Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/56

 windows, two facing the court and two overlooking the garden; but Levrault-Levrault had sacrificed one of these windows as an entrance to a long brick greenhouse which reached from the drawing-room to the river, where it ended in a horrible Chinese pavilion.

“Good! by roofing this greenhouse and flooring it,” said old Minoret, “I could stow away my library and make a fine study of this extraordinary piece of architecture.”

On the opposite side of the corridor, overlooking the garden, was a dining-room, in imitation black lacquer with green and gold flowers, and separated from the kitchen by the frame of the staircase. A little office contrived behind this staircase, communicated with the kitchen, the iron-grated windows of which opened upon the courtyard. There were two rooms on the first floor; and above, roofed attics which were still inhabitable. After a rapid examination of this house covered from top to bottom with green trellis work, on the side of the courtyard as well as the garden side, and which terminated on the river in a terrace filled with faience vases, the doctor said:

“Levrault-Levrault must have spent a lot of money here!”

“Oh! sums as big as himself,” replied Minoret-Levrault. “He loved flowers, such nonsense! ‘What do they bring in?’ says my wife. You see, an artist came from Paris to paint his corridor with flowers in fresco. He put plate glass everywhere.