Seeing Durtal’s gaze fixed on his fingers, he smiled.  “You examine my valuables, monsieur.  They are of three metals, gold, platinum, and silver.  This ring bears a scorpion, the sign under which I was born.  That with its two accoupled triangles, one pointing downward and the other upward, reproduces the image of the macrocosm, the seal of Solomon, the grand pantacle.  As for the little one you see here,” he went on, showing a lady’s ring set with a tiny sapphire between two roses, “that is a present from a person whose horoscope I was good enough to cast.”

“Ah!” said Durtal, somewhat surprised at the man’s self-satisfaction.

“Dinner is ready,” said the bell-ringer’s wife.

Des Hermies, doffing his apron, appeared in his tight cheviot garments.  He was not so pale as usual, his cheeks being red from the heat of the stove.  He set the chairs around.

Carhaix served the broth, and everyone was silent, taking spoonfuls of the cooler broth at the edge of the bowl.  Then madame brought Des Hermies the famous leg of mutton to cut.  It was a magnificent red, and large drops flowed beneath the knife.  Everybody ecstasized when tasting this robust meat, aromatic with a puree of turnips sweetened with caper sauce.

Des Hermies bowed under a storm of compliments.  Carhaix filled the glasses, and, somewhat confused in the presence of Gevingey, paid the astrologer effusive attention to make him forget their former ill-feeling.  Des Hermies assisted in this good work, and wishing also to be useful to Durtal, brought the conversation around to the subject of horoscopes.

Then Gevingey mounted the rostrum.  In a tone of satisfaction he spoke of his vast labours, of the six months a horoscope required, of the surprise of laymen when he declared that such work was not paid for by the price he asked, five hundred francs.

“But you see I cannot give my science for nothing,” he said.  “And now people doubt astrology, which was revered in antiquity.  Also in the Middle Ages, when it was almost sacred.  For instance, messieurs, look at the portal of Notre Dame.  The three doors which archeologists—­not initiated into the symbolism of Christianity and the occult—­designate by the names of the door of Judgment, the door of the Virgin, and the door of Saint Marcel or Saint Anne, really represent Mysticism, Astrology, and Alchemy, the three great sciences of the Middle Ages.  Today you find people who say, ’Are you quite sure that the stars have an influence on the destiny of man?’ But, messieurs, without entering here into details reserved for the adept, in what way is this spiritual influence stranger than that corporal influence which certain planets, the moon, for example, exercise on the organs of men and women?

“You are a physician, Monsieur Des Hermies, and you are not unaware that the doctors Gillespin, Jackson, and Balfour, of Jamaica, have established the influence of the constellations on human health in the West Indies.  At every change of the moon the number of sick people augments.  The acute crises of fever coincide with the phases of our satellite.  Finally, there are lunatics.  Go out in the country and ascertain at what periods madness becomes epidemic.  But does this serve to convince the incredulous?” he asked sorrowfully, contemplating his rings.