The windows whose blue fissured panes, stippled with
fragments of gold-edged bottles, intercepted the view
of the country and only permitted a faint light to
enter, were draped with curtains cut from old stoles
of dark and reddish gold neutralized by an almost dead
russet woven in the pattern.
The mantel shelf was sumptuously draped with the remnant
of a Florentine dalmatica. Between two gilded
copper monstrances of Byzantine style, originally
brought from the old Abbaye-au-Bois de Bievre, stood
a marvelous church canon divided into three separate
compartments delicately wrought like lace work.
It contained, under its glass frame, three works of
Baudelaire copied on real vellum, with wonderful missal
letters and splendid coloring: to the right and
left, the sonnets bearing the titles of La Mort
des Amants and L’Ennemi; in the center,
the prose poem entitled, Anywhere Out of the World—n’importe
ou, hors du monde.
After selling his effects, Des Esseintes retained
the two old domestics who had tended his mother and
filled the offices of steward and house porter at
the Chateau de Lourps, which had remained deserted
and uninhabited until its disposal.
These servants he brought to Fontenay. They were
accustomed to the regular life of hospital attendants
hourly serving the patients their stipulated food
and drink, to the rigid silence of cloistral monks
who live behind barred doors and windows, having no
communication with the outside world.
The man was assigned the task of keeping the house
in order and of procuring provisions, the woman that
of preparing the food. He surrendered the second
story to them, forced them to wear heavy felt coverings
over their shoes, put sound mufflers along the well-oiled
doors and covered their floor with heavy rugs so that
he would never hear their footsteps overhead.
He devised an elaborate signal code of bells whereby
his wants were made known. He pointed out the
exact spot on his bureau where they were to place
the account book each month while he slept. In
short, matters were arranged in such wise that he
would not be obliged to see or to converse with them
very often.
Nevertheless, since the woman had occasion to walk
past the house so as to reach the woodshed, he wished
to make sure that her shadow, as she passed his windows,
would not offend him. He had designed for her
a costume of Flemish silk with a white bonnet and large,
black, lowered hood, such as is still worn by the
nuns of Ghent. The shadow of this headdress,
in the twilight, gave him the sensation of being in
a cloister, brought back memories of silent, holy villages,
dead quarters enclosed and buried in some quiet corner
of a bustling town.
The hours of eating were also regulated. His
instructions in this regard were short and explicit,
for the weakened state of his stomach no longer permitted
him to absorb heavy or varied foods.
