Indeed Pierre was on the point of going down again to ring, when a footman at last presented himself.
"Count Prada, if you please." The servant silently surveyed the little priest, and seemed to understand.

"The father or the son ?" he asked.
"The father, Count Orlando Prada." "Oh! that's on the third floor." And he condescended to add: "The little door on the right-hand side of the landing.

Knock loudly if you wish to be admitted." Pierre indeed had to knock twice, and then a little withered old man of military appearance, a former soldier who had remained in the Count's service, opened the door and apologised for the delay by saying that he had been attending to his master's legs.

Immediately afterwards he announced the visitor, and the latter, after passing through a dim and narrow ante-room, was lost in amazement on finding himself in a relatively small chamber, extremely bare and bright, with wall-paper of a light hue studded with tiny blue flowers.

Behind a screen was an iron bedstead, the soldier's pallet, and there was no other furniture than the arm-chair in which the cripple spent his days, with a table of black wood placed near him, and covered with books and papers, and two old straw-seated chairs which served for the accommodation of the infrequent visitors.