at her hidden strength and at her apparent weakness.
Then my mind was troubled suddenly at the sight of
the natural perfections with which the devil was endowed.
I listened to the music of her voice, which warmed
me from head to foot, and made me desire to be young,
to give myself up to this demon, thinking that for
an hour passed in her company my eternal salvation
was but poor payment for the pleasure of love tasted
in those slender arms. Then I lost that firmness
with which all judges should be furnished. This
demon by me questioned, reasoned with me in such a
manner that at the second interrogatory I was firmly
persuaded I should be committing a crime in fining
and torturing a poor little creature who cried like
an innocent child. Then warned by a voice from
on high to do my duty, and that these golden words,
the music of celestial appearance, were diabolical
mummeries, that this body, so pretty, so infatuating,
would transmute itself into a bristly beast with sharp
claws, those eyes so soft into flames of hell, her
behind into a scaly tail, the pretty rosebud mouth
and gentle lips into the jaws of a crocodile, I came
back to my intention of having the said Succubus tortured
until she avowed her permission, as this practice
had already been followed in Christianity. Now
when this demon showed herself stripped to me, to
be put to the torture, I was suddenly placed in her
power by magical conjurations. I felt my old bones
crack, my brain received a warm light, my heart transhipped
young and boiling blood. I was light in myself,
and by virtue of the magic philter thrown into my
eyes the snows on my forehead melted away. I
lost all conscience of my Christian life and found
myself a schoolboy, running about the country, escaped
from class and stealing apples. I had not the
power to make the sign of the cross, neither did I
remember the Church, God the Father, nor the sweet
Saviour of men. A prey to this design, I went
about the streets thinking over the delights of that
voice, the abominable, pretty body of this demon, and
saying a thousand wicked things to myself. Then
pierced and drawn by a blow of the devil’s fork,
who had planted himself already in my head as a serpent
in an oak, I was conducted by this sharp prong towards
the jail, in spite of my guardian angel, who from time
to time pulled me by the arm and defended me against
these temptations, but in spite of his holy advice
and his assistance I was dragged by a million claws
stuck into my heart, and soon found myself in the jail.
As soon as the door was opened to me I saw no longer
any appearance of a prison, because the Succubus had
there, with the assistance of evil genii or fays,
constructed a pavilion of purple and silk, full of
perfumes and flowers, where she was seated, superbly
attired with neither irons on her neck nor chains
on her feet. I allowed myself to be stripped of
my ecclesiastical vestments, and was put into a scent
bath. Then the demon covered me with a Saracen