“Three times I went to see her. And at the third the lightning passed through me. She was weeping when I entered and would not rise from the bed. Her face was buried in her hands. “‘Why are you crying, Losha?’ I asked. “‘I weep,’ she said, ‘because you are to be pitied more than I am. We are both prostitutes. But the Devil in me is a god, and you have no god.’ “I stood, silent, but quite calm. Then she rose slowly and flung her arms about my neck. I had not expected it. She whispered passionately: “‘I love you. I love you. I love you.’ “‘Why do you love?’ I asked. “‘Because I am your lost soul.’ “And I saw the truth. I saw that what lay buried in me was not only divine love, but also the great beast, and that this woman was both. And first I felt a burning steal through my body, a hot and primal fire, the smoky breath of hell itself, and for the first time I could remember, I had the horrible cannibal lust to tear a human body limb from limb. But while I was convulsed with this, something strangely other came up and mingled with the lust. It was as if I saw the Christ. It was holy and ecstatic and divine.... Yes, yes, yes, it was love.... “You can imagine an earthquake that raises some monstrous buried formation to the surface and buries what it finds there. That happened to me.... It was like a conversion. But in my conversion both Christ and the beast came up and tore asunder the great Dr. Farraday--the fine intellect, the high-minded ego.... “In short, I went suddenly mad, and gave a great shriek, tearing off my clothes and foaming at the mouth. I called Losha ‘the goddess’ and prostrated myself before her. Then I shrieked aloud for the torture and agony and had something very like a fit of epilepsy. “She was terrified. She finally put me to bed, and soothed me. She nursed me tenderly. I would lie quiescent for hours, in a fever. Then the spell was on me. I saw great beasts, kings and gods. I was ground by terrible passion and ecstasy. It was a death....” He paused; then smiled sadly.... “You can imagine the sequel. I could not return to my house. It was all ended. All my interest in my work, my position, my power and place in the world, had vanished. Everything, but the emotions that swept me, was quite unreal. And so I ruined myself. “I married Losha. It seemed a simple matter. And we opened a little stationery shop and kept it together.... And then I began to draw: I became an artist. I was alive from head to foot, and yet quite tormented--tormented by these terrible passions and ecstacies, these perverted and glorious impulses which for years had festered in my darkness, and which, when they came upon me, came more like monsters than divinities....