It was on the fifth floor, facing a sufficiently airy court.
Rent, eight hundred francs.
It was furnished without luxury.

The little sitting-room Durtal had converted into a study, hiding the walls behind black wood bookcases crammed with books.

In front of the window were a great table, a leather armchair, and a few straight chairs.

He had removed the glass from the mantelpiece, and in the panel, just over the mantelshelf, which was covered with an old fabric, he had nailed an antique painting on wood, representing a hermit kneeling beside a cardinal's hat and purple cloak, beneath a hut of boughs.

The colours of the landscape background had faded, the blues to grey, the whites to russet, the greens to black, and time had darkened the shadows to a burnt-onion hue.