Somerset maughan

homunculi
. The old philosophers 
doubted the possibility of this operation, but Paracelsus asserts 
positively that it can be done. I picked up once for a song on a 
barrow at London Bridge a little book in German. It was dirty and 
thumbed, many of the pages were torn, and the binding scarcely 
held the leaves together. It was called 
Die Sphinx
and was edited by 
a certain Dr Emil Besetzny. It contained the most extraordinary 
account I have ever read of certain spirits generated by Johann-
Ferdinand, Count von Küffstein, in the Tyrol, in 1775. The sources 
from which this account is taken consist of masonic manuscripts, 
but more especially of a diary kept by a certain James Kammerer, 
who acted in the capacity of butler and famulus to the Count. The 
evidence is ten times stronger than any upon which men believe the 
articles of their religion. If it related to less wonderful subjects, you 
would not hesitate to believe implicitly every word you read. There 
were ten 
homunculi
—James Kammerer calls them prophesying 
spirits—kept in strong bottles, such as are used to preserve fruit, 
and these were filled with water. They were made in five weeks, by 

---

the Count von Küffstein and an Italian mystic and rosicrucian, the 
Abbé Geloni. The bottles were closed with a magic seal. The spirits 
were about a span long, and the Count was anxious that they should 
grow. They were therefore buried under two cartloads of manure, 
and the pile daily sprinkled with a certain liquor prepared with 
great trouble by the adepts. The pile after such sprinklings began to 
ferment and steam, as if heated by a subterranean fire. When the 
bottles were removed, it was found that the spirits had grown to 
about a span and a half each; the male 
homunculi
were come into 
possession of heavy beards, and the nails of the fingers had grown. 
In two of the bottles there was nothing to be seen save clear water, 
but when the Abbé knocked thrice at the seal upon the mouth, 
uttering at the same time certain Hebrew words, the water turned a 
mysterious colour, and the spirits showed their faces, very small at 
first, but growing in size till they attained that of a human 
countenance. And this countenance was horrible and fiendish.' 
Haddo spoke in a low voice that was hardly steady, and it was plain 
that he was much moved. It appeared as if his story affected him so 
that he could scarcely preserve his composure. He went on. 
'These beings were fed every three days by the Count with a rose-
coloured substance which was kept in a silver box. Once a week the 
bottles were emptied and filled again with pure rain-water. The 
change had to be made rapidly, because while the 
homunculi
were 
exposed to the air they closed their eyes and seemed to grow weak 
and unconscious, as though they were about to die. But with the 
spirits that were invisible, at certain intervals blood was poured into 
the water; and it disappeared at once, inexplicably, without 
colouring or troubling it. By some accident one of the bottles fell one 
day and was broken. The 
homunculus
within died after a few painful 
respirations in spite of all efforts to save him, and the body was 
buried in the garden. An attempt to generate another, made by the 
Count without the assistance of the Abbé, who had left, failed; it 
produced only a small thing like a leech, which had little vitality 
and soon died.' 
Haddo ceased speaking, and Arthur looked at him with amazement. 
'But taking for granted that the thing is possible, what on earth is the 
use of manufacturing these strange beasts?' he exclaimed. 

---

'Use!' cried Haddo passionately. 'What do you think would be man's 
sensations when he had solved the great mystery of existence, when 
he saw living before him the substance which was dead? These