Things without their life

The narrator returns a second time. This time, Mrs Dorling's daughter, a girl of about fifteen, opens the door, and lets her in to wait. In the passage hangs an old iron Hanukkah candle-holder from the narrator's home.

The living room is full of her mother's things: the table-cloth, the cupboard, the china. But they are arranged without taste, in a stuffy room. On the edge of the table-cloth, she finds the old burn mark that her own family had never mended.

The girl casually uses the precious things as everyday objects: the 'antique' box, the tea-pot, the plates. She does not even know that the cutlery is silver.

The narrator leaves before Mrs Dorling comes back. She realises that these things were tied in her memory to a loved, familiar life, in her own home with her family. Seen apart from that life, among strangers, they have lost their value. She no longer wants them.

Besides, she now lives in a small rented room, with no space for them. So she decides to forget the address. Of all the things she must try to forget, this is the easiest.