On the evening of the day when he took possession of his house, the master, having first shown her all its other beauties, brought his wife to the room.
She looked round in wonder. But he made her sit in one of the great chairs, seated himself in the other and spoke to her in these words:
“Sweetheart, this room is for you and me and for none other in the world. I have placed it in the most secluded part of the house, far from the counting-house, where we work, from the passages, along which our servants go, and from the drawing-room, where we receive our guests, ay, even from our marriage-bed, where you will sleep by my side.”
She took his hand and kissed it and looked at him.
“It shall be the temple of our marriage, hallowed by our love, which is greater than anything that we know. Here we will pray to Him Who gave us to each other. Here we will talk gladly and earnestly every evening when our hearts impel us to. And, when we come to die, our son shall bring his wife here and they shall do as we did.”
Thereupon he wrote down in a document how all this had happened and they both sealed it with their names. He hid the document in a secret recess in the wall. And, when all this was accomplished, they fell upon their knees and, folding their hands together, offered a simple prayer to God before they went to rest.
These two are long since dead. But their son complied with their will and his son after him and so on and so forth until the present day.
And, however riches might increase or diminish with the varying fortunes of the times, the old house in the square continued in the possession of the family. For he who was its head always lived in such a way that he kept his ancestral home.
The room stood untouched, as was appointed, and the document grew old and yellow in the secret recess in the wall. Once only in the time of each master of the house was it taken out; and that was on the evening when he first brought his young wife to the secret chamber. Then they wrote their names upon it and put it away again.
But it became the custom for each of them that took lawful possession of the room to adorn it with a piece of furniture after his own taste and heart. And they were strange objects that, in the course of time, gathered round the two great, strange chairs.