Balzacs Interiors
10 < Keywords-In-Text < 10000
From: Father Goriot
(keyword count: 11, file: FRGRT10.TXT, offset: 23855, length: 1809)
[keywords: clock,sideboards,room,room,house,house,sitting-room,dining-room,picture,house,portrait,]
This apartment is in all its glory at seven o'clock in the
morning, when Mme. Vauquer's cat appears, announcing the near
approach of his mistress, and jumps upon the sideboards to sniff
at the milk in the bowls, each protected by a plate, while he
purrs his morning greeting to the world. A moment later the widow
shows her face; she is tricked out in a net cap attached to a
false front set on awry, and shuffles into the room in her
slipshod fashion. She is an oldish woman, with a bloated
countenance, and a nose like a parrot's beak set in the middle of
it; her fat little hands (she is as sleek as a church rat) and
her shapeless, slouching figure are in keeping with the room that
reeks of misfortune, where hope is reduced to speculate for the
meanest stakes. Mme. Vauquer alone can breathe that tainted air
without being disheartened by it. Her face is as fresh as a
frosty morning in autumn; there are wrinkles about the eyes that
vary in their expression from the set smile of a ballet-dancer to
the dark, suspicious scowl of a discounter of bills; in short,
she is at once the embodiment and interpretation of her lodging-
house, as surely as her lodging-house implies the existence of
its mistress. You can no more imagine the one without the other,
than you can think of a jail without a turnkey. The unwholesome
corpulence of the little woman is produced by the life she leads,
just as typhus fever is bred in the tainted air of a hospital.
The very knitted woolen petticoat that she wears beneath a skirt
made of an old gown, with the wadding protruding through the
rents in the material, is a sort of epitome of the sitting-room,
the dining-room, and the little garden; it discovers the cook, it
foreshadows the lodgers--the picture of the house is completed by
the portrait of its mistress.
From: Father Goriot
(keyword count: 12, file: FRGRT10.TXT, offset: 427590, length: 709)
[keywords: floor,house,door,ante-room,room,study,furniture,room,room,chair,screen,chimney-piece,]
"Come along upstairs," he said to Rastignac. They crossed a
courtyard, and climbed up to the third floor of a new and
handsome house. There they stopped before a door; but before
Goriot could ring, it was opened by Therese, Mme. de Nucingen's
maid. Eugene found himself in a charming set of chambers; an
ante-room, a little drawing-room, a bedroom, and a study, looking
out upon a garden. The furniture and the decorations of the
little drawing-room were of the most daintily charming
description, the room was full of soft light, and Delphine rose
up from a low chair by the fire and stood before him. She set her
fire-screen down on the chimney-piece, and spoke with tenderness
in every tone of her voice.
From: Ursula
(keyword count: 12, file: RSULA10.TXT, offset: 52440, length: 773)
[keywords: flowers,kitchen,staircase,kitchen,staircase,kitchen,courtyard,windows,floor,house,courtyard,vases,]
On the other side of the passage, toward the garden, was the dining-
room, decorated in imitation of black lacquer with green and gold
flowers; this was separated from the kitchen by the well of the
staircase. Communication with the kitchen was had through a little
pantry built behind the staircase, the kitchen itself looking into the
courtyard through windows with iron railings. There were two chambers
on the next floor, and above them, attic rooms sheathed in wood, which
were fairly habitable. After examining the house rapidly, and
observing that it was covered with trellises from top to bottom, on
the side of the courtyard as well as on that to the garden,--which
ended in a terrace overlooking the river and adorned with pottery
vases,--the doctor remarked:--
From: Ursula
(keyword count: 11, file: RSULA10.TXT, offset: 170620, length: 1701)
[keywords: dining-room,table,courtyard,dining-room,chairs,sideboards,stove,clock,table,door,room,]
While Ursula was playing variations on Weber's "Last Thought" to her
godfather, a plot was hatching in the Minoret-Levraults' dining-room
which was destined to have a lasting effect on the events of this
drama. The breakfast, noisy as all provincial breakfasts are, and
enlivened by excellent wines brought to Nemours by the canal either
from Burgundy or Touraine, lasted more than two hours. Zelie had sent
for oysters, salt-water fish, and other gastronomical delicacies to do
honor to Desire's return. The dining-room, in the center of which a
round table offered a most appetizing sight, was like the hall of an
inn. Content with the size of her kitchens and offices, Zelie had
built a pavilion for the family between the vast courtyard and a
garden planted with vegetables and full of fruit-trees. Everything
about the premises was solid and plain. The example of Levrault-
Levrault had been a warning to the town. Zelie forbade her builder to
lead her into such follies. The dining-room was, therefore, hung with
varnished paper and furnished with walnut chairs and sideboards, a
porcelain stove, a tall clock, and a barometer. Though the plates and
dishes were of common white china, the table shone with handsome linen
and abundant silverware. After Zelie had served the coffee, coming and
going herself like shot in a decanter,--for she kept but one servant,
--and when Desire, the budding lawyer, had been told of the event of
the morning and its probably consequences, the door was closed, and
the notary Dionis was called upon to speak. By the silence in the room
and the looks that were cast on that authoritative face, it was easy
to see the power that such men exercise over families.
From: Ursula
(keyword count: 15, file: RSULA10.TXT, offset: 209314, length: 1111)
[keywords: windows,wainscot,paint,tiled,seat,mats,curtains,flowers,blinds,candles,table,room,windows,wall,fireplace,]
This little salon, lighted by two windows on the street and finished
with a wainscot painted gray, was so damp that the lower panels showed
the geometrical cracks of rotten wood when the paint no longer binds
it. The red-tiled floor, polished by the old lady's one servant,
required, for comfort's sake, before each seat small round mats of
brown straw, on one of which the abbe was now resting his feet. The
old damask curtains of light green with green flowers were drawn, and
the outside blinds had been closed. Two wax candles lighted the table,
leaving the rest of the room in semi-obscurity. Is it necessary to say
that between the two windows was a fine pastel by Latour representing
the famous Admiral de Portenduere, the rival of the Suffren, Guichen,
Kergarouet and Simeuse naval heroes? On the paneled wall opposite to
the fireplace were portraits of the Vicomte de Portenduere and of the
mother of the old lady, a Kergarouet-Ploegat. Savinien's great-uncle
was therefore the Vice-admiral de Kergarouet, and his cousin was the
Comte de Portenduere, grandson of the admiral,--both of them very
rich.
From: Ursula
(keyword count: 20, file: RSULA10.TXT, offset: 253017, length: 822)
[keywords: floor,room,staircase,window,room,staircase,house,room,study,window,court,house,court,salon,floor,kitchen,court,salon,room,dining-room,]
The little house had three bedrooms on the first floor. That of Madame
de Portenduere and that of her late husband were separated by a large
dressing-room lighted by a skylight, and connected by a little
antechamber which opened on the staircase. The window of the other
room, occupied by Savinien, looked, like that of his late father, on
the street. The staircase went up at the back of the house, leaving
room for a little study lighted by a small round window opening on the
court. Madame de Portenduere's bedroom, the gloomiest in the house,
also looked into the court; but the widow spent all her time in the
salon on the ground floor, which communicated by a passage with the
kitchen built at the end of the court, so that this salon was made to
answer the double purpose of drawing-room and dining-room combined.
From: Ursula
(keyword count: 15, file: RSULA10.TXT, offset: 336533, length: 1222)
[keywords: house,house,door,room,floor,windows,kitchen,door,courtyard,staircase,windows,floor,partition,floor,room,]
In the provinces, and especially in little towns where every one lives
in his own house, it is sometimes very difficult to find a lodging.
When a man buys a business of any kind the dwelling-house is almost
always included in the purchase. Monsieur Bongrand saw no other way of
removing Ursula from the village inn than to buy a small house on the
Grand'Rue at the corner of the bridge over the Loing. The little
building had a front door opening on a corridor, and one room on the
ground-floor with two windows on the street; behind this came the
kitchen, with a glass door opening to an inner courtyard about thirty
feet square. A small staircase, lighted on the side towards the river
by small windows, led to the first floor where there were three
chambers, and above these were two attic rooms. Monsieur Bongrand
borrowed two thousand francs from La Bougival's savings to pay the
first instalment of the price,--six thousand francs,--and obtained
good terms for payment of the rest. As Ursula wished to buy her
uncle's books, Bongrand knocked down the partition between two rooms
on the bedroom floor, finding that their united length was the same as
that of the doctor's library, and gave room for his bookshelves.
From: The Purse
(keyword count: 10, file: PURSE10.TXT, offset: 31437, length: 974)
[keywords: candle,candlestick,candlestick,ante-room,lamp,chimney,lamp,chimney,mirror,chimney-piece,]
As he uttered this speech, stamped with the exquisite stupidity
given to the mind by the first disturbing symptoms of true love,
Hippolyte looked at the young girl. Adelaide was lighting the
Argand lamp, no doubt that she might get rid of a tallow candle
fixed in a large copper flat candlestick, and graced with a heavy
fluting of grease from its guttering. She answered with a slight
bow, carried the flat candlestick into the ante-room, came back,
and after placing the lamp on the chimney shelf, seated herself
by her mother, a little behind the painter, so as to be able to
look at him at her ease, while apparently much interested in the
burning of the lamp; the flame, checked by the damp in a dingy
chimney, sputtered as it struggled with a charred and badly-
trimmed wick. Hippolyte, seeing the large mirror that decorated
the chimney-piece, immediately fixed his eyes on it to admire
Adelaide. Thus the girl's little stratagem only served to
embarrass them both.
From: Bureaucracy
(keyword count: 19, file: BRCRC10.TXT, offset: 80568, length: 2417)
[keywords: salon,windows,salon,study,dining-room,room,door,study,salon,study,salon,pictures,dining-room,rugs,walls,room,brass,clock,Flowers,]
The rue Duphot, built up under the Empire, is remarkable for several
houses with handsome exteriors, the apartments of which are skilfully
laid out. That of the Rabourdins was particularly well arranged,--a
domestic advantage which has much to do with the nobleness of private
lives. A pretty and rather wide antechamber, lighted from the
courtyard, led to the grand salon, the windows of which looked on the
street. To the right of the salon were Rabourdin's study and bedroom,
and behind them the dining-room, which was entered from the
antechamber; to the left was Madame's bedroom and dressing-room, and
behind them her daughter's little bedroom. On reception days the door
of Rabourdin's study and that of his wife's bedroom were thrown open.
The rooms were thus spacious enough to contain a select company,
without the absurdity which attends many middle-class entertainments,
where unusual preparations are made at the expense of the daily
comfort, and consequently give the effect of exceptional effort. The
salon had lately been rehung in gold-colored silk with carmelite
touches. Madame's bedroom was draped in a fabric of true blue and
furnished in a rococo manner. Rabourdin's study had inherited the late
hangings of the salon, carefully cleaned, and was adorned by the fine
pictures once belonging to Monsieur Leprince. The daughter of the late
auctioneer had utilized in her dining-room certain exquisite Turkish
rugs which her father had bought at a bargain; panelling them on the
walls in ebony, the cost of which has since become exorbitant. Elegant
buffets made by Boulle, also purchased by the auctioneer, furnished
the sides of the room, at the end of which sparkled the brass
arabesques inlaid in tortoise-shell of the first tall clock that
reappeared in the nineteenth century to claim honor for the
masterpieces of the seventeenth. Flowers perfumed these rooms so full
of good taste and of exquisite things, where each detail was a work of
art well placed and well surrounded, and where Madame Rabourdin,
dressed with that natural simplicity which artists alone attain, gave
the impression of a woman accustomed to such elegancies, though she
never spoke of them, but allowed the charms of her mind to complete
the effect produced upon her guests by these delightful surroundings.
Thanks to her father, Celestine was able to make society talk of her
as soon as the rococo became fashionable.
From: Bureaucracy
(keyword count: 11, file: BRCRC10.TXT, offset: 102011, length: 1403)
[keywords: brass,house,floor,paint,marble,furniture,brass,marble,pictures,frames,curtains,]
Elisabeth, the only child, had toiled steadily from infancy in a home
where the customs of life were rigid and the ideas simple. A new hat
for Saillard was a matter of deliberation; the time a coat could last
was estimated and discussed; umbrellas were carefully hung up by means
of a brass buckle. Since 1804 no repairs of any kind had been done to
the house. The Saillards kept the ground-floor in precisely the state
in which their predecessor left it. The gilding of the pier-glasses
was rubbed off; the paint on the cornices was hardly visible through
the layers of dust that time had collected. The fine large rooms still
retained certain sculptured marble mantel-pieces and ceilings, worthy
of Versailles, together with the old furniture of the widow Bidault.
The latter consisted of a curious mixture of walnut armchairs,
disjointed, and covered with tapestry; rosewood bureaus; round tables
on single pedestals, with brass railings and cracked marble tops; one
superb Boulle secretary, the value of which style had not yet been
recognized; in short, a chaos of bargains picked up by the worthy
widow,--pictures bought for the sake of the frames, china services of
a composite order; to wit, a magnificent Japanese dessert set, and all
the rest porcelains of various makes, unmatched silver plate, old
glass, fine damask, and a four-post bedstead, hung with curtains and
garnished with plumes.
From: Bureaucracy
(keyword count: 13, file: BRCRC10.TXT, offset: 103414, length: 1633)
[keywords: mahogany,fireplace,mantel-shelf,clock,antique,flowers,candles,room,candle,brass,pictures,room,kitchen,]
Amid these curious relics, Madame Saillard always sat on a sofa of
modern mahogany, near a fireplace full of ashes and without fire, on
the mantel-shelf of which stood a clock, some antique bronzes,
candelabra with paper flowers but no candles, for the careful
housewife lighted the room with a tall tallow candle always guttering
down into the flat brass candlestick which held it. Madame Saillard's
face, despite its wrinkles, was expressive of obstinacy and severity,
narrowness of ideas, an uprightness that might be called quadrangular,
a religion without piety, straightforward, candid avarice, and the
peace of a quiet conscience. You may see in certain Flemish pictures
the wives of burgomasters cut out by nature on the same pattern and
wonderfully reproduced on canvas; but these dames wear fine robes of
velvet and precious stuffs, whereas Madame Saillard possessed no
robes, only that venerable garment called in Touraine and Picardy
"cottes," elsewhere petticoats, or skirts pleated behind and on each
side, with other skirts hanging over them. Her bust was inclosed in
what was called a "casaquin," another obsolete name for a short gown
or jacket. She continued to wear a cap with starched wings, and shoes
with high heels. Though she was now fifty-seven years old, and her
lifetime of vigorous household work ought now to be rewarded with
well-earned repose, she was incessantly employed in knitting her
husband's stockings and her own, and those of an uncle, just as her
countrywomen knit them, moving about the room, talking, pacing up and
down the garden, or looking round the kitchen to watch what was going
on.
From: Bureaucracy
(keyword count: 18, file: BRCRC10.TXT, offset: 187109, length: 3838)
[keywords: flower,apartment,curtains,windows,walls,furniture,parlor,kitchen,flowers,house,bed,flowers,bureau,office,lamps,office,flowers,home,]
The devil always puts a martyr near a Bixiou. Baudoyer's bureau held
the martyr, a poor copying-clerk twenty-two years of age, with a
salary of fifteen hundred francs, named Auguste-Jean-Francois Minard.
Minard had married for love the daughter of a porter, an artificial-
flower maker employed by Mademoiselle Godard. Zelie Lorrain, a pupil,
in the first place, of the Conservatoire, then by turns a danseuse, a
singer, and an actress, had thought of doing as so many of the
working-women do; but the fear of consequences kept her from vice. She
was floating undecidedly along, when Minard appeared upon the scene
with a definite proposal of marriage. Zelie earned five hundred francs
a year, Minard had fifteen hundred. Believing that they could live on
two thousand, they married without settlements, and started with the
utmost economy. They went to live, like dove-turtles, near the
barriere de Courcelles, in a little apartment at three hundred francs
a year, with white cotton curtains to the windows, a Scotch paper
costing fifteen sous a roll on the walls, brick floors well polished,
walnut furniture in the parlor, and a tiny kitchen that was very
clean. Zelie nursed her children herself when they came, cooked, made
her flowers, and kept the house. There was something very touching in
this happy and laborious mediocrity. Feeling that Minard truly loved
her, Zelie loved him. Love begets love,--it is the abyssus abyssum of
the Bible. The poor man left his bed in the morning before his wife
was up, that he might fetch provisions. He carried the flowers she had
finished, on his way to the bureau, and bought her materials on his
way back; then, while waiting for dinner, he stamped out her leaves,
trimmed the twigs, or rubbed her colors. Small, slim, and wiry, with
crisp red hair, eyes of a light yellow, a skin of dazzling fairness,
though blotched with red, the man had a sturdy courage that made no
show. He knew the science of writing quite as well as Vimeux. At the
office he kept in the background, doing his allotted task with the
collected air of a man who thinks and suffers. His white eyelashes and
lack of eyebrows induced the relentless Bixiou to name him "the white
rabbit." Minard--the Rabourdin of a lower sphere--was filled with the
desire of placing his Zelie in better circumstances, and his mind
searched the ocean of the wants of luxury in hopes of finding an idea,
of making some discovery or some improvement which would bring him a
rapid fortune. His apparent dulness was really caused by the continual
tension of his mind; he went over the history of Cephalic Oils and the
Paste of Sultans, lucifer matches and portable gas, jointed sockets
for hydrostatic lamps,--in short, all the infinitely little inventions
of material civilization which pay so well. He bore Bixiou's jests as
a busy man bears the buzzing of an insect; he was not even annoyed by
them. In spite of his cleverness, Bixiou never perceived the profound
contempt which Minard felt for him. Minard never dreamed of
quarrelling, however,--regarding it as a loss of time. After a while
his composure tired out his tormentor. He always breakfasted with his
wife, and ate nothing at the office. Once a month he took Zelie to the
theatre, with tickets bestowed by du Bruel or Bixiou; for Bixiou was
capable of anything, even of doing a kindness. Monsieur and Madame
Minard paid their visits in person on New-Year's day. Those who saw
them often asked how it was that a woman could keep her husband in
good clothes, wear a Leghorn bonnet with flowers, embroidered muslin
dresses, silk mantles, prunella boots, handsome fichus, a Chinese
parasol, and drive home in a hackney-coach, and yet be virtuous; while
Madame Colleville and other "ladies" of her kind could scarcely make
ends meet, though they had double Madame Minard's means.
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