PART II IDOLS AND AMBERGRIS (continued 2)

He wondered why this kindly old gentleman in the queer dress should fiddle in the great palace across the way; he, so rich and powerful, doing for fun what the poor little Yiddish boy did as a task. When Yakov could play he wouldn’t live in a palace, but would try to get a job in a theatre orchestra. His mother answered his query, “What is a cardinal?” with a vague, “Oh, he is a sort of high rabbi,” which didn’t tell her son much. He was brought up in the orthodox faith, went to Shool—the synagogue—and was careful to eat no food that had not been prepared in Kosher fashion. This last practice brought him into conflict with the boys of his class at the public school around the corner. They were American born, though many of foreign descent. That made no difference, for, as much as they quarrelled with one another, they were a unit as to the undesirability of the Jew. Their teacher had scolded, had even punished them, but uselessly. They were sarcastic, were these boys of Italian, Irish and German parents, calling aloud, “Micky,” “Dutchy,” “Guinney,” “Wop,” but for Yakov and his like—in the majority at the school—they had choicer terms: “Sheeny” “Kike!” “Mekmek!” Yakov didn’t much mind the nicknames.

He only feared the suddenly delivered punches at his back, the vise-like grip of “Jimmy the Brick” (self-christened) on his neck, and the hateful grin with which a ham sandwich would be thrust into his mouth. This last was the supreme insult. If he did not complain to his teacher, it was because he feared reprisals. So he only told his mother, with tears in his large, dark, expressive eyes, and she comforted him. She said it was the glory of his race, this badge of suffering, these insults from the Gentiles. He must not fight back, but meekly endure. Jehovah would watch over him. She was a decent widow woman, who had a small dressmaking business in her house and barely supported herself and child, also giving him a musical education. Oh! to see him a great violinist! She loved music, and as she worked her sewing-machine she hummed to its rhythms. Once, many years ago, she had heard in Lemberg, her Galician birthplace, the greatest violinist in the world, Joseph Joachim, and one of her race. She was unmarried then, yet she made a silent vow that if ever she had a son....

She had Yakov now, and his father was gone. She always said to him—dead. But she knew better. He had deserted her for another woman, left her without a dollar, and she had been fighting for ten years to keep their heads above water. Living in this humble yet genteel court behind the Cathedral, she dreamed of Yakov’s future, and she cried with joy when the teacher at the conservatory grudgingly admitted that the boy had talent and might—he coughed his reservations—with hard work make a fair musician. Yakov went to school and in the afternoons practised. The weather was warm, windows were opened, and he attentively heard the fiddle of the Cardinal.

The music was a succession of beautiful sounds for the young visionary. His eyes glittering, his lips apart, his arms tightly folded about his thin little frame, he listened as if to the voice of God. The Cardinal played the slow movement of Mendelssohn’s concerto, and, threadbare as has become this familiar song, to Yakov it was an enchantment. Its obvious sentiment seemed a call from his dead father in heaven. When the music ceased he involuntarily stretched aloft his arms. The eye of the Cardinal must have caught the glint of white—the boy was in his shirt-sleeves—and came to the window cautiously, peering across to Yakov. He vaguely smiled, and to Yakov’s sorrow he closed the window, yet the sound of his fiddle softly echoed in the ears of the boy.

Every evening he stationed himself at the same spot, but the Cardinal did not play. Yakov yearned for his music. His own cheap red fiddle became hateful to him. Its rasping tones when he attempted scales extinguished his ambition. One day his mother said in her purring Yiddish: “Yakov, you must be more industrious, else the gentleman at the conservatory will send you home.” Even that didn’t arouse him. He suddenly took to playing in the court with the other boys after school. Such rough games! He stood a lot of kicking and punching, especially from Jimmy the Brick, who, after all, wasn’t a bad-hearted chap. He once grabbed Yakov’s lunch-box and critically swallowed the contents, which pleased him, as he liked full-flavored food. “Say, Kike, that’s not bad grub. I like your stuffed fish better than the macaroni of that Wop kid Tony.” With this backing of the boss Yakov enjoyed comparative peace. He had thought of revenge, of organizing into a compact phalanx the large body of Jewish boys at the school, but his mother’s advice and the patience of his race dissuaded him from active rebellion. He let things slide along, and in the meantime his music was almost neglected. In vain did his teacher rap his knuckles with the fiddle-bow and threaten him with dismissal. Yakov knew the crosspatch wouldn’t keep his word, for he was a pay pupil; not much pay, to be sure; anyhow, not a charity scholar.

The magic of a windless June night transformed the old Red Lion court into an operatic picture. Moonlit, it recalled a prosperous past that had hardly modulated into its present middle-class shabbiness. Old houses, colonial in style, but sadly defaced by time, slept tranquilly in the magnetic rays of a moon which breasted the low housetops. The din and gabble had ceased, the only noise being the sound of hammered iron on the anvil of the blacksmith’s at the corner. So changed were times that the legend over the door of the smithy read, “Sokolov & Grünstein—Horseshoers.” The ancient and honorable profession had been wrested from sturdy English and Irish hands by the more persistent hosts from southeastern Europe. For Yakov the change meant nothing, but it gave extreme pain to Jimmy’s parents, and so Jimmy, with his faithful band, was in the habit of yelling defiant and insulting words at the two blacksmiths, though keeping at a safe distance. The rhythmic tapping of the hammers brought peace to Yakov, who stood in his window regarding with awakened curiosity the spectacle of the Cardinal’s living-room, lighted for the first time in weeks; perhaps—! Presently the sound of a fiddle oozed through the open space. He was back, the Cardinal with his fiddle. What was he playing? Hymn tunes, surely. First, the Adeste Fideles, which Yakov remembered because in a moment of condescending generosity Jimmy had taken him to Vespers at the Cathedral and had told him the name of the music he had heard.

Then the tune shifted to a more solemn, a celestial tune, indeed, which the listener couldn’t place. He didn’t know it was the O Jesu, by Haydn, but that didn’t matter; his ear was ravished by its pleading strains, and he hung out of his perch, tremulously absorbing every tone. The Cardinal’s humor shifted. He dashed off a gay Tipperary jig, and followed this with The Valley Lay Smiling Before Me, and The Harp of Tara. Yakov felt that the violinist must be an Irishman, but ever so different from the noisy Jimmy. Yet Irish!

What, what! He pinched himself as the grave music of the Kol Nidré, the sacred tune sounded on the Day of Atonement, came swelling across the Cardinal’s windows. The Kol Nidré, that immemorial cantillation of the Hebrews, in it compressed the dolors of the ages, and perhaps first chanted in the house of Egyptian bondage, perhaps out of the dim centuries before Egypt, before the shadowy Sumerians! Who knows? What concerned the boy was the strange happening—a potentate of the Gentile Church playing on a fiddle the grand and venerable hymn of the Jews. But that he was fascinated by the music he would have rushed down to his mother to tell her the glad tidings. She knew of the playing across in the palace, and was pleased because of Yakov’s evident interest. She would welcome the return of the Cardinal, for her boy would be again spurred to study. He couldn’t leave the window till the last note had been squeezed from the august and mournful melody.

In a fever Yakov seized his tiny instrument and lovingly mimicked the Cardinal. Its squeak reached the priest, who came to the window and waited until Yakov’s imperfect interpretation of the Kol Nidré ended, and, smiling a kind smile that melted the heart within the bosom of the boy, he waved a slender hand, as if to say, “I salute a brother artist!” It was too much for Yakov, who ran to his mother’s sewing-room, there to pour out his joy and receive her gentle blessing. He, too, would play the fiddle like the Cardinal—play the Kol Nidré for a hall full of listeners, who would applaud him! The mighty Cardinal had played the Kol Nidré for the poor little Jew boy, and he hadn’t even bowed his profound gratitude!

On wings of song, he mounted the stairway to his garret, but the music was no longer heard, though the windows were still alight. Not able to control himself, Yakov took his instrument, and, all the while playing, marched down-stairs into the court, and in the mystic moonshine he played on, played the Kol Nidré. Soon the gang surrounded him, and Jimmy the Brick cried: “Aw, give us a rest with that tune. Play a coon song.” Yakov only shook his head and kept on playing.

“Stop it, I say!” yelled Jimmy. “We want none of yer Kike music in this court. D’ye hear?” Yakov still played, and the tune rang out with the terror and desolation of the Day of Atonement.

“Hit him, Tony! Grab his fiddle, you Wop!” hoarsely commanded the leader. The boys closed about him and in a twinkling the current of the music was cut off, the red violin smashed into a hundred bits, the bow snapped in two and its coarse hair twisted about Yakov’s neck. He fought silently, tearlessly. The firm of Sokolov & Grünstein came to his rescue, and, being muscular men, they routed the band and sent the victim to his home with consoling phrases. But he was hopeless. That another fiddle might be bought for him found no place in his whirling imagination. He had been cruelly treated. Why should he be so punished? As he sank on his knees at his attic window tears flowed and sobs followed. Yakov mourned and would not be comforted. And across the court in the chamber of the palace the Cardinal played with exquisite melancholy that antique Hebraic tune, the Kol Nidré.

VI RENUNCIATION

The hearts of some women are as a vast cathedral. There are its gorgeous high altars, its sounding gloom, its lofty arches, and perhaps in an obscure niche burns a tiny taper before the votive shrine. And many pass through life with this taper unlighted, despite the pomp and ceremonial of the conjugal comedy. Others carry in the little chapel of their hearts a solitary glimmering lamp of love that only flames out with death.

A grand piano, its burnished ivory teeth gleaming in the candle-light, stood near the open window, and at it one lounged and idly preluded Schumann-like harmonies that questioned the night. Outside a veiled fumidity, behind which lurked thunderous prospects; the air was still with languorous anticipation, and the month of the year was April. He would not have been human and an artist to have withstood the dumb depression of the moment. Snatches of heavily brocaded harmonies of Chopin, mute interrogations of Brahms, and furtive glitterings of Liszt vibrated through the chamber. One sultry chord, persistently repeated and unresolved, told the temper of him who played.

It was a sober apartment; a half-score of wax tapers sang with a bunch of tuberoses a sweet duo.

A few chairs, some music scattered about, a tall bookcase, gaunt and shadowy in the background, and a polished floor made the ensemble of an artist’s living-room. The playing grew vaguer and the night without more menacing. Then the first eight or ten bars of the prelude to Tristan und Isolde forced into shape on the keyboard and—hush! a delicate knock at the door. He harshly called, “Entrez!” She was without a wrap, her head enveloped in a filmy burnoose. She faltered, then moved to him as moves a sleep-walker. “I know that it is wrong, but I—how can I help it? I have come to you—and you?” She paused, her face illuminated by love-doubt. His voice was muffled when he answered her, “Pray be seated, madame.”

She divined his reluctance: “We leave to-morrow, and you must play for me once more.”

“I could have called at your hotel,” he gently replied.

Impetuously she cried: “I have risked much to be near you, to hear you play; yet you stand coldly, and after yesterday—Ah, you forget!”

“I do not forget,” he replied.

She moved toward him; his reserve vanished and he advanced with both hands outstretched. “Dearest, it is madness. See, it is late; you will be missed, and the night bodes a storm. Play! I would play for you if Paradise threatened and hell yawned rather than refuse you.” “Play!” she cried. “Play for me Chopin, but do not come near me.” He shivered, and their eyes kissed, hers burning like misty-green signals of love and sorrow; then he faced the night for a moment, and turning to the piano began without preluding.

It was the Second Impromptu of Chopin, the rarely heard one in the key of F sharp, major mode. As he struck the octave in the bass the approaching storm muttered in the west, the wind soughed into the room, and the flame of the wax tapers flickered faint messages to the tuberoses. She on the couch sighed softly. The magic of Chopin enveloped them as the plaintive theme broke the air into melodic ripples. It sang her into depths of dreams, anterior to which lurked other dreams—dreams with soft-sounding syllables, dreams that lapped her consciousness into the golden gloom of drugged slumber, dreams opal-tinted and music-melancholy beyond compare. She swooned and then swam out to the infinite with bold, blissful strokes, for he was playing with rare cunning the closing choral-like measures of the first part of the Impromptu.

The moan without deepened into a roar, then came a vermilion flash followed by a crash of thunder. The lights were extinguished, all but one, swayed feebly in the rush of the wind, and the tuberoses listened thirstily to the plash of the new-born rain.

He had begun the D major section of the Impromptu; the rhythmical swing of the bass seemed a proud spirit defying destiny, and the massive chords, with virile assertive tones, blended with the night and roared answer to the thunder’s bellow. They rose to a crescendo, they dominated all, for the man within was storming out his resolves and passions on the keyboard. The fury increased to a sheer height of tone; then, melting away into a mere echo, it almost fainted. His soul chased hers and together they followed the enigmatic tones of that modulation which is an abysm betwixt fragrant meads, and warns them that seek its depths. The lovely F major part glimmered in the air.

“Browning,” she softly mused, “and life.” The plot thickened, the harmony grew denser—a musical palimpsest lay before them, and as they strove to unweave its meaning they shuddered at the gulf. Weary and panting in spirit they stared askance and questioned the future. “Not that,” the music implored. Then burst that delicious cascade of silvery scales. They coruscated, they foamed, they boiled with melodic laughter. It seemed as if God was with the world and he and she heard the lark trilling to the dawn as hand in hand they mounted in their dizzy flight. Their naked, unabashed souls groped in the azure and they carolled that song which is as old as eternity. They fell through space into fathomless twilight, and the piano sang the echo-like refrain of the first motif. It was the swan-song of their hopes. The heavy-scented night spoke softly to their hearts; a nightingale dimly piped in the distance, and with velvety clangor the music ceased.

He remained at the piano. She rose. Without were odors and starlight. The two drank each other’s gaze with the thirst of lost souls. Then she went into the night, and the other one, staring at the tuberoses, heard their perfumed murmur: “Renounce thou shalt; thou shalt renounce.”

VII THE VISION MALEFIC

I am not a diabolist. I was an agnostic until ... I have read Huysmans and I do not believe he ever saw half he describes. Yet I, and in commonplace America, have seen things, have heard things, that would make mad the group of Parisian occultists. I dislike publicity, but Vance Thompson has asked me to relate the story, and so I mean to give it, names and all, with the faint hope that it may serve as a warning to callow astrologists, and all the younger generation affected by the writings of impious men who deny the existence of the devil.

More than twenty years ago I was the organist of a Roman Catholic church in the lower part of my city. I had studied the instrument in Germany and believed in Johann Sebastian Bach. I played and pedalled fugues on week-days for my own pleasure, and on Sundays executed with unction easy masses by Bordoni, Mercadante, and Haydn; my choir was not an ambitious one. The stipendium was small, the work light, and the two priests amiable enough. One, a German, Father Oelschlager, was the rector. His assistant was an Irishman with French blood in his veins. His name—shall I ever forget his name and face?—was Father Michael Moreau. He was crazy about music and occultism. The former he made no secret of; the latter I discovered only after a long acquaintance. Moreau came to the organ-loft when I practised on week-days, sang a little, and feasted much on Bach chorales. Urged often to visit his room, I did so, and he showed me rare black-letter missals, and later the backs of a number of old books whose titles I could not decipher. I am no Latinist, yet I knew these volumes were written neither in Latin nor Greek. The characters I had never seen before, and when I remarked their strangeness, Father Moreau smiled and even laughed as I quoted Poe: “the volumes of the Magi—in the iron-bound melancholy volumes of the Magi.”

Music led us to discuss religion, and my friend astonished me by his erudition. His sensitive features would become illuminated when he spoke of the strange tales of the Talmud. “Oh, my God!” he would cry with a patibulary gesture. “Why hast Thou not vouchsafed us more light?” And then would beg for Bach, and on the mighty stream of the D minor fugue his harassed mind seemed to float and find comfort. As time wore on he grew morbid, morose, reticent, and devoted himself to his dull duties with a fanaticism that was almost harsh. The parishioners noticed it, and his reputation for saintliness increased. His confessional was always crowded and his sermons remarkable for the acerbity, the awful pictures he made of the sufferings of the damned and of the relentlessness of God’s wrath. His superior, good-natured Father Oelschlager, bade the other look at the cheerful side of the question, to believe more in God’s mellowness and sweetness, and would quote Cardinal Newman’s Lead Kindly Light, and certain comforting texts from the Scriptures, and then smoke his pipe. But the ascetic temperament of Moreau barred all attempts at palliation or attenuation of the God of Hosts, of the God who laid low the pride of Greece and Rome. Life to him was a cancer to be extirpated, and he confessed to me one night after rehearsal that he had almost doubted God’s existence and courted suicide after reading Renan’s Vie de Jésus. I suggested change of scene, less strenuous labors, above all, the world, music, and athletics. My advice availed not, and I saw that Father Moreau was fast becoming a monomaniac. His sermons during the hot summer were devoted to the personality of the devil, to his corporeal existence, to his daily presence in the marts of mankind; and so constant was his harping on this theme that Father Oelschlager had to forbid him the subject. “It is so warm, my son! Why, then, do you hold forth on hell? Let the poor people hear more of the crystal rivers, the green meads of the New Jerusalem. It would be more seasonable.” Moreau frowned, but obeyed his superior.

With the autumn and winter his habits became more secretive, his visits to me less frequent, and his air of detachment most melancholy. Advent saw him a mere wraith of a man, worn by speculation, devoured by an interior flame, a flame that was wasting his very soul to despair. He seldom conversed with me, although I watched him anxiously and occasionally interrogated him regarding his health. At last I spoke to his associate, but encountered an easy-going philosophic spirit, which assured me Father Moreau was going through what most young priests should. He was at the period of unfaith, was nettled by doubt, and after he had wrestled with Satan, and won the good fight, he would again become normal. This seemed consoling though vague.

The day before Christmas I promised that I would not send a substitute to play the midnight mass at the church. Our church was the only one in the city where the old-fashioned mass at twelve o’clock on Christmas Eve was celebrated. It is located near the river, and my journey was a long one, for I lived up-town. I ate a six o’clock supper and went to bed, telling them to arouse me at a quarter before eleven. I wished to be fresh for the early service. By eleven I was out on the street, and took a car bound south. I reached the church in time, and soon the solemn high mass began. My choir had with elaborate care prepared Cherubini’s mass, and despite the poor organ, the extra chorus and much enthusiasm made some effect. The congregation was attentive, and Father Oelschlager delivered a short, happy sermon, urging his flock to rejoice at the birth of the Babe of Bethlehem, Jesus the Infant Christ, uncrucified, but newly born into a world of toil and sin for our redemption. At the consecration of the host the good rector’s beaming faith was most edifying. He was served by Father Moreau, a melancholy deacon, indeed. “Ite Missa Est” pronounced, the faithful dismissed, I was overjoyed at the release, for I was tired. The choir chatted about the service, the singing, and at last I was alone. I placed the music-books back in the tall Gothic cupboard, closed the manuals of my instrument, and put on my overcoat. It must have been half past one, perhaps quarter of two, and I relished the prospect of my arrival home, where a warm breakfast would be awaiting me, and then once more to bed, for I had to play the regular half past ten o’clock Christmas mass for the benefit of the sleepy ones, who loved their couch better than their Christ.

Father Moreau met me at the bottom of the choir-loft steps. He was dressed for the street, his eyes were blazing, and as he took my arm his fingers were vise-like. “Will you come with me?” he asked. I was startled. I explained that I would not have much rest, nor should he waste his sleeping time on the dismal, cold streets; besides, I was hungry. I feared that he was about to deluge me with more of his studies in the customs of the early Gnostics, and, to be quite frank, I was worn out and not in a receptive humor for such untoward cryptic wisdom. Any other time—“Will you come with me?” he reiterated, and the clutch on my arm became oppressive. “Where?” I asked, for I hated to affront a friend. “Will you come with me?”

By this time the church was quite empty, and I pushed out into the street. It was dark and snowing hard. We walked toward the street, and as we neared the corner I heard the lucky sound of a horse-car—there were no trolleys then. I excused myself, ran and caught the car; the priest, following, sat down beside me. I paid both fares, and as I had nothing to say we preserved a sad silence. The mean light, the deserted streets, the lonely car, and the muffled strokes of the horses’ hoofs on the snow chilled my soul. I looked sideways at Father Moreau. He was reading a big parchment-covered book, which I saw by the dim lamplight was entitled Le Satanisme, by Jules Bois. I was shocked. A priest fresh from the holy sacrifice of the mass devouring the blasphemies that I was sure were in the gruesome volume, alarmed my piety. Presently he saw me and shut its leaves. “There are curious things in it, my dear friend,” he muttered, and his voice came from across a waste of sorrow. “Curious things; but you are a believer, are you not?” he eagerly repeated. “I am,” I replied devoutly, and I crossed myself. He fairly jumped at me, his eyes wide open and full of devouring flames. “Will you come with me?” he almost screamed, and for the fourth time. “East Street,” called out the conductor, and rather than let my half-mad companion alone—he surely must have been mad—I left the car with him, the conductor gazing after us with cynical eyes. He evidently took us for belated revellers.

We walked slowly for ten minutes until we arrived in front of a sad-looking church, and then I stopped: “The place is not open yet; they do not have Christmas service until five o’clock.” For the last time my companion whispered, “Will you come with me?” and, pushing past me, struck three times on the big doors. A small postern gate opened at once and we entered the vaulted passageway. I trembled at the strangeness of the adventure, and held fast to Moreau, for it was pitch black, and while I heard soft footfalls beside me—the footfalls of an unknown man—I could not see my hand before my face. We must have traversed a long yard, for the wind blew freely about me; I heard it playing on the housetops like a balloon in distress. Yet it felt as if issuing from a sepulchre, and my heart went to my empty stomach. Even in my growing terror I craved for coffee; its aroma would have made me stronger for this inhuman cruise. We went down eleven steps—I counted them—my conductors on either side of me. Dampness and malodors warned me of our proximity to some ancient cellarage, some forgotten catacombs, wherein Father Moreau expected to give me a sacerdotal surprise, a revival perhaps of an antique and early Christian ritual. I feebly applauded his intentions, but wished he had chosen some other time and that the surroundings had been less sinister.

At last we paused and descended another flight of steps—this time I didn’t number them, for the cold was intense, and it was with relief that we suddenly arrived in a dimly lighted and warm chapel. It was empty, devoid of pews, of chairs, of furnishings of any sort, except, at the upper end, a small votive altar. Before it swung a lamp of Byzantine workmanship, in which burned a solitary tongue of yellow flame. The lamp swayed rhythmically, and on the altar were two tall tapers, lighted and perfumed. And then my eyes rested on the spot where should have been the tabernacle, surmounted by the gold cross. Judge of my consternation when I saw, saw as distinctly as I see the pen which traces these letters, a huge bronze serpent, with overlapping, glistening, metallic scales. The eyes of this python were almost feminine, and their regard gentle, reproachful, and voluptuous. My knees bent beneath me and my face was wet with fright.

“You are a believer, then?” crooned a dull voice in my ear. It was Moreau. He had thrown off his outer wrap and stood in a black soutane. He was white with emotion and said in tenderest accents: “Listen; be my friend. Do not desert me at the crisis of my life. It is to be my first mass, my first three o’clock mass. My deacon is already at the altar. Be the solitary worshipper. It will be a low mass—remember, a low mass!” He spoke clearly, rapidly, sanely, and seeing that I had something more than a lunatic to deal with, I removed my overcoat and knelt down near the altar just as Father Moreau ascended its steps, his assistant holding the end of his black canonicals. If it had not been for the apparition of the serpent, I might have fancied that I was assisting at the lonely, pious vigil of a parochial curate. But the eyes of the serpent devoured mine, and I had none for the two silhouetted figures that went through with febrile velocity the familiar motions of the mass. It was low mass, and from the introit to the preface the space was scarcely appreciable. I heard mumblings, and the air became chillier as the celebrants moved and bowed or extended arms; the air grew colder, denser, and tenser. It vibrated like the wires of a monstrous zither, and my temples throbbed as if in the midst of a magnetic storm. I felt that I was nearing a great catastrophe, that God had abandoned His universe to its wicked will, and that I must sob, or scream, or pray, or die, or be damned forever, or—the tap of the silvery little bell was as if a sweet summer air had swum over my agitated soul. It was the bell that announced the solemn moment when God became man, when the divine spirit, by the miracle of transubstantiation, became flesh and blood.

In an ecstasy of faith, of awe, I plunged on my face and adored and wept, and a mighty wind swept from the altar with strange moanings and lamentings, and the lights were extinguished; yet there was a luminous fog, that enfolded us, and in it I saw the great serpent, symbol of wisdom, symbol of eternity, rear spirally aloft, and beneath it—oh, beneath it!—was the Beatific Vision. In swelling nimbus of flame was a counterfeit Mother of God, and holding the hand of Him, of the Infant, Jesus, born but three hours, and—oh, the horror of it!—not my Christ, not our Christ, not the Christ of the Christians, but an Antichrist from some fetid hell, sent to seduce us, curse us, destroy us! My eyes almost burst from their sockets, and the humming of hell’s loom roared about me as I met the gaze—of the Woman. And now her eyes were the serpent’s eyes, and on her head was the crown of hell and its multiple kingdoms. She was naked, and set against her breasts were sharp swords. She was Mater Malorum, and her breath sowed discord, lust, and cruel murder. I yearned to pronounce the name of the true Mother of God, to bid this blinding vision, this damnable vision, vanish, but my tongue was like wet twine and my sight blistered by the pageantry of Satan, of Satan and his Dam. And as I struggled the silvery little bell tapped once more, and in a fading perspective I saw the Madonna and the Child give me such a sweet, beseeching glance that my heart dissolved within me, and I cried aloud, my tongue snapping in the roof of my mouth:

“Mary, Mother of God, preserve us from the Devil and all his works!” A withering streak of light struck my eyeballs, and I glimpsed the serpent falling to earth with distended jaws, as two priestly figures reeled off the altar-steps, and in the brassy clangor of despair we fell, all three, and swooning blackness shut down upon us like smothering velvet.

It was still dark when solicitous hands lifted me to my feet: my coat was thrown about my shoulders, and I was hurried in shivering gloom to the street. The other one disappeared at the little postern gate, and, parting outside, with damp, hot hands, and face plastered with hideous passion, the mad priest said to me, in a cracked voice:

“You have seen my God, the only true God of hell—heaven and earth.”