notary."

While Claudet was striding across the woods, the boy carried the luggage
of the newly arrived traveller into the chamber on the first floor, and
Zelie, the small servant, put the sheets on the bed, dusted the room, and
lighted the fire. In a few minutes, Julien was alone in his new
domicile, and began to open his boxes and valises. The chimney, which
had not been used since the preceding winter, smoked unpleasantly, and
the damp logs only blackened instead of burning. The boxes lay wide
open, and the room of the deceased Claude de Buxieres had the
uncomfortable aspect of a place long uninhabited. Julien had seated
himself in one of the large armchairs, covered in Utrecht velvet, and
endeavored to rekindle the dying fire. He felt at loose ends and
discouraged, and had no longer the courage to arrange his clothes in the
open wardrobes, which stood open, emitting a strong odor of decaying
mold.

The slight breath of joyous and renewed life which had animated him on
leaving the Vincart farm, had suddenly evaporated. His anticipations
collapsed in the face of these bristling realities, among which he felt
his isolation more deeply than ever before. He recalled the cordiality
of Reine's reception, and how she had spoken of the difficulties he
should have to encounter. How little he had thought that her forebodings
would come true the very same day! The recollection of the cheerful and
hospitable interior of La Thuiliere contrasted painfully with his cold,
bare Vivey mansion, tenanted solely by hostile domestics. Who were these
people--this Manette Sejournant with her treacherous smile, and this
fellow Claudet, who had, at the very first, subjected him to such
offensive questioning? Why did they seem so ill-disposed toward him? He
felt as if he were completely enveloped in an atmosphere of contradiction