“Do you not believe, M. d’Asterac, that this sort of knowledge is the very kind to bring one to the devil at the end of this transient life?
“After all, this sire Mosaïde plainly errs in his interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. When our Lord expired on the cross for the salvation of mankind the synagogue felt a bandage slip over her eyes, she staggered like a drunken woman and the crown fell from her head. Since then the interpretation of the Old Testament is confined to the Catholic Church, to which in spite of my many iniquities I belong.”
At these words Mosaïde, like a goat god, smiled in a hideous manner, and said to my dear tutor, in a slow and musty voice sounding as from far away:
“The Masorah has not confided to thee her secrets and the Mischna has not revealed to thee her mysteries.”
“Mosaïde,” continued M. d’Asterac, “not only interprets the books of Moses but also that of Enoch, which is much more important, and which has been rejected by the Christians, who were unable to understand it; like the cock of the Arabian fable, who disdained the pearl fallen in his grain. That book of Enoch, M. Abbé Coignard, is the more precious because therein are to be seen the first talks the daughters of man had with the Sylphs. You must understand that those angels which as Enoch shows us had love connection with women were Sylphs and Salamanders.”
“I will so understand, sir,” replied my good master, “not wishing to gainsay you. But from what has been conserved of the book of Enoch, which is clearly apocryphal, I suspect those angels to have been not Sylphs but simply Phoenician merchants.”
“And on what do you found,” asked M. d’Asterac, “so singular an opinion?”
“I found it, sir, on what is said in that very book that the angels taught the women how to use bracelets and necklaces, to paint the eyebrows and to employ all sorts of dyes. It is further said in the same book, that the angels taught the daughters of men the peculiar qualities of roots and trees, enchantments, and the art of observing the stars. Truly, sir, have not those angels the appearance of Syrians or Sidonians gone ashore on some half-deserted coast and unpacking in the shadow of rocks their trumpery wares to tempt the girls of the savage tribes? These traffickers gave them copper necklaces, armlets and medicines in exchange for amber, frankincense and furs. And they astonished these beautiful but ignorant creatures by speaking to them of the stars with a knowledge acquired by seafaring. That’s clear, I think, and I should like to know in what M. Mosaïde could contradict me.”
Mosaïde kept mute and M. d’Asterac, smiling again, said:
“M. Coignard, you do not reason so badly, ignorant as you still are of gnosticism and the Cabala. And what you say makes me think that there may have been some metallurgistic and gold-working Gnomes among the Sylphs who joined themselves in love with the daughters of men. The Gnomes, and that is a fact, occupied themselves willingly with the goldsmith’s art, and it is probable that those ingenious demons forged the bracelets you believe to have been of Phoenician manufacture.