he mixtures of tannin
and powdered carbon with which the fish was embalmed; and I penetrated
the disguise of the marinated meats, painted with sauces the colour of
sewage; and I diagnosed the wine as being coloured with fuscin, perfumed
with furfurol, and enforced with molasses and plaster.

"I have promised myself to return every month to register the slow but
sure progress of these people toward the tomb."

"Oh!" cried Mme. Carhaix.

"And you will claim," said Durtal, "that you aren't Satanic?"

"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 d