etics, the Rosicrucians, remind me, when they are not mere
thieves, of children playing and scuffling in a cellar. And if one
descend lower yet, into the hole-in-the-wall places of the pythonesses,
clairvoyants, and mediums, what does one find except agencies of
prostitution and gambling? All these pretended peddlers of the future
are extremely nasty; that's the only thing in the occult of which one
can be sure."

Des Hermies interrupted the course of these reflections by ringing and
walking in. He came to announce that Gevingey had returned and that they
were all to dine at Carhaix's the night after next.

"Is Carhaix's bronchitis cured?"

"Yes, completely."

Preoccupied with the idea of the Black Mass, Durtal could not keep
silent. He let out the fact that he was to witness the ceremony--and,
confronted by Des Hermies's stare of stupefaction, he added that he had
promised secrecy and that he could not, for the present, tell him more.

"You're the lucky one!" said Des Hermies. "Is it too much to ask you the
name of the abbe who is to officiate?"

"Not at all. Canon Docre."

"Ah!" and the other was silent. He was evidently trying to divine by
what manipulations his friend had been able to get in touch with the
renegade.

"Some time ago you told me," Durtal said, "that in the Middle Ages the
Black Mass was said on the naked buttocks of a woman, that in the
seventeenth century it was celebrated on the abdomen, and now?"

"I believe that it takes place before an altar as in church. Indeed it
was sometimes celebrated thus at the end of the fifteenth century in
Biscay. It is true that the Devil then officiated in person. Clothed in
rent and soiled episcopal habits, he gave communion with round pieces of
shoe leather for hosts, saying, 'This is my body.' And he gave these
disgusting wafers to the faithful to eat after they had kissed his left
hand and his breech. I hope that you will not be obliged to render such
base homage to your canon."

Durtal laughed. "No, I don't think he requires a pretend like that. But
look here, aren't you of the decided opinion that the creatures who so
piously, infamously, follow these offices are a bit mad?"

"Mad? Why? The cult of the Demon is no more insane than that of God. One
is rotten and the other resplendent, that is all. By your reckoning all
people who worship any god whatever would be demented. No. The
affiliates of Satanism are mystics of a vile order, but they are
myst