finding so few persons in the vast salon, any more than he was surprised
at the aspect of the room filled with old tapestry, bric-a-brac,
furniture, flowers, and divans with innumerable cushions.

He had had the entire winter in which to observe the interior of that
house, similar to hundreds of others in Vienna, Madrid, Florence, Berlin,
anywhere, indeed, where the mistress of the house applies herself to
realizing an ideal of Parisian luxury. He had amused himself many an
evening in separating from the almost international framework local
features, those which distinguished the room from others of the same
kind. No human being succeeds in being absolutely factitious in his home
or in his writings. The author had thus noted that the salon bore a
date, that of the Countess's last journey to Paris in 1880. It was to be
seen in the plush and silk of the curtains. The general coloring, in
which green predominated, a liberty egotistical in so brilliant a blonde,
had too warm a tone and betrayed the Italian. Italy was also to be found
in the painted ceiling and in the frieze which ran all around, as well as
in several paintings scattered about. There were two panels by Moretti
de Brescia in the second style of the master, called his silvery manner,
on account of the delicate and transparent fluidity of the coloring;
a 'Souper chez le Pharisien' and a 'Jesus ressuscite sur le rivage',
which could only have come from one of the very old palaces of a very
ancient family. Dorsenne knew all that, and he knew, too, for what
reasons he found almost empty at that time of the year the hall so
animated during the entire winter, the hall through which he had seen
pass a veritable carnival of visitors: great lords, artists, political
men, Russians and Austrians, English and French--pellmell. The Countess
was far from occupying in Rome the social position which her
intelligence, her fortune and her name should have assured her. For,
having been born a Navagero, she combined on her escutcheon the cross of