"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."