He knew the house well, for it is distinguished from all others in
Prague, both by its shape and its oddly ornamented, unnaturally narrow
front. It is built in the figure of an irregular triangle, the blunt
apex of one angle facing the little square, the sides being erected on
the one hand along the Karlsgasse and on the other upon a narrow alley
which leads away towards the Jews' quarter. Overhanging passages are
built out over this dim lane, as though to facilitate the interior
communications of the dwelling, and in the shadow beneath them there is
a small door studded with iron nails which is invariably shut. The main
entrance takes in all the scant breadth of the truncated angle which
looks towards the monastery. Immediately over it is a great window,
above that another, and, highest of all, under the pointed gable, a
round and unglazed aperture, within which there is inky darkness. The
windows of the first and second stories are flanked by huge figures of
saints, standing forth in strangely contorted attitudes, black with the
dust of ages, black as all old Prague is black, with the smoke of the
brown Bohemian coal, with the dark and unctuous mists of many autumns,
with the cruel, petrifying frosts of ten score winters.
He who knew the cities of men as few have known them, knew also
this house. Many a time had he paused before it by day and by night,
wondering who lived within its massive, irregular walls, behind those
uncouth, barbarously sculptured saints who kept their interminable watch
high up by the lozenged windows.
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