tters on the
black wall: "J'ADORE CORALIE, 1823. SIGNE UGENE." "Signe" stands in the
text.

"Ugh!" said the scholar; "'tis here, no doubt."

The key was in the lock, the door was very close to him; he gave it a
gentle push and thrust his head through the opening.

The reader cannot have failed to turn over the admirable works of
Rembrandt, that Shakespeare of painting. Amid so many marvellous
engravings, there is one etching in particular, which is supposed
to represent Doctor Faust, and which it is impossible to contemplate
without being dazzled. It represents a gloomy cell; in the centre is a
table loaded with hideous objects; skulls, spheres, alembics, compasses,
hieroglyphic parchments. The doctor is before this table clad in his
large coat and covered to the very eyebrows with his furred cap. He is
visible only to his waist. He has half risen from his immense arm-chair,
his clenched fists rest on the table, and he is gazing with curiosity
and terror at a large luminous circle, formed of magic letters, which
gleams from the wall beyond, like the solar spectrum in a dark chamber.
This cabalistic sun seems to tremble before the eye, and fills the wan
cell with its mysterious radiance. It is horrible and it is beautiful.

Something very similar to Faust's cell presented itself to Jehan's view,
when he ventured his head through the half-open door. It also was a
gloomy and sparsely lighted retreat. There also stood a large arm-chair
and a large table, compasses, alembics, skeletons of animals suspended
from the ceiling, a globe rolling on the floor, hippocephali mingled
promiscuously with drinking cups, in which quivered leaves of gold,
skulls placed upon vellum checkered with figures and characters, huge
manuscripts piled up wide open, without mercy on the cracking corners of
the parchment; in short, all the rubbish of science, and everywhere
on this confusion dust and spiders' webs; but there was no circle of
luminous letters, no doctor in an ecstasy contemplating the flaming
vision, as the eagle gazes upon the sun.

Nevertheless, the cell was not deserted. A man was seated in the
arm-chair, and bending over the table. Jehan, to whom his back was
turned, could see only his shoulders and the back of his skull; but
he had no difficulty in recognizing that bald head, which nature had
provided with an eternal tonsure, as though desirous of marking, by this
external symbol, the archdeacon's irresistible clerical vocati