On the two floors above were many bedrooms not only for our growing family, but for that of my Aunt de Laisieu, who, with all her children, used to pay us long and frequent visits, so that even in the babyhood of Eliane and Ernest and Maraquita I never lacked companionship.
My mother's room was called la chambre des colonnes, because at the foot of the bed, and used there instead of bedposts, were two great stone pillars wreathed with carving and reaching to the ceiling. What a pretty room it was! In spring its windows looked down at a sea of fruit-blossoms and flowers in the garden beneath. The bed had a domed canopy, with white muslin curtains embroidered in green spots. Above the doors were two allegorical paintings, one of Love, who makes Time pass, and one of Time, who makes Love pass. A deep, mysterious drawer above the oaken mantelpiece was used by maman for storing pots of specially exquisite preserves that were kept for winter use. On her dressing-table, flowing with muslin and ribbons, I specially remember the great jar of eau de Cologne, which one used to buy, as if it were wine, by the liter.
From this room led papa's, more severe and masculine. Here there were glass cabinets fitted on each side into the deep window-seats and containing bibelots from all over the world. A group of family miniatures hung on the wall near the fireplace.
On a turning of the staircase was a bath-room, with a little sort of sentry-box for cold douches, and at the top of the house an enormous garret, filled with broken old spinning-wheels and furniture, bundles of old dresses, chests full of dusty papers. I found here one day bonne maman's betrothal-dress. It was of stiff, rich satin, a wide blue and white stripe, with a dark line on each side of the blue and a little garland of pink roses running up the white. The long, pointed bodice was incredibly narrow. A strange detail was the coarseness with which this beautiful dress was finished inside. It was lined with a sort of sacking, and the old lace with which it was still adorned was pinned into place with brass safety-pins. Finally, for my description of the house, there was a big courtyard, with the servants' quarters built round it, and a clear little stream ran through a basse-cour stocked with poultry.
I had not seen this house for over fifty years when, some time ago, I went to visit it. The new proprietor, an unprepossessing person, was leaning against the great oaken door. He permitted me, very ungraciously, to enter.
I went through all these rooms that two generations ago had rung with the sounds of our happy young life, and it was misery to me. In the kitchen, which had been so beautiful, the window-panes were broken, and the dismantled walls daubed with whitewash, with dusty, empty bottles where Nicole's Virgin had stood. Upon the table was a greasy, discolored oil-cloth, where one saw M. Thiers, with knitted eyebrows and folded arms, surrounded by tricolor flags. The salon—I sobbed as I stood and looked about it; all, all that I had known and loved had disappeared. The stone Virgin was gone from her niche in the hall. Trembling, I mounted to my dear parents' rooms. What desolation! Unmade beds and rickety iron bedsteads; dust, disorder, and dirt. The carved chimneypiece, with its great drawer, was gone; the paper was peeled from the walls. Only over the doors, almost invisible under their cobwebs, were the painted panels of Love, who makes Time pass, and Time, who makes Love pass. The garden was a dung-heap.
When I came out, pale and shaken, the proprietor, still complacently leaning against the door, remarked, "Eh bien, Madam is glad to have seen her house, isn't she!"
The animal! I could have strangled him!
"I felt that Tante Rose was enchanting"