whose beauty has the penetrating magic of ru-
ins. Her air was at once imperious and loose; 
and her eyes, although heavily ringed, were 
full of the force of fascination. What struck me 
most was the mystery of her voice, at whose 
sound I recalled both the most delicious con-
tralto singers, and also a little of that hoarse-
ness which characterizes the throats of very 
old drunkards. 
“Wilt though know my power?” cried the 
false goddess with her charming and paradoxi-
cal voice; “Listen!” and she put to her mouth a 
gigantic trumpet covered with ribands like the 
reed-pipe, on which were written the titles of 
all the newspapers in the world, and through 
this trumpet she cried my name, which thus 
rolled across space with the noise of a hundred 
thousand thunders, and came back to me on 
the echo of the most distant of the planets. 
“The Devil!” cried I, half conquered, “there 
is a precious thing!” But, in examining more 
closely the seductive Amazon, it seemed to me 
vaguely that I remembered having seen her 
drinking with some fools of my acquaintance, 
and the raucous sounds of the brass bore to 
my ears I know not what remembrance of a 
venal trumpet.