There were days when every owner, black-trousered and in his shirt- sleeves, seemed to be burning the contents of his house in a bonfire in the gutter. Poor men burned things that seemed useful to the casual eye --mattresses, bolsters, all soiled, soiled again and polluted by four years of soldiery.
Idling over the fire in the evening, Fanny's eye was caught by a stain upon her armchair. It was sticky; it might well be champagne--the champagne which stuck even now to the bottoms of the glasses downstairs.
"I wonder if they will burn the chair--when _they_ come back." Some one must come back, some day, even if Philippe's mother never came. She seemed to see the figure of the Turkish officer seated in her chair, just as the _concierge_ had described him, stout, fezzed, resting his legs before her fire--or of the German, stretched back in the chair in the evening reading the copy of the _Westfälisches Volksblatt_ she had found stuffed down in the corner of the seat.
How, how did that splash of wax come to be so high up on the face of the mirror? Had someone, some predecessor, thrown a candle in a temper? It puzzled her in the morning as she lay in bed.
On the polished wooden foot of the bed was burnt the outline of a face with a funny nose. A child's drawing. That was Philippe's. The nurse had cried at him in a rage, perhaps, and snatched the hot poker with which he drew--and that had made the long rushing burn that flew angrily across the wood from the base of the face's chin. "Oh, you've made it worse!" Philippe must have gibed.
("B"--who wrote "B" on the wall? The Bulgarian--)
The first bird, waking early, threw the image of the world across her lonely sleep. He squeaked alone, minute after minute, from his tree outside the window, thrusting forests, swamps, meadows, mountains in among her dreams. Then a fellow joined him, and soon all the birds were shouting from their trees. Slowly the room lightened till on the mantelpiece the buds of the apple blossom shone, till upon the wall the dark patch became an oil painting, till the painting showed its features --a castle, a river and a hill.
In the night the last yellow down had fallen from the palm upon the floor.
The common voice of the tin clock struck seven. And with it came women's voices--women's voices on the landing outside the door--the voice of the _concierge_ and another's.'