Fear was the beginning, fear and lust and a horrified curiosity of what would
be coming. It was night; and his senses were listening intently; because from away
a commotion, a noise, a din approached: a rattling, a clashing, a muffled thunder,
shrill cheers and a howling of an "oo" sound, all mixed and sweetly drowned
in a terrible way with deep-sounding and continual flute-playing, which cast an
obtrusive spell on the entrails. And he saw a phrase, dark, but denoting what was
coming: "The alien God!" Smoky fervency was smoldering: there he recognized
the mountains, similar to the ones surrounding his summer house. And in the
spotty light, from woody hills, between trunks and mossy boulders it thundered
earthward like a vortex: men, animals, a swarm, a raging horde and flooded the
place with bodies, flames, tumult, and a lurching dance. Women, foundering over
their long fur dresses hanging from their belts, were hitting tambourines above
their heads, moaning, brandishing burning torches and naked daggers, holding
hissing snakes or grabbing their bare breasts, crying. Men with horns on their
heads, clad in furs and with hairy bodies, bent their necks and lifted arms and calfs,
hit brazen cymbals and drums, while hairless boys were goading bucks, clasping
their horns and letting themselves be carried away by their jumps with cheers.
And the ecstatic crowd howled that soft cry with the stretched "oo" sound at the
end, both sweet and wild: here it resounded like deer cries and there it was echoed,
many-voiced, in wild triumph, inciting one another to dance and hurl the limbs and
to never let the cry stop. But all that was ruled by the deep sound of the flute. Did
it not also tempt him, reluctantly witnessing all this, with shameless perseverance
to that feast and to the immoderate ultimate sacrifice? His abhorrence and his
fear were big, his will was honorable, to defend what was his against that stranger,
the enemy of the sober and dignified mind. But the din, the howling, multiplied
by the rocky cliffs increased, became prevalent, swelling to a ravishing madness.
Odors crowded the senses, the biting smell of the bucks, the scent of groaning
bodies and the stench of putrid waters, also another familiar one: of wounds and
sickness making its rounds. His heart was booming with the drumbeats, his brain
was gyrating, anger gripped him, blindness, deadening sexual lust and his soul
desired to join the god's dance. An enormous wooden phallus was uncovered: then
they howled the password with even less restraint. With frothing lips they were
clamoring, inciting each other with lusty gestures and straying hands, laughing
and moaning — hitting each other with spiked rods and licking the blood from
their limbs. And with them, obedient to their god Dionysus, was the dreamer.
Indeed, they were him, when they killed the animals and ate the still tepid flesh
raw, when they copulated on the mossy ground to honor their god. And his soul
tasted fornication and the fury of downfall.
