Without speaking, the old woman lighted a candle at the
gas jet, then hobbled in front of me down a stone
passage to the top of a flight of stone steps.
" '
Voilà!' she said; 'go down into the cellar there and
do what you like. I shall see nothing, hear nothing, know
nothing. You are free, you understand-perfectly free.'
"Ha,
messieurs, need I describe to you
forcément, you
know it yourselves-that shiver, half of terror and half of
joy, that goes through one at these moments? I crept
down, feeling my way; I could hear my breathing and the
scraping of my shoes on the stones, otherwise all was
silence. At the bottom of the stairs my hand met an
electric switch. I turned it, and a great electrolier of
twelve redglobes flooded the cellarwith a red light. And
behold, I was not in a cellar, but in a bedroom, a great,
rich, garish bedroom, coloured blood red from top to
bottom. Figure it to yourselves,
messieurs et dames! Red
carpet on the floor, red paper on the walls, red plush on
the chairs, even the ceiling red; everywhere red, burning
into the eyes. It was a heavy, stifling red, as though the
light were shining through bowls of blood. At the far end
stood a huge, square bed, with quilts red like the rest,
and on it a girl was lying, dressed in a frock of red velvet.
At the sight of me she shrank away and tried to hide her
knees under the short dress.
"I had halted by the door.