The Elixir of Life

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_Te Deum laudamus_! cried the many voices.

"Go to the devil, brute beasts that you are! _Dios! Dios! Garajos
demonios!_ Idiots! What fools you are with your dotard God!" and a
torrent of imprecations poured forth like a stream of red-hot
lava from the mouth of Vesuvius.

"_Deus Sabaoth! . . . Sabaoth_!" cried the believers.

"You are insulting the majesty of Hell," shouted Don Juan,
gnashing his teeth. In another moment the living arm struggled
out of the reliquary, and was brandished over the assembly in
mockery and despair.

"The saint is blessing us," cried the old women, children,
lovers, and the credulous among the crowd.

And note how often we are deceived in the homage we pay; the
great man scoffs at those who praise him, and pays compliments
now and again to those whom he laughs at in the depths of his
heart.

Just as the Abbot, prostrate before the altar, was chanting
"_Sancte Johannes, ora pro noblis_!" he heard a voice exclaim
sufficiently distinctly: "_O coglione_!"

"What can be going on up there?" cried the Sub-prior, as he saw
the reliquary move.

"The saint is playing the devil," replied the Abbot.

Even as he spoke the living head tore itself away from the
lifeless body, and dropped upon the sallow cranium of the
officiating priest.

"Remember Dona Elvira!" cried the thing, with its teeth set fast
in the Abbot's head.

The Abbot's horror-stricken shriek disturbed the ceremony; all
the ecclesiastics hurried up and crowded about their chief.

"Idiot, tell us now if there is a God!" the voice cried, as the
Abbot, bitten through the brain, drew his last breath.



PARIS, October 1830.