Another panel slides open, and beyond it is a dim and dusty hallway. Wide, lit with flickering light and decorated with an assortment of mirrors and photographs, each collecting dust on the cracking, ancient glass that protects it from the ages. Here, so deep in the house, however, the wallpaper is still vibrant red and the paneling unfaded, long kept from sunlight in the darkest recesses of solitude.
Oh pardon, je ne voulais pas vous effrayer. Continuons la visite, il
y a encore beaucoup des choses ... d‚couvrir... Alors, gardez votre sang-froid
et restez group‚s. Je serais navr‚ de vous perdre... si t"t... En passant
devant ces inestimables oeuvres d'art, peut-ˆtre ressentez-vous comme une
impression bizarre... N'ayez pas peur ! Ce n'est qu'une illusion d'optique.
La vraie beaut‚ de cette maison nous attend plus
loin...
<Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't want to frighten you. Let us continue the tour, there's so much to discover... So, keep your blood cold and stay together. I would be sorry to lose you... so soon... While passing these priceless works of art, perhaps you sense a bizarre impression... Don't be afraid! It's nothing but an optical illusion. The real beauty of this house awaits us farther on...>
On the walls hang four magnificent portraits, painted eons ago by an artist long turned to dust. Yet, as you watch, the images fade away and are replaced by scenes of death and decay... or are they? The portraits seem to return back to normal on just a second glance...
just one of the errie portraits, before
and after transformation.
At the end of the hallway, flanked by flickering sconces above a threadbare couch, hangs a colossal oil portrait of a young woman in full bridal gown, anxiously clutching a bouquet. Her painted gaze seems to stare back at us as we intrude on the deepest, darkest chambers of the mansion...
Through a curtained arch a kind of sitting room comes into view, containing overstuffed couches and chairs - ornately hand carved but sitting unoccupied for decades - flanking polished wood tables and resting on imported rugs never tread on, all collecting dust.
Nearby, in a recessed alcove, a stern-looking bust of a woman carved from bronze but blackened with age, stands guard behind a box filled with overgrown plants. The inanimate object seems to posses a troublesome quality - no matter where in the room you dare glance at it, the statue has seemingly physically turned and is staring right back at you!
The modest room opens into a chamber even more impressive.
Two towering floors high, decorated in once-extravagant plaster walls (all now flaking and yellowed) with the most luxuriant tile, a staircase rises to a landing before a triple-arched picture window, draperies pulled back to reveal a view of passing thunderheads and dead, swaying tree branches extended like clawed arms silhouetted against the night sky. From this landing a staircase rises in each direction, connecting to an upper balcony-corridor which wraps around to each side of the room...
Lit with uncountable candles, each flickering in holders extending off the staircase banisters, perched in wall sconces and in the cobwebbed grand chandelier, the room is bathed in an unnatural orange - until all the lights flicker out at once and lightning plays across the room, casting shadows down the steps, just for the candles to be relit all at once again.
We pass alongside another staircase which lowers into the center of the room. A long, unbroken chain of strange vehicles descend the staircase in perpetual motion, passing alongside a moving carpet and then back up another staircase... a piercing, sharp female voice cries out to us from above...
Veuillez faire attention ... la marche en montant ... bord ! Le bal ne pourra commencer que si vous restez toujours assis bien calmement !
Kindly watch your step as you board please! The party will commence only if you remain quietly seated at all times!
Passing a gilded statue of a griffin, the dark carriages slowly mount the
creaking staircase to a landing...
