Sometimes I felt the bloated toad, hideous and pampered with the poisonous vapours of the dungeon, dragging his loathsome length along my bosom: sometimes the quick cold lizard roused me leaving his slimy track upon my face, and entangling itself in the tresses of my wild and matted hair: often have I at waking found my fingers ringed with the long worms which bred in the corrupted flesh of my infant. At such times I shrieked with terror and disgust, and while I shook off the reptile, trembled with all a woman’s weakness.