In the right-hand corridor the door of the dressing room had, indeed,
not been closed entirely. Nana was waiting. That little Mathilde, a drab
of a young girl, kept her dressing room in a filthy state. Chipped jugs
stood about anyhow; the dressing table was greasy, and there was a chair
covered with red stains, which looked as if someone had bled over the
straw. The paper pasted on walls and ceiling was splashed from top to
bottom with spots of soapy water and this smelled so disagreeably of
lavender scent turned sour that Nana opened the window and for some
moments stayed leaning on the sill, breathing the fresh air and craning
forward to catch sight of Mme Bron underneath. She could hear her broom
wildly at work on the mildewed pantiles of the narrow court which was
buried in shadow. A canary, whose cage hung on a shutter, was trilling
away piercingly. The sound of carriages in the boulevard and neighboring
streets was no longer audible, and the quiet and the wide expanse of
sleeping sunlight suggested the country. Looking farther afield, her
eye fell on the small buildings and glass roofs of the galleries in the
passage and, beyond these, on the tall houses in the Rue Vivienne, the
backs of which rose silent and apparently deserted over against her.
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