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Updated: June 7, 2025
The chamber in which Durtal and Des Hermies were sitting trembled and a droning filled the air. It seemed that waves of sound came out of the walls, unrolling in a spiral from the very rock, and that one was transported, in a dream, into the inside of one of these shells which, when held up to the ear, simulate the roar of rolling billows.
"Do you know what I think?" asked Des Hermies, looking at Carhaix. "I think you ought to prepare a compendium of hagiography or a really informative work on heraldry." "What makes you think that?" "Well, you are, thank God, remote from this epoch and fond of things which it knows nothing about or execrates, and a work of that kind would take you still further away.
The only legitimate source of vexation to an author is to see his work, when printed, exposed to the contaminating curiosity of the crowd." "That is," said Des Hermies, "a veritable prostitution. To advertise a thing for sale is to accept the degrading familiarities of the first comer."
Of this man Des Hermies spoke much, and one day he said, "You really ought to know him. He likes the books of yours which I have lent him, and he wants to meet you. You think I am interested only in obscure and twisted natures. Well, you will find Carhaix really unique. He is the one Catholic with intelligence and without sanctimoniousness; the one poor man with envy and hatred for none."
For a long time, in utter darkness, they climbed a winding stair. Durtal was wondering where the keeper had gone, when, turning a corner, he saw a shaft of light, then he stumbled against the rickety supports of a "double-current" lamp in front of a door. Des Hermies pulled a bell cord and the door swung back.
"I want to ask you," said Des Hermies, "does a woman receive the visit of the incubus while she is asleep or while she is awake?" "A distinction must be made. If the woman is not the victim of a spell, if she voluntarily consorts with the impure spirit, she is always awake when the carnal act takes place.
Before he opened his eyes there was a sudden flash of light in his brain, and troops of demon worshippers, like the societies of which Des Hermies had spoken, went defiling past him, dancing a saraband. "A swarm of lady acrobats hanging head downward from trapezes and praying with joined feet!" he said, yawning. He looked at the window.
"The point is," Des Hermies was always telling him, "that there is a basic difference between you and the other realists, and no patched-up alliance could possibly be of long duration. You execrate the age and they worship it. There is the whole matter.
Gévingey who took me completely into his confidence this morning, told me what extraordinary recipes the frightful canon uses. These are, it seems, the unrevealed secrets of modern magic." "Ah, that's what interests me," exclaimed Durtal. "Of course I limit myself to repeating what was told me," resumed Des Hermies, lighting his cigarette.
Next day the march was continued through the centre of the waste past Le Transloy to a capacious camp at Beulencourt on the Peronne road, 2 miles south of Bapaume. Next day the Battalion re-entered the line in front of Hermies, relieving the 9th Sherwoods, whose C.O., Colonel Thornton, came from our 1st Battalion.
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