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The hangings, wall-paper, and floor coverings were to harmonize not match and the piano and music-cabinet for the parlor, as well as the etagere, cabinets, and pedestals for the reception-rooms, were to be of buhl or marquetry, if Frank cared to stand the expense. Ellsworth advised a triangular piano the square shapes were so inexpressibly wearisome to the initiated.
The furniture was made to agree with this decorative treatment: couches and easy chairs were designed in more sweeping curves and on a smaller scale, the woodwork wholly or partially gilt and upholstered, not only with the tapestry of Gobelins or Beauvais, but with soft colored silk brocades and brocatelles; light occasional chairs were enriched with mother-of-pearl or marqueterie; screens were painted with love scenes and representations of ladies and gentlemen who look as if they passed their entire existence in the elaboration of their toilettes or the exchange of compliments; the stately cabinet is modified into the bombé fronted commode, the ends of which curve outwards with a graceful sweep; and the bureau is made in a much smaller size, more highly decorated with marqueterie, and more fancifully mounted to suit the smaller and more effeminate apartment. The smaller and more elegant cabinets, called Bonheur du jour (a little cabinet mounted on a table); the small round occasional table, called a gueridon; the encoignure, or corner cabinet; the étagère, or ornamental hanging cabinet, with shelves; the three-fold screen, with each leaf a different height, and with shaped top, all date from this time. The chaise
And she spoke truthfully. We had purchased a lounge, a large centre-table, an etagere, a Turkish chair, two reception chairs, four chairs to match the lounge, a rocker or two, an elegant firescreen, and several other articles of furniture, and there was considerable difficulty experienced, not only in arranging them, but in getting them into the parlor at all.
"Fell away from nothin'. That's what they call a figger o' speech. Means you ain't got thin." "Well, you've got thin, haven't you, Martha? I don't 'member your cheeks had those two long lines in 'em before." "Lines?" repeated Martha, regarding herself in the mirror of an étagère she was polishing. "Them ain't lines. Them's dimples." Radcliffe scrutinized her critically for a moment.
And she led the way into a stiff, chilly, magnificent apartment, where all the blinds were closed, and all the shades pulled down, and all the furniture shrouded in linen covers. Even the picture frames and mirrors were sewed up in muslin to keep off flies; and the bronzes and alabaster ornaments on the chimney-piece and etagere gleamed through the dim light in a ghostly way.
She leaned against the etagere for a moment and, seeing that her sister-in-law's eyes were fixed on her hands, she opened them and said in a gentle, weary voice the voice of a woman who had ceased to struggle: "I have taken nothing. You can look for yourself." And she went away; the warmth of the place and the smell of the soup were unbearable.
The same sad voice filled the room with its wailing echo, and as he listened again to its appealing pathos, he strode idly towards the little etagere and took up his little volume from which he had seen her read. A strong impulse rose within him.
There were spreading cedar trees, black like the tents of Bedouins, and there were straight cryptomerias for the masts of fairy ships. There was a strange tree, whose light-green foliage grew in round clumps like trays of green lacquer at the extremities of twisted brandies, a natural étagère.
A small Byzantine picture, painted on wood, with a silver frame ornamented with cornelian stars, and the background heavily gilded, hung over an etagere, where lay a leaf from Nebuchadnezzar's diary, one of those Babylonish bricks on which his royal name was stamped.
That 'etagere' was Sidonie's very soul, and her thoughts, always commonplace, petty, vain, and empty, resembled those gewgaws. Yes, in very truth, if Risler, while he held her in his grasp last night, had in his frenzy broken that fragile little head, a whole world of 'etagere' ornaments would have come from it in place of a brain.
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