Page:An adventure (1911).pdf/118

 10th, 1901, and January 2nd, 1902) were part of one and the same experience; that quite mechanically we must have seen it as it appeared to her more than a hundred years ago, and have heard sounds familiar, and even something of words spoken, to her then.

Having been for two most trying years confined to Paris, and (excepting for a visit to St. Cloud) through two hot summers, and being in the midst of the tumultuous horrors of the great tenth of August, she may, as the day wore on, and she grew more used to her miserable position in the Hall of the Assembly—where she sat for eighteen hours—have fancied (in memory) the grounds at Trianon more spacious than they really were; and have seen the trees, as one sees trees in recollection, like a picture without life, depth, or movement. In rêverie her mind may have wandered from the familiar sight of the two Bersys at the gate, to the little vision of two men gathering up garden rubbish into a cart (which we know happened on October 5th, 1789, as well as one day during the last winter she spent at Versailles), and which—without any reason—had remained in her mind. She may have thought