clock be? It is nowhere on the dark reddish-yellow wall. Ah yes, there it is, standing on the table that I saw from the window. With a slight feeling of diffidence towards the Spanish dog, the temporary master of the house, I walk up to the table. There on the corner lies the cigarette that I saw from outside. By now it has completely burnt out and is nothing but a cylinder of white ash.
Above the dial of the clock is painted a picture. This gives it a toy-like appearance which contrasts curiously with the generally uncouth aspect of the room. I examine the picture. It shows a lady of noble deportment standing next to a gentleman. There is a third member in the party—a boot-black who polishes the left shoe of the gentlemen once each second. A childish picture, but nevertheless interesting. I am no expert where foreign matters are concerned, but from the lady’s wide skirt that trails on the floor with its lace frills and from the gentleman’s top-hat and side whiskers I gather that the scene depicted on the clock must be some fifty years old. Well, well—what a pathetic fellow that boot-black really is! There he has to crouch in this quiet house, and in the smaller world contained inside this house, and day and night he has to keep on polishing a single shoe. As I observe the monotony of his ceaseless movements, I feel my own shoulder becoming stiff. The clock says quarter past one; it is one hour slow.
Some four or five dozen dusty books are piled on the table and a couple of others are lying by themselves. All the books are rather bulky—they might be albums of pictures, or books of architecture, or again, atlases. The titles seem to be in German and I cannot understand them. On the wall hangs a heliochrome sea-piece. I’ve seen this picture before somewhere—isn’t that Whistler’s colouring? I strongly approve of having such a picture here. Anyone secluded among the hills like this would probably forget that the world contained such things as the sea unless he had a picture to remind him.
