to me."

_Death_--"I will reveal to you what you tried to grasp by the light of
torches on the features of the dead--or when you rambled beyond the
Pyramids in those vast sand-heaps composed of human remains. From time
to time, a piece of skull rolled under your sandal. You took it out of
the dust; you made it slip between your fingers; and your mind, becoming
absorbed in it, was plunged into nothingness."

_Lust_--"Mine is a deeper gulf! Marble slabs have inspired impure loves.
People rush towards meetings that terrify them, and rivet the very
chains which they curse. Whence comes the witchery of courtesans, the
extravagance of dreams, the immensity of my sadness?"

_Death_--"My irony surpasses that of all other things. There are
convulsions of joy at the funerals of kings and at the extermination of
peoples; and they make war with music, plumes, flags, golden harnesses,
and a display of ceremony to pay me the greater homage."

_Lust_--"My anger is as strong as yours. I howl, I bite, I have sweats
of agony, and corpse-like appearances."

_Death_--"It is I who make you serious; let us embrace each other!"

Death chuckles; Lust roars. They seize each other's figures, and sing
together:

"I hasten the dissolution of matter."

"I facilitate the scattering of germs!"

"Thou destroyest that I may renew!"

"Thou engenderest that I may destroy!"

"Active my power!"

"Fruitful my decay!"

And their voices, whose echoes, rolling forth, fill the horizon, become
so powerful that Antony falls backward.

A shock, from time to time, causes him to half open his eyes; and he
perceives, in the midst of the darkness, a kind of monster before him.

It is a death's-head with a crown of roses. It rises above the torso of
a woman white as mother-of-pearl. Beneath, a winding-sheet, starred with
points of gold, makes a kind of train;--and the entire body undulates,
like a gigantic worm holding itself erect.

The vision grows fainter, and then fades away.

_Antony_, rises again--"This time, once more, it was the Devil, and
under his two-fold aspect--the spirit of voluptuousness and the spirit
of destruction. Neither terrifies me. I thrust happiness aside, and feel
that I am eternal.

"Thus, death is only an illusion, a veil, masking at certain points the
continuity of life. But substance, being one, why is there a variety of
forms? There must be somewhere primordial figures, whose bodies are only
images. If one could see,