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“ The Susta (Sans. Swachchha-toya) 'chatters over strony ways and babbles on the pebbles' tripping, like a skilled dancing girl, along her meandering course through the woods below the lonely hills. Right on the river's brim above a flight of 150 steps rising from the river stands at the foot of the hills a lonesome marble palace. Around it there is no habitation of man—the village and the cotton mart of Barich being far off. ”

“ Dark masses of clouds overcast the top of the Avalli hills that day. The gloomy woods and the sooty waters of the Susta were waiting in a terrible suspense in an ominous calm. Suddenly the land, water and sky shivered and a wild tempest-blast rushed howling through the distant pathless woods displaying its lightning teeth like a raving maniac who had broken his chains. The desolate halls of the palace banged their doors and moaned in the bitterness of anguish. ”

“ Then, Oh, thou flower of the desert, swept away by that bloodstained dazzling ocean of grandeur with its foam of jealousy and rocks and shoals of intrigue, on what land of cruel death wast thou cast, or on what other land more splendid but more cruel?
Suddenly at this moment that crazy Meher Ali screamed out, "Stand back! Stand back!! All is false! All is false!!" ”

“ The oppressive closeness of the evening was broken by a sudden gust of wind and the still surface of the Susta rippled and curled like the hair of a nymph, and the woods wrapt in the evening gloom gave forth a simultaneous murmur all at once and seemed to awaken from a black dream. ”

“ That at one time countless unrequited passions and unsatisfied longings and lurid flames of wild blazing pleasure raged within that palace and that the curse of those heartaches and blasted hopes had made every stone of that palace thirsty and hungry, eager to swallow up like a famished ogress any living man who might chance to come. ”

“ The mad man now cried out, "Stand back! Stand back!! All is false! All is false!!"
I saw the day had dawned and Meher Ali was going round and round the palace with his usual cry in that dreadful weather. Suddenly it occurred to me that perhaps that man also had once lived in that house and that though he had come out mad he came there every day and went round and round, fascinated by the weird spell cast by the marble demon. ”

“ Then I came under such a spell that this intangible, inaccessible, unearthly affair appeared to be the only reality in the world—and all else a mere dream. That I, that is to say, Srijut so-and-so, the eldest son of so-and-so of blessed memory, was drawing a monthly salary of Rs. 450 by the discharge of my duties as collector of cotton duties, and driving in my dog-cart to office every day in a short coat and sola hat, appeared to me to be such an astonishingly ludicrous illusion that I burst into a horse-laugh, as I stood in the gloom of that vast silent hall. ”

“ I could catch a glimpse of a part of the room spread with a Persian carpet—some one was sitting inside on a bed—I could not see her, but only caught a glimpse of two exquisite feet in gold-embroidered slippers hanging out from loose saffron-coloured paijamas and placed idly on the orange-coloured velvet carpet. ”

“ During the day I would go to my work worn and tired cursing the bewitching night and her empty dreams, but as night came my daily life with its bonds and shackles of work would appear a petty, false, ludicrous vanity. ”

“ Now the fountains do not play, the songs have ceased, and the snowy feet no longer step gracefully on the snowy marble. It is now the vast and solitary quarters for cess-collectors like us, oppressed with solitude and destitute of female society. ”

“ Not one of those who lived there for three consecutive nights could escape these cruel jaws save Meher Ali who had come out at the cost of his reason.
I asked, "Is there no means whatever of my release?" The old man said, "There is only one means, but that is extremely difficult. I will tell you what it is, but first you must hear the history of a young Persian girl who once lived in that pleasure-dome. A stranger or a more heart-rending event never happened on this earth."
Just at this stage the coolies announced that the train was coming. So soon? ”

“ But our newly acquired friend said with a sly smile, "There happen more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are reported in your newspapers." As we had never stirred out of our homes before, the whole demeanour of the man simply struck us dumb with wonder. ”