Absalom, in a decision to visit his friends in Barovia, decides to venture into the Western Outskirts and upon doing so stumbles on the disgusting sight. He peers at the work for a short time dispassionately, silently, before promptly turning on a heel and boarding the next ferry to the Midway Haven Alchemical Observatory (offering merely a wave to those who greet him), and then from there, back to Dementlieu, thoroughly convinced of Barovia's status as a barbarous and backwards realm.