Iron Butterflies Read Online Free PDF

dullness of long days of riding behind drawn or nearly drawn curtains (for the Grafin had protested on our setting out that too much light gave her headaches), we clattered in the early dusk into the cobbled streets of Axelburg itself.
    The Grafin, who had been drowsing during most of the last dreary day, now jerked back the nearest curtain. I could see lamps shining and a bit of house wall here and there. The coach grated to a stop and there came a blaze of dazzling light as the door was opened, the steps let down, and a number of liveried servants moved to greet us.
    As I stretched my cramped limbs and looked about I saw we had pulled into a walled courtyard and the imposing house before us was no inn. The Grafin twitched her skirts into order and made me the most formal of curtsies.
    “My lady,” she spoke in English, “please to enter. This is Gutterhof, our home.”
    The house was at least three stories high and, in spite of many lights in the windows, bad the heavy look of a fortress rather than a home. But the fact wewere at the end of our journey made me welcome this first sight of one of Axelburg's ancient houses, ugly and slightly menacing though it seemed.’ Within I had a confused impression of a large hall through which we followed a lackey holding a branched candlestick. He was quickly joined by a discreetly but richly dressed older woman, while one wearing the apron of a maid fell in behind as I was escorted with some pomp up a staircase and down another but narrower hall. Until at length I was ushered with ceremony into a cavernous room where even four candelabra such as the footman carried made very little way against corner shadows.
    It was a chamber of what seemed to me royal ostentation. The bed itself was a hugh cavern, half walled by curtains supported by carven posts, possessing a canopy surmounted at its peak by a shield upheld by fantastical beasts over which the candlelight flickered so dimly their fierce eyes, claws, and other portions of their gilded anatomy only showed at intervals.
    The curtains, the thick carpet underfoot, those heavy drapes which must conceal windows somewhere behind their folds were all of a time dulled blue. What could be seen of the walls showed panels painted with sprays of flowers wreathed and intertwined as if to suggest a jungle or a forest such as sheltered Sleeping Beauty in the old tales.
    There was a dressing table of delicate ivory and gold which might have strayed in by mistake, then been too frightened to escape. For it huddled well back from the bed. Some chairs, a few throne-backed in keeping with an earlier age, others more modern, stood about here and there accompanied by small and large tables.
    The lackey had bowed himself out. Now the silk-clad older woman, who might have been sister to Katrine so frozen and correct was her expression, informed me that food and drink was on its way and Truda, indicating the maid, who stood with her hands concealed under her apron, was entirely at the service of the gracious and highborn lady.
    I thanked her and she withdrew in a crablike fashion,making three curtsies, each slightly less deep, before she disappeared through the door. So I was remained with Truda, and any one less like Letty I could not imagine. At that moment I was near overcome by a wave of bitter homesickness. I wanted to be in my own room, in my proper place, so much I could have wailed aloud like a child abandoned in a stark boarding school.
    The room did not smell musty, but I felt as if I could not draw a deep breath here. That massive bed appeared to threaten rather than invite one to rest—
    Nonsense! I must curb my imagination. It was nothing but a bed, and the girl facing me, her eyes cast down, her face blank, had no reason to greet me as a friend. Her face was round, almost childish, while her hair had been so tightly braided, and those braids fastened back under a half-cap, that the hair appeared near pulled from its roots about her