पृष्ठ 279 / 490

One hardly knew at times whether one was reading the spiritual

ecstasies of some mediaeval saint or the morbid confessions of a

modern sinner. It was a poisonous book. The heavy odour of

incense seemed to cling about its pages and to trouble the brain.

The mere cadence of the sentences, the subtle monotony of their

music, so full as it was of complex refrains and movements

elaborately repeated, produced in the mind of the lad, as he

passed from chapter to chapter, a form of reverie, a malady of

dreaming, that made him unconscious of the falling day and

creeping shadows.

Cloudless, and pierced by one solitary star, a copper-green sky

gleamed through the windows. He read on by its wan light till he

could read no more. Then, after his valet had reminded him

several times of the lateness of the hour, he got up, and going

into the next room, placed the book on the little Florentine

table that always stood at his bedside and began to dress for

dinner.