Philomena, the waitress, offered the platter. Father signed to her to offer it to grandfather, after which there was nothing for him but to take the seat of honour. It was a relief to us all; we all felt that the place belonged to him by right and that he alone deserved to occupy it. He and no one else had long been the head of the family. At the slightest difficulty or vexation every one turned to him, every one appealed to him. Now the disquietude which had weighed upon the house for so long a time would be ended. Now we should be directed. No more sluggard kings! The reins of government, as my history book expressed it, would be held in strong hands. And it was right that the head of the house should have all the insignia of authority. A king does not occupy the second place, and evidently my father would not have crowned himself of his own accord. Thus the transferrence of power had taken place in our presence. I should not have anticipated the change of feeling which took place within me, almost suddenly. Grandfather’s government had always seemed to me precarious and derisory. But as soon as he refused to exercise it I began to admire his disinterestedness and to discover the poetry of abdication. His sovereign disdain of material things appeared to me full of grandeur, and I even went so far as to interpret to myself the expression which had once seemed sacrilegious to me--“whether one lives in one house or another.” If he had done nothing to protect our house, perhaps it was because he cared for higher and more distant things. From his tower chamber he was entering into communication with the winds and the stars, predicting the future. The weather and the universe were absorbing him; he could no longer devote himself to common tasks. There was another mode of interpreting life, which I vaguely felt without understanding it, and which attracted me by its unusualness, and its enigma. The deposed king, clothed in the mystery which was conferred upon him by an unimaginable learning, was recovering his prestige and even assuming, all unaware to himself, a degree of ascendancy over my spirit.