For my mother's claustral needs sufficient was provided by the alcove in
which she slept, the private chapel of the citadel in which she would spend
long hours, and this private dining-room where we now sat. Into the
spacious gardens of the castle she would seldom wander, into our town of
Mondolfo never. Not since my father's departure upon his ill-starred
rebellion had she set foot across the drawbridge.
"Tell me whom you go with, and I will tell you what you are," says the
proverb. "Show me your dwelling, and I shall see your character," say I.
And surely never was there a chamber so permeated by the nature of its
tenant as that private dining-room of my mother's.
It was a narrow room in the shape of a small parallelogram, with the
windows set high up near the timbered, whitewashed ceiling, so that it was
impossible either to look in or to look out, as is sometimes the case with
the windows of a chapel.
On the white space of wall that faced the door hung a great wooden
Crucifix, very rudely carved by one who either knew nothing of anatomy, or
else--as is more probable--was utterly unable to set down his knowledge
upon timber. The crudely tinted figure would be perhaps half the natural
size of a man; and it was the most repulsive and hideous representation of
the Tragedy of Golgotha that I have ever seen.
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