"One ascends the steps and enters the church. The interior is sad and bare.... Beside the high altar, sculptured and gilded in the Spanish style, in the inter-columns of the two royal oratories, one sees two groups of bronze statues kneeling, with their hands clasped toward the altar. On the right Charles V. and the Empress Isabella, and several princesses; on the left, Philip II. with his wives.... In a corner, near a secret door, is the chair which Philip II. occupied. He received through that door letters and important messages, without being seen by the priests who were chanting in the choir. This church, which, in comparison with the entire building, seems very small, is nevertheless one of the largest in Spain, and although it appears so free from ornamentation, contains immense treasures of marble, gold, relics, and pictures, which the darkness in part conceals, and from which the sad appearance of the edifice distracts one's attention.... But every feeling sinks into that of sadness. The color of the stone, the gloomy light, and the profound silence which surrounds you, recall your mind incessantly to the vastitude, unknown recesses, and solitude of the building, and leave no room for the pleasure of admiration. The aspect of the church awakens in you an inexplicable feeling of inquietude. You would divine, were you not otherwise aware of it, that those walls are surrounded, for a great distance, by nothing but granite, darkness, and silence; without seeing the enormous edifice, you feel it; you feel that you are in the midst of an uninhabited city; you would fain quicken your pace in order to see it rapidly, to free yourself from the weight of that mystery, and to seek, if they exist anywhere, bright light, noise, and life.... One goes to the convent, and here human imagination loses itself; ... you pass through a long subterranean corridor, so narrow that you can touch the walls with your elbows, low enough almost to hit the ceiling with your head, and as damp as a submarine grotto; you reach the end, turn, and you are in another corridor. You go on, come to doors, look, and other corridors stretch away before you as far as the eye can reach. At the end of some you see a ray of light, at the end of others an open door, through which you catch a glimpse of a suite of rooms.... You look through a door and start back alarmed; at the end of that long corridor, into which you have glanced, you have seen a man as motionless as a spectre, who was looking at you. You proceed, and emerge on a narrow court, inclosed by high walls, which is gloomy, overgrown with weeds, and illumined by a faint light which seems to fall from an unknown sun, like the court of the witches described to us when we were children.... You pass through other corridors, staircases, suites of empty rooms, and narrow courts, and everywhere there is granite, a pale light, and the silence of a tomb. For a short time you think you would be able to