And the sight of its
grim, historic frontal made twenty years seem as yesterday. I meant to
content myself with a mere glimpse at the barred windows, but the impulse
seized me to ring the bell which I used to ring so often. It was a
foolish, fantastic impulse, but I obeyed it. I found it was occupied by
an Englishman, a Mr. Venables--there seem to be more English here than
in my time--and I sent in my card and asked if I might see the famous
dining-room. There was no objection raised, my host was most courteous,
my name, he said, was familiar to him; he is evidently proud of his
dilapidated old palace, and has had the grace to save it from the
attentions of the upholsterer. No! twenty years have produced very little
change in the room where we had so many pleasant sittings. The ancient
stamped leather on the walls is perhaps a trifle more ragged, the old oak
panels not blacker--that were impossible--but a trifle more worm-eaten; it
is the same room. I must have seemed a sad boor to my polite cicerone as I
stood, hat in hand, and silently took in all the old familiar details.
The same smell of mildewed antiquity, I could almost believe the same
furniture. And indeed my host tells me that he took over the house as it
was, and that some of the chairs and tables are scarcely more youthful than
the walls.
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