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I. "Guide to the Holy Land"
1. A marble staircase, which he had cordoned off with a white ribbon.
2. She described the house as a series of "rooms opening inside a single room." Upon entering the foyer, she found that the door had locked behind her.
3. "Only then did I realize that excavation can be an unforgiving task. The terrain seemed vast, and already I felt the floorboards shifting beneath my feet."
4. Instability.
 1. A tendency toward unpredictable behavior.
2. A fast growing disturbance or wave in a body of water.
5. This little-known French film renders their house as an empire fraught with internal dissension. The architecture itself suggests a conflict between aesthetic beauty and the heroine's ability to navigate the seemingly endless blue corridor.
6. Infini. Translated from the French as "infinite."
7. A previously unpublished letter fragment, in which she refers to their brief correspondence as her "house by the sea."
8. "Since reaching the harbour, I have remembered only the gatekeeper. His pale hands and fragile wrists."
9. Meaning a window shattered as she reached for the little silver key. That was when her skirt became ensnared in the ruined glass.
10. The smallest disturbance seemed to devastate the ocean's pristine shore. Only then did they determine that the city had in fact been built around an inland sea.
II. "My Secret Book"
1. Two of the darkest rooms, long since cordoned off from visitors.
2. She described their exchange as a "staircase burning in a locked house." When asked, she would list each of the possessions she had lost in the fire.
3. "Only then did I understand why the key to his armoire remained hidden from view. Within every box, I found only compartment after compartment."
4. Inaccessible.
1. Something unattainable by ordinary means.
2. Meaning that one seems frigid or unapproachable.
3. Referring to a research station on the North Pole (See also: Pole of Inaccessibility).
5. The painting renders her conscious mind as a window overlooking a barren field. To an untrained eye, the ice gathering on the ledge seems to herald a lengthy solitude.
6. In this little-known documentary (c. 1929), the heroine positions a camera within her "house by the sea" and films the city she has built around it.
7. Erinnerungsvermygen. Translated from the German as "recollection."
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