the hearth was so heaped with cinders; two brands tried to meet
in front of a sham log of fire-brick, as carefully buried as a
miser's treasure could ever be. An old Aubusson carpet, very much
faded, very much mended, and as worn as a pensioner's coat, did
not cover the whole of the tiled floor, and the cold struck to
his feet. The walls were hung with a reddish paper, imitating
figured silk with a yellow pattern. In the middle of the wall
opposite the windows the painter saw a crack, and the outline
marked on the paper of double-doors, shutting off a recess where
Madame Leseigneur slept no doubt, a fact ill disguised by a sofa
in front of the door. Facing the chimney, above a mahogany chest
of drawers of handsome and tasteful design, was the portrait of
an officer of rank, which the dim light did not allow him to see
well; but from what he could make out he thought that the fearful
daub must have been painted in China. The window-curtains of red
silk were as much faded as the furniture, in red and yellow
worsted work, [as] if this room "contrived a double debt to pay."
On the marble top of the chest of drawers was a costly malachite
tray, with a dozen coffee cups magnificently painted and made, no
doubt, at Sevres. On the chimney shelf stood the omnipresent
Empire clock: a warrior driving the four horses of a chariot,
whose wheel bore the numbers of the hours on its spokes. The
tapers in the tall candlesticks were yellow with smoke, and at
each corner of the shelf stood a porcelain vase crowned with
artificial flowers full of dust and stuck into moss.

In the middle of the room Hippolyte remarked a card-table ready
for play, with new packs of cards. For an observer there was
something heartrending in the sight of this misery painted up
like an old woman who wants to falsify her face. At such a sight