DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62133#0117
A GENRE PICTURE IN THE NEW HOME,
101
tall loops upon the very top of her head, and adorned with
a brilliant tiara; she is radiant also in a green satin dress
and crimson scarf. The young wife is represented, of course,
slimmer than the widow now appears. Yet, as the good
Madame Thekla sits knitting beside her window among
her birds, perched up there, almost like a bird herself, upon
that high step in the window, I can perceive a considerable
resemblance between the lady with black eyes and brilliant
tiara and the elderly lady in the dark blue and white striped
morning gown, and with the thin black hair streaked with
grey elaborately plaited low down in the neck.
Birds and clocks, one would say, were Madame Thekla’s
passion—at least birds are : clocks, I am assured, were the
passion of the “ blessed Tax-gatherer.” Here are larks,
buntings, blackbirds,—sparrows even, if I am to believe my
ears and eyes; and the chirping, whistling, pecking, flutter-
ing, in Madame Thekla’s window is something incon-
ceivable ! I wonder she does not go crazy, sitting there
hour after hour as she does.
The first night we slept here I feared that I myself should
have gone crazy,—not from the birds but from the
clocks ! In the Werffs’ kitchen, and in the Werffs’ bed-
room, there are clocks, all of which may be heard striking
into our rooms ; one of them is a cuckoo-clock with chimes,
and in each of our rooms there is a time-piece : in Clare’s
room, hanging just over her sofa, is a picture of a gloomy
cathedral,—it has a clock which booms forth the horns and
the quarters with chimes, also ! What an astonishment it
was to us when the cathedral first boomed forth the time !
Clare sprang up from the sofa, where she had been resting
herself after the fatigue of flitting, as though she had
been shot. Opposite to my bed stands a French time-
piece like a small temple. Madame Tliekla seems
maliciously to place her clocks precisely where they may
101
tall loops upon the very top of her head, and adorned with
a brilliant tiara; she is radiant also in a green satin dress
and crimson scarf. The young wife is represented, of course,
slimmer than the widow now appears. Yet, as the good
Madame Thekla sits knitting beside her window among
her birds, perched up there, almost like a bird herself, upon
that high step in the window, I can perceive a considerable
resemblance between the lady with black eyes and brilliant
tiara and the elderly lady in the dark blue and white striped
morning gown, and with the thin black hair streaked with
grey elaborately plaited low down in the neck.
Birds and clocks, one would say, were Madame Thekla’s
passion—at least birds are : clocks, I am assured, were the
passion of the “ blessed Tax-gatherer.” Here are larks,
buntings, blackbirds,—sparrows even, if I am to believe my
ears and eyes; and the chirping, whistling, pecking, flutter-
ing, in Madame Thekla’s window is something incon-
ceivable ! I wonder she does not go crazy, sitting there
hour after hour as she does.
The first night we slept here I feared that I myself should
have gone crazy,—not from the birds but from the
clocks ! In the Werffs’ kitchen, and in the Werffs’ bed-
room, there are clocks, all of which may be heard striking
into our rooms ; one of them is a cuckoo-clock with chimes,
and in each of our rooms there is a time-piece : in Clare’s
room, hanging just over her sofa, is a picture of a gloomy
cathedral,—it has a clock which booms forth the horns and
the quarters with chimes, also ! What an astonishment it
was to us when the cathedral first boomed forth the time !
Clare sprang up from the sofa, where she had been resting
herself after the fatigue of flitting, as though she had
been shot. Opposite to my bed stands a French time-
piece like a small temple. Madame Tliekla seems
maliciously to place her clocks precisely where they may