them to still a third door which, when opened, disclosed a cabinet particulier painted a deep blue. It would seem they had been expected: wine and food appeared so immediately. The horrid laughter and the music persisted, drifting in from behind a curtain which walled one side of the room. Suddenly it stopped.
Come, said Lasca, after they had each drunk a glass of champagne, and she led him through a parting in this curtain.
They stood in a circular hall entirely hung in vermilion velvet; even the ceiling was draped in this fiery colour. The room, indeed, resembled a tent. The floor was of translucent glass, and through this clouds of light flowed, now orange, now deep purple, now flaming like molten lava, now rolling sea-waves of green. An invisible band, silent at the moment they had entered this deserted room, now began to perform wild music, music that moaned and lacerated one's breast with brazen claws of tone, shrieking, tortured music from the depths of heil. And now the hall became peopled, as dancers slipped through the folds of the hangings, men and women with weary faces, faces tired of passion and pleasure. Were these the faces of dead prostitutes and murderers? Pleasure seekers from the cold slabs of the morgue?
Dance! cried Lasca. Dance! She flung herself in his arms and they joined this witches' sabbath. Demoniac saxophones wailed like souls burning in an
