“I think I can promise that,” I replied. “I feel excessively calm, and should I witness any terrifying spectacle, I trust that I shall remain master of myself sufficiently to attribute it solely to my imagination.”
“Do you wish to make this extraordinary invocation to-night, then?”
“Perhaps; but I would prefer first to read all the reports concerning it, and I would also like to glance over some work on this subject, not any derogatory critique, my doubts are sufficiently established, but one of those ancient, simple treatises where among many absurdities, I may chance to discover some ingenious ideas.”
“Very well, you are right,” said she, “but I do not know what work to recommend. I have never dipped into these old books; if you would like, to-morrow, to look over the library”——.
“If you will permit me, I will set about this task at once. It is only eleven o’clock, this is the time that your house subsides into silence. I will sit up in the library, and if my imagination becomes slightly excited, I will then be in a fit frame of mind to return to my room so that I may offer to the three ladies the commemorative supper which possesses the virtue of attracting them hither.”
“I will order the famous tray to be taken there then,” said Madame d’Ionis, smilingly, “and I am forcing myself to look only on the strange side of this affair, not to be too much impressed by it.”
“What, madame, you too!”
“Eh, mon Dieu,” she exclaimed, “after all, what do we know about it? We ridicule everything nowadays; are we any the wiser for it than formerly? We are weak creatures, who think ourselves strong; who knows if we do not thus render ourselves more material than God desired, and if what we take for lucidity of vision is not really blindness. Like myself, you believe in the immortality of the soul. Is an absolute separation between our own and those freed from matter so clear a thing to conceive that we can prove it?”
She talked in this fashion for several minutes with a great deal of intelligence and imagination; then left me, a little disturbed, begging me in case I should become nervous or beset by lugubrious ideas, to abandon my project. I was so happy and so touched by her solicitude, that I expressed my regret at not having a little fear to overcome so that I might better prove my zeal.
I went up stairs to my room, where Zéphyrine had already arranged the basket; Baptiste wanted to take it away.