— 64 —
with renewed force. I thought I could see a black wheel turning before me, it expanded, its rim filled the universe: then from the centre a ball of light shed its rays over all the circumference.
An endless horizon seemed to stretch away around me, a phantasmagoria of rockets and showers of fire seemed to fill the heavens above my head, and then fell in showers of emerald green, sapphire blue and heavenly azure.
The blinding light died away, a velvety deep blue night, soft and dark, but luminous took its place, like the mysterious shimmer of an unseen moon, and then from the extremest point of the boundless distance there came to me a cohort of delicious naked girls, like golden-winged butterflies, magnificent in the splendour of their alabaster nudity.
I rose to meet them, but they escaped from my too eager grasp, laughing and mocking me. For an instant they faded from my sight, then they appeared again, more active, more joyous: charming bouquets of smiling young faces who sent smiles, alluring glances in my direction.
Little by little, the dream of maidens vanished from my sight; it was succeeded
