all granite, a dark Baal with
carven lips and blank eye-balls, and breast like the stone face of a
tomb; and again, suddenly, at some turn, some sound, some
long-trembling sob of the wind, at some rushing past of an unseen
stream of electricity, the irrational demon would wake unsolicited,
would stir strangely alive, would rush from its pedestal like a
perturbed Dagon, calling to its votary for a sacrifice, whatever the
hour--to its victim for some blood, or some breath, whatever the
circumstance or scene--rousing its priest, treacherously promising
vaticination, perhaps filling its temple with a strange hum of oracles,
but sure to give half the significance to fateful winds, and grudging
to the desperate listener even a miserable remnant--yielding it
sordidly, as though each word had been a drop of the deathless ichor of
its own dark veins. And this tyrant I was to compel into bondage, and
make it improvise a theme, on a school estrade, between a Mathilde and
a Coralie, under the eye of a Madame Beck, for the pleasure, and to the
inspiration of a bourgeois of Labassecour!

Upon this argument M. Paul and I did battle more than once--strong
battle, with confused noise of demand and rejection, exaction and
repulse.

On this particular day I was soundly rated. "The obstinacy of my whole
sex," it seems, was concentrated in me; I had an "orgueil de diable." I
feared to fail, forsooth! What did it matter whether I failed or not?
Who was I that I should not fail, like my betters? It would do me good
to fail. He wanted to see me worsted (I knew he did), and one minute he
paused to take breath.

"Would I speak now, and be tractable?"

"Never would I be tractable in this matter. Law itself should not
compel me. I would pay a fine, or undergo an imprisonment, rather than
write for a show and to order, perched up on a platform."

"Could softer motives influence me? Would I yield for friendship's
sake?"

"Not a whit, not a hair-breadth. No form of friendship under the sun
had a right to exact such a concession. No true friendship would harass
me thus."

He supposed then (with a sneer--M. Paul could sneer supremely, curling
his lip, opening his nostrils, contracting his eyelids)--he supposed
there was but one form of appeal to which I would listen, and of that
form it was not for him to make use.

"Under certain persuasions, from certain quarters, je vous vois d'ici,"
said he, "eagerly subscribing to the sacrifice, passion