An ingenious system of electric heating, which has since been imitated, allowed the temperature of the walls and room to be increased at will.
I am giving all these details of a perfectly natural invention, producing, with a few painted branches, the supernatural illusion of an equatorial forest blazing under the tropical sun, so that no one may doubt the present balance of my brain or feel entitled to say that I am mad or lying or that I take him for a fool.[1] I now return to the facts where I left them.

When the ceiling lit up and the forest became visible around us, the viscount's stupefaction was immense.

That impenetrable forest, with its innumerable trunks and branches, threw him into a terrible state of consternation.

He passed his hands over his forehead, as though to drive away a dream; his eyes blinked; and, for a moment, he forgot to listen.
I have already said that the sight of the forest did not surprise me at all; and therefore I listened for the two of us to what was happening next door.

Lastly, my attention was especially attracted, not so much to the scene, as to the mirrors that produced it.