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Updated: July 24, 2025
Tchartkóff entered his ante-room, which felt very chilly, as artists' ante-rooms usually are, and, without taking off his cloak, walked on into his studio a square apartment, tolerably spacious, but low in the ceiling, and with windows dimmed by the frost.
In that noble Court everybody was a gambler. You would see the lacqueys in the ducal ante-rooms at work with their dirty packs of cards; the coach and chair men playing in the court, while their masters were punting in the saloons above; the very cook-maids and scullions, I was told, had a bank, where one of them, an Italian confectioner, made a handsome fortune: he purchased afterwards a Roman marquisate, and his son has figured as one of the most fashionable of the illustrious foreigners in London.
"Such measurements are those of exceptionally vast openings, especially when we remember that most of them gave access, not to state apartments, but to rooms used for the most ordinary purposes, store-rooms, ante-rooms, kitchens, serving-rooms of all kinds, and bedrooms.
However, yet greater reductions had been made in the ante-rooms, where the staff, once so brilliant and numerous, was now simply composed of two petty priests, Don Vigilio, who was at once secretary, auditore, and majordomo, and Abbe Paparelli, who acted as train-bearer, chaplain, and chief usher.
Ellen had been making plans with regard to the old room and the two small ante-rooms at the end of it. She was tired of washing; it paid wretchedly and gave a great deal of work, and she received very little consideration. She now wanted to let lodgings to artistes. She knew of more than one woman in their street who made a nice living by taking in artistes.
They still presented the same aspect of ancient princely pomp falling into decay and dust. The doors of the three large ante-rooms were wide open, and the rooms themselves were at that early hour still empty.
As he passed through a succession of ante-rooms on his way to the private apartments of the King, those present observed the pallor of his clean-cut face under the auburn tie-wig he affected, and the feverish glow of eyes that took account of no one.
Contrasting strongly with the lawyers of this period, who copied in miniature the impressive state of Clarendon's princely establishments, were the jovial, catch-singing, three-bottle lawyers who preferred drunkenness to pomp; an oaken table, surrounded by jolly fellows, to ante-rooms crowded with obsequious courtiers; a hunting song with a brave chorus to the less stormy diversion of polite conversation.
A couple of apartments served as ante-rooms, and then came a salon where the Cardinal received; and there was no luxury, indeed scarcely any comfort; the furniture was of mahogany, dating from the empire period, and the hangings and carpets were dusty and faded by long use.
Molly, who intended to come back to the Towers in a day or two, was also wrapping a white shawl round her shoulders preparatory to departure, when a brownie rushed quickly from one of the ante-rooms, flung his arms round her neck, and whispered in her ear. "Oh, Molly, what are you waiting for?" exclaimed Nan.
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