Born this day in the year 1811 Théophile Gautier.

That infallible source spills a lot of ink over someone of whom I have never heard– though now that I’ve search the card catalog of my little home library I see “The Mummy’s Foot” is one of The World’s One Hundred Best Short Stories Volume Two: Romance (1927).

Daily Reading August 31. “The Mummy’s Foot”

Sounds cute. Again, from that infallible source:

A man enters an antiques shop and buys a mummified foot which supposedly belonged to an Egyptian princess, Hermonthis. He intends to use the foot as a paperweight. In the night, he sees a vision of the princess, who explains her foot has been stolen, and he agrees to return her foot in exchange for a small statuette. The princess steals him away to Egypt where he meets her father and several other ancient pharaohs. Hermonthis’ father, Xixouthros, is appropriately pleased that his daughter’s foot is returned to the rest of her. Xixouthros ask what he can do in appreciation. The protagonist asks Hermonthis’ hand in marriage, which is refused, as he is only 27 and Hermonthis is over 30 centuries, and deserves someone who is equally durable. The protagonist is abruptly woken from this potential dream by the arrival of a friend. Now awake, he observes that the mummified foot that was on his desk has indeed been replaced by the statuette.

Here’s how it begins. If you frequent junk stores you will be at home.

“I had entered, in an idle mood, the shop of one of those curiosity venders who are called marchands de bric-�-brac in that Parisian argot which is so perfectly unintelligible elsewhere in France.

“You have doubtless glanced occasionally through the windows of some of these shops, which have become so numerous now that it is fashionable to buy antiquated furniture, and that every petty stockbroker thinks he must have his chambre au moyen �ge.

“There is one thing there which clings alike to the shop of the dealer in old iron, the ware-room of the tapestry maker, the laboratory of the chemist, and the studio of the painter: in all those gloomy dens where a furtive daylight filters in through the window-shutters the most manifestly ancient thing is dust. The cobwebs are more authentic than the gimp laces, and the old pear-tree furniture on exhibition is actually younger than the mahogany which arrived but yesterday from America.

“The warehouse of my bric-�-brac dealer was a veritable Capharnaum. All ages and all nations seemed to have made their rendezvous there. An Etruscan lamp of red clay stood upon a Boule cabinet, with ebony panels, brightly striped by lines of inlaid brass; a duchess of the court of Louis xv. nonchalantly extended her fawn-like feet under a massive table of the time of Louis xiii., with heavy spiral supports of oak, and carven designs of chimeras and foliage intermingled.

“Upon the denticulated shelves of several sideboards glittered immense Japanese dishes with red and blue designs relieved by gilded hatching, side by side with enamelled works by Bernard Palissy, representing serpents, frogs, and lizards in relief.

“From disembowelled cabinets escaped cascades of silver-lustrous Chinese silks and waves of tinsel, which an oblique sunbeam shot through with luminous beads, while portraits of every era, in frames more or less tarnished, smiled through their yellow varnish.

“The striped breastplate of a damascened suit of Milanese armour glittered in one corner; loves and nymphs of porcelain, Chinese grotesques, vases of c�ladon and crackleware, Saxon and old S�vres cups encumbered the shelves and nooks of the apartment.

“The dealer followed me closely through the tortuous way contrived between the piles of furniture, warding off with his hand the hazardous sweep of my coat-skirts, watching my elbows with the uneasy attention of an antiquarian and a usurer.”

RTWT. I liked it.

Stay well. Stay safe. Keep reading!