Read Planus for Free Online

bodies, as witness the words of the Apostle: "There are celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies." And this : "He is born man and reborn spirit." '
    The old dialectician poses the question : 'I ask you, what is it that the soul has in common with the spirits of evil, so closely and so intimately that they can become united as one? For the evil spirits speak to the soul in an imperceptible manner, gliding into its bosom, inspiring it to do whatever they will, inciting it to whatever act they choose, seeing and knowing in detail every thought and every movement. And such is the closeness that exists between the evil spirits and our souls that it is almost impossible, without the grace of God, to distinguish between the evil to which they incite us and that which we commit of our own volition.'
    The demonology of beasts, what a revelation for someone like myself, who responds to the call of the virgin forest and who, with the inhuman and unfeeling eye of the camera (which is nevertheless able to record and capture everything, on any scale, by virtue of its graduated lens), has been able to take by surprise savage animals that had never yet smelled a man. The great ant-eater of Brazil, the tamandu bandeira or standard-bearer, for example, is a devil such as Brueghel the Elder would not have dared imagine, and the duckbilled platypus of Tasmania is another, a ridiculous creature, dumb with amazement before the egg which it has just laid and which it will breast-feed. But what the devil can they be plotting in their bewildering solitude, in the farthest depths of the jungle, or in the frightful, broiling deserts where those two fiends gasp for breath? And what is one to make of a third villain, that poor devil of a three-toed sloth from the Amazon, which has the imploring eyes of a Mary Magdalen and her mop of hair dangling in its eyes, and hangs head down, clinging on with all four paws to the top of a tree, and lets itself be eaten alive by parasites rather than move one paw and scratch itself (and also out of the goodness of its heart), an,d eats the leaves within reach of its chops, to right and left of its head, but will die of hunger rather than make a movement or change to another branch — to whom does it correspond in Cassien's classification?
    But Cassien, would not have been a true son of Marseille if he had not known how to mock and laugh at Lucifer, while doing him the favour of drawing an irreverent and indeed humorous sketch of his offspring and disciples, and Cassien was the founder of the abbey of Saint-Victor, which faces the Old Port! Listen to this delicate satire of the Bacuceos, those lackeys of hell or town-hall toadies. Wouldn't you say it was a page straight out of Marcel Pagnol, and a good one at that?
    'There are others, commonly called Bacucians, who infect their victims with a foolish pride. They are to be seen, therefore, attempting to make themselves look tall, affecting proud and majestic poses, or, at other times, bending down towards someone in an affable and serene posture in order to appear simple and kindly. Taking themselves for illustrious and worthy personages, we see them at one moment bowing their bodies before the superior powers, at another, believing themselves to be receiving adoration in their turn, they go through all the motions, now humble, now superb, of people who are really in such a situation.'
    And turning a page, here is my portrait, just as if it had been taken by Polyfoto, for the automatic and patented machines of today, with their Cassienite names, are also henchmen of Satan:
    'We have found other demons who take delight not only in lies, but also in blasphemies, to which they inspire men. We ourselves have witnessed this, for we definitely overheard a demon confessing that it was he who begat an impiety.' (I turned the page and trembled. I was plunged into Migne's Patrologie. This took place in St Petersburg library in the winter of 1945. The great reading- room was as