They took me to the church, and there the little old brown-faced sacristan joined us, punctuating our way with groans and sobs of horror.
This is what I see.
Before me stretches a great dim interior lit with little bunches of yellow candles. It is in a way a church. But what has happened to it? What horror has seized upon it, turning it into the most hideous travesty of a church that the world has ever known?
On the high altar stand empty champagne bottles, empty rum bottles, a broken bottle of Bordeaux, and five bottles of beer.
In the confessionals stand empty champagne bottles, empty brandy bottles, empty beer bottles.
In the Holy Water fonts are empty brandy bottles.
Stacks of bottles are under the pews, or on the seats themselves.
Beer, brandy, rum, champagne, bordeaux, burgundy; and again beer, brandy, rum, champagne, bordeaux, burgundy.
Everywhere, everywhere, in whatever part of the church one looks, there are bottles—hundreds of them, thousands of them, perhaps—everywhere, bottles, bottles, bottles.
The sacred marble floors are covered everywhere with piles of straw, and bottles, and heaps of refuse and filth, and horse-dung.