me the reflections of such ancient history. But I cannot express the
discomfort I felt at such an intrusion of mystery and beauty into a room
which I had succeeded in filling with my own personality until I thought
no more of the room than of myself. The anaesthetic effect of custom being
destroyed, I would begin to think and to feel very melancholy things. The
door-handle of my room, which was different to me from all the other
doorhandles in the world, inasmuch as it seemed to open of its own accord
and without my having to turn it, so unconscious had its manipulation
become; lo and behold, it was now an astral body for Golo. And as soon as
the dinner-bell rang I would run down to the dining-room, where the big
hanging lamp, ignorant of Golo and Bluebeard but well acquainted with my
family and the dish of stewed beef, shed the same light as on every other
evening; and I would fall into the arms of my mother, whom the misfortunes
of Genevieve de Brabant had made all the dearer to me, just as the crimes
of Golo had driven me to a more than ordinarily scrupulous examination of
my own conscience.

But after dinner, alas, I was soon obliged to leave Mamma, who stayed
talking with the others, in the garden if it was fine, or in the little
parlour where everyone took shelter when it was wet. Everyone except my
grandmother, who held that "It is a pity to shut oneself indoors in the
country," and used to carry on endless discussions with my father on the
very wettest days, because he would send me up to my room with a book
instead of letting me stay out of doors. "That is not the way to make him
strong and active," she would say sadly, "especially this little man, who
needs all the strength and character that he can get." My father would
shrug his shoulders and study the barometer, for he took an interest in
meteorology, while my mother, keeping very quiet so as not to disturb him,
looked at him with tender respect, but not too hard, not wishing to
penetrate the mysteries of his superior mind. But my grandmother, in all