You look, for example, at a suite of rooms in a tumble-down old palace,
where the walls, shamelessly smarted up with coarse paper, crumble at your
touch; where the floor rises and falls like the sea, and the door-frames
and window-cases have long lost all recollection of the plumb. Madama la
Baronessa is at present occupying these pleasant apartments, and you only
gain admission to them after an embassy to procure her permission. Madama
la Baronessa receives you courteously, and you pass through her rooms,
which are a little in disorder, the Baronessa being on the point of
removal. Madama la Baronessa's hoop-skirts prevail upon the floors; and at
the side of the couch which her form lately pressed in slumber, you
observe a French novel and a wasted candle in the society of a half-bottle
of the wine of the country. A bedroomy smell pervades the whole suite, and
through the open window comes a curious stench explained as the odor of
Madama la Baronessa's guinea-pigs, of which she is so fond that she has
had their sty placed immediately under her window in the garden. It is
this garden which has first taken your heart, with a glimpse caught
through the great open door of the palace. It is disordered and wild, but
so much the better; its firs are very thick and dark, and there are
certain statues, fauns and nymphs, which weather stains and mosses have
made much decenter than the sculptor intended. You think that for this
garden's sake you could put up with the house, which must be very cheap.
What is the price of the rooms? you ask of the smiling landlord. He
answers, without winking, "If taken for several years, a thousand florins
a year." At which you suppress the whistle of disdainful surprise, and say
you think it will not suit. He calls your attention to the sun, which
comes in at every side, which will roast you in summer, and will not (as
he would have you think) warm you in winter. "But there is another
apartment,"--through which you drag languidly. It is empty now, being last
inhabited by an English Ledi,--and her stove-pipes went out of the
windows, and blackened the shabby stucco front of the villanous old