They went up a narrow staircase with a rusty iron balustrade.  The walls were trickling with damp, they secreted drops, distilled spots like black coffee; the steps were worn hollow, and thin at the ends like spoons; they led up to a door smeared yellow, with a cast-iron knob as black as ink.  A copper ring swung in the wind at the end of a bell-rope, knocking the chipped plaster of the wall.  An indescribable smell of stale apples and stagnant water came up the middle of the staircase from the little outer hall below, which was paved with rows of bricks set on edge, eaten into patterns like madrepores, while the ceiling looked like a map, furrowed with seas that were traced in yellow by the soaking through of the rain.

And the Abbe’s little apartment, lately “done up” with a vile red-checked paper, reeked of the tomb.  It was evident that under the shadow of the Cathedral that overhung this wing no sunshine ever dried the walls, of which the skirting boards were rotting into powder like brown sugar, crumbling slowly, on the icy cold polish of the floor.

“How sad to see an old man, a victim to rheumatism, housed here!” thought Durtal.

When he went into the Abbe’s room, he found the chill somewhat taken off by a large coke fire; the priest was reading his breviary, wrapped in a wadded gown, close to the window, of which he had drawn back the blind to see a little better.

This room was furnished with a small iron bedstead hung with white cotton curtains looped back by bands of red cretonne; opposite the bed were a table covered with a cloth, and on it a desk, and a prie-dieu below a Crucifix nailed to the wall; the remainder of the room was fitted with bookshelves up to the ceiling.  Three arm-chairs, such as are nowhere to be seen nowadays but in religious houses or seminaries, made of walnut wood with straw bottoms like church chairs, were set round the table, and two more, with round rush mats for the feet, stood one on each side of the fireplace.  On the chimney-shelf was an Empire clock between two vases, and from these rose the faded stems of some dried grasses stuck upright into sand.

“Come to the fire,” said the Abbe, “for in spite of the brazier it is fearfully cold.”

And in answer to Durtal, who spoke of his rheumatism, he resignedly shrugged his shoulders.

“All the residence is the same,” said he.  “Monseigneur, who is almost a cripple, could not find a single dry room in the whole palace.  Heaven forgive me, but I believe his rooms are even damper than mine.  In point of fact there ought to be hot-air pipes all over the place, and it will never be done for lack of money.”

“But at any rate Monseigneur might have stoves put into the rooms, here and there.”