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Thus the past in this cellar; in every nook and corner of this rambling, chaotic cellar, the past. Changes and changes—but not one change for the better. All around me evidence of somebody’s indifference and faithlessness to old possessions. On all sides, symbols of somebody’s downfall and ruin.

“Je vous remercie, Madame.”

“C’est moi qui vous remercie, Monsieur.”

On my way out—on the crooked stone staircase leading upwards to the hole in the wall—I look back.

And down there, in the dim light from the lamps, the gaunt, white-haired woman darns away at the faded velvet curtain. Down there, from its throne of draperies, the black cat watches the widow with lurid yellow eyes. Down there in vague disorder—in an atmosphere of shadows and ambiguities, of moth, cobweb and mist—down there, lie bright things and sombre things, tarnished things and threadbare things, frail things, fast-fading things; things and things, and all of them old, discarded, forgotten things.

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