"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 that at first blush all this seems improbable, to say the least. But when I think that all the efforts of modern science do but confirm the discoveries of the magic of other days, I keep my mouth shut. It is true," he went on after a silence,-"to cite only one fact-that people can no longer laugh at the stories of women being changed into cats in the Middle Ages. Recently there was brought to M. Charcot a little girl who suddenly got down on her hands and knees and ran and jumped around, scratching and spitting and arching her back. So that metamorphosis is possible. No, one cannot too often repeat it, the truth is that we know nothing and have no right to deny anything. But to return to your Rosicrucians. Using purely chemical formulæ, they get along without sacrilege?"
"That is as much as to say that their venefices-supposing they know how to prepare them well enough to accomplish their purpose, though I doubt that-are easy to defeat. Yet I don't mean to say that this group, one member of which is an ordained priest, does not make use of contaminated Eucharists at need."
"Another nice priest! But since you are so well informed, do you know how spells are conjured away?"
"Yes and no. I know that when the poisons are sealed by sacrilege, when the operation is performed by a master, Docre or one of the princes of magic at Rome, it is not at all easy-nor healthy-to attempt to apply an antidote. Though I have heard of a certain abbé at Lyons who, practically alone, is succeeding right now in these difficult cures."
"Dr. Johannès!"
"You know him!"
"No. But Gévingey, who has gone to seek his medical aid, has told me of him."
"Well, I don't know how he goes about it, but I know that spells which are not complicated with sacrilege are usually evaded by the law of return. The blow is sent back to him who struck it. There are, at the present time, two churches, one in Belgium, the other in France, where, when one prays before a statue of the Virgin, the spell which has been cast on one flies off and goes and strikes one's adversary."
"Rats!"
"One of these churches is at Tougres, eighteen kilometres from Liége, and the name of it is Notre Dame de Retour. The other is the church of l'Epine, 'the thorn,' a little village near Châlons. This church was built long ago to conjure away the spells produced with the aid of the thorns which grew in that country and served to pierce images cut in the shape of hearts."
"Near Châlons," said Durtal, digging in his memory, "it does seem to me now that Des Hermies, speaking of bewitchment by the blood of white mice, pointed out that village as the habitation of certain diabolic circles."
"Yes, that country in all times has been a hotbed of Satanism."
"You are mighty well up on these matters. Is it Docre who transmitted this knowledge to you?"
"Yes, I owe him the little I am able to pass on to you. He took a fancy to me and even wanted to make me his pupil. I refused, and am glad now I did, for I am much more wary than I was then of being constantly in a state of mortal sin."
"Have you ever attended the Black Mass?"
"Yes. And I warn you in advance that you will regret having seen such terrible things. It is a memory that persists and horrifies, even-especially-when one does not personally take part in the offices."
He looked at her. She was pale, and her filmed eyes blinked rapidly.
"It's your own wish," she continued. "You will have no complaint if the spectacle terrifies you or wrings your heart."
He was almost dumbfounded to see how sad she was and with what difficulty she spoke.
"Really. This Docre, where did he come from, what did he do formerly, how did he happen to become a master Satanist?"
"I don't know very much about him. I know he was a supply priest in Paris, then confessor of a queen in exile. There were terrible stories about him, which, thanks to his influential patronage, were hushed up under the Empire. He was interned at La Trappe, then driven out of the priesthood, excommunicated by Rome. I learned in addition that he had several times been accused of poisoning, but had always been acquitted because the tribunals had never been able to get any evidence. Today he lives I don't know how, but at ease, and he travels a good deal with a woman who serves as voyant. To all the world he is a scoundrel, but he is learned and perverse, and then he is so charming."
"Oh," he said, "how changed your eyes and voice are! Admit that you are in love with him."
"No, not now. But why should I not tell you that we were mad about each other at one time?"
"And now?"
"It is over. I swear it is. We have remained friends and nothing more."
"But then you often went to see him. What kind of a place did he have? At least it was curious and heterodoxically arranged?"