Gustav Meyrink

“ In the foreground posed the marionettes. Here were grouped a humpbacked dwarf with chalky face, a gray, grinning devil, and a sallow, rouged actress with carmine lips. The three seemed possessed of some satanic secret that had paralyzed their movements. The semblance of death brooded over the entire motionless group.
The Pierrot in the bottle now began to move restlessly. He doffed his white felt hat, bowed and occasionally greeted the Persian prince, who with crossed legs sat on the cap of the bottle. His antics amused the audience. ”

“ In its deepest profundities the shaft broadens out—it is there that the phantoms meet. They do not greet one another and they ask no questions—there is nothing which one would care to know about the other. ”

“ Prince Darasche-Koh with turban and aigrette, Count de Faast as Pierrot, marionettes and musicians, stiff as wooden puppets. The elephant reached the stage, and with its trunk lifted one man after another from its back. There was much applause and a yell of delight as the beast seized the Pierrot and sliding him into the neck of the bottle, closed the metal top. Then the Persian prince was placed on top of the bottle. ”

“ In the middle of the scene stood a huge glass bottle in the form of a globe, with walls at least a foot thick. It was about twice the height of an average man and very roomy. The back of the scene was draped with pink silk hangings.
Then the colossal ebony doors of the hall opened and admitted a richly caparisoned elephant, which advanced with majestic tread. On its head sat the crimson executioner guiding the beast with the butt of his cudgel. Chains of amethysts dangled from the elephant's tusks, and plumes of peacock feathers nodded from its head. ”

“ Then the shadows of the Sins and Lusts slip through the cracks in the doors and the crevices in the walls into the open air—slink into the vast and hearkening night. The sleeping animals scent them and start and whimper. ”

“ In the centre of the cellar there lies an iron plate. Whosoever ventures to lift it may look into a black and narrow shaft with slippery sides. Cold and sheer it runs down into the heart of the earth. ”

“ A rough figure representing a huge knot dashed by them in wild flight to escape a Hellenic warrior in shimmering armor.
"If you were the Gordian knot, Mynherr, and were pursued by Alexander the Great, wouldn't you be frightened?" teased the inverted Bat, tapping the Dutchman coquettishly on the end of the nose with her fan.
"The sharp wit of the pretty Marquise Bat betrays her," smiled a lanky Satan with tail and cloven foot. "What a pity that only as a Bat are you to be seen with your feet in the air." ”

“ The people of the town are weary from their day's work, which they call duty, and so they seek to replenish their forces through sleep, in order to be able to destroy the happiness and prosperity of their fellow brethren—in order to plan new murders in the newest, freshest sunshine. ”

“ From the first floor to the attic it is inhabited by discontented and unhappy people. Whosoever enters it is at once seized by a feeling of disquietude, of dismay, and mental torment. It is a dark and sinister structure, buried almost up to its belly in the earth of the unpaved hill. ”

“ And so nobody has ever found out whither this shaft goes.
Should you, however, be possessed of clear eyes, you will be able to see without light. You will be able to see even in the darkness, when everybody else is sleeping. ”