Christian's Old House by the Forest

Christian's Old House by the Forest is a residence and workplace on the outskirts of Strasbourg, set where a garden meets the woods. Its rooms combine Christian's furniture trade with a dense collection of historical and natural objects; outside, the garden opens toward the forest and becomes the setting for an archery exercise. When Bénédicte arrives, the house is more than an address: its distinctive interior and landscape give concrete form to the meeting she has agreed to undertake, while her recollection of a childhood adventure by a pond links this unfamiliar place to her earlier self.

Setting and Use

Christian describes the house as a beautiful old building a few kilometres from Strasbourg. He is not deep in the forest: its edge begins at the far end of the garden and curves around roughly half the house. A large pond is also part of the property. This arrangement places the home between domestic enclosure and open woodland, rather than making it an isolated dwelling wholly surrounded by trees.

The property also accommodates Christian's work. He is a furniture reseller without a shop, and a large separate building serves as storage for his stock. His description makes the house and business closely connected without suggesting that the residence itself is a retail space: furniture is kept on site, while sales and distribution happen through a network of professional contacts. The house's contents reflect that trade, since Christian sometimes retains pieces he originally acquired for resale.

The location is introduced before Bénédicte sees it. During their online exchange, Christian explains where he lives and works, describes the forest and pond, and invites her to come. The clear directions allow her to find the way without difficulty; she reaches the property at about 12:45. The sequence makes the house a destination chosen through conversation, then a real place she must enter for herself.

Arrival and Interior

At the door, Bénédicte presses the bell and waits for Christian to answer. The moment prompts a recollection of childhood: she remembers being punished by her father for taking risks, including an occasion when she went near a pond without telling her parents to catch a toad, which she named Théodule. The memory does not establish that this was the same pond as the one on Christian's property. Instead, the shared detail connects her present arrival to an earlier episode of curiosity and disobedience, giving the new setting a personal association before she has explored it.

After they enter the salon, Christian goes to prepare coffee and Bénédicte looks around. The room is arranged like a cabinet of curiosities. Its contents include stuffed animals, insects, shells, mammal skeletons displayed in cases, scientific prints, botanical plates, and a large, finely detailed Spanish galleon on a console. A globe that appears centuries old and a thick python coiled around a trunk add to the range of objects. The room also contains a worn, pale chaise longue with faded pink silk covering, a monumental stone fireplace, an ornate cast-iron fireback, and heavy andirons shaped with lion's paws.

The inventory matters to the way the house is presented: the salon is not defined by one furnishing but by the density and variety of things collected there. Bénédicte reads the accumulation as a network of correspondences, and imagines the house as a place suited to thinking, reading, conversation, cooking, happiness, and love. That response is her impression of the rooms, not a neutral account of their purpose. It shows how the interior prompts her to project possible forms of life onto the place even as she is still getting to know its owner.

Christian's Trade and the Collected Objects

Over coffee, Christian explains that his work accounts for his interest in objects. He buys furnishings and other pieces, sometimes keeping items for his own use, and has an extensive network through which he clears houses following inheritances. He then sells what he has acquired to antique dealers, interior decorators, and art directors at major department stores, working with contacts in Paris, London, Tokyo, and New York.

His account gives the salon's disparate contents a practical context. The house displays objects gathered through a trade that moves things from cleared homes to new buyers and settings; some remain with Christian instead. He describes a recent transaction involving enough furniture to fill the equivalent of a shipping container, bought for a fashion shop on Fifth Avenue in New York. The stock was industrial furniture from an old factory in Oise that Christian had dismantled earlier that year. This example expands the scale of his work beyond the house while underscoring the contrast between commercial circulation and the pieces he chooses to live among.

Garden and Narrative Role

The garden extends the house's importance beyond its interior. When Bénédicte and Christian go outside, they settle behind a barn. Christian sets up a target made by his son several years earlier: a large rectangular chipboard panel marked with five numbered concentric lanes, each painted a different colour from yellow to black. They move a few metres away and put down their equipment. The target is a specific, handmade object within a landscape otherwise defined by grass, trees, and the forest edge.

From the garden, the forest appears behind the target, its dark mass curving along the boundary of the property. The house therefore links several distinct settings within one visit: the salon of collected objects, the working grounds around the barn, and the wooded edge beyond. The archery scene makes the garden a place of action rather than merely a view from the home, while the target connects Christian's family life to the outdoor encounter. Together, these features make the property an unusually layered setting for Bénédicte's first visit: a home, a workplace, a collection, and an open threshold toward the forest.