Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/432



The aspect of the numerous and brilliant edifices of V, the luxury resulting from the many products of art and industry of all kinds with which it is enriched from day to day, form the delight of the loiterer, and the marvel of all travellers. The street, lined with splendid habitations which lead to the gate of, serves for a promenade to the fashionable society who go to kill time by calling at each other's houses. The lower floor of the houses is occupied by elegant stores; the upper stories are divided into comfortable apartments. This is the fashionable quarter.

I had already travelled more than a thousand times up and down this promenade, when my eyes fell by chance on a building whose strange construction strongly contrasted with those in the neighborhood. Figure to yourself a square of stone wall, pierced with four windows forming a first and single story, the height of which exceeded but little the lower story of the magnificent hotels which flanked it on the right and left. This miserable building was covered with a still more miserable roof, and nearly all the broken glass was replaced by squares of gray or blue paper. The four windows were closed. Those that formerly composed the basement had been walled up, and at the door of the entrance, which was narrow, low and without lock, you would have sought in vain for the least sign of a bell. This ruined condition of the building announced complete desolation; this decayed structure had the appearance of having been abandoned for at