Black Magic

CHAPTER 1 SUNSHINE In the large room of a house in a certain quiet city in Flanders, aman was gilding a devil. The chamber looked on to the quadrangle round which the house was built; and the sun, just overhead, blazed on the vine leaves clinging to the brick and sent a reflected glow into the sombre spaces of the room. The devil, rudely cut out of wood, rested by his three tails and his curled-back horns against the wall, and the man sat before him on a low stool. On the table in front of the open window stood a row of knights in fantastic armour, roughly modelled in clay; beside them was a pile of vellum sheets covered with drawings in brown and green. By the door a figure of St. Michael leant against a chair, and round his feet were painted glasses of every colour and form. On the whitewashed wall hung a winged picture representing a martyrdom; its vivid hues were the most brilliant thing in the room.