Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/436

THE AMERICAN Newman learned afterwards, from a guide-book of the province, that it dated from the reign of Henry III. It presented to the wide-paved area which preceded it, and which was edged with shabby farm-buildings, an immense façade of dark time-stained brick, flanked by two low wings, each of which terminated in a little Dutch-looking pavilion capped with a fantastic roof. Two towers rose behind, and behind the towers was a grand group of elms and beeches, now just faintly green. The great feature, however, was a wide green river, which washed the foundations of the pile. The whole mass rose from an island in the circling stream, so that this formed a perfect moat, spanned by a two-arched bridge without a parapet. The dull brick walls, which here and there made a grand straight sweep, the ugly little cupolas of the wings, the deep-set windows, the long steep pinnacles of mossy slate, all mirrored themselves in the quiet water.

Newman rang at the gate, and was almost frightened at the tone with which a big rusty bell above his head replied to him. An old woman came out from the gatehouse and opened the creaking portal just wide enough for him to pass, on which he went in and across the dry bare court and the little cracked white slabs of the causeway on the moat. At the door of the house he waited for some moments, and this gave him a chance to observe that Fleurières was not "kept up" and to reflect that it was a melancholy place of residence. "It looks," he said to himself—and I give the comparison for what it is worth—"like a Chinese penitentiary." At last the door was opened 406