The camera pans up the chain-link mesh gate that dissolves and changes into images of great iron flowers or oak leaves on the heavy gate. The gate surrounds a distant, forbidding-looking castle with towers. In the private world of the castle grounds, zoo pens have been designed for exotic animals. The prows of two empty gondolas are tied to a wooden wharf on a private lake, and the castle is reflected in the water. In the distance, a single, postage stamp-sized window of the castle is lit, always seen at approximately the same place in each frame.
Palm trees surround a crumbling gate on the abandoned, cluttered grounds.
The castle appears in a closer, medium shot. During an even closer shot of the window, the light within the window suddenly goes out. From an angle inside the room facing out of the enormous window, a silhouetted figure can be seen lying stiffly on a bed. The scene shifts to swirling snowflakes that fill the entire screen. An old man has pronounced his last dying word as the snowstorm globe is released from his grip and rolls from his relaxed hand, bounces down two carpeted steps and shatters into tiny pieces on the marble floor.