They do not answer “home”; nor do they even say “to our house.” They say “the house.” It may be a wretched, tumble-down shed: all the same it is the house, the only house in all the world. Some day there will be others,—perhaps. But that is not so certain, after all.
Even young men and women, and quite grown persons, married folk, if you please, use the same expression. At the house they used to do this, at the house there was that. One might suppose they were speaking of their present house. Not at all; they are speaking of the house of their childhood, the house where their father and mother lived, and which they have not been able to keep, or the customs of which they have changed—it’s all one—but which in their memory is always the same. You quite understand that there cannot be two.
I was a school-boy then; oh, just a little primary school child, perhaps seven or eight years old,—seven or eight I think. I always said “the house” just as people say la patrie when they mean France. Still, I knew very well that there were people who called it by other names, names which sound grander to a child. The baby’s Italian nurse used to call it il palazzo, rounding her mouth for the second a, and letting the last syllable die gently away in a lingering whisper. The farmer who brought the rent, or more probably an instalment of it, or even a fowl of some sort, to encourage the master to have patience, would say the château, with several circumflex accents. A lady who came from Paris to visit us—you would know she was from Paris by the lorgnette which she carried—had given it the dignified title your mansion. And during the crisis of which I shall have presently to tell, any one might read on the humiliating bill that was posted on our front gate the words Villa for sale. Villa, mansion, château, palace, how colourless are all these majestic words, notwithstanding their fine sound! What was the use of tangling up the truth in words? “The house” is quite enough. “The house” tells the whole story.
It is still there: it has an ancient habit of being there. You would have no trouble in finding it—the whole country knows the Rambert house, because our family has always lived in it. It has been carefully repaired—too carefully, indeed—from garret to cellar, furbished and decorated, repainted and polished outside and in. Of course it will not do to let houses go on forever wearing themselves out, and a decaying homestead has poetic charm only to passing travellers. Every-day life has its indispensabilities. But nobody cares that one’s house should be new any more than that one’s parents should be young. If they are young they are less entirely ours. They feel a right to an existence of their own, whereas later, our life is their life, and that is all that we ask of them, for we are not exacting.
Before the house was restored I was showing it to a lady, a lady from Paris like her of the lorgnette. It is probable, quite likely, certain, indeed, that I had previously sung its praises in no modest tones. My description doubtless lacked neither the farmer’s circumflex accents nor the lingering susurration of the Italian nurse. She may have expected to see another Versailles, or at the very least another Chantilly. So when, all alive with interest, duly instructed, and her anticipation keyed up to pitch, she was introduced to the incomparable edifice, she had the effrontery to exclaim in a tone of surprise, “Is this it?”
I felt her disappointment. With the utmost courtesy I escorted her to her carriage—even when boiling over with rage one is polite to a woman—but I have never seen her since that day: I should not be able to endure the sight of her. Perfect understanding with a stranger concerning the places and things of one’s childhood is simply impossible. It is a case of different dimensions. They are to be pitied, for their eyes are incapable of seeing. They do not see the house, they see only a house. How then are they to understand?
You come upon an iron gateway between two square granite columns;—the gate freshly painted and in three sections, those on either side bolted to the ground, permitting the use of only that in the centre. The three are opened only on grand occasions, for carriages and limousines. In old times they were opened for hay waggons. In old times, for that matter, you had only to push a little and you could go in by any gate you pleased, the bolts being out of commission. All sorts of unbidden folk used to come into the court, and to me their intrusions were highly disagreeable. Children are strongly conservative in their sense of proprietorship.
“What difference does it make?” grandfather would say.
Grandfather detested enclosures of any sort.
The stone columns used to be covered with moss, but now they are draped with climbing plants. The trees have been trimmed of the too-exuberant branches that used to seem to bend in blessing above the roof, or to tap upon the window panes. One never realises the vigour of a tree; grant it a few square yards and it soon overshadows them, and gradually draws nearer and nearer, like a friend who has the right of entrance. Now that our trees have been trimmed—for the time being—the sunlight caresses the walls of the old house, and this is better, in the matter of hygiene. Humidity is unwholesome, especially in autumn. But here is a puzzle; in my time, I mean in the time when I was young, there was a sun-dial carved in high relief upon the wall. Above it was a tarnished and half-effaced inscription, the secret of which I refused to penetrate: ME LUX, VOS UMBBA. Father had translated it for me and I made haste to forget it that I might still feel the thrill of the mysterious syllables. Above it was the iron finger whose slender shadow marked the hour all day long, and encircling it were the names of unknown cities, London, Boston, Pekin, and the rest, intended to show the differences in time the whole world round, as if the whole world were merely a dependance of the house, which dictated the laws of time to them all. But a linden tree, in an inadvertent moment, had rendered useless all this labour of light. The linden had indeed been pruned, but by an unlucky mischance, when the front of the house was restored the entire dial had been covered with a coat of whitewash. Oh, ill-starred restoration! But am not I responsible, for was it not I who ordered it? Grown people are capable of just such profanities. They do it without meaning any harm. No doubt I had said, carelessly, “That poor dial is of no use.” (The trees had not been trimmed then.) It is a mistake to let fall a thought; some one is sure to pick it up. A mason who had chanced to hear me actually thought to give me pleasure with his whitewash brush, and when I tried to restrain his zeal it was too late.