"Chairs for the pavilion," answered the Chamberlain; "it is being arranged for Professor Werner. The house is seldom open now; formerly his Highness, the Sovereign, used to live there occasionally."
"I do not remember ever having been in it for a very long time."
"Would your Highness like to see the rooms?"
"We can pass that way."
The Chamberlain turned towards the pavilion; the Marshal was standing at the door; he had come to see that everything was in order. The Hereditary Prince greeted him, cast a cursory glance at the house, and was inclined to pass on. It was a small grey-stone structure, in old fashioned style; there were shell-shaped arabesques round the doors and windows, and little dropsical angels supported heavy garlands of stone flowers with lines which appeared to have been cut out of elephant's hide; the angels themselves looked as if they had just crept out of a dirty swamp and been dried in the sun. The dark building stood amid the fresh verdure like a large chest, in which all the withered flowers that the garden had ever borne, and all the moss which the gardener had ever scraped from the trees, seemed, to have been kept for later generations.
"It is an uninviting looking place," said the Prince.
"It is the gloomy appearance that has always pleased his Sovereign Highness so much," replied the Marshal. "Will not your Highness examine the interior?"
The Prince passed slowly up the steps and through the apartments. The musty smell of the long-closed rooms had not been removed by the pastiles that had been burnt in them; logs were blazing in all the fireplaces, but the warmth which they spread still struggled with the damp air. The arrangement of the rooms was throughout orderly and complete. There were heavy portières, curtains with large tassels, and fantastic furniture with much gilding, and white covers for the preservation of the silk, mirrors with broad fantastic frames, round the chimney-piece garlands carved in grey marble, and upon it wreathed vases and little figures of painted porcelain. In the boudoir, on a marble console, there was a large clock under a glass bell; a nude gilded nymph poured water over the dial from her urn which was turned to gilded ice. Everything was richly adorned; but the whole arrangement, furniture, porcelain, and walls, looked as if no eye had ever rested on them with pleasure, nor careful housewife rejoiced in their possession. There were remarkable things from every part of the world; first they had been placed in the large assembly-rooms which were opened at Court fêtes; then they had ceased to be in fashion, and were moved into side-rooms. It was now their destiny to be handed down from one generation to another, and counted once a year to see if they were still there. Thus they passed a never-ending existence--preserved, but not used; kept, but disregarded.
"It is damp and cold here," said the Prince, looking round upon the walls, and again hastening into the open air.
"How do the arrangements please your Highness?" asked the Marshal.