Chapter IX
“I often envy the snail. Mon Dieu, think of at ways travelling beneath the comfortable roof of one's own house!”
—Maxime Argon.
ND now I must tell you something about my rooms, the little ledge in London in which I rested, and flapped my wings and preened my feathers. The door of the house rented by Mr. and Mrs. Titch, and disposed of piece-meal to unmarried gentlemen, looked upon a very tiny square opening off a busy street. But my two chambers were at the back, and from their windows I saw nothing of square or street, or any house at all. The green Hyde Park with its trees and grass, and the wide drive where carriages and people aired themselves and lingered, that was what I saw; and often I could fancy myself in the woods and the gardens about a certain house in another land, and then I would shut my eyes and let the picture grow and grow, till I could hear known voices and look upon old faces that perhaps I should never again hear or see in any other fashion. Yes, the exile may be very gay, and jingle the foreign coins in his pocket, and whistle the airs of alien songs, and afterwards write humorously of his adventures; but there are many moments when he and the canary in the cage are very near together.