But now let us put
spurs to these lazy steeds of ours, and try to get on a little faster."
While they are galloping towards Paris, we will return to the
chateau--as quiet now as it had been noisy a little while before. In
the young duke's room, a candelabrum, with several branches, stood on a
round table, so that the light from the candles fell upon the bed, where
he lay with closed eyes, as motionless as a corpse, and as pale. The
walls of the large chamber, above a high wainscot of ebony picked out
with gold, were hung with superb tapestry, representing the history of
Medea and Jason, with all its murderous and revolting details. Here,
Medea was seen cutting the body of Pelias into pieces, under pretext of
restoring his youth--there, the madly jealous woman and unnatural
mother was murdering her own children; in another panel she was
fleeing, surfeited with vengeance, in her chariot, drawn by huge dragons
breathing out flames of fire. The tapestry was certainly magnificent in
quality and workmanship, rich in colouring, artistic in design, and very
costly--but inexpressibly repulsive. These mythological horrors gave
the luxurious room an intensely disagreeable, lugubrious aspect, and
testified to the natural ferocity and cruelty of the person who had
selected them.
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