The Grip of Desire | Page 8

stood struck with the strange look on his countenance, at the fatigue displayed on his features, and anxiously enquired of him the cause.
The Cur�� assured her that she was mistaken, that he bad never felt better; but at the same time he gave a glance at his mirror.
He was frightened at his face and he remained a long time thoughtful, contemplating the gloomy fire of his own look.
That sinister countenance seemed to him to presage some approaching calamity.
Thus, there are men whom fate has marked on the forehead with a fatal stamp. The mysterious sign is not displayed at every time and before all; but at certain epochs of life, when the unknown breath caresses the predestinated or cursed head, the mark all at once appeals, like a tawny light in the depth of night.
A curse! Fatality has moulded that man's brain, it has left its potent impress on his skull.
--With what seal then am I marked? he cried. Is it that of reprobation which God has stamped upon my face?
No, simpleton that thou art, it is the phosphorus of thy brain, which catches fire from time to time.

IX.
DURING VESPERS.
"There is a beautiful girl of sixteen, white as milk, rosy as a rose-bud, fresh as a spring morning,--and chaste as Vesta."
A. DELVAU (Le Fumier d'Ennius).
He went up into the pulpit, and preached a sermon on this text: "Blessed are the pure in heart." He had prepared it the day before, previous to the arrival of that enchanting player, and his thoughts had been since then too occupied with very different subjects for him to search for another theme.
Bitter mockery! What could he say to these good people about hearts pure and chaste? He tried, all the same, and said some excellent things. He spoke above all about temptation, which, following the expression of a Father of the Church, "is only, to commence with, an ant which tickles, and finishes by becoming a devouring lion."
"Alas," he said, "how many, without meaning it, have been thus devoured, beginning perhaps with this pious individual."
His sermon took great effect. An old woman wept, and several members of the congregation appeared to sigh and think that it was a long time since they had been devoured thus.
He had an inclination to laugh, as he came down from the pulpit, at the words which he had just uttered on purity of heart, and he wondered that he had been able to bring so much conviction and warmth to bear upon a subject to which he was henceforth completely a stranger.
His own scepticism terrified him, and he saw that he had taken a long step into evil Nevertheless he did concern himself at that, and from his place near the pulpit he turned his impassioned gaze with more assurance on the group of young girls.
Passion is a brutal level which equalizes us all. There remained in him nothing more of the priest, there only remained the man full of desires, and he flung his desires in riot upon that gyneceum which he thought belonged to him.
In certain village churches, all the young girls are placed apart, near the choir, sometimes even in the choir itself, under the eyes of the priest, as if they wished to leave the most convenient choice to that never satiated Priapus.
The handsome Cur�� of Althausen made his choice therefore at his ease and without the least shame.
This one was fair and pale, that other dark and high in colour; this one was thin and delicate, that one fat and plump; this one was prettier, that other more graceful. He knew not upon which to stop. He would have wished for them all, for they all had that provoking beauty which pleases the devil so much: exuberant youth.
And he could not grow weary of contemplating all these fresh faces; his look, more than once, encountered sweet looks, and then he experienced a delicious shock which stirred his heart.
It was not only the faces which excited his longings. In spite of himself, the opulent breast of the fair player entered his imagination and his thoughts seemed to search each one's neckerchief, seeking this powerful nourishment for his appetite. He bad tried to drive away these abominable desires, but it was in vain: the forbidden fruit was there and something seemed to tell him that he had only to stretch out his hand to seize it.
As he tried to escape from this diabolical hallucination, he remarked all at once in the gallery set apart for the wives of the principal inhabitants, a young girl, a stranger, whose beauty struck him.
She was pale and dark, and her full lips, of a brilliant red, were lightly pencilled with a black down.
Her deep, burning eyes darted flames, and were fixed on the priest with a persistency which made