OCR Text |
Show "I had no difficulty in finding the house, and when I saw it", I exclaimed "This is what I want." It was a small house at the end of a street opening on the fields, of one story only, red, with a pointed facade, planted on the edge of the canal as if looking at itself in the water, with a fine spreading linden tree before it, and a draw bridge directly in front. There were white curtains, the green door, the flowers, the little mirrors; it was a small model of a Dutch house. I knocked; the door was opened by the master of the house in person, who, having read my letter gave me a scrutinizing glance, and invited me to enter. Dutch men as a rule are diffident. With us, the last comer who brings a letter of introduction is received with open arms, as if he was our most intimate friend, and very often we do nothing for him. The Hollanders, on the contrary, receive you coldly, so much as to be sometimes rather mortifying, but then they offer you all sorts of service, with the best will in the world, and without the least appearance of laying you under an obligation. The inside of the house corresponded perfectly with the outside; it seemed like the interior of a ship. A winding staircase of wood that shone like ebony led to the upper rooms. An island carpet covered the stairs and landing places, and lay beneath all the doors. The rooms were small as cells; the furniture exquisitely clean, and the knobs and units and ornaments of metal shone as if they had just been made, and on every side there were numbers of china jars, vases, cups, lamps, mirrors, little pie tins, brackets, toys, and objects of every size and form attesting the thousand small needs ordered by a sedentary life, the provident intent, the constant care, the love of all its things, the taste for order, and the ceremony of spice - the residence, in short, of a quiet home-loving woman. We went down to see the kitchen; it was splendid. When I returned to Italy and gave a description of it to my mother and the servant, who piqued herself on her neatness, they were annihilated. The walls were as white as untouched snow; the saucepans reflected objects like mirrors; the mantel piece was ornamented by a species of muslin curtain, like the canopy of a bed, without a trace of smoke, the fireplace beneath was covered with china tiles that looked as bright as if no fire had ever been lighted there; the shovel, tongs, and poker seemed made of polished steel. A lady in a ball-dress might have gone forth into every hole and corner of that kitchen and come forth without a smirch upon her whiteness." E. De Amices, in "Holland and its People." |