helped to draw off his boots, and to soothe him said that Abraham would return in seven years, he cursed and cried, "Seven years shalt thou be a beggar," and so he soon died.
And so old memories swept through her soul like a hurried play of shadows, the images intermixing and blending strangely, while between them went and came unknown bearded faces, and great flowers with marvellous broad spreading foliage.[1] Then the Rhine seemed to murmur the melodies of the Agade, and from its waters the pictures, large as life and in strange exaggerated guise, came forth one by one. There was the forefather Abraham painfully and hurriedly breaking the idols, who were hastily running out of his way; Mizri defending himself fiercely against the maddened Moses; Mount Sinai flashing and flaming; King Pharaoh swimming in the Red Sea, holding his zigzagged gold crown tight in his teeth, frogs with men's faces swimming in between, and the waves foaming and roaring, while a dark giant-hand rose threatening from the deep.[2]
That was the Mouse Tower of Bishop Hatto,
- ↑ Grosse Blumen mit fabelhaft breitem Blattwerk. The whole spirit of Gothic decoration, of grotesque figures and faces, twined about with vines and crochets, or expanded leaves exaggerated into strange yet beautiful forms, is given in this passage.
- ↑ According to magicians and occultists the most awful and terrible apparition which threatens the neophyte in his first introduction to the supernatural world is the giant foot or hand. This one was probably suggested by the romance of King Arthur.
