and purplish stone, whose tints and

substance seemed to inter-

change their effects in certain lights.
Notwithstanding the va-
riety, amplitude and animation of great
trees that had long re-
placed the two regular rows of stylized
saplings (thrown in by
the mind of the architect rather than
observed by the eye of a
35.25 painter) Van immediately recognized
Ardis Hall as depicted in
the two-hundred-year-old aquarelle that
hung in his father’s
dressing room: the mansion sat on a rise
overlooking an abstract
meadow with two tiny people in cocked
hats conversing not
far from a stylized cow.
35.30 None of the family was at home when
Van arrived. A
servant in waiting took his horse. He
entered the Gothic arch-
way of the hall where Bouteillan, the
old bald butler who
unprofessionally now wore a
mustache (dyed a rich gravy
brown), met him with gested delight—
he had once been the
[ 35 ]

valet of Van’s father—"Je parie," he

said, "que Monsieur ne me
reconnaît pas," and proceeded to
remind Van of what Van had
already recollected unaided,
the farmannikin (a special kind of
box kite, untraceable nowadays even in
the greatest museums
36.05 housing the toys of the past) which
Bouteillan had helped him
to fly one day in a meadow dotted
with buttercups. Both
looked up: the tiny red rectangle hung
for an instant askew
in a blue spring sky. The hall was
famous for its painted ceilings.
It was too early for tea: Would Van
like him or a maid to un-
36.10 pack? Oh, one of the maids, said Van,
wondering briefly what
item in a schoolboy’s luggage might be
supposed to shock a
housemaid. The picture of naked Ivory
Revery (a model)?
Who cared, now that he was a man?
Acting upon the butler’s suggestion he
went to make a tour
36.15 du jardin. As he followed a winding
path, soundlessly stepping
on its soft pink sand in the cloth
gumshoes that were part of the
school uniform, he came upon a person
whom he recognized
with disgust as being his former French
governess (the place
swarmed with ghosts!). She was sitting
on a green bench under
36.20 the Persian lilacs, a parasol in one hand
and in the other a book
from which she was reading aloud to a
small girl who was pick-
ing her nose and examining with
dreamy satisfaction her finger
before wiping it on the edge of the
bench. Van decided she
must be "Ardelia," the eldest of the two
little cousins he was
36.25 supposed to get acquainted with.
Actually it was Lucette, the
younger one, a neutral child of eight,
with a fringe of shiny
reddish-blond hair and a freckled button
for nose: she had had
pneumonia in spring and was still veiled
by an odd air of re-
moteness that children, especially
impish children, retain for
36.30 some time after brushing through death.
Mlle Larivière sud-
denly looked at Van over her green
spectacles—and he had to
cope with another warm welcome. In
contrast to Albert, she had
not changed at all since the days she
used to come three times a

[ 36 ]

week to Dark Veen’s house in town

with a bagful of books