10. MICE. Lascivious wives, and also unmarried women who make light of whoredoms, dwell in two kinds of places, some in the western region in front, and some behind. All that are there knew how to insinuate themselves with men by simulated affections, by which they acquired the lascivious love of some male, caring nothing whether they were good affections or whether evil affections. Those who dwell in front were crafty and cunning, and of such a genius that they could perceive of what nature, disposition, inclination, and cupidity were the men whom they wished to allure, especially in depriving a man of his wealth, and in the meantime that they may live luxuriously. They dwell there in caves wherein all things are fetid, and the places where they dwell smell like the smell where mice are; they even appear when seen by angels like great mice. I have heard certain ones, who had been in their caves, saying that the smell was that of mice, and that their places were fetid and filthy; but that they knew how, by phantasies, to render themselves beautiful, and also to decorate these places with various articles, but this only for some moments; for when the phantasies cease the appearances cease, and then all things are foul. It is said even that they delight in those foul and filthy things, the more so the more interiorly they are in them. That they are thus delighted is from correspondences with such a life. They were often seen by me, sometimes when by phantasies they had assumed beauty, appearing then magnificent in dress and charming in countenance, but as soon a fantastic thought was removed from them, which is done by a good spirit and by an angel, they appear deformed altogether like devils, some black, some horribly flamy, some like corpses, and also they were often seen by me like great mice with long tails. Their concupiscences appeared thus. What is wonderful, there are some spirits of both sexes who in the appearance of their passions appear like cats, and those mice fear them just as mice fear cats on earth; they appear like cats because they cared nothing for religious things, except that they heard them but retained nothing of them. I saw that in those caves are noble wives, yea, of such men as were of the first nobility; but all there are compelled to labor, but no one of them can go out, nor is it permitted to let them out, because they are cunning beyond the rest of spirits, and enter the affections of men secretly and draw away their minds; in this they are more skillful than the rest, and so they are shut up, that at last they do not open a finger to let them out.