Perched on the misty heights of the Rhine, Drachenfels Castle looms like a scar upon the landscape, its slender towers piercing the low-hanging clouds. Abandoned since the late 19th century, it is infamous not for its ghosts, but for the still life hanging in the great hall.
 
It depicts a bouquet of purple foxgloves, their bells bent as if under the weight of an invisible wind. Legend has it that the last Countess of Drachenfels, a woman as beautiful as she was cruel, had this painting made the day her lover took his own life, poisoned by these very flowers. Since then, the petals never wilt. Worse: they move. Servants who dared to clean the hall swore they saw the stems reaching toward them, like greedy fingers. A gardener, driven mad with terror, claimed the flowers breathe at night.
 
In 1923, a young art historian named Friedrich came to study the painting. He spent three nights in the castle, meticulously noting every detail. The last entry in his notebook was a hasty sketch: the foxgloves, escaping the frame, surrounding his bed. His body was never found. Only a torn page, pasted to the back of the painting, bore these words, scrawled in haste: « They touched me. Now I am part of the bouquet. »
 
Since then, on full moon nights, it is said that the flowers in the painting come to life, their bells chiming softly in the castle’s silence. And sometimes, at dawn, a fresh foxglove appears at the foot of the frame… as if the collection is growing.