Tempo:
40 INTERIOR VISION.
pale, and with tears streaming from her eyes. She immediately said to her companions, ‘If Cagliostro be a sorcerer, he is a deceiving one: Have faith in nothing that he shows you.' She would say nomore. Conciolini, however, told me a few days after, at one of my concerts, of this wonderful entertainment. JI promised myself to question Porporina about it, the first time she sang at Sans Souci. I had much difficulty in making her speak of it, but thus she told me:
Cagliostro has, beyond a doubt, the strange power of producing spectres so like truth that it is impossible for the calmest minds to be unmoved by them. His knowledge, however, is incomplete, and I would not advise you, sire, to make him your Minister of Police, for he would perpetrate strange mistakes. Thus, when I asked him to show me the absent person I wished to see, I thought of my music-master, Porpora, who is now at Vienna. Instead of him, I saw in the magic-room a very dear friend I lost during the current year.
Peste! said D'Argens, that is more wonderful even than the apparition of a living person.
Wait a moment, gentlemen. Cagliostro had no doubt but what he had shown was the phantom of a living person, and, when it had disappeared, asked Porporina if what she had seen was satisfactory. ‘In the first place, monsieur,' said she, ‘I wish to understand it. Will you explain? That surpasses my power. Be assured that your friend is well, and usefully employed.' To this the signora replied, ‘Alas! sir, you have done me much wrong; you showed me a person of whom I did not think, and who is, yousay, now living. I closed his eyes six months ago.
All this is very fine,"said La Mettrie; but does not explain how your majesty's Porporina saw the dead alive. If she is gifted with as much firmness and reason as your majesty says, the fact goes to disprove your majesty's argument. The sorcerer, it is true, was mistaken, in producing a dead rather than a living man. It, however, makes it the more certain that he controls both life and death. In that respect, he is greater than your majesty, which, if it does not displease your majesty, has killed many men, but never resuscitated a single one.
Then we are to believe in the devil,"said the king, laughing at the comic glances of La Mettrie at Quintus Icilius.
To conclude, Your Porporina is either foolish or credulous, and saw her dead man, or she was philosophical, and saw nothing. She was frightened, however.
“Not so; she was distressed,"said the king, "as all naturally would be, at the sight or portrait which would exactly recall a person loved, but know we shall see no more. But if I must tell you all, I will say, that she subsequently was afraid, and that her moral power after this test was not in so sound a state as it was previously. Thenceforth she has been liable to a dark melancholy, which is always the proof of weakness or disorder
pale, and with tears streaming from her eyes. She immediately said to her companions, ‘If Cagliostro be a sorcerer, he is a deceiving one: Have faith in nothing that he shows you.' She would say nomore. Conciolini, however, told me a few days after, at one of my concerts, of this wonderful entertainment. JI promised myself to question Porporina about it, the first time she sang at Sans Souci. I had much difficulty in making her speak of it, but thus she told me:
Cagliostro has, beyond a doubt, the strange power of producing spectres so like truth that it is impossible for the calmest minds to be unmoved by them. His knowledge, however, is incomplete, and I would not advise you, sire, to make him your Minister of Police, for he would perpetrate strange mistakes. Thus, when I asked him to show me the absent person I wished to see, I thought of my music-master, Porpora, who is now at Vienna. Instead of him, I saw in the magic-room a very dear friend I lost during the current year.
Peste! said D'Argens, that is more wonderful even than the apparition of a living person.
Wait a moment, gentlemen. Cagliostro had no doubt but what he had shown was the phantom of a living person, and, when it had disappeared, asked Porporina if what she had seen was satisfactory. ‘In the first place, monsieur,' said she, ‘I wish to understand it. Will you explain? That surpasses my power. Be assured that your friend is well, and usefully employed.' To this the signora replied, ‘Alas! sir, you have done me much wrong; you showed me a person of whom I did not think, and who is, yousay, now living. I closed his eyes six months ago.
All this is very fine,"said La Mettrie; but does not explain how your majesty's Porporina saw the dead alive. If she is gifted with as much firmness and reason as your majesty says, the fact goes to disprove your majesty's argument. The sorcerer, it is true, was mistaken, in producing a dead rather than a living man. It, however, makes it the more certain that he controls both life and death. In that respect, he is greater than your majesty, which, if it does not displease your majesty, has killed many men, but never resuscitated a single one.
Then we are to believe in the devil,"said the king, laughing at the comic glances of La Mettrie at Quintus Icilius.
To conclude, Your Porporina is either foolish or credulous, and saw her dead man, or she was philosophical, and saw nothing. She was frightened, however.
“Not so; she was distressed,"said the king, "as all naturally would be, at the sight or portrait which would exactly recall a person loved, but know we shall see no more. But if I must tell you all, I will say, that she subsequently was afraid, and that her moral power after this test was not in so sound a state as it was previously. Thenceforth she has been liable to a dark melancholy, which is always the proof of weakness or disorder
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