The governess came to fetch my little boy to take him out for a walk, but I would not let him go.
“Oh, no!” I exclaimed, “the child must not leave me to-day, I am afraid of something happening.”
What happened was fortunately of a less serious nature than I, with my love for my family, was dreading.
I had my grandmother living with me at that time, and she was blind. It was the grandmother who had given me most of my furniture. She was a spectral-looking woman, and her beauty was of a cold, hard type. She was fearfully tall, and she looked like a giantess. She was thin, and very upright, and her long arms were always stretched in front of her, feeling for all the objects in her way, so that she might not knock herself, although she was always accompanied by the attendant whom I had engaged for her. Above this long lady was her little face, with two immense, pale blue eyes, which were always open, even when asleep through the night. She was generally dressed from head to foot in gray, and this neutral color gave something unreal to her general appearance. My mother, after trying to comfort me, went away about two o’clock. My grandmother, seated opposite me in her large Voltaire armchair, questioned me:
“What are you afraid of?” she asked. “Why are you so mournful? I have not heard you laugh all day.”
I did not answer, but looked at my grandmother. It seemed to me that the trouble I was dreading would come through her.
“Are you not there?” she persisted.
“Yes, I am here,” I answered, “but please do not talk to me.”
She did not utter another word, but, with her two hands on her lap, sat there for hours. I sketched her strange, prophet-like face.
It began to grow dusk, and I thought I would go and dress, after being present at the meal taken by my grandmother and the child. My friend, Rose Baretta, was dining with me that evening, and I had also invited a most charming man, who was very intelligent and distinguished. His name was Charles Haas. Arthur Meyer came, too, a young journalist already very much in vogue. I told them about my forebodings with regard to that day, and begged them not to leave me before midnight.