tesans. Then
among them glided like a pure ray, like a Christian angel in the midst
of Olympus, one of those chaste figures, those calm shadows, those
soft visions, which seemed to veil its virgin brow before these marble
wantons. Then the three statues advanced towards him with looks of love,
and approached the couch on which he was reposing, their feet hidden in
their long white tunics, their throats bare, hair flowing like waves,
and assuming attitudes which the gods could not resist, but which saints
withstood, and looks inflexible and ardent like those with which the
serpent charms the bird; and then he gave way before looks that held him
in a torturing grasp and delighted his senses as with a voluptuous kiss.
It seemed to Franz that he closed his eyes, and in a last look about him
saw the vision of modesty completely veiled; and then followed a dream
of passion like that promised by the Prophet to the elect. Lips of stone
turned to flame, breasts of ice became like heated lava, so that to
Franz, yielding for the first time to the sway of the drug, love was a
sorrow and voluptuousness a torture, as burning mouths were pressed to
his thirsty lips, and he was held in cool serpent-like embraces. The
more he strove against this unhallowed passion the more his senses
yielded to its thrall, and at length, weary of a struggle that taxed his
very soul, he gave way and sank back breathless and exhausted beneath
the kisses of these marble goddesses, and the enchantment of his
marvellous dream.

Chapter 32. The Waking.

When Franz returned to himself, he seemed still to be in a dream. He
thought himself in a sepulchre, into which a ray of sunlight in pity
scarcely penetrated. He stretched forth his hand, and touched stone; he
rose to his seat, and found himself lying on his bournous in a bed of
dry heather, very soft and odoriferous. The vision had fled; and as if
the statues had been but shadows from the tomb, they had vanished at
his waking. He advanced several paces towards the point whence the light
came, and to all the excitement of his dream succeeded the calmness of
reality. He found that he was in a grotto, went towards the opening, and
through a kind of fanlight saw a blue sea and an azure sky. The air and
water were shining in the beams of the morning sun; on the shore the
sailors were sitting, chatting and laughing; and at ten yards from them
the boat was at anchor, undulating gracefully on the water. There fo