The Hardin tribune-herald. [volume] (Hardin, Mont.) 1925-1973, 1937-12-03
TIE Pieces ola Fan
By VINCENT sHEEAN

BY VINCENT SHEEAN
A SHATTERED FAN SYM
BOLIZES THE UNHAPPY
ENDING OF MIME. DE POM
PADOUR'S LOVE AFFAIR.
IN TWO PARTS-PART ONE
' 'the fan part containing about
three times as many leaves Of the
delicately carved stuff as the
seven sticks at the base. It was
this that made the thing SO impossible
to repair. Once broken, it had to re-
main broken, although its loveliness,
serving. Consequently they laid the
pieces together closely, in the shape
the fan originally Wort and when it
was spread like that on a smooth piece
of blue velvet it took a keen eye to de-
tect the lines that shattered it. There
was a neat and usual glass case over it,
Of which was stuck a label reading:
FAN. Probably by Welkoeckt or
Saumier, about 1857. Was the prop
erty of the Marquise de Pompa-.
dour and was kept by her until
her death in this broken state.
kept it are not known. Observe the
lacelike fragility Of the carving be-
The room in Which this case stood
a given W to pictures, furniture
and curiosities of the same period
several portraits, works by Natter and
Boucher, miniatures, tabsatieres and
jeweled toys of Versailles. In n cor
ner, in an oblong case, lay the crumb-
ling frillS of a paraSol, with a barometer
in its ivory handle. This, too, had be-
longed to the Marquise de Pompadour
and represented the lady in her more
air on the terraces of Bellevue. In the
middle OF the wall, over the fan, were
a pair of crossed rapierS, as elegant and
improbable as the fan itself.
The whole house was muSty and dim,
filled with the still, shrouded air of
an unfrequented museum, and in fact
it was too far off the tourists usual
not cost ten francs for the ticket of
admission. These ten francs, in view
of the custodian. were responsible for
the commercial failure of the museum
as a museum; at some lower tariff,
such as two francs fifty or even four
paid to see the fans and Snuffboxes of
the red-heeled gentry who had pre-
coded them to dust.
This was possible. At any rate, on
the day when Norton went to see the
place there was nobody else there
nobody, that Is, but the plaintive Gus
todian, who talked too much and had
to be tipped heavily to be still.
Norton's imagination did moi people
the house with ghosts, for he was not
excessively familiar with eighteenth
century geegaws or the events they
hung upon. He is a banker with an
orderly mind, and was conscious chiefly
of a feeling Of wonder at the extra
ordinary useless expenditure represent
ed by these fragile splendors.
Still, the broken fan fascinated him.
He fingered over it for a long. time,
trying to follow the lines Of its break
age, and wondering how it had been
possible to work a material-even ivory
Into such an intricate cobweb: He
was good at sketching and the whlm
seized him to make a little drawing
of the thing on n leaf Of his pocket
notebook. -. ~
how the fan had been broken origin
aIly. and succeeded to his W salts.
faction. although even so he could not
for the life of him imagine how the
break had occurred. It was not broken
hl1t shattered, and had been put to:
gether again with astonishing Skill and
patience. It was shattered as II II
heen thrown with violence against a
stone, deliberately, that is, n WIN
intent to shatter it.
When Norton got back to his hotel
in Paris he had a dream o tllat