A Dark Stranger

"Maybe. So let’s assume Irene is an intrepid experimenter, not even afraid that there might an explosion. You’ll agree that’s exactly how we make discoveries."

Something in his voice made me think he was applying this last expression to himself in particular.

"My dear Henri, what some people call an innocent taste for experiments, others have sometimes called ‘tempting fate’. The Church doesn’t have a great liking for alchemists. Although what did they do if not investigate basic attractions? What a lovely temptation, so straightforward! Mix fire and water, salt and sulphur. That’s how you cheerfully cast out demons. Yet I’m sure what guided them was just an unbridled appetite for universal friendship."

"All these polite chemical metaphors of yours make Irene sound like some kind of procurer, You’re being pretty harsh, Gerard."

"But don’t you think that one way or another everyone would like to be a procurer. Putting two substances, two people together and seeing if they explode or mix. It’s quite natural."

"And perhaps perverse."

"Nature is perverse! The human race is perverse! Luckily. It’s how things get done. It’s how people meet, and every opportunity, everything new comes from that. How could things and individuals make contact, enrich each other, without perverting them, without diverting them from the safe, well-trodden path, without new ideas? Whether that’s the work of the devil or not, agree on everything else. The devil is a diversion - he’s always oblique."

For a moment Henri was lost in thought.

He turned back to the darkened room. A moonbeam slipped across the glowing parquet floor like a piece of silk. Somewhere in the darkness a clock ticked away the seconds. The extraordinary stillness of the moon sucked the life out of this dark sombre room through the windows, as an embalmer drains a skull through the nostrils, replacing the warm breath of life with pure icy ether - effortlessly merging the empty room with the dark grottos of the enchanted garden.

It’s amazing to think just how far you can involve someone in a situation, even the most repellent, the most thankless, just by persuading them of the decisive importance of their participation could have. Personal advantage probably counts for little in motivating people - but their ever-alert dramatic instinct, now there’s a motive that virtually never fails to respond to an appeal. Perhaps people are always vaguely dreaming of giving a star performance some day or other.