Our Letters by Guy de Maupassant — Read

Night hours in the train induce sleep in some and insomnia in others. With me, any journey prevents my sleeping on the following night.

I had arrived, about five o'clock, at the estate of Abelle, which belongs to my friends, the Murets d'Artus, to spend three weeks there. It is a pretty house, built by one of their grandfathers in the latter half of the last century, and it has remained in the family. Therefore it has that intimate character of dwellings that have always been inhabited, furnished, animated and enlivened by the same people. Nothing changes; none of the soul evaporates from the dwelling, in which the furniture has never been moved, the tapestries never taken down, and have become worn out, faded, discoloured, on the same walls. None of the old furniture leaves the place; only from time to time it is moved a little to make room for a new piece, which enters there like a newborn infant in the midst of brothers and sisters.