General Favart lived in the other house through the door in the wall. He came to visit us rarely. He leant more heavily on his cane, and his cloak seemed to have become blacker, his hair whiter, and his scar more prominent. He could scarcely speak a word of English, so I never knew what he thought. But it seemed to me he was sorrowing. One day we children were told that he was dead; after that the door between the two gardens was taken down and the hole in the wall bricked up.
BOOK II—THE PULLING DOWN OF THE WALLS
And man returned to the ground out of which he was taken, and his wife bare children and he builded walls. But thou shalt think an evil thought and say, “I will go up to the land of unwalled villages.”
CHAPTER I—THE RED HOUSE
Dante, it’s time you went to school.”
For the past three years, since he had married the Snow Lady, my father had given me lessons in his study for the last hour of every morning before lunch. It had been the Snow Lady’s idea; she said I was growing up a perfect ignoramus.