The Lesson

The Fifth Visit

It was nine o’clock in the morning. A brilliant sun overcame the town. Everything could at last be properly seen. The fifth visit was shortly to begin. Let us look through the house and see what such a light can do.

In the front room:

1 small table (with chess pieces), aforementioned

11 various framed photographs (a list will follow)

E. Wesley

unknown horse, apparently brown

old house with mansard roof on dimly lit avenue

girl (perhaps Loring)

well-dressed man holding an eggplant and a cleaver (apparently Loring’s brother prior to his untimely death)

man asleep face covered with bowler hat (E.W.)

pair of young people holding a steamer trunk (parents of E.W. or L.W.)

unkempt garden. man digging in the distance.

distinguished looking woman by a lake

L.W. holding newspaper with photograph of L.W. on cover, holding newspaper with photograph of L.W., etc., and headline “Girl Chess Whiz Calculates Endlessly!”

abandoned train station with a sign: For Sale in the distance, some German town.

1 poster for a natatorium

1 architectural plan for the Eiffel tower, looking quite different from the way it actually turned out

2 stuffed burrowing owls

8 old-fashioned round brooms, apparently unused

1 scythe (mounted on wall)

5 chairs (described hereafter)

two of same type by table

one high backed by fireplace

others unknown

1 fireplace paraphernalia: pokers, etc.

72 panes of glass in one particular window (an ordinary division of glass in the others)

And then into the hall, where book shelves are drawn up like curtains, close enough by that they are no use to anyone. One must press ones back against one in order to have sufficient distance to see the other. There is hardly any light at all, even now, in the hallway, and the bookshelves defeat us.

Into the pantry then, where various goods are stacked: tins of every conceivable kind. What did they previously contain? Why, toffee, cookies, sweetmeats, crackers, cured sausages, cheeses, and more. Plates, there too, and serving dishes. A rack of old knives, some worn down to be like the last sliver of a moon, just by sharpening. Years of sharpening. And the sharpening wheel, of course. Someone said to someone else, this: Ezra sharpened all their knives. He would sharpen things even that didn’t need sharpening, just to sharpen them, and when he was done, he would sharpen them some more. He took a ball-peen hammer and sharpened it until it was a hatchet. Such a thing: it’s not even possible, is it?

Then the kitchen, where we have sometimes been.

Oh, but the door has opened.

The front door opened, and Loring was there, holding it. Before her, the boy and his mother. One nodding to the other, the other nodding back, Stan stepping up from the stoop into the house and past Loring. He, continuing past her again, into the parlor.

The mother handed Loring an envelope with some money in it. The fifth visit began.