Chapter 15

Effects of Mr. Nicolas’s advice and magic wand

Mr. Bouge and Mr. Guerin took their leave of me to go about their days, and left me alone with Nicolas for the better part of an hour. The conversation turned this way and that, and then to his wand. He shared it with me, and asked if I could see a small white dot at one end. I told him yes, though in truth, I couldn’t. Before we parted ways he told me to have a small stick like his made out of steel, and to keep it locked in a tin case. 

Nicolas made me promise to meet him again at the same place, the next day, before sunrise. A few minutes after I arrived Nicolas joined me. He made me sit down again, in the same place and position. He prepared a glass of water, again dipping his wand in it, and asked me to drink it. A quarter of an hour later he asked me if I saw drops of water falling from the leaves of a nearby tree. 

“Yes,” I said. 

“How do you feel?” 

I was feeling the water’s effects. “I feel like throwing up.” 

Bouge arrived later, asking if Nicolas’s techniques had produced any good effects? “Yes, yes,” replied the doctor. 

Their conversation went on, with particular attention to the two miserable women, whose diabolical artifice, along with the work of other infernal spirits, are the torment of my life. We talked for three hours, with promises to return the next day, and I would get my copy of Nicolas’s wand. 

I went home and then to bed, where I rested quietly. 

The next day I came back, with my wand and a glass. Nicolas came, and found me in the same position from the days before. I presented him my wand, which met with his approval, and me magnetized it with his. At his invitation I put it to use, dunking it in my glass of water for 15 minutes, and then drank.

We talked for some time about the beauty the garden offered, the variation of trees and plants, and their virtues. He asked if his treatment had worked effectively. It had, I said, beyond my expectations, I had regained my old cheerfulness. This was the highest praise I could give him.

He told me to stroke the tree with the tip of my wand, as long as I wanted, and to continue every day until I had recovered completely. He magnetized my cane, and suggested that I strike the earth with it as I walked, saying the words, “you scoundrel women, you’re suffering now!” He did the same, with the same words, and invited me to come when I liked to  visit this luscious place where nature displayed its charms. 

He also said that I would be surprised by an extraordinary event, but I would need to put a writing desk and some paper on my table, and write these words: “In the name of the living Jesus Christ, what do you ask of us?”

Several days passed with no event, although I saw a strange object I can’t put words around, along with a slight buzzing sound. I suspected, with some proof, that Nicolas and Bouge were the authors of this event. 

I went for a walk in the garden. Some of my fellow citizens who had taken an interest in magnetization were there to examine the magnetized tree, where I would be continuing the procedures the doctors had given me. My position drew their interest, and these visitors asked a number of questions when they saw me using my wand and cane. As we talked, Guerin arrived along with his students, to teach them the names of plants, their virtues, and how to use them to treat different illnesses.