"
"I'm expecting the virtuous fortune which Bilouche has promised me,"
said Bixiou.
"I've a fever," cried Gazonal. "If I believed what you say I should
have to believe in sorcery, in some supernatural power."
"It may be only natural," said Bixiou. "One-third of all the lorettes,
one-fourth of all the statesmen, and one-half of all artists consult
Madame Fontaine; and I know a minister to whom she is an Egeria."
"Did she tell you about your future?" asked Leon.
"No; I had enough of her about my past. But," added Gazonal, struck by
a sudden thought, "if she can, by the help of those dreadful
collaborators, predict the future, how came she to lose in the
lottery?"
"Ah! you put your finger on one of the greatest mysteries of occult
science," replied Leon. "The moment that the species of inward mirror
on which the past or the future is reflected to their minds become
clouded by the breath of a personal feeling, by an idea foreign to the
purpose of the power they are exerting, sorcerers and sorceresses can
see nothing; just as an artist who blurs art with political
combinations and systems loses his genius. Not long ago, a man endowed
with the gift of divining by cards, a rival to Madame Fontaine, became
addicted to vicious practices, and being unable to tell his own fate
from the cards, was arrested, tried, and condemned at the court of
assizes.
Pages:
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85