The Trail of the Serpent · Chapter
X: Animal Magnetism explained
Nearly a month after Valerie's marriage, she visits Monsieur Blurosset late at night, seeking a poison for herself.
What happens
Nearly a month after Valerie's marriage, she visits Monsieur Blurosset late at night, seeking a poison for herself. Blurosset refuses, citing his scientific principles. Valerie, agitated and haunted by the past, feels an inexplicable presence of a dead person nearby. After a tense conversation about animal magnetism and the soul, she leaves, returning to her unhappy life with Raymond Marolles.
Themes in this chapter
Madness and Mental Health
Valerie's agitation, her feeling of a dead person's presence, and her self-described madness highlight her psychological turmoil.
Duality and Deception
Blurosset's secret patient in the bedchamber and Valerie's hidden identity as a married woman seeking poison underscore the theme of hidden truths.
Fate and Determinism
Blurosset's card reading and algebraic calculations suggest a deterministic view of life, while Valerie feels trapped by her past and fate.
Characters to notice
- Laurent Blurosset
Seated at his green table, studying cards and algebra; listens to the breathing of a man in his bedchamber; refuses Valerie's request for poison; discusses animal magnetism.
- Valerie de Cevennes
Visits Blurosset veiled and plainly dressed; asks for a means of certain death; feels the presence of a dead person; leaves, haunted by the past.
- Raymond Marolles
Valerie's husband; mentioned as engaged at a dinner given by a distinguished member of the chamber of peers.
Key passages
“I am very unhappy—I have been so for some months past; and I shall be so until my dying day.”
Valerie confesses her deep and lasting unhappiness to Blurosset.
Reveals Valerie's despair and her desire for death as an escape.
“Do you believe it possible for one soul to be gifted with a mysterious prescience of the emotions of another soul?”
Valerie asks Blurosset if one soul can sense another's feelings without any known cause.
Explores the theme of animal magnetism and the connection between souls.
“I feel as if that person were near me tonight.”
Valerie senses the presence of a dead person in the room.
Highlights her psychological state and the supernatural undertones of the chapter.