Slithering

From above the river looks like a serpent slithering through the jungle.

Alien worms were slithering around inside the deer's belly.

The snake was slithering outside.

A snake was slithering through the fallen leaves.

As I lay waiting I could hear a sort of murmurousness beyond the door. It seemed composed of whimperings, slitherings, and shufflings, punctuated occasionally by a raised voice in the distance.

Here, Valéry is of the devil's party, and boasts of it throughout a long catalogue of serpentine slitherings and insinuations. To be a snake, the protagonist announces, is to be a thinker, to live by one's wits[…]