The Magician - W. Somerset Maugham (good romance books to read .txt) 📗

but by making it to force the very gates of the unknown?”

Suddenly the bantering gravity with which he spoke fell away from him. A singular light came into his eyes, and his voice was hoarse. Now at last they saw that he was serious.

“What should you know of that lust for great secrets which consumes me to the bottom of my soul!”

“Anyhow, I’m perfectly delighted to meet a magician,” cried Susie gaily.

“Ah, call me not that,” he said, with a flourish of his fat hands, regaining immediately his portentous flippancy. “I would be known rather as the Brother of the Shadow.”

“I should have thought you could be only a very distant relation of anything so unsubstantial,” said Arthur, with a laugh.

Oliver’s face turned red with furious anger. His strange blue eyes grew cold with hatred, and he thrust out his scarlet lips till he had the ruthless expression of a Nero. The gibe at his obesity had caught him on the raw. Susie feared that he would make so insulting a reply that a quarrel must ensure.

“Well, really, if we want to go to the fair we must start,” she said quickly. “And Marie is dying to be rid of us.”

They got up, and clattered down the stairs into the street.

IV

They came down to the busy, narrow street which led into the Boulevard du Montparnasse. Electric trams passed through it with harsh ringing of bells, and people surged along the pavements.

The fair to which they were going was held at the Lion de Belfort, not more than a mile away, and Arthur hailed a cab. Susie told the driver where they wanted to be set down. She noticed that Haddo, who was waiting for them to start, put his hand on the horse’s neck. On a sudden, for no apparent reason, it began to tremble. The trembling passed through the body and down its limbs till it shook from head to foot as though it had the staggers. The coachman jumped off his box and held the wretched creature’s head. Margaret and Susie got out. It was a horribly painful sight. The horse seemed not to suffer from actual pain, but from an extraordinary fear. Though she knew not why, an idea came to Susie.

“Take your hand away, Mr. Haddo,” she said sharply.

He smiled, and did as she bade him. At the same moment the trembling began to decrease, and in a moment the poor old cab-horse was in its usual state. It seemed a little frightened still, but otherwise recovered.

“I wonder what the deuce was the matter with it,” said Arthur.

Oliver Haddo looked at him with the blue eyes that seemed to see right through people, and then, lifting his hat, walked away. Susie turned suddenly to Dr. Porhoët.

“Do you think he could have made the horse do that? It came immediately he put his hand on its neck, and it stopped as soon as he took it away.”

“Nonsense!” said Arthur.

“It occurred to me that he was playing some trick,” said Dr. Porhoët gravely. “An odd thing happened once when he came to see me. I have two Persian cats, which are the most properly conducted of all their tribe. They spend their days in front of my fire, meditating on the problems of metaphysics. But as soon as he came in they started up, and their fur stood right on end. Then they began to run madly round and round the room, as though the victims of uncontrollable terror. I opened the door, and they bolted out. I have never been able to understand exactly what took place.”

Margaret shuddered.

“I’ve never met a man who filled me with such loathing,” she said. “I don’t know what there is about him that frightens me. Even now I feel his eyes fixed strangely upon me. I hope I shall never see him again.”

Arthur gave a little laugh and pressed her hand. She would not let his go, and he felt that she was trembling. Personally, he had no doubt about the matter. He would have no trifling with credibility. Either Haddo believed things that none but a lunatic could, or else he was a charlatan who sought to attract attention by his extravagances. In any case he was contemptible. It was certain, at all events, that neither he nor anyone else could work miracles.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said Arthur. “If he really knows Frank Hurrell I’ll find out all about him. I’ll drop a note to Hurrell tonight and ask him to tell me anything he can.”

“I wish you would,” answered Susie, “because he interests me enormously. There’s no place like Paris for meeting queer folk. Sooner or later you run across persons who believe in everything. There’s no form of religion, there’s no eccentricity or enormity, that hasn’t its votaries. Just think what a privilege it is to come upon a man in the twentieth century who honestly believes in the occult.”

“Since I have been occupied with these matters, I have come across strange people,” said Dr. Porhoët quietly, “but I agree with Miss Boyd that Oliver Haddo is the most extraordinary. For one thing, it is impossible to know how much he really believes what he says. Is he an impostor or a madman? Does he deceive himself, or is he laughing up his sleeve at the folly of those who take him seriously? I cannot tell. All I know is that he has travelled widely and is acquainted with many tongues. He has a minute knowledge of alchemical literature, and there is no book I have heard of, dealing with the black arts, which he does not seem to know.” Dr. Porhoët shook his head slowly. “I should not care to dogmatize about this man. I know I shall outrage the feelings of my friend Arthur, but I am bound to confess it would not surprise me to learn that he possessed powers by which he was able to do