autour, de longs cierges, plantés dans de grandes chandeliers d’argent. Aux quatre coins de la pièce, des urnes funéraires et des cassolettes, brûlant, avec des parfums, un mélange d’alcool et de sel gris, dont les flammes blafardes, qui éclairent le catafalque, donnent à la chair de la pseudo-morte la couleur cadavérique.
“Le fou luxurieux, qui a payé dix louis pour cette séance, est introduit. Il y a un prie-dieu oû’il s’ agenouille. Un harmonium, placé dans un cabinet voisin, joue le Dies irae ou le De Profundis. Alors, aux accords de cette musique de funérailles le vampire se rue sur la fille qui simule la défunte et qui a ordre de ne pas faire un mouvement, quoiqu’il advienne.”
It might not unreasonably be thought that the catafalque, the bier, the black pall, would arouse solemn thoughts and kill desire, but on the contrary this funeral pomp and the trappings of the dead are considered in certain circles the most elegant titillation, the most potent and approved of genteel aphrodisiacs.
Notes. Chapter I.
- 1 Πορευ εσθε ἀπ’ ἐμοῦ, κατηραμέυοι, εἰς τὸ αἰώυιον τὸ ἡτοιμασμέυον τῷ διαβόλῳ καὶ τοῖς ἀλλέλοις αὐτοῦ. Discedite a me maledicte in ignem aeternum, qui paratus est diabolo, et angelis eius.
- 2 See Sinistrari, De Daemonialitate, xxiv (English translation by the present writer, Demoniality, Fortune Press, 1927, pp. 11-12), for the coitus of witches with the demon, who assumes the corpse of a human being.
- 3 Æneid, II, 794. Vergil repeats this line Æneid, VI, 702.
- 4 S. Luke, xxiv, 39.
- 5 P. W. Hofmayr, “Religion der Schilluk,” Anthropos (Ephemeris Internationalis Ethnologica et Linguistica), vi (1911), pp. 120-125.
- 6 Journal of the Anthropological Institute; Rev. J. Roscoe, “Notes on the Manners and Customs of the Baganda,” xxxi (1901), p. 130; xxxii (1902), p. 46; and The Baganda, London, 1911.
- 7 Hermann Rehse, Kiziba, Land und Leute, Stuttgart, 1910.
- 8 C. Gouldsberry and H. Sheane, The Great Plateau of Northern Rhodesia, London, 1911, pp. 80, seq.
- 9 Missionar J. Irle, Die Herero, ein Beitrag zue Landes-Volks und Missionskunde, Gütersloh, 1906, p. 75.
- 10 South African Folk-lore Journal, Cape Town, 1879, I, “Some Customs of the Ovaherero,” pp. 64, sqq.
- 11 Hermann Tönjes, Ovamboland, Land, Leute, Mission, Berlin, 1911, pp. 193-197.
- 12 Another Grey Ghost Book.
- 13 Rev. Henry Callaway, The Religious System of the Amazulu, Natal, Springvale, etc., 1868-1870, Part II, pp. 144-146.
- 14 The Niel Dinka, a tribe in the valley of the White Nile, regard this supreme being, Dengdit, as their ancestor, and accordingly sacrifice is offered to him at shrines builded in his honour.
