Some few ottomans and golden candelabra of Eastern figure were in
various stations about; and there was the couch, too--the bridal
couch--of an Indian model, and low, and sculptured of solid ebony, with
a pall-like canopy above. In each of the angles of the chamber stood on
end a gigantic sarcophagus of black granite, from the tombs of the kings
over against Luxor, with their aged lids full of immemorial sculpture.
But in the draping of the apartment lay, alas! the chief fantasy of all.
The lofty walls, gigantic in height--even unproportionably so--were hung
from summit to foot in vast folds with a heavy and massive-looking
tapestry--tapestry of a material which was found alike as a carpet on
the floor, as a covering for the ottomans and the ebony bed, as a canopy
for the bed, and as the gorgeous volutes of the curtains which partially
shaded the window. The material was the richest cloth of gold. It was
spotted all over, at irregular intervals, with arabesque figures, about
a foot in diameter, and wrought upon the cloth in patterns of the most
jetty black. But these figures partook of the true character of the
arabesque only when regarded from a single point of view. By a
contrivance now common, and indeed traceable to a very remote period of
antiquity, they were made changeable in aspect. To one entering the room
they bore the appearance of simple monstrosities, but upon a farther
advance this appearance gradually departed; and, step by step as the
visitor moved his station in the chamber he saw himself surrounded by an
endless succession of the ghastly forms which belong to the superstition
of the Norman, or arise in the guilty slumbers of the monk. The
phantasmagoric effect was vastly heightened by the artificial
introduction of a strong continual current of wind behind the
draperies--giving a hideous and uneasy animation to the whole.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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