The old gentleman with the crystal monocle was a far more indiscreet viewer than Bathybius, for he began again – without a pause, and apparently still observing them – in his halting voice:

. . .gale,

Hay, hay, hay, hay, hay, hay. . .

Krrr. . .

At the first figure of the dance
The fair maid’s color changed.

He had an extremely comical, indrawn, and sudden way of attacking “cha-a-anged,” midway between a hiccup and a sob.

Then he went: krrr. . . and waited, like a simple Bathybius. He had imposed an unbroken silence upon the women above and, his monocle trembling slightly, he continued. Neither André nor Ellen found this monocle in bloom more absurd than anything else, whether human or superhuman:

At the next figure of the dance. . .

Without further prompting, and as though by erotic suggestion, hypnotized, André and Ellen obeyed.

The fair maid changed aga-in,

O sweetest nightingale!

Hay. . .hay. . .hay. . .

At the next figure of the dance

The fair maid changed aga-in

When the flowered being went krr, Ellen’s head fell back, and she made a little rattling sound that was not a lover’s moan; the Supermale felt his own head swimming, stirring up associations of insane ideas and unfamiliar words.

“I’m a bit drunk,” murmured Ellen. “It hurts so!”

And in the midst of all this madness he understood, in a lucid flash, that if he did not silence, as he had silenced the women, and immediately, over there on the table, that imperious voice that was now master of his hyperesthetized senses, of his spine, and very nearly of his brain, he would have to possess again, and his member would be unable not to possess, the dying woman whom his arms had not yet released.