A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, December 1949 — page 43: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

mask. I was happy with Helen’s kiss. Istarted to undress, whistling, Helen’s still clear-cut before me. I put my and in my pocket and drew out the silver _ bracelet with the black stone. The face of "Helen faded abruptly. In its place, as Clearly cut, even more alive, was the face Se f the Demoiselle with her great eyes tender, her lips smiling— 4 Gl threw the bracelet from me, as though “it had been a snake. oo a when I went to sleep it was still the face of the Demoiselle and not the ace of Helen that was back of my eyes. ~ a ae * ay é 2 Nee CHAPTER 8 ig In Dahut’s Tower—New York WOKE up next morning with a headache. Also, out of a dream * which began with dolls holding foot- long needles in one hand dancing with _ pink shadows around circles of enormous _ standing stones, and with Helen and the _ Demoiselle alternately and rapidly em- “bracing and kissing me. I mean that Helen would embrace and kiss me, and then she “would fade into the Demoiselle ; and then - the Demoiselle would do the same and as ¢ quickly fade into Helen. The dream re- “minded me of my scheme for “Heaven and ‘Hell, Inc.” which had so interested the De oiselle and de Keradel. He had “quoted Omar— ul sent my Soul out through the In- visible, _ Some letter of that After-life to spell: And after many days my soul re- turned GOOD OLD *GUCKENHEIMER Whiskey —A Blend. 40% Whiskey. 60% Grain Neutral Spirits. 86 Proof. *OLD AMERICAN Straight Bourbon Whiskey. 86 Proof. ‘CREEP, SHADOW! *BOURBON SUPREME A Blend of Straight Whiskies. 90.4 Proof. 4S And said, ‘Behold, Myself am Heav'n and Hell.’ Then he had said my idea wasn't so original; it was really a combination of that quatrain and what made his place so profitable. He had a couple of renegade | Senussi in his house. The Senussi are truly astonishing magicians, masters of illusion. He had a dozen girls, the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, and they were white and yellow and black and brown and intermediate shades. When one wanted to behold ‘“‘The Heart’s Desire,’”’ these twelve girls would stand in a circle; a big, wide circle in a big room, hands clasped in each other’s with their arms out at full length. The Senussi squatted in the center of the circle with their drums, while the aspirant of the “Heart’s Desire” stood beside them. The Senussi drummed and chanted and did this and that. The girls danced, intertwining. Ever faster and faster. Until at last white, brown, black and yellow and intermediate seemed to coalesce into one supernal damsel—the girl of his dreams, as the old sentimental songs so quaintly put it, with trimmings of Aphrodite, Cleopatra, Phyrne, and what not— After a cold shower I felt a Jot better. While I ate breakfast, I marshalled the events of the night before into coherent order. First, Lowell’s experience with the doll-maker. I knew much about the magic of the animate doll, which is far ahead of the simple idea of the effigy into which one sticks pins, or roasts at a fire or what not. Nor was I so sure that the hypothesis of hypnotism could account *BURTON'S SI Whiskey —A Blend. 51% Whiskey. 49% Grain Neutral Spirits. 86.8 Proof. *STILLBROOK Straight Bourbon Whiskey. 90 Proof. ww NEW YORK PEKIN, ILLINOIS SAN FRANCISCO book (S@)