CHAPTER XV
The memory of these frightful magisteria kept racing through his headnext day, and, while smoking cigarettes beside the fire, Durtal thoughtof Docre and Johannes fighting across Gevingey's back, smiting andparrying with incantations and exorcisms.
"In the Christian symbolism," he said to himself, "the fish is one ofthe representations of Christ. Doubtless the Canon thinks to aggravatehis sacrileges by feeding fishes on genuine hosts. His is the reverse ofthe system of the mediaeval witches who chose a vile beast dedicated tothe Devil to submit the body of the Saviour to the processes ofdigestion. How real is the pretended power which the deicide chemistsare alleged to wield? What faith can we put in the tales of evoked larvaekilling 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 survivingunder other names, the mysteries which were so long reckoned the productof mediaeval imagination and superstition. At the charity hospital Dr.Louis transfers maladies from one hypnotized person to another. Whereinis that less miraculous than evocation of demons, than spells cast bymagicians or pastors? A larva, a flying spirit, is not, indeed, moreextraordinary than a microbe coming from afar and poisoning one withoutone's knowledge, and the atmosphere can certainly convey spirits as wellas bacilli. Certainly the ether carries, untransformed, emanations,effluences, electricity, for instance, or the fluids of a magnet whichsends 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 revitalizes the impotentwith distillations from the parts of rabbits and cavies. Were not theelixirs of life and the love philtres which the witches sold to thesenile and impotent composed of similar or analogous substances? Humansemen entered almost always, in the Middle Ages, into the compounding ofthese mixtures. Now, hasn't Dr. Brown-Sequard, after repeatedexperiments, recently demonstrated the virtues of semen taken from oneman and instilled into another?
"Finally, the apparitions, doppelgaenger, bilocations--to speak thus ofthe spirits--that terrified antiquity, have not ceased to manifestthemselves. It would be difficult to prove that the experiments carriedon for three years by Dr. Crookes in the presence of witnesses werecheats. If he has been able to photograph visible and tangible spectres,we must recognize the veracity of the mediaeval thaumaturges. Incredible,of course--and wasn't hypnotism, possession of one soul by another whichcould dedicate it to crime--incredible only ten years ago?
"We are groping in shadow, that is sure. But Des Hermies hit thebull's-eye when he remarked, 'It is less important to know whether themodern pharmaceutic sacrileges are potent, than to study the motives ofthe Satanists and fallen priests who prepare them.'
"Ah, if there were some way of getting acquainted with Canon Docre, ofinsinuating oneself into his confidence, perhaps one would attain clearinsight into these questions. I learned long ago that there are nopeople interesting to know except saints, scoundrels, and cranks. Theyare the only persons whose conversation amounts to anything. Persons ofgood sense are necessarily dull, because they revolve over and overagain the tedious topics of everyday life. They are the crowd, more orless 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 hepoked the fire, Durtal said to himself, "Chantelouve, if he would, buthe won't. There remains his wife, who used to be well acquainted withDocre. I must interrogate her and find out whether she still correspondswith him and sees him."
The entrance of Mme. Chantelouve into his reflections saddened him. Hetook out his watch and murmured, "What a bore. She will come again, andagain I shall have to--if only there were any possibility of convincingher of the futility of the carnal somersaults! In any case, she can't bevery well pleased, because, to her frantic letter soliciting a meeting,I responded three days later by a brief, dry note, inviting her to comehere 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 burningbrightly, then he returned and sat down, without even arranging his roomas he had the other times. Now that he no longer cared for this woman,gallantry and self-consciousness had fled. He awaited her withoutimpatience, his slippers on his feet.
"To tell the truth, I have had nothing pleasant from Hyacinthe exceptthat kiss we exchanged when her husband was only a few feet away. Icertainly shall not again find her lips a-flame and fragrant. Here herkiss 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 youonly a short note? But there was someone here, I was busy and I didn'thave time to assemble pretty speeches. Not having set a date sooner? Itold you our relation necessitates precautions, and we can't see eachother very often. I think I gave you clearly to understand mymotives--"
"I am so stupid that I probably did not understand them. You spoke to meof '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 decisivelywith her, but he remembered that he wanted her aid in gettinginformation about Docre.
"That what? Tell me."
He shook his head, hesitating, not to tell her a lie, but to insult andhumiliate her.
"Well," he went on, "since you force me to do it, I will confess, atwhatever cost, that I have had a mistress for several years--I add thatour relations are now purely amical--"
"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 todo but withdraw."
But he seized her hands, and, at the same time satisfied with thesuccess of his deception and ashamed of his brutality, he begged her tostay awhile. She refused. Then he drew her to him, kissed her hair, andcajoled 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," hemurmured, 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 toget 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 goingaway 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 armabout his neck and ran her tongue around in his mouth like an auger, buthe paid little heed to caresses and remained feeble and pathetic. Thenshe 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 insequence. His brain seemed to whir, undone, in his skull.
He collected himself, however, rose and went into the other room todress and let her do the same.
Through the drawn portiere separating the two rooms he saw a littlepinhole of light which came from the wax candle placed on the mantelopposite the curtain. Hyacinthe, going back and forth, would momentarilyintercept 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 littlegirl."
"How old?"
"She will soon be six," and he described her as flaxen-haired, lively,but in very frail health, requiring multiple precautions and constantcare.
"You must have very sad evenings," said Mme. Chantelouve, in a voice ofemotion, from behind the curtain.
"Oh yes! If I were to die tomorrow, what would become of those twounfortunates?"
His imagination took wing. He began himself to believe the mother andher. His voice trembled. Tears very nearly came to his eyes.
"He is unhappy, my darling is," she said, raising the curtain andreturning, 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 ragesof lust? If it had not been for those they could probably have been goodcomrades, sin moderately together, and love each other better than ifthey wallowed in the sty of the senses. But no, such a relation wasimpossible with her, he concluded, seeing those sulphurous eyes, thatravenous, despoiling mouth.
She had sat down in front of his writing table and was playing with apenholder. "Were you working when I came in? Where are you in yourhistory of Gilles de Rais?"
"I am getting along, but I am hampered. To make a good study of theSatanism of the Middle Ages one ought to get really into theenvironment, or at least fabricate a similar environment, by becomingacquainted with the practitioners of Satanism all about us--for thepsychology is the same, though the operations differ." And looking herstraight 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 theinformation he 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 whichmay exist between you and me. He evidently suffers when I go out, astonight, for he knows where I am going; but I admit no right of controleither on his part or mine. He is free, and I am free, to go wherever weplease. I must keep house for him, watch out for his interests, takecare of him, love him like a devoted companion, and that I do, with allmy heart. As to being responsible for my acts, they're none of hisbusiness, no more his than anybody else's."
She spoke in a crisp, incisive tone.
"The devil;" said Durtal. "You certainly reduce the importance of therole of husband."
"I know that my ideas are not the ideas of the world I live in, and theyappear not to be yours. In my first marriage they were a source oftrouble and disaster--but I have an iron will and I bend the people wholove me. In addition, I despise deceit, so when a few years aftermarriage I became smitten on a man I quite frankly told my husband andconfessed 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 notbear what he called--wrongly, I think--my treason, and he killedhimself."
"Ah!" said Durtal, dumbfounded by the placid and resolute air of thiswoman, "but suppose he had strangled you first?"
She shrugged her shoulders and picked a cat hair off her skirt.
"The result," he resumed after a silence, "being that you are now almostfree, that your second husband tolerates--"
"Let us not discuss my second husband. He is an excellent man whodeserves a better wife. I have absolutely no reason to speak ofChantelouve otherwise than with praise, and then--oh, let's talk ofsomething else, for I have had sufficient botheration on this subjectfrom my confessor, who interdicts me from the Holy Table."
He contemplated her, and saw yet another Hyacinthe, a hard, pertinaciouswoman whom he had not known. Not a sign nor an accent of emotion,nothing, while she was describing the suicide of her first husband--shedid not even seem to imagine that she had a crime on her conscience. Sheremained pitiless, and yet, a moment ago, when she was commiserating himbecause 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 haddiverted him, of the Satanism of Canon Docre.
"Well, let us think of that no more," she said, coming very near. Shesmiled, 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 shekissed his eyes. He squeezed her politely in his arms, but he felt hertrembling, 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, aconfessor who was pliable and caressible and who would not violentlypillory my dainty little sins. I would have him indulgent, oiling thehinges of confession, enticing forth with beguiling gestures themisdeeds that hung back. It is true there would be risk of seducing aconfessor who perhaps would be defenceless--"
"And that would be incest, because the priest is a spiritual father, andit 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 extraordinarywoman. Evidently he had just stumbled, unwittingly, onto a guilty secretof hers.
"Well," and he smiled, "do you still commit infidelities to me with afalse me?"
"I do not understand."
"Do you receive, at night, the visit of the incubus which resemblesme?"
"No. Since I have been able to possess you in the flesh I have no needto 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 agreat 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'tattend our receptions in those days"
"Des Hermies has never seen Docre. He knows him, as I do, only byhearsay, from Gevingey. Now, briefly, how much truth is there in thestories of the sacrileges of which this priest is accused?"
"I don't know. Docre is a gentleman, learned and well bred. He was eventhe confessor of royalty, and he would certainly have become a bishop ifhe had not quitted the priesthood. I have heard a great deal of evilspoken about him, but, especially in the clerical world, people are sofond 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 beatingaround 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 alot of money."
"Do you believe that he indulges in sorcery, that he celebrates theblack mass?"
"It is quite possible."
"Pardon me for dunning you, for extorting information from you as ifwith forceps--suppose I were to ask you a really personal question--thisfaculty 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 abusingyour good nature--but one more
question. Do you know of any way wherebyI 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, besure. It would not be good for you to get to seeing too much of thispriest."
"You admit, then, that he is dangerous?"
"I do not admit nor deny. I tell you simply that you have nothing to dowith 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 infront of the glass, "my husband got a bad scare and broke with that manand 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 youcome 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 andshaking her finger at him threateningly as she went out.
"Devil take you and your reticence," he said to himself, closing thedoor after her.
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