The Dream Circean
By Aleister Crowley
© 2006 by http://www.HorrorMasters.com
I
Perched at the junction of two of the steepest little streets in Montmartre shines the
Lapin Agile, a tiny window filled with gleaming bottles, thrilled through by the light
behind, a little terrace with tables, chairs and shrubs, and two dark doors.
Roderic Mason came striding up the steepness of the Rue St. Vincent, his pipe gripped
hard in his jaw; for the hill is too abrupt for lounging. On the terrace he stretched himself,
twirled round half a dozen times like a dervish, pocketed his pipe, and went stooping
through the open doorway.
Grand old Frédéric was there, in his vast corduroys and sou-wester hat, a cello in his
hand.
His trim grey beard was a shade whiter than when Roderic had last patronized the
Lapin, five years before; but the kindly, gay, triumphant eyes were nowise dimmed by
time. He knew Roderic at a glance, and gave his left hand carelessly, as if he had been
gone but yesterday. Time ambles easily for the owner of such an eyrie, his life content
with wine and song and simple happiness.
It is in such as Frédéric that the hope of the world lies. You could not bribe Frédéric
with a motor-car to grind in an office and help to starve and enslave his fellows. The
bloated, shod-of-breath, bedizened magnates of commerce and finance are not life, but a
disease. The monster hotel is not hospitality, but imprisonment. Civilization is a madness;
and while there are men like Frédéric there is a hope that it will pass. Woe to the earth
when Bumble and Rockefeller and their victims are the sole economic types of man!
Roderic sat down on his favourite bench against the wall, and took stock of things.
How well he remembered the immense Christ at the end of the room, a figure
conceived by a giant of old time, one might have thought, and now covered with a dry,
green lichenous rot, so that the limbs were swollen and distorted. It gave an incredibly
strong impression of loathsome disease, entirely overpowering the intention of picturing
inflicted pain.
Roderic, who, far from being a good man, was actually a Freethinker, thought it a
grimly apt symbol of the religion of our day. © 2006 by http://www.HorrorMasters.com
On His right stood a plaster Muse, with a lyre, the effect being decidedly improved by
someone who had affixed a comic mask with a grinning mouth and a long pink nose; on
His left a stone plaque of Lakshmi, the Hindu Venus, a really very fine piece of work,
clean and dignified, in a way the one sanity in the room, except for an exquisite pencil
sketch of a child, done with all the delicacy and strength of Whistler. The rest of the
decoration was a delicious mixture of the grotesque and the obscene. Sketches, pastels,
cuts, cartoons, oils, all the media of art, had been exhausted in a noble attempt to
flagellate impurity impurity of thought, line, colour, all we symbolize by womanhood.
Hence the grotesque obscenity in nowise suggested Jewry; but gave a wholesome
reaction of life and youth against artificiality and money-lust.
As it chanced, there was nobody of importance in the Lapin. Frédéric, with his hearty
voice and his virile roll, more of a dance than a walk, easily dominated the company.
Yet there was at least one really remarkable figure in the pleasant gloom of the little
cabaret.
A man sat there, timid, pathetic, one would say a man often rebuffed. He was nigh
seventy years of age, maybe; he looked older. For him time had not moved at all,
apparently; for he wore the dress of a beau of the Second Empire.
Exquisitely, too, he wore it. Sitting back in his dark corner, the figure would have
gained had it been suddenly transplanted to the glare of a state ball and the steps of a
throne.
Merrily Frederic trolled out an easy, simple song with the perfect art how different
from the laborious inefficiency of the Opera! and came over to Roderic to see that his
coffee was to his liking.
Changes, Frédéric,! he said, a little sadly. Where is Madeleine la Vache?
At Lourcine.
Mimi l Engeuleuse?
At Clamart.
The Scotch Count, who always spoke like a hanging judge?
Went to Scotland he could get no more whisky here on credit.
His wife?
Poor girl! poor girl!
Ah! it was bound to happen. And Bubu Tire-Cravat?
Frederic brought the edge of his hand down smartly on the table, with a laugh.
He had made so many widows, it was only fair he should marry one! commented the
Englishman. And Pea-shooter Charley?
Don t know. I think he is in prison in England.
Well, well; it saddens. Where are the snows of yesteryear? I must have an absinthe; I
feel old.
You are half my years, answered Frédéric. But come! If yesteryear be past, it is this
year now. And all these distinguished persons who are gone, together are not worth one
silver shoe-buckle of yonder Frederic nodded towards the old beau.
True, I never knew him; vet he looks as if he had sat there since Sedan. Who is he?
We do not know his name, monsieur, said Frederic softly, a little awed; but I think he
was a duke, a prince I cannot say what. He is more than that he is unique. He is le
Revenant de la Rue des Quatre Vents!
The Ghost of the Street of the Four Winds, Roderic was immensely taken by the title;
a thousand fantastic bases for the sobriquet jumped into his brain. Was the Rue des
Quatre Vents haunted by a ghost in his image? There are no ghosts in practical Paris. But
of all the ideas which came to him, not one was half so strange as the simple and natural
story which he was later to hear.
Come, said Frederic. I will present you to him.
Monseigneur, he said, as Roderic stood before him, ready to make his little bow, let
me present Monsieur Mason, an Englishman.
The old fellow took no notice. Said Frederic in his ear: Monsieur lives on the
Boulevard St. Cermain, and loves to paint the streets.
The old man rose with alacrity, smiled, bowed, was enchanted to meet one of the
gallant allies whose courage had he spoke glibly of the Alma, Inkerman, Sebastopol.
The little comedy had not been lost on Roderic. Wondering, he sat down beside the old
nobleman.
What spell had Frederic wrought of so potent a complexion?
Sir, he said, the gallantry of the French troops at the Malakoff was beyond all praise;
it will live for ever in history.
To another he might have spoken of the entente cordiale; to this man he dared not.
Had not his brain perhaps stopped in the sixties?
Had the catastrophe of 70 broken his heart?
Roderic must walk warily.
But the conversation did not take the expected turn. The old gentleman elegantly,
wittily, almost gaily, chattered of art, of music, of the changed appearance of Paris. Here,
at any rate, he was au courant des affaires.
Yet as Roderic, puzzled and pleased, finished his absinthe he said more seriously than
he had yet spoken: I hear that monsieur is a great painter (Roderic modestly waved
aside the adjective), has painted many pictures of Paris. Indeed, as I think of it, I seem to
remember a large picture of St. Sulpice at the Salon of eight years ago no, seven years
ago.
Roderic stared in surprise. How should any one such a man, of all men remember
his daub, a thing he himself had long forgotten? The oldster read his thought. There was
one corner of that picture which interested me deeply, deeply, he said. I called to see
you; you had gone none knew where. I am indeed glad to have met you at last. Perhaps
you would be good enough to show me your pictures you have other pictures of Paris? I
am interested in Paris in Paris itself in the stones and bricks of it. Might I if you
have nothing better to do come to your studio now, and see them?
I m afraid the light began Roderic. It was now ten o clock.
That is nothing, returned the other. I have my own criteria of excellence. A match-
glimmer serves me.
There was only one explanation of all this. The man must be an architect, perhaps
ruined in the mad speculations of the Empire, so well described by Zola in La Curée.
At your service, sir, he said, and rose. The old fellow was surely eccentric; but
equally he was not dangerous. He was rich, or he would not be wearing a diamond worth
every penny of two thousand pounds, as Roderic, no bad judge, made out. There might be
profit, and there would assuredly be pleasure.
They waved, the one an airy, the other a courteous, goodnight to grand old Frédéric,
and went out.
The old man was nimble as a kitten; he had all the suppleness of youth; and together
they ran rapidly down to the boulevard, where, hailing a fiacre, they jumped in and
clattered down towards the Seine.
Roderic sat well back in the carriage, a little lost in thought. But the old man sat
upright, and peered eagerly about him. Once he stopped the cab suddenly at a house with
a low railing in front of it, well set back from the street, jumped out, examined it
minutely, and then, with a sigh and a shake of the head, came back, a little wearier, a
little older.
They crossed the Seine, rattled up the Rue Bonaparte, and stopped at the door of
Roderic s studio.
II
Ah, well, said the old man, as he concluded his examination of the pictures, What I seek
is not here. If it will not weary you, I will tell you a story. Perhaps, although you have not
painted it, you have seen it. Perhaps bah! I am seventy years of age, and a fool to the
end.
Listen, my young friend! I was not always seventy years of age, and that of which I
have to tell you happened when I was twenty-two.
In those days I was very rich, and very happy. I had never loved; I cared for nobody.
My parents were both dead long since. A year of freedom from the control of my good
old guardian, the Due de Castelnaudary (God rest his soul!), had left me vet taintless as a
flower. I had that chivalrous devotion to woman which perhaps never really existed at
any time save for rare individuals.
Such a one is ripe for adventure, and since, as your great poet has said, Circumstance
bows before those who never miss a chance, it was perhaps only a matter of time before
I met with one.
Indeed (I will tell you, for it will help you to understand my story), I once found
myself in an extremely absurd position through my fantastic trust in the impeccability of
woman.
It was rather late one night, and I was walking home through a deserted street, when
two brutal-looking ruffians came towards me, between them a young and beautiful girl,
her face flushed with shame, and screaming in pain; for the savages had each firm hold of
one arm, and were forcing her at a rapid pace to what vile den?
My fist in the face of one and my foot in the stomach of the other! They sprawled in
the road, and, disdaining them, I turned my back and offered my arm to the girl. She, in
an excess of gratitude, flung her arms round my neck and began to kiss me furiously the
first kiss I had ever had from a woman, mind you! Maybe I would not have been
altogether displeased, but that she stank so foully of brandy that my gorge rises at the
memory. The ruffians, more surprised than hurt, began laughing, but kept well away. I
tried to induce the girl to come home; in the end she lost her temper, and fell to
belabouring me with her fists. I was not strong enough or experienced enough to contend
with a mad-woman, and I could not allow myself to strike her. She beat me sore. . . .
I can remember the scene now as if it were yesterday: the bewildered boy, the
screaming, swearing, kicking, scratching woman, the two savages (honest bourgeois
enough!) reeling against the houses, crying with laughter, too weak with laughter to stand
straight.
By-and-by they took pity, came forward, and released me from the unpleasant
situation.
But the shame of me, as I slunk away down the streets! I would not go home that night
at all, ashamed to face my own servants.
I told myself, in the end, that this was a rare accident; but for all that there must have
remained a slight stain upon the mirror of perfect chivalry. In the old days when they
taught logic in the schools one learnt how delicate a flower was a universal affirmative.
It was some uneventful months after this tragedy of the ideal that I was again
walking home very late. I had been to the Jardin des Plantes in the afternoon, and, dining
in that quarter, had staved lingering on the bridge watching the Seine. The moon dropped
down behind the houses with a start I realized that I must go home. There was some
danger, you understand, of footpads. Nothing, however, occurred until I always
preferred to walk through the narrow streets; there is romance in narrow streets! I
found myself in the Rue des Quatre Vents; not a stone s-throw from this house, as you
know.
I had been thinking of my previous misadventure, and, with the folly of youth, had
been indulging in a reverie of the kind that begins If only. If only she had been a
princess ravished by a wicked ogre. If only . . . If only . . .
On the south side of the Rue des Quatre Vents is a house standing well back from the
street, wIth a railing in front of it a common type, is it not? But what riveted my
attention upon it was that while the front of the house was otherwise entirely dark, from a
window on the first floor streamed a blaze of light. The window was wide open to the
street; voices came from it.
The first an old, harsh, menacing voice, with all the sting of hate in it; nay, the sting of
something devilish, worse than hate. A corrupt enjoyment of its malice informed it. And
the words it spoke were too infamous for me to repeat. They are scarred upon my brain.
Addressed to the vilest harridan that scours the gutter for her carrion prey, they would
have yet been inhuman, impossible; to the voice that answered . . . !
It was a voice like the tinkling of a fairy bell. Whoever spoke was little more than a
child; and her answer had the purity and strength of an angel. That even the foul monster
who addressed her could support it, unblasted, was matter for astonishment.
Now the older voice broke into filthy insult, a very frenzy of malice.
I heard O God! the swish of a whip, and the sound of it falling upon flesh.
There was silence, awhile, save for the hideous laughter of the invisible horror inside.
At last a piteous little moan.
My blood sang shrill within me. Out of myself, I sprang at the railings, and was over
them in a second. Rapidly, and quite unobserved (for the scene was strenuous within), I
climbed up the grating of the lower windows, and, reaching up to the edge of the balcony,
swung myself up to and over it.
As I stopped to fetch breath, as yet unperceived, I took in the scene, and was staggered
at its strangeness.
The room, though exquisitely decorated, was entirely bare of furniture, unless one
could dignify by that name a heap of dirty straw in one corner, by which stood a flattish
wooden bowl, half full of what looked like a crust of bread mashed into pulp with water.
Half turned away from me stood the owner of the harsh voice and soul abominable. It
was a woman of perhaps sixty years of age, the head of an angel so regular were the
features, so silver-white the hair set upon the deformed body of a dwarf. Hairy hands
and twisted arms, a hunched back and bandy legs; in the gnarled right hand a terrible
whip, the carved jade handle blossoming into a rose of fine cords, shining with silver
sharp, three-cornered chips of silver! The whole dripped black with blood. Upon the
angel face stood a sneer, a snarl, a malediction. The effect upon one s sense of something
beyond the ordinary was, too, heightened by her costume; for though the summer was at
its height she was clad from head to foot in ermine, starred, more heavily than is usual,
with the little black tails in the form of fleurs-de-lis.
In extreme contrast to this monster was a young girl crouching upon the floor. At first
sight one would have hardly suspected a human form at all, for from her head flowed
down on all sides a torrent of exquisite blonde gold, that completely hid her. Only two
little hands looked out, clasped, pleading for mercy, and a fairy child-face looking up in
vain to that black heart of hatred. Even as I gazed the woman hissed out so frightful a
menace that my blood ran chill. The child shrank back into herself. The other raised her
whip. I leapt into the room. The old hag spat one infamous word at me, turned on me
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This time I was under no illusions about the sanctity of womanhood. With a single
blow I felled her to the ground. My signet-ring cut her lip, and the blood trickled over her
cheek. I laughed. But the child never moved it would seem she hardly comprehended.
I turned, bowed. I could not bear to hear your cries, I said rather obviously, one
may admit. I came adding under my breath, I saw, I conquered. Who is that ? I
added sternly, pointing to the prostrate hag.
Ah, sir (she began to cry), it is my mother. The horror of it was tenfold
multiplied. She she The child blushed, stammered, stopped.
I heard, mademoiselle, I cried indignantly.
I am here (she sobbed) for a month, starved, whipped oh! By day the window
barred with iron; by night, open, the more to mock my helplessness! Then, with a
sudden cry, her little pink hand darting out and showing a faultless arm: Look! look! she
is on you.
The mother had drawn herself away with infinite stealth, regained her feet, and, a thin
stiletto in her hand, was crouched to spring. Indeed, as she leapt I was hard put to it to
avoid the lunge; the dagger-edge grazed my arm as I stepped aside.
I turned. She was on me, flinging me aside with the force of her rush as if I had been a
straw. The snarl of her was like a wolf.
This time she cut me deep. Again a whirl, a rush. I altered my tactics; I ran in to meet
her. Hampered as she was by her furs, I was now quicker than she. I struck her dagger
arm so strongly that the blade flew into the air, and fell quivering on the floor, the heavy
hilt driving the thin blade deep into the polished wood. Even so I had her by the waist,
catching her arm, and with one heave of my back I tossed her into the air, careless where
she might fall.
As luck would have it, she struck the balcony rail, broke it, and fell upon the pavement
of the court. There was a crash, but no cry, no groan. I went to the balcony. She lay still,
as the living do not lie, and her white hair was blackening, lapped by a congealing
stream.
I withdrew into the room. Since I have learnt that any death brings with it a strange
sense of relief. There is a certain finality. La comédie est jauée and one turns with new
life to the next business.
The golden child had never stirred. But now she crouched lower, and fell to soft, sweet
crying.
Your mother is dead, I said abruptly. May I offer you the guardianship of my
godmother, the Duchess of Castelnaudary? Come, mademoiselle, let us go.
I thank you, sir, she answered, still sobbing; but Jean is awake and at the door.
Jean is fierce and lean as an old wolf.
I pulled the dagger from the floor. I am fierce and lithe as a young lion! I said. Let
the old wolf beware!
But I cannot, sir, I cannot. I Her confusion became acute.
I dare not move, sir I I my mother has taken away all my clothes.
I marvelled. In her palace of gold hair nobody could have guessed it. But now I
blushed, and lively. The dilemma was absurd.
I have it, said I. I will climb down and bring up the ermine.
She shuddered at the idea. Her dead mother s furs!
It must be, I said firmly.
Go, brave knight! a delicate smile lit up her face I trust myself to you.
I bent on my right knee to her. I take you, I said, to be my lady, to fight in your
cause, to honour and love you for ever.
She put out her right hand oh, the delicate beauty of it! I kissed it. My knight, she
said, Jean is below; he may hear you; you go perhaps to your death kiss me!
With a sob I sought her once full in my arms, and our mouths met. I closed my eyes in
trance; my muscles failed; I sank, my forehead to the ground before her.
When I opened my eyes again she too was praying. Softly, without a word, I stepped
to the window, took the dagger in my teeth, dropped from the edge, landed lightly beside
the corpse. She was quite dead, the skull broken in, the, teeth exposed in a last snarl. She
lay on her back; I opened the coat, turned her over. The gruesome task was nearly
finished when the door of the house opened, and an old man, his face scarred, one lip cut
half away in some old brawl, so that he grinned horribly and askew, rushed out at me, a
rapier in his hand. My stiletto, though long beyond the ordinary, was useless against a
tool of such superior reach.
A last wrench gave me the ermine cloak, an invaluable parry. Could I entangle his
sword, he was at my mercy. He saw it, and fenced warily. Indeed, I had the upper hand
throughout.
Threatening to throw the cloak, catch his sword, blind him, rush in with my dagger he
gave back and back in a circle round the courtyard.
No sound came from the room above. Probably we three were alone. The fight was not
to be prolonged for ever; the weight of the fur would tire me soon, counter-balance the
advantage of age. Then, almost before I knew what had happened, we were fighting in
the street. I would not cry for help; one was more likely to rouse a bandit than a guardian
of the peace. And, besides, who could say how the law stood?
I had certainly killed a lady; I was doing my best, with the aid of her stolen cloak, to
kill a servant of the house; I contemplated an abduction. Best kill him silently, and be
gone.
But when and how had Jean pulled open the iron gates and retreated into the street?
It mattered little, though certainly it left an uneasy sense of bewilderment; what
mattered was that here we were fighting in semi-darkness the dawn was not fairly
lifted for life and death.
Ten thousand crowns, Monsieur Jean, I cried, and my service! I gave him my
style I see you cane a faithful servant.
Faithful to death! he retorted, and I was sorry to have to kill him.
We fenced grimly on.
But, I urged, your mistress is dead. Your duty is to her child, and I am her
child s
He looked up from my eves. An omen! he cried, pointing to the great statue of St.
Michael trampling Satan, for we had come fighting to the Place St. Michel. Darkness
yields to light; I am your servant, sir. He dropped on one knee, and tendered the hilt of
his sword.
But as I put out my hand to take it (guarded against attack, I boast me, but not against
the extraordinary trick which followed) he suddenly snatched at the ermine, which lay
loosely on my left arm, and, leaving me with sword and dagger, fled with a shriek of
laughter across the Place St. Michel, and, flinging the furs over the bridge, himself
plunged into the Seine and swam strongly for the other bank.
There was no object in pursuing him; I would recover the furs, and returned triumphant.
Alas! they had sunk; they were now whirled far away by the swift river. Where should I
get a cloak?
How stupid of me! The old woman had plenty of other clothes beneath her furs; I
would take them.
And I set myself gaily to run back to the house.
III
Whether by excitement I took the wrong turning, or whether but you will hear in
short, I do not clearly understand even now why I did not at once find the road. But at
least I did fail to find it, discovered, as I supposed, my error, corrected it, failed once
more In the end I got flustered so much hung on my speedy return! I fluttered hither
and thither like a wild pigeon whose mate has been shot. I stopped short, pulled myself
together. Let me think it out! Where am I now? I was under the shadow (the dawn just lit
its edge) of the mighty shoulder of St. Sulpice. More haste, less speed! I said to myself.
I will walk deliberately down to the boulevard, turn east, and so I cannot possibly miss
the Carrefour de l Odéon out of which, as I knew of old, the Rue des Quatre Vents
leads. Indeed, I remembered the carrefour from that night. I had passed through it. I
remembered hesitating as to which turning to take. For, as you know, the carrefour is a
triangle, one road leading from the apex, four (with two minor variations just off the
carrefour) from the base.
Following this plan, I came, sure enough, in three minutes or so into the Rue des
Quatre Vents. It is not a long street, as you know, and I thought that I remembered
perfectly that the house faced the tiny Rue St. Grégoire, which leads back to the
Boulevard St. Germain. Indeed, it was down that obscure alley that Jean and I had gone
in our fight. I remembered how I had expected to meet somebody on issuing into the
boulevard; and then . . . I must have been very busy fighting: I could not remember
anything at all of the fight between that issue and the place of Jean s feint and flight.
Well, here I was: the house should have been in front of me and it was not. I walked
up and down the street; there was no house of the kind, no railings. No residential house.
Yet I could not believe myself mistaken. I pinched myself; I was awake. Further, the
pinching demonstrated the existence of a sword and dagger in my hands. I was bleeding,
too; my left arm twice grazed. I took out my watch; four o clock. Since I left the bridge
ah! when had 1 left the bridge? I could not tell yes, I could. At moon-set. The moon
was nine days old.
No; everything was real. I examined the sword and the stiletto. Silver-gilt; blades of
exquisite fineness; the cipher of a princely house of France shone in tiny diamonds upon
the pommels.
The thought sent new courage and determination thrilling through me. I had saved a
princess from shame and torture; I loved her! She loved me, for I had saved her ah! but
I had not yet saved her. That was to do.
But how to act? I had plenty of time. Jean would not return to the house, in all
probability. But the markets were stirring; the weapons and my blood would arouse
curiosity. Well, how to act?
The positive certitude that I had had about the name of the street was my bane. Had I
doubted I could have more easily carried out the systematic search that I proposed. But as
it was my organized patrol of the quarter was not scientific; I was biased. I came back
again and again to the street and searched it, as if the house might have been hidden in
the gutter or vanished and reappeared by magic; as if my previous search might (by some
incredible chance) have been imperfect, through relaxed attention. So one may watch a
conjuror, observing every movement perfectly, except the one flash which does the trick.
The search, too, could not be long; so I reflected as disappointment sobered me. One
cannot go far from the Carrefour de l Odéon in any direction without striking some
unmistakable object. The two boulevards, the schools, the Odéon itself, St. Sulpice one
could not be far off. Yet could I possibly have mistaken the Odéon for the
Luxembourg?
Could I? A host of conjectures chased each other through my brain, bewildering it,
leading the will to falter, the steps to halt.
Beneath, keener anguish than the thrust of a poisoned rapier, stabbed me this poignant
pang: my love awaits me, waits for me to save her, to fly with her.
Where was she?
It was broad day; I cleansed myself of the marks of battle, sat down and broke my fast,
my sane mind steadily forcing itself to a sober plan of action, beating manfully down the
scream of its despair. All day I searched the streets. Passing an antiquary, I showed him
my weapons. He readily supplied their history; but there was none of that family alive,
nor had been since the great Revolution. Their goods? The four winds of heaven might
know. At those words the four winds I rushed out of the shop, as if stung by an adder.
I drove home, set all my servants hunting for railed houses. They were to report to me
in the Rue des Quatre Vents. Any house not accounted for, any that might conceal a
mystery, these I would see myself.
All labour lost! My servants tried. I distrusted their energy: I set myself obstinately to
scour Paris.
There is a rule of mathematics which enables one to traverse completely any labyrinth.
I applied this to the city. I walked in every road of it, marking the streets at each corner as
I passed with my private seal. Each railed house I investigated separately and thoroughly.
By virtue of my position I was welcome everywhere. But every night I paced the Rue
des Quatre Vents, awaiting . . .
Awaiting what? Well, in the end, perhaps death. The children gibed at me; passers-by
shunned me.
Le Revenant, they whispered, de la Rue des Quatre Vents.
I had forgot to tell you one thing which most steadfastly confirmed me in the search.
Two days after the adventure I passed, hot on the quest, by the Morgue. Two women
came out. Not pretty, the fish! said one. He with the scarred lip
I heard no more, ran in. There on the slab, grinning yet in death, was Jean. His swim
had ended him. Faithful to death!
I watched long. I offered a huge sum for his identification. The authorities even
became suspicious: why was I so anxious? How could I say? He was the servant of. . . .
I did not know my sweet child s name!
So, while a living man, I made myself a ghost.
IV
It may have been one day some ten years later, continued the old nobleman, when as I
paced uselessly the Street of the Four Winds I was confronted by a stern, grey figure,
short, stout, and bearded, but of an indescribable majesty and force.
He laid his hand unhesitatingly upon my shoulder. Unhappy man! he cried, thou art
sacrificing thy life to a phantom. Look not, quoth Zoroaster, upon the Visible Image of
the Soul of Nature, for Her name is Fatality. What thou hast seen I know not what it is,
save that it is as a dog-faced demon that seduceth thy soul from the sacred Mysteries; the
Mysteries of Life and Duty.
Let me tell my story! I replied, and you shall judge for, whoever you may be, I
feel your power and truth.
I aim Eliphaz Levi Zahed men call me the Abbé Constant, returned the other.
The great magician?
The enemy of the great magician.
We went together to my house. I had begun to suspect some trick of Hell. The malice
of that devilish old woman, it might be, had not slept, even at her death. Had she hidden
the house beneath a magic veil? Or had her death itself in some strange way operated
to to what? Even conjecture paled.
But magic somewhere there must be, and Eliphaz Levi was the most famous adept in
Paris at the time.
I told my story, just as I have told it to you, but with strong passion.
There is an illusion, master! I ended. Put forth the power, and destroy it!
Were I to destroy the illusion, returned the magus, thinkest thou to see a virgin with
gold hair? Nay, but the Eternal Virgin, and a Cold that is not gold.
Is nothing to be clone?
Nothing! he replied, with a strange light in his eves. Yet, in order to be able to do
nothiiig, thou must first accomplish everything.
One clay, he smiled, seeing my bewilderment, thou wilt be angry with the fool who
proffers such a platitude.
I asked him to accept me as a pupil.
I require pay, he answered, and an oath.
Speak; I am rich.
Every Good Friday, said the adept, take thirty silver crowns and offer them to the
hospital for the Insane.
It shall be clone, I said.
Swear, then, he went on, swear, then, here to me he rose, terrible and
menacing by Him that sitteth upon the Holy Throne and liveth and reigneth for ever
and ever, that never again, neither to save life, nor to retain honour, wilt thou set foot in
the Street of the Four Winds; so long as life shall last.
Even as he bade me, I rose with lifted hand and swore.
As I did so there resounded in the room ten sharp knocks, as of ivory on wood, in a
certain peculiar cadence.
This was but the first of a very large number of interviews. I sought, indeed,
steadfastly to learn from him the occult wisdom of which he was a master; but, though he
supplied me with all conceivable channels of knowledge books, manuscripts, papyri
yet all these were lifeless; the currents of living water flowed not through them. Should
one say that the master withheld initiation, or that the pupil failed to obtain it?
But at least time abated the monomania for I know now that my whole adventure
was but a very vivid dream, an insanity of adolescence. At this moment I would not like
to say at what point exactly in the story fact and dream touch; I have still the sword and
dagger. Is it possible that in a trance I actually went through some other series of
adventures than that I am conscious of? May not Jean have been a thief, whom I
dispossessed of his booty? Had I done this unconsciously it would account for both the
weapons and the scene in the Morgue. . . . But I cannot say.
So, too, I learnt from the master that all this veil of life is but a shadow of a vast reality
beyond, perceptible only to those who have earned eves to see withal.
These eyes I could not earn; a faith in the master sustained me. I began to understand,
too, a little about the human brain; of what it is capable. Of Heaven and of Hell!
Life passed, vigorous and pleasant; the only memory that haunted me was the
compulsion of my oath that never would I again set foot in the Rue des Quatre Vents.
Life passed, and for the master ended. The Veil of the Temple is but a Spider s web!
he said, three days before he died. I followed Eliphaz Levi Zahed to the grave.
I could not follow him beyond.
For the next year I applied myself with renewed vigour to the study of the many
manuscripts which he had left me. No result could I obtain; I slackened. Followed the
folly of my life: I rationalized.
Thus: one day, leaning over the Pont St. Michel, I let the whole strange story flow
back through my brain. I remembered my agony; my present calm astonished me. I
thought of Levi, of my oath. He did not mean for all my life, I thought; he meant until
I could contemplate the affair without passion. Is not fear failure? I will walk through just
once, to show my mastery. In five minutes with just one inward qualm again I was
treading the well-worn flags of that ensorcelled road.
Instantly instantly! the old delusion had me by the throat. I had brokeii my oath; I
was paying the penalty.
Crazier than ever, I again sought throughout changed Paris for my dream-love; I shall
seek her till I die. If I seem calmer, it is but that age has robbed me of the force of
passion. In vain you tell me, laughing, that if she ever lived, she is long since dead; or at
least is an old woman, the blonde gold faded, the child-face wrinkled, the body bowed
and lax. I laugh at you at you for a blaspheming ass. Your folly is too wild to anger
me!
I did not laugh, said Roderic gravely.
Well, said the old man, rising, I fear I have wearied you. . . . I thank you for your
patience. . . . I know I am a mad old fellow. But, if you should happen- you know.
Please communicate. Here is my card. I must go now. I am expected elsewhere. I am ex-
pected.
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