CHAPTER XIII

HAPPINESS CONSISTS IN REALITIES NOT IN DREAMS

When I reached the bank, Patrick and the skiff were hidden from view behind the reeds which had closed in upon him. A few hundred yards farther on the river made a bend and left the park. I had no hope of overtaking my man, and after shouting a few offensive remarks at him, to which he made no response, I returned to the château as quickly as I could.

I ran and woke up Surdon telling him that the Englishman was in the park and ordering him to get his gun out. He grasped the situation at once.

“Don’t kill him if you can help it,” I cried, “but send a few shots through him so as to make him feel sick of the place.”

“You can rely on me,” replied Surdon, adding: “That explains everything.”

“Yes, Surdon, it explains everything.”

After that I went up to Cordélia’s room. She had just wakened. I was in no way surprised.

“Do you know where you’ve been?” I asked, but she could make no reply. On this occasion she remembered nothing; at all events she did not seem to remember anything.

I then described what I had just witnessed. Events were taking such a turn that we should have to face them together if we ever hoped to gain the mastery over them. And moreover I realized quite clearly that I should be powerless without Cordélia’s assistance. She was either on my side or on _his_. If she was with me, she was bound to help me to wage war on him and I did not doubt her.

I was sure of her. My intervention on the bank was so involuntary that I had no time to perceive, from the mirror of the river, Cordélia’s particular attitude towards him, but I was only too firmly convinced, since Dr. Thurel’s visit, that she was under the spell of prolonged magnetization, in other words, her astral body was held captive, so that I could not find fault with her for not spurning the arm which clasped her waist with too much affection, or for yielding to a kiss which she was unable to avert.

When she learned of the thief’s audacity in setting foot into our property and of his being, doubtless, still in the neighborhood, she threw her arms round my neck and cried:

“Take me away. Take me a long, long way from here. He is capable of anything. He is capable of keeping me with him for good.”

Dear, dear, dear Cordélia! I did not wait to be asked a second time, and a hand-bag was soon packed. Moreover I left word for Surdon to join us in Paris the following day with our luggage; and we went off in the small car, which I drove myself.

I soon congratulated myself on introducing my beloved to the distractions of Paris. She was so delighted that she forgot the strain of the terrible forty-eight hours through which we had passed. She entered into the spirit of everything. A walk in the Avenue des Acacias in the Bois de Boulogne helped her to forget the amazing promenade in the park in the moonlight; at least I preferred to think so. We lunched at a smart restaurant in the country, and we emerged from it laughing at the least thing like children carried away by their first glass of wine.

Cordélia for the first time tried to smoke, and she discovered an Egyptian brand of cigarettes which she liked so well that she consumed a goodly number of them. The result was that when we returned to the Palace Hotel she had to lie down and take a short rest. I left her in the custody of Surdon. When I went out I could not repress an exclamation, for I recognized, standing at the hotel entrance, Dr. Thurel.

He was not less surprised than I was. He at once asked after Cordélia, and was so greatly interested in my story of what happened on the second night of my honeymoon, that he took me off with him to his flat. Here, he got me to repeat the facts in detail, taking notes the while, and then he said:

“The thing is quite logical. As long as your wife was under the direct influence of the man who was close by, anything that I was able to do to release her was bound, of course, to be reduced to naught as soon as I left you. That is precisely what did happen, but it shows also that your wife is subject to this influence only when the hypnotizer is comparatively near. There are patients who are in worse case than she is,” went on the doctor thoughtfully, “and you certainly must not lose hope. You did well to bring her away from Vascoeuil. You must travel about the world. The case will respond to treatment. Everything depends on you.”

He repeated this last sentence with emphasis, and I could not help giving vent to my impatience and ill-humor.

“Everything depends on me!” I cried. “That is easy enough to say. But what influence, if you please, can I exert if every time my lips touch hers she falls into a trance? You must be fair and admit that I am at least as much to be pitied as she is.”

“I have advised you to kiss her as a brother.”

“Do you really believe that a brother’s influence will be enough to rid her of that man?”

“No, I don’t say that, but I believe that it is absolutely necessary, if you wish to risk a kiss, to remove your wife’s recollection from that man’s power of suggestion through time and space. Travel about, and have patience until you both feel yourselves the master of her ‘O’ and have nothing more to fear from her ‘polygon.’”

I held my head in my hands. For the second time this geometrical term occurred when Dr. Thurel was speaking. What was this “polygon” and what did he mean by the “O” of which it was incumbent upon me to obtain the mastery?

The doctor vouchsafed the explanation that these were figures of psychical speech employed by Dr. Grasset in his work entitled “Spiritualism in relation to Science” in order to explain fully certain characteristics. I should like, in my turn, to enable the reader to understand them as the kindly old gentleman explained them to me. I should not attempt to do so if it were not that he had the goodness to lend me certain books to read; so that I might become acquainted with a science which would prove useful to me in Cordélia’s condition of mind—books which I strove to assimilate from love of her without her knowledge.

It would seem, then, that there is a superior psychicism, that is to say, there are psychic acts which are deliberate and carried out by the free will of a person, and preceded by thought which Dr. Grasset symbolizes by the letter O, and an inferior psychicism which is quasi-automatic and symbolized by the nervous centers which are connected together in the shape of a polygon.

This polygon must be regarded either in its physiological condition—absent-mindedness, sleep, dreams—or its extra-physical condition—artificially induced hypnotism—or its pathological condition—somnambulism, ambulatory automatism and so forth.

When the O is no longer concerned with the polygon, the latter does more or less what it pleases, and thus one can do with it almost what one wills. For this reason it suffices for the O to be absent-minded—for instance I am thinking of one thing while I continue with my polygon to pour from a jug into a glass which is already full—and it suffices also for the mind of another to take possession for the time being of the O. In that case the polygon can be transmitted to a remote distance.

All this seemed to me as clear as noonday, so lucidly did the doctor explain it, and I exclaimed:

“You can rely on me, Doctor. I will keep a watch over Cordélia’s polygon! And it won’t be my fault if it slips away from me!”

“Meanwhile take the train,” returned the worthy doctor. “And be quick about it. You might possibly meet that man here as you met me. This Palace Hotel is not a place where one can prevent one’s self from being seen. And besides, no city in the world is so small as Paris!”

I hastened to the station and inquired about sleeping-cars, and that same evening we caught the train for Rome. We took Surdon with us.

When two days later we beheld the walls of Servius Tullius, Cordélia uttered shouts of joy. On alighting from the train she had a mind to make for the Forum, but by hurrying her a little I soon managed—the thing was to acquire some influence over her—to make her forget for the time being all those old things, and give her a taste of more modern pleasures such as are found in the thorough comfort of the best hotel in Rome. We lunched in the Italian manner at the Castello di Constantino, where we were served on the terrace from which the eye took in a landscape of rare loveliness, though it was somewhat marred by the sight of ruins which are supposed to be impressive but which, for my part, I have always found tedious.

We had, however, to visit some of the ancient monuments. The Colosseum greatly attracted Cordélia, who told me mournful stories about the martyrdom of the early Christians. I hastened to take her away to less dismal scenes. A promenade at the fashionable hour in the gardens of Pincio, iced-drinks in a café in the Corso, and in the evening, after dinner, the tarantella danced by pretty girls in the grand hall of the hotel, threw us into the vortex of life in Rome.

Cordélia took an immense pleasure in these elegant displays of Italian manners. I was myself greatly stirred to see her eyes shining with happiness. She never seemed to me more beautiful. When we returned to our rooms I held her close and told her so, but I acted cautiously, and at the same time with a feeling of great anxiety. Had I become sufficient master of her O to be no longer in fear of the whims of her polygon? The thought that if I kissed her she might at once fall into a trance, in my arms, brought beads of perspiration trickling down my forehead.

“Good gracious, how hot you are, Hector!” she cried as with an adorable gesture she wiped my forehead with her handkerchief.

I no longer knew what I was doing. Her lips smiled at me. The fragrance that clung to her carried me away, and, in truth, I forgot all my good resolutions and kissed her passionately.

Marvel of marvels, she did not fall into a sleep!