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VII
Knowing from experience that nobody who returns
unexpectedly is quite welcome, it was not without a feeling
of constraint, not without misgivings, that I called on
the Baroness as soon as I was back in town.
In the front garden everything proclaimed the winter ;
the trees were bare, the garden seats had been removed ;
there were gaps in the fence where the gates had been ; the
wind was playing with the withered leaves on the paths ;
the cellar holes were stuffed with straw.
I found it difficult to breathe in the close atmosphere
of the drawing-room, heated by a tiled stove. Fixed to
the walls, the stoves had the appearance of sheets
suspended from the ceiling, large and white. The double-
windows hung in their hinges, ever}’ chink was pasted over
with paper ; the space between the inner and outer win-
dows was filled with snow-white cotton wool, giving the
large room the appearance of a death-chamber. In
imagination I endeavoured to strip it of its semi-fashion-
able furniture, and recall its former aspect of rough
homeliness. In those days the walls had been bare, the
floor plain deal ; the memory of the black dining-table,
which could boast of no cover and with its eight legs
resembled a huge spider, called up the severe faces of my
father and stepmother.
The Baroness received me cordially, but her melancholy
face betrayed grief. Both uncle and father-in-law were
there, playing cards with the Baron in an adjoining room.
I shook hands with the players, and then returned with
the Baroness into the drawing-room. She sat down
90
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