Then, what submission, what cringing and
fawning, what servility, what abject humiliation! As to bowing down
in body and spirit, nothing in that way was left for Heaven--which
may have been one among other reasons why the worshippers of
Monseigneur never troubled it.
Bestowing a word of promise here and a smile there, a whisper on one
happy slave and a wave of the hand on another, Monseigneur affably
passed through his rooms to the remote region of the Circumference of
Truth. There, Monseigneur turned, and came back again, and so in due
course of time got himself shut up in his sanctuary by the chocolate
sprites, and was seen no more.
The show being over, the flutter in the air became quite a little
storm, and the precious little bells went ringing downstairs.
There was soon but one person left of all the crowd, and he, with his
hat under his arm and his snuff-box in his hand, slowly passed among
the mirrors on his way out.
"I devote you," said this person, stopping at the last door on his
way, and turning in the direction of the sanctuary, "to the Devil!"
With that, he shook the snuff from his fingers as if he had shaken
the dust from his feet, and quietly walked downstairs.
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