An ancient willow droops
over the roof of round tiles, and partly hides the discolored stucco,
which keeps dropping off into the garden as though the old cafe was
stripping for the plunge into oblivion--disrobing for its execution. I
see, well up in the angle of the broad side gable, shaded by its rude
awning of clapboards, as the eyes of an old dame are shaded by her
wrinkled hand, the window of Pauline. Oh for the image of the maiden,
were it but for one moment, leaning out of the casement to hang her
mocking-bird and looking down into the garden,--where, above the barrier
of old boards, I see the top of the fig-tree, the pale green clump of
bananas, the tall palmetto with its jagged crown, Pauline's own two
orange-trees holding up their bands toward the window, heavy with the
promises of autumn; the broad, crimson mass of the many-stemmed
oleander, and the crisp boughs of the pomegranate loaded with freckled
apples, and with here and there a lingering scarlet blossom.
The Cafe des Exiles, to use a figure, flowered, bore fruit, and dropped
it long ago--or rather Time and Fate, like some uncursed Adam and Eve,
came side by side and cut away its clusters, as we sever the golden
burden of the banana from its stem; then, like a banana which has borne
its fruit, it was razed to the ground and made way for a newer, brighter
growth.
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