Page:Musset - Gamiani, or Two Passionate Nights.djvu/81

 screams, convulsions, fits of madness, cries, sighs, faintings from excessively voluptuous feelings.

On a raised platform, the devils of the highest rank were amusing themselves by producing a parody of our religion, and its mysteries.

A nun perfectly naked, kneeling at all her length, her eyes turned up in the most heavenly manner to the top of the nave, was receiving in the most devotional way the white communion from a very honest paintbrush, that a big fellow, with bishop's crozier and mitre, (the latter worn hind side before) was thrusting before her.

A little farther on a female demon was receiving floods of the baptism of life on her forehead, while another, who pretended to be dying, was sent on her long journey with a terrific pouring out of the holy oil.

A master fiend, borne on the shoulders of four others, swung to and fro the most energetic specimen of his satanic and erotic power, and at certain moments he distributed the holy fluid from side to side. Everybody knelt down as he passed. It was called the procession of the holy sacrament.

But suddenly, it strikes one o'clock, and immediately all the demons start calling to