man welcomes her, and believes he can save her soul. The Angel
Gabriel visits him frequently, and he will speak to him. But the Angel
disapproves, condemns the pride of the anchorite, and soars away to the
stars without a word of hope or consolation, and so in great anxiety the
pious man bids her go back to the convent, and prays Saint Gabriel,
Saint Consortia, Saint Tullia, Saint Gent, Saint Verdeme, Saint Julien,
Saint Trophime, Saint Formin, and Saint Stephen to accompany her.

Don Rodrigue is living in a palace built for him in one night by the
Devil, wherein are seven halls, each devoted to one of the seven mortal
sins. Hither Nerto wanders; here Rodrigue finds her, and begins his
passionate love-making afresh. But Nerto remains true to her vows,
although the germ of love has been in her heart since the day Rodrigue
saved her from the lion. On learning that she is in the Devil's castle,
she is filled with terror, believing the fatal day has arrived. She
confesses her love. The maiden cries: "Woe is me, Nerto loves you, but
if Hell should swallow us up, would there be any love for the damned?
Rodrigue, no, there is none. If you would but break the tie that binds
you, if, with one happy wing-stroke, you could soar up to the summits
where lives last forever, where hearts vanish united in the bosom of
God, I should be delivered, it seems to me, in the same upward impulse;
for, in heaven or in the abyss, I am inseparable from you." Rodrigue
replies sadly, that his past is too dreadful, that only the ocean could
wipe it out. "Rodrigue, one burst of repentance is worth a long penance.
Courage, come, only one look toward Heaven!" The Devil appears. He
swells with pride in this, his finest triumph; black souls he has in
plenty, but since the beginning of his reign over the lower regions he
has never captured an immaculate victim like this soul. Rodrigue inverts
his sword, and at the sign of the cross, a terrific hurricane sweeps
away the palace, Don Rodrigue, and the Devil, and nothing is left but a
nun of stone who is still visible in the midst of a field on the site of
the chateau. In an Epilogue we learn from the Archangel who visits the
hermit that the knight and the maiden were both saved.

It is difficult to characterize the curious combination of levity and
seriousness that runs through this tale. There is no illusion of reality
anywhere; there is no agony of soul in Baron Pon's confession; Nerto's
terror when she l