This clock from Saxony, which delays and rings thirteen hours among its flowers and its gods, to whom did it belong? I think it came from Saxony by a long stagecoach in the old days.

(Singular shadows hang on the worn windows)

And your Venetian mirror, deep as a cold fountain, in a bank of gargoyles with their gilding worn away, who was reflected there? Ah! I am sure that more than a woman bathed the sin of her beauty in this water; and maybe, I would see a naked ghost if I looked for a long time.

--Naughty boy, you often say miserable things.

(I see cobwebs at the top of the big casements)

Our chest still is very old: contemplate as this firelight reddens its sad wood; the quilted curtains show their age, and the armchairs’ tapestry has lost its make-up, and the ancient engravings on the walls, and all our old fashioned things? Does it not seem to you, even, that the tigers and the blue bird discolor over time?

(Do not think of the cobwebs which tremble at the top of the big casements)

You love all this and that’s why I can live with you. Did you not wish, my sister in the eyes of long ago, that in one of my poems these words “the grace of faded things” might appear? New objects displease you; to you too, they are frightening with their garish impudence, and you would feel the need to wear them out, which is very difficult for those who have no taste for action to do.

Come, close your old German almanac, which you read attentively, although it appeared more than a hundred years ago and the kings whom it mentions are all dead, and, on the classic carpet your head rests between your charitable knees on your faded dress, oh calm child, I shall talk to you for hours; there are no more fields and the streets are empty, I shall talk to you about our furniture. . .You are distracted?

(These cobwebs shiver at the top of the big casements)