ner of a page of an old book; the other, which curled
upward, bore at its extremity an immense and magnificent morion in
profile, the chinpiece of which protruded further than the visor, making
the helm look like a horrible head of a fish. The crest was formed of
two great spreading wings of an eagle, one black, the other red, and
amid the feathers of these wings were the membranous, twisted and almost
living branches of a huge seaweed which bore more resemblance to a
polypus than to a plume. From the middle of the plume rose a buckled
strap, which reached to the angle of a rough wooden pitchfork, the
handle of which was stuck in the ground, and from there descended to a
hand, which held it.

To the left of the escutcheon was the figure of a woman, standing. It
was an enchanting vision. She was tall and slim, and wore a robe of
brocade which fell in ample folds about her feet, a ruff of many pleats
and a necklace of large gems. On her head was an enormous and superb
turban of blond hair on which rested a crown of filigree that was not
round, and that followed all the undulations of the hair. The face,
although somewhat too round and large, was exquisite. The eyes were
those of an angel, the mouth was that of a virgin; but in those heavenly
eyes there was a terrestrial look and on that virginal mouth was the
smile of a woman. In that place, at that hour, on that tapestry, this
mingling of divine ecstasy and human voluptuousness had something at
once charming and awful about it.

Behind the woman, bending towards her as though whispering in her ear,
appeared a man.

Was he a man? All that could be seen of his body--legs, arms and
chest--was as hairy as the skin of an ape; his hands and feet were
crooked, like the claws of a tiger. As to his visage, nothing more
fantastic and frightful could be imagined. Amid a thick, bristling
beard, a nose like an owl's beak and a mouth whose corners were drawn
by a wild-beast-like rictus were just discernible. The eyes were half
hidden by his thick, bushy, curly hair. Each curl ended in a spiral,
pointed and twisted like a gimlet, and on peering at them closely it
could be seen that each of these gimlets was a little viper.

The man was smiling at the woman. It was disquieting and sinister, the
contact of these two equally chimerical beings, the one almost an angel,
the other almost a monster; a revolting clash of the two extremes of the
ideal. The man held the pitchfork, the woman