and patriarchs, their white beards waving during the
reading of the prayers, lifted golden arms to bless kneeling throngs.
He saw silent files of penitents marching into dim crypts. Before him
rose vast cathedrals where white monks intoned from pulpits. Just as
De Quincey, having taken a dose of opium and uttered the word "Consul
Romanus," evoked entire pages of Livius, and beheld the solemn advance
of the consuls and the magnificent, pompous march of the Roman armies,
so he, at a theological expression, paused breathless as he viewed the
onrush of penitents and the churchly apparitions which detached
themselves from the glowing depths of the basilica. These scenes held
him enchanted. They moved from age to age, culminating in the modern
religious ceremonies, bathing his soul in a tender, mournful infinity
of music.

On this plane, no reasonings were necessary; there were no further
contests to be endured. He had an indescribable impression of respect
and fear. His artistic sense was conquered by the skillfully
calculated Catholic rituals. His nerves quivered at these memories.
Then, in sudden rebellion, in a sudden reversion, monstrous ideas were
born in him, fancies concerning those sacrileges warned against by the
manual of the Father confessors, of the scandalous, impure desecration
of holy water and sacred oil. The Demon, a powerful rival, now stood
against an omnipotent God. A frightful grandeur seemed to Des
Esseintes to emanate from a crime committed in church by a believer
bent, with blasphemously horrible glee and sadistic joy, over such
revered objects, covering them with outrages and saturating them in
opprobrium.

Before him were conjured up the madnesses of magic, of the black mass,
of the witches' revels, of terrors of possessions and of exorcisms. He
reached the point where he wondered if he were not committing a
sacrilege in possessing objects which had once been consecrated: the
Church canons, chasubles and pyx covers. And this idea of a state of
sin imparted to him a mixed sensation of pride and relief. The
pleasures of sacrilege were unravelled from the skein of this idea,
but these were debatable sacrileges, in any case, and hardly serious,
since he really loved these objects and did not pollute them by
misuse. In this wise he lulled himself with prudent and cowardly
thoughts, the caution of his soul forbidding obvious crimes and
depriving him of the courage necessary to the consummation of
frig