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.

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.

Monsieur Clapart, clothed in a shabby surtout, his feet in broken
slippers, always wore green spectacles, and exhibited, whenever he
removed his shabby cap of a bygone period, a pointed skull, from the
top of which trailed a few dirty filaments which even a poet could
scarcely call hair. This man, of wan complexion, seemed timorous, but
withal tyrannical.

In this dreary apartment, which faced the north and had no other
outlook than to a vine on the opposite wall and a well in the corner
of the yard, Madame Clapart bore herself with the airs of a queen, and