So saying he carried off this possible proof, shut himself up in his study, looked for Saint Savinien and found, as the somnambulist had told him, a little red dot at the 19th of October; he also saw another before his own saint's day, Saint Denis, and a third before Saint John, the abbe's patron. This little dot, no larger than a pin's head, had been seen by the sleeping woman in spite of distance and other obstacles! The old man thought till evening of these events, more momentous for him than for others. He was forced to yield to evidence.
A strong wall, as it were, crumbled within him; for his life had rested on two bases,--indifference in matters of religion and a firm disbelief in magnetism. When it was proved to him that the senses--faculties purely physical, organs, the effects of which could be explained--attained to some of the attributes of the infinite, magnetism upset, or at least it seemed to him to upset, the powerful arguments of Spinoza. The finite and the infinite, two incompatible elements according to that remarkable man, were here united, the one in the other. No matter what power he gave to the divisibility and mobility of matter he could not help recognizing that it possessed qualities that were almost divine.
He was too old now to connect those phenomena to a system, and compare them with those of sleep, of vision, of light. His whole scientific belief, based on the assertions of the school of Locke and Condillac, was in ruins. Seeing his hollow ideas in pieces, his scepticism staggered. Thus the advantage in this struggle between the Catholic child and the Voltairean old man was on Ursula's side. In the dismantled fortress, above these ruins, shone a light; from the center of these ashes issued the path of prayer! Nevertheless, the obstinate old scientist fought his doubts. Though struck to the heart, he would not decide, he struggled on against God.
But he was no longer the same man; his mind showed its vacillation. He became unnaturally dreamy; he read Pascal, and Bossuet's sublime "History of Species"; he read Bonald, he read Saint-Augustine; he determined also to read the works of Swedenborg, and the late Saint-Martin, which the mysterious stranger had mentioned to him. The edifice within him was cracking on all sides; it needed but one more shake, and then, his heart being ripe for God, he was destined to fall into the celestial vineyard as fall the fruits. Often of an evening, when playing with the abbe, his goddaughter sitting by, he would put questions bearing on his opinions which seemed singular to the priest, who was ignorant of the inward workings by which God was remaking that fine conscience.
"Do you believe in apparitions?" asked the sceptic of the pastor, stopping short in the game.
"Cardan, a great philosopher of the sixteenth century said he had seen some," replied the abbe.
"I know all those that scholars have discussed, for I have just reread Plotinus. I am questioning you as a Catholic might, and I ask if you think that dead men can return to the living."
"Jesus reappeared to his disciples after his death," said the abbe.
"The Church ought to have faith in the apparitions of the Savior. As for miracles, they are not lacking," he continued, smiling. "Shall I tell you the last? It took place in the eighteenth century."
"Pooh!" said the doctor.
"Yes, the blessed Marie-Alphonse of Ligouri, being very far from Rome, knew of the death of the Pope at the very moment the Holy Father expired; there were numerous witnesses of this miracle. The sainted bishop being in ecstasy, heard the last words of the sovereign pontiff and repeated them at the time to those about him. The courier who brought the announcement of the death did not arrive till thirty hours later."
"Jesuit!" exclaimed old Minoret, laughing, "I did not ask you for proofs; I asked you if you believed in apparitions."
"I think an apparition depends a good deal on who sees it," said the abbe, still fencing with his sceptic.
"My friend," said the doctor, seriously, "I am not setting a trap for you. What do you really believe about it?"
"I believe that the power of God is infinite," replied the abbe.
"When I am dead, if I am reconciled to God, I will ask Him to let me appear to you," said the doctor, smiling.
"That's exactly the agreement Cardan made with his friend," answered the priest.
"Ursula," said Minoret, "if danger ever threatens you, call me, and I will come."
