The rafters of the ceiling formed compartments adorned with
arabesques in the style of the preceding century, which preserved the
colors of the chestnut wood. These decorations, severe in tone,
reflected the light so little that it was difficult to see their
designs, even when the sun shone full into that long and wide and
lofty chamber. The silver lamp, placed upon the mantel of the vast
fireplace, lighted the room so feebly that its quivering gleam could
be compared only to the nebulous stars which appear at moments through
the dun gray clouds of an autumn night. The fantastic figures crowded
on the marble of the fireplace, which was opposite to the bed, were so
grotesquely hideous that she dared not fix her eyes upon them, fearing
to see them move, or to hear a startling laugh from their gaping and
twisted mouths.
At this moment a tempest was growling in the chimney, giving to every
puff of wind a lugubrious meaning,--the vast size of the flute putting
the hearth into such close communication with the skies above that the
embers upon it had a sort of respiration; they sparkled and went out
at the will of the wind.
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