"If I fall asleep again, I shall not be able to wake at the moment I wish," he thought, "suppose I get up."
He sprang out of bed, dressed, prayed, reduced his thoughts to order.
Real excesses would have exhausted him less than these sham freaks, but what seemed to him especially odious was the want of satisfaction left by the completed rape of these ghosts. Compared with their greedy tricks, the caresses of a woman only diffused a temperate pleasure, and ended in a feeble shock, but with this Succuba one remained in a fury at having clasped only the void, at having been the dupe of a lie, the plaything of an appearance, of which one could not remember the form or the features. It necessarily brought with it the desire of the flesh, the wish to clasp a real body, and Durtal began to think of Florence; she at least quenched his desires, and did not leave him thus, panting and feverish, in quest of he knew not what, in an atmosphere where he was surrounded, spied upon by an unknown whom he could not discern, by a phantom he could not escape.
Then Durtal shook himself, and would repulse the assault of these memories. "At any rate I will go and breathe the fresh air, and smoke a cigarette; we will see afterwards."
He descended the staircase, whose walls seemed not to keep their place, and danced in the light of his candle, threaded the corridors, blew out his light, placed the candlestick near the auditorium, and rushed out.
It was pitch dark; at the height of the first story a round window in the wall of the chapel cut a hole through the darkness like a red moon.
Durtal took a few whiffs of a cigarette, and then made his way to the chapel. He turned the latch of the door gently; the vestibule into which he entered was dark, but the apse, though it was empty, was lighted by numerous lamps.
He made a step, crossed himself, and fell back, for he had stumbled over a body; and he looked down at his feet.
He had come upon a battle-field.
On the ground human forms were lying, in the attitudes of combatants mowed down by grape shot, some flat on their faces, others on their knees, some leaning their hands on the ground as if stricken from behind, others extended with their fingers clenched on their breast, others again holding their heads or stretching out their arms.