e was finishing his luncheon,
wearing a plain alpaca coat, and waited upon by his servant in a
working-jacket of striped linen, purple and white. He would complain
that I had not been to see him for a long time; that he was being
neglected; he would offer me a marchpane or a tangerine, and we would
cross a room in which no one ever sat, whose fire was never lighted,
whose walls were picked out with gilded mouldings, its ceiling painted
blue in imitation of the sky, and its furniture upholstered in satin, as
at my grandparents', only yellow; then we would enter what he called his
'study,' a room whose walls were hung with prints which shewed, against
a dark background, a plump and rosy goddess driving a car, or standing
upon a globe, or wearing a star on her brow; pictures which were popular
under the Second Empire because there was thought to be something about
them that suggested Pompeii, which were then generally despised, and
which now people are beginning to collect again for one single and
consistent reason (despite any others which they may advance), namely,
that they suggest the Second Empire. And there I would stay with my
uncle until his man came, with a message from the coachman, to ask him
at what time he would like the carriage. My uncle would then be lost
in meditation, while his astonished servant stood there, not daring to
disturb him by the least movement, wondering and waiting for his
answer, which never varied. For in the end, after a supreme crisis of
hesitation, my uncle would utter, infallibly, the words: "A quarter past
two," which the servant would echo with amazement, but without disputing
them: "A quarter past two! Very good, sir... I will go and tell him...."

At this date I was a lover of the theatre: a Platonic lover, of
necessity, since my parents had not yet allowed me to enter one, and
so incorrect was the picture I drew for myself of the pleasures to be
enjoyed there that I almost believed that each of the spectators looked,
as into a stereoscope, upon a stage and scenery which existed for
himself alone, though closely resembling the thousand other spectacles
presented to the rest of the audience individually.

Every morning I would hasten to the Moriss column to see what new plays
it announced. Nothing could be more disinterested or happier than the
dreams with which these announcements filled my mind, dreams which took
their form from the inevitable associations of the words forming the