f hell. Oh! blessed is he who is sawn between two planks, or torn
in pieces by four horses! Do you know what that torture is, which is
imposed upon you for long nights by your burning arteries, your bursting
heart, your breaking head, your teeth-knawed hands; mad tormentors which
turn you incessantly, as upon a red-hot gridiron, to a thought of love,
of jealousy, and of despair! Young girl, mercy! a truce for a moment!
a few ashes on these live coals! Wipe away, I beseech you, the
perspiration which trickles in great drops from my brow! Child! torture
me with one hand, but caress me with the other! Have pity, young girl!
Have pity upon me!"

The priest writhed on the wet pavement, beating his head against the
corners of the stone steps. The young girl gazed at him, and listened to
him.

When he ceased, exhausted and panting, she repeated in a low voice,--

"Oh my Phoebus!"

The priest dragged himself towards her on his knees.

"I beseech you," he cried, "if you have any heart, do not repulse me!
Oh! I love you! I am a wretch! When you utter that name, unhappy girl,
it is as though you crushed all the fibres of my heart between your
teeth. Mercy! If you come from hell I will go thither with you. I have
done everything to that end. The hell where you are, shall he paradise;
the sight of you is more charming than that of God! Oh! speak! you will
have none of me? I should have thought the mountains would be shaken in
their foundations on the day when a woman would repulse such a love.
Oh! if you only would! Oh! how happy we might be. We would flee--I would
help you to flee,--we would go somewhere, we would seek that spot on
earth, where the sun is brightest, the sky the bluest, where the trees
are most luxuriant. We would love each other, we would pour our two
souls into each other, and we would have a thirst for ourselves which we
would quench in common and incessantly at that fountain of inexhaustible
love."

She interrupted with a terrible and thrilling laugh.

"Look, father, you have blood on your fingers!"

The priest remained for several moments as though petrified, with his
eyes fixed upon his hand.

"Well, yes!" he resumed at last, with strange gentleness, "insult me,
scoff at me, overwhelm me with scorn! but come, come. Let us make haste.
It is to be to-morrow, I tell you. The gibbet on the Greve, you know it?
it stands always ready. It is horrible! to see you ride in that tumbrel!
Oh mercy! Until now I