Something that stirred on the ground became a deathly
pale, nude woman whose feet were covered with green
silk stockings.
He contemplated her with curiosity. As though
frizzed by overheated irons, her hair curled, becoming
straight again at the end; her distended nostrils
were the color of roast veal. Her eyes were desirous,
and she called to him in low tones.
He had no time to answer, for already the woman was
changing. Flamboyant colors passed and repassed
in her eyes. Her lips were stained with a furious
Anthurium red. The nipples of her breasts flashed,
painted like two pods of red pepper.
A sudden intuition came to him. “It is
the Flower,” he said. And his reasoning
mania persisted in his nightmare.
Then he observed the frightful irritation of the breasts
and mouth, discovered spots of bister and copper on
the skin of her body, and recoiled bewildered.
But the woman’s eyes fascinated him and he advanced
slowly, attempting to thrust his heels into the earth
so as not to move, letting himself fall, and yet lifting
himself to reach her. Just as he touched her,
the dark Amorphophalli leaped up from all sides
and thrust their leaves into his abdomen which rose
and fell like a sea. He had broken all the plants,
experiencing a limitless disgust in seeing these warm,
firm stems stirring in his hands. Suddenly the
detested plants had disappeared and two arms sought
to enlace him. A terrible anguish made his heart
beat furiously, for the eyes, the horrible eyes of
the woman, had become a clear, cold and terrible blue.
He made a superhuman effort to free himself from her
embrace, but she held him with an irresistible movement.
He beheld the wild Nidularium which yawned,
bleeding, in steel plates.
With his body he touched the hideous wound of this
plant. He felt himself dying, awoke with a start,
suffocating, frozen, mad with fear and sighing:
“Ah! thank God, it was but a dream!”
These nightmares attacked him repeatedly. He
was afraid to fall asleep. For hours he remained
stretched on his bed, now a prey to feverish and agitated
wakefulness, now in the grip of oppressive dreams
in which he tumbled down flights of stairs and felt
himself sinking, powerless, into abysmal depths.
His nervous attacks, which had abated for several
days, became acute, more violent and obstinate than
ever, unearthing new tortures.
The bed covers tormented him. He stifled under
the sheets, his body smarted and tingled as though
stung by swarms of insects. These symptoms were
augmented by a dull pain in his jaws and a throbbing
in his temples which seemed to be gripped in a vise.
