so beautiful that God would have preferred her before the Virgin— would have chosen her to be His mother— if she had existed when He became man. Her eyes were dark and radiant; amid her raven tresses where the sun shone through were strands that glistened like threads of gold. Her feet were invisible in the rapidity of their movement, as are the spokes of a wheel when it turns at high speed. Round her head, among her ebon tresses, were discs of metal that glittered in the sun and formed about her brows a diadem of stars. Her kirtle, thick-set with spangles, twinkled all blue and studded with sparks like a summer’s night. Her brown and supple arms twined and untwined themselves about her waist like two scarfs. Her form was of bewildering beauty. Oh, the dazzling figure that stood out luminous against the very sunlight itself! Alas, girl, it was thou! Astounded, intoxicated, enchanted, I suffered myself to gaze upon thee. I watched thee long till suddenly I trembled with horror— I felt that Fate was laying hold on me.”

Gasping for breath, the priest ceased speaking for a moment, then he went on:

“Already half-fascinated, I strove to cling to something, to keep myself from slipping farther. I recalled the snares which Satan had already laid for me. The creature before me had such supernatural beauty as could only be of heaven or hell. That was no mere human girl fashioned out of particles of common clay and feebly illumined from within by the flickering ray of a woman’s soul. It was an angle!— but of darkness— of flame, not of light. At the same moment of thinking thus, I saw near thee a goat— a beast of the witches’ Sabbath, that looked at me and grinned. The midday sun gilded its horns with fire. ’Twas then I caught sight of the devil’s snare, and I no longer doubted that thou camest from hell, and that thou wast sent from thence for my perdition. I believed it.”

The priest looked the prisoner in the face and added coldly:

“And I believe so still. However, the charm acted by degrees; thy dancing set my brain in a maze; I felt the mysterious spell working within me. All that should have kept awake fell asleep in my soul, and like those who perish in the snow, I found pleasure in yielding to that slumber. All at once thou didst begin to sing. What could I do, unhappy wretch that I was. Thy song was more enchanting still than thy dance. I tried to flee. Impossible. I was nailed, I was rooted to the spot. I felt as if the stone floor had risen and engulfed me to the knees. I was forced to remain to the end. My feet were ice, my head was on fire. At length thou didst, mayhap, take pity on me— thou didst cease to sing— didst disappear. The reflection of the dazzling vision, the echo of the enchanting music, died away by degrees from my eyes and ears. Then I fell into the embrasure of the window, more stark and helpless than a statue loosened from the pedestal. The vesper bell awoke me. I rose— I fled; but alas! there was something within me fallen to arise no more— something had come upon me from which I could not flee.”

Again he paused and then resumed: “Yes, from that day onward there was within me a man I did not know. I had recourse to all my remedies— the cloister, the altar, labour, books. Useless folly! Oh, how hollow does science sound when a head full of passion strikes against it in despair! Knowest thou, girl, what it was that now came between me and my books? It was thou, thy shadow, the image of the radiant apparition which had one day crossed my path. But that image no longer wore the same bright hue— it was sombre, funereal, black as the dark circle which haunts the vision of the imprudent eye that has gazed too fixedly at the sun.

“Unable to rid myself of it; with thy song forever throbbing in my ear, thy feet dancing on my breviary, forever in the night-watches and in my dreams feeling the pressure of thy form against my side— I desired to see thee closer, to touch thee, to know who thou wert, to see if I should find thee equal to the ideal image that I had retained of thee. In any case, I hoped that a new impression would efface the former one, for it had become insupportable. I sought thee out, I saw thee again. Woe is me! When I had seen thee twice, I longed to see thee a thousand times, to gaze at thee forever. After that— how stop short on that hellish incline?— after that my soul was no longer my own. The other end of the thread which the demon had woven about my wings was fastened to his cloven foot. I became vagrant and wandering like thyself— I waited for thee under porches— I spied thee out at the corners of streets— I