“Dear doctor,” resumed the countess, “the white cottage shall stand, if you say why you love it.”
The old man appeared somewhat moved; he crossed and uncrossed his legs; took out his snuff-box, returned it to his pocket without opening it; then, looking at the countess—“You will not pull it down?” he said, indicating with his thin and tremulous hand the habitation visible at the horizon.
“I promise you I will not.”
“Well, so be it; I will do that much for them; I will save the house in which they were happy.”
“Ladies,” continued the old man, “I am but a poor speaker; but I believe that even the least eloquent succeed in making themselves understood when they tell what they have seen. This story, I warn you beforehand, is not gay. To dance and to sing, people send for a musician; they call in the physician when they suffer, and are near to death.”
A circle was formed round Dr Barnaby, who, his hands still crossed upon his cane, quietly commenced the following narrative, to an audience prepared beforehand to smile at his discourse.
“It was a long time ago, when I was young—for, I, too, have been young! Youth is a fortune that belongs to all the world—to the poor as well as to the rich—but which abides with none. I had just passed my examination; I had taken my physician’s degree, and I returned to my village to exercise my wonderful talents, well convinced that, thanks to me, men would now cease to die.
“My village is not far from here. From the little window of my room, I behold yonder white house upon the opposite side to that you now discern. You certainly would not find my village handsome. In my eyes, it was superb; I was born there, and I loved it. We all see with our own eyes the things we love. God suffers us to be sometimes a little blind; for He well knows that in this lower world a clear sight is not always profitable. To me, then, this neighbourhood appeared smiling and pleasant, and I lived happily. The white cottage alone, each morning when I opened my shutters, impressed me disagreeably: it was always closed, still and sad like a forsaken thing. Never had I seen its windows open and shut, or its door ajar; never had I known its inhospitable garden-gate give passage to human being. Your uncle, madam, who had no occasion for a cottage so near his chateau, sought to let it; but the rent was rather higher than anybody here was rich enough to give. It remained empty, therefore, whilst in the hamlet every window exhibited two or three children’s faces peering through the branches of gillyflower at the first noise in the street. But one morning, on getting up, I was quite astonished to see a long ladder resting against the cottage wall; a painter was painting the window-shutters green, whilst a maid-servant polished the panes, and a gardener hoed the flower-beds.
“All the better,” said I to myself; “a good roof like that, which covers no one, is so much lost.