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I had taken part, as its chronicler, with the art which seeks mere plastic perfection, the art to which Angelico said, "Retro me Sathana."
"Retro me, Sathanas!" I thundered. "Jesus! Maria!" I rose at last numbed and stiff. I looked again. The vision had departed. I was alone in my cell, and the rain was falling steadily outside. I groaned despairingly. Then I swayed, reeled sideways and lost all consciousness. When I awoke it was broad day, and the pale wintry sun shone silvery from a winter sky.
Gretz has been my academy, my sanatorium, my heaven of innocent pleasures. If millions are offered me, I wave them back: Retro, Sathanas! Evil one, begone! Fix your mind on my example; despise riches, avoid the debasing influence of cities. Hygiene hygiene and mediocrity of fortune these be your watchwords during life!
If there be a thing which a true Parisian of Rameau's stamp associates with love of woman, it is a certain sort of elegant surroundings, a pretty boudoir, a cheery hearth, an easy fauteuil. In the absence of such attributes, "fuyit retro Venus." If the Englishman invented the word comfort, it is the Parisian who most thoroughly comprehends the thing.
The armed knight of Dürer turns away from his grimacings, and urges on his steel-covered horse. He visits even the best, even Luther in the Wartburg; but the good men open their Bibles, cry "Vade retro!" and throw their inkstands at him, showing themselves terrified and ruffled after the combat.
He looked through one of the great chinks, for it was much smaller in places than the aperture it pretended to close, and saw his little oil wick burning just where he had left it. "How is it with me," he sighed, "when I start and tremble at nothing? Either I did shut it, or the fiend hath shut it after me to disturb my happy soul. Retro Sathanas!"
"Not at all, madame; do not go and say such things!" cried the doctor, affecting a pleasant kind of anger. "Plague on't! you would get me into a pretty scrape; so pray be silent on that subject. Vade retro Satanas! which means: Get thee behind me, charming little demon that you are!" "Do not be afraid," answered Adrienne, with a smile; "I will not compromise you.
To this was appended: 'The better for mankind in the developing process, ay, and a bad day for us, boys, when study masks the charming eyes in gig-lamps, and there is no pretty flying before us. Good-night to Cupid, I fear. May be I am not seeing far enough, and am asking for the devil to have the loveliest women as of old. Retro S. M.
But I dismiss the temptation, strong as it is. Retro age, Satanas. No living man or woman any longer wants to be told anything of the Grimsell or of the Gemmi. Ludgate Hill is now-a-days more interesting than the Jungfrau. The Vavasors were not very energetic on their tour. As George had said, they had gone out for pleasure and not for work.
At length he turned away, casting at me as he did so one indefinable look, and with slow dignity passed again down the length of the nave and disappeared. Then, and not till then, I found my voice and my courage. I pulled the priest by the sleeve of his cassock. "Some one has just been in the cathedral," I said huskily. And I told him what I had seen. "Impossible! Retro me, Sathanas!
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