The Others: "All the people admire thee! Sleep!"
"Thou shalt slay them all, aye, thou shalt slay them!"
(At the same moment objects become transformed. At the edge of the cliff, the old palm tree with its tuft of yellow leaves, changes into the torso of a woman leaning over the abyss, her long hair waving in the wind.
Anthony turns toward his cabin; and the stool supporting the great book whose pages are covered with black letters, seems to him changed into a bush all covered with nightingales.)
"It must be the torch which is making this strange play of light.... Let us put it out!"
(He extinguishes it; the obscurity becomes deeper, the darkness profound.
And suddenly in the air above there appear and disappear successively—first, a stretch of water; then the figure of a prostitute; the corner of a temple, a soldier; a chariot with two white horses, prancing.
These images appear suddenly, as in flashes—outlined against the background of the night, like scarlet paintings executed upon ebony.
Their motion accelerates. They defile by with vertiginous rapidity. Sometimes again, they pause and gradually pale and melt away; or else float off out of sight, to be immediately succeeded by others.