THE TRUE STORY OF A HALLUCINATION.
The career of the Abbé Gérard had been an eminently successful one—successful in every way; and even he himself was forced to acknowledge it to be so as he reviewed his past life, sitting by a blazing fire in his comfortable apartment in the Rue Miromeuil previous to dressing for the Duc de Frontignan's dinner-party. Born of poor parents in the south of France, entering the priesthood at an early age, having received but a meagre education, and that chiefly confined to a superficial knowledge of the most elementary treatises on theology, he had, in twenty-five years, and solely by his own exertions, unaided by patronage, obtained a most desirable berth in one of the leading Paris churches, thereby becoming the recipient of a handsome salary and being enabled to indulge his tastes as a dilettante and homme du monde. The few hours snatched from those absorbed by his parochial duties he had ever devoted to study, and his application and determination had borne him golden fruit. Moreover, he had so cultivated his mind, and made such good use of the rare opportunities afforded him in early life of associating with gentlemen, that when now at length he found his presence in demand at every house in the "Faubourg" where wit and graceful learning were appreciated, no one would ever have suspected he had not been bred according to the strictest canons of social refinement.
But in his upward progress such had been his experience of life that when, during the brief intervals of breathing time he allowed himself, he would look below and above, he was forced to confess that at every step a belief, an illusion had been destroyed and trodden under foot, and he would wonder, while bracing himself for a new effort, how it would all end, and whether the mitre he lusted for would not after all, perhaps, be placed upon a head that doubted even the existence of a God. He was not a bad man, but merely one of that class who have embraced the priesthood merely as a means of raising themselves from obscurity to eminence, and have in their intercourse with the world discovered many flaws and blemishes in what they may at one time have considered perfect. When his reason rejected many of the fables hitherto cherished and believed in, the Abbé Gérard was at the beginning inclined to abandon in despair the attempt to discern the true from the false, and this all the more that he saw the time thus spent was, in a worldly sense, but wasted, and that the good things of this world come to such reapers as gather wheat and tares alike, well knowing there is a market for them both.
During a certain period, therefore, of his struggle upward, while his worldly ambition was aiding by sly insinuations and comparisons the deadly work already begun by the destruction of his dreams, Henri Gérard was nigh being an atheist. But the nature of the man was too finely sensual for this phase to be lasting, and when at length he found himself so far successful in his worldly aspirations as to be tolerably sure of their complete fulfilment; when at length he found time to examine spiritual matters apart from their direct bearing upon his social altitude, his æsthetic sense—which by this time had necessarily developed—he was struck by the exquisite beauty of Christianity, and thus, as a shallow philosophy had nearly induced him to become an atheist, a deep and sensual spirit of sentimentality nearly made him a Christian. His Madonna was the Madonna of Raphael, not that of Albert Dürer: the woman whose placid grace of countenance creates an emotion more subtly voluptuous than desire; not she in whose face can be discerned the human mother of the Man of Sorrows and of Him divinely acquainted with all grief. The Holy Spirit he adored was not the Friend of the broken-hearted or the Healer of the blind Bartimœus, but He "who feedeth among the lilies"—the Alpha and Omega of all æsthetic conception. Christianity he looked upon as the highest moral expression of artistic perfection, and he regarded it with the same admiration he accorded to the Antinous and the Venus of Milo. He was not, however, by nature a pagan as some men are—men who, in the words of De Musset, "Sont venu trop tard dans un monde trop vieux"; but the atmosphere in which his early years had been spent had been so antagonistic to the impulses of his nature, his inner life had been so cramped in and starved, that when at length the key of gold opening the prison door let in the outer air, his spirit revelled in all the wild extravagance so often accompanying sudden and long wished-for emancipation. His nature was perhaps not one that could have been attuned to a perfect harmony with that of a Greek or Roman of the golden days, but one better calculated to enjoy the hybrid atmosphere of the Italian Renaissance; and he would have been in his element in the Rucellai Gardens, conversing with feeble little Cosimino, or laughing with Buondelmonte and Luigi Alamanni. He did not believe in the narrative of the Bible, but its precepts and tendencies he appreciated and admired, although, it must be confessed, he did not always put himself out to follow them. In his heart he utterly rejected all idea of a future life, since it was incompatible with his conception of the artistic unity of this; but he would blandly acknowledge to himself that there are perhaps things we cannot comprehend, and that beauty may have no term. He assimilated, so far as in him lay, his duties as a priest with his ideas as a man of culture; and his sermons were ever of love; sermons which, winged as they were with impassioned eloquence, were deservedly popular with all: from the scholar, who delighted in them as intellectual feasts, to the fashionable Paris woman of the second empire, who was enchanted at finding in the quasi-fatalistic and broadly charitable views enunciated therein means whereby her vulgar amours might be considered in a light more pleasing to herself and more consoling to her husband.
On the Sunday afternoon preceding the evening on which we introduce him to the reader the Abbé had departed from his usual custom, and, by especial request of his curé, had preached a most remarkable sermon upon the Personality of Satan. It is a vulgar error to suppose that men succeed best when their efforts are enlivened by a real belief in the matter in hand. Not only some men have such a superabundance of fervid imagination that they can, for the time being, provoke themselves into a pseudo belief in what they know in their saner moments to be false, but moreover a large class of men are endowed with minds so restless and so finely strung that they can play with a sophism with marvellous dexterity and skill, while lacking that vigorous and comprehensive grasp of mind which the lucid exposition of a hidden truth necessitates. The Abbé Gérard belonged a little to both these classes of beings; and moreover, his vanity as an intellectual man provoked him to extraordinary exertions in cases wherein he fancied he might win for himself the glory of strengthening and verifying matters which in themselves perhaps lacked almost the elements of existence. "Spiritual truths," he once cynically remarked to Sainte-Beuve, whom, by the way, he detested, "will take care of themselves; it is the nursing of spiritual falsehood which needs all the care of the clergy." On the Sunday in question he had surpassed himself. With biting irony he had annihilated the disbelievers in Divine punishment, and then, with persuasive and overwhelming eloquence, he had urged the necessity of believing not only in hell, but in the personality of the Prince of Evil. Women had fainted in their terror; men had been frightened into seeking the convenient solace of the confessional, and the Archbishop had written him a letter of the warmest thanks.
It was a triumph which a man of the nature of the Abbé Gérard particularly enjoyed. The idea of finding himself the successful reviver of an inanimate doctrine, while secretly conscious that he was, in reality, a skeptic in matters of dogmatically vital importance, was to a mind so prone to delight in paradoxes eminently agreeable. It pleased him to see the letter of the Archbishop lying upon a volume of Strauss, and to read the glowing and extravagant praise lavished on him in the pages of the "Univers" after having enjoyed a sparkling draught of Voltaire.
Such was the Abbé Gérard—the type of a class. The Duc de Frontignan, with whom he was dining on the evening this story opens, was or rather is in many ways a no less remarkable personage in Paris society. Possessing rank, birth, and a splendid income, he had inherited more than a fair share of the good gifts of Providence, being endowed not only with considerable mental power, but with the tact to use that power to the best advantage. Although beyond doubt clever, he was universally esteemed a much more intellectual man than he really was, and this through no voluntary deceitfulness on his part, but owing to a method he had unconsciously adopted of exhibiting his wares with their most favorable aspect to the front. He was well read, but not deeply read, and yet all Paris considered him a profound scholar; he was quick and epigrammatic in his appreciation and expression of ideas, as men of cultivation and varied experience are apt to be, but he enjoyed the reputation of being a wit, and finally having merely lounged through the world, impelled by a spirit of restlessness, begotten of great wealth and idleness, society looked upon him as a bold and adventurous traveller. One gift he most certainly possessed: he was vastly amusing and entertaining, and resembled in one respect the Abbé Galiani, as described by Diderot; for he was indeed "a treasure on rainy days, and if the cabinet-makers made such things, everybody would have one in the country." He not only knew everybody in Paris, but he possessed an extraordinary faculty of drawing people out, and forcing them to make themselves amusing. No man was in his society long before he discovered himself openly discussing his most cherished hobby, or airily scattering as seed for trivial conversation the fruit of long years of experience and reflection. His hotel in the Rue de Varenne was the resort of all that was most remarkable and extraordinary in the fashionable, the artistic, the diplomatic, and the scientific world. His intimacy with the Abbé Gérard was one of long standing: they mutually amused each other; the keen intellect of the priest found much that was interesting in the shallow but attractive and brilliant nature of the layman; while the Duke entertained feelings of the warmest admiration for a man who, having risen from nothing, enlivened the most exclusive coteries with his graceful learning and charming wit.
It was one of the peculiar whims of Octave de Frontignan never to have an even number of guests at his dinner table. His soirées indeed were attended by hundreds, but his dinner parties rarely exceeded seven (including himself), and in many cases he only invited two. On this especial occasion the only guest asked to meet the Abbé Gérard was the celebrated diplomatist and millionaire the Prince Paul Pomerantseff. This most extraordinary personage had for the past six years kept Europe in a constant state of excitement by reason of his munificence and power. Brought up under the direct personal supervision of the Emperor of Russia, he had done a little of everything and succeeded in all he had undertaken. He had distinguished himself as a diplomatist and as a soldier, and had left traces of his indomitable will in many State papers as on many an enemy's face during the period of the Crimean war. In London, but perhaps more especially in "the shires," his face was well known and liked. Duchesses' daughters had sighed for him, but in vain; and the continuance of his celibacy appeared to be as certain as the splendor of his fortune. The Abbé Gérard had known him for many years, and proved no exception to the general rule, for although their friendship had never ripened into great intimacy, there was perhaps no man in the wide circle of his acquaintance in whose society the priest took a more lively pleasure.
"Late as usual!" cried the Duke, as Gérard hurried into the room ten minutes after the appointed hour. "Prince, if you were so unpunctual in your diplomatic duties as the Abbé is in his social (and I fear in his spiritual!), where would the world be?"
The Abbé stopped short, pulled out his watch, and looked at it with a comically contrite air.
"Only ten minutes late, and I am sure when you think of the amount of business I have to transact you can afford to forgive me," he said as he advanced and shook hands warmly with his friends.
"You have no idea," he continued, throwing himself lazily down upon a lounge—"you have no idea of the amount of folly I am forced to listen to in a day! Every woman whose bad temper has got her into trouble with her husband, and every man whose stupidity has led him into quarrelling with his wife—one and all they come to me, pour out their misfortunes in my ears, and expect me to arrange their affairs."
The servant announcing dinner interrupted the poor Abbé's complaints.
"I tell you what I should do," said Pomerantseff when they were seated at table. "I should say to every man and woman who came to me on such errands, 'My dear friend, my business is with your spiritual welfare, and with that alone. The doctor and solicitor must take care of your worldly concerns. It is my duty to insure your eternal felicity when the tedium of delirium tremens and the divorce court is all over, and that is really all one man can do.'"
"By the way, talking of spiritual matters," interrupted the Duke, "Pomerantseff has been telling me his experience with a man you detest, Abbé."
"I detest no man."
"I can only judge from your own words," rejoined Frontignan. "Did you not tell me years ago that you thought Home a more serious evil than the typhoid fever?"
"Ah, Home the medium!" cried Gérard in great disgust. "I admit you are right. It is not possible, Prince, that you encourage Frontignan in his absurd spiritualism."
The Prince smiled gravely.
"I do not pretend to encourage any man in anything, mon cher Abbé."
"But you cannot believe in it!"
"I do most certainly believe in it."
"Dieu de Dieu!" exclaimed Gérard. "What folly! What are we all coming to?"
"It has always struck me as remarkable," said the Duke, "that with all your taste for the curious and unknown, you have never been tempted into investigating the matter, Abbé."
"I am, as you say, a lover of the curious," replied the priest, "but not of such empty trash as spiritualism. I have enough cares with the realities of this world without bringing upon myself the misery of investigating the possibilities of the next."
"That is a sentiment worthy of Abbé Dubois," said Pomerantseff laughing, and then the Duke, suddenly making some inquiry relative to the train which was to take him and the Prince to Brunoy on a shooting expedition the following morning, the subject for the nonce was dropped. It was destined, however, to be revived later in the evening, for when after dinner they were comfortably ensconced in the tabagie, Frontignan, who had been greatly excited by some extraordinary manifestations related to him by the Prince before the arrival of the Abbé, said abruptly:
"Now, Gérard, you must really let us convert you to spiritualism."
"Never!" cried the Abbé.
"It is absurd for you to disbelieve, for you know nothing about it, since you have never been willing to attend a séance."
"I feel it is absurd, and that is enough."
"I myself do not exactly believe in spirits," said Frontignan thoughtfully.
"À la bonne heure! Of course not!" cried the Abbé. "You see, Prince, he is not quite mad after all!"
The Prince said nothing.
"I cannot doubt the existence of some extraordinary phenomena," continued the young Duke thoughtfully; "for I cannot bring myself to such an exquisite pitch of philosophical imbecility as to doubt my own senses; but, to my thinking, the exact nature of the phenomena, remains as yet an open question. I have a theory of my own about it, and although it may be absurd and fantastical, it is certainly no more so than that which would have us believe the spirits of the dear old lazy dead come back to the scenes of their lives and miseries to pull our noses and play tambourines."
"And may I ask you," inquired the Prince, with a touch of sarcasm in his voice, "what this theory of yours may be?"
"I will give you," said the Duke, ignoring the sneer, and stretching himself back in his chair as he sent a ring of smoke curling daintily toward the ceiling—"I will give you with great pleasure the result of my reflection about this matter. It is my belief that the things—the tangible things we create, or rather cause to appear, come from within ourselves, and are portions of ourselves. We produce them, in the first instance, generally with hands linked, but afterward when our nervous organizations are more harmonized to them, they come to us of themselves, and even against our wills. It is my belief that these are what we term our passions and our emotions, to whose existence the electric fluid and nervous ecstasy we cause to circulate and induce by sitting with hands linked, merely gives a tangible and corporeal expression. We all know that grief, joy, remorse, and many other sensations and emotions can kill as surely and in many cases as quickly as an assassin's dagger, and it is a well known scientific fact that there are certain nerves in the hand between certain fingers which have a distinct rapport with the mind, and by which the mind can be controlled. Since this is so, why is it that under certain given conditions, such as sitting with hands linked—that thus sitting, and while the electric fluid, drawn out by the contact of our hands, forms a powerful medium between the inner and the outward being—why is it, I say, that these strong emotions I have mentioned should not take advantage of this strange river flowing to and fro between the conceptional and the visual to float before us for a time, and give us an opportunity of seeing and touching them, who influence our every action in life? It is my belief that I can shake hands with my emotions; that my conscience can become tangible and pinch my ear just as surely as it can and does keep people awake at night by agitating their nervous system, or in other words, by mentally pinching their ears."
"That is certainly a very fantastical idea," said the Abbé smiling. "But if you have ever seen any of your emotions, what do they look like? I should like to see my hasty temper sitting beside me for a minute; I should take advantage of his being corporealized to pay him back in his own coin, and give him a good thrashing."
"It is difficult," said the Duke gravely, "to recognize one's emotions when brought actually face to face with them, although they have been living in us all our lives—turning our hair gray or pulling it out; making us stout or lean, upright or bent over. Moreover, our minor emotions, except in cases where the medium is remarkably powerful, outwardly express themselves to us as perfumes, or sometimes in lights. I have reason, however, to believe I have recognized my conscience."
"I should have thought he'd have been too sleepy to move out!" laughed the Prince.
"That just shows how wrongly one man judges another," said Octave lazily, without earnestness, but with a certain something in his tone that betokened he was dealing with realities. "You probably think that I am not much troubled with a conscience; whereas the fact is that my conscience, with a strong dash of remorse in it, is a very keen one. Many years ago a certain episode changed the whole color and current of my life inwardly to myself, although of course outwardly I was much the same. Now, this episode aroused my conscience to a most extraordinary degree, and I never 'sit' now without seeing a female figure; with a face like that of the heroine of my episode, dressed in a queer robe, woven of every possible color except white, who shudders and trembles as she passes before me, holding in her arms large sheets of glass, through which dim Bohemian glass colors pass flickering every moment."
"What a very disagreeable thing to see this weather," said the Abbé—"everything shuddering and shaking!"
"Have you ever discovered why she goes about like the wife of a glazier?" asked the Prince.
"For a long time I could not make out what they could be, these large panes of glass with variegated colors passing through them; but now I think I know."
"Well?"
"They are dreams waiting to be fitted in."
"Bravo!" cried the Abbé. "That is really a good idea! If I had only the pen of Charles Nodier, what a charming feuilleton I could write about all this!"
Pomerantseff laid his hand affectionately on the Duke's shoulder. "Mon cher ami," he said with a grave smile, "believe me, you are wholly at fault in your speculations. Gérard here of course, naturally enough, since he has never been willing to 'sit,' thinks we are both madmen, and that the whole thing is folly; but you and I, who have sat and seen many marvellous manifestations, know that it is not folly. Take the word of a man who has had greater experience in the matter than yourself, and who is himself a most powerful medium: the theory you have just enunciated is utterly false."
"Prove that it is false."
"I cannot prove it, but wait and see."
"Nay; I have given it all up now. I will not meddle with spiritualism again. It unhinged my nerves and destroyed my peace of mind while I was investigating it."
The Prince shrugged his shoulders.
"Prince, leave him alone," said the Abbé smiling. "His theory is a great deal more sensible than yours; and if I could bring myself to believe that at your séances any real phenomenon does take place (which of course no sane person can), I should be much more apt to accept Frontignan's interpretation of the matter. Let us follow it out a little further, for the mere sake of talking nonsense. Doubtless the dominant passion of a man would be the most likely to appear—that is to say, would be the most tangible."
"That would depend," replied the Duke, "upon circumstances. If the phenomenon should take place while the man is alone, doubtless it would be so; but if while at a séance attended by many people, the apparition would be the product of the master passions of all, and thus it is that many of the visions which appear at séances where the sitters are not harmonized are most remarkable and unrecognizable anomalies."
"I thought I understood from Mme. de Girardin that certain spirits always appeared."
"Pooh, pooh! Mme. de Girardin never went deep enough into the matter. The most ravishing vision I ever saw was when I fancied I saw love."
"What? Love! An emanation from yourself?"
The Duke sighed.
"Ah, that is what proved to me that what I saw could not be love. That sentiment has been too long extinguished in me to awaken to a corporeal expression."
"What made you think it was love?" asked Pomerantseff.
"It was a white dove with something I cannot express that was human about it. I felt ineffably happy while it was with me."
"Your theory is false, I tell you," said the Russian. "What you saw probably was love."
"Then it would have been God!" cried the Abbé.
"Why?"
"I believe with Novalis that 'love is the highest reality,'" replied Gérard; then he added with a laugh, "No, Duke, what you saw was an emanation from yourself—a master passion. It was the corporeal embodiment of your love of pigeon-shooting!"
"Perhaps," laughed the Duke.
"I tell you what, mon ami," said Pomerantseff rising, as he saw the Abbé making preparations to depart. "I am glad that my appetite, corporealized and separated from my discretion, is not in your wine cellar. Your Johannisberg would suffer!"
"Prince, you must drive me home," said the Abbé. "I cannot get into a draughty cab at this hour of the night."
"Très volontiers! Good night, Duke. Remember to-morrow morning, at half-past nine, at the Gare de Lyon," said the Prince.
"Remember to-morrow night at half-past ten, at Mme. de Langeac's," bawled the Abbé; and so they left. The young nobleman hurried down the cold staircase and into the Prince's brougham.
"What a pity," exclaimed the Abbé when they were once fairly started, "that a man with all the mind of De Frontignan should give himself up to such wild ideas and dreams!"
"You are not very complimentary," rejoined the other smiling gravely; "for you know that so far as believing in spirits I am as bad if not worse than he is."
"Ah, but you are jesting."
"On my honor as a gentleman, I am not jesting. See here." As he spoke Pomerantseff seized the Abbé's hand. "You heard me tell the Duke just now that I believed he had seen the spirit of love. Well, the sermon you preached the day before yesterday, which all Paris is talking about, and in which you endeavored to prove the personality of the devil to be a fact, was truer than perhaps you believed when you preached it. Why should not Frontignan have seen the spirit of love when I know and have seen the devil?"
"Mon ami, you are insane!" cried Gérard. "Why, the devil does not exist!"
"I tell you I have seen him—the God of all Evil, the Prince of Desolation!" cried the other in an excited voice. "And what is more, I will show him to you!"
"Show the devil to me!" exclaimed the Abbé, half terrified, half amused. "Why, you are out of your mind!"
The Prince laid his other hand upon the arm of the Abbé, who could feel he was trembling with excitement.
"You know my address," he said in a quick, passionate voice. "When you feel—as I tell you you surely will—desirous of investigating this further, send for me, and I promise, on my honor as a gentleman, to show you the devil, so that you cannot doubt. I will do this on one condition."
The Abbé felt almost faint; for apart from the wildness of the words thus abruptly and unexpectedly addressed to him, the hand of the Prince which lay upon his own, as if to keep him still, seemed to be pouring fire and madness into him. He tried to withdraw it, but the other grasped the fingers tight.
"On one condition," repeated Pomerantseff in a lower tone.
"What condition?" murmured the poor Abbé.
"That you trust yourself entirely to me until we reach the place of meeting."
"Prince, let go my hand! You are hurting me! I will promise to do as you say when I want to go to your infernal meeting."
He wrenched his hand away, pulled down the carriage window and let the cold night air in.
"Pomerantseff, you are a madman; you are dangerous. Why the devil did you grasp my hand in that way? My arm is numb."
The Prince laughed.
"It is only electricity. I was determined, since you doubted the existence of the devil, to make you promise to come and see him."
"I never promised!" exclaimed the Abbé. "I only promised to trust myself to you if the horrible desire should ever seize me to investigate your mad words further. But you need not be afraid of that. God forbid I should indulge in such folly!"
The Prince smiled.
"God has nothing to do with this," he remarked simply. "You will come."
The carriage had now turned up the street in which the Abbé lived, and they were but a few doors from his house.
"My dear Prince," said Gérard earnestly, "let me say a few words to you at parting. You know I am not a bigot, so that your words—which many might think blasphemous—I care nothing about; but remember we are in the Paris of the nineteenth century, not in the Paris of Cazotte, and that we are eminently practical nowadays. Had you asked me to go with you to see some curious atrocity, no matter how horrible, I might, were it interesting, have accepted; but when you invite me to go with you to see the devil you really must excuse me; it is too absurd."
"Very well," replied Prince Pomerantseff. "Of course I know you will come; but think the matter over well. Remember, I promise to show the devil to you so that you can never doubt of his personality again. This is not one of the wonders of electro-biology, but simply a fact: the devil exists, and you shall see him. Good night."
Gérard, as he turned into his porte cochère, and made his way up stairs, was more struck than perhaps he confessed even to himself by the quiet tone of certainty and assurance in which the Prince uttered these words; and on reaching his apartment he sat down by the blazing fire, lighted a cigarette, and began considering in all its bearings what he felt convinced was a most remarkable case of mania and mental derangement. In the first place, was the Prince deceived himself, or merely endeavoring to deceive another? The latter theory he at once rejected; not only the character and breeding of the man, but his nervous earnestness about this matter, rendered such a supposition impossible. Then he himself was deceived—and yet how improbable! Gérard could remember nothing in what he knew or had heard of the Prince that could lead him to suppose his brain was of the kind charlatans and pseudo-magicians can successfully bewitch. On the contrary, although of a country in which the grossest superstitions are rife, he himself had led such an active, healthy life, partly in Russia and partly in England, that his brain could hardly be suspected of derangement. An intimate and practical acquaintance with most of the fences in "the shires," and all the leading statesmen of Europe, can hardly be considered compatible with a morbid disposition and superstitious nature.
No; the Abbé confessed to himself that the man who deceived Pomerantseff must have been of no ordinary ability. That he had been deceived was beyond all question, but it was certainly marvellous. In practical matters, the Abbé was even forced to confess to himself, he would unhesitatingly take the Prince's advice, sooner than trust to his own private judgment; and yet here was this model of keen, healthy, worldly wisdom gravely inviting him to meet the devil face to face, and not only this, but promising that it should be no unintelligible freak of electro-biology, but as a simple fact. Gérard smoked thirty cigarettes without coming to any satisfactory solution of the enigma. What if after all he, the Abbé Gérard, for once should abandon the line of conduct he had laid down for himself, and, to satisfy his curiosity, and perhaps with the chance of restoring to its proper equilibrium a most valuable and comprehensive mind, overlook his determination never to endanger his peace of mind by meddling with the affairs of spiritualists? He could picture to himself the whole thing: they would doubtless be in a darkened room; an apparition clothed in red, and adorned with the traditional horns, would make its appearance, and there would very likely be no apparent evidence of fraud. Even supposing some portion of the absurd theory enunciated by the Duke de Frontignan were true, and some strange thing begotten of electric fluid and overwrought imagination were to make its appearance, that could hardly be considered by a sane man as being equivalent to an interview with the devil. The Abbé told himself that it would be most likely impossible to detect any fraud, but he felt convinced that should the Prince find this phenomenon pooh-poohed, after a full investigation, by a man of sense and culture, his faith in it would be shaken, and ere long he would come to despise it.
All the remarkable stories he had heard about spiritualism from Mme. de Gérardin and others, and which he hitherto paid no heed to, came back to-night to the Abbé as he sat ruminating over the extraordinary offer just made him. He had heard of dead people appearing, and that was sufficiently absurd, for he did not believe in a future life; but the devil——The idea was preposterous! Poor Luther, indeed, might throw his ink-pot at him, but no enlightened Roman Catholic priest could be expected to believe in his existence, no matter how much he might be forced—for obvious reasons—to preach about it, and represent it as a fact in sermons. Yes; he would unhesitatingly consent to investigate the matter, and discover the fraud he felt certain was lurking somewhere, but that the Prince seemed to feel so certain of his consent; and he feared by thus fulfilling an idly expressed prophecy to plunge the unhappy man still deeper in his slough of superstition. One thing was certain, the Abbé told himself with a smile—nothing on earth or from heaven or hell—if the two latter absurdities existed—could make him believe in the devil. No, not even if the devil should come and take him by the hand, and all the hosts of heaven flock to testify to his identity. By this time, having smoked and thought himself into a state of blasphemous idiocy, our worthy divine threw away his cigarette, went to bed, and read himself into a nightmare with a volume of Von Helmont. The following morning still found him perplexed as to what course to adopt in this matter. As luck (or shall we say—the devil?) would have it, while he was trifling in a listless way with his breakfast, there called to see him the only priest in whose judgment, purity, and religious fervor he had any confidence. It is probable, to such an extent was his mind engrossed by the subject, that no matter who might have called, he would have discussed the extraordinary conduct of Prince Pomerantseff with him; but insomuch as the visitor chanced to be the very man best calculated to direct his judgment in the matter, he, without unnecessary delay, laid the whole affair before him.
"You see, mon cher," said Gérard in conclusion, "my position is just this: It appears to me that this person, whom I will not name, has been trifled with by Home and other so-called spiritualists to such an extent that his mind is really in danger. Now, although of course we are forbidden to have any dealings with such people, or to participate in any way in their infamous, foolish, and unholy practices, surely it would be the act of a Christian if a clear, healthy-minded man were to expose the fraud, and thus save to society a man of such transcendent ability as my friend. Moreover, should I determine to accept his mad invitation, I hardly think I could be said to participate in any of the scandalous and perhaps blasphemous rites he may have to perform to bring about the supposed result. What do you think of it, and what do you advise?"
His friend walked up and down the room for a few minutes, turning the matter over carefully in his mind, and then, coming up to where the Abbé lay lazily stretched upon a lounge, he said earnestly,
"Mon cher Henri, I am very glad you have asked me about this. It appears to me that your duty is quite clear. You perhaps have it in your power, as you yourself have seen, to save, not only, as you say, a mind, but what I wish I could feel you prized more highly—a soul. You must accept the invitation."
The Abbé rose in delight at having found another man who, taking the responsibility off his shoulders, commanded him as a duty to indulge his ardent curiosity.
"But," continued the other in a solemn voice, "before accepting, you must do one thing."
The Abbé threw himself back on the lounge in disgust.
"Oh, pray, of course," he exclaimed petulantly. "I am quite aware of that."
"Not only pray, but fast, and that for seven days at least, my dear brother."
This was a very disagreeable view of the matter, but the Abbé was equal to the occasion. After a pause, during which he appeared absorbed in religious reflection, he rose, and taking his friend by the hand—
"You are right," said he, "as you always are. Although of course I know the evil spirit cannot harm an officer of God's Holy Catholic church, even supposing, for the sake of argument, my poor friend can invoke Satan, yet if I am to do any good, if I am to save my friend from destruction, I must be armed with extraordinary grace, and this, as you truly divine, can only come by fasting."
The other wrung his hand warmly. "I knew you would see it in its proper light, my dear Henri," he said, "and now I will leave you to recover your peace of mind by religious meditation."
The Abbé smiled gravely, and let his friend depart. The following letter was the result of this edifying interview between the two divines:
"Mon cher Prince: No doubt you will feel very triumphant when you learn that my object in writing this letter is to accept your offer of presentation to Sa Majesté; but I do not care whether you choose to consider this yielding to what is only in part whimsical curiosity a triumph or no. I will not write to you any cut-and-dried platitudes about good and evil, but I frankly assure you that one of the strongest reasons which induces me to go with you on this fool's errand is a belief that I can discover the absurdity and imposture, and cure you of a hallucination which is unworthy of you.
"Tout à vous,
"Henri Gérard."
For two days he received no reply to this letter, nor did he happen, in the interval, to meet the Prince in society, although he heard of him from De Frontignan and others; but on the third day the following note was brought to him:
"Mon cher ami: There is no question of triumph, any more than there is of deception. I will call for you this evening at half-past nine. You must remember your promise to trust yourself entirely to me.
"Cordialement à vous,
"Pomerantseff."
So the matter was now arranged, and he, the Abbé Gérard, the renowned preacher of the celebrated —— church, was to meet that very night, by special appointment, at half-past nine, the Prince of Darkness; and this in January, in Paris—at the height of the season in the capital of civilization. As may be well imagined, during the remainder of that eventful day, until the hour of the Prince's arrival, the Abbé did not enjoy his customary placidity. A secretary of the Turkish embassy who called at four found him engaged in a violent discussion with one of the Rothschilds about the early Christians' belief in demons, as shown by Tertullian and others, while Lord Middlesex, who called at half-past five, found he had captured Faure, installed him at the piano, and was inducing him to hum snatches from "Don Juan." When his dinner hour arrived, having given orders to his valet to admit no one lest he should be discovered not fasting, he hastily swallowed a few mouthfuls, fortified himself with a couple of glasses of Chartreuse verte, and lighting an enormous "imperial," awaited the coming of the messenger of Satan. At half-past nine o'clock precisely the Prince arrived. He was in full evening dress (but contrary to his usual custom, wearing no decoration or ribbon in his buttonhole), and his face was of a deadly pallor.
"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed the Abbé, "What is the matter with you, mon cher? You are looking very ill. We had better postpone our visit."
"No; it is nothing," replied the Prince gravely. "Let us be off without delay. In matters of this sort waiting is unbearable."
The Abbé rose, and rang the bell for his hat and cloak. The appearance of the Prince, his evident agitation, and his unfeigned impatience, which seemed to betoken terror, were far from reassuring, but the Abbé promptly quelled any misgivings he might have felt. Suddenly a thought struck him; a thought which certainly his brain would never have engendered had it been in its normal condition.
"Perhaps I had better change my dress, and go en pékin?" he inquired anxiously.
The ghost of a sarcastic smile flitted across the Prince's face, as he replied,
"No, certainly not. Your soutane will be in every way acceptable. Come, let us be off."
The Abbé made a grimace, put on his hat, flung his cloak around his shoulders, and followed the Prince down stairs. He remarked with some surprise that the carriage awaiting them was not the Prince's.
"I have hired a carriage for the occasion," remarked Pomerantseff quietly, noticing Gerard's glance of surprise. "I am unwilling that my servants should suspect anything of this."
They entered the carriage, and the coachman, evidently instructed beforehand where to go, drove off without delay. The Prince immediately pulled down the blinds, and taking a silk pocket handkerchief from his pocket, began quietly to fold it lengthwise.
"I must blindfold you, mon cher," he remarked simply, as if announcing the most ordinary fact.
"Diable!" cried the Abbé, now becoming a little nervous. "This is very unpleasant! I believe you are the devil yourself."
"Remember your promise," said Pomerantseff, as he carefully covered his friend's eyes with the pocket handkerchief, and effectually precluded the possibility of his seeing anything until he should remove the bandage. After this nothing was said. The Abbé heard the Prince pull up the blind, open the window, and tell the coachman to drive faster. He endeavored to discover when they turned to the right, and when to the left, but in a few minutes got bewildered and gave it up in despair. At one time he felt certain they were crossing the river.
"I wish I had not come," he murmured to himself. "Of course the whole thing is folly, but it is a great trial to the nerves, and I shall probably be upset for many days."
On they drove; the time seemed interminable to the Abbé.
"Are we near our destination yet?" he inquired at last.
"Not very far off," replied the other, in what seemed to Gérard a most sepulchral tone of voice. At length, after a drive of perhaps half an hour, but which seemed to the Abbé double that time, Pomerantseff murmured in a low tone, and with a profound sigh which sounded almost like a sob, "Here we are," and at that moment the Abbé felt the carriage was turning, and heard the horses' hoofs clatter on what he imagined to be the stones of a courtyard. The carriage stopped. Pomerantseff opened the door himself, and assisted the blindfolded priest to alight.
"There are five steps," he said as he held the Abbé by the arm. "Take care."
The Abbé stumbled up the five steps. They had now entered a house, and Gérard imagined to himself it was probably some old hotel, like the Hôtel Pimodan, where Gautier, Beaudelaire, and others at one time were wont to assemble to disperse the cares of life in the fumes of opium. When they had proceeded a few yards, Pomerantseff warned him that they were about to ascend a staircase, and up many shallow steps they went, the Abbé regretting every instant more and more that he had allowed his vulgar curiosity to lead him into an adventure which could be productive of nothing but ridicule and shattered nerves. When at length they had reached the top of the stairs, the Prince guided him by the arm through what the Abbé imagined to be a hall, opened a door, closed and locked it after them, walked on again, opened another door, which he closed and locked likewise, and over which the Abbé heard him pull a heavy curtain. The Prince then took him again by the arm, advanced him a few steps, and said in a low whisper, "Remain quietly standing where you are, and do not attempt to remove the pocket handkerchief until you hear voices."
The Abbé folded his arms and stood motionless while he heard the Prince walk away a few yards. It was evident to the unfortunate priest that the room in which he stood was not dark, for although he could see nothing, owing to the pocket handkerchief, which had been bound most skilfully over his eyes, there was a sensation of being in strong light, and his cheeks and hands felt, as it were, illuminated. Suddenly a horrible sound sent a chill of terror through him—a gentle noise as of naked flesh touching the waxed floor—and before he could recover from the shock occasioned by the sound, the voices of many men, voices of men groaning or wailing in some hideous ecstasy, broke the stillness, crying—"Father of all sin and crime, Prince of all despair and anguish, come to us, we implore thee!"
The Abbé, wild with terror, tore off the pocket handkerchief. He found himself in a large, old-fashioned room, panelled up to the lofty ceiling with oak, and filled with great light, shed from innumerable tapers fitted into sconces on the wall—light which, though naturally soft, was almost fierce by reason of its greatness, for it proceeded from at least two hundred tapers. He had then been after all right in his conjectures: he was evidently in a chamber of some one of the many old-fashioned hotels which are to be seen in the Ile St. Louis, and indeed in all the antiquated quarters of Paris. It was reassuring, at all events, to know one was not in Hades, and to feel tolerably certain that a sergeant de ville could not be many yards distant. All this passed into his comprehension like a flash of lightning, for hardly had the bandage left his eyes ere his whole attention was riveted upon a group before him.
Twelve men—Pomerantseff among the number—of all ages, from twenty-five to fifty-five, all dressed in evening dress, and all, so far as one could judge at such a moment, men of culture and refinement, knelt or rather lay nearly prone upon the floor, with hands linked. They were bowing forward and kissing the floor—which might account for the strange sound heard by Gérard—and their faces were illuminated with a light of hellish ecstasy—half distorted as if in pain, half smiling as if in triumph. The Abbé's eyes instinctively sought out the Prince. He was the last on the left hand side, and while his left hand grasped that of his neighbor, his right was sweeping nervously over the floor as if seeking to animate the boards. His face was more calm than those of the others, but of a deadly pallor, and the violet tints about the mouth and temples showed he was suffering from intense emotion. They were all, each one after his own fashion, praying aloud, or rather moaning, as they writhed in ecstatic adoration.
"Oh, Father of Evil, come to us!"
"Oh, Prince of Endless Desolation, who sitteth by the bed of suicides, we adore thee!"
"Oh, creator of eternal anguish! oh, king of cruel pleasures and famishing desires, we worship thee!"
"Come to us, with thy foot upon the hearts of widows, thy hair lucid with the slaughter of innocence, and thy brow wreathed with the chaplet of despair!"
The heart of the Abbé turned cold and sick as these beings, hardly human by reason of their great mental exaltation, swayed before him.
Suddenly—or rather the full conception of the fact was sudden, for the influence had been gradually stealing over him—he felt a terrible coldness, a coldness more piercing than any he had before experienced even in Russia; and with the coldness there came to him the certain knowledge of the presence of some new being in the room. Withdrawing his eyes from the semi-circle of men, who did not seem to be aware of his, the Abbé's, presence, and who ceased not in their blasphemies, he turned them slowly around, and as he did so they fell upon a newcomer, a thirteenth, who seemed to spring into existence from the air before his very eyes.
He was a young man of apparently twenty, very tall, with bright golden hair falling from his forehead like a girl's. He was dressed in evening dress, and his cheeks were flushed as if with wine or pleasure, but from his eyes there gleamed a look of inexpressible sadness, of intense despair. The group of men had evidently become aware of his presence at the same moment, for they all fell prone upon the floor adoring, and their words were now no longer words of invocation, but words of praise and worship. The Abbé was frozen with horror; there was no room in his breast for the lesser emotion of fear; indeed, the horror was so great and all-absorbing as to charm and hold him spellbound. He could not remove his eyes from the thirteenth, who stood before him calmly, with a faint smile playing over his intellectual and aristocratic face—a smile which only added to the intensity of the despair gleaming in his clear blue eyes. Gérard was struck first with the sadness, then with the beauty, and then with the intellectual vigor of that marvellous countenance. The expression was not unkind: haughtiness and pride could be read only in the high-bred features, short upper lip, and nobly moulded limbs; for the face betokened, save for the flush upon the cheeks, only great sadness. The eyes were fixed upon those of Gérard, and he felt their soft, subtle, intense light penetrate into every nook and cranny of his soul and being. This being simply stood and gazed upon the priest as the worshippers grew more wild, more blasphemous, more cruel. The Abbé could think of nothing but the face before him, and the great desolation that lay folded over it as a veil. He could think of no prayer, although he could remember there were prayers. Was this despair—the despair of a man drowning in sight of land—being shed into him from the sad blue eyes? Was it despair, or was it death? Ah, no; not death. Death was peaceful, and this was violent and lively. Was there no refuge, no mercy, no salvation anywhere? Perhaps, but he could not remember while those sad blue eyes still gazed upon him. He could not remember, and still he could not entirely forget. He felt that help would come to him if he sought it, and yet he could hardly tell how to seek it. Moreover, by degrees the blue eyes—it seemed as if their color, their great blueness, had some fearful power—began pouring into him a more hideous pleasure. It was the ecstasy of great pain, becoming a delight, the ecstasy of being beyond all hope and of being thus enabled to look with scorn upon the author of hope. The blue eyes still gazed sadly with a soft smile of despair upon him. Gérard knew that in another moment he would not sink, faint, or fall, but that he would—oh, much worse!—he would smile. At this very instant a name—a familiar name, and one which the infernal worshippers had made frequent use of, but which he had never remarked before—struck his ear; the name of Christ. Where had he heard it? He could not tell. It was the name of a young man; he could remember that, and nothing more. Again the name sounded—"Christ." There was another word like Christ which seemed at some time to have brought an idea first of great suffering and then of great peace. Aye, peace, but no pleasure. No delight like this shed from these marvellous blue eyes. Again the name sounded—"Christ."
Ah! the other word was cross (croix). He remembered now; along thing with a short thing across it.
Was it that as he thought of these things the charm of the blue eyes and their great sadness lessened in intensity? We dare not say, but as some faint conception of what a cross was flitted through the Abbé's brain, although he could think of no prayer, of no distinct use of this cross, he drew his right hand slowly up, and feebly made the sign across his breast.
The vision vanished.
The men adoring ceased their clamor, and lay crouched up against each other as if some strong electric power had been taken from them, and great weakness had succeeded. But for a moment; and then they rose trembling and with loosened hands, and stood for an instant feebly gazing at the Abbé, who felt faint and exhausted, and heeded them not. With extraordinary presence of mind, the Prince walked quickly up to him, pushed him out of the door by which they had entered, followed him, and locked the door behind them, thus precluding the possibility of being immediately pursued by the others. Once in the next room, the Abbé and Pomerantseff paused for an instant to recover breath, for the swiftness of their flight had exhausted them, worn out as they both were mentally and physically; but during this brief interval the Prince, who appeared to be retaining his presence of mind by a merely mechanical effort, carefully replaced over his friend's eyes the bandage which the Abbé held tightly grasped in his hand. Then he led him on, and it was not until the cold air struck them that they noticed they had left their hats behind.
"N'importe!" muttered Pomerantseff. "It would be dangerous to return"; and hurrying the Abbé into the carriage which awaited them, he bade the coachman speed them away "au grand galop!"
Not a word was spoken; the Abbé lay back as one in a swoon, and heeded nothing until he felt the carriage stop, and the Prince uncovered his eyes and told him he had reached home. He alighted in silence, and passed into his house without a word. How he reached his apartment he never knew, but the following morning found him raging with fever and delirious. When he had sufficiently recovered, after the lapse of a few days, to admit of his reading the numerous letters awaiting his attention, one was put into his hand which had been brought on the second night after the one of the memorable séance. It ran as follows:
"Jockey Club, January 26, 186-.
"Mon cher Abbé: I am afraid our little adventure was too much for you; in fact, I myself was very unwell all yesterday, and nothing but a Russian bath has pulled me together. I can hardly wonder at this, however, for I have never in my life been present at so powerful a séance, and you may comfort yourself with the reflection that Son Altesse has never honored any one with his presence for so long a space of time before. Never fear about your illness; it is merely nervous exhaustion, and you will be well soon; but such evenings must not often be indulged in if you are not desirous of shortening your life. I shall hope to meet you at Mme. de Metternich's on Monday.
"Tout à vous,
"Pomerantseff."
Whether or no Gérard was sufficiently recovered to meet his friend at the Austrian embassy on the evening named, we do not know, nor does it concern us; but he is certainly enjoying excellent health now, and is no less charming than before his extraordinary adventure.
Such is the true story of a meeting with the devil in Paris not many years ago; a story true in every particular, as can be easily proved by a direct application to any of the persons concerned in it, for they are all living still. The key to the enigma we cannot find, for we certainly do not put faith in any of the theories of spiritualists; but that an apparition such as we have described did appear in the way and under the circumstances we have described, is a fact, and we must leave the satisfactory solution of the difficulty to more profound psychologists than ourselves.