Balzacs Interiors

10 < Keywords-In-Text < 10000

From: The Alkahest
(keyword count: 12, file: LKHST10.TXT, offset: 25773, length: 1114)
[keywords: floor,windows,windows,house,window,window,brick,painted,walls,house,brick,house,]

The casing of the door, formed by fluted pilasters, was dark gray in
color, and so highly polished that it shone as if varnished. On either
side of the doorway, on the ground-floor, were two windows, which
resembled all the other windows of the house. The casing of white
stone ended below the sill in a richly carved shell, and rose above
the window in an arch, supported at its apex by the head-piece of a
cross, which divided the glass sashes in four unequal parts; for the
transversal bar, placed at the height of that in a Latin cross, made
the lower sashes of the window nearly double the height of the upper,
the latter rounding at the sides into the arch. The coping of the arch
was ornamented with three rows of brick, placed one above the other,
the bricks alternately projecting or retreating to the depth of an
inch, giving the effect of a Greek moulding. The glass panes, which
were small and diamond-shaped, were set in very slender leading,
painted red. The walls of the house, of brick jointed with white
mortar, were braced at regular distances, and at the angles of the
house, by stone courses.



From: The Alkahest
(keyword count: 12, file: LKHST10.TXT, offset: 29224, length: 1073)
[keywords: door,house,door,painted,marble,court,hall,house,house,walls,windows,walls,]

When a visitor had pulled the braided iron wire bell-cord which hung
from the top of the pilaster of the doorway, and the servant-woman,
coming from within, had admitted him through the side of the double-
door in which was a small grated loop-hole, that half of the door
escaped from her hand and swung back by its own weight with a solemn,
ponderous sound that echoed along the roof of a wide paved archway and
through the depths of the house, as though the door had been of iron.
This archway, painted to resemble marble, always clean and daily
sprinkled with fresh sand, led into a large court-yard paved with
smooth square stones of a greenish color. On the left were the linen-
rooms, kitchens, and servants' hall; to the right, the wood-house,
coal-house, and offices, whose doors, walls, and windows were
decorated with designs kept exquisitely clean. The daylight, threading
its way between four red walls chequered with white lines, caught rosy
tints and reflections which gave a mysterious grace and fantastic
appearance to faces, and even to trifling details.



From: The Alkahest
(keyword count: 11, file: LKHST10.TXT, offset: 30297, length: 996)
[keywords: court,room,floor,parlor,windows,court,house,room,court,door,parlor,]

A second house, exactly like the building on the street, and called in
Flanders the "back-quarter," stood at the farther end of the court-
yard, and was used exclusively as the family dwelling. The first room
on the ground-floor was a parlor, lighted by two windows on the court-
yard, and two more looking out upon a garden which was of the same
size as the house. Two glass doors, placed exactly opposite to each
other, led at one end of the room to the garden, at the other to the
court-yard, and were in line with the archway and the street door; so
that a visitor entering the latter could see through to the greenery
which draped the lower end of the garden. The front building, which
was reserved for receptions and the lodging-rooms of guests, held many
objects of art and accumulated wealth, but none of them equalled in
the eyes of a Claes, nor indeed in the judgment of a connoisseur, the
treasures contained in the parlor, where for over two centuries the
family life had glided on.



From: The Alkahest
(keyword count: 14, file: LKHST10.TXT, offset: 32424, length: 1233)
[keywords: walls,frame,painted,painted,Court,chimney-piece,shelf,marble,clock,candlesticks,windows,curtains,furniture,floor,]

The parlor, whose walls were entirely panelled with this carving,
which Van Huysum, out of regard for the martyr's memory, came to Douai
to frame in wood painted in lapis-lazuli with threads of gold, is
therefore the most complete work of this master, whose least carvings
now sell for nearly their weight in gold. Hanging over the fire-place,
Van Claes the martyr, painted by Titian in his robes as president of
the Court of Parchons, still seemed the head of the family, who
venerated him as their greatest man. The chimney-piece, originally in
stone with a very high mantle-shelf, had been made over in marble
during the last century; on it now stood an old clock and two
candlesticks with five twisted branches, in bad taste, but of solid
silver. The four windows were draped by wide curtains of red damask
with a flowered black design, lined with white silk; the furniture,
covered with the same material, had been renovated in the time of
Louis XIV. The floor, evidently modern, was laid in large squares of
white wood bordered with strips of oak. The ceiling, formed of many
oval panels, in each of which Van Huysum had carved a grotesque mask,
had been respected and allowed to keep the brown tones of the native
Dutch oak.



From: The Alkahest
(keyword count: 11, file: LKHST10.TXT, offset: 33657, length: 1010)
[keywords: shelf,table,room,walls,marble,bed,room,windows,court,wall,parlor,]

In the four corners of this parlor were truncated columns, supporting
candelabra exactly like those on the mantle-shelf; and a round table
stood in the middle of the room. Along the walls card-tables were
symmetrically placed. On two gilded consoles with marble slabs there
stood, at the period when this history begins, two glass globes filled
with water, in which, above a bed of sand and shells, red and gold and
silver fish were swimming about. The room was both brilliant and
sombre. The ceiling necessarily absorbed the light and reflected none.
Although on the garden side all was bright and glowing, and the
sunshine danced upon the ebony carvings, the windows on the court-yard
admitted so little light that the gold threads in the lapis-lazuli
scarcely glittered on the opposite wall. This parlor, which could be
gorgeous on a fine day, was usually, under the Flemish skies, filled
with soft shadows and melancholy russet tones, like those shed by the
sun on the tree-tops of the forests in autumn.



From: The Alkahest
(keyword count: 20, file: LKHST10.TXT, offset: 399540, length: 1097)
[keywords: parlor,walls,portrait,room,chairs,table,house,room,parlor,dining-room,bedroom,bed,chair,table,candlestick,candle,house,curtain,windows,kitchen,]

When the door was opened, Marguerite went directly to the parlor.
Horror overcame her and she trembled when she saw the walls as bare as
if a fire had swept over them. The glorious carved panellings of Van
Huysum and the portrait of the great Claes had been sold. The dining-
room was empty: there was nothing in it but two straw chairs and a
common deal table, on which Marguerite, terrified, saw two plates, two
bowls, two forks and spoons, and the remains of a salt herring which
Claes and his servant had evidently just eaten. In a moment she had
flown through her father's portion of the house, every room of which
exhibited the same desolation as the parlor and dining-room. The idea
of the Alkahest had swept like a conflagration through the building.
Her father's bedroom had a bed, one chair, and one table, on which
stood a miserable pewter candlestick with a tallow candle burned
almost to the socket. The house was so completely stripped that not so
much as a curtain remained at the windows. Every object of the
smallest value,--everything, even the kitchen utensils, had been sold.



From: Modeste Mignon
(keyword count: 20, file: MDMGN10.TXT, offset: 25256, length: 1922)
[keywords: brick,window,painted,floor,floor,salon,dining-room,staircase,kitchen,dining-room,room,salon,study,bedroom,floor,bedrooms,room,salon,floor,window,]

In consequence of certain events which will presently be related, the
estates of Monsieur Mignon, formerly the richest merchant in Havre,
were sold to Vilquin, one of his business competitors. In his joy at
getting possession of the celebrated villa Mignon, the latter forgot
to demand the cancelling of the lease. Dumay, anxious not to hinder
the sale, would have signed anything Vilquin required, but the sale
once made, he held to his lease like a vengeance. And there he
remained, in Vilquin's pocket as it were; at the heart of Vilquin's
family life, observing Vilquin, irritating Vilquin,--in short, the
gadfly of all the Vilquins. Every morning, when he looked out of his
window, Vilquin felt a violent shock of annoyance as his eye lighted
on the little gem of a building, the Chalet, which had cost sixty
thousand francs and sparkled like a ruby in the sun. That comparison
is very nearly exact. The architect has constructed the cottage of
brilliant red brick pointed with white. The window-frames are painted
of a lively green, the woodwork is brown verging on yellow. The roof
overhangs by several feet. A pretty gallery, with open-worked
balustrade, surmounts the lower floor and projects at the centre of
the facade into a veranda with glass sides. The ground-floor has a
charming salon and a dining-room, separated from each other by the
landing of a staircase built of wood, designed and decorated with
elegant simplicity. The kitchen is behind the dining-room, and the
corresponding room back of the salon, formerly a study, is now the
bedroom of Monsieur and Madame Dumay. On the upper floor the architect
has managed to get two large bedrooms, each with a dressing-room, to
which the veranda serves as a salon; and above this floor, under the
eaves, which are tipped together like a couple of cards, are two
servants' rooms with mansard roofs, each lighted by a circular window
and tolerably spacious.



From: Modeste Mignon
(keyword count: 12, file: MDMGN10.TXT, offset: 28552, length: 987)
[keywords: lawn,flowers,house,house,house,house,room,house,wall,door,Wall,wall,]

The entrance to the Chalet is by a little trellised iron door, the
uprights of which, ending in lance-heads, show for a few inches above
the fence and its hedge. The little garden, about as wide as the more
pretentious lawn, was just now filled with flowers, roses, and dahlias
of the choicest kind, and many rare products of the hot-houses, for
(another Vilquinard grievance) the elegant little hot-house, a very
whim of a hot-house, a hot-house representing dignity and style,
belonged to the Chalet, and separated, or if you prefer, united it to
the villa Vilquin. Dumay consoled himself for the toils of business in
taking care of this hot-house, whose exotic treasures were one of
Modeste's joys. The billiard-room of the villa Vilquin, a species of
gallery, formerly communicated through an immense aviary with this
hot-house. But after the building of the wall which deprived him of a
view into the orchards, Dumay bricked up the door of communication.
"Wall for wall!" he said.



From: The Magic Skin
(keyword count: 15, file: MGCSK10.TXT, offset: 182451, length: 1455)
[keywords: candles,candle,room,coverlet,furniture,house,room,window,walls,tiles,room,bed,table,chairs,furniture,]

"I found myself in a room with a low ceiling; the candles, in classic-
looking copper candle-sticks, were set in a row under each key. The
predominating cleanliness of the room made a striking contrast to the
usual state of such places. This one was as neat as a bit of genre;
there was a charming trimness about the blue coverlet, the cooking
pots and furniture. The mistress of the house rose and came to me. She
seemed to be about forty years of age; sorrows had left their traces
on her features, and weeping had dimmed her eyes. I deferentially
mentioned the amount I could pay; it seemed to cause her no surprise;
she sought out a key from the row, went up to the attics with me, and
showed me a room that looked out on the neighboring roofs and courts;
long poles with linen drying on them hung out of the window.

"Nothing could be uglier than this garret, awaiting its scholar, with
its dingy yellow walls and odor of poverty. The roofing fell in a
steep slope, and the sky was visible through chinks in the tiles.
There was room for a bed, a table, and a few chairs, and beneath the
highest point of the roof my piano could stand. Not being rich enough
to furnish this cage (that might have been one of the Piombi of
Venice), the poor woman had never been able to let it; and as I had
saved from the recent sale the furniture that was in a fashion
peculiarly mine, I very soon came to terms with my landlady, and moved
in on the following day.



From: The Magic Skin
(keyword count: 13, file: MGCSK10.TXT, offset: 210952, length: 1202)
[keywords: furniture,boudoir,curtains,clock,carpet,decoration,windows,decoration,room,flowers,apartment,paintings,walls,]

"The rooms were furnished in excellent taste. Each apartment had a
character of its own, as in wealthy English houses; and the silken
hangings, the style of the furniture, and the ornaments, even the most
trifling, were all subordinated to the original idea. In a gothic
boudoir the doors were concealed by tapestried curtains, and the
paneling by hangings; the clock and the pattern of the carpet were
made to harmonize with the gothic surroundings. The ceiling, with its
carved cross-beams of brown wood, was full of charm and originality;
the panels were beautifully wrought; nothing disturbed the general
harmony of the scheme of decoration, not even the windows with their
rich colored glass. I was surprised by the extensive knowledge of
decoration that some artist had brought to bear on a little modern
room, it was so pleasant and fresh, and not heavy, but subdued with
its dead gold hues. It had all the vague sentiment of a German ballad;
it was a retreat fit for some romance of 1827, perfumed by the exotic
flowers set in their stands. Another apartment in the suite was a
gilded reproduction of the Louis Quatorze period, with modern
paintings on the walls in odd but pleasant contrast.



From: The Magic Skin
(keyword count: 10, file: MGCSK10.TXT, offset: 366265, length: 2146)
[keywords: bed,chimney-piece,room,flowers,house,room,door,study,house,door,]

"He says Yes, or No. If he has a notion that he will go out, he
doesn't wait for his horses; they are always ready harnessed; the
coachman stops there inconciliably, whip in hand, just as you see him
out there. In the evening, after dinner, my master goes one day to the
Opera, the other to the Ital----no, he hasn't yet gone to the
Italiens, though, for I could not find a box for him until yesterday.
Then he comes in at eleven o'clock precisely, to go to bed. At any
time in the day when he has nothing to do, he reads--he is always
reading, you see--it is a notion he has. My instructions are to read
the Journal de la Librairie before he sees it, and to buy new books,
so that he finds them on his chimney-piece on the very day that they
are published. I have orders to go into his room every hour or so, to
look after the fire and everything else, and to see that he wants
nothing. He gave me a little book, sir, to learn off by heart, with
all my duties written in it--a regular catechism! In summer I have to
keep a cool and even temperature with blocks of ice and at all seasons
to put fresh flowers all about. He is rich! He has a thousand francs
to spend every day; he can indulge his fancies! And he hadn't even
necessaries for so long, poor child! He doesn't annoy anybody; he is
as good as gold; he never opens his mouth, for instance; the house and
garden are absolutely silent. In short, my master has not a single
wish left; everything comes in the twinkling of an eye, if he raises
his hand, and INSTANTER. Quite right, too. If servants are not looked
after, everything falls into confusion. You would never believe the
lengths he goes about things. His rooms are all--what do you call
it?--er--er--en suite. Very well; just suppose, now, that he opens his
room door or the door of his study; presto! all the other doors fly
open of themselves by a patent contrivance; and then he can go from
one end of the house to the other and not find a single door shut;
which is all very nice and pleasant and convenient for us great folk!
But, on my word, it cost us a lot of money! And, after all, M.
Porriquet, he said to me at last:



From: The Illustrious Gaudissart
(keyword count: 11, file: 1GDSR10.TXT, offset: 59787, length: 878)
[keywords: floor,salon,bedroom,salon,room,kitchen,door,stairway,house,house,courtyard,]

The house of the pretended banker stood at the entrance to the Valley
Coquette. The place, called La Fuye, had nothing remarkable about it.
On the ground floor was a large wainscoted salon, on either side of
which opened the bedroom of the good-man and that of his wife. The
salon was entered from an ante-chamber, which served as the dining-
room and communicated with the kitchen. This lower door, which was
wholly without the external charm usually seen even in the humblest
dwellings in Touraine, was covered by a mansard story, reached by a
stairway built on the outside of the house against the gable end and
protected by a shed-roof. A little garden, full of marigolds,
syringas, and elder-bushes, separated the house from the fields; and
all around the courtyard were detached buildings which were used in
the vintage season for the various processes of making wine.





From: Two Poets
(keyword count: 13, file: 2POET10.TXT, offset: 24182, length: 2380)
[keywords: floor,room,window,yard,office,door,floor,yard,yard,walls,kitchen,hall,kitchen,]

Perhaps a word or two about the business premises may be said here.
The printing-house had been established since the reign of Louis XIV.
in the angle made by the Rue de Beaulieu and the Place du Murier; it
had been devoted to its present purposes for a long time past. The
ground floor consisted of a single huge room lighted on the side next
the street by an old-fashioned casement, and by a large sash window
that gave upon the yard at the back. A passage at the side led to the
private office; but in the provinces the processes of typography
excite such a lively interest, that customers usually preferred to
enter by way of the glass door in the street front, though they at
once descended three steps, for the floor of the workshop lay below
the level of the street. The gaping newcomer always failed to note the
perils of the passage through the shop; and while staring at the
sheets of paper strung in groves across the ceiling, ran against the
rows of cases, or knocked his hat against the tie-bars that secured
the presses in position. Or the customer's eyes would follow the agile
movements of a compositor, picking out type from the hundred and
fifty-two compartments of his case, reading his copy, verifying the
words in the composing-stick, and leading the lines, till a ream of
damp paper weighted with heavy slabs, and set down in the middle of
the gangway, tripped up the bemused spectator, or he caught his hip
against the angle of a bench, to the huge delight of boys, "bears,"
and "monkeys." No wight had ever been known to reach the further end
without accident. A couple of glass-windowed cages had been built out
into the yard at the back; the foreman sat in state in the one, the
master printer in the other. Out in the yard the walls were agreeably
decorated by trellised vines, a tempting bit of color, considering the
owner's reputation. On the one side of the space stood the kitchen, on
the other the woodshed, and in a ramshackle penthouse against the hall
at the back, the paper was trimmed and damped down. Here, too, the
forms, or, in ordinary language, the masses of set-up type, were
washed. Inky streams issuing thence blended with the ooze from the
kitchen sink, and found their way into the kennel in the street
outside; till peasants coming into the town of a market day believed
that the Devil was taking a wash inside the establishment.



From: Two Poets
(keyword count: 17, file: 2POET10.TXT, offset: 26562, length: 975)
[keywords: office,floor,room,dining-room,staircase,window,yard,apartment,walls,brick,furniture,chairs,table,sideboard,bedroom,sitting-room,floor,]

As to the house above the printing office, it consisted of three rooms
on the first floor and a couple of attics in the roof. The first room
did duty as dining-room and lobby; it was exactly the same length as
the passage below, less the space taken up by the old-fashioned wooden
staircase; and was lighted by a narrow casement on the street and a
bull's-eye window looking into the yard. The chief characteristic of
the apartment was a cynic simplicity, due to money-making greed. The
bare walls were covered with plain whitewash, the dirty brick floor
had never been scoured, the furniture consisted of three rickety
chairs, a round table, and a sideboard stationed between the two doors
of a bedroom and a sitting-room. Windows and doors alike were dingy
with accumulated grime. Reams of blank paper or printed matter usually
encumbered the floor, and more frequently than not the remains of
Sechard's dinner, empty bottles and plates, were lying about on the
packages.



From: Two Poets
(keyword count: 13, file: 2POET10.TXT, offset: 28092, length: 716)
[keywords: walls,wainscot,painted,wall,furniture,chairs,room,windows,clock,candle,mirror,mantel-shelf,decoration,]

The sitting-room had been partly modernized by the late Mme. Sechard;
the walls were adorned with a wainscot, fearful to behold, painted the
color of powder blue. The panels were decorated with wall-paper--
Oriental scenes in sepia tint--and for all furniture, half-a-dozen
chairs with lyre-shaped backs and blue leather cushions were ranged
round the room. The two clumsy arched windows that gave upon the Place
du Murier were curtainless; there was neither clock nor candle sconce
nor mirror above the mantel-shelf, for Mme. Sechard had died before
she carried out her scheme of decoration; and the "bear," unable to
conceive the use of improvements that brought in no return in money,
had left it at this point.



From: Two Poets
(keyword count: 11, file: 2POET10.TXT, offset: 115347, length: 775)
[keywords: floor,room,salon,painted,paintings,walls,furniture,sofa,candles,screen,table,]

Lucien went up the old staircase with the balustrade of chestnut wood
(the stone steps ceased after the second floor), crossed a shabby
antechamber, and came into the presence in a little wainscoted
drawing-room, beyond a dimly-lit salon. The carved woodwork, in the
taste of the eighteenth century, had been painted gray. There were
monochrome paintings on the frieze panels, and the walls were adorned
with crimson damask with a meagre border. The old-fashioned furniture
shrank piteously from sight under covers of a red-and-white check
pattern. On the sofa, covered with thin mattressed cushions, sat Mme.
de Bargeton; the poet beheld her by the light of two wax candles on a
sconce with a screen fitted to it, that stood before her on a round
table with a green cloth.



From: A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
(keyword count: 14, file: ADPAP10.TXT, offset: 186380, length: 1661)
[keywords: office,office,home,table,chairs,brick,room,mirror,chimney-piece,clock,candlesticks,antique,table,inkstand,]

He went at once in the direction of the Rue Saint-Fiacre, climbed the
stair, and opened the door.

The veteran officer was absent; but the old pensioner, sitting on a
pile of stamped papers, was munching a crust and acting as sentinel
resignedly. Coloquinte was as much accustomed to his work in the
office as to the fatigue duty of former days, understanding as much or
as little about it as the why and wherefore of forced marches made by
the Emperor's orders. Lucien was inspired with the bold idea of
deceiving that formidable functionary. He settled his hat on his head,
and walked into the editor's office as if he were quite at home.

Looking eagerly about him, he beheld a round table covered with a
green cloth, and half-a-dozen cherry-wood chairs, newly reseated with
straw. The colored brick floor had not been waxed, but it was clean;
so clean that the public, evidently, seldom entered the room. There
was a mirror above the chimney-piece, and on the ledge below, amid a
sprinkling of visiting-cards, stood a shopkeeper's clock, smothered
with dust, and a couple of candlesticks with tallow dips thrust into
their sockets. A few antique newspapers lay on the table beside an
inkstand containing some black lacquer-like substance, and a
collection of quill pens twisted into stars. Sundry dirty scraps of
paper, covered with almost undecipherable hieroglyphs, proved to be
manuscript articles torn across the top by the compositor to check off
the sheets as they were set up. He admired a few rather clever
caricatures, sketched on bits of brown paper by somebody who evidently
had tried to kill time by killing something else to keep his hand in.



From: A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
(keyword count: 11, file: ADPAP10.TXT, offset: 228497, length: 865)
[keywords: curtains,chimney,windows,lamp,chimney-piece,chest,drawers,table,furniture,room,room,]

A shabby, cheap carpet lay in wrinkles at the foot of a curtainless
walnut-wood bedstead; dingy curtains, begrimed with cigar smoke and
fumes from a smoky chimney, hung in the windows; a Carcel lamp,
Florine's gift, on the chimney-piece, had so far escaped the
pawnbroker. Add a forlorn-looking chest of drawers, and a table
littered with papers and disheveled quill pens, and the list of
furniture was almost complete. All the books had evidently arrived in
the course of the last twenty-four hours; and there was not a single
object of any value in the room. In one corner you beheld a collection
of crushed and flattened cigars, coiled pocket-handkerchiefs, shirts
which had been turned to do double duty, and cravats that had reached
a third edition; while a sordid array of old boots stood gaping in
another angle of the room among aged socks worn into lace.



From: A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
(keyword count: 11, file: ADPAP10.TXT, offset: 287491, length: 1057)
[keywords: picture,room,wall,mirror,sofa,chairs,fireplace,closet,carpet,floor,room,]

Florine was thin; her beauty, like a bud, gave promise of the flower
to come; the girl of sixteen could only delight the eyes of artists
who prefer the sketch to the picture. All the quick subtlety of her
character was visible in the features of the charming actress, who at
that time might have sat for Goethe's Mignon. Matifat, a wealthy
druggist of the Rue des Lombards, had imagined that a little Boulevard
actress would have no very expensive tastes, but in eleven months
Florine had cost him sixty thousand francs. Nothing seemed more
extraordinary to Lucien than the sight of an honest and worthy
merchant standing like a statue of the god Terminus in the actress'
narrow dressing-room, a tiny place some ten feet square, hung with a
pretty wall-paper, and adorned with a full-length mirror, a sofa, and
two chairs. There was a fireplace in the dressing-closet, a carpet on
the floor, and cupboards all round the room. A dresser was putting the
finishing touches to a Spanish costume; for Florine was to take the
part of a countess in an imbroglio.



From: A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
(keyword count: 10, file: ADPAP10.TXT, offset: 329781, length: 939)
[keywords: walls,room,lamps,flowers,room,furniture,carpet,candlesticks,clock,house,]

Lucien had no idea how lavishly a prosperous merchant will spend money
upon an actress or a mistress when he means to enjoy a life of
pleasure. Matifat was not nearly so rich a man as his friend Camusot,
and he had done his part rather shabbily, yet the sight of the dining-
room took Lucien by surprise. The walls were hung with green cloth
with a border of gilded nails, the whole room was artistically
decorated, lighted by handsome lamps, stands full of flowers stood in
every direction. The drawing-room was resplendent with the furniture
in fashion in those days--a Thomire chandelier, a carpet of Eastern
design, and yellow silken hangings relieved by a brown border. The
candlesticks, fire-irons, and clock were all in good taste; for
Matifat had left everything to Grindot, a rising architect, who was
building a house for him, and the young man had taken great pains with
the rooms when he knew that Florine was to occupy them.



From: A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
(keyword count: 10, file: ADPAP10.TXT, offset: 375823, length: 986)
[keywords: house,window,carpet,floor,furniture,marble,rug,bed,lamp,room,]

She lighted the wax-candles, and to Lucien's bewildered fancy, the
house seemed to be some palace in the Cabinet des Fees. Camusot had
chosen the richest stuffs from the Golden Cocoon for the hangings and
window-curtains. A carpet fit for a king's palace was spread upon the
floor. The carving of the rosewood furniture caught and imprisoned the
light that rippled over its surface. Priceless trifles gleamed from
the white marble chimney-piece. The rug beside the bed was of swan's
skins bordered with sable. A pair of little, black velvet slippers
lined with purple silk told of happiness awaiting the poet of The
Marguerites. A dainty lamp hung from the ceiling draped with silk. The
room was full of flowering plants, delicate white heaths and scentless
camellias, in stands marvelously wrought. Everything called up
associations of innocence. How was it possible in these rooms to see
the life that Coralie led in its true colors? Berenice noticed
Lucien's bewildered expression.



From: A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
(keyword count: 15, file: ADPAP10.TXT, offset: 600191, length: 856)
[keywords: walls,mirror,chimney-piece,chest,drawers,carpet,wardrobe,door,chest,mahogany,clock,vases,bedroom,dining-room,kitchen,]

Not that the room was squalid. The walls were covered with a sea-green
paper, bordered with red; there was one mirror over the chimney-piece,
and a second above the chest of drawers. The bare boards were covered
with a cheap carpet, which Berenice had bought in spite of Coralie's
orders, and paid for out of her own little store. A wardrobe, with a
glass door and a chest, held the lovers' clothing, the mahogany chairs
were covered with blue cotton stuff, and Berenice had managed to save
a clock and a couple of china vases from the catastrophe, as well as
four spoons and forks and half-a-dozen little spoons. The bedroom was
entered from the dining-room, which might have belonged to a clerk
with an income of twelve hundred francs. The kitchen was next the
landing, and Berenice slept above in an attic. The rent was not more
than a hundred crowns.



From: An Episode Under the Terror
(keyword count: 16, file: AEUTT10.TXT, offset: 27819, length: 957)
[keywords: mats,beds,table,room,brass,paint,walls,ornament,chimney-piece,chairs,chest,drawers,furniture,door,fireplace,room,]

The newcomer was a tall, burly man. Nothing in his behavior, bearing,
or expression suggested malignity as, following the example set by the
nuns, he stood motionless, while his eyes traveled round the room.

Two straw mats laid upon planks did duty as beds. On the one table,
placed in the middle of the room, stood a brass candlestick, several
plates, three knives, and a round loaf. A small fire burned in the
grate. A few bits of wood in a heap in a corner bore further witness
to the poverty of the recluses. You had only to look at the coating of
paint on the walls to discover the bad condition of the roof, and the
ceiling was a perfect network of brown stains made by rain-water. A
relic, saved no doubt from the wreck of the Abbaye de Chelles, stood
like an ornament on the chimney-piece. Three chairs, two boxes, and a
rickety chest of drawers completed the list of the furniture, but a
door beside the fireplace suggested an inner room beyond.



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.



From: The Two Brothers
(keyword count: 17, file: BRTHR10.TXT, offset: 44368, length: 1611)
[keywords: dining-room,flowers,floored,tiles,table,sideboards,chairs,salon,carpet,furniture,room,mahogany,furniture,portrait,wall,table,picture,]

The inside of the appartement was in keeping with the general look of
the house. The dining-room, hung with a yellow paper covered with
little green flowers, and floored with tiles that were not glazed,
contained nothing that was not strictly necessary,--namely, a table,
two sideboards, and six chairs, brought from the other appartement.
The salon was adorned with an Aubusson carpet given to Bridau when the
ministry of the interior was refurnished. To the furniture of this
room the widow added one of those commonplace mahogany sofas with the
Egyptian heads that Jacob Desmalter manufactured by the gross in 1806,
covering them with a silken green stuff bearing a design of white
geometric circles. Above this piece of furniture hung a portrait of
Bridau, done in pastel by the hand of an amateur, which at once
attracted the eye. Though art might have something to say against it,
no one could fail to recognize the firmness of the noble and obscure
citizen upon that brow. The serenity of the eyes, gentle, yet proud,
was well given; the sagacious mind, to which the prudent lips bore
testimony, the frank smile, the atmosphere of the man of whom the
Emperor had said, "Justum et tenacem," had all been caught, if not
with talent, at least with fidelity. Studying that face, an observer
could see that the man had done his duty. His countenance bore signs
of the incorruptibility which we attribute to several men who served
the Republic. On the opposite wall, over a card-table, flashed a
picture of the Emperor in brilliant colors, done by Vernet; Napoleon
was riding rapidly, attended by his escort.



From: The Two Brothers
(keyword count: 12, file: BRTHR10.TXT, offset: 177951, length: 1076)
[keywords: kitchen,studio,bedroom,staircase,room,rug,bed,walls,furniture,room,door,window,]

By February, 1822, Madame Bridau had settled into the attic room
recently occupied by Philippe, which was over the kitchen of her
former appartement. The painter's studio and bedroom was opposite, on
the other side of the staircase. When Joseph saw his mother thus
reduced, he was determined to make her as comfortable as possible.
After his brother's departure he assisted in the re-arrangement of the
garret room, to which he gave an artist's touch. He added a rug; the
bed, simple in character but exquisite in taste, had something
monastic about it; the walls, hung with a cheap glazed cotton selected
with taste, of a color which harmonized with the furniture and was
newly covered, gave the room an air of elegance and nicety. In the
hallway he added a double door, with a "portiere" to the inner one.
The window was shaded by a blind which gave soft tones to the light.
If the poor mother's life was reduced to the plainest circumstances
that the life of any woman could have in Paris, Agathe was at least
better off than all others in a like case, thanks to her son.



From: The Two Brothers
(keyword count: 13, file: BRTHR10.TXT, offset: 258852, length: 1022)
[keywords: hall,kitchen,dining-room,house,hall,staircase,staircase,door,room,chimney,walls,room,court,]

The ground-floor was occupied by an immense hall serving both as
kitchen and dining-room, from the beams of which hung, suspended by
huge nails, the provisions needed for the custom of such a house.
Behind this hall a winding staircase led to the upper storey; at the
foot of the staircase a door led into a low, long room lighted from
one of those little provincial courts, so narrow, dark, and sunken
between tall houses, as to seem like the flue of a chimney. Hidden by
a shed, and concealed from all eyes by walls, this low room was the
place where the Bad Boys of Issoudun held their plenary court.
Ostensibly, Pere Cognet boarded and lodged the country-people on
market-days; secretly, he was landlord to the Knights of Idleness.
This man, who was formerly a groom in a rich household, had ended by
marrying La Cognette, a cook in a good family. The suburb of Rome
still continues, like Italy and Poland, to follow the Latin custom of
putting a feminine termination to the husband's name and giving it to
the wife.



From: The Two Brothers
(keyword count: 14, file: BRTHR10.TXT, offset: 281762, length: 976)
[keywords: house,windows,floor,courtyard,door,hall,windows,kitchen,hall,staircase,floor,kitchen,house,house,]

The house, which Rouget inherited from the Descoings estate, stands in
the middle of the place Saint-Jean, a so-called square, very long and
very narrow, planted with a few sickly lindens. The houses in this
part of town are better built than elsewhere, and that of the
Descoings's was one of the finest. It stands opposite to the house of
Monsieur Hochon, and has three windows in front on the first storey,
and a porte-cochere on the ground-floor which gives entrance to a
courtyard, beyond which lies the garden. Under the archway of the
porte-cochere is the door of a large hall lighted by two windows on
the street. The kitchen is behind this hall, part of the space being
used for a staircase which leads to the upper floor and to the attic
above that. Beyond the kitchen is a wood-shed and wash-house, a stable
for two horses and a coach-house, over which are some little lofts for
the storage of oats, hay, and straw, where, at that time, the doctor's
servant slept.



From: The Two Brothers
(keyword count: 10, file: BRTHR10.TXT, offset: 282738, length: 1270)
[keywords: painted,marble,mirror,frame,walls,room,pictures,pictures,paintings,picture,]

The hall which the little peasant and her uncle admired with such
wonder is decorated with wooden carvings of the time of Louis XV.,
painted gray, and a handsome marble chimney-piece, over which Flore
beheld herself in a large mirror without any upper division and with a
carved and gilded frame. On the panelled walls of the room, from space
to space, hung several pictures, the spoil of various religious
houses, such as the abbeys of Deols, Issoudun, Saint-Gildas, La Pree,
Chezal-Beniot, Saint-Sulpice, and the convents of Bourges and
Issoudun, which the liberality of our kings had enriched with the
precious gifts of the glorious works called forth by the Renaissance.
Among the pictures obtained by the Descoings and inherited by Rouget,
was a Holy Family by Albano, a Saint-Jerome of Demenichino, a Head of
Christ by Gian Bellini, a Virgin of Leonardo, a Bearing of the Cross
by Titian, which formerly belonged to the Marquis de Belabre (the one
who sustained a siege and had his head cut off under Louis XIII.); a
Lazarus of Paul Veronese, a Marriage of the Virgin by the priest
Genois, two church paintings by Rubens, and a replica of a picture by
Perugino, done either by Perugino himself or by Raphael; and finally,
two Correggios and one Andrea del Sarto.



From: The Two Brothers
(keyword count: 17, file: BRTHR10.TXT, offset: 284008, length: 1719)
[keywords: frames,frames,pictures,furniture,room,clock,shelf,candlesticks,windows,marble,hearth,windows,curtains,bed,door,chest,sideboard,]

The Descoings had culled these treasures from three hundred church
pictures, without knowing their value, and selecting them only for
their good preservation. Many were not only in magnificent frames, but
some were still under glass. Perhaps it was the beauty of the frames
and the value of the glass that led the Descoings to retain the
pictures. The furniture of the room was not wanting in the sort of
luxury we prize in these days, though at that time it had no value in
Issoudun. The clock, standing on the mantle-shelf between two superb
silver candlesticks with six branches, had an ecclesiastical splendor
which revealed the hand of Boulle. The armchairs of carved oak,
covered with tapestry-work due to the devoted industry of women of
high rank, would be treasured in these days, for each was surmounted
with a crown and coat-of-arms. Between the windows stood a rich
console, brought from some castle, on whose marble slab stood an
immense China jar, in which the doctor kept his tobacco. But neither
Rouget, nor his son, nor the cook, took the slightest care of all
these treasures. They spat upon a hearth of exquisite delicacy, whose
gilded mouldings were now green with verdigris. A handsome chandelier,
partly of semi-transparent porcelain, was peppered, like the ceiling
from which it hung, with black speckles, bearing witness to the
immunity enjoyed by the flies. The Descoings had draped the windows
with brocatelle curtains torn from the bed of some monastic prior. To
the left of the entrance-door, stood a chest or coffer, worth many
thousand francs, which the doctor now used for a sideboard.

"Here, Fanchette," cried Rouget to his cook, "bring two glasses; and
give us some of the old wine."



From: The Two Brothers
(keyword count: 14, file: BRTHR10.TXT, offset: 354688, length: 1859)
[keywords: floor,beds,bed,armchair,table,wall,windows,curtains,carpet,drawers,brass,furniture,candlesticks,candlesticks,]

The house, though large, was scantily furnished; on the second floor,
however, there were two rooms suitable for Madame Bridau and Joseph.
Old Hochon now repented that he had kept them furnished with two beds,
each bed accompanied by an old armchair of natural wood covered with
needlework, and a walnut table, on which figured a water-pitcher of
the wide-mouthed kind called "gueulard," standing in a basin with a
blue border. The old man kept his winter store of apples and pears,
medlars and quinces on heaps of straw in these rooms, where the rats
and mice ran riot, so that they exhaled a mingled odor of fruit and
vermin. Madame Hochon now directed that everything should be cleaned;
the wall-paper, which had peeled off in places, was fastened up again
with wafers; and she decorated the windows with little curtains which
she pieced together from old hoards of her own. Her husband having
refused to let her buy a strip of drugget, she laid down her own
bedside carpet for her little Agathe,--"Poor little thing!" as she
called the mother, who was now over forty-seven years old. Madame
Hochon borrowed two night-tables from a neighbor, and boldly hired two
chests of drawers with brass handles from a dealer in second-hand
furniture who lived next to Mere Cognette. She herself had preserved
two pairs of candlesticks, carved in choice woods by her own father,
who had the "turning" mania. From 1770 to 1780 it was the fashion
among rich people to learn a trade, and Monsieur Lousteau, the father,
was a turner, just as Louis XVI. was a locksmith. These candlesticks
were ornamented with circlets made of the roots of rose, peach, and
apricot trees. Madame Hochon actually risked the use of her precious
relics! These preparations and this sacrifice increased old Hochon's
anxiety; up to this time he had not believed in the arrival of the
Bridaus.



From: The Two Brothers
(keyword count: 10, file: BRTHR10.TXT, offset: 602901, length: 1704)
[keywords: room,walls,window,chairs,bureau,candle,floor,chimney,furniture,room,]

Above the fourth floor, the young men were forced to climb one of the
steep, straight stairways that are almost ladders, by which the attics
of Parisian houses are often reached. Though Joseph, who remembered
Flore in all her beauty, expected to see some frightful change, he was
not prepared for the hideous spectacle which now smote his artist's
eye. In a room with bare, unpapered walls, under the sharp pitch of an
attic roof, on a cot whose scanty mattress was filled, perhaps, with
refuse cotton, a woman lay, green as a body that has been drowned two
days, thin as a consumptive an hour before death. This putrid skeleton
had a miserable checked handkerchief bound about her head, which had
lost its hair. The circle round the hollow eyes was red, and the
eyelids were like the pellicle of an egg. Nothing remained of the
body, once so captivating, but an ignoble, bony structure. As Flore
caught sight of the visitors, she drew across her breast a bit of
muslin which might have been a fragment of a window-curtain, for it
was edged with rust as from a rod. The young men saw two chairs, a
broken bureau on which was a tallow-candle stuck into a potato, a few
dishes on the floor, and an earthen fire-pot in a corner of the
chimney, in which there was no fire; this was all the furniture of the
room. Bixiou noticed the remaining sheets of writing-paper, brought
from some neighboring grocery for the letter which the two women had
doubtless concocted together. The word "disgusting" is a positive to
which no superlative exists, and we must therefore use it to convey
the impression caused by this sight. When the dying woman saw Joseph
approaching her, two great tears rolled down her cheeks.



From: The Country Doctor
(keyword count: 16, file: CTRDR10.TXT, offset: 47588, length: 1634)
[keywords: house,door,hearth,chimney,chair,fireplace,house,room,window,floor,chair,table,bed,furniture,bed,wardrobe,]

The officer went over a rough sort of bridge built up of boulders
taken from the torrent bed, and soon reached the house that had been
pointed out to him. The thatched roof of the dwelling was still
entire; it was covered with moss indeed, but there were no holes in
it, and the door and its fastenings seemed to be in good repair.
Genestas saw a fire on the hearth as he entered, an old woman kneeling
in the chimney-corner before a sick man seated in a chair, and another
man, who was standing with his face turned toward the fireplace. The
house consisted of a single room, which was lighted by a wretched
window covered with linen cloth. The floor was of beaten earth; the
chair, a table, and a truckle-bed comprised the whole of the
furniture. The commandant had never seen anything so poor and bare,
not even in Russia, where the moujik's huts are like the dens of wild
beasts. Nothing within it spoke of ordinary life; there were not even
the simplest appliances for cooking food of the commonest description.
It might have been a dog-kennel without a drinking-pan. But for the
truckle-bed, a smock-frock hanging from a nail, and some sabots filled
with straw, which composed the invalid's entire wardrobe, this cottage
would have looked as empty as the others. The aged peasant woman upon
her knees was devoting all her attention to keeping the sufferer's
feet in a tub filled with a brown liquid. Hearing a footstep and the
clank of spurs, which sounded strangely in ears accustomed to the
plodding pace of country folk, the man turned to Genestas. A sort of
surprise, in which the old woman shared was visible in his face.



From: The Country Doctor
(keyword count: 18, file: CTRDR10.TXT, offset: 120326, length: 1480)
[keywords: windows,yard,wainscot,walls,room,candle-sconces,chimney-piece,window,furniture,windows,room,clock,mantel-shelf,salon,room,hearth,easy-chairs,room,]

As you enter the large vestibule, the salon lies to your right; it
contains four windows, two of which look into the yard, and two into
the garden. Ceiling and wainscot are paneled, and the walls are hung
with seventeenth century tapestry--pathetic evidence that the room had
been the object of the late owner's aspiration, and that he had
lavished all that he could spare upon it. The great roomy armchairs,
covered with brocaded damask; the old fashioned, gilded candle-sconces
above the chimney-piece, and the window curtains with their heavy
tassels, showed that the cure had been a wealthy man. Benassis had
made some additions to this furniture, which was not without a
character of its own. He had placed two smaller tables, decorated with
carved wooden garlands, between the windows on opposite sides of the
room, and had put a clock, in a case of tortoise shell, inlaid with
copper, upon the mantel-shelf. The doctor seldom occupied the salon;
its atmosphere was damp and close, like that of a room that is always
kept shut. Memories of the dead cure still lingered about it; the
peculiar scent of his tobacco seemed to pervade the corner by the
hearth where he had been wont to sit. The two great easy-chairs were
symmetrically arranged on either side of the fire, which had not been
lighted since the time of M. Gravier's visit; the bright flames from
the pine logs lighted the room.

"The evenings are chilly even now," said Benassis; "it is pleasant to
see a fire."



From: The Country Doctor
(keyword count: 13, file: CTRDR10.TXT, offset: 139874, length: 710)
[keywords: dining-room,floor,painted,furniture,chairs,sideboard,stove,clock,curtains,window,table,kitchen,dining-room,]

The walls of the dining-room were paneled from floor to ceiling, and
painted gray. The furniture consisted of a few straw-bottomed chairs,
a sideboard, some cupboards, a stove, and the late owner's celebrated
clock; there were white curtains in the window, and a white cloth on
the table, about which there was no sign of luxury. The dinner service
was of plain white earthenware; the soup, made after the traditions of
the late cure, was the most concentrated kind of broth that was ever
set to simmer by any mortal cook. The doctor and his guest had
scarcely finished it when a man rushed into the kitchen, and in spite
of Jacquotte, suddenly invaded the dining-room.

"Well, what is it?" asked the doctor.



From: The Country Doctor
(keyword count: 17, file: CTRDR10.TXT, offset: 156145, length: 1763)
[keywords: room,carpet,walls,clock,candles,armchair,seat,room,home,room,room,study,house,home,house,furniture,boudoir,]

"So the best furniture is put into your room, where a thick carpet is
laid down; there are hangings on the walls, and a clock and wax
candles; and for you Jacquotte will do her best, she has no doubt
brought a night-light, and a pair of new slippers and some milk, and
her warming-pan too for your benefit. I hope that you will find that
luxurious armchair the most comfortable seat you have ever sat in, it
was a discovery of the late cure's; I do not know where he found it,
but it is a fact that if you wish to meet with the perfection of
comfort, beauty, or convenience, you must ask counsel of the Church.
Well, I hope that you will find everything in your room to your
liking. You will find some good razors and excellent soap, and all the
trifling details that make one's own home so pleasant. And if my views
on the subject of hospitality should not at once explain the
difference between your room and mine, to-morrow, M. Bluteau, you will
arrive at a wonderfully clear comprehension of the bareness of my room
and the untidy condition of my study, when you see all the continual
comings and goings here. Mine is not an indoor life, to begin with. I
am almost always out of the house, and if I stay at home, peasants
come in at every moment to speak to me. My body and soul and house are
all theirs. Why should I worry about social conventions in these
matters, or trouble myself over the damage unintentionally done to
floors and furniture by these worthy folk? Such things cannot be
helped. Luxury properly belongs to the boudoir and the guest-chamber,
to great houses and chateaux. In short, as I scarcely do more than
sleep here, what do I want with superfluities of wealth? You do not
know, moreover, how little I care for anything in this world."



From: A Daughter of Eve
(keyword count: 16, file: DOEVE10.TXT, offset: 12593, length: 1739)
[keywords: boudoir,windows,lamp,decoration,carpet,floor,furniture,room,window,flowers,chimney-piece,marble,clock,mirror,house,flowers,]

In one of the finest houses of the rue Neuve-des-Mathurins, at half-
past eleven at night, two young women were sitting before the
fireplace of a boudoir hung with blue velvet of that tender shade,
with shimmering reflections, which French industry has lately learned
to fabricate. Over the doors and windows were draped soft folds of
blue cashmere, the tint of the hangings, the work of one of those
upholsterers who have just missed being artists. A silver lamp studded
with turquoise, and suspended by chains of beautiful workmanship, hung
from the centre of the ceiling. The same system of decoration was
followed in the smallest details, and even to the ceiling of fluted
blue silk, with long bands of white cashmere falling at equal
distances on the hangings, where they were caught back by ropes of
pearl. A warm Belgian carpet, thick as turf, of a gray ground with
blue posies, covered the floor. The furniture, of carved ebony, after
a fine model of the old school, gave substance and richness to the
rather too decorative quality, as a painter might call it, of the rest
of the room. On either side of a large window, two etageres displayed
a hundred precious trifles, flowers of mechanical art brought into
bloom by the fire of thought. On a chimney-piece of slate-blue marble
were figures in old Dresden, shepherds in bridal garb, with delicate
bouquets in their hands, German fantasticalities surrounding a
platinum clock, inlaid with arabesques. Above it sparkled the
brilliant facets of a Venice mirror framed in ebony, with figures
carved in relief, evidently obtained from some former royal residence.
Two jardinieres were filled with the exotic product of a hot-house,
pale, but divine flowers, the treasures of botany.



From: A Daughter of Eve
(keyword count: 20, file: DOEVE10.TXT, offset: 106240, length: 2645)
[keywords: painting,picture,chimney-piece,clock,brass,room,lamps,lamps,vases,sideboard,furniture,bedroom,curtains,carpet,bed,bed,curtains,salon,house,door,]

Florine's dining-room, filled with her most distinguished offerings,
will give a fair idea of this pell-mell of regal and fantastic luxury.
Throughout, even on the ceilings, it was panelled in oak, picked out,
here and there, by dead-gold lines. These panels were framed in relief
with figures of children playing with fantastic animals, among which
the light danced and floated, touching here a sketch by Bixiou, that
maker of caricatures, there the cast of an angel holding a vessel of
holy water (presented by Francois Souchet), farther on a coquettish
painting of Joseph Bridau, a gloomy picture of a Spanish alchemist by
Hippolyte Schinner, an autograph of Lord Byron to Lady Caroline Lamb,
framed in carved ebony, while, hanging opposite as a species of
pendant, was a letter from Napoleon to Josephine. All these things
were placed about without the slightest symmetry, but with almost
imperceptible art. On the chimney-piece, of exquisitely carved oak,
there was nothing except a strange, evidently Florentine, ivory
statuette attributed to Michael Angelo, representing Pan discovering a
woman under the skin of a young shepherd, the original of which is in
the royal palace of Vienna. On either side were candelabra of
Renaissance design. A clock, by Boule, on a tortoise-shell stand,
inlaid with brass, sparkled in the centre of one panel between two
statuettes, undoubtedly obtained from the demolition of some abbey. In
the corners of the room, on pedestals, were lamps of royal
magnificence, as to which a manufacturer had made strong remonstrance
against adapting his lamps to Japanese vases. On a marvellous
sideboard was displayed a service of silver plate, the gift of an
English lord, also porcelains in high relief; in short, the luxury of
an actress who has no other property than her furniture.

The bedroom, all in violet, was a dream that Florine had indulged from
her debut, the chief features of which were curtains of violet velvet
lined with white silk, and looped over tulle; a ceiling of white
cashmere with violet satin rays, an ermine carpet beside the bed; in
the bed, the curtains of which resembled a lily turned upside down was
a lantern by which to read the newspaper plaudits or criticisms before
they appeared in the morning. A yellow salon, its effect heightened by
trimmings of the color of Florentine bronze, was in harmony with the
rest of these magnificences, a further description of which would make
our pages resemble the posters of an auction sale. To find comparisons
for all these fine things, it would be necessary to go to a certain
house that was almost next door, belonging to a Rothschild.



From: Eve and David
(keyword count: 14, file: EVDVD10.TXT, offset: 153944, length: 1518)
[keywords: office,floor,office,court,house,door,office,office,office,door,kitchen,kitchen,staircase,house,]

Cointet the elder did not choose to appear in the affair; but the fat
Cointet openly said that he was acting for Metivier, and went to
Doublon, taking Cerizet with him. Cerizet was his foreman now, and had
promised his co-operation in return for a thousand-franc note. Doublon
could reckon upon two of his understrappers, and thus the Cointets had
four bloodhounds already on the victim's track. At the actual time of
arrest, Doublon could furthermore count upon the police force, who are
bound, if required, to assist a bailiff in the performance of his
duty. The two men, Doublon himself, and the visitors were all closeted
together in the private office, beyond the public office, on the
ground floor.

A tolerably wide-paved lobby, a kind of passage-way, led to the public
office. The gilded scutcheons of the court, with the word "Bailiff"
printed thereon in large black letters, hung outside on the house wall
on either side the door. Both office windows gave upon the street, and
were protected by heavy iron bars; but the private office looked into
the garden at the back, wherein Doublon, an adorer of Pomona, grew
espaliers with marked success. Opposite the office door you beheld the
door of the kitchen, and, beyond the kitchen, the staircase that
ascended to the first story. The house was situated in a narrow street
at the back of the new Law Courts, then in process of construction,
and only finished after 1830.--These details are necessary if Kolb's
adventures are to be intelligible to the reader.



From: Eve and David
(keyword count: 11, file: EVDVD10.TXT, offset: 160668, length: 924)
[keywords: door,closet,chimney,stove,coverlets,brick,bed,stove,table,chair,room,]

Eve meanwhile went out on the tolerably ingenious pretext of asking
advise of Postel, sat awhile enduring the insulting pity that spends
itself in words, left the Postel family, and stole away unseen to
Basine Clerget, told her troubles, and asked for help and shelter.
Basine, for greater safety, had brought Eve into her bedroom, and now
she opened the door of a little closet, lighted only by a skylight in
such a way that prying eyes could not see into it. The two friends
unstopped the flue which opened into the chimney of the stove in the
workroom, where the girls heated their irons. Eve and Basine spread
ragged coverlets over the brick floor to deaden any sound that David
might make, put in a truckle bed, a stove for his experiments, and a
table and a chair. Basine promised to bring food in the night; and as
no one had occasion to enter her room, David might defy his enemies
one and all, or even detectives.



From: Gobseck
(keyword count: 10, file: GBSEK10.TXT, offset: 37363, length: 1956)
[keywords: rug,mahogany,bed,chair,floor,easy-chair,chimney-piece,flowers,room,room,]

" 'From the sweet tone of the girl's voice, I knew that the mistress
could not be ready to pay. What a handsome woman it was that I saw in
another moment! She had flung an Indian shawl hastily over her bare
shoulders, covering herself with it completely, while it revealed the
bare outlines of the form beneath. She wore a loose gown trimmed with
snowy ruffles, which told plainly that her laundress' bills amounted
to something like two thousand francs in the course of a year. Her
dark curls escaped from beneath a bright Indian handkerchief, knotted
carelessly about her head after the fashion of Creole women. The bed
lay in disorder that told of broken slumber. A painter would have paid
money to stay a while to see the scene that I saw. Under the luxurious
hanging draperies, the pillow, crushed into the depths of an eider-
down quilt, its lace border standing out in contrast against the
background of blue silk, bore a vague impress that kindled the
imagination. A pair of satin slippers gleamed from the great bear-skin
rug spread by the carved mahogany lions at the bed-foot, where she had
flung them off in her weariness after the ball. A crumpled gown hung
over a chair, the sleeves touching the floor; stockings which a breath
would have blown away were twisted about the leg of an easy-chair;
while ribbon garters straggled over a settee. A fan of price, half
unfolded, glittered on the chimney-piece. Drawers stood open; flowers,
diamonds, gloves, a bouquet, a girdle, were littered about. The room
was full of vague sweet perfume. And--beneath all the luxury and
disorder, beauty and incongruity, I saw Misery crouching in wait for
her or for her adorer, Misery rearing its head, for the Countess had
begun to feel the edge of those fangs. Her tired face was an epitome
of the room strewn with relics of past festival. The scattered
gewgaws, pitiable this morning, when gathered together and coherent,
had turned heads the night before.



From: La Grenadiere
(keyword count: 10, file: GRNDR10.TXT, offset: 13447, length: 728)
[keywords: house,windows,house,windows,floor,house,door,floor,windows,painted,]

The house itself stands in the middle of this highest garden, above a
vine-covered flight of steps, with an arched doorway beneath that
leads to vast cellars hollowed out in the rock. All about the dwelling
trellised vines and pomegranate-trees (the grenadiers, which give the
name to the little close) are growing out in the open air. The front
of the house consists of two large windows on either side of a very
rustic-looking house door, and three dormer windows in the roof--a
slate roof with two gables, prodigiously high-pitched in proportion to
the low ground-floor. The house walls are washed with yellow color;
and door, and first-floor shutters, all the Venetian shutters of the
attic windows, all are painted green.



From: La Grenadiere
(keyword count: 14, file: GRNDR10.TXT, offset: 14804, length: 1554)
[keywords: chimney,door,window,house,door,staircase,wall,walls,kitchen,house,door,kitchen,house,bed,]

The first story consists of two large whitewashed bedrooms with stone
chimney-pieces, less elaborately carved than those in the rooms
beneath. Every door and window is on the south side of the house, save
a single door to the north, contrived behind the staircase to give
access to the vineyard. Against the western wall stands a
supplementary timber-framed structure, all the woodwork exposed to the
weather being fledged with slates, so that the walls are checkered
with bluish lines. This shed (for it is little more) is the kitchen of
the establishment. You can pass from it into the house without going
outside; but, nevertheless, it boasts an entrance door of its own, and
a short flight of steps that brings you to a deep well, and a very
rustical-looking pump, half hidden by water-plants and savin bushes
and tall grasses. The kitchen is a modern addition, proving beyond
doubt that La Grenadiere was originally nothing but a simple
vendangeoir--a vintage-house belonging to townsfolk in Tours, from
which Saint-Cyr is separated by the vast river-bed of the Loire. The
owners only came over for the day for a picnic, or at the vintage-
time, sending provisions across in the morning, and scarcely ever
spent the night there except during the grape harvest; but the English
settled down on Touraine like a cloud of locusts, and La Grenadiere
must, of course, be completed if it was to find tenants. Luckily,
however, this recent appendage is hidden from sight by the first two
trees of a lime-tree avenue planted in a gully below the vineyards.



From: The Hated Son
(keyword count: 11, file: HTDSN10.TXT, offset: 14603, length: 1777)
[keywords: hearth,marble,bed,room,bed,bed,room,bed,seats,curtains,curtains,]

At this moment a tempest was growling in the chimney, giving to every
puff of wind a lugubrious meaning,--the vast size of the flute putting
the hearth into such close communication with the skies above that the
embers upon it had a sort of respiration; they sparkled and went out
at the will of the wind. The arms of the family of Herouville, carved
in white marble with their mantle and supporters, gave the appearance
of a tomb to this species of edifice, which formed a pendant to the
bed, another erection raised to the glory of Hymen. Modern architects
would have been puzzled to decide whether the room had been built for
the bed or the bed for the room. Two cupids playing on the walnut
headboard, wreathed with garlands, might have passed for angels; and
columns of the same wood, supporting the tester were carved with
mythological allegories, the explanation of which could have been
found either in the Bible or Ovid's Metamorphoses. Take away the bed,
and the same tester would have served in a church for the canopy of
the pulpit or the seats of the wardens. The married pair mounted by
three steps to this sumptuous couch, which stood upon a platform and
was hung with curtains of green silk covered with brilliant designs
called "ramages"--possibly because the birds of gay plumage there
depicted were supposed to sing. The folds of these immense curtains
were so stiff that in the semi-darkness they might have been taken for
some metal fabric. On the green velvet hanging, adorned with gold
fringes, which covered the foot of this lordly couch the superstition
of the Comtes d'Herouville had affixed a large crucifix, on which
their chaplain placed a fresh branch of sacred box when he renewed at
Easter the holy water in the basin at the foot of the cross.



From: The Lesser Bourgeoisie
(keyword count: 10, file: LSBRG10.TXT, offset: 12901, length: 2243)
[keywords: house,house,house,drawers,house,apartment,salon,home,house,courtyard,]

In 1830, passers along the street could still see the turnstile
painted on the sign of a wine-merchant, but even that house, its last
asylum, has been demolished. Alas! old Paris is disappearing with
frightful rapidity. Here and there, in the course of this history of
Parisian life, will be found preserved, sometimes the type of the
dwellings of the middle ages, like that described in "Fame and Sorrow"
(Scenes from Private Life), one or two specimens of which exist to the
present day; sometimes a house like that of Judge Popinot, rue du
Fouarre, a specimen of the former bourgeoisie; here, the remains of
Fulbert's house; there, the old dock of the Seine as it was under
Charles IX. Why should not the historian of French society, a new Old
Mortality, endeavor to save these curious expressions of the past, as
Walter Scott's old man rubbed up the tombstones? Certainly, for the
last ten years the outcries of literature in this direction have not
been superfluous; art is beginning to disguise beneath its floriated
ornaments those ignoble facades of what are called in Paris "houses of
product," which one of our poets has jocosely compared to chests of
drawers.

Let us remark here, that the creation of the municipal commission "del
ornamento" which superintends at Milan the architecture of street
facades, and to which every house owner is compelled to subject his
plan, dates from the seventeenth century. Consequently, we see in that
charming capital the effects of this public spirit on the part of
nobles and burghers, while we admire their buildings so full of
character and originality. Hideous, unrestrained speculation which,
year after year, changes the uniform level of storeys, compresses a
whole apartment into the space of what used to be a salon, and wages
war upon gardens, will infallibly react on Parisian manners and
morals. We shall soon be forced to live more without than within. Our
sacred private life, the freedom and liberty of home, where will they
be?--reserved for those who can muster fifty thousand francs a year!
In fact, few millionaires now allow themselves the luxury of a house
to themselves, guarded by a courtyard on a street and protected from
public curiosity by a shady garden at the back.



From: The Lesser Bourgeoisie
(keyword count: 14, file: LSBRG10.TXT, offset: 22088, length: 796)
[keywords: staircase,windows,staircase,door,dining-room,courtyard,dining-room,kitchen,staircase,study,office,windows,floor,windows,]

So Art and the legal robe have passed this way in turn. How many
instigations of needs and pleasures have led to the interior
arrangement of the dwelling! To right, as we enter a square hall
forming a closed vestibule, rises a stone staircase with two windows
looking on the garden. Beneath the staircase opens a door to the
cellar. From this vestibule we enter the dining-room, lighted from the
courtyard, and the dining-room communicates at its side with the
kitchen, which forms a continuation of the wing in which are the
warerooms of Metivier and Barbet. Behind the staircase extends, on the
garden side, a fine study or office with two large windows. The first
and second floor form two complete apartments, and the servants'
quarters are shown by the oval windows in the four-sided roof.



From: The Lesser Bourgeoisie
(keyword count: 17, file: LSBRG10.TXT, offset: 22884, length: 1064)
[keywords: room,marble,painted,gilt,paint,study,dining-room,salon,mantelpiece,marble,windows,dining-room,salon,door,floored,wall,study,]

A large porcelain stove heats the square vestibule, the two glass
doors of which, placed opposite to each other, light it. This room,
paved in black and white marble, is especially noticeable for a
ceiling of beams formerly painted and gilt, but which had since
received, probably under the Empire, a coat of plain white paint. The
three doors of the study, salon and dining-room, surmounted by oval
panels, are awaiting a restoration that is more than needed. The wood-
work is heavy, but the ornamentation is not without merit. The salon,
panelled throughout, recalls the great century by its tall mantelpiece
of Languedoc marble, its ceiling decorated at the corners, and by the
style of its windows, which still retain their little panes. The
dining-room, communicating with the salon by a double door, is floored
with stone; the wood-work is oak, unpainted, and an atrocious modern
wall-paper has been substituted for the tapestries of the olden time.
The ceiling is of chestnut; and the study, modernized by Thuillier,
adds its quota to these discordances.



From: The Lesser Bourgeoisie
(keyword count: 19, file: LSBRG10.TXT, offset: 245949, length: 1004)
[keywords: office,kitchen,floor,walls,benches,floor,fireplace,stove,fireplace,table,armchair,walls,screen,window,door,screen,stove,window,door,]

The room which he made his office, formerly the kitchen of the next
floor, was bare; the beams of the ceiling had been whitewashed, but
still bore marks of smoke. The walls, along which he had put benches,
and the stone floor, retained and gave out dampness. The fireplace,
where the crane remained, was partly filled by an iron stove in which
Cerizet burned sea-coal when the weather was severe. A platform about
half a foot high and eight feet square extended from the edge of the
fireplace; on it was fastened a common table and an armchair with a
round cushion covered with green leather. Behind him, Cerizet had
sheathed the walls with planks; also protecting himself with a little
wooden screen, painted white, from the draught between the window and
door; but this screen, made of two leaves, was so placed that the
warmth from the stove reached him. The window had enormous inside
shutters of cast-iron, held, when closed, by a bar. The door commanded
respect by an armor of the same character.



From: The Lesser Bourgeoisie
(keyword count: 12, file: LSBRG10.TXT, offset: 246953, length: 1128)
[keywords: staircase,room,door,room,bedroom,carpet,bureau,chairs,chimney-piece,wardrobe,drawer,bureau,]

At the farther end of this room, in a corner, was a spiral-staircase,
coming, evidently, from some pulled-down shop, and bought in the rue
Chapon by Cadenet, who had fitted it through the ceiling into the room
in the entresol occupied by Cerizet. In order to prevent all
communication with the upper floors, Cerizet had exacted that the door
of that room which opened on the common landing should be walled up.
The place had thus become a fortress. The bedroom above had a cheap
carpet bought for twenty francs, an iron bedstead, a bureau, three
chairs, and an iron safe, made by a good workman, which Cerizet had
bought at a bargain. He shaved before a glass on the chimney-piece; he
owned two pairs of cotton sheets and six cotton shirts; the rest of
his visible wardrobe was of the same character. Cadenet had once seen
Cerizet dressed like a dandy of the period; he must, therefore, have
kept hidden, in some drawer of his bureau, a complete disguise with
which he could go to the opera, see the world, and not be recognized,
for, had it not been that Cadenet heard his voice, he would certainly
have asked him who he was.



From: The Lesser Bourgeoisie
(keyword count: 18, file: LSBRG10.TXT, offset: 369908, length: 1240)
[keywords: stove,chimney,furniture,bed,window,curtains,walls,stove,fireplace,chest,drawers,furniture,table,table,kitchen,seats,floor,mat,]

The floor had never been swept; the bricks had disappeared beneath
layers of dirt, dust, dried mud, and any and every thing thrown down
by Toupillier. A miserable stove of cast-iron, the pipe of which
entered a crumbling chimney, was the most apparent piece of furniture
in this hovel. In an alcove stood a bed, with tester and valence of
green serge, which the moths had transformed into lace. The window,
almost useless, had a heavy coating of grease upon its panes, which
dispensed with the necessity of curtains. The whitewashed walls
presented to the eye fuliginous tones, due to the wood and peat burned
by the pauper in his stove. On the fireplace were a broken water-
pitcher, two bottles, and a cracked plate. A worm-eaten chest of
drawers contained his linen and decent clothes. The rest of the
furniture consisted of a night-table of the commonest description,
another table, worth about forty sous, and two kitchen chairs with the
straw seats almost gone. The extremely picturesque costume of the
centenarian pauper was hanging from a nail, and below it, on the
floor, were the shapeless mat-weed coverings that served him for
shoes, the whole forming, with his amorphous old hat and knotty stick,
a sort of panoply of misery.



From: The Lesser Bourgeoisie
(keyword count: 11, file: LSBRG10.TXT, offset: 562386, length: 1340)
[keywords: walls,pier-table,vase,windows,flowers,bronzes,chairs,salon,decoration,room,salon,]

During these proceedings la Peyrade had the satisfaction of making an
inventory of all the choice things by which he was surrounded.
Paintings by good masters detached themselves from walls of even tone;
on a pier-table stood a very tall Japanese vase; before the windows
the jardinieres were filled with lilium rubrum, showing its handsome
reversely curling petals surmounted by white and red camellias and a
dwarf magnolia from China, with flowers of sulphur white with scarlet
edges. In a corner was a stand of arms, of curious shapes and rich
construction, explained, perhaps, by the lady's Hungarian nationality
--always that of the hussar. A few bronzes and statuettes of exquisite
selection, chairs rolling softly on Persian carpets, and a perfect
anarchy of stuffs of all kinds completed the arrangement of this
salon, which the lawyer had once before visited with Brigitte and
Thuillier before the countess moved into it. It was so transformed
that it seemed to him unrecognizable. With a little more knowledge of
the world la Peyrade would have been less surprised at the marvellous
care given by the countess to the decoration of the room. A woman's
salon is her kingdom, and her absolute domain; there, in the fullest
sense of the word, she reigns, she governs; there she offers battle,
and nearly always comes off victorious.



From: The Commission in Lunacy
(keyword count: 10, file: LUNAC10.TXT, offset: 42428, length: 820)
[keywords: parlor,windows,walls,room,furniture,benches,cupboard,table,armchair,cupboard,]

By the end of the second year of his apostolic work, Popinot had
turned the storeroom at the bottom of his house into a parlor, lighted
by the three iron-barred windows. The walls and ceiling of this
spacious room were whitewashed, and the furniture consisted of wooden
benches like those seen in schools, a clumsy cupboard, a walnut-wood
writing-table, and an armchair. In the cupboard were his registers of
donations, his tickets for orders for bread, and his diary. He kept
his ledger like a tradesman, that he might not be ruined by kindness.
All the sorrows of the neighborhood were entered and numbered in a
book, where each had its little account, as merchants' customers have
theirs. When there was any question as to a man or a family needing
help, the lawyer could always command information from the police.



From: The Commission in Lunacy
(keyword count: 10, file: LUNAC10.TXT, offset: 43248, length: 1271)
[keywords: room,stove,floor,benches,mahogany,wall,door,house,room,house,]

Lavienne, a man made for his master, was his aide-de-camp. He redeemed
or renewed pawn-tickets, and visited the districts most threatened
with famine, while his master was in court.

From four till seven in the morning in summer, from six till nine in
winter, this room was full of women, children, and paupers, while
Popinot gave audience. There was no need for a stove in winter; the
crowd was so dense that the air was warmed; only, Lavienne strewed
straw on the wet floor. By long use the benches were as polished as
varnished mahogany; at the height of a man's shoulders the wall had a
coat of dark, indescribable color, given to it by the rags and
tattered clothes of these poor creatures. The poor wretches loved
Popinot so well that when they assembled before his door was opened,
before daybreak on a winter's morning, the women warming themselves
with their foot-brasiers, the men swinging their arms for circulation,
never a sound had disturbed his sleep. Rag-pickers and other toilers
of the night knew the house, and often saw a light burning in the
lawyer's private room at unholy hours. Even thieves, as they passed
by, said, "That is his house," and respected it. The morning he gave
to the poor, the mid-day hours to criminals, the evening to law work.



From: The Commission in Lunacy
(keyword count: 10, file: LUNAC10.TXT, offset: 86169, length: 996)
[keywords: floor,house,staircase,courtyard,house,flowers,stairs,walls,parlor,furniture,]

The Hotel d'Espard needed a large household, and the Marquise had a
great number of servants. The grand receptions were held in the
ground-floor rooms, but she lived on the first floor of the house. The
perfect order of a fine staircase splendidly decorated, and rooms
fitted in the dignified style which formerly prevailed at Versailles,
spoke of an immense fortune. When the judge saw the carriage gates
thrown open to admit his nephew's cab, he took in with a rapid glance
the lodge, the porter, the courtyard, the stables, the arrangement of
the house, the flowers that decorated the stairs, the perfect
cleanliness of the banisters, walls, and carpets, and counted the
footmen in livery who, as the bell rang, appeared on the landing. His
eyes, which only yesterday in his parlor had sounded the dignity of
misery under the muddy clothing of the poor, now studied with the same
penetrating vision the furniture and splendor of the rooms he passed
through, to pierce the misery of grandeur.



From: The Commission in Lunacy
(keyword count: 12, file: LUNAC10.TXT, offset: 121399, length: 1934)
[keywords: house,floor,frames,decoration,armchair,painted,paint,window,furniture,home,picture,furniture,]

M. le Marquis d'Espard lived on the ground floor, in order, no doubt,
to enjoy the garden, which might be called spacious for that
neighborhood, and which lay open for his children's health. The
situation of the house, in a street on a steep hill, as its name
indicates, secured these ground-floor rooms against ever being damp.
M. d'Espard had taken them, no doubt, for a very moderate price, rents
being low at the time when he settled in that quarter, in order to be
among the schools and to superintend his boys' education. Moreover,
the state in which he found the place, with everything to repair, had
no doubt induced the owner to be accommodating. Thus M. d'Espard had
been able to go to some expense to settle himself suitably without
being accused of extravagance. The loftiness of the rooms, the
paneling, of which nothing survived but the frames, the decoration of
the ceilings, all displayed the dignity which the prelacy stamped on
whatever it attempted or created, and which artists discern to this
day in the smallest relic that remains, though it be but a book, a
dress, the panel of a bookcase, or an armchair.

The Marquis had the rooms painted in the rich brown tones loved of the
Dutch and of the citizens of Old Paris, hues which lend such good
effects to the painter of genre. The panels were hung with plain paper
in harmony with the paint. The window curtains were of inexpensive
materials, but chosen so as to produce a generally happy result; the
furniture was not too crowded and judiciously placed. Any one on going
into this home could not resist a sense of sweet peacefulness,
produced by the perfect calm, the stillness which prevailed, by the
unpretentious unity of color, the keeping of the picture, in the words
a painter might use. A certain nobleness in the details, the exquisite
cleanliness of the furniture, and a perfect concord of men and things,
all brought the word "suavity" to the lips.



From: The Commission in Lunacy
(keyword count: 11, file: LUNAC10.TXT, offset: 139094, length: 659)
[keywords: carpet,windows,curtains,furniture,mahogany,desk,office,chimney,clock,candlesticks,chairs,]

This innermost room had a shabby carpet, the windows were hung with
gray holland curtains; the furniture consisted of a few mahogany
chairs, two armchairs, a desk with a revolving front, an ordinary
office table, and on the chimney-shelf, a dingy clock and two old
candlesticks. The old man led the way for Popinot and his registrar,
and pulled forward two chairs, as though he were master of the place;
M. d'Espard left it to him. After the preliminary civilities, during
which the judge watched the supposed lunatic, the Marquis naturally
asked what was the object of this visit. On this Popinot glanced
significantly at the old gentleman and the Marquis.



From: The Firm of Nucingen
(keyword count: 12, file: NCNGN10.TXT, offset: 50939, length: 1270)
[keywords: staircase,hinges,window,curtain,bedroom,closet,door,window,carpet,floor,closet,cupboard,]

"The distinguishing feature of his chambers, where I have licked my
lips over breakfast more than once, was a mysterious dressing-closet,
nicely decorated, and comfortably appointed, with a grate in it and a
bath-tub. It gave upon a narrow staircase, the folding doors were
noiseless, the locks well oiled, the hinges discreet, the window panes
of frosted glass, the curtain impervious to light. While the bedroom
was, as it ought to have been, in a fine disorder which would suit the
most exacting painter in water-colors; while everything therein was
redolent of the Bohemian life of a young man of fashion, the dressing-
closet was like a shrine--white, spotless, neat, and warm. There were
no draughts from door or window, the carpet had been made soft for
bare feet hastily put to the floor in a sudden panic of alarm--which
stamps him as your thoroughbred dandy that knows life; for here, in a
few moments, he may show himself either a noodle or a master in those
little details in which a man's character is revealed. The Marquise
previously quoted--no, it was the Marquise de Rochefide--came out of
that dressing-closet in a furious rage, and never went back again. She
discovered nothing 'improper' in it. Godefroid used to keep a little
cupboard full of----"



From: An Old Maid
(keyword count: 10, file: OMAID10.TXT, offset: 70851, length: 1125)
[keywords: curtains,furniture,mats,chair,tiled,armchair,table,portrait,windows,dining-room,]

From these indications it is easy to imagine Madame Granson in her
cold salon with its yellow curtains and Utrecht velvet furniture, also
yellow, as she straightened the round straw mats which were placed
before each chair, that visitors might not soil the red-tiled floor
while they sat there; after which she returned to her cushioned
armchair and little work-table placed beneath the portrait of the
lieutenant-colonel of artillery between two windows,--a point from
which her eye could rake the rue du Bercail and see all comers. She
was a good woman, dressed with bourgeois simplicity in keeping with
her wan face furrowed by grief. The rigorous humbleness of poverty
made itself felt in all the accessories of this household, the very
air of which was charged with the stern and upright morals of the
provinces. At this moment the son and mother were together in the
dining-room, where they were breakfasting with a cup of coffee, with
bread and butter and radishes. To make the pleasure which Suzanne's
visit was to give to Madame Granson intelligible, we must explain
certain secret interests of the mother and son.



From: An Old Maid
(keyword count: 11, file: OMAID10.TXT, offset: 81950, length: 1506)
[keywords: room,brick,chairs,painted,curtains,kitchen,door,chimney,chimney,door,window,]

At the present moment Athanase, leaning pensively on his elbow at the
breakfast table, was twirling his spoon in his empty cup and
contemplating with a preoccupied eye the poor room with its red brick
floor, its straw chairs, its painted wooden buffet, its pink and white
curtains chequered like a backgammon board, which communicated with
the kitchen through a glass door. As his back was to the chimney which
his mother faced, and as the chimney was opposite to the door, his
pallid face, strongly lighted from the window, framed in beautiful
black hair, the eyes gleaming with despair and fiery with morning
thoughts, was the first object which met the eyes of the incoming
Suzanne. The grisette, who belonged to a class which certainly has the
instinct of misery and the sufferings of the heart, suddenly felt that
electric spark, darting from Heaven knows where, which can never be
explained, which some strong minds deny, but the sympathetic stroke of
which has been felt by many men and many women. It is at once a light
which lightens the darkness of the future, a presentiment of the
sacred joys of a shared love, the certainty of mutual comprehension.
Above all, it is like the touch of a firm and able hand on the
keyboard of the senses. The eyes are fascinated by an irresistible
attraction; the heart is stirred; the melodies of happiness echo in
the soul and in the ears; a voice cries out, "It is he!" Often
reflection casts a douche of cold water on this boiling emotion, and
all is over.



From: An Old Maid
(keyword count: 10, file: OMAID10.TXT, offset: 142676, length: 2402)
[keywords: clock,house,stairs,salon,table,boudoir,furniture,dining-room,table,picture,]

On gala days the table was laid at Mademoiselle Cormon's about half-
past three o'clock. At that period the fashionable people of Alencon
dined at four. Under the Empire they still dined as in former times at
half-past two; but then they supped! One of the pleasures which
Mademoiselle Cormon valued most was (without meaning any malice,
although the fact certainly rests on egotism) the unspeakable
satisfaction she derived from seeing herself dressed as mistress of
the house to receive her guests. When she was thus under arms a ray of
hope would glide into the darkness of her heart; a voice told her that
nature had not so abundantly provided for her in vain, and that some
man, brave and enterprising, would surely present himself. Her desire
was refreshed like her person; she contemplated herself in her heavy
stuffs with a sort of intoxication, and this satisfaction continued
when she descended the stairs to cast her redoubtable eye on the
salon, the dinner-table, and the boudoir. She would then walk about
with the naive contentment of the rich,--who remember at all moments
that they are rich and will never want for anything. She looked at her
eternal furniture, her curiosities, her lacquers, and said to herself
that all these fine things wanted was a master. After admiring the
dining-room, and the oblong dinner-table, on which was spread a snow-
white cloth adorned with twenty covers placed at equal distances;
after verifying the squadron of bottles she had ordered to be brought
up, and which all bore honorable labels; after carefully verifying the
names written on little bits of paper in the trembling handwriting of
the abbe (the only duty he assumed in the household, and one which
gave rise to grave discussions on the place of each guest),--after
going through all these preliminary acts mademoiselle went, in her
fine clothes, to her uncle, who was accustomed at this, the best hour
in the day, to take his walk on the terrace which overlooked the
Brillante, where he could listen to the warble of birds which were
resting in the coppice, unafraid of either sportsmen or children. At
such times of waiting she never joined the Abbe de Sponde without
asking him some ridiculous question, in order to draw the old man into
a discussion which might serve to amuse him. And her reason was this,
--which will serve to complete our picture of this excellent woman's
nature:--



From: Paz
(keyword count: 12, file: PZHDB10.TXT, offset: 24148, length: 1954)
[keywords: court,house,boudoir,floor,courtyard,window,window,marble,walls,painted,staircase,house,]

The hotel of the Comtesse Laginska, rue de la Pepiniere, is one of
these creations, and stands between court and garden. On the right, in
the court, are the kitchens and offices; to the left the coachhouse
and stables. The porter's lodge is between two charming portes-
cocheres. The chief luxury of the house is a delightful greenhouse
contrived at the end of a boudoir on the ground-floor which opens upon
an admirable suite of reception rooms. An English philanthropist had
built this architectural bijou, designed the garden, added the
greenhouse, polished the doors, bricked the courtyard, painted the
window-frames green, and realized, in short, a dream which resembled
(proportions excepted) George the Fourth's Pavilion at Brighton. The
inventive and industrious Parisian workmen had moulded the doors and
window-frames; the ceilings were imitated from the middle-ages or
those of a Venetian palace; marble veneering abounded on the outer
walls. Steinbock and Francois Souchet had designed the mantel-pieces
and the panels above the doors; Schinner had painted the ceilings in
his masterly manner. The beauties of the staircase, white as a woman's
arm, defied those of the hotel Rothschild. On account of the riots and
the unsettled times, the cost of this folly was only about eleven
hundred thousand francs,--to an Englishman a mere nothing. All this
luxury, called princely by persons who do not know what real princes
are, was built in the garden of the house of a purveyor made a Croesus
by the Revolution, who had escaped to Brussels and died there after
going into bankruptcy. The Englishman died in Paris, of Paris; for to
many persons Paris is a disease,--sometimes several diseases. His
widow, a Methodist, had a horror of the little nabob establishment,
and ordered it to be sold. Comte Adam bought it at a bargain; and how
he came to do so shall presently be made known, for bargains were not
at all in his line as a grand seigneur.



From: A Drama on the Seashore
(keyword count: 10, file: SESHR10.TXT, offset: 42326, length: 1029)
[keywords: home,floor,candles,chairs,hearth,door,fireplace,home,clock,house,]

"The good woman did as she was told. Cambremer took the money and just
said 'Good,' and then he went home. So far, all the town knows that;
but now comes what I alone know, though others have always had some
suspicion of it. As I say, Cambremer came home; he told his wife to
clean up their chamber, which is on the lower floor; he made a fire,
lit two candles, placed two chairs on one side of the hearth, and a
stool on the other. Then he told his wife to bring him his wedding-
clothes, and ordered her to put on hers. He dressed himself. When
dressed, he fetched his brother, and told him to watch before the
door, and warn him of any noise on either of the beaches,--that of
Croisic, or that of Guerande. Then he loaded a gun, and placed it at a
corner of the fireplace. Jacques came home late; he had drunk and
gambled till ten o'clock, and had to get back by way of the Carnouf
point. His uncle heard his hail, and he went over and fetched him, but
said nothing. When Jacques entered the house, his father said to
him,--



From: Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
(keyword count: 18, file: SFACL10.TXT, offset: 55128, length: 1565)
[keywords: room,floor,carpet,painted,armchair,chairs,painted,window,wall,flowers,fireplace,kitchen,shelf,window,sofa,wardrobe,door,shelves,]

The priest remained standing, lost in gloomy meditation, without being
touched by the girl's divine beauty, watching her first movements as
if she had been some animal. His eyes went from the crouching figure
to the surrounding objects with evident indifference. He looked at the
furniture in the room; the paved floor, red, polished, and cold, was
poorly covered with a shabby carpet worn to the string. A little
bedstead, of painted wood and old-fashioned shape, was hung with
yellow cotton printed with red stars, one armchair and two small
chairs, also of painted wood, and covered with the same cotton print
of which the window-curtains were also made; a gray wall-paper
sprigged with flowers blackened and greasy with age; a fireplace full
of kitchen utensils of the vilest kind, two bundles of fire-logs; a
stone shelf, on which lay some jewelry false and real, a pair of
scissors, a dirty pincushion, and some white scented gloves; an
exquisite hat perched on the water-jug, a Ternaux shawl stopping a
hole in the window, a handsome gown hanging from a nail; a little hard
sofa, with no cushions; broken clogs and dainty slippers, boots that a
queen might have coveted; cheap china plates, cracked or chipped, with
fragments of a past meal, and nickel forks--the plate of the Paris
poor; a basket full of potatoes and dirty linen, with a smart gauze
cap on the top; a rickety wardrobe, with a glass door, open and empty,
and on the shelves sundry pawn-tickets,--this was the medley of
things, dismal or pleasing, abject and handsome, that fell on his eye.



From: Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
(keyword count: 15, file: SFACL10.TXT, offset: 248172, length: 867)
[keywords: staircase,floor,floor,kitchen,bedroom,bedroom,study,study,wall,window,wall,study,stairs,bedroom,study,]

The house, standing at the corner of the Rue Saint-Roch, had no
neighbors on one side; and as the staircase up the middle divided it
into two, there were on each floor two perfectly isolated rooms. Those
two rooms looked out on the Rue Saint-Roch. There were garret rooms
above the fourth floor, one of them a kitchen, and the other a bedroom
for Pere Canquoelle's only servant, a Fleming named Katt, formerly
Lydie's wet-nurse. Old Canquoelle had taken one of the outside rooms
for his bedroom, and the other for his study. The study ended at the
party-wall, a very thick one. The window opening on the Rue des
Moineaux looked on a blank wall at the opposite corner. As this study
was divided from the stairs by the whole width of Peyrade's bedroom,
the friends feared no eye, no ear, as they talked business in this
study made on purpose for his detestable trade.



From: Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
(keyword count: 15, file: SFACL10.TXT, offset: 249039, length: 1685)
[keywords: bed,carpet,rug,chimney,room,stove,wall,rugs,floor,wall,floor,room,room,room,walls,]

Peyrade, as a further precaution, had furnished Katt's room with a
thick straw bed, a felt carpet, and a very heavy rug, under the
pretext of making his child's nurse comfortable. He had also stopped
up the chimney, warming his room by a stove, with a pipe through the
wall to the Rue Saint-Roch. Finally, he laid several rugs on his floor
to prevent the slightest sound being heard by the neighbors beneath.
An expert himself in the tricks of spies, he sounded the outer wall,
the ceiling, and the floor once a week, examining them as if he were
in search of noxious insects. It was the security of this room from
all witnesses or listeners that had made Corentin select it as his
council-chamber when he did not hold a meeting in his own room.

Where Corentin lived was known to no one but the Chief of the Superior
Police and to Peyrade; he received there such personages as the
Ministry or the King selected to conduct very serious cases; but no
agent or subordinate ever went there, and he plotted everything
connected with their business at Peyrade's. In this unpretentious room
schemes were matured, and resolutions passed, which would have
furnished strange records and curious dramas if only walls could talk.
Between 1816 and 1826 the highest interests were discussed there.
There first germinated the events which grew to weigh on France. There
Peyrade and Corentin, with all the foresight, and more than all the
information of Bellart, the Attorney-General, had said even in 1819:
"If Louis XVIII. does not consent to strike such or such a blow, to
make away with such or such a prince, is it because he hates his
brother? He must wish to leave him heir to a revolution."



From: Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
(keyword count: 12, file: SFACL10.TXT, offset: 250918, length: 657)
[keywords: room,bedroom,room,door,room,hinges,door,house,dining-room,room,bedroom,window,]

Lydie's rooms, opposite to Peyrade's shabby lodging, consisted of an
ante-room, a little drawing-room, a bedroom, and a small dressing-
room. The door, like that of Peyrade's room, was constructed of a
plate of sheet-iron three lines thick, sandwiched between two strong
oak planks, fitted with locks and elaborate hinges, making it as
impossible to force it as if it were a prison door. Thus, though the
house had a public passage through it, with a shop below and no
doorkeeper, Lydie lived there without a fear. The dining-room, the
little drawing-room, and her bedroom--every window-balcony a hanging
garden--were luxurious in their Dutch cleanliness.



From: Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
(keyword count: 10, file: SFACL10.TXT, offset: 531528, length: 1056)
[keywords: room,carpet,painted,mahogany,flower,flowers,window,chimney,mirror,home,]

The interior of the house, as much altered as the surroundings, was
comfortable without luxury, as will be understood by a glance round
the room where the little party were now assembled. A pretty Aubusson
carpet, hangings of gray cotton twill bound with green silk brocade,
the woodwork painted to imitate Spa wood, carved mahogany furniture
covered with gray woolen stuff and green gimp, with flower-stands, gay
with flowers in spite of the time of year, presented a very pleasing
and homelike aspect. The window curtains, of green brocade, the
chimney ornaments, and the mirror frames were untainted by the bad
taste that spoils everything in the provinces; and the smallest
details, all elegant and appropriate, gave the mind and eye a sense of
repose and of poetry which a clever and loving woman can and ought to
infuse into her home.

Madame Sechard, still in mourning for her father, sat by the fire
working at some large piece of tapestry with the help of Madame Kolb,
the housekeeper, to whom she intrusted all the minor cares of the
household.



From: Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
(keyword count: 10, file: SFACL10.TXT, offset: 621642, length: 1146)
[keywords: court,stairs,stairs,room,hall,court,Court,door,court,door,]

Above the "mousetraps" is an inner guardroom with a window commanding
the court of the Conciergerie; this is used by the gendarmerie of the
department, and the stairs lead up to it. When the hour of trial
strikes the sheriffs call the roll of the prisoners, the gendarmes go
down, one for each prisoner, and each gendarme takes a criminal by the
arm; and thus, in couples, they mount the stairs, cross the guardroom,
and are led along the passages to a room contiguous to the hall where
sits the famous sixth chamber of the law (whose functions are those of
an English county court). The same road is trodden by the prisoners
committed for trial on their way to and from the Conciergerie and the
Assize Court.

In the Salle des Pas-Perdus, between the door into the first court of
the inferior class and the steps leading to the sixth, the visitor
must observe the first time he goes there a doorway without a door or
any architectural adornment, a square hole of the meanest type.
Through this the judges and barristers find their way into the
passages, into the guardhouse, down into the prison cells, and to the
entrance to the Conciergerie.



From: Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
(keyword count: 11, file: SFACL10.TXT, offset: 765056, length: 1490)
[keywords: Court,staircase,door,stairs,Benches,room,stairs,court,Court,stove,court,]

The Palais de Justice is a perplexing maze of buildings piled one
above another, some fine and dignified, others very mean, the whole
disfigured by its lack of unity. The Salle des Pas-Perdus is the
largest known hall, but its nakedness is hideous, and distresses the
eye. This vast Cathedral of the Law crushes the Supreme Court. The
Galerie Marchande ends in two drain-like passages. From this corridor
there is a double staircase, a little larger than that of the Criminal
Courts, and under it a large double door. The stairs lead down to one
of the Assize Courts, and the doors open into another. In some years
the number of crimes committed in the circuit of the Seine is great
enough to necessitate the sitting of two Benches.

Close by are the public prosecutor's offices, the attorney's room and
library, the chambers of the attorney-general, and those of the public
prosecutor's deputies. All these purlieus, to use a generic term,
communicate by narrow spiral stairs and the dark passages, which are a
disgrace to the architecture not of Paris only, but of all France. The
interior arrangement of the sovereign court of justice outdoes our
prisons in all that is most hideous. The writer describing our manners
and customs would shrink from the necessity of depicting the squalid
corridor of about a metre in width, in which the witnesses wait in the
Superior Criminal Court. As to the stove which warms the court itself,
it would disgrace a cafe on the Boulevard Mont-Parnasse.



From: Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
(keyword count: 18, file: SFACL10.TXT, offset: 915668, length: 1773)
[keywords: office,wall,wall,door,room,yard,office,office,cupboard,court,room,walls,stove,floor,court,walls,bed,room,]

Before the Revolution of July there was in the Conciergerie, and
indeed there still is, a condemned cell. This room, backing on the
governor's office, is divided from it by a thick wall in strong
masonry, and the other side of it is formed by a wall seven or eight
feet thick, which supports one end of the immense Salle des Pas-
Perdus. It is entered through the first door in the long dark passage
in which the eye loses itself when looking from the middle of the
vaulted gateway. This ill-omened room is lighted by a funnel, barred
by a formidable grating, and hardly perceptible on going into the
Conciergerie yard, for it has been pierced in the narrow space between
the office window close to the railing of the gateway, and the place
where the office clerk sits--a den like a cupboard contrived by the
architect at the end of the entrance court.

This position accounts for the fact that the room thus enclosed
between four immensely thick walls should have been devoted, when the
Conciergerie was reconstituted, to this terrible and funereal service.
Escape is impossible. The passage, leading to the cells for solitary
confinement and to the women's quarters, faces the stove where
gendarmes and warders are always collected together. The air-hole, the
only outlet to the open air, is nine feet above the floor, and looks
out on the first court, which is guarded by sentries at the outer
gate. No human power can make any impression on the walls. Besides, a
man sentenced to death is at once secured in a straitwaistcoat, a
garment which precludes all use of the hands; he is chained by one
foot to his camp bed, and he has a fellow prisoner to watch and attend
on him. The room is paved with thick flags, and the light is so dim
that it is hard to see anything.



From: Seraphita
(keyword count: 10, file: SRAPH10.TXT, offset: 75406, length: 1792)
[keywords: room,room,door,stove,armchair,stove,table,desk,lamp,painted,]

The parlor was ornamented with a collection of the shells and insects
of Norway. These curiosities, admirably arranged on a background of
the yellow pine which panelled the room, formed, as it were, a rich
tapestry to which the fumes of tobacco had imparted a mellow tone. At
the further end of the room, opposite to the door, was an immense
wrought-iron stove, carefully polished by the serving-woman till it
shone like burnished steel. Seated in a large tapestried armchair near
the stove, before a table, with his feet in a species of muff,
Monsieur Becker was reading a folio volume which was propped against a
pile of other books as on a desk. At his left stood a jug of beer and
a glass, at his right burned a smoky lamp fed by some species of fish-
oil. The pastor seemed about sixty years of age. His face belonged to
a type often painted by Rembrandt; the same small bright eyes, set in
wrinkles and surmounted by thick gray eyebrows; the same white hair
escaping in snowy flakes from a black velvet cap; the same broad, bald
brow, and a contour of face which the ample chin made almost square;
and lastly, the same calm tranquillity, which, to an observer, denoted
the possession of some inward power, be it the supremacy bestowed by
money, or the magisterial influence of the burgomaster, or the
consciousness of art, or the cubic force of blissful ignorance. This
fine old man, whose stout body proclaimed his vigorous health, was
wrapped in a dressing-gown of rough gray cloth plainly bound. Between
his lips was a meerschaum pipe, from which, at regular intervals, he
blew the smoke, following with abstracted vision its fantastic
wreathings,--his mind employed, no doubt, in assimilating through some
meditative process the thoughts of the author whose works he was
studying.



From: Sons of the Soil
(keyword count: 10, file: SSOIL10.TXT, offset: 29376, length: 1093)
[keywords: painted,fresco,paintings,table,decoration,house,windows,marble,room,window,]

I have often stood rapt in admiration at the beauty of the dining-
room. The eye is first attracted to the ceiling, painted in fresco in
the Italian manner, where lightsome arabesques are frolicking. Female
forms, in stucco ending in foliage, support at regular distances
corbeils of fruit, from which spring the garlands of the ceiling.
Charming paintings, the work of unknown artists, fill the panels
between the female figures, representing the luxuries of the table,--
boar's-heads, salmon, rare shell-fish, and all edible things,--which
fantastically suggest men and women and children, and rival the
whimsical imagination of the Chinese,--the people who best understand,
to my thinking at least, the art of decoration. The mistress of the
house finds a bell-wire beneath her feet to summon servants, who enter
only when required, disturbing no interviews and overhearing no
secrets. The panels above the doorways represent gay scenes; all the
embrasures, both of doors and windows, are in marble mosaics. The room
is heated from below. Every window looks forth on some delightful
view.



From: Sons of the Soil
(keyword count: 12, file: SSOIL10.TXT, offset: 30469, length: 494)
[keywords: room,boudoir,salon,room,tiles,floor,marble,picture,gilt,tiles,painted,table,]

This room communicates with a bath-room on one side and on the other
with a boudoir which opens into the salon. The bath-room is lined with
Sevres tiles, painted in monochrome, the floor is mosaic, and the bath
marble. An alcove, hidden by a picture painted on copper, which turns
on a pivot, contains a couch in gilt wood of the truest Pompadour. The
ceiling is lapis-lazuli starred with gold. The tiles are painted from
designs by Boucher. Bath, table and love are therefore closely united.



From: Sons of the Soil
(keyword count: 12, file: SSOIL10.TXT, offset: 346376, length: 820)
[keywords: windows,curtains,decoration,mantel-shelf,bedroom,mahogany,bed,curtains,clock,vases,flowers,bedrooms,]

On the next floor three chambers sufficed for the household. At the
windows were muslin curtains which reminded a Parisian of the
particular taste and fancy of bourgeois requirements. Left to herself
in the decoration of these rooms, Madame Michaud had chosen satin
papers; on the mantel-shelf of her bedroom--which was furnished in
that vulgar style of mahogany and Utrecht velvet which is seen
everywhere, with its high-backed bed and canopy to which embroidered
muslin curtains are fastened--stood an alabaster clock between two
candelabra covered with gauze and flanked by two vases filled with
artificial flowers protected by glass shades, a conjugal gift of the
former cavalry sergeant. Above, under the roof, the bedrooms of the
cook, the man-of-all-work, and La Pechina had benefited by the recent
restoration.



From: Sons of the Soil
(keyword count: 10, file: SSOIL10.TXT, offset: 438061, length: 444)
[keywords: staircase,door,room,windows,kitchen,staircase,courtyard,floor,floor,bedrooms,]

A double door opened upon a passage, half-way down which was the well
of the staircase. By the entrance was the door of a large room with
three windows looking out upon the square. The kitchen, built behind
and beneath the staircase, was lighted from the courtyard, which was
neatly paved with cobble-stones and entered by a porte-cochere. Such
was the ground-floor. The first floor contained three bedrooms, above
them a small attic chamber.



From: Sons of the Soil
(keyword count: 18, file: SSOIL10.TXT, offset: 439084, length: 1121)
[keywords: wainscot,furniture,wainscot,painted,mirror,frame,ornament,brass,marble,candle,candlesticks,wall,window,clock,curtains,sideboard,table,room,]

Within, the large room, panelled in wainscot, was hung with old
tapestry. The walnut furniture, brown with age and covered with stuffs
embroidered in needle-work, was in keeping with the wainscot and with
the ceiling, which was also panelled. The latter had three projecting
beams, but these were painted, and between them the space was
plastered. The mantel, also in walnut, surmounted by a mirror in the
most grotesque frame, had no other ornament than two brass eggs
standing on a marble base, each of which opened in the middle; the
upper half when turned over showed a socket for a candle. These
candlesticks for two lights, festooned with chains (an invention of
the reign of Louis XV.), were becoming rare. On a green and gold
bracket fastened to the wall opposite to the window was a common but
excellent clock. The curtains, which squeaked upon their rods, were at
least fifty years old; their material, of cotton in a square pattern
like that of mattresses, alternately pink and white, came from the
Indies. A sideboard and dinner-table completed the equipment of the
room, which was kept with extreme nicety.



From: Sons of the Soil
(keyword count: 14, file: SSOIL10.TXT, offset: 545962, length: 1673)
[keywords: house,windows,door,house,door,house,courtyard,house,painted,blinds,floor,house,bed,furniture,]

For a clear understanding of the following scene we must explain the
topography of this region of plenty and of misrule, which began with
the cafe on the square, and ended on the country road with the famous
Tivoli where the conspirators proposed to entrap the general. The
ground-floor of the cafe, which stood at the angle of the square and
the road, and was built in the style of Rigou's house, had three
windows on the road and two on the square, the latter being separated
by a glass door through which the house was entered. The cafe had,
moreover, a double door which opened on a side alley that separated it
from the neighboring house (that of Vallet the Soulanges mercer),
which led to an inside courtyard.

The house, which was painted wholly in yellow, except the blinds,
which were green, is one of the few houses in the little town which
has two stories and an attic. And this is why: Before the astonishing
rise in the prosperity of Ville-aux-Fayes the first floor of this
house, which had four chambers, each containing a bed and the meagre
furniture thought necessary to justify the term "furnished lodgings,"
was let to strangers who were obliged to come to Soulanges on matters
connected with the courts, or to visitors who did not sleep at the
chateau; but for the last twenty-five years these rooms had had no
other occupants than the mountebanks, the merchants, the vendors of
quack medicines who came to the fair, or else commercial travellers.
During the fair-time they were let for four francs a day; and brought
Socquard about two hundred and fifty francs, not to speak of the
profits on the consumption of food which the guests took in his cafe.



From: Sons of the Soil
(keyword count: 11, file: SSOIL10.TXT, offset: 550514, length: 808)
[keywords: mirrors,gilt,painted,mahogany,marble,lamps,pictures,painted,marble,benches,lamp,]

The wall decoration of the cafe, relieved by mirrors in gilt frames
and brackets on which the hats were hung, had not been changed since
the days when all Soulanges came to admire the romantic paper, also a
counter painted like mahogany with a Saint-Anne marble top, on which
shone vessels of plated metal and lamps with double-burners, which
were, rumor said, given to the beautiful Madame Socquard by Gaubertin.
A sticky coating of dirt covered everything, like that found on old
pictures put away and long forgotten in a garret. The tables painted
to resemble marble, the benches covered in red Utrecht velvet, the
hanging glass lamp full of oil, which fed two lights, fastened by a
chain to the ceiling and adorned with glass pendants, were the
beginning of the celebrity of the then Cafe de la Guerre.



From: Sons of the Soil
(keyword count: 11, file: SSOIL10.TXT, offset: 580587, length: 909)
[keywords: mahogany,lamps,marble,gilt,chairs,engravings,dining-room,furniture,salon,court,seat,]

The interior of Gaubertin's house was decorated with the unmeaning
commonplaces of modern luxury. Rich papers with gold borders, bronze
chandeliers, mahogany furniture of a new pattern, astral lamps, round
tables with marble tops, white china with gilt lines for dessert, red
morocco chairs and mezzo-tint engravings in the dining-room, and blue
cashmere furniture in the salon,--all details of a chilling and
perfectly unmeaning character, but which to the eyes of Ville-aux-
Fayes seemed the last efforts of Sardanapalian luxury. Madame
Gaubertin played the role of elegance with great effect; she assumed
little airs and was lackadaisical at forty-five years of age, as
though certain of the homage of her court.

We ask those who really know France, if these houses--those of Rigou,
Soudry, and Gaubertin--are not a perfect presentation of the village,
the little town, and the seat of a sub-prefecture?



From: A Start in Life - Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
(keyword count: 12, file: STLIF10.TXT, offset: 70212, length: 1577)
[keywords: court,house,apartment,dining-room,bedroom,kitchen,bedroom,door,room,floor,staircase,room,]

The drivers of public conveyances and carriers are called by their
business to enter many homes, and to be cognizant of many secrets; but
social accident, that sub-providence, having willed that they be
without education and devoid of the talent of observation, it follows
that they are not dangerous. Nevertheless, at the end of a few months,
Pierrotin was puzzled to explain the exact relations of Monsieur
Moreau and Madame Clapart from what he saw of the household in the rue
de la Cerisaie. Though lodgings were not dear at that time in the
Arsenal quarter, Madame Clapart lived on a third floor at the end of a
court-yard, in a house which was formerly that of a great family, in
the days when the higher nobility of the kingdom lived on the ancient
site of the Palais des Tournelles and the hotel Saint-Paul. Toward the
end of the sixteenth century, the great seigneurs divided among
themselves these vast spaces, once occupied by the gardens of the
kings of France, as indicated by the present names of the streets,--
Cerisaie, Beautreillis, des Lions, etc. Madame Clapart's apartment,
which was panelled throughout with ancient carvings, consisted of
three connecting rooms, a dining-room, salon, and bedroom. Above it
was the kitchen, and a bedroom for Oscar. Opposite to the entrance, on
what is called in Paris "le carre,"--that is, the square landing,--was
the door of a back room, opening, on every floor, into a sort of tower
built of rough stone, in which was also the well for the staircase.
This was the room in which Moreau slept whenever he went to Paris.



From: A Start in Life - Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
(keyword count: 12, file: STLIF10.TXT, offset: 71789, length: 929)
[keywords: chairs,seats,table,sideboard,windows,curtains,salon,furniture,bedroom,salon,dining-room,painted,]

Pierrotin had seen in the first room, where he deposited the hampers,
six wooden chairs with straw seats, a table, and a sideboard; at the
windows, discolored curtains. Later, when he entered the salon, he
noticed some old Empire furniture, now shabby; but only as much as all
proprietors exact to secure their rent. Pierrotin judged of the
bedroom by the salon and dining-room. The wood-work, painted coarsely
of a reddish white, which thickened and blurred the mouldings and
figurines, far from being ornamental, was distressing to the eye. The
floors, never waxed, were of that gray tone we see in boarding-
schools. When Pierrotin came upon Monsieur and Madame Clapart at their
meals he saw that their china, glass, and all other little articles
betrayed the utmost poverty; and yet, though the chipped and mended
dishes and tureens were those of the poorest families and provoked
pity, the forks and spoons were of silver.



From: A Start in Life - Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
(keyword count: 12, file: STLIF10.TXT, offset: 174783, length: 687)
[keywords: decoration,drapery,windows,floor,salon,bedroom,dining-room,room,staircase,hall,kitchen,dining-room,]

The house, built of freestone, in the style of the period of Louis XV.
(it is enough to say that its exterior decoration consisted of a stone
drapery beneath the windows, as in the colonnades of the Place Louis
XV., the flutings of which were stiff and ungainly), had on the
ground-floor a fine salon opening into a bedroom, and a dining-room
connected with a billiard-room. These rooms, lying parallel to one
another, were separated by a staircase, in front of which was a sort
of peristyle which formed an entrance-hall, on which the two suits of
rooms on either side opened. The kitchen was beneath the dining-room,
for the whole building was raised ten steps from the ground level.



From: A Start in Life - Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
(keyword count: 19, file: STLIF10.TXT, offset: 175470, length: 1388)
[keywords: floor,floor,salon,boudoir,furniture,salon,curtains,bed,window,Pictures,lamps,room,carpet,rug,boudoir,dining-room,room,mahogany,house,]

By placing her own bedroom on the first floor above the ground-floor,
Madame Moreau was able to transform the chamber adjoining the salon
into a boudoir. These two rooms were richly furnished with beautiful
pieces culled from the rare old furniture of the chateau. The salon,
hung with blue and white damask, formerly the curtains of the state-
bed, was draped with ample portieres and window curtains lined with
white silk. Pictures, evidently from old panels, plant-stands, various
pretty articles of modern upholstery, handsome lamps, and a rare old
cut-glass chandelier, gave a grandiose appearance to the room. The
carpet was a Persian rug. The boudoir, wholly modern, and furnished
entirely after Madame Moreau's own taste, was arranged in imitation of
a tent, with ropes of blue silk on a gray background. The classic
divan was there, of course, with its pillows and footstools. The
plant-stands, taken care of by the head-gardener of Presles, rejoiced
the eye with their pyramids of bloom. The dining-room and billiard-
room were furnished in mahogany.

Around the house the steward's wife had laid out a beautiful garden,
carefully cultivated, which opened into the great park. Groups of
choice parks hid the offices and stables. To improve the entrance by
which visitors came to see her, she had substituted a handsome iron
gateway for the shabby railing, which she discarded.



From: The Lily of the Valley
(keyword count: 10, file: TLOTV10.TXT, offset: 59365, length: 2225)
[keywords: windows,window,door,house,house,house,house,kitchen,windows,door,]

I agreed, not without a blush of shame and pleasure. About four
o'clock we reached the little chateau on which my eyes had fastened
from the first. The building, which is finely effective in the
landscape, is in reality very modest. It has five windows on the
front; those at each end of the facade, looking south, project about
twelve feet,--an architectural device which gives the idea of two
towers and adds grace to the structure. The middle window serves as a
door from which you descend through a double portico into a terraced
garden which joins the narrow strip of grass-land that skirts the
Indre along its whole course. Though this meadow is separated from the
lower terrace, which is shaded by a double line of acacias and
Japanese ailanthus, by the country road, it nevertheless appears from
the house to be a part of the garden, for the road is sunken and
hemmed in on one side by the terrace, on the other side by a Norman
hedge. The terraces being very well managed put enough distance
between the house and the river to avoid the inconvenience of too
great proximity to water, without losing the charms of it. Below the
house are the stables, coach-house, green-houses, and kitchen, the
various openings to which form an arcade. The roof is charmingly
rounded at the angles, and bears mansarde windows with carved mullions
and leaden finials on their gables. This roof, no doubt much neglected
during the Revolution, is stained by a sort of mildew produced by
lichens and the reddish moss which grows on houses exposed to the sun.
The glass door of the portico is surmounted by a little tower which
holds the bell, and on which is carved the escutcheon of the Blamont-
Chauvry family, to which Madame de Mortsauf belonged, as follows:
Gules, a pale vair, flanked quarterly by two hands clasped or, and two
lances in chevron sable. The motto, "Voyez tous, nul ne touche!"
struck me greatly. The supporters, a griffin and dragon gules,
enchained or, made a pretty effect in the carving. The Revolution has
damaged the ducal crown and the crest, which was a palm-tree vert with
fruit or. Senart, the secretary of the committee of public safety was
bailiff of Sache before 1781, which explains this destruction.



From: The Lily of the Valley
(keyword count: 17, file: TLOTV10.TXT, offset: 76552, length: 1607)
[keywords: painted,mantelpiece,clock,mahogany,vases,lamp,pier-table,fireplace,curtains,furniture,frame,apartment,salon,room,flowers,windows,house,]

Everything at Clochegourde bore signs of a truly English cleanliness.
The room in which the countess received us was panelled throughout and
painted in two shades of gray. The mantelpiece was ornamented with a
clock inserted in a block of mahogany and surmounted with a tazza, and
two large vases of white porcelain with gold lines, which held bunches
of Cape heather. A lamp was on a pier-table, and a backgammon board on
legs before the fireplace. Two wide bands of cotton held back the
white cambric curtains, which had no fringe. The furniture was covered
with gray cotton bound with a green braid, and the tapestry on the
countess's frame told why the upholstery was thus covered. Such
simplicity rose to grandeur. No apartment, among all that I have seen
since, has given me such fertile, such teeming impressions as those
that filled my mind in that salon of Clochegourde, calm and composed
as the life of its mistress, where the conventual regularity of her
occupations made itself felt. The greater part of my ideas in science
or politics, even the boldest of them, were born in that room, as
perfumes emanate from flowers; there grew the mysterious plant that
cast upon my soul its fructifying pollen; there glowed the solar
warmth which developed my good and shrivelled my evil qualities.
Through the windows the eye took in the valley from the heights of
Pont-de-Ruan to the chateau d'Azay, following the windings of the
further shore, picturesquely varied by the towers of Frapesle, the
church, the village, and the old manor-house of Sache, whose venerable
pile looked down upon the meadows.



From: The Lily of the Valley
(keyword count: 11, file: TLOTV10.TXT, offset: 90565, length: 2122)
[keywords: floor,salon,room,tiles,flowers,windows,curtains,chairs,table,flowers,vases,]

The conversation was resumed. I soon saw how intractable his royalism
was, and how much care was needed to swim safely in his waters. The
man-servant, who had now put on his livery, announced dinner. Monsieur
de Chessel gave his arm to Madame de Mortsauf, and the count gaily
seized mine to lead me into the dining-room, which was on the ground-
floor facing the salon.

This room, floored with white tiles made in Touraine, and wainscoted
to the height of three feet, was hung with a varnished paper divided
into wide panels by wreaths of flowers and fruit; the windows had
cambric curtains trimmed with red, the buffets were old pieces by
Boulle himself, and the woodwork of the chairs, which were covered by
hand-made tapestry, was carved oak. The dinner, plentifully supplied,
was not luxurious; family silver without uniformity, Dresden china
which was not then in fashion, octagonal decanters, knives with agate
handles, and lacquered trays beneath the wine-bottles, were the chief
features of the table, but flowers adorned the porcelain vases and
overhung the gilding of their fluted edges. I delighted in these
quaint old things. I thought the Reveillon paper with its flowery
garlands beautiful. The sweet content that filled my sails hindered me
from perceiving the obstacles which a life so uniform, so unvarying in
solitude of the country placed between her and me. I was near her,
sitting at her right hand, serving her with wine. Yes, unhoped-for
joy! I touched her dress, I ate her bread. At the end of three hours
my life had mingled with her life! That terrible kiss had bound us to
each other in a secret which inspired us with mutual shame. A glorious
self-abasement took possession of me. I studied to please the count, I
fondled the dogs, I would gladly have gratified every desire of the
children, I would have brought them hoops and marbles and played horse
with them; I was even provoked that they did not already fasten upon
me as a thing of their own. Love has intuitions like those of genius;
and I dimly perceived that gloom, discontent, hostility would destroy
my footing in that household.



From: The Lily of the Valley
(keyword count: 11, file: TLOTV10.TXT, offset: 506709, length: 2466)
[keywords: sofa,fireplace,vases,flowers,table,window,room,bed,room,flower,portrait,]

We reached the door of the chamber and the abbe opened it. I then saw
Henriette, dressed in white, sitting on her little sofa which was
placed before the fireplace, on which were two vases filled with
flowers; flowers were also on a table near the window. The expression
of the abbe's face, which was that of amazement at the change in the
room, now restored to its former state, showing me that the dying
woman had sent away the repulsive preparations which surround a sick-
bed. She had spent the last waning strength of fever in decorating her
room to receive him whom in that final hour she loved above all things
else. Surrounded by clouds of lace, her shrunken face, which had the
greenish pallor of a magnolia flower as it opens, resembled the first
outline of a cherished head drawn in chalks upon the yellow canvas of
a portrait. To feel how deeply the vulture's talons now buried
themselves in my heart, imagine the eyes of that outlined face
finished and full of life,--hollow eyes which shone with a brilliancy
unusual in a dying person. The calm majesty given to her in the past
by her constant victory over sorrow was there no longer. Her forehead,
the only part of her face which still kept its beautiful proportions,
wore an expression of aggressive will and covert threats. In spite of
the waxy texture of her elongated face, inward fires were issuing from
it like the fluid mist which seems to flame above the fields of a hot
day. Her hollow temples, her sunken cheeks showed the interior
formation of the face, and the smile upon her whitened lips vaguely
resembled the grin of death. Her robe, which was folded across her
breast, showed the emaciation of her beautiful figure. The expression
of her head said plainly that she knew she was changed, and that the
thought filled her with bitterness. She was no longer the arch
Henriette, nor the sublime and saintly Madame de Mortsauf, but the
nameless something of Bossuet struggling against annihilation, driven
to the selfish battle of life against death by hunger and balked
desire. I took her hand, which was dry and burning, to kiss it, as I
seated myself beside her. She guessed my sorrowful surprise from the
very effort that I made to hide it. Her discolored lips drew up from
her famished teeth trying to form a smile,--the forced smile with
which we strive to hide either the irony of vengeance, the expectation
of pleasure, the intoxication of our souls, or the fury of
disappointment.



From: The Vicar of Tours - Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
(keyword count: 16, file: VCRTR10.TXT, offset: 19186, length: 1725)
[keywords: staircase,house,floor,floor,furniture,painted,furniture,bed,table,chairs,apartment,floor,painted,table,decoration,shelves,]

The apartment, reached by a stone staircase, was on the side of the
house that faced south. The Abbe Troubert occupied the ground-floor,
and Mademoiselle Gamard the first floor of the main building, looking
on the street. When Chapeloud took possession of his rooms they were
bare of furniture, and the ceilings were blackened with smoke. The
stone mantelpieces, which were very badly cut, had never been painted.
At first, the only furniture the poor canon could put in was a bed, a
table, a few chairs, and the books he possessed. The apartment was
like a beautiful woman in rags. But two or three years later, an old
lady having left the Abbe Chapeloud two thousand francs, he spent that
sum on the purchase of an oak bookcase, the relic of a chateau pulled
down by the Bande Noire, the carving of which deserved the admiration
of all artists. The abbe made the purchase less because it was very
cheap than because the dimensions of the bookcase exactly fitted the
space it was to fill in his gallery. His savings enabled him to
renovate the whole gallery, which up to this time had been neglected
and shabby. The floor was carefully waxed, the ceiling whitened, the
wood-work painted to resemble the grain and knots of oak. A long table
in ebony and two cabinets by Boulle completed the decoration, and gave
to this gallery a certain air that was full of character. In the
course of two years the liberality of devout persons, and legacies,
though small ones, from pious penitents, filled the shelves of the
bookcase, till then half empty. Moreover, Chapeloud's uncle, an old
Oratorian, had left him his collection in folio of the Fathers of the
Church, and several other important works that were precious to a
priest.



From: The Vicar of Tours - Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
(keyword count: 20, file: VCRTR10.TXT, offset: 20911, length: 3154)
[keywords: room,furniture,bedroom,bedroom,apartment,salon,furniture,curtains,mahogany,carpet,room,painted,apartment,bed,curtains,apartment,bed,apartment,furniture,apartment,]

Birotteau, more and more surprised by the successive improvements of
the gallery, once so bare, came by degrees to a condition of
involuntary envy. He wished he could possess that apartment, so
thoroughly in keeping with the gravity of ecclestiastical life. The
passion increased from day to day. Working, sometimes for days
together, in this retreat, the vicar could appreciate the silence and
the peace that reigned there. During the following year the Abbe
Chapeloud turned a small room into an oratory, which his pious friends
took pleasure in beautifying. Still later, another lady gave the canon
a set of furniture for his bedroom, the covering of which she had
embroidered under the eyes of the worthy man without his ever
suspecting its destination. The bedroom then had the same effect upon
the vicar that the gallery had long had; it dazzled him. Lastly, about
three years before the Abbe Chapeloud's death, he completed the
comfort of his apartment by decorating the salon. Though the furniture
was plainly covered in red Utrecht velvet, it fascinated Birotteau.
From the day when the canon's friend first laid eyes on the red damask
curtains, the mahogany furniture, the Aubusson carpet which adorned
the vast room, then lately painted, his envy of Chapeloud's apartment
became a monomania hidden within his breast. To live there, to sleep
in that bed with the silk curtains where the canon slept, to have all
Chapeloud's comforts about him, would be, Birotteau felt, complete
happiness; he saw nothing beyond it. All the envy, all the ambition
which the things of this world give birth to in the hearts of other
men concentrated themelves for Birotteau in the deep and secret
longing he felt for an apartment like that which the Abbe Chapeloud
had created for himself. When his friend fell ill he went to him out
of true affection; but all the same, when he first heard of his
illness, and when he sat by his bed to keep him company, there arose
in the depths of his consciousness, in spite of himself, a crowd of
thoughts the simple formula of which was always, "If Chapeloud dies I
can have this apartment." And yet--Birotteau having an excellent
heart, contracted ideas, and a limited mind--he did not go so far as
to think of means by which to make his friend bequeath to him the
library and the furniture.

The Abbe Chapeloud, an amiable, indulgent egoist, fathomed his
friend's desires--not a difficult thing to do--and forgave them; which
may seem less easy to a priest; but it must be remembered that the
vicar, whose friendship was faithful, did not fail to take a daily
walk with his friend along their usual path in the Mail de Tours,
never once depriving him of an instant of the time devoted for over
twenty years to that exercise. Birotteau, who regarded his secret
wishes as crimes, would have been capable, out of contrition, of the
utmost devotion to his friend. The latter paid his debt of gratitude
for a friendship so ingenuously sincere by saying, a few days before
his death, as the vicar sat by him reading the "Quotidienne" aloud:
"This time you will certainly get the apartment. I feel it is all over
with me now."



From: The Vicar of Tours - Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
(keyword count: 10, file: VCRTR10.TXT, offset: 62921, length: 675)
[keywords: table,chairs,table,chair,dining-room,room,salon,floor,salon,bedroom,]

Torn by this inward misery, Birotteau fell to examining attentively
the broad green lines painted on the oilcloth which, from custom
immemorial, Mademoiselle Gamard left on the table at breakfast-time,
without regard to the ragged edges or the various scars displayed on
its surface. The priests sat opposite to each other in cane-seated
arm-chairs on either side of the square table, the head of which was
taken by the landlady, who seemed to dominate the whole from a high
chair raised on casters, filled with cushions, and standing very near
to the dining-room stove. This room and the salon were on the ground-
floor beneath the salon and bedroom of the Abbe Birotteau.



From: The Vicar of Tours - Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
(keyword count: 15, file: VCRTR10.TXT, offset: 75144, length: 1007)
[keywords: dining-room,room,chair,salon,salon,curtains,furniture,walls,mantelpiece,mirror,gilt,candlesticks,clock,apartment,furniture,]

This typical figure of the genus Old Maid was well framed by the
grotesque designs, representing Turkish landscapes, on a varnished
paper which decorated the walls of the dining-room. Mademoiselle
Gamard usually sat in this room, which boasted of two pier tables and
a barometer. Before the chair of each abbe was a little cushion
covered with worsted work, the colors of which were faded. The salon
in which she received company was worthy of its mistress. It will be
visible to the eye at once when we state that it went by the name of
the "yellow salon." The curtains were yellow, the furniture and walls
yellow; on the mantelpiece, surmounted by a mirror in a gilt frame,
the candlesticks and a clock all of crystal struck the eye with sharp
brilliancy. As to the private apartment of Mademoiselle Gamard, no one
had ever been permitted to look into it. Conjecture alone suggested
that it was full of odds and ends, worn-out furniture, and bits of
stuff and pieces dear to the hearts of all old maids.



From: Vendetta - Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
(keyword count: 14, file: VNDTA10.TXT, offset: 24466, length: 1777)
[keywords: stove,ornament,room,shelf,walls,shelf,pictures,frames,paintings,paintings,frames,apartment,studio,ornament,]

This gallery, so to speak, was profusely lighted from above, through
enormous panes of glass furnished with those green linen shades by
means of which all artists arrange the light. A quantity of
caricatures, heads drawn at a stroke, either in color or with the
point of a knife, on walls painted in a dark gray, proved that,
barring a difference in expression, the most distinguished young girls
have as much fun and folly in their minds as men. A small stove with a
large pipe, which described a fearful zigzag before it reached the
upper regions of the roof, was the necessary and infallible ornament
of the room. A shelf ran round the walls, on which were models in
plaster, heterogeneously placed, most of them covered with gray dust.
Here and there, above this shelf, a head of Niobe, hanging to a nail,
presented her pose of woe; a Venus smiled; a hand thrust itself
forward like that of a pauper asking alms; a few "ecorches," yellowed
by smoke, looked like limbs snatched over-night from a graveyard;
besides these objects, pictures, drawings, lay figures, frames without
paintings, and paintings without frames gave to this irregular
apartment that studio physiognomy which is distinguished for its
singular jumble of ornament and bareness, poverty and riches, care and
neglect. The vast receptacle of an "atelier," where all seems small,
even man, has something of the air of an Opera "coulisse"; here lie
ancient garments, gilded armor, fragments of stuffs, machinery. And
yet there is something mysteriously grand, like thought, in it; genius
and death are there; Diana and Apollo beside a skull or skeleton,
beauty and destruction, poesy and reality, colors glowing in the
shadows, often a whole drama, motionless and silent. Strange symbol of
an artist's head!

    Source: geocities.com/soho/square/3472

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