Gazonal at first thought it was a hoax prepared by his companions; but
the absolute impossibility of such a conspiracy appeared to him almost
as soon as the idea itself, and he sat speechless before that truly
infernal power, the incarnation of which borrowed from humanity a form
which the imagination of painters and poets has throughout all ages
regarded as the most awful of created things,--namely, a toothless,
hideous, wheezing hag, with cold lips, flattened nose, and whitish
eyes. The pupils of those eyes had brightened, through them rushed a
ray,--was it from the depths of the future or from hell?
Gazonal asked, interrupting the old creature, of what use the toad and
the hen were to her.
"They predict the future. The consulter himself throws grain upon the
cards; Bilouche comes and pecks it. Astaroth crawls over the cards to
get the food the client holds for him, and those two wonderful
intelligences are never mistaken. Will you see them at work?--you will
then know your future. The cost is a hundred francs."
Gazonal, horrified by the gaze of Astaroth, rushed into the
antechamber, after bowing to the terrible old woman. He was moist from
head to foot, as if under the incubation of some evil spirit.
"Let us get away!" he said to the two artists. "Did you ever consult
that sorceress?"
"I never do anything important without getting Astaroth's opinion,"
said Leon, "and I am always the better for it.
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