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"Do not interrupt me Yes, I was happy, at least I believed myself to be so I was pure, ht No head was raised more proudly and more radiantly than mine Priests consulted me on chastity; doctors, on doctrines Yes, science was all in all to me; it was a sister to e other ideas came to me More than once my flesh had been moved as a woman's form passed by That force of sex and blood which, in the ined that I had stifled forever had, more than once, convulsively raised the chain of iron vohich bind me, a , prayer, study, the mortifications of the cloister, rendered my soul mistress of my body once more, and then I avoided women Moreover, I had but to open a book, and all the impure mists of my brain vanished before the splendors of science In a few s of earth flee far away, and I found myself once more calm, quieted, and serene, in the presence of the tranquil radiance of eternal truth As long as the deue shadows of women who passed occasionally before my eyes in church, in the streets, in the fields, and who hardly recurred to my dreams, I easily vanquished him Alas! if the victory has not remained with me, it is the fault of God, who has not created man and the demon of equal force Listen One day-Here the priest paused, and the prisoner heard sighs of anguish break from his breast with a sound of the death rattle

He resu on theofthen? Oh! all that is a ind inTheopened upon a Square I heard a sound of ta thus disturbed in lanced into the Square What I beheld, others saw beside myself, and yet it was not a spectacle made for human eyes There, in thebrightly,--a creature was dancing A creature so beautiful that God would have preferred her to the Virgin and have chosen her for his mother and have wished to be born of her if she had been in existence when he was made man! Her eyes were black and splendid; in the h which the sun shone glistened like threads of gold Her feet disappeared in theirwheel Around her head, in her black tresses, there were disks of littered in the sun, and formed a coronet of stars on her brow Her dress thick set with spangles, blue, and dotted with a thousand sparks, gleaht Her brown, supple arms twined and untwined around her waist, like two scarfs The forly beautiful Oh! what a resplendent figure stood out, like soirl, it was thou! Surprised, intoxicated, char that I suddenly shuddered with terror; I felt that fate was seizing hold of me"