Eusèbe, Saint Augustine, Cazotte and Abbé de Villars were convinced they existed in a state of perfect innocence from the Christian point of view.
I closed the book and, wanting to find out more about Le Comte de Gabalis , picked up the 1921 edition I had found at Château B—. I read all five discourses (it was only about a hundred pages long) and flicked through the commentary which accompanied them as well.
Jacques Lacroix had summarised the book accurately. The discourses of Gabalis, a German lord and famous occultist, reported by one of his French disciples, covered the existence of ‘elementals’ and the means of contacting them.
According to the Count of Gabalis, many races, whose women and girls are formidably beautiful, inhabit the four elements which make up the universe: sylphs and sylphids fill the air, fire teems with salamanders, the rivers and the seas are home to water sprites and nymphs, and the centre of the earth contains male and female gnomes. When the world was created, Adam, made from what was purest in the elements, was the natural king of these creatures, who appeared proud but were actually docile and devoted to their master. However, after his sin deprived him of his throne and corrupted the principles from which he had been created, he lost sovereignty over the invisible peoples. Only a philosopher, whose bodily form had been regenerated and exalted through the assiduous study of the secret sciences, would be able to establish communication with them again.
That being so, the Count of Gabalis did not conceal the fact thathe had renounced the charms of human females in order to devote himself exclusively to his invisible mistresses and their delectable embraces.
Cazotte, Abbé de Villars, the Count of Gabalis, elemental spirits, sensual cabbalistic pleasures … After more than two hours of attentive reading, a feeling of mellow drowsiness eventually stole over me. I put the book on the chair and drifted off almost immediately.
In the confusion of my initial nocturnal visions – the ones which appear as soon as the brain gently succumbs to sleep – it crossed my mind that I had left my dream notebook in my jacket. I didn’t have the energy to get up though, so the book remained where it was.
As I expected, as I both hoped and feared with the same intensity, I woke up in the middle of the night, shaken by a new dream.
DREAM 2
NIGHT OF 18-19 OCTOBER
Bedtime: 12.25 a.m.
Approximate time when fell asleep: 2.20 a.m.
Time awoken: 3.55 a.m.
I am stretched out on my bed in my room at the Hôtel Saint-Merri and I am dreaming that I am asleep. Like last night, I dream while fully aware that I am dreaming.
I know that the stranger from the steamer will join me soon. She promised; it’s inevitable. In the meantime, I sleep peacefully. My dreams are connected to events of the day, the visit to Château B— with Superintendent Fourier, the investigation into the death of the Marquis, James’s arrival in Paris. While dreaming, I hear myself telling myself that these are just memories from my daytime existence because, in reality, I am dreaming.
Suddenly, I sense that the door has just opened and someone has entered the room. It is her, I’m sure of it. I open my eyes slowly, without experiencing the slightly dazed feeling one normally has on waking, as if there were no difference between sleep and the reality before me.
It is her, the young woman from the steamer, wearing a fine red satin dress which shows off the delicate outline of her hips and chest perfectly. Her blond hair floats in the air as she approaches the bed, smiling. She gives off a sort of phosphorescence which glows all around her.
She sits on the edge of my bed and, in the same movement, her alluring lips touch mine. Her skin is soft, like the softest silk.
Then I hear her whisper, ‘Do you remember Fata Morgana ? You must remember.’
Before I can answer, she moves her face away and looks at me intensely as if
I closed the book and, wanting to find out more about Le Comte de Gabalis , picked up the 1921 edition I had found at Château B—. I read all five discourses (it was only about a hundred pages long) and flicked through the commentary which accompanied them as well.
Jacques Lacroix had summarised the book accurately. The discourses of Gabalis, a German lord and famous occultist, reported by one of his French disciples, covered the existence of ‘elementals’ and the means of contacting them.
According to the Count of Gabalis, many races, whose women and girls are formidably beautiful, inhabit the four elements which make up the universe: sylphs and sylphids fill the air, fire teems with salamanders, the rivers and the seas are home to water sprites and nymphs, and the centre of the earth contains male and female gnomes. When the world was created, Adam, made from what was purest in the elements, was the natural king of these creatures, who appeared proud but were actually docile and devoted to their master. However, after his sin deprived him of his throne and corrupted the principles from which he had been created, he lost sovereignty over the invisible peoples. Only a philosopher, whose bodily form had been regenerated and exalted through the assiduous study of the secret sciences, would be able to establish communication with them again.
That being so, the Count of Gabalis did not conceal the fact thathe had renounced the charms of human females in order to devote himself exclusively to his invisible mistresses and their delectable embraces.
Cazotte, Abbé de Villars, the Count of Gabalis, elemental spirits, sensual cabbalistic pleasures … After more than two hours of attentive reading, a feeling of mellow drowsiness eventually stole over me. I put the book on the chair and drifted off almost immediately.
In the confusion of my initial nocturnal visions – the ones which appear as soon as the brain gently succumbs to sleep – it crossed my mind that I had left my dream notebook in my jacket. I didn’t have the energy to get up though, so the book remained where it was.
As I expected, as I both hoped and feared with the same intensity, I woke up in the middle of the night, shaken by a new dream.
DREAM 2
NIGHT OF 18-19 OCTOBER
Bedtime: 12.25 a.m.
Approximate time when fell asleep: 2.20 a.m.
Time awoken: 3.55 a.m.
I am stretched out on my bed in my room at the Hôtel Saint-Merri and I am dreaming that I am asleep. Like last night, I dream while fully aware that I am dreaming.
I know that the stranger from the steamer will join me soon. She promised; it’s inevitable. In the meantime, I sleep peacefully. My dreams are connected to events of the day, the visit to Château B— with Superintendent Fourier, the investigation into the death of the Marquis, James’s arrival in Paris. While dreaming, I hear myself telling myself that these are just memories from my daytime existence because, in reality, I am dreaming.
Suddenly, I sense that the door has just opened and someone has entered the room. It is her, I’m sure of it. I open my eyes slowly, without experiencing the slightly dazed feeling one normally has on waking, as if there were no difference between sleep and the reality before me.
It is her, the young woman from the steamer, wearing a fine red satin dress which shows off the delicate outline of her hips and chest perfectly. Her blond hair floats in the air as she approaches the bed, smiling. She gives off a sort of phosphorescence which glows all around her.
She sits on the edge of my bed and, in the same movement, her alluring lips touch mine. Her skin is soft, like the softest silk.
Then I hear her whisper, ‘Do you remember Fata Morgana ? You must remember.’
Before I can answer, she moves her face away and looks at me intensely as if
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