nts of his elder brother, arose before
Durtal's fancy as a terrific scene. The details he had formerly read of
this ordination, the ceremonies lasting seven days, recurred to his
mind. After ablution and the anointing with oil, the holocaust of
victims began. Flesh sputtered on the walls, mingling the black stench
of burnt fat with the blue vapour of incense; the Patriarch anointed the
right ear and thumb and foot of Aaron and his sons with blood; then,
taking up the flesh of the sacrifice, he placed them in the hands of the
new-made priests, who rocked first on one foot and then on the other,
thus waving the offerings above the altar.

Then all bowed their heads under a shower of oil mingled with blood with
which the Consecrator inundated them. They looked like slaughterers from
the shambles and lamp trimmers, all sprinkled as they were with clots of
red mire, on which glistened yellow eyes.

And then, as in the swift change of magic-lantern slides, this savage
scene, this worn-out symbol of a splendid and subtle liturgy, stammered
out in a hoarse voice, disappeared, giving way to the solemn array of
Levites and priests marching in procession under the guidance of Aaron,
resplendent in his turban with the crown of gold above it, in his purple
robe, on its hem the open pomegranates of scarlet and blue, with
tinkling bells of gold; and he wore the linen ephod, girt with a girdle,
blue and purple and scarlet, and kept in its place by shoulder-pieces
fastened with onyx stones, his breastplate in a blaze, flashing sparks
that lighted up as he moved in the twelve gems of the breastplate.

Again the scene changed. He beheld an amazing palace; under the shade of
its domes of giddy height, tropical trees and flowers were planted by
tepid pools; monkeys sported there, hanging in bunches to the boughs,
while long-drawn, insinuating melodies were scraped on stringed
instruments, and the rattle of tambourines made the eyed plumes quiver
in the peacocks' outspread tails.

In this strange hot-bed, filled with clumps of flowers and of women,
this immense harem where his seven hundred princesses and his three
hundred concubines disported themselves, Solomon watched the whirl of
dances, gazed at the living hedge of women, seen against the background
of gold-plated walls, their bodies clothed only in the transparent veil
of vapour rising from resins burning on tripods.

He appeared as a typical Eastern monarch, a sort of Khalif or Su