"The recipiendary is led by a darksome path into a large hall, the ceiling, the walls, the floor of which are covered by a black cloth, sprinkled over with red flames and menacing serpents; three sepulchral lamps emit from time to time a dying glimmer, and the eye half distinguishes, in this lugubrious den, certain wrecks of mortality suspended by funeral crapes; a heap of skeletons forms in the centre a sort of altar; on both sides of it are piled books; some contain menaces against the perjured; others the deadly narrative of the vengeance which the invisible spirit has exacted; of the infernal evocations for a long time pronounced in vain. "Eight hours elapse. Then phantoms, trailing mortuary vails, slowly cross the hall and sink in caverns, without audible noise of trapdoors or of falling. You notice only that they are gone by a fetid odor exhaled from them. "The novice remains four and twenty hours in this gloomy abode, in the midst of a freezing silence. A rigorous fast has already weakened his thinking faculties. Liquors prepared for the purpose first weary and at length wear out his senses. At his feet are placed three cups, filled with a drink of a greenish color. Necessity lifts them to his lips: involuntary fear repels them. "At last appear two men: looked upon as the ministers of Death. These gird the pale brow of the recipiendary with an auroral-colored-ribbon dipped in blood, and full of silvered characters mixed with our lady of Loretto. He receives a copper crucifix, of two inches length: to his neck are hung a sort of amulets wrapped in violet cloth. He is stripped of his clothes; which two ministering brethren deposit on a funeral pile, erected at the other end of the hall. With blood on his naked body are traced crosses. In this state of suffering and humiliation, he sees approaching with large strides five Phantoms armed with swords, and clad in garments dropping blood. Their faces are vailed: they spread a velvet carpet on the floor; kneel there, pray; and remain with outstretched hands crossed on their breasts, and faces fixed on the ground in deep silence. An hour passes in this painful attitude. After which fatiguing trial, plaintive cries are heard; the funeral pile takes fire, yet casts only a pale light; the garments are thrown on it and burnt. A colossal and almost transparent figure rises from the very bosom of the pile. At sight of it the five prostrated men fall into convulsions insupportable to look on: the too faithful image of those foaming struggles wherein a mortal, at hand-grips with a sudden pain, ends by sinking under it. "Then a trembling voice pierces the vault, and articulates the formula of those execrable oaths that are to be sworn: my pen falters: I think myself almost guilty to retrace them."