parlor. I felt comfortable there, at home. How often I
have noticed the influence of apartments on the character and on the
mind! There are some which make one feel foolish; in others, on the
contrary, one always feels lively. Some make us sad, although well
lighted and decorated in light-colored furniture; others cheer us up,
although hung with sombre material. Our eye, like our heart, has
its likes and dislikes, of which it does not inform us, and which it
secretly imposes on our temperament. The harmony of furniture, walls,
the style of an ensemble, act immediately on our mental state, just as
the air from the woods, the sea or the mountains modifies our physical
natures.

I sat down on a cushion-covered divan and felt myself suddenly carried
and supported by these little silk bags of feathers, as if the outline
of my body had been marked out beforehand on this couch.

Then I looked about. There was nothing striking about the room;
every-where were beautiful and modest things, simple and rare furniture,
Oriental curtains which did not seem to come from a department store but
from the interior of a harem; and exactly opposite me hung the portrait
of a woman. It was a portrait of medium size, showing the head and the
upper part of the body, and the hands, which were holding a book. She
was young, bareheaded; ribbons were woven in her hair; she was smiling
sadly. Was it because she was bareheaded, was it merely her natural
expression? I never have seen a portrait of a lady which seemed so much
in its place as that one in that dwelling. Of all those I knew I have
seen nothing like that one. All those that I know are on exhibition,
whether the lady be dressed in her gaudiest gown, with an attractive
headdress and a look which shows that she is posing first of all before
the artist and then before those who will look at her or whether they
have taken a comfortable attitude in an ordinary gown. Some are standing
majestically in all their beauty, which is not at all natural to them in
life. All of them have something, a flower or, a jewel, a crease in the
dress or a curve of the lip, which one feels to have been placed there
for effect by the artist. Whether they wear a hat or merely their hair
one can immediately notice that they are not entirely natural. Why? One
cannot say without knowing them, but the effect is there. They seem to
be calling somewhere, on people whom they wish to please and to whom
they wish to appear a