I wanted to fly; had that impulse very strongly; but I burnt my boats with my inquiry of the incredibly ancient, one-eyed porteress.

I made my way across the damp court-yard, under the enormous portico, and into the chilly stone hall that no amount of human coming and going sufficed to bring back to a semblance of life.

Mademoiselle was expecting me.

One went up a great flight of stone steps into one of the immensely high, narrow, impossibly rectangular ante-rooms that one sees in the frontispieces of old plays.
The furniture looked no more than knee-high until one discovered that one's self had no appreciable stature.

The sad light slanted in ruled lines from the great height of the windows; an army of motes moved slowly in and out of the shadows.