Impelled by a great curiosity, she sought to come nearer,
but the vast figure seemed strangely to dissolve into a cloud; and
immediately she felt herself again surrounded by a hurrying throng.
Then came all legendary monsters and foul beasts of a madman's fancy;
in the darkness she saw enormous toads, with paws pressed to their
flanks, and huge limping scarabs, shelled creatures the like of which
she had never seen, and noisome brutes with horny scales and round crabs'
eyes, uncouth primeval things, and winged serpents, and creeping animals
begotten of the slime. She heard shrill cries and peals of laughter and
the terrifying rattle of men at the point of death. Haggard women,
dishevelled and lewd, carried wine; and when they spilt it there were
stains like the stains of blood. And it seemed to Margaret that a fire
burned in her veins, and her soul fled from her body; but a new soul
came in its place, and suddenly she knew all that was obscene. She took
part in some festival of hideous lust, and the wickedness of the world
was patent to her eyes.
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