The Equinox (Volume I, Number IX)

THE EQUINOX haute magie that an ecclesiastic was looking for his address, testifying the greatest desire to see him. Eliphas Levi did not feel himself immediately prepossessed with confidence towards the stranger, to the point of exposing himself without precaution to his visits; he indicated the house of a friend, where he was to be in the company of his faithful disciple, Desbarrolles. At the hour and date appointed they went, in fact, tothe house of Mme. A——, and found that the ecclesiastic had been waiting for them for some moments. He was a young and slim man; he had an arched and pointed nose, with dull blue eyes. His bony and projecting forehead was rather broad than high, his head was dolicho- cephalic, his hair flat and short, parted on one side, of a greyish blond with just a tinge of chestnut of a rather curious and disagreeable shade. His mouth was sensual and quarrel- some; his manners were affable, his voice soft, and his speech sometimes a little embarrassed. Questioned by Eliphas Levi concerning the object of his visit, he replied that he was on the look-out for the grimozve of Honorius, and that he had come to learn from the Professor of Occult Science how to ob- tain that little black book, now-a-days almost impossible to find. “T would gladly give a hundred francs for a copy of that grimoire,”said he. “The work in itself is valueless,” said Eliphas. “It isa pretended constitution of Honorius II, which you will find perhaps quoted by some erudite collector of apocryphal con- stitutions; you can find it in the library.” “T will do so, for I pass almost all my time in Paris in the public libraries.” 162