The house had been built by a young painter, who was
intoxicated by a first success, and had been perforce resold almost as
soon as it was habitable. It was in the palatial Renaissance manner
and had fantastic interior arrangements which consisted of modern
conveniences framed in a setting of somewhat artificial originality.
Count Muffat had bought the house ready furnished and full of hosts of
beautiful objects--lovely Eastern hangings, old credences, huge
chairs of the Louis XIII epoch. And thus Nana had come into artistic
surroundings of the choicest kind and of the most extravagantly various
dates. But since the studio, which occupied the central portion of
the house, could not be of any use to her, she had upset existing
arrangements, establishing a small drawing room on the first floor, next
to her bedroom and dressing room, and leaving a conservatory, a large
drawing room and a dining room to look after themselves underneath.
She astonished the architect with her ideas, for, as became a Parisian
workgirl who understands the elegancies of life by instinct, she had
suddenly developed a very pretty taste for every species of luxurious
refinement. Indeed, she did not spoil her house overmuch; nay, she
even added to the richness of the furniture, save here and there, where
certain traces of tender foolishness and vulgar magnificence betrayed
the ex-flower seller who had been wont to dream in front of shopwindows
in the arcades.
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