My blood ran cold, as I looked from Goblin, down into the vaults, where these forgotten creatures, with recollections of the world outside--of wives, friends, children, brothers--starved to death, and made the stones ring with their unavailing groans. But, the thrill I felt on seeing the accurst wall below, decayed and broken through, and the sun shining in through its gaping wounds, was like a sense of victory and triumph. I felt exalted with the proud delight of living, in these degenerate times, to see it. As if I were the hero of some high achievement! The light in the doleful vaults was typical of the light that has streamed in, on all persecution in God's name, but which is not yet at its noon! It can not look more lovely to a blind man newly restored to sight, than to a traveler who sees it, calmly and majestically, treading down the darkness of that Infernal Well. Goblin, having shown les oubliettes, felt that her great coup was struck. She let the door fall with a crash, and stood upon it with her arms a-kimbo, sniffing prodigiously. When we left the place, I accompanied her into her house, under the outer gateway of the fortress, to buy a little history of the building. Her cabaret, a dark low room, lighted by small windows, sunk in the thick wall--in the softened light, and with its forge-like chimney; its little counter by the door, with bottles, jars, and glasses on it; its household implements are scraps of dress against the wall; and a sober looking woman (she must have a congenial life of it, with Goblin) knitting at the door--looked exactly like a picture by Ostade. I walked round the building on the outside, in a sort of dream, and yet with the delightful sense of having awakened from it, of which the light, down in the vaults, had given, me the assurance. The immense thickness and giddy height of the walls, the enormous strength of the massive towers, the great extent of the building, its gigantic proportions, frowning aspect, and barbarous irregularity, awaken awe and wonder. The recollection of its opposite old uses; an impregnable fortress, a luxurious palace, a horrible prison, a place of torture, the court of the Inquisition; at one and the same time, a house of feasting, fighting, religion, and blood, gives to every stone in its huge form a fearful interest, and imparts new meaning to its incongruities. I could think of little, however, then, or long afterward, but the sun in the dungeons.