Rafael Sabatini - The Spiritualist

In quest of local colour in that part of France that once was known as Languedoc, I spent a week last autumn in the little village of Aubepine. I stayed at the Hotel du Cerf, whereof Jules Coupri is host, and for companions of an evening I had the village notary, a couple of grocers, a haberdasher―who was in his way a leader of fashion in Aubepine―the postmaster, and half-a-dozen young farmers, who were in the habit of coming there to drink their petit-vin and exchange their ideas.

A student of human nature in my humble way, I made a point of mingling freely with them, and I am afraid that their patience and good nature drew me to talk a good deal. But on the eve of my departure I was for once cast into the shade by a young seafaring man of the better sort, who was, he informed us, on his way to Carcassonne. He expatiated upon the wonders of Greece and Italy with such eloquent picturesqueness that he monopolised the attention which hitherto I had enjoyed without competition.

But my revenge was to come. Towards nine o'clock a tall, swarthy man, dressed in black clothes, which, if seedy, were of more or less fashionable cut, and wearing a chimney-pot hat, stalked into the room, and called for the landlord. He wanted supper as quickly as possible for himself and his driver―he travelled in a ramshackle carriage―and announced to all that he must push on that night to St. Hilaire. He was evil-looking of face, yet not without distinction. The nose was thin as the bill of an eagle, and as curved; the forehead high and narrow, with absurdly long, black hair brushed straight back; the eyes were close-set and piercing; the mouth little more than a straight line above the square, lean chin. He was on the whole a striking individual, and from the moment of his advent he absorbed the attention of all present.

Seemingly aware of the impression he had created, he came over to the table at which I sat, and fell easily into conversation with those about upon small matters of provincial interest. In less than five minutes the sailor and his voyages were forgotten.

I was still speculating upon the man's business in life―for I am of those who believe that a man bears upon him the outward signs of his profession―when a young farmer happened to mention that his vineyards had been doing badly for the last three years―ever since his brother's death. The stranger's gimlet eyes were instantly turned upon him.

"What do you suppose to be the reason of it?" he inquired in a voice that was curiously impressive.

"Reason?" echoed young Pascal. "There is no reason. It is an unpleasant coincidence."

A saturnine smile overspread the stranger's face.

"So the ignorant ever say," he deprecated. "Young man, there is no such thing as coincidence in the vulgar sense." Then he galvanised the peasant by asking: "Have you seen your brother since?"

"Seen him? But then monsieur has not understood that he is dead!"

"And since when may we not see the dead?"

"Do you mean his spirit?" gasped Pascal.

"Call it by what name you will, I mean your brother."

"Does monsieur believe then in revenants?"

"No, monsieur, I do not. There are no revenants; that is to say, there are none who return, for they are always with us; here, around us, everywhere." And he tossed his arms about him, and glanced this way and that to emphasise his meaning. "It is the body only which they quit. The earth never. And their souls, no longer clogged and stultified by the obsessing flesh, are not confined to the present as are we. For them the past is clear, and the future holds no mysteries.

"They know the causes of things, the origin of matter, and its final ending. That, monsieur, is why I asked you had you seen your brother. It is clear that you have not done so. That would be foolish, were it not that it is in ignorance that you have submitted to the fate which is ruining your vineyard. If you had been better informed touching these matters you would have held intercourse with your brother, and obtained from him enlightenment. Thus might you by now have remedied the evil."

Those present sat silent and awe-stricken. To many of them, in their ignorant, credulous, superstitious way, this man, who spoke so seriously of communion with the dead, must have appeared a wizard, if not the very fiend himself―a belief to which his fantastic personality would lend colour.

"Does monsieur mean that I can cause my brother to appear to me!"

"If you were enlightened you might do so. As it is―-" He paused, shrugged his shoulders, and curled his lips contemptuously―"I am afraid you cannot."

"But can such things be done?" cried the haberdasher.

"Assuredly," answered the spiritualist. "In Paris they are done every day."

"Ah―in Paris," sighed one to whom nothing seemed impossible when associated with that wonderful name.

"Can you do it?" asked the haberdasher bluntly, yet with a certain awe lurking in his question.

The man smiled the quiet smile of one who is conscious of his strength.

"Have you never heard of M. Delamort?" he asked―much as he might have asked: "Have you never heard of Bonaparte?"

They were silent, from which he seemed to gather that his fame, however great elsewhere, had not travelled yet as far as this.

"I am a member of the Societe Transemperique, which devotes itself to researches in the spirit-world," he informed them.

Thereupon they fell to questioning him fearfully as to whether he had ever held communion with a spirit, to which he answered vaingloriously:

"With hundreds, messieurs."

At that the sailor, who, I imagined, would be nursing a grudge against this man who had stripped him of his popularity, burst into a contemptuous laugh, which acted as a cold douche upon the audience. M. Delamort glared at him with angry eyes, but the man's expression of disbelief found many an echo, and from one or two I even caught the contemptuous word "Charlatan!"

"Fools," cried the spiritualist, his voice like a rumble of distant thunder. "Crass, ignorant clods! You live out your animal lives in this corner of the world much as a rat lives in its burrow. As your minds are closed to intelligence, so, too, do you close your ears to knowledge. Derision is the ever-ready weapon of the ignorant, and because the things I tell you are things of which you never dreamt in your unenlightened lives, you laugh and call me charlatan. But I will give you proof that what I have said is true. I will let you see the extent of my powers."

He addressed us all, collectively; but ever and anon his glance wandered to the sailor, who had been the first to express his want of faith, as though to him he conveyed a special challenge.

Receiving no answer, Delamort looked about from one to another, until his sinister glance lighted on Pascal.

"Will you submit yourself to the test?" he asked. "Will you let me summon your brother's spirit for you?"

The young man recoiled and made the sign of the cross. "God forbid!" he ejaculated.

With a contemptuous laugh the spiritualist turned from him to the sailor.

"Are you also afraid?" he demanded witheringly.

"I?" faltered the fellow, and a sickly smile spread over his weather-beaten face. "I am not afraid. I do not believe in your impostures."

"Excellent," exclaimed Delamort with a satanic grin. "You do not believe, therefore you are not afraid."

"Certainly I am not afraid," answered the young man with more assurance. Delamort's contempt seemed to have effectively roused him.

"Then you will submit to the test, and you shall see whether or not I have the power to raise the spirit of the dead―to render them visible to mortal eyes. You shall tell these gentlemen then whether I am an impostor. Whose ghost shall I evoke for you, monsieur?" he ended, rising as he spoke. All sat staring in horror and genuinely afraid. But the sailor's scepticism was not again to be shaken.