The Equinox (Volume I, Number IX)

THE KEY OF THE MYSTERIES “You frightened him,” said Mme. A——. “Before your arrival, he was beginning to open his whole mind, but you spoke to him of conscience and of the laws of the Church, and he no longer dared to tell you what he wished.” “Bah! What did he wish then?” “To see the devil.” “Perhaps he thought I had him in my pocket ?” “No, but he knows that you give lessons in the Qabalah, and in magic, and so he hoped that you would help him in his enterprise. He told my daughter and myself that in his vicarage in the country, he had already made one night an evocation of the devil by the help of a popular grimoirve. ‘Then’ said he, ‘a whirlwind seemed to shake the vicarage; the rafts groaned, the wainscoting cracked, the doors shook, the windows opened with a crash, and whistlings were heard in every corner of the house.’ He then expected that formid- able vision to follow, but he saw nothing; no monster pre- sented itself; in a word, the devil would not appear. That is why he is looking for the gvimoive of Honorius, for he hopes to find in it stronger conjurations, and more efficacious rites.” “Really! But the man is then a monster, or a mad- man!” “JT think he is just simply in love,” said Desbarrolles. “He is gnawed by some absurd passion, and hopes for absolutely nothing unless he can get the devil to interfere.” “ But how then—what does he mean when he says that we shall hear him spoken of ?” “Who knows? Perhaps he thinks to carry oft the Queen of England, or the Sultana Valide.” The conversation dropped, and a whole year passed 165