The ancients, too, had mysterious retreats of the same kind, in which luxury was adapted to enormities.  The pattern has been preserved underground in some sepulchres in Egypt, notably in the tomb of King Psammetichus, discovered by Passalacqua.  The ancient poets have recorded the horrors of these suspicious buildings. Error circumflexus, locus implicitus gyris.

Gwynplaine was in the “little rooms” of Corleone Lodge.  He was burning to be off, to get outside, to see Dea again.  The maze of passages and alcoves, with secret and bewildering doors, checked and retarded his progress.  He strove to run; he was obliged to wander.  He thought that he had but one door to thrust open, while he had a skein of doors to unravel.  To one room succeeded another.  Then a crossway, with rooms on every side.

Not a living creature was to be seen.  He listened.  Not a sound.

At times he thought that he must be returning towards his starting-point; then, that he saw some one approaching.  It was no one.  It was only the reflection of himself in a mirror, dressed as a nobleman. That he?  Impossible!  Then he recognized himself, but not at once.

He explored every passage that he came to.

He examined the quaint arrangements of the rambling building, and their yet quainter fittings.  Here, a cabinet, painted and carved in a sentimental but vicious style; there, an equivocal-looking chapel, studded with enamels and mother-of-pearl, with miniatures on ivory wrought out in relief, like those on old-fashioned snuff-boxes; there, one of those pretty Florentine retreats, adapted to the hypochondriasis of women, and even then called boudoirs.  Everywhere—­on the ceilings, on the walls, and on the very floors—­were representations, in velvet or in metal, of birds, of trees; of luxuriant vegetation, picked out in reliefs of lacework; tables covered with jet carvings, representing warriors, queens, and tritons armed with the scaly terminations of a hydra.  Cut crystals combining prismatic effects with those of reflection.  Mirrors repeated the light of precious stones, and sparkles glittered in the darkest corners.  It was impossible to guess whether those many-sided, shining surfaces, where emerald green mingled with the golden hues of the rising sun where floated a glimmer of ever-varying colours, like those on a pigeon’s neck, were miniature mirrors or enormous beryls.  Everywhere was magnificence, at once refined and stupendous; if it was not the most diminutive of palaces, it was the most gigantic of jewel-cases.  A house for Mab or a jewel for Geo.

Gwynplaine sought an exit.  He could not find one.  Impossible to make out his way.  There is nothing so confusing as wealth seen for the first time.  Moreover, this was a labyrinth.  At each step he was stopped by some magnificent object which appeared to retard his exit, and to be unwilling to let him pass.  He was encompassed by a net of wonders.  He felt himself bound and held back.