I have from Saturday to Monday, as honoured guest, hung my clothes
in egg-boxes.
I have sat on an egg-box at an egg-box to take my dish of tea. I
have made love on egg-boxes.--Aye, and to feel again the blood
running through my veins as then it ran, I would be content to sit
only on egg-boxes till the time should come when I could be buried
in an egg-box, with an egg-box reared above me as tombstone.--I have
spent many an evening on an egg-box; I have gone to bed in
egg-boxes. They have their points--I am intending no pun--but to
claim for them cosiness would be but to deceive.
How quaint they were, those home-made rooms! They rise out of the
shadows and shape themselves again before my eyes. I see the
knobbly sofa; the easy-chairs that might have been designed by the
Grand Inquisitor himself; the dented settle that was a bed by night;
the few blue plates, purchased in the slums off Wardour Street; the
enamelled stool to which one always stuck; the mirror framed in
silk; the two Japanese fans crossed beneath each cheap engraving;
the piano cloth embroidered in peacock's feathers by Annie's sister;
the tea-cloth worked by Cousin Jenny. We dreamt, sitting on those
egg-boxes--for we were young ladies and gentlemen with artistic
taste--of the days when we would eat in Chippendale dining-rooms;
sip our coffee in Louis Quatorze drawing-rooms; and be happy.
Pages:
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69