After having aided her in undressing with the utmost care, and respectfully kissed Madame de Hansfeld's hand, Iris closed the door of her godmother's chamber, drew a sofa across the sill, which, opening, formed a bed, and, having carefully bolted the entrance of the secret staircase, threw herself on the couch, and was soon in a deep slumber.
CHAPTER X
[THE PRINCE DE HANSFELD]
An immense chamber, occupying the whole of one wing in the Hôtel Lambert, formed the entire dwelling-place of Arnold de Glustein, Prince of Hansfeld, the mysterious personage, concerning whom so many strange conjectures and varied rumours were afloat.
And well might the aspect of the long gallery or chamber we are about to describe warrant the many charges of whimsical originality.
The moment chosen for introducing the reader to this strange abode is shortly after the sounds of the organ had ceased (to the extreme satisfaction of the princess), that is to say, about the hour when the pale light of a winter's day began to dissipate the mists of the morning.
Let the reader picture to himself a room nearly one hundred feet in length, with a ceiling crossed by large projecting beams, once painted and gilded, as well as the spaces between them. By a caprice of the prince all the windows had been closed up, except one high, long, and narrow Gothic casement, placed at the extremity of the gallery, and filled with panes of painted glass. The light thus admitted through this narrow opening produced a singular effect by struggling against the blaze of six wax-lights, burning in an ancient brazen candelabrum suspended from one of the joists by a silken cord, close to the window itself. Thanks to this method of lighting the place, that portion of that vast gallery was, day and night, supplied with a clear, soft light, while the remainder of the spacious chamber was lost in obscurity.
Nothing could be more singular than the gradual shading off of the light, which, at first entering all the more brilliantly as the rays were in a manner filtered through the high window with its variegated panes, decreased insensibly until it wholly disappeared in the distant recesses of the chamber, while the different objects it encountered on its passage, sharing in the effect of the diminishing brightness, assumed all manner of wild and fantastic forms; for instance, as the expiring light struggled towards the end of the gallery, its fading beams, striking against the designs wrought upon various suits of Damascus steel armour, seemed to send forth a shower of bright, scintillating sparks.
Almost beside the only small door which gave admittance into this gallery, and in one of its gloomiest corners, might be discerned a white mass resembling a human form. This was a skeleton attired in the most whimsical manner. On its head it wore a bishop's mitre; one hand leaned upon a beautifully ornamented sword, of the time of the Renaissance, while the other held a seven-stringed ivory lute, the base of which was supported on the knee; by a fanciful caprice, a wreath of roses (a great rarity at that time of year) of surpassing beauty and exquisite perfume, surmounted this lute. A mantle of white cloth, studded with the letters X and M, interwoven and embroidered in gold, hung in majestic folds over the hollow chest of the skeleton, and, falling in long-flowing drapery, allowed no part of its figure to be seen, with the exception of the lower part of the thigh and the whole of the right foot. This foot, remarkable for its smallness, was clad, as though in mockery, in a white satin shoe, whose silken sandals floated in long-streaming bows on the leg-bone, white and polished as ivory.
But if the eye of the spectator, becoming sufficiently accustomed to darkness, should thoroughly investigate the more minute parts of this singular object, he might be able to discern beneath the silken sandals and slipper of satin various dark-coloured spots, easily recognised as those formed by blood.