spices.

After we have gone some way in life we know the secret influence exerted
by places on the condition of the soul. Who has not had his darksome
moments, when fresh hope has come into his heart from things that
surrounded him? The fortunate, or the unfortunate man, attributes an
intelligent countenance to the things among which he lives; he listens
to them, he consults them--so naturally superstitious is he. At
this moment the countess turned her eyes upon all these articles of
furniture, as if they were living beings whose help and protection she
implored; but the answer of that sombre luxury seemed to her inexorable.

Suddenly the tempest redoubled. The poor young woman could augur nothing
favorable as she listened to the threatening heavens, the changes of
which were interpreted in those credulous days according to the ideas
or the habits of individuals. Suddenly she turned her eyes to the two
arched windows at the end of the room; but the smallness of their panes
and the multiplicity of the leaden lines did not allow her to see the
sky and judge if the world were coming to an end, as certain monks,
eager for donations, affirmed. She might easily have believed in such
predictions, for the noise of the angry sea, the waves of which beat
against the castle wall, combined with the mighty voice of the tempest,
so that even the rocks appeared to shake. Though her sufferings were now
becoming keener and less endurable, the countess dared not awaken her
husband; but she turned and examined his features, as if despair
were urging her to find a consolation there against so many sinister
forebodings.

If matters were sad around the poor young woman, that face,
notwithstanding the tranquillity of sleep, seemed sadder still. The
light from the lamp, flickering in the draught, scarcely reached beyond
the foot of the bed and illumined the count's head capriciously; so that
the fitful movements of its flash upon those features in repose produced
the effect of a struggle with angry thought. The countess was scarcely
reassured by perceiving the cause of that phenomenon. Each time that a
gust of wind projected the light upon the count's large face, casting
shadows among its bony outlines, she fancied that her husband was about
to fix upon her his two insupportably stern eyes.

Implacable as the war then going on between the Church and Calvinism,
the count's forehead was threatening even while he slept. Many furrows,
produce