At the two small windows on either side of the door, which was half
glass, half white-painted wood, were thin curtains of pale gray-blue and
white, bought in the bazaars of Tunis. For furniture there were a
folding-table of brown, polished wood, a large divan with many cushions,
two deck-chairs of the telescope species, that can be made long or short
at will, a writing-table, a cottage piano, and four round wicker chairs
with arms. In one corner of the room stood a tall clock with a burnished
copper face, and in another a cupboard containing glass and china. A door
at the back, which led into the kitchen, was covered with an Oriental
portière. On the writing-table, and on some dwarf bookcases already
filled with books left behind by Hermione on her last visit to Sicily,
stood rough jars of blue, yellow, and white pottery, filled with roses
and geraniums arranged by Gaspare. To the left of the room, as Lucrezia
faced it, was a door leading into the bedroom, of the master and
mistress.
After a long moment of admiring contemplation, Lucrezia went into this
bedroom, in which she was specially interested, as it was to be her
special care. All was white here, walls, ceiling, wooden beds, tables,
the toilet service, the bookcases. For there were books here, too, books
which Lucrezia examined with an awful wonder, not knowing how to read. In
the window-seat were white cushions. On the chest of drawers were more
red roses and geraniums. It was a virginal room, into which the bright,
golden sunbeams stole under the striped awning outside the low window
with surely a hesitating modesty, as if afraid to find themselves
intruders. The whiteness, the intense quietness of the room, through
whose window could be seen a space of far-off sea, a space of
mountain-flank, and, when one came near to it, and the awning was drawn
up, the snowy cone of Etna, struck now to the soul of Lucrezia a sense of
half-puzzled peace. Her large eyes opened wider, and she laid her hands
on her hips and fell into a sort of dream as she stood there, hearing
only the faint and regular ticking of the clock in the sitting-room. She
was well accustomed to the silence of the mountain world and never heeded
it, but peace within four walls was almost unknown to her. Here no hens
fluttered, no turkeys went to and fro elongating their necks, no children
played and squalled, no women argued and gossiped, quarrelled and worked,
no men tramped in and out, grumbled and spat. A perfectly clean and
perfectly peaceful room--it was marvellous, it was--she sighed again.
What must it be like to be gentlefolk, to have the money to buy calm and
cleanliness?