With some precaution, he takes the child on his knees, revives him, caresses him, rocks him, dries his tears, and pointing to the accomplices, says, 'These men are bad, but you see they obey me.

Do not be afraid.

I will save your life and take you back to your mother,' and while the little one, wild with joy, kisses him and at that moment loves him, Gilles gently makes an incision in the back of the neck, rendering the child 'languishing,' to follow Gilles's own expression, and when the head, not quite detached, bows, Gilles kneads the body, turns it about, and violates it, bellowing.
"After these abominable pastimes he may well believe that the art of the charnalist has beneath his fingers expressed its last drop of pus, and in a vaunting cry he says to his troop of parasites, "There is no man on earth who dare do as I have done.' "But if in Love and Well-doing the infinite is approachable for certain souls, the out-of-the-world possibilities of Evil are limited.

In his excesses of stupration and murder the Marshal cannot go beyond a fixed point.

In vain he may dream of unique violations, of more ingenious slow tortures, but human imagination has a limit and he has already reached it--even passed it, with diabolic aid.