The marchesa entered and welcomed Cornélie in Italian and in French. She was a large, fat matron, vulgarly fat; her ample bosom was contained in a silk cuirass or spencer, shiny at the seams and bursting under the arms; her grey frizzled hair gave her a somewhat leonine appearance; her great yellow and blue eyes, with bistre shadows beneath them, wore a strained expression, the pupils unnaturally dilated by belladonna; a pair of immense crystals sparkled in her ears; and her fat, greasy fingers were covered with nameless jewels. She talked very fast; and Cornélie thought her sentences as pleasant and homely as the welcome of the lame porter in the square outside the station. The marchesa led her to the lift and stepped in with her; the hydraulic lift, a railed-in cage, running up the well of the staircase, rose solemnly and suddenly stopped, motionless, between the second and the third floor.
“Third floor!” cried the marchesa to some one below.
“Non c’e acqua!” the boy in buttons calmly called back, meaning thereby to convey that—as seemed natural—there was not enough water to move the lift.
The marchesa screamed out some orders in a shrill voice; two facchini came running up and hung on to the cable of the lift, together with the ostensibly zealous boy in buttons; and by fits and starts the cage rose higher and higher, until at last it almost reached the third storey.
“A little higher!” ordered the marchesa.
But the facchini strained their muscles in vain: the lift refused to stir.
“We can manage!” said the marchesa. “Wait a bit.”
Taking a great stride, which revealed the enormous white-stockinged calf of her leg, she stepped on to the floor, smiled and gave her hand to Cornélie, who imitated her gymnastics.
“Here we are!” sighed the marchesa, with a smile of satisfaction. “This is your room.”
She opened a door and showed Cornélie a room. Though the sun was shining brightly out of doors, the room was as damp and chilly as a cellar.