Then on up to a first floor above a low _rez de
chauss?e_ by wide stairs. These connecting portions of the house
seemed unfurnished and barren,--walls of stone or plaster with here and
there a dilapidated decoration. It almost would appear as if they were
meant to be shut off from the living rooms, like the hall of a block of
flats. The whole thing struck a strange note. There were quantities of
servants in their quaint liveries about, and when finally they arrived
in a great saloon it was bright and warm, though there was no open
fireplace, only the huge porcelain stove.
Here the really beautiful, though rather florid Alexander I. style
struggled from the walls with an appalling set of furniture of the
period of Alexander II. But the whole thing had an odd unfinished look,
and a fine portrait of the Prince's grandfather in one panel was
entirely riddled with shot!
Some splendid skins of bears and wolves were on the floor, and there
was a general air of the room being lived in--though magnificence and
dilapidation mingled everywhere. The very rich brocade on one of the
sofas had the traces of great rents. And while one table held cigarette
cases and cigar boxes in the most exquisitely fine enamel set with
jewels, on another would be things of the roughest wood. And a cabinet
at the side filled with a priceless collection of snuff boxes and
_bon-bonni?res_ of Catherine's time had the glass of one door
cracked into a star of splinters.
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