“Don’t be uneasy,” said the abbé. “I have a strong desire to know so fine a secret, but I will not conceal from you that I do not expect any effect from it, as I do not believe in Sylphs. Instruct me, if you please.”
“You request me?” replied the cabalist. “Well, then, know that whenever you want the assistance of a Sylph, you have but to pronounce the simple word Agla, and the sons of the air will at once come to you. But understand, M. Abbé, that the word must be spoken by the heart as well as by the lips, and that faith alone gives it its virtue. Without faith it is nothing but a useless murmur. Pronounce it as I do at this moment, putting in it neither soul nor wish, it has, even in my own mouth, but a very slight power, and at the utmost some of the children of light, if they have heard it, glide into this room, the light shadows of light. I’ve divined rather than seen them on yonder curtain, and they have vanished when hardly visible. Neither you nor your pupil has suspected their presence. But had I pronounced that magic word with real fervour you would have seen them appear in all their splendour. They are of a charming beauty. Now, sir, I have entrusted you with a grand and useful secret. Let me say again, do not divulge it imprudently. And do not sneer at the example of the Abbé de Villars, who, for having revealed their secrets, was murdered by the Sylphs, on the road to Lyons.”
“On the Lyons road?” said my good tutor. “How strange!”
M. d’Asterac left us suddenly.
“I will now for the last time,” said the abbé, “visit that noble library where I have enjoyed such austere pleasures and which I shall never see again. Do not fail, Tournebroche, to be at nightfall at the Bergères Circus.”
I promised to be there; it was my intention to lock myself in my room for the purpose of writing to M. d’Asterac, and my dear parents, asking them to kindly excuse me for not taking personal leave of them, as I had to fly after an adventure wherein I was more unlucky than guilty.
When I reached the door of my room, I heard heavy snoring from within. Peeping in I saw M. d’Anquetil in my bed, sleeping, his sword at the bedside, playing cards strewn all over the quilt. For a moment I felt tempted to run him through with his own sword, but the temptation did not last, and I left him sleeping. Notwithstanding my grief I could not help laughing when I thought that Jahel, being locked and bolted in by Mosaide, could not rejoin him.
So I went to my tutor’s room, to write my letters, where I disturbed five or six rats, who had begun to make a meal off his Boethius, which had remained on the night table. I wrote to my mother and to M. d’Asterac, and I composed the most touching epistle to Jahel. My tears fell on this when I read it over for a second time. “Perhaps,” I said to myself, “the faithless girl will cry too, and her tears will mix with mine.”
Then, overwhelmed as I was by fatigue and sorrow, I threw myself on my tutor’s bed, and soon went off into a kind of semi-sleep, troubled by dreams, erotic and sinister. I was awakened by the taciturn Criton, who had entered the room and presented to me, on a silver salver, a sort of curling paper, whereon a few badly written words were scribbled in pencil. Someone expected me at once outside the castle. The note was signed “Friar Ange, unworthy Capuchin.” I went as quickly as I could, and found the little friar seated on the bank of a ditch in a state of pitiable dejection. Wanting strength to get up, he looked at me with his big dog’s eyes, nearly human and full of tears; his sighs moved his beard and chest. In a tone which really pained me he said:
“Alas! Monsieur Jacques, the hour of trial has come to Babylon, as it is said in the prophets. At the request of M. de la Guéritude, the Lieutenant of Police had Mam’selle Catherine taken by the constables to the spittel, from whence she’ll be sent to America by the next convoy. I was informed of it by Jeannette the hurdy-gurdy player, who saw Catherine brought in a cart to the spittel, as she left it herself after having been cured of an evil ailment by the surgeon’s art—at least I hope so, please God! And Catherine is to be transported, and no reprieve to be expected.”