第22章

He expressly forbade that anything should be touched, or looked after, or any repairs made on the estate during his absence.He added, between his teeth, that he would return at Easter, or Trinity Sunday, as they say in the song; and, just as the song has it, Trinity Sunday passed without a sign of him.He died last year at Monaco;my brother-in-law and myself were the first to enter the chateau after it had been abandoned for thirty-two years.We found a chestnut-tree growing in the middle of the parlour.As for the park, it was useless trying to visit it, because there were no longer any paths or alleys."My companion ceased to speak; and only the regular hoof-beat of the trotting horse, and the chirping of insects in the grass, broke the silence.On either hand, the sheaves standing in the fields took, in the vague moonlight, the appearance of tall white women kneeling down; and I abandoned myself awhile to those wonderful childish fancies which the charm of night always suggests.After driving under the heavy shadows of the mall, we turned to the right and rolled up a lordly avenue at the end of which the chateau suddenly rose into view--a black mass, with turrets en poivriere.We followed a sort of causeway, which gave access to the court-of-honor, and which, passing over a moat full of running water, doubtless replaced a long-vanished drawbridge.The loss of that draw-bridge must have been, I think, the first of various humiliations to which the warlike manor had been subjected ere being reduced to that pacific aspect with which it received me.The stars reflected themselves with marvelous clearness in the dark water.Monsieur Paul, like a courteous host, escorted me to my chamber at the very top of the building, at the end of a long corridor; and then, excusing himself for not presenting me at once to his wife by reason of the lateness of the hour, bade me good-night.

My apartment, painted in white and hung with chintz, seemed to keep some traces of the elegant gallantry of the eighteenth century.

A heap of still-glowing ashes--which testified to the pains taken to dispel humidity--filled the fireplace, whose marble mantlepiece supported a bust of Marie Antoinette in bisuit.Attached to the frame of the tarnished and discoloured mirror, two brass hooks, that had once doubtless served the ladies of old-fashioned days to hang their chatelaines on, seemed to offer a very opportune means of suspending my watch, which I took care to wind up beforehand; for, contrary to the opinion of the Thelemites, I hold that man is only master of time, which is Life itself, when he has divided it into hours, minutes and seconds--that is to say, into parts proportioned to the brevity of human existence.

And I thought to myself that life really seems short to us only because we measure it irrationally by our own mad hopes.We have all of us, like the old man in the fable, a new wing to add to our building.I want, for example, before I die, to finish my "History of the Abbots of Saint-Germain-de-Pres." The time God allots to each one of us is like a precious tissue which we embroider as we best know how.I had begun my woof with all sorts of philological illustrations....So my thoughts wandered on; and at last, as Ibound my foulard about my head, the notion of Time led me back to the past; and for the second time within the same round of the dial I thought of you, Clementine--to bless you again in your prosperity, if you have any, before blowing out my candle and falling asleep amid the chanting of the frogs.