“So the Church has kept silent.  And Rome is not unaware of the frightful advance incubacy has made in the cloisters in our days.”

“That proves that continence is hard to bear in solitude,” said Des Hermies.

“It merely proves that the soul is feeble and that people have forgotten how to pray,” said Carhaix.

“However that may be, messieurs, to instruct you completely in this matter, I must divide the creatures smitten with incubacy or succubacy into two classes.  The first is composed of persons who have directly and voluntarily given themselves over to the demoniac action of the spirits.  These persons are quite rare and they all die by suicide or some other form of violent death.  The second is composed of persons on whom the visitation of spirits has been imposed by a spell.  These are very numerous, especially in the convents dominated by the demoniac societies.  Ordinarily these victims end in madness.  The psychopathic hospitals are crowded with them.  The doctors and the majority of the priests do not know the cause of their madness, but the cases are curable.  A thaumaturge of my acquaintance has saved a good many of the bewitched who without his aid would be howling under hydrotherapeutic douches.  There are certain fumigations, certain exsufflations, certain commandments written on a sheet of virgin parchment thrice blessed and worn like an amulet which almost always succeed in delivering the patient.”

“I want to ask you,” said Des Hermies, “does a woman receive the visit of the incubus while she is asleep or while she is awake?”

“A distinction must be made.  If the woman is not the victim of a spell, if she voluntarily consorts with the impure spirit, she is always awake when the carnal act takes place.  If, on the other hand, the woman is the victim of sorcery, the sin is committed either while she is asleep or while she is awake, but in the latter case she is in a cataleptic state which prevents her from defending herself.  The most powerful of present-day exorcists, the man who has gone most thoroughly into this matter, one Johannes, Doctor of Theology, told me that he had saved nuns who had been ridden without respite for two, three, even four days by incubi!”

“I know that priest,” remarked Des Hermies.

“And the act is consummated in the same manner as the normal human act?”

“Yes and no.  Here the dirtiness of the details makes me hesitate,” said Gevingey, becoming slightly red.  “What I can tell you is more than strange.  Know, then, that the organ of the incubus is bifurcated and at the same time penetrates both vases.  Formerly it extended, and while one branch of the fork acted in the licit channels, the other at the same time reached up to the lower part of the face.  You may imagine, gentlemen, how life must be shortened by operations which are multiplied through all the senses.”

“And you are sure that these are facts?”