Page:The genius - Carl Grosse tr Joseph Trapp 1796.djvu/138

 dow received every traveller, however mean and distressed with the most amiable hospitality; her boasted virtues and the tale of her misfortunes made me determine to pay her a visit, and I took leave of my informant on a cross-road.

He showed me the way to the lady's castle, whose outskirts I reached at twilight. The gardens were beautiful, embellished with statues and water-works, and the mansion itself had the magnificent grandeur of a palace. Tying my horse to a tree, I ascended a flight of marble steps, entered the hall, which was entirely deserted. I then went through several apartments, most sumptuously furnished, and still nobody came to speak to me. I stopped in a fourth apartment to look at some paintings, when a person in black, whom I took for a servant, opened another door, without lifting his eyes from the ground. I spoke to him, he made no answer, and ere I could turn to follow him, had vanished from my sight.

"By Heavens! Carlos," exclaimed I, "this exceeds all thou haft hitherto lived to see."