Chapter 39 - Page 2

from the garden and court these
two apartments, the only rooms into which, as they were on
the ground-floor, the prying eyes of the curious could
penetrate. On the floor above were similar rooms, with the
addition of a third, formed out of the ante-chamber; these
three rooms were a salon, a boudoir, and a bedroom. The
salon down-stairs was only an Algerian divan, for the use of
smokers. The boudoir up-stairs communicated with the
bed-chamber by an invisible door on the staircase; it was
evident that every precaution had been taken. Above this
floor was a large atelier, which had been increased in size
by pulling down the partitions -- a pandemonium, in which
the artist and the dandy strove for preeminence. There were
collected and piled up all Albert's successive caprices,
hunting-horns, bass-viols, flutes -- a whole orchestra, for
Albert had had not a taste but a fancy for music; easels,
palettes, brushes, pencils -- for music had been succeeded
by painting; foils, boxing-gloves, broadswords, and
single-sticks -- for, following the example of the
fashionable young men of the time, Albert de Morcerf
cultivated, with far more perseverance than music and
drawing, the three arts that complete a dandy's education,
i.e., fencing, boxing, and single-stick; and it was here
that he received Grisier, Cook, and Charles Leboucher. The
rest of the furniture of this privileged apartment consisted
of old cabinets, filled with Chinese porcelain and Japanese
vases, Lucca della Robbia faience, and Palissy platters; of
old arm-chairs, in which perhaps had sat Henry IV. or Sully,
Louis XIII. or Richelieu -- for two of these arm-chairs,
adorned with a carved shield, on which were engraved the
fleur-de-lis of France on an azure field evidently came from
the Louvre, or, at least, some royal residence. Over these
dark and sombre chairs were thrown splendid stuffs, dyed
beneath Persia's sun, or woven by the fingers of the women
of Calcutta or of Chandernagor. What these stuffs did there,
it was impossible to say; they awaited, while gratifying the
eyes, a destination unknown to their owner himself; in the
meantime they filled the place with their golden and silky
reflections. In the centre of the room was a Roller and
Blanchet "baby grand" piano in rosewood, but holding the
potentialities of an orchestra in its narrow and sonorous
cavity, and groaning beneath the weight of the
chefs-d'oeuvre of Beethoven, Weber, Mozart, Haydn, Gretry,
and Porpora. On the walls, over the doors, on the ceiling,
were swords, daggers, Malay creeses, maces, battle-axes;
gilded, damasked, and inlaid suits of armor; dried plants,
minerals, and stuffed birds, their flame-colored wings
outspread in motionless flight, and