The Equinox (Volume I, Number IX)

THE KEY OF THE MYSTERIES Mont-Louis, in the diocese of Tours? That you are the most zealous disciple of the ecstatic Eugéne Vintras? And that your name is Charvoz?” It was a veritable thunderbolt; at each of these three phrases the old priest jumped in his chair. When he heard his name, he turned pale, and rose as if a spring had been released. “You are then really a magician ?” he cried; ‘“‘ Charvoz is certainly my name, but it is not that which I bear; I call myself La Paraz.” “T know it; La Paraz is the name of your mother. You have left a sufficiently enviable position, that of a country vicar, and your charming vicarage, in order to share the troubled existence of a sectary.” “ Say ofa great prophet !” “Sir, I believe perfectly in your good faith. But you will permit me to examine a little the mission and the character of your prophet.” “Yes, sir; examination, full light, the microscope of science, that is all we ask. Come to London, sir, and you will see! The miracles are permanently established there.” “Would you be so kind, sir, as to give me, first of all, some exact and conscientious details with regard to the miracles?” “Oh, as many as you like!” And immediately the old priest began to recount things which the whole world would have found impossible, but which did not even turn an eye-lash of the Professor of Transcendental Magic. L 145