a black mirror

?So: the object in Madame?s drawing room is a black mirror. It is seven inches tall and six inches wide. It is framed within a worn black leather case that is shaped like a book. Indeed, the case is lying open on a table, just as though it were a deluxe edition meant to be picked up and browsed through; but there is nothing there to be read or seen?except the mystery of one?s own image projected by the black mirror?s surface before it recedes into its endless depths, its corridors of darkness.?

?Truman Capote, Music for Chameleons, from the collection Music for Chameleons, 1980.