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1100 AUNTIE TOOTHACHE
II
I had removed to new lodgings, and had been there a month, and I was talking to Auntie about it. I stay with a very quiet family; they do not think about me, even if I ring three times. For the rest it is truly a rackety house, with noise of wind and weather and people. I stay right over the gate ; every cart which drives out or in, makes the pictures shake on the walls. The gate bangs, and the house shakes as if there was an earthquake. If I lie in bed, the shock goes through all my limbs, but that is said to be good for the nerves. If it blows, and it is always blowing here in this country, then the window-catch swings back and forward and knocks against the wall. The neighbour's door-bell rings with every gust of wind.
The people in our house come home in detachments, late in the evening, and far on in the night; the lodger right above me, who in the daytime gives lessons on the bassoon, comes home latest, and does not go to bed until he has gone for a little midnight walk, with heavy steps and iron-nailed boots.
There are not double windows, but there is a broken pane, over which the landlady has pasted paper. The wind blows through the crack and makes a noise like the buzzing of a hornet. It is a lullaby.
When I do fall asleep at last, I am soon wakened by a cock. Cocks and hens from the cellar-man's hen-run announce that it will soon be morning. The little Norwegian ponies (they have no stable, but are tethered in the sand-hole under the stair) kick against the door in turning themselves. The day dawns ; the porter, who with his family sleeps in the garret, rattles down the stair; the wooden shoes clatter, the door bangs, the house shakes; and when that is finished, the lodger upstairs begins to exercise his gymnastics, lifts in each hand a heavy iron ball, which he cannot hold : it falls and falls again; whilst at the same time the young people of the house, who are going to school, come tearing downstairs shrieking. I go to the window, open it to get fresh air, and it is refreshing when I can get it.
For the rest it is a rare house, and I live with a quiet |
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