Somerset maughan

Grimoire of Honorius
, and is the principal text-book of all 
those who deal in the darkest ways of the science.' 
Then he pointed out the 
Hexameron
of Torquemada and the 
Tableau 
de l'Inconstance des Démons
, by Delancre; he drew his finger down 
the leather back of Delrio's 
Disquisitiones Magicae
and set upright the 
Pseudomonarchia Daemonorum
of Wierus; his eyes rested for an 
instant on Hauber's 
Acta et Scripta Magica
, and he blew the dust 
carefully off the most famous, the most infamous, of them all, 
Sprenger's 
Malleus Malefikorum
. 
'Here is one of my greatest treasures. It is the 
Clavicula Salomonis
; 
and I have much reason to believe that it is the identical copy which 
belonged to the greatest adventurer of the eighteenth century, 
Jacques Casanova. You will see that the owner's name had been cut 
out, but enough remains to indicate the bottom of the letters; and 

---

these correspond exactly with the signature of Casanova which I 
have found at the Bibliothéque Nationale. He relates in his memoirs 
that a copy of this book was seized among his effects when he was 
arrested in Venice for traffic in the black arts; and it was there, on 
one of my journeys from Alexandria, that I picked it up.' 
He replaced the precious work, and his eye fell on a stout volume 
bound in vellum. 
'I had almost forgotten the most wonderful, the most mysterious, of 
all the books that treat of occult science. You have heard of the 
Kabbalah, but I doubt if it is more than a name to you.' 
'I know nothing about it at all,' laughed Susie, 'except that it's all 
very romantic and extraordinary and ridiculous.' 
'This, then, is its history. Moses, who was learned in all the wisdom 
of Egypt, was first initiated into the Kabbalah in the land of his 
birth; but became most proficient in it during his wanderings in the 
wilderness. Here he not only devoted the leisure hours of forty 
years to this mysterious science, but received lessons in it from an 
obliging angel. By aid of it he was able to solve the difficulties which 
arose during his management of the Israelites, notwithstanding the 
pilgrimages, wars, and miseries of that most unruly nation. He 
covertly laid down the principles of the doctrine in the first four 
books of the Pentateuch, but withheld them from Deuteronomy. 
Moses also initiated the Seventy Elders into these secrets, and they 
in turn transmitted them from hand to hand. Of all who formed the 
unbroken line of tradition, David and Solomon were the most 
deeply learned in the Kabbalah. No one, however, dared to write it 
down till Schimeon ben Jochai, who lived in the time of the 
destruction of Jerusalem; and after his death the Rabbi Eleazar, his 
son, and the Rabbi Abba, his secretary, collected his manuscripts 
and from them composed the celebrated treatise called 
Zohar
.' 
'And how much do you believe of this marvellous story?' asked 
Arthur 
Burdon. 
'Not a word,' answered Dr Porhoët, with a smile. 'Criticism has 
shown that 
Zohar
is of modern origin. With singular effrontery, it 

---

cites an author who is known to have lived during the eleventh 
century, mentions the Crusades, and records events which occurred 
in the year of Our Lord 1264. It was some time before 1291 that 
copies of 
Zohar
began to be circulated by a Spanish Jew named 
Moses de Leon, who claimed to possess an autograph manuscript 
by the reputed author Schimeon ben Jochai. But when Moses de 
Leon was gathered to the bosom of his father Abraham, a wealthy 
Hebrew, Joseph de Avila, promised the scribe's widow, who had 
been left destitute, that his son should marry her daughter, to whom 
he would pay a handsome dowry, if she would give him the 
original manuscript from which these copies were made. But the 
widow (one can imagine with what gnashing of teeth) was obliged 
to confess that she had no such manuscript, for Moses de Leon had 
composed 
Zohar
out of his own head, and written it with his own 
right hand.' 
Arthur got up to stretch his legs. He gave a laugh. 
'I never know how much you really believe of all these things you 
tell us. You speak with such gravity that we are all taken in, and 
then it turns out that you've been laughing at us.' 
'My dear friend, I never know myself how much I believe,' returned 
Dr 
Porhoët. 
'I wonder if it is for the same reason that Mr Haddo puzzles us so 
much,' said Susie. 
'Ah, there you have a case that is really interesting,' replied the 
doctor. 'I assure you that, though I know him fairly intimately, I 
have never been able to make up my mind whether he is an 
elaborate practical joker, or whether he is really convinced he has 
the wonderful powers to which he lays claim.' 
'We certainly saw things last night that were not quite normal,' said 
Susie. 'Why had that serpent no effect on him though it was able to 
kill the rabbit instantaneously? And how are you going to explain 
the violent trembling of that horse, Mr. Burdon?' 

---

'I can't explain it,' answered Arthur, irritably, 'but I'm not inclined to 
attribute to the supernatural everything that I can't immediately 
understand.' 
'I don't know what there is about him that excites in me a sort of 
horror,' said Margaret. 'I've never taken such a sudden dislike to 
anyone.' 
She was too reticent to say all she felt, but she had been strangely 
affected last night by the recollection of Haddo's words and of his 
acts. She had awakened more than once from a nightmare in which 
he assumed fantastic and ghastly shapes. His mocking voice rang in 
her ears, and she seemed still to see that vast bulk and the savage, 
sensual face. It was like a spirit of evil in her path, and she was 
curiously alarmed. Only her reliance on Arthur's common sense 
prevented her from giving way to ridiculous terrors. 
'I've written to Frank Hurrell and asked him to tell me all he knows 
about him,' said Arthur. 'I should get an answer very soon.' 
'I wish we'd never come across him,' cried Margaret vehemently. 'I 
feel that he will bring us misfortune.' 
'You're all of you absurdly prejudiced,' answered Susie gaily. 'He 
interests me enormously, and I mean to ask him to tea at the studio.' 
'I'm sure I shall be delighted to come.' 
Margaret cried out, for she recognized Oliver Haddo's deep 
bantering tones; and she turned round quickly. They were all so 
taken aback that for a moment no one spoke. They were gathered 
round the window and had not heard him come in. They wondered 
guiltily how long he had been there and how much he had heard. 
'How on earth did you get here?' cried Susie lightly, recovering 
herself first. 
'No well-bred sorcerer is so dead to the finer feelings as to enter a 
room by the door,' he answered, with his puzzling smile. 'You were 
standing round the window, and I thought it would startle you if I 
chose that mode of ingress, so I descended with incredible skill 
down the chimney.' 

---

'I see a little soot on your left elbow,' returned Susie. 'I hope you 
weren't at all burned.' 
'Not at all, thanks,' he answered, gravely brushing his coat. 
'In whatever way you came, you are very welcome,' said Dr 
Porhoët, genially holding out his hand. 
But Arthur impatiently turned to his host. 
'I wish I knew what made you engage upon these studies,' he said. 'I 
should have thought your medical profession protected you from 
any tenderness towards superstition.' 
Dr Porhoët shrugged his shoulders. 
'I have always been interested in the oddities of mankind. At one 
time I read a good deal of philosophy and a good deal of science, 
and I learned in that way that nothing was certain. Some people, by 
the pursuit of science, are impressed with the dignity of man, but I 
was only made conscious of his insignificance. The greatest 
questions of all have been threshed out since he acquired the 
beginnings of civilization and he is as far from a solution as ever. 
Man can know nothing, for his senses are his only means of 
knowledge, and they can give no certainty. There is only one subject 
upon which the individual can speak with authority, and that is his 
own mind, but even here he is surrounded with darkness. I believe 
that we shall always be ignorant of the matters which it most 
behoves us to know, and therefore I cannot occupy myself with 
them. I prefer to set them all aside, and, since knowledge is 
unattainable, to occupy myself only with folly.' 
'It is a point of view I do not sympathize with,' said Arthur. 
'Yet I cannot be sure that it is all folly,' pursued the Frenchman 
reflectively. He looked at Arthur with a certain ironic gravity. 'Do 
you believe that I should lie to you when I promised to speak the 
truth?' 
'Certainly not.' 

---

'I should like to tell you of an experience that I once had in 
Alexandria. So far as I can see, it can be explained by none of the 
principles known to science. I ask you only to believe that I am not 
consciously deceiving you.' 
He spoke with a seriousness which gave authority to his words. It 
was plain, even to Arthur, that he narrated the event exactly as it 
occurred. 
'I had heard frequently of a certain shiekh who was able by means of 
a magic mirror to show the inquirer persons who were absent or 
dead, and a native friend of mine had often begged me to see him. I 
had never thought it worth while, but at last a time came when I 
was greatly troubled in my mind. My poor mother was an old 
woman, a widow, and I had received no news of her for many 
weeks. Though I wrote repeatedly, no answer reached me. I was 
very anxious and very unhappy. I thought no harm could come if I 
sent for the sorcerer, and perhaps after all he had the power which 
was attributed to him. My friend, who was interpreter to the French 
Consulate, brought him to me one evening. He was a fine man, tall 
and stout, of a fair complexion, but with a dark brown beard. He 
was shabbily dressed, and, being a descendant of the Prophet, wore 
a green turban. In his conversation he was affable and unaffected. I 
asked him what persons could see in the magic mirror, and he said 
they were a boy not arrived at puberty, a virgin, a black female 
slave, and a pregnant woman. In order to make sure that there was 
no collusion, I despatched my servant to an intimate friend and 
asked him to send me his son. While we waited, I prepared by the 
magician's direction frankincense and coriander-seed, and a chafing-
dish with live charcoal. Meanwhile, he wrote forms of invocation on 
six strips of paper. When the boy arrived, the sorcerer threw incense 
and one of the paper strips into the chafing-dish, then took the boy's 
right hand and drew a square and certain mystical marks on the 
palm. In the centre of the square he poured a little ink. This formed 
the magic mirror. He desired the boy to look steadily into it without 
raising his head. The fumes of the incense filled the room with 
smoke. The sorcerer muttered Arabic words, indistinctly, and this 
he continued to do all the time except when he asked the boy a 
question. 

---

'"Do you see anything in the ink?" he said. 
'"No," the boy answered. 
'But a minute later, he began to tremble and seemed very much 
frightened. 
'"I see a man sweeping the ground," he said. 
'"When he has done sweeping, tell me," said the sheikh. 
'"He has done," said the boy. 
'The sorcerer turned to me and asked who it was that I wished the 
boy should see. 
'"I desire to see the widow Jeanne-Marie Porhoët." 
'The magician put the second and third of the small strips of paper 
into the chafing-dish, and fresh frankincense was added. The fumes 
were painful to my eyes. The boy began to speak. 
'"I see an old woman lying on a bed. She has a black dress, and on 
her head is a little white cap. She has a wrinkled face and her eyes 
are closed. There is a band tied round her chin. The bed is in a sort 
of hole, in the wall, and there are shutters to it." 
The boy was describing a Breton bed, and the white cap was the 
coiffe
that my mother wore. And if she lay there in her black dress, 
with a band about her chin, I knew that it could mean but one thing. 
'"What else does he see?" I asked the sorcerer. 
'He repeated my question, and presently the boy spoke again. 
'"I see four men come in with a long box. And there are women 
crying. They all wear little white caps and black dresses. And I see a 
man in a white surplice, with a large cross in his hands, and a little 
boy in a long red gown. And the men take off their hats. And now 
everyone is kneeling down." 
'"I will hear no more," I said. "It is enough." 

---

'I knew that my mother was dead. 
'In a little while, I received a letter from the priest of the village in 
which she lived. They had buried her on the very day upon which 
the boy had seen this sight in the mirror of ink.' 
Dr Porhoët passed his hand across his eyes, and for a little while 
there was silence. 
'What have you to say to that?' asked Oliver Haddo, at last. 
'Nothing,' answered Arthur. 
Haddo looked at him for a minute with those queer eyes of his 
which seemed to stare at the wall behind. 
'Have you ever heard of Eliphas Levi?' he inquired. 'He is the most 
celebrated occultist of recent years. He is thought to have known 
more of the mysteries than any adept since the divine Paracelsus.' 
'I met him once,' interrupted Dr Porhoët. 'You never saw a man who 
looked less like a magician. His face beamed with good-nature, and 
he wore a long grey beard, which covered nearly the whole of his 
breast. He was of a short and very corpulent figure.' 
'The practice of black arts evidently disposes to obesity,' said Arthur, 
icily. 
Susie noticed that this time Oliver Haddo made no sign that the 
taunt moved him. His unwinking, straight eyes remained upon 
Arthur without expression. 
'Levi's real name was Alphonse-Louis Constant, but he adopted that 
under which he is generally known for reasons that are plain to the 
romantic mind. His father was a bootmaker. He was destined for the 
priesthood, but fell in love with a damsel fair and married her. The 
union was unhappy. A fate befell him which has been the lot of 
greater men than he, and his wife presently abandoned the marital 
roof with her lover. To console himself he began to make serious 
researches in the occult, and in due course published a vast number 
of mystical works dealing with magic in all its branches.' 

---

'I'm sure Mr Haddo was going to tell us something very interesting 
about him,' said Susie. 
'I wished merely to give you his account of how he raised the spirit 
of 
Apollonius of Tyana in London.' 
Susie settled herself more comfortably in her chair and lit a cigarette. 
'He went there in the spring of 1856 to escape from internal 
disquietude and to devote himself without distraction to his studies. 
He had letters of introduction to various persons of distinction who 
concerned themselves with the supernatural, but, finding them 
trivial and indifferent, he immersed himself in the study of the 
supreme Kabbalah. One day, on returning to his hotel, he found a 
note in his room. It contained half a card, transversely divided, on 
which he at once recognized the character of Solomon's Seal, and a 
tiny slip of paper on which was written in pencil: