They were put there by my sister Unity and myself when we were children. In the windows, still to be seen, are swastikas carved into the glass with a diamond ring, and for every swastika a carefully delineated hammer and sickle. The tangible evidences of this past are, it is true, somewhat different from those found in the average English home. When I first revisited my mother's house in 1955, at the age of thirty-eight, after an absence of nineteen years, I too fell under the spell of the past. Most houses, too, bear scars imprinted by those who have lived in them-the still-visible BB gun shots fired by an unsteady childish hand, the hole in the fireplace rug suffered when a party got too gay.Īfter the onset of middle age these trophies begin to hold considerable interest, for it is then that they bring back in startling relief forgotten events, memories completely buried under a mountain of thousands upon thousands of days gone by. In most homes there exist, put away in attics or on top shelves, a row of Baby's first shoes, Brother's prize-winning essay in the school paper, Sister's wedding veil, fading telegrams of congratulations on this, that and the other. Family souvenirs have an almost universal fascination.
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