he
beheld the Palazzo delle Finanze, or Treasury, a gigantic erection, a
cyclopean cube with a profusion of columns, balconies, pediments, and
sculptured work, to which the building mania had given birth in a day of
immoderate pride. And on the other side of the street, a little higher
up, before reaching the Villa Bonaparte, stood Count Prada's little
palazzo.

* The name--Twentieth September Street--was given to the
thoroughfare to commemorate the date of the occupation
of Rome by Victor Emmanuel's army.--Trans.

After discharging his driver, Pierre for a moment remained somewhat
embarrassed. The door was open, and he entered the vestibule; but, as at
the mansion in the Via Giulia, no door porter or servant was to be seen.
So he had to make up his mind to ascend the monumental stairs, which with
their marble balustrades seemed to be copied, on a smaller scale, from
those of the Palazzo Boccanera. And there was much the same cold
bareness, tempered, however, by a carpet and red door-hangings, which
contrasted vividly with the white stucco of the walls. The
reception-rooms, sixteen feet high, were on the first floor, and as a
door chanced to be ajar he caught a glimpse of two _salons_, one
following the other, and both displaying quite modern richness, with a
profusion of silk and velvet hangings, gilt furniture, and lofty mirrors
reflecting a pompous assemblage of stands and tables. And still there was
nobody, not a soul, in that seemingly forsaken abode, which exhaled
nought of woman's presence. Indeed Pierre was on the point of going down
again to ring, when a footman at last presented himself.

"Count Prada, if you please."

The servant silently surveyed the little priest, and seemed to
understand. "The father or the son?" he asked.

"The father, Count Orlando Prada."

"Oh! that's on the third floor." And he condescended to add: "The little
door on the right-hand side of the landing. Knock loudly if you wish to
be admitted."

Pierre indeed had to knock twice, and then a little withered old man of
military appearance, a former soldier who had remained in the Count's
service, opened the door and apologised for the delay by saying that he
had been attending to his master's legs. Immediately afterwards he
announced the visitor, and the latter, after passing through a dim and
narrow ante-room, was lost in amazement on finding himself in a
relatively small chamber, extremely bare and bright, with wall-p