use. All is
still; and yet how the house is altered; its old innocence, its sweet
security all for ever gone! "Of what is that cat by the hearth
a-thinking, as she pretends to sleep, and 'tweenwhiles opens her green
eyes upon me? The she-goat with her long beard, looking so discreet
and ominous, knows more about it than she can tell. And yon cow which
the moon reveals by glimpses in her stall, why does she give me such a
sidelong look? All this is surely unnatural!"

Shivering, she returns to her husband's side. "Happy man, how deep his
slumber! Mine is over; I cannot sleep, I never shall sleep again." In
time, however, she falls off. But oh, what suffering visits her then!
The importunate guest is beside her, demanding and giving his orders.
If one while she gets rid of him by praying or making the sign of the
cross, anon he returns under another form. "Get back, devil! What
durst thou? I am a Christian soul. No, thou shalt not touch me!"

In revenge he puts on a hundred hideous forms; twining as an adder
about her bosom, dancing as a frog upon her stomach, anon like a bat,
sharp-snouted, covering her scared mouth with dreadful kisses. What is
it he wants? To drive her into a corner, so that conquered and crushed
at last, she may yield and utter the word "Yes." Still she is resolute
to say "No." Still she is bent on braving the cruel struggles of every
night, the endless martyrdom of that wasting strife.

* * * * *

"How far can a spirit make himself withal a body? What reality can
there be in his efforts and approaches? Would she be sinning in the
flesh, if she allowed the intrusions of one who was always roaming
about her? Would that be sheer adultery?" Such was the sly roundabout
way in which sometimes he stayed and weakened her resistance. "If I am
only a breath, a smoke, a thin air, as so many doctors call me, why
are you afraid, poor fearful soul, and how does it concern your
husband?"

It is the painful doom of the soul in these Middle Ages, that a number
of questions which to us would seem idle, questions of pure
scholastics, disturb, frighten, and torment it, taking the guise of
visions, sometimes of devilish debatings, of cruel dialogues carried
on within. The Devil, fierce as he shows himself in the demoniacs,
remains always a spirit throughout the days of the Roman Empire, even
in the time of St. Martin or the fifth century. With the Barbarian
inroads he waxes barbarous,