The panel which was opposite the bed had been so blackened by time andeffaced by dust that at first he could distinguish only confused lines andundecipherable contours; but the while he was thinking of other things his eyescontinually wandered back to it with that mysterious and mechanical persistencewhich the gaze sometimes has. Singular details began to detach themselves fromthe confused and obscure whole. His curiosity was roused. When the attentionbecomes fixed it is like a light; and the tapestry growing gradually lesscloudy finally appeared to him in its entirety, and stood out distinctlyagainst the sombre wall, as though vaguely illumined.
It was only a panel with a coat of arms upon it, the blazon, no doubt, offormer owners of the château; but this blazon was a strange one.
The escutcheon was at the foot of the panel, and it was not this thatfirst attracted attention. It was of the bizarre shape of German escutcheons ofthe fifteenth century. It was perpendicular and rested, although rounded at thebase, upon a worn, moss covered stone. Of the two upper angles, one bent to theleft and curled back upon itself like the turned down corner of a page of anold book; the other, which curled upward, bore at its extremity an immense andmagnificent morion in profile, the chinpiece of which protruded further thanthe visor, making the helm look like a horrible head of a fish. The crest wasformed of two great spreading wings of an eagle, one black, the other red, andamid the feathers of these wings were the membranous, twisted and almost livingbranches of a huge seaweed which bore more resemblance to a polypus than to aplume. From the “middle of the plume rose a buckled strap, which reached to theangle of a rough wooden pitchfork, the handle of which was stuck in the ground,and from there descended to a hand, which held it.
To the left of the escutcheon was the figure of a woman, standing. It wasan enchanting vision. She was tall and slim, and wore a robe of brocade whichfell in ample folds about her feet, a ruff of many pleats and a necklace oflarge gems. On her head was an enormous and superb turban of blond hair onwhich rested a crown of filigree that was not round, and that followed all theundulations of the hair. The face, although somewhat too round and large, wasexquisite. The eyes were those of an angel, the mouth was that of a virgin; butin those heavenly eyes there was a terrestrial look and on that virginal mouthwas the smile of a woman.
Behind the woman, bending towards her as though whispering in her ear,appeared a man.
Was he a man? All that could be seen of his body—legs, arms and chest—wasas hairy as the skin of an ape; his hands and feet were crooked, like the clawsof a tiger. As to his visage, nothing more fantastic and frightful could beimagined. Amid a thick, bristling beard, a nose like an owl’s beak and a mouthwhose corners were drawn by a wild–beast–like rictus were just discernible. Theeyes were half hidden by his thick, bushy, curly hair. Each curl ended in aspiral, pointed and twisted like a gimlet, and on peering at them closely itcould be seen that each of these gimlets was a little viper.
The man was smiling at the woman. It was disquieting and sinister, thecontact of these two equally chimerical beings, the one almost an angel, theother almost a monster; a revolting clash of the two extremes of the ideal. Theman held the pitchfork, the woman grasped the strap with her delicate pinkfingers.
As to the escutcheon itself, it was sable, that is to say, black, and inthe middle of it appeared, with the vague whiteness of silver, a fleshless,deformed thing, which, like the rest, at length became distinct. It was adeath’s head. The nose was lacking, the orbits of the eyes were hollow anddeep, the cavity of the ear could be seen on the right side, all the seams ofthe cranium could be traced, and there only remained two teeth in the jaws.
But this black escutcheon, this livid death’s head, designed with suchminuteness of detail that it seemed to stand out from the tapestry, was lesslugubrious than the two personages who held up the hideous blazon and whoseemed to be whispering to each other in the shadow.
At the bottom of the panel in a corner was the date: 1503.
Excerpt From: Victor Hugo. The Memoirs of Victor Hugo.