and great things out of a limited bit of
ground.

The boudoir of the young countess was arranged to suit the taste of the
artist to whom Comte Adam entrusted the decoration of the house. It is
too full of pretty nothings to be a place for repose; one scarce knows
where to sit down among carved Chinese work-tables with their myriads
of fantastic figures inlaid in ivory, cups of yellow topaz mounted on
filagree, mosaics which inspire theft, Dutch pictures in the style which
Schinner has adopted, angels such as Steinbock conceived but often could
not execute, statuettes modelled by genius pursued by creditors (the
real explanation of the Arabian myth), superb sketches by our best
artists, lids of chests made into panels alternating with fluted
draperies of Italian silk, portieres hanging from rods of old oak
in tapestried masses on which the figures of some hunting scene are
swarming, pieces of furniture worthy to have belonged to Madame de
Pompadour, Persian rugs, et cetera. For a last graceful touch, all these
elegant things were subdued by the half-light which filtered through
embroidered curtains and added to their charm. On a table between the
windows, among various curiosities, lay a whip, the handle designed
by Mademoiselle de Fauveau, which proved that the countess rode on
horseback.

Such is a lady's boudoir in 1837,--an exhibition of the contents of many
shops, which amuse the eye, as if ennui were the one thing to be dreaded
by the social world of the liveliest and most stirring capital in
Europe. Why is there nothing of an inner life? nothing which leads to
revery, nothing reposeful? Why indeed? Because no one in our day is sure
of the future; we are living our lives like prodigal annuitants.

One morning Clementine appeared to be thinking of something. She was
lying at full length on one of those marvellous couches from which it
is almost impossible to rise, the upholsterer having invented them for
lovers of the "far niente" and its attendant joys of laziness to sink
into. The doors of the greenhouse were open, letting the odors of
vegetation and the perfume of the tropics pervade the room. The young
wife was looking at her husband who was smoking a narghile, the only
form of pipe she would have suffered in that room. The portieres, held
back by cords, gave a vista through two elegant salons, one white and
gold, comparable only to that of the hotel Forbin-Janson, the other in
the style of the Renaissance. T