Produced by Tim Lindell. David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) NEW BODIES FOR OLD NEW BODIES FOR OLD BY MAURICE RENARD NEW YORK THE MACAULAY COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1923 BY MAURICE RENARD PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA DEDICATION _To H. G. Wells_: I beg you, Sir, to accept this book. Of all the pleasures that its writing gave me, that of dedicating it to you is assuredly not the least. I conceived it under the inspiration of ideas that you cherish, and I could have wished that it had come nearer to your own works than it does, not in merit--that would be an absurd pretension--but, at any rate, in that pleasant quality shown in all your books, which allows the chastest minds, as well as those that exact the greatest realism, to have communion with your genius--a communion which the ablest people of our time can acknowledge without feeling its charm lessened by such considerations. But when Fortune for good or ill allowed me to discover the subject of this allegorical novel, I felt bound not to set it aside because of a few audacities which a faithful rendering involved and which an arrest of development alone--that is, a crime against the literary conscience--could avoid. You now know--you could have guessed as much--what I should like people to think of my work, if by chance any one did it the unexpected honor of thinking about it at all. Far from desiring to arouse the creature of instinct in my reader and amuse him with scandalous descriptions, my work is addressed to the philosopher anxious for Truth amid the marvels of Fiction and for Orderliness amid the tumult of imaginary Adventures. That, Sir, is why I beg you to accept it. M. R. CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION 9 CHAPTER I NOCTURNE 16 II AMONG THE SPHINXES 38 III THE CONSERVATORY 65 IV HOT AND COLD 84 V “THE MADMAN” 101 VI NELL--THE ST. BERNARD 117 VII THUS SPAKE MLLE. BOURDICHET 136 VIII RASHNESS 154 IX THE AMBUSH 171 X THE CIRCEEAN OPERATION 192 XI IN THE PADDOCK 217 XII LERNE CHANGES HIS METHOD OF ATTACK 235 XIII EXPERIMENTS! HALLUCINATIONS! 253 XIV DEATH AND THE MASK 262 XV THE NEW BEAST 279 XVI THE WIZARD FINALLY DIES 300 NEW BODIES FOR OLD NEW BODIES FOR OLD INTRODUCTION