DOI article:
Harland, Henry: Tirala-tirala...
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27805#0071
By Henry Harland 67
best of all, spending the afternoon with Helene, at Granjolaye. It
was because the rain interdicted these methods of amusement that
I betook myself for solace to Constantinople.
*
# *
I don’t know why—I don’t think any one knew why—that part
of our house was called Constantinople ; but it had been called so
from time immemorial, and we all accepted it as a matter of
course. It was the topmost story of the East Wing—three
rooms : one little room, by way of ante-chamber, into which you
entered from a corkscrew staircase ; then another little room, at
your left ; and then a big room, a long dim room, with only two
windows, one at either end. And these rooms served as a sort of
Hades for departed household gods. They were crowded, crowded
to overflowing, with such wonderful old things! Old furniture
—old straight-backed chairs, old card-tables, with green cloth
tops, and brass claws for feet, old desks and cabinets, the dismem-
bered relics of old four-post bedsteads ; old clothes—old hats,
boots, cloaks—green silk calashes, like bonnets meant for the ladies
of Brobdingnag—and old hoop-petticoats, the skeletons of dead
toilets ; old books, newspapers, pictures ; old lamps and candlesticks,
clocks, fire-irons, vases ; an old sedan-chair ; old spurs, old swords,
old guns and pistols : generations upon generations of superannuated
utilities and vanities, slumbering in one another’s shadows, under
a common sheet of dust, and giving off a thin, penetrating, ancient
smell.
When it rained, Constantinople was my ever-present refuge.
It was a land of penumbra and mystery, a realm of perpetual
wonderment, a mine of inexhaustible surprises. I never visited it
without finding something new, without getting a sensation.
One day, when Andre was there with me, we both saw a ghost—
yes,
best of all, spending the afternoon with Helene, at Granjolaye. It
was because the rain interdicted these methods of amusement that
I betook myself for solace to Constantinople.
*
# *
I don’t know why—I don’t think any one knew why—that part
of our house was called Constantinople ; but it had been called so
from time immemorial, and we all accepted it as a matter of
course. It was the topmost story of the East Wing—three
rooms : one little room, by way of ante-chamber, into which you
entered from a corkscrew staircase ; then another little room, at
your left ; and then a big room, a long dim room, with only two
windows, one at either end. And these rooms served as a sort of
Hades for departed household gods. They were crowded, crowded
to overflowing, with such wonderful old things! Old furniture
—old straight-backed chairs, old card-tables, with green cloth
tops, and brass claws for feet, old desks and cabinets, the dismem-
bered relics of old four-post bedsteads ; old clothes—old hats,
boots, cloaks—green silk calashes, like bonnets meant for the ladies
of Brobdingnag—and old hoop-petticoats, the skeletons of dead
toilets ; old books, newspapers, pictures ; old lamps and candlesticks,
clocks, fire-irons, vases ; an old sedan-chair ; old spurs, old swords,
old guns and pistols : generations upon generations of superannuated
utilities and vanities, slumbering in one another’s shadows, under
a common sheet of dust, and giving off a thin, penetrating, ancient
smell.
When it rained, Constantinople was my ever-present refuge.
It was a land of penumbra and mystery, a realm of perpetual
wonderment, a mine of inexhaustible surprises. I never visited it
without finding something new, without getting a sensation.
One day, when Andre was there with me, we both saw a ghost—
yes,