In an hour’s time, we had reached the country and drove between fog-filled woods. Fresh snow, still scatheless, lay between the trees where only a few weeks before the stained leaves had lain; the natural paths, rejuvenated by the graduation of the landscape into winter, crept in their immaculate renascence back into the far blue shadows; and not too long from now they would waver forth in the marine spring. We had not gone more than two or three miles when to our left there rose up the high red walls of my mother’s asylum; covered with woodbine that had caught the snow, they blended with the landscape. Presently they broke for an iron gate guarded by a fat, unpleasant man who let us in and said sardonically, “This way to the booby-hatch, folks.” I had told Miss Pride of the gate-keeper’s manner which no longer offended me but which I thought must horrify the relatives of other inmates, for I believed that Miss Pride, with the flourish of a pen, could have the man removed and a courteous one installed in his place. She did investigate and found that this greeting was only for our car, as Mac and the man had been companions in grammar school, though there was never the slightest sign of recognition on Mac’s misanthropic face.

My mother came into the reception room, like a nun coming from the cloister, in her gray uniform, her eyes observing something beyond me or above my head. I nearly always took her flowers and as she sat down, her head bent to study them, she appeared to be waiting for the roses and the carnations to be given the gift of tongues. Then she lifted them to her ear. “Pretty things,” she would say to them. She would turn towards me her lovely eyes that could see me only as a little child and drawing me to her she whispered so that no one could hear, “Darling, we’re going visiting today. The flowers won’t wilt if we wrap them in a wet newspaper.” Then we rose and walked, arm in arm, down the long, gray hall, followed at some distance by an attendant, and entered the common room where the daffy, harmless women rocked and sang, nodding and smiling, their tender eyes roving private worlds which they sometimes found so amusing they had to laugh out loud. My mother’s fancy-work and mine were brought to us; together we worked for an hour and my mother praised the tailless birds she had taught me how to make. “But, dearie,” she would say, “there’s something wrong with it, I don’t know what. See mine, see how it goes?” And she held up the identical bird, bereft of its tail feathers, embroidered in green and yellow silk.