The studio was situated in the narrowest part of the Rue du Four, at
the far end of a decrepit, tumble-down building. Claude had to cross
two evil-smelling courtyards to reach a third, across which ran a sort
of big closed shed, a huge out-house of board and plaster work, which
had once served as a packing-case maker's workshop. From outside,
through the four large windows, whose panes were daubed with a coating
of white lead, nothing could be seen but the bare whitewashed ceiling.

Having pushed the door open, Claude remained motionless on the
threshold. The place stretched out before him, with its four long
tables ranged lengthwise to the windows--broad double tables they
were, which had swarms of students on either side, and were littered
with moist sponges, paint saucers, iron candlesticks, water bowls, and
wooden boxes, in which each pupil kept his white linen blouse, his
compasses, and colours. In one corner, the stove, neglected since the
previous winter, stood rusting by the side of a pile of coke that had
not been swept away; while at the other end a large iron cistern with
a tap was suspended between two towels. And amidst the bare untidiness
of this shed, the eye was especially attracted by the walls which,
above, displayed a litter of plaster casts ranged in haphazard fashion
on shelves, and disappeared lower down behind forests of T-squares and
bevels, and piles of drawing boards, tied together with webbing
straps. Bit by bit, such parts of the partitions as had remained
unoccupied had become covered with inscriptions and drawings, a
constantly rising flotsam and jetsam of scrawls traced there as on the
margin of an ever-open book. There were caricatures of the students
themselves, coarse witticisms fit to make a gendarme turn pale,
epigrammatic sentences, addition sums, addresses, and so forth; while,
above all else, written in big letters, and occupying the most