the writer 's woman was now with it , alive yet not alive-her mind had been utterly destroyed by her first sight of it as it really was , with all of its little masks and glamours thrown aside-and all of the glamours were only mirrors , of course , throwing back at the terrified viewer the worst thing in his or her own mind , heliographing images as a mirror may bounce a reflection of the sun into a wide unsuspecting eye and stun it to blindness .