(Lady Pendyagon's Diary is interrupted by a note written on some later occasion in the handwriting of Mr. Basil King Lamus. Ed.)
Lou means all right, bless her! She makes me think of Anatole France-La Rotisserie de la Reine Pedauque
-old Coignard has been warned by the Rosicrucian not to Pronounce the word Agla, and the moment he does so, a wheel comes off his carriage, with the result that he gets murdered by Moses.
Then, again, all the Rosicrucian's Predictions come true ; and he himself goes up in aflame like the Salamander he has been invoking. He looks upon his own death as the crown of his career-the climax towards which he has been working.
Anatole France is, in fact, compelled to write as if the Rosicrucian theories were correct, although his conscious self is busily exposing the absurdity of magic.
It looks as if the artist's true self were convinced of the actuality of magic, and insisted on expressing itself despite every effort of the sceptical intellect to turn the whole thing into ridicule. There are numerous other examples in literature of the same conflict between the genius and the mind which is its imperfect medium. For instance-at the other end of the scale-Mr. W. S. Maugham, in " The Magician," does his malignant utmost to make the " villain " objectionable in every way, an object of contempt, and a failure. Yet in the very moment when his enemies succeed in murdering him and destroying his life's work, they are obliged to admit that he has " Accomplished the Great Work "-of creating Living Beings ! " Every man and every woman is a star."-B. K. L.
I don't like that room. I said nothing about it to Peter ; but the old man was there walking about as large as life. You have to be specially prepared to see these things.
Cockie was never spiritually minded.
September 18
An alarm of burglars last night. We roused the house-but no traces could be found. The servants here are frightfully stupid. They irritate me all the time.
One can't sleep in this house. It's too old. The wood cracks all the time. just as one is on the verge of sleep some noise makes one more wide-awake than ever.
I can't bear the idea of being touched. My skin is very sensitive. It's part of the spiritualising of my life, I suppose.
I'm glad, though, that the new honeymoon didn't last more than three or four days.
It is irritating to one's vanity. But that is merely a memory. How can vanity co-exist with the spiritual life ?
I saw the Spirit of heroin to-day when I went up to the magic room. It is tremendously tall and thin, with tattered rags fluttering round it, and these turn into little birds that fly off it, that come and burrow in one's skin !
I just feel the prick of the beak, and then it disappears. They were messengers from the other world. There is a little nest of them in my liver. It is very curious to hear them chirping when they want food. I don't know what they'll do so far away from their mother.
It is horrible not being able to sleep. That, too, must be a preparation for the new life.
I wandered up all alone to the magic room, and sat with my hands on the table opposite the old man, trying to get him to talk.
His lips move, but I can't hear what he says.
I was disturbed, of course. I always am being disturbed. I am so tired. Why won't they let me alone ?
This time it was a shot. The magic room has windows all around it.
I went to see who could have fired. It was very bright moonlight ; but I could see nothing.
Then there came another flash and report. I went round to the side it came from, and watched. It was by the lake. I watched a long time. Then a crouching figure hidden among the reeds sprang up, put a gun to its shoulder and fired twice in rapid succession. Then it screamed, and ran to the house throwing away its gun. I wonder what it could be.
September 20
I have found a manuscript in grandfather's room that tells you how to invoke the Devil. It needs two people, and I don't feel sure about Peter.
He can't see into the spiritual world at all. On the contrary, he is getting a little queer in the head, and imagines he sees things which don't exist at all. He's constantly scratching himself.
He behaved very strangely at dinner. I think the butler noticed it.
At midnight we went up to the old man's room and began to go through the ritual. A lot of it seems silly, but the climax is fine.
You keep on saying, over and over
" Io Pan Pan! Io Pan Pan! Ai Pan Pan ! Io Pan Pan! Io Pan Pan! Pan Pan Pan!
Aegipan, Aegipan, Aegipan, Aegipan, Aegipan,
Aegipan, Io Pan Pan! "
You go on till something comes. We used two black robes that we found hanging up there.
They were lovely silk robes with hoods.
You take candles in both hands and dance while you make the incantations.
We got frightfully excited. It was as if a strange force had got hold of us. It seemed to lead us all round the house and then into the grounds.
We were shouting at the top of our voices.
Once or twice we saw a servant putting out a nose through a chink of a door. It would always be shut with a little squeal, and we could hear keys turning and bolts being pushed.
We wanted to roar with laughter, but we had to keep on with the invocation. The book said you mustn't stop it while you were outside the magic room, or the Devil could get you.
The strange thing is that I don't remember at all what happened. Did the Devil come or not ?
I don't even remember getting back to the magic room. I must have gone to sleep, for I've woken up frightfully hungry.
Cockie's awake too. He's kneeling at the window with a shot gun. He aimed it two or three times, but didn't fire. He came back to me after putting the gun in a comer.
He said, " It's no good. They're too spry. The only chance to get them is at night."
He was hungry too. We rang for some food. Nobody answered the bell.
We rang again and again.
Then Peter got angry and went to see what was wrong. " There isn't a soul in the place ! "
It's perfectly incomprehensible. What could have happened to them all ?
Peter says it's the Germans. Part of a plot to persecute him for what he did in the war. But I don't think so at all.
It says in a book that you have to get rid of every one if you're going to start the spiritual life.
I expect my spiritual guide put it into their minds to go, but I'm very doubtful about Cockie. He's not ready for any high development. Men are always revoltingly gross.
Think how they are even about love. I must say this for Cockie, he's all right about that. The very flower of purity-a perfect knight !
Yet we went through a period of a very evil character. No doubt we had to be purged of all our baser elements.
There is a great sympathy between us at times, and it is not soiled by any animality.
The only thing is I'm not sure whether it hasn't been too great a strain for his mind-the process of purification.
He certainly has some very queer ideas. Sometimes I catch him looking at me with some deep suspicion in his eyes. His mind is harping on the Germans. He broke out just now into a denunciation of Gretel Webster as a German spy, and rambled on from that to say something that I couldn't properly understand. But the gist of it was apparently that as Gretel had introduced us more or less, I was being used to do him some harm.
Of course ideas like this come to