Weird Woman; Being a Literal Translation of Les Diaboliques, of Barbey D'Aurevilly Volume 2 - Professor Jules Barbey D'Aurevilly

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 edition. Excerpt: ... sharper's pack that insures a man against losing his last rubber with Destiny." "And what poison is it? " I asked him, taking up the phial, the shape of which roused my curiosity. ' The most exquisite of all the Indian poisons, " he returned removing his mask. " To breathe it is very often death, and no matter how absorbed into the system there is no need whatever to be anxious, even if it does not kill right off. You lose nothing by the delay, for its affect is as sure as it is secret; it attacks, slowly indeed, almost languidly, but still infallibly the very sources of life itself, striking inwards and developing deep down in the organs it assails, some disease of the kind everybody is familiar with and the symptoms of which are so well know to physicians that they would quite disarm suspicion and be a sufficient answer to any accusation of poisoning, even supposing such a charge at all likely to be made. They say in India the Mendicant Fakeers compound the drug with substances of an extreme rarity, known to themselves alone and found only in the remote highlands of Thibet. Its action is rather to dissolve away the cords of life. la this it only conforms to the Indian character, so gentle and apathetic, to which death is but slumber, and a death-bed a soft and restful couch of lotus. It is excessively difficult, in fact next door to impossible, to procure. If you only knew all the risks I ran to get this phial from a woman who professed to love me... 1 have a friend, an Officer like myself in the English Service, and like me now home from India, where he has spent seven years of his life. He sought this poison with all the frenzied energy of an Englishman's caprice, --and some day, when you have lived longer, you will understand what...