A traveler, stricken with a serious illness, stops for the night in an abandoned castle. In order to somehow pass the time, he looks at the paintings and reads descriptions of them in a volume found on the pillow. Moving the candelabra, he suddenly sees in a niche of the room, hitherto hidden by shadows, an amazing painting - a portrait of a young girl. Something unknown and strange attracts the eye to the portrait, and something equally terrible repels it.