This quintessential medley was as the sonorous blasts of Berlioz,
repugnant and exquisite; it swayed the soul of Baldur as the wind sways
the flame. There were odours like winged dreams; odours as the plucked
sounds of celestial harps; odours mystic and evil, corrupt and opulent;
odours recalling the sweet, dense smell of chloroform; odours evil,
angelic, and anonymous. They painted--painted by Satan!--upon his
cerebellum more than music--music that merged into picture; and he was
again in the glade of the Druids. The huge scent-symphony dissolved in a
shower of black roses which covered the ground ankle-deep. An antique
temple of exotic architecture had thrown open its bronze doors, and out
there surged and rustled a throng of Bacchanalian beings who sported and
shouted around a terminal god, which, with smiling, ironic lips,
accepted their delirious homage. White nymphs and brown displayed in
choric rhythms the dance of the Seven Deadly Sins, and their goat-hoofed
mates gave vertiginous pursuit. At first the pagan gayety of the scene
fired the fancy of the solitary spectator; but soon his nerves,
disordered by the rout and fatigued by the spoor of so many odours,
warned him that something disquieting was at hand.
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