to purify them.

However this may be, an irresistible fascination emanated from this
painting; but the water-color entitled _The Apparition_ was perhaps
even more disturbing.

There, the palace of Herod arose like an Alhambra on slender,
iridescent columns with moorish tile, joined with silver beton and
gold cement. Arabesques proceeded from lozenges of lapis lazuli, wove
their patterns on the cupolas where, on nacreous marquetry, crept
rainbow gleams and prismatic flames.

The murder was accomplished. The executioner stood impassive, his
hands on the hilt of his long, blood-stained sword.

The severed head of the saint stared lividly on the charger resting on
the slabs; the mouth was discolored and open, the neck crimson, and
tears fell from the eyes. The face was encircled by an aureole worked
in mosaic, which shot rays of light under the porticos and illuminated
the horrible ascension of the head, brightening the glassy orbs of the
contracted eyes which were fixed with a ghastly stare upon the dancer.

With a gesture of terror, Salome thrusts from her the horrible vision
which transfixes her, motionless, to the ground. Her eyes dilate, her
hands clasp her neck in a convulsive clutch.

She is almost nude. In the ardor of the dance, her veils had become
loosened. She is garbed only in gold-wrought stuffs and limpid stones;
a neck-piece clasps her as a corselet does the body and, like a superb
buckle, a marvelous jewel sparkles on the hollow between her breasts.
A girdle encircles her hips, concealing the upper part of her thighs,
against which beats a gigantic pendant streaming with carbuncles and
emeralds.

All the facets of the jewels kindle under the ardent shafts of light
escaping from the head of the Baptist. The stones grow warm, outlining
the woman's body with incandescent rays, striking her neck, feet and
arms with tongues of fire,--vermilions like coals, violets like jets
of gas, blues like flames of alcohol, and whites like star light.

The horrible head blazes, bleeding constantly, clots of sombre purple
on the ends of the beard and hair. Visible for Salome alone, it does
not, with its fixed gaze, attract Herodias, musing on her finally
consummated revenge, nor the Tetrarch who, bent slightly forward, his
hands on his knees, still pants, maddened by the nudity of the woman
saturated with animal odors, steeped in balms, exuding incense and
myrrh.

Like the old king, Des Esseintes remained dumbfoun