THE CURTAINS OPEN onto a darkened hallway, so dark that she must run her fingertips along the walls, and at the end of it, there are more curtains, as dense and velvety as the first. Then there is a warm room, with walls the color of pomegranates, where she is given toast with raisins, told to take off her shoes, placed before the fire on a footstool. And above her, on the mantelpiece, is a miniature circus made all of tin, with its stiff pennants flying and its elephants parading.
Am I too old for this, Madeleine wonders, because she would like to touch it, to see if the lion tamer's arms move in his sockets, or if there is a key she can turn, releasing music.
She would also like to unbutton the dress of the waxy doll standing aloof in the corner; slide her hands over the sad, long face of the wooden horse; ask for two more pieces of toast. Then she remembers: I am in trouble. Also: I can neither button nor unbutton.
But the widow does not seem angry in the least. When she speaks, it is in a coaxing and conspiratorial tone that Madeleine is startled to recognize, and all at once the pull of the horse, the perfect circus, becomes stronger: for the widow—of course—is a grandmother, and these belong to her grandchildren, and Madeleine is not indifferent to the strange magnetism exercised by other children's things.