em. So I proceeded but slowly, and at last my cigar
shortened to a hot and bitter morsel that I could barely hold between my
lips, while it seemed to me that the night grew each moment more
insufferably oppressive. While I was revolving some impossible means of
cooling my wretched body, the cigar stump began to burn my lips. I flung
it angrily through the open window, and stooped out to watch it falling.
It first lighted on the leaves of the acacia, sending out a spray of red
sparkles, then, rolling off, it fell plump on the dark walk in the
garden, faintly illuminating for a moment the dusky trees and breathless
flowers. Whether it was the contrast between the red flash of the
cigar-stump and the silent darkness of the garden, or whether it was
that I detected by the sudden light a faint waving of the leaves, I know
not; but something suggested to me that the garden was cool. I will take
a turn there, thought I, just as I am; it cannot be warmer than this
room, and however still the atmosphere, there is always a feeling of
liberty and spaciousness in the open air, that partially supplies one's
wants. With this idea running through my head, I arose, lit another
cigar, and passed out into the long, intricate corridors that led to the
main staircase. As I crossed the threshold of my room, with what a
different feeling I should have passed it had I known that I was never
to set foot in it again!

I lived in a very large house, in which I occupied two rooms on the
second floor. The house was old-fashioned, and all the floors
communicated by a huge circular staircase that wound up through the
centre of the building, while at every landing long, rambling corridors
stretched off into mysterious nooks and corners. This palace of mine was
very high, and its resources, in the way of crannies and windings,
seemed to be interminable. Nothing seemed to stop anywhere. Cul-de-sacs
were unknown on the premises. The corridors and passages, like
mathematical lines, seemed capable of indefinite extension, and the
object of the architect must have been to erect an edifice in which
people might go ahead forever. The whole place was gloomy, not so much
because it was large, but because an unearthly nakedness seemed to
pervade the structure. The staircases, corridors, halls, and vestibules
all partook of a desert-like desolation. There was nothing on the walls
to break the sombre monotony of those long vistas of shade. No carvings
on the wain