DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62134#0011
THE OLD PALACE.
3
force. She stood guard over us—the good creature !—for
two mortal hours, and when the door at length was opened
by a grand lacquey, had the satisfaction of seeing us step
through the very first. But before this happy moment
arrived, we had to wait, as I said, two hours; and leaving,
therefore, the patient old lady as our representative before
the little door which led into the gallery of the Hercules
Hall, whither our tickets admitted us, and before which
door no one but ourselves had yet presented themselves,
Myra and I ranged along the white-washed galleries of the
old portion of the Palace in which we were. Cannot you
see these vistas of white-washed wall, with grim old por-
traits of powdered ladies and gentlemen, in hoops, ruffles,
gold lace, and ermine, and framed in black frames, inter-
spersed amid heavy wreaths and arabesques of stucco ?—
dazzlingly white walls, dazzlingly white arched ceilings,
diminishing in long perspective ! Now we came upon a
strange sort of little kitchen in the thick wall, where a
quaint copper kettle, standing on the now cold hearth, told
of coffee made for some Royal servant some hours before;
now we were before the door of some Kammcr-Jungfer;
now in a gallery with the white-wash, but without the
portraits, where opposite to every door stood a large white
cupboard—a goodly row of them.
And now below stairs, on passing through a doorway, you
stood upon a low terrace; above your head a ceiling rich with
ponderous wreaths of fruit and flowers, and other stucco
ornaments which probably, once upon a time, had been gilt;
faded frescoes representing gods, goddesses, and Cupids,
mingling with the other ornaments. From the wall pro-
truded like a hideous and grotesque excrescence, a grotto-
work summer-house, a perfect incrustation of pebbles and
spars, and with an ugly Triton on either side the entrance
bearing a brown marble shell before him.
3
force. She stood guard over us—the good creature !—for
two mortal hours, and when the door at length was opened
by a grand lacquey, had the satisfaction of seeing us step
through the very first. But before this happy moment
arrived, we had to wait, as I said, two hours; and leaving,
therefore, the patient old lady as our representative before
the little door which led into the gallery of the Hercules
Hall, whither our tickets admitted us, and before which
door no one but ourselves had yet presented themselves,
Myra and I ranged along the white-washed galleries of the
old portion of the Palace in which we were. Cannot you
see these vistas of white-washed wall, with grim old por-
traits of powdered ladies and gentlemen, in hoops, ruffles,
gold lace, and ermine, and framed in black frames, inter-
spersed amid heavy wreaths and arabesques of stucco ?—
dazzlingly white walls, dazzlingly white arched ceilings,
diminishing in long perspective ! Now we came upon a
strange sort of little kitchen in the thick wall, where a
quaint copper kettle, standing on the now cold hearth, told
of coffee made for some Royal servant some hours before;
now we were before the door of some Kammcr-Jungfer;
now in a gallery with the white-wash, but without the
portraits, where opposite to every door stood a large white
cupboard—a goodly row of them.
And now below stairs, on passing through a doorway, you
stood upon a low terrace; above your head a ceiling rich with
ponderous wreaths of fruit and flowers, and other stucco
ornaments which probably, once upon a time, had been gilt;
faded frescoes representing gods, goddesses, and Cupids,
mingling with the other ornaments. From the wall pro-
truded like a hideous and grotesque excrescence, a grotto-
work summer-house, a perfect incrustation of pebbles and
spars, and with an ugly Triton on either side the entrance
bearing a brown marble shell before him.