UMBERTO ECO : THE PRAGUE CEMETERY (43 page)

Upstairs were another two bedrooms. One was set aside for an old woman who was half deaf and partial to the bottle, who had the merit of not coming from the local area and was willing to do anything to earn some money. I don't remember who recommended her, but she seemed the ideal person to look after Diana when no one else was there, and to calm her down when she had one of her attacks.

It occurs to me, as I write, that the old lady must have received no news of me for a month. Perhaps I left her enough money to get by, but for how long? I should go to Auteuil immediately, but I realize I cannot remember the address. Where in Auteuil? I can hardly wander the whole area knocking at every door to ask whether there's a Palladian hysteric with a split personality living there.

Taxil publicly announced his conversion in April, and his first book,
Les frères trois-points
, was already out by November, with sensational revelations about Freemasonry. I took him to see Diana at about that time. I didn't conceal her double state, and had to explain to him that she was useful to us not in her state as a God-fearing maiden, but as an unrepentant Palladian.

I had carefully studied the girl over the previous months, and had kept her changes of condition under control, sedating her with Doctor Du Maurier's tincture. But I realized it was stressful waiting for her unpredictable crises. A way had to be found of changing Diana's condition on command —this, after all, is what Doctor Charcot seems to do with his hysterics.

I didn't have Charcot's magnetic power, so I went to the library to search out some more traditional treatises, such as
De la cause du sommeil lucide
by the old (and authentic) Abbé Faria. Following the indications in that book and several others, I decided to clamp the girl's knees between my own, take her thumbs between my two fingers and stare into her eyes, then, after at least five minutes, withdraw my hands, place them on her shoulders, move them down her arms to her fingertips five or six times, then rest them on her head, bringing them down over her face, five or six centimeters apart, as far as the hollow of her stomach, with my other fingers under her ribs, and finally to let them continue down her body as far as her knees or to the tips of her toes.

From the point of view of decency, this was too forward for the "good" Diana, and at first it seemed she was about to scream, as if (God forgive me) I were assaulting her virginity, but it was so effective that she calmed down almost immediately, became drowsy for a few minutes and reawakened in the first state. It was easier to make her return to the second state because the "bad" Diana showed considerable pleasure in being touched, and tried to prolong my manipulation, accompanying it with unseemly movements of her body and stifled groans. Fortunately, before long, she was no longer able to avoid its hypnotic effect, and once again she became drowsy, otherwise I would have had difficulty both in prolonging contact, which disturbed me, and in controlling her repulsive lust.

I believe that anyone of the male sex would consider Diana a creature of singular charm, at least so far as I can judge, being one who, by disposition and vocation, has remained well away from the miseries of sex; and Taxil was clearly a man of vivacious appetites.

Doctor Du Maurier, when handing his patient over to me, had also given me a trunk full of fairly elegant clothes that Diana had brought with her when she arrived for treatment — an indication that she came from a relatively prosperous family. And with evident coquettishness, on the day I told her she would be receiving a visit from Taxil, she carefully dressed up. Although she appeared vacant in both states, she was most attentive to these small feminine details.

Taxil was immediately fascinated ("Fine woman," he muttered to me, smacking his lips), and later, when he tried to imitate my hypnotic procedures, he tended to prolong his groping even after the patient had clearly fallen asleep, so I had to intervene with a mild "I think that's enough for now."

I suspected that if I had left him alone with Diana while she was in her primary state, he would have indulged in other liberties, and she would have allowed him. I therefore made sure that our conversations with the girl always took place when the three of us were present. Indeed, sometimes there were four. Because to stimulate the memories and energies of Diana the Satanist and Luciferian (and her Luciferine humors), I thought it appropriate that she should meet Abbé Boullan.

Abbé Boullan. After being interdicted by the archbishop of Paris, Boullan moved to Lyon to join the Church of Carmel, founded by Vintras, a visionary who officiated wearing a large white robe embroidered with a red upturned cross, and a diadem with an Indian phallic symbol. Vintras levitated when he prayed, sending his followers into ecstasy. During his liturgies the host oozed blood, and there were rumors of homosexual practices, of the ordination of priestesses of love, of redemption through free expression of the senses — in other words, all those things to which Boullan was much inclined. So when Vintras died, he was named his successor.

Boullan came to Paris at least once a month. Having the chance to study a creature like Diana from the demonological point of view seemed too good to be true (so as to exorcise her more effectively, he claimed, though I already knew how he went about his exorcising). He was over sixty, but still a vigorous man, with a gaze I can only describe as magnetic.

Boullan listened to what Diana had to say — which Taxil religiously noted down — but he seemed intent on other purposes, and sometimes, out of our hearing, whispered words of incitement or advice to the girl. Nonetheless, he was useful to us. The Masonic mysteries to be exposed included the stabbing of the sacred hosts and various forms of black mass, on which Boullan was an authority. Taxil took notes on various demonic rites, and as his books gradually appeared, he concentrated more and more on those liturgies which his Masons practiced whenever they had the chance.

 

Vintras levitated when he prayed, sending his followers into ecstasy.

After publishing several books, one after the other, Taxil had almost exhausted what little he knew about Freemasonry. Fresh ideas came to him only from the "bad" Diana who appeared under hypnosis. With eyes wide open, she described scenes she might have witnessed, or might have heard spoken about in America, or might simply have imagined. They were stories that left us spellbound, and I have to say that though I am (I think) a man of experience, I was scandalized. For example, one day she began talking about the initiation of her enemy, Sophie Walder, otherwise known as Sophia Sapho. I wasn't sure whether she was aware of the incestuous character of the whole scene. She clearly didn't describe it with any tone of disapproval but rather with the excitement of someone who had been privileged to witness it.

"It was her father," Diana said slowly, "who had put her to sleep, and passed a red-hot iron over her lips . . . He had to be sure her body was isolated from any snare that might come from outside. She had a pendant around her neck, a coiled snake . . . Here, her father removes it, opens a basket and takes out a live snake, placing it on her stomach . . . It is beautiful, it seems to dance as it slithers up toward Sophie's neck and wraps itself around her in place of the pendant . . . Now it slides up to her face, thrusting out its tongue, which flicks toward her lips and, hissing, it kisses her. How . . . splendidly . . . slimy it is . . . Sophie now wakes up, her mouth frothing. She gets up and remains standing, rigid as a statue. Her father unlaces her corset, revealing her naked breasts! And with a rod he traces out a question upon her breast, and the letters appear in red on her skin, and the snake, which appeared to be asleep, wakes up hissing and moves its tail to trace out the answer, once again on Sophie's naked flesh."

"How do you know these things, Diana?" I asked her.

"I know them from when I was in America . . . My father initiated me into Palladism. Then I came to Paris. Maybe they wanted to send me away . . . In Paris I met Sophia Sapho. She has always been my enemy. When I refused to do what she wanted, she sent me to Doctor Du Maurier. Telling him I was mad."