The Magician, W. Somerset Maugham [english novels for beginners .TXT] 📗

then he thought of the green lanes and of the waste places with their scented heather, the fair broad roads that led from one old sweet town to another, of the Pardons and their gentle, sad crowds. Dr. Porhoët gave a sigh.

“It is good to be born in the land of Brittany,” he smiled.

But his bonne showed Susie in, and he rose with a smile to greet her. She had been in Paris for some time, and they had seen much of one another. He basked in the gentle sympathy with which she interested herself in all the abstruse, quaint matters on which he spent his time; and, divining her love for Arthur, he admired the courage with which she effaced herself. They had got into the habit of eating many of their meals together in a quiet house opposite the Cluny called La Reine Blanche, and here they had talked of so many things that their acquaintance was grown into a charming friendship.

“I’m ashamed to come here so often,” said Susie, as she entered. “Matilde is beginning to look at me with a suspicious eye.”

“It is very good of you to entertain a tiresome old man,” he smiled, as he held her hand. “But I should have been disappointed if you had forgotten your promise to come this afternoon, for I have much to tell you.”

“Tell me at once,” she said, sitting down.

“I have discovered an MS. at the library of the Arsenal this morning that no one knew anything about.”

He said this with an air of triumph, as though the achievement were of national importance. Susie had a tenderness for his innocent mania; and, though she knew the work in question was occult and incomprehensible, congratulated him heartily.

“It is the original version of a book by Paracelsus. I have not read it yet, for the writing is most difficult to decipher, but one point caught my eye on turning over the pages. That is the gruesome fact that Paracelsus fed the homunculi he manufactured on human blood. One wonders how he came by it.”

Susie gave a little start, which Dr. Porhoët noticed.

“What is the matter with you?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly.

He looked at her for a moment, then proceeded with the subject that strangely fascinated him.

“You must let me take you one day to the library of the Arsenal. There is no richer collection in the world of books dealing with the occult sciences. And of course you know that it was at the Arsenal that the tribunal sat, under the suggestive name of chambre ardente, to deal with cases of sorcery and magic?”

“I didn’t,” smiled Susie.

“I always think that these manuscripts and queer old books, which are the pride of our library, served in many an old trial. There are volumes there of innocent appearance that have hanged wretched men and sent others to the stake. You would not believe how many persons of fortune, rank, and intelligence, during the great reign of Louis XIV, immersed themselves in these satanic undertakings.”

Susie did not answer. She could not now deal with these matters in an indifferent spirit. Everything she heard might have some bearing on the circumstances which she had discussed with Dr. Porhoët times out of number. She had never been able to pin him down to an affirmation of faith. Certain strange things had manifestly happened, but what the explanation of them was, no man could say. He offered analogies from his well-stored memory. He gave her books to read till she was saturated with occult science. At one moment, she was inclined to throw them all aside impatiently, and, at another, was ready to believe that everything was possible.

Dr. Porhoët stood up and stretched out a meditative finger. He spoke in that agreeably academic manner which, at the beginning of their acquaintance, had always entertained Susie, because it contrasted so absurdly with his fantastic utterances.

“It was a strange dream that these wizards cherished. They sought to make themselves beloved of those they cared for and to revenge themselves on those they hated; but, above all, they sought to become greater than the common run of men and to wield the power of the gods. They hesitated at nothing to gain their ends. But Nature with difficulty allows her secrets to be wrested from her. In vain they lit their furnaces, and in vain they studied their crabbed books, called up the dead, and conjured ghastly spirits. Their reward was disappointment and wretchedness, poverty, the scorn of men, torture, imprisonment, and shameful death. And yet, perhaps after all, there may be some particle of truth hidden away in these dark places.”

“You never go further than the cautious perhaps,” said Susie. “You never give me any definite opinion.”

“In these matters it is discreet to have no definite opinion,” he smiled, with a shrug of the shoulders. “If a wise man studies the science of the occult, his duty is not to laugh at everything, but to seek patiently, slowly, perseveringly, the truth that may be concealed in the night of these illusions.”

The words were hardly spoken when Matilde, the ancient bonne, opened the door to let a visitor come in. It was Arthur Burdon. Susie gave a cry of surprise, for she had received a brief note from him two days before, and he had said nothing of crossing the Channel.

“I’m glad to find you both here,” said Arthur, as he shook hands with them.

“Has anything happened?” cried Susie.

His manner was curiously distressing, and there was a nervousness about his movements that was very unexpected in so restrained a person.

“I’ve seen Margaret again,” he said.

“Well?”

He seemed unable to go on, and yet both knew that he had something important to tell them. He looked at them vacantly, as though all he had to say was suddenly gone out of his mind.

“I’ve come straight here,” he said, in a dull, bewildered fashion. “I went to your hotel, Susie, in the hope of finding you; but when