shutters are always closed; the balconies are hung with swallows'
nests; the doors are for ever shut. Straggling grasses have outlined
the flagstones of the steps with green; the ironwork is rusty. Moon
and sun, winter, summer, and snow have eaten into the wood, warped the
boards, peeled off the paint. The dreary silence is broken only by
birds and cats, polecats, rats, and mice, free to scamper round, and
fight, and eat each other. An invisible hand has written over it all:
'Mystery.'

"If, prompted by curiosity, you go to look at this house from the
street, you will see a large gate, with a round-arched top; the
children have made many holes in it. I learned later that this door
had been blocked for ten years. Through these irregular breaches you
will see that the side towards the courtyard is in perfect harmony
with the side towards the garden. The same ruin prevails. Tufts of
weeds outline the paving-stones; the walls are scored by enormous
cracks, and the blackened coping is laced with a thousand festoons of
pellitory. The stone steps are disjointed; the bell-cord is rotten;
the gutter-spouts broken. What fire from heaven could have fallen
there? By what decree has salt been sown on this dwelling? Has God
been mocked here? Or was France betrayed? These are the questions we
ask ourselves. Reptiles crawl over it, but give no reply. This empty
and deserted house is a vast enigma of which the answer is known to
none.

"It was formerly a little domain, held in fief, and is known as La
Grande Breteche. During my stay at Vendome, where Despleins had left
me in charge of a rich patient, the sight of this strange dwelling
became one of my keenest pleasures. Was it not far better than a ruin?
Certain memories of indisputable authenticity attach themselves to a