Stone benches, black with moss and fungi, lined it at intervals, and a sort of pale night-grass covered the pathway. There was not a soul to be seen throughout its whole length, which appeared very natural, for it did not seem as if the street were made for any one to walk in, but as if it were intended to be kept secluded from public use. I walked on, however, looking for some opening out of it, and hoping every moment to find an exit. But I suddenly came to the end. It was a _cul-de-sac_, and a high brick wall barred my further progress. In the middle of this wall was set a door of polished brass. The shadow of a tall and grotesque façade rested upon the wall and on the narrow deserted street, like an immense black pall. The solitude of the place was strangely calm. With that frightful din and roar of the palace life so near, the silence seemed almost supernatural. It cast a shadow of distrust over me. I almost felt as if that wall, that roof with its towering front, were built of the deaf stones spoken of in Scripture. All at once the wind rattled the dry grass on the top of the wall, making a low, soft, mournful noise. I started from my revery, hardly able to account for the feeling of dread that crept over me. Half ashamed of my idle fears, I pushed at the door with all my might. Slowly, noiselessly, the huge door swung back, and I stepped into a paved court-yard, with a garden on one side and a building suggestive of nocturnal mystery and gloom on the other. The façade of this building was still more gloomy than that on the outside of the wall. All the windows were closed. On the upper story the shutters were like those used in prisons. No other house could be seen. The high wall ran all round and enclosed the garden. The walks were bordered with diminutive Chinese trees, planted in straight rows; grass covered half of them, and moss the rest. Nothing could be imagined more wild and more deserted than this house and this garden. But the object that attracted my immediate attention was a woman, the only animate being then visible to me in the apparent solitude. She was seated beside a small pond of water, and I soon discovered that she was not alone, but was nursing a naked child about four years old. The moment the woman became conscious of my presence, she raised her head with a quick, impetuous movement, clasped her bare arms around the nude form at her breast, and stared at me with fixed and defiant eyes. Her aspect was almost terrifying. She seemed as if hewn out of stone and set there to intimidate intruders. She was large, well made, and swarthy; her features were gaunt and fierce, but looked as if her face might once have been attractive. I relaxed my hold of the door; it swung back with a dull, ominous thud, and I stood half trembling beside the dark, defiant woman, whose eyes only gave any indication of vitality, hoping to prevail upon her to show me my way out of that dismal solitude.