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beautiful Palace that ever was. On the sunset side were all the baths, and the bedrooms were in front of us as we were. The baths were all of pale olive-coloured marble, and the bedrooms had lemon-coloured everything. Then there were the kitchens on the sunrise side, and they were russet, like dead leaves are in autumn in one's dreams. The place we had come through was perfectly black everything, and only used for offices and such things. There were the most horrid things everywhere about; black beetles and cockroaches, and goodness knows what; but they can't hurt when the Fairy Prince is there. I think a little girl would be eaten though if she went in there alone.
Then he said: "Come on! This is only the Servants' Hall, nearly everybody stays there all their lives." And I said: "Kiss me!" So he said: "Every step you take is only possible when you say that." We came into a dreadful dark passage again, so narrow and low, that it was like a dirty old tunnel, and yet so vast and wide that everything in the whole world was contained in it. We saw all the strange dreams and awful shapes of fear, and really I don't know how we ever got through, except that the Prince called for some splendid strong creatures to guard us. There was an eagle that flew, and beat his wings, and tore and bit at everything that came near; and there was a lion that roared terribly, and his breath was a flame, and burnt up the things, so that there was a great cloud; and rain fell gently and purely, so that he really did the things good by fighting them. And there was a bull that tossed them on his horns, so that they changed into butterflies; and there was a man who kept on telling everybody to be quiet and not make a noise. So we came at last in the next house of the Palace. It was a great dome of violet, and in the centre the moon shone. She was a full moon, and yet she looked like a woman quite, quite young. Yet her hair was silver, and finer than spiders' webs, and it rayed about her, like one can't say what; it was all too beautiful. In the middle of the hall there was a black stone pillar, from the top of which sprang a fountain of pearls; and as they fell upon the floor, they changed the dark marble to the colour of blood,
Domus X
v. Regnum
v. Porta
4 Loci secundum
Elementa
Qliphoth
Via (
Hebrew characters) v. Crux
Cherubim
Domus IX v. Fundamentum
Yod v. Membrum sancti foederis