."

"You believe in Docre's potency, then. Tell me, how does he operate,
with the blood of mice, with broths, or with oil?"

"So you know about that! He does employ these substances. In fact, he is
one of the very few persons who know how to manage them without
poisoning themselves. It's as dangerous as working with explosives.
Frequently, though, when attacking defenceless persons, he uses simpler
recipes. He distils extracts of poison and adds sulphuric acid to fester
the wound, then he dips in this compound the point of a lancet with
which he has his victim pricked by a flying spirit or a larva. It is
ordinary, well-known magic, that of Rosicrucians and tyros."

Durtal burst out laughing. "But, my dear, to hear you, one would think
death could be sent to a distance like a letter."

"Well, isn't cholera transmitted by letters? Ask the sanitary corps.
Don't they disinfect all mail in the time of epidemics?"

"I don't contradict that, but the case is not the same."

"It is too, because it is the question of transmission, invisibility,
distance, which astonishes you."

"What astonishes me more than that is to hear of the Rosicrucians
actively satanizing. I confess that I had never considered them as
anything more than harmless suckers and funereal fakes."

"But all societies are composed of suckers and the wily leaders who
exploit them. That's the case of the Rosicrucians. Yes, their leaders
privately attempt crime. One does not need to be erudite or intelligent
to practise the ritual of spells. At any rate, and I affirm this, there
is among them a former man of letters whom I know. He lives with a
married woman, and they pass the time, he and she, trying to kill the
husband by sorcery."

"Well, it has its advantages over divorce, that system has."

She pouted. "I shan't say another word. I think you are making fun of
me. You don't believe in anything--"

"Indeed. I was not laughing at you. I haven't very precise ideas on this
subject. I admit that at first blush all this seems improbable, to say
the least. But when I think that all the efforts of modern science do
but confirm the discoveries of the magic of other days, I keep my mouth
shut. It is true," he went on after a silence,--"to cite only one
fact--that people can no longer laugh at the stories of women being
changed into cats in the Middle Ages. Recently there was brought to M.
Charcot a little girl who suddenly got down on her hands and knees and
r