"See, Carhaix, he's at it already. He won't even give us time to get our breath, but must be dogging us about Satanism. It's true I promised him I'd try and get you to tell us something about it tonight. Yes," continued Des Hermies, in response to Carhaix's look of astonishment, "yesterday, Durtal, who is engaged, as you know, in writing a history of Gilles de Rais, declared that he possessed all the information there was about Diabolism in the Middle Ages. I asked him if he had any material on the Satanism of the
present day. He asked me what I was talking about, and wouldn't believe that these practices are being carried on right now."
"But they are," replied Carhaix, becoming grave. "It is only too true."
"Before we go any further, there is one question I'd like to put to Des Hermies," said Durtal. "Can you, honestly, without joking, without letting that saturnine smile play around the corner of your mouth, tell me, in perfectly good faith, whether you do or do not believe in Catholicism?"
"He!" exclaimed the bell-ringer. "Why, he's worse than an unbeliever, he's a heresiarch."
"The fast is, if I were certain of anything, I would be inclined toward Manicheism," said Des Hermies. "It's one of the oldest and it is the simplest of religions, and it best explains the abominable mess everything is in at the present time.
"The Principle of Good and the Principle of Evil, the God of Light and the God of Darkness, two rivals, are fighting for our souls. That's at least clear. Right now it is evident that the Evil God has the upper hand and is reigning over the world as master. Now—and on this point, Carhaix, who is distressed by these theories, can't reprehend me—I am for the under dog. That's a generous and perfectly proper idea."
"But Manicheism is impossible!" cried the bell-ringer. "Two infinities cannot exist together."
"But nothing can exist if you get to reasoning. The moment you argue the Catholic dogma everything goes to pieces. The proof that two infinities can coexist is that this idea passes beyond reason and enters the category of those things referred to in Ecclesiasticus: 'Inquire not into things higher than thou, for many things have shown themselves to be above the sense of men.'
"Manicheism, you see, must have had some good in it, because it was bathed in blood. At the end of the twelfth century thousands of Albigenses were roasted for practising