ough a door that closed behind me, in another vast
hall of the palace. It was filled with a subdued crimson light; by
which I saw that slender pillars of black, built close to walls of white
marble, rose to a great height, and then, dividing into innumerable
divergent arches, supported a roof, like the walls, of white marble,
upon which the arches intersected intricately, forming a fretting of
black upon the white, like the network of a skeleton-leaf. The floor was
black.

Between several pairs of the pillars upon every side, the place of the
wall behind was occupied by a crimson curtain of thick silk, hanging in
heavy and rich folds. Behind each of these curtains burned a powerful
light, and these were the sources of the glow that filled the hall. A
peculiar delicious odour pervaded the place. As soon as I entered, the
old inspiration seemed to return to me, for I felt a strong impulse to
sing; or rather, it seemed as if some one else was singing a song in my
soul, which wanted to come forth at my lips, imbodied in my breath. But
I kept silence; and feeling somewhat overcome by the red light and the
perfume, as well as by the emotion within me, and seeing at one end of
the hall a great crimson chair, more like a throne than a chair, beside
a table of white marble, I went to it, and, throwing myself in it, gave
myself up to a succession of images of bewildering beauty, which passed
before my inward eye, in a long and occasionally crowded train. Here I
sat for hours, I suppose; till, returning somewhat to myself, I saw that
the red light had paled away, and felt a cool gentle breath gliding over
my forehead. I rose and left the hall with unsteady steps, finding my
way with some difficulty to my own chamber, and faintly remembering,
as I went, that only in the marble cave, before I found the sleeping
statue, had I ever had a similar experience.

After this, I repaired every morning to the same hall; where I sometimes
sat in the chair and dreamed deliciously, and sometimes walked up and
down over the black floor. Sometimes I acted within myself a whole
drama, during one of these perambulations; sometimes walked deliberately
through the whole epic of a tale; sometimes ventured to sing a song,
though with a shrinking fear of I knew not what. I was astonished at
the beauty of my own voice as it rang through the place, or rather crept
undulating, like a serpent of sound, along the walls and roof of this
superb music-hall. Ent