She talks to me
of things that I do not love to talk of to myself. What am I to think?
I am fixed to the earth!"
"Am I to understand you, M. Simon, that this Mrs. Vulpes replied to
questions secretly written by you, which questions related to events
known only to yourself?"
"Ah! more than that, more than that," he answered, with an air of
some alarm. "She related to me things----But," he added, after a
pause, and suddenly changing his manner, "why occupy ourselves with
these follies? It was all the Biology, without doubt. It goes without
saying that it has not my credence.--But why are we here, _mon ami_?
It has occurred to me to discover the most beautiful thing as you
can imagine.--a vase with green lizards on it composed by the great
Bernard Palissy. It is in my apartment; let us mount. I go to show
it to you."
I followed Simon mechanically; but my thoughts were far from Palissy
and his enamelled ware, although I, like him, was seeking in the
dark after a great discovery. This casual mention of the spiritualist,
Madame Vulpes, set me on a new track. What if this spiritualism
should be really a great fact? What if, through communication with
subtiler organisms than my own, I could reach at a single bound the
goal, which perhaps a life of agonizing mental toil would never
enable me to attain?
While purchasing the Palissy vase from my friend Simon, I was
mentally arranging a visit to Madame Vulpes.
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