. . "Did he remember . . ." his
father suggested a scene, a day--yes, he remembered that. His father
continued, as though it had been for his own pleasure.
The scenes, the hours returned with a vividness and actuality that
thronged the room.
He could see Mason Street with its grocer's shop at the corner, its
Baths and Public Library, the sudden little black dips into the
areas as the houses followed one another, the lamp-post opposite
their window that had always excited him because it leaned inwards a
little as though it would presently tumble. He remembered the fat
short cook with the pink cotton dress who wheezed and blew so when
she had to climb the stairs. He remembered the rooms that would seem
bare enough to him now, he supposed, but were then filled with
exciting possibilities--a little round brown table, his mother's
work-box with mother-of-pearl shells upon the cover, a stuffed bird
with bright blue feathers under a glass case, a screen with coloured
pictures of battles and horses and elephants casted upon it. He
remembered the exact sound that the tinkling bell made when it
summoned them to meals, he remembered the especial smell of beef and
carpet that was the dining-room, he remembered a little door of
coloured glass on the first landing, a cupboard that had in it sugar
and apples, a room full of old books piled high all about the floor
upon the dry and dusty boards .
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