13/24 I wanted to breathe again this mild atmosphere where there are no longer hopes or fears. One pulls the knob under the name of the person one seeks--pulls it three, or, it may be, four times in vain. One rings the housekeeper's bell; it reverberates, growing fainter and fainter, gradually stifled by a cavernous subterranean atmosphere. After an age a head peeps round the opening door, the head of a hopeless anachronism, the head of a widow of early Victorian merit, or of an orphan of incredible age. |