.
"You admit, then, that he is dangerous?"
"I do not admit nor deny. I tell you simply that you have nothing to do with him."
"Yes I have. I want to get material for my book from him."
"Get it from somebody else. Besides," she said, putting on her hat in front of the glass, "my husband got a bad scare and broke with that man and refuses to receive him."
"That is no reason why -"
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, nothing." He repressed the remark: "Why you should not see him."
She did not insist. She was poking her hair under her veil. "Heavens! what a fright I look!"
He. took her hands and kissed them. "When shall I see you again?"
"I thought I wasn’t to come here any more."
"Oh, now, you know I love you as a good friend. Tell me, when will you come again?"
"Tomorrow night, unless it is inconvenient for you."
"Not at all."
"Then, au revoir."
Their lips met.
"And above all, don’t think about Canon Docre," she said, turning and shaking her finger at him threateningly as she. went out.
"Devil take you and your reticence," he said to himself, closing the door after her."
CHAPTER XVI
"When I think," said Durtal to himself the next morning, "that in bed, at the moment when the most pertinacious will succumbs, I held firm and refused to yield to the instances of Hyacinthe wishing to establish a footing here, and that after the carnal decline, at that instant when annihilated man recovers — alas ! — his reason, I supplicated her, myself, to continue her visits, why, I simply cannot understand myself. Deep down, I have not got over my firm resolution of breaking with her, but I could not dismiss her like a cocotte. And," to justify his inconsistency, "I hoped to get some information about the canon. Oh, on that subject I am not through with her. She’s got to make up her mind to speak out and quit answering me by monosyllables and guarded phrases as she did yesterday.
"Indeed, what can she have been up to with that abbé who was her confessor and who, by her own admission, launched her into incubacy? She has been his mistress, that is certain. And how many other of these priests she has gone around with have been her lovers also? For she confessed, in a cry, that those are the men she loves. Ah, if one went about much in the clerical world one would doubtless learn remarkable things concerning her and her husband. It is strange, all the same that Chantelouve, who plays a singular role in that household, has acquired a deplorable reputation, and she hasn’t. Never have I heard anybody speak of her dodges-but, oh, what a fool I am! It isn’t strange. Her husband doesn’t confine himself to religious and polite circles. He hobnobs with men of letters, and in consequence exposes himself to every sort of slander, while she, if she takes a lover, chooses him out of a pious society in which not one of us would ever be received. And then, abbés are discreet. But how explain her infatuation with me? By the simple fact that she is surfeited of priests and a layman serves as a change of diet.
"Just the same, she is quite singular, and the more I see her the less I understand her. There are in her three distinct beings.
"First the woman seated or standing up, whom I knew in her drawing-room, reserved, almost haughty, who becomes a good companion in private, affectionate and even tender.
"Then the woman in bed, completely changed in voice and bearing, a harlot spitting mud, losing all shame.
"Third and last, the pitiless vixen, the thorough Satanist, whom I perceived yesterday.
"What is the binding-alloy that amalgamates all these beings of hers? I can’t say. Hypocrisy, no doubt. No. I don’t think so, for she is often of a disconcerting frankness
-in moments, it is true, of forgetfulness and unguardedness. Seriously, what is the use of trying to understand the character of this pious harlot? And to be candid with myself, what I wish ideally will never be realized; she does not ask me to take her to swell places, does not force me to dine with her, exacts no revenue: she isn’t trying to compromise and blackmail me. I shan’t find a better-but, oh, lord! I now prefer to find no one at all. It suits me perfectly to entrust my carnal business to mercenary agents. For my twenty francs I shall receive more considerate treatment. There is no getting around it, only professionals know how to cook up a delicious sensual dish.
"Odd," he said to himself after a reflective silence, "but, all proportions duly observed, Gilles de Rais divides himself like her, into three different persons.
"First, the brave and honest fighting man.
"Then the refined and artistic criminal.
"Finally the repentant sinner, the mystic.
"He is a mass of contradictions and excesses. Viewing his life as a whole one finds each of his vices compensated by a contradictory virtue, but there is no key characteristic which reconciles them.
"He is of an overweening arrogance, but when contrition takes possession of him, he falls on his knees in front of the people of low estate, and has the tears, the humility of a saint.
"His ferocity passes the limits of the human scale, and yet he is generous and sincerely devoted to his friends, whom he cares for like a brother when the Demon has mauled them.
"Impetuous in his desires, and nevertheless patient; brave in battle, a coward confronting eternity; he is despotic and violent, yet he is putty in the hands of his flatterers. He is now in the clouds, now in the abyss, never on the trodden plain, the lowlands of the soul. His confessions do not throw any’ light on his invariable tendency to extremes. When asked who suggested to him the idea of such crimes, he answers, ’No one. The thought came to me only from myself, from my reveries, my daily pleasures, my taste for debauchery.’ And he arraigns his indolence and constantly asserts that delicate repasts and strong drink have helped uncage the wild animal in him.
"Unresponsive to mediocre passions, he is carried away alternately by good as well as evil, and he bounds from spiritual pole to spiritual pole. He dies at the age of thirty-six, but he has completely exhausted the possibilities of joy and grief. He has adored death, loved as a vampire, kissed inimitable expressions of suffering and terror, and has, himself, been racked by implacable remorse, insatiable fear. He has nothing more to try, nothing more to learn, here below.
"Let’s see," said Durtal, running over his notes. "I left him at the moment when the expiation begins. As I had written in one of my preceding chapters, the inhabitants of the region dominated by the chateaux of the Marshal know now who the inconceivable monster is who carries children off and cuts their throats. But no one dare speak. When, at a turn in the road, the tall figure of the butcher is seen approaching, all flee, huddle behind the hedges, or shut themselves up in the cottages.
"And Gilles passes, haughty and sombre, in the solitude of villages where no one dares venture abroad. Impunity seems assured him, for what peasant would be mad enough to attack a master who could have him gibbeted at a word?
"Again, if the humble give up the idea of bringing Gilles de Rais to justice, his peers have no intention of combating him for the benefit of peasants whom they disdain, and his liege, the duke of Brittany, Jean V, burdens him with favours and blandishments in order to extort his lands from him at a low price.
"A single power can rise and, above feudal complicities, above earthly interest, avenge the oppressed and the weak. The Church. And it is the Church in fact, in the person of Jean de Malestroit, which rises up before the monster and fells him.
"Jean de Malestroit, Bishop of Nantes, belongs to an illustrious line. He is a near kinsman of Jean V, and his incomparable piety, his infallible Christian wisdom, and his enthusiastic charity, make him venerated, even by the duke.
"The wailing of Gilles’s decimated flock reaches his ears. In silence he begins an investigation and, setting spies upon the Marshal, waits only for an opportune moment to begin the combat. And Gilles suddenly commits an inexplicable crime which permits the Bishop to march forthwith upon him and smite him.
"To recuperate his shattered fortune, Gilles has sold his signorie of Saint Etienne de Mer Morte to a subject of Jean V, Guillaume le Ferron, who delegates his brother, Jean le Ferron, to take possession of the domain.
"Some days later the Marshal gathers the two hundred men of his military household and at their head marches on Saint Etienne. There, the day of Pentecost, when the assembled people are hearing mass, he precipitates himself, sword in hand, into the church, sweeps aside the faithful, throwing them into tumult, and, before the dumbfounded priest, threatens to cleave Jean le Ferron, who is praying. The ceremony is broken off, the congregation take flight. Gilles drags le Ferron, pleading for mercy, to the chateau, orders that the drawbridge be let down, and by force occupies the place, while his prisoner is carried away to Tiffauges and thrown into an underground dungeon.
"Gilles has, at one and the same time, violated the unwritten law of Brittany forbidding any baron to raise troops without the consent of the duke, and committed double sacrilege in profaning a chapel and seizing Jean le Ferron, who is a tonsured clerk of the Church.
"The Bishop learns of this outrage and prevails upon the reluctant Jean V to march against the rebel. Then, while one army advances on Saint Etienne, which Gilles abandons to take refuge with his little band in the fortified manor of Machecoul, another army lays siege to Tiffauges.
"During this time the priest hastens his redoubled investigations. He delegates commissioners and procurators in all the villages where children have disappeared. He himself quits his palace at Nantes, travels about the countryside; and takes the depositions of the bereft. The people at last speak, and on their knees beseech the Bishop to protect them. Enraged by the atrocities which they reveal, he swears that justice shall be done.
"It takes a month to hear all the reports. By letters-patent Jean de Malestroit establishes publicly the ’in famatio’ of Gilles, then, when all the forms of canonic procedure have been gone through with, he launches the mandate of arrest.
"In this writ of warrant, given at Nantes the 13th day of September in the year of Our Lord 1440, the Bishop notes all the crimes imputed to the Marshal, then, in an energetic style, he commands his diocese to march against the assassin and dislodge him. ’Thus we do enjoin you, each and all, individually, by these presents, that ye cite immediately and peremptorily, without counting any man upon his neighbour, without discharging the burden any man upon his neighbour, that ye cite before us or before the Official of our cathedral church, for Monday of the feast of Exaltation of the Holy Cross, the 19th of September, Gilles, noble baron de Rais, subject to our puissance and to our jurisdiction.; and we do ourselves cite him by these presents to appear before our bar to answer for the crimes which weigh upon him. Execute these orders, and do each of you cause them to be executed.’
"And the next day the captain-at-arms, Jean Labbe’, acting in the name of the duke, and Robin Guillaumet, notary, acting in the name of the Bishop, present themselves, escorted by a small troop, before the chateau of Machecoul."
"What sudden change of heart does the Marshal now experience? Too feeble to bold his own in the open field, he can nevertheless defend himself behind the sheltering ramparts — yet he, surrenders.
"Roger de Bricqueville and Gilles de Sille’, his trusted councillors, have taken flight. He remains alone with Prelati, who also attempts, in vain, to escape. He, like Gilles, is loaded with chains. Robin Guillaumet searches the fortress from top to bottom. He discovers bloody clothes, imperfectly calcinated ashes which Prelati has not had time to throw into the latrines. Amid universal maledictions and cries of horror Gilles and his servitors are conducted to Nimes and incarcerated in the chateau de la Tour Neuve.
"Now this part is not very clear," said Durtal to himself. "Remembering what a daredevil the Marshal had been, how can we reconcile ourselves to the idea that he could give himself up to certain death and torture without striking a blow?
"’Was he softened, weakened by his nights of debauchery, terrified by the audacity of his own sacrileges, ravaged and torn by remorse? Was he tired of living as he did, and did he give himself up, as so many murderers do, because he was irresistibly attracted to punishment? Nobody knows. Did he think himself above the law because of his lofty rank? Or did he hope to disarm the duke by playing upon his venality, offering him a ransom of manors and farm land?
"One answer is as plausible as another. He may also have known how hesitant Jean V had been, for fear of rousing the wrath of the nobility of his duchy, about yielding to the objurgations of the Bishop and raising troops for the pursuit and arrest.
"Well, there is no document which answers these questions. An author cap take some liberties here and set down his own conjectures. But that curious trial is going to give me some trouble.
"As soon as Gilles and his accomplices are incarcerated, two tribunals are organised, one ecclesiastical to judge the crimes coming under the jurisdiction of the Church, the other civil to judge those on which the state must pass.
"To tell the truth, the civil tribunal, which is present at the ecclesiastical hearings, effaces itself completely. As a matter of form it makes a brief cross-examination — but it pronounces, the sentence of death, which the Church cannot permit itself to utter, according to the old adage, ’Ecciesia abhorrer a sanguine.’
"The ecclesiastical trial lasts five weeks, the civil, forty-eight hours. It seems that, to hide behind the robes of the Bishop, the duke of Brittany has voluntarily subordinated the role of civil justice, which ordinarily stands up for its rights against the encroachments of the ecclesiastical court.
"Jean de Malestroit presides over the hearing. He chooses for assistants the Bishops of Mans, of Saint Brieuc, and of Saint Lô, then in addition he surrounds himself with a troop of jurists who work in relays in the interminable sessions of the trial. Some of the more important are Guillaume de Montigné, advocate of the secular court; Jean Blanchet, bachelor of laws; Guillaume Groyguet and Robert de la Rivière, licentiates in utroque jure, and Herve Levi, senescal of Quimper. Pierre de l’Hospital, chancellor of Brittany, who is to preside over the civil hearings after the canonic judgement, assists Jean de Malestroit.
"The public prosecutor is Guillaume Chapeiron, curate of Saint Nicolas, an eloquent and subtle man. Adjunct to him, to relieve him of the fatigue of the readings, are Geoffroy Pipraire, dean of Sainte Marie, and Jacques de Pentcoetdic, Official of the Church of Nantes.
"In connection with the episcopal jurisdiction, the Church has called in the assistance of the extraordinary tribunal of the Inquisition, for the repression of the crime of heresy, then comprehending perjury, blasphemy, sacrilege, all the crimes of magic.
"It sits at the side of Jean de Malestroit in the redoubtable and learned person of Jean Blouyn of the order of Saint Dominic, delegated by the Grand Inquisitor of France, Guillaume Merici, to the functions of Vice Inquisitor of the city and diocese of Nantes.
"The tribunal constituted; the trial opens the first thing in the morning, because judges and witnesses, in accordance with the custom of, the times, must proceed fasting to the giving and hearing of evidence. The testimony of the parents of the victims is heard, and Robin Guillaumet, acting sergeant-at-arms, the man who arrested the Marshal at Machecoul, reads the citation bidding Gilles de Rais appear. He is brought in and declares disdainfully that he does not recognise the competence of the Tribunal, but, as canonic procedure demands, the Prosecutor at once ’in order that by this means the correction of sorcery be not prevented,’ petitions for and obtains from the tribunal a ruling that this objection it quashed as being null in law and ’frivolous.’ He begins to read to the accused the counts on which he is to be tried. Gilles cries out that the Prosecutor is a liar and a traitor. Then Guillaume Chapeiron extends his hand toward the crucifix, swears that he is telling the truth, and challenges the Marshal to take the same oath. But this man, who has recoiled from no sacrilege, is troubled. He refuses to perjure himself before God, and the session ends with. Gilles still vociferating outrageous denunciations of the Prosecutor.
"The preliminaries completed, a few days later, the public hearings begin. The act of indictment is read aloud to the accused, in front of an audience who shudder when Chapeiron indefatigably enumerates the crimes one by one, and formally accuses the Marshal of having practised sorcery and magic, of having polluted and slain little children, of having violated the immunities of Holy Church at Saint Etienne de Mer Morte.
"Then after a silence he resumes his discourse, and making no account of the murders, but dwelling only on the crimes of which the punishment, foreseen by canonic law, can be fixed by the Church, he demands that Gilles be smitten with double excommunication, first as an evoker of demons, a heretic, apostate and renegade, second as a sodomist and perpetrator of sacrilege.
"Gilles, who has listened to this incisive and scathing indictment, completely loses control of himself. He insults the judges, calls them simonists and ribalds, and refuses to answer the questions put to him. The Prosecutor and advocates are unmoved; they invite him to present his defence.
"Again he denounces them, insults them, but when called upon to refute them he remains silent.
"The Bishop and Vice Inquisitor declare him in contempt and pronounce against him the sentence of excommunication, which is soon made public. They decide in addition that the hearing shall be continued next day-"
A ring of the doorbell interrupted Durtal’s perusal of his notes. Des Hermies entered.
"I have just seen Carhaix. He is ill," he said.
"That so? What seems to be the matter?’
"Nothing very serious. A slight attack of bronchitis. He’ll be up in a few days if he will consent to keep quiet."
"I must go see him tomorrow," said Durtal.
"And what are you doing?" enquired Des Hermies.
"Working hard?"
"Why, yes. I am digging into the trial of the noble baron de Rais. It will be as tedious to read as to write!"
"And you don’t know yet when you will finish your volume?"
"No," answered Durtal, stretching. "As a matter of fact I wish it might never be finished. What will become of me when it is? I’ll have to look around for another subject, and, when I find one, do all the drudgery of planning and then getting the introductory chapter written — the mean part of any literary work is getting started. I shall pass mortal hours doing nothing. Really, when I think it over, literature has only one excuse for existing; it saves the per-son who makes it from the disgustingness of life."
"And, charitably, it lessens the distress of us few who still love art."
"Few indeed!"
"And the number keeps diminishing. The new generation no longer interests itself in anything except gambling and jockeys."
"Yes, you’re quite right. The men can’t spare from gambling the time to read, so it is only the society women who buy books and pass judgement on them. It is to The Lady, as Schopenhauer called her, to the little goose, as I should characterize her, that we are indebted for these shoals of lukewarm and mucilaginous novels which nowadays get puffed."
"You think, then, that we are in for a pretty literature. Naturally you can’t please women by enunciating vigorous ideas in a crisp style."
"But," Durtal went on, after a silence, "it is perhaps best that the case should be as it is. T he rare artists who remain have no business to be thinking about the public. The artist lives and works far from the drawing-room, far from the clamour of the little fellows who fix up the custom-made literature. The only legitimate source of vexation to an author is to see his work, when printed, exposed to the contaminating curiosity of the crowd."
"That is," said Des Hermies, "a veritable prostitution. To advertise a thing for sale is to accept the degrading familiarities of the first comer."
"But our impenitent pride — and also our need of the miserable sous — make it impossible for us to keep our manuscripts sheltered from the asses. Art ought to be like one’s beloved out of reach, out of the world. Art and prayer are the only decent ejaculations of the soul. So when one of my books appears, I let go of it with horror. I get as far as possible from the environment in which it may be supposed to circulate. I care very little about a book of mine until years afterward, when it has disappeared from all the shop windows and is out of print. Briefly, I am in no hurry to finish the history of Gilles de Rais, which, unfortunately, is getting finished in spite of me. I don’t give a damn how it is received."
"Are you doing anything this evening?"
"No. Why?"
"Shall we dine together?"
"Certainly."
And while Durtal was putting on his shoes, Des Hermies remarked, "To me the striking thing about the so called literary world of this epoch is its cheap hypocrisy. What a lot of laziness, for instance, that word dilettante has served to cover."
"Yes, it’s a great old alibi. But it is confounding to see that the critic who today decrees himself the title of dilettante accepts it as a term of praise and does not even suspect that he is slapping himself. The whole thing can be resolved into syllogism:
"The dilettante has no personal temperament, since he objects to nothing and likes everything.
"Whoever has no personal temperament has no talent."
"Then, rejoined Des Hermies, putting on his hat, "an author who boasts of being a dilettante, confesses by that very thing that he is no author?"
"Exactly."