'I am wounded all over, right and left, fore and aft!' cried my conductor.
'Am I bleeding?' said I, feeling myself with my hands.
'No, blessed St. Anthony be praised!' answered he; 'and now all is safe, for we are at the cell, and the banditti have turned into the wrong passage.'
He stopped, and unlocked a door.
'Enter,' said he, 'and behold your unhappy mother!'
He led me forward, took the bandage from my eyes, and retiring, locked the door upon me.
Agitated already by the terrors of my dangerous expedition, I felt additional horror on finding myself in a dismal cell, lighted with a lantern; where, at a small table, sat a woman suffering under a corpulency unparalleled in the memoirs of human monsters. She was clad in sackcloth, her head was swathed in linen, and had grey locks on it, like horses' tails. Hundreds of frogs were leaping about the floor; a piece of mouldy bread, a mug of water, and a manuscript, lay on the table; some straw, strewn with dead snakes and skulls, occupied one corner, and the farther side of the cell was concealed behind a black curtain.
I stood at the door, doubtful, and afraid to advance; while the prodigious prisoner sat examining me from head to foot.
At last I summoned courage to say, 'I fear, Madam, I am an intruder here. I have certainly been shewn into the wrong room.'
'It is, it is my own, my only daughter, my Cherubina!' cried she, with a tremendous voice. 'Come to my maternal arms, thou living picture of the departed Theodore!'