Another door opens out of it into
the dining-room, which is separated from the kitchen by the well of
the staircase, the steps being constructed partly of wood, partly of
tiles, which are colored and beeswaxed. Nothing can be more depressing
than the sight of that sitting-room. The furniture is covered with
horse hair woven in alternate dull and glossy stripes. There is a
round table in the middle, with a purplish-red marble top, on which
there stands, by way of ornament, the inevitable white china
tea-service, covered with a half-effaced gilt network. The floor is
sufficiently uneven, the wainscot rises to elbow height, and the rest
of the wall space is decorated with a varnished paper, on which the
principal scenes from _Telemaque_ are depicted, the various classical
personages being colored. The subject between the two windows is the
banquet given by Calypso to the son of Ulysses, displayed thereon for
the admiration of the boarders, and has furnished jokes these forty
years to the young men who show themselves superior to their position
by making fun of the dinners to which poverty condemns them. The
hearth is always so clean and neat that it is evident that a fire is
only kindled there on great occasions; the stone chimney-piece is
adorned by a couple of vases filled with faded artificial flowers
imprisoned under glass shades, on either side of a bluish marble clock
in the very worst taste.
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