The Equinox (Volume I, Number IV)

THE EQUINOX balancing before him their tempting, repulsive, holy and foul, loose or firm, twin breasts. Himself, cloven-hoofed and curl- horned, had to flagellate his own flesh with iron chains, which failed to overcome the moral urtication, as had the repeated physical purgings of his early years. Narcissus, in a corner, pale and smiling, urged him to renewed efforts; Spirits, both incubi and succubae, thrusting themselves upon him, ate him away... But all these dreams gradually faded out. Lionel had become a translucid set of bones, with two big eyes heavily crowned. The time of his knowledge had come. XV THE DEVIL I trust I said nothing that could lead the reader into the belief that the cottage was a lonely spot. Men and women lived in its almost immediate neighbourhood. Among others, Sir Anthony Lawthon and his daughters. I propose that we concern ourselves solely with the eldest of these, Mary Lawthon. I hardly know how to describe her. She was a woman of six and twenty, most easy to understand, very simple and very complex, simple in her complexity, complex in her simplicity. To men she seemed a man, strong, healthy, a rough-rider, a ski-runner, a champion in many sports, who smoked her pipe and emptied her glass passing well. To women she seemed a woman, whose hands were ever ready for a soft caress, whose lips were full and red, whose skin was velvet. As a whole, she was very manly in her life, speech and 34