vault, with projecting lime-washed beams, which leads from the door to
the staircase, he will hardly fail to pause and look at the picture
presented by the interior of this house. To the left is a square
garden-plot, allowing of not more than four long steps in each
direction, a garden of black soil, with trellises bereft of vines, and
where, in default of vegetation under the shade of two trees, papers
collect, old rags, potsherds, bits of mortar fallen from the roof; a
barren ground, where time has shed on the walls, and on the trunks and
branches of the trees, a powdery deposit like cold soot. The two parts
of the house, set at a right angle, derive light from this
garden-court shut in by two adjoining houses built on wooden piers,
decrepit and ready to fall, where on each floor some grotesque evidence
is to be seen of the craft pursued by some lodger within. Here long
poles are hung with immense skeins of dyed worsted put out to dry;
there, on ropes, dance clean-washed shirts; higher up, on a shelf,
volumes display their freshly marbled edges; women sing, husbands
whistle, children shout; the carpenter saws his planks, a copper-turner
makes the metal screech; all kinds of industries combine to produce a
noise which the number of instruments renders distracting.

The general system of decoration in this passage, which is neither
courtyard, garden, nor vaulted way, though a little of all, consists
of wooden pillars resting on square stone blocks, and forming arches.
Two archways open on to the little garden; two others, facing the
front gateway, lead to a wooden staircase, with an iron balustrade
that was once a miracle of smith's work, so whimsical are the shapes
given to the metal; the worn steps creak under every tread. The
entrance to each flat has an architrave dark with dirt, grease, and
dust, and outer doors, covered with Utrecht velvet set with brass
nails, once gilt, in a diamond pattern. These relics of splendor show