Page:Randolph, Paschal Beverly; Eulis! the history of love.djvu/215

we cover with the contents of these five vessels, the earnest seeker may behold, not only what takes place on earth, but also what transpires on other globes, and in the Sakwalas of the Sacred Gods! and this is the only true Bab,—(Door).'—'But,' I rejoined, 'we of the West magnetize people, who, in that mysterious slumber, tell us amazing'—' Lies! ' he said, interrupting the sentence,—'for no two of them tell the same tale or behold the same things! Why? Because they explore the kingdoms of Fancy, not of Fact, and give you tales of imagination and distorted invention, instead of recitals of what actually exists Beyond! But wait!' I acquiesced, and turned once more to the dances of the Aleweheh, who by this time were moving in a more rapid manner to the quickened strains of the more than ever wild and fantastic music … Three of them began stirring the contents of the cauldron, into which all the material from the gourds had now been poured; murmuring strange, wild bursts of Phallic song the while; and the fourth, the taller maiden of the two, stripped herself entirely nude above the waist and below the knees; her long raven hair streaming around her matchless form—a form of such superlative contour, proportions, lively peach-blow tint, and rounded beauty, as made me blush for the imperfections of the race that mothered me! There were no violent exertions of legs and arms; not the slightest effort at effect; none of the gross motions in use in the West, on the stage or off it—whose palpable object is the firing of the sluggish blood of half-blasé spectators; but a graceful movement, a delicious trembling, half fear, half invitation;—a quivering, semi-longing, semi-reluctant undulation of arms, bosom, form, eyes even—rippling streams of most voluptuous motion; billowy heavings and throbbings of soul through body, so wonderful, so glowing, that one wished to die immediately that he might receive the reward of centuries of toil in the ravishing arms of the houris of the seventh, ay! even the first paradise of the Ghillim, and the resplendent Queens of the Brahminical Valhalla. And yet there was absolutely nothing suggestive of coarse, gross, animal passion in all this transcendental melody of hyper-sensuous motion; on the contrary, one felt like seizing her by the waist, drawing his sword and challenging all earth, and hell