“How can you think that the Venusberg can become a place of damnation when it is hell itself.” I made a movement. “Alas!” he groaned. “Alas! My God!” (his hands fell from his eyes to his beard) “Alas! shall I be the only living person to know the truth, the truth, the truth. Will it be all in vain that the patriarchs have placed Venus as the terrible antithesis of God, and will no one understand that she is Satan? Is it all in vain that ancient tradition has painted the satyrs with horns, black tail, goat’s legs and cloven hoofs: will no one realize that they are demons? With regard to the flames of hell, will no one in the world understand that they are thousands of naked women dancing ...” (he struck the earth) “there beneath our feet!” He shuddered. “Ever since man has thought, written and learned, he has said, repeated and cried out that there is no worse torture than love. How is it he has not foreseen that in the world of eternal torture that punishment alone will be inflicted upon him! What other could he imagine more terrible than it?” He then assumed a position as if he were gazing into the distance and waved his hand. “Yes,” he said, “it is there ... it is there.... On the day when we shall be nothing but rotting corpses and souls maddened by terror, there we shall go in crowds, all of us, all sinners, to burn in that horrible fire which is Lust. Every day and every hour we shall experience desire, even to the extent of suffering, for more and more beautiful women, and at the moment of possession we shall see them, as on earth, vanish in smoke. But that which is here a spasm, a fear, a cry, a sob,--which suffices to prepare the curse of a human life--will be there a perpetual tremor, uninterrupted anguish, and the punishment of years, of centuries and of centuries. Ah! God! such is the destiny which awaits me.” His eyes became fixed upon a stone on the ground. Nodding his head he went on in a strangely changed voice--