ead with which it had been blocked
up. It was with deep emotion that the old man having selected from his
bunch of keys the one he wanted, inserted it in the keyhole, and made the
door turn upon its hinges. Immediately he felt on his face a current of
damp, cold air, like that which exhales from a cellar suddenly opened.
Having carefully re-closed and double-locked the door, the Jew advanced
along the hall, lighted by a glass trefoil over the arch of the door. The
panes had lost their transparency by the effect of time, and now had the
appearance of ground-glass. This hall, paved with alternate squares of
black and white marble, was vast, sonorous, and contained a broad
staircase leading to the first story. The walls of smooth stone offered
not the least appearance of decay or dampness; the stair-rail of wrought
iron presented no traces of rust; it was inserted, just above the bottom
step, into a column of gray granite, which sustained a statue of black
marble, representing a negro bearing a flambeau. This statue had a
strange countenance, the pupils of the eyes being made of white marble.
The Jew's heavy tread echoed beneath the lofty dome of the hall. The
grandson of Isaac Samuel experienced a melancholy feeling, as he
reflected that the footsteps of his ancestor had probably been the last
which had resounded through this dwelling, of which he had closed the
doors a hundred and fifty years before; for the faithful friend, in favor
of whom M. de Rennepont had made a feigned transfer of the property, had
afterwards parted with the same, to place it in the name of Samuel's
grandfather, who had transmitted it to his descendants, as if it had been
his own inheritance.
To these thoughts, in which Samuel was wholly absorbed, was joined the
remembrance of the light seen that morning through the seven openings in
the leaden cover of the belvedere; and, in spite of the firmness of his
character, the old man could not repress a shudder, as, taking a second
key from his bunch, and reading upon the label, The Key of the Red Room,
he opened a pair of large folding doors, leading to the inner apartments.
The window which, of all those in the house, had alone been opened,
lighted this large room, hung with damask, the deep purple of which had
undergone no alteration. A thick Turkey carpet covered the floor, and
large arm-chairs of gilded wood, in the severe Louis XIV. style, were
symmetrically arranged along the wall. A second door
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