These were cane-seated chairs, with all the varnish worn away by the damp linen which was constantly hung over their backs. The bedroom was lighted by a single lamp with a shade of pink paper. There was another in the dressing-room and a third in the boudoir, which, seen through the doorways, seemed to be full of dusky shadow, as though merely illuminated by a night-light. The bedroom itself, with hangings of a tender mauve that had now turned to a pale grey, was full of a floating haze, in which one could scarcely distinguish the rents in the coverings of the easy-chairs, the dust-marks on the furniture and the big ink-stain in the middle of the carpet where some inkstand had fallen with such force that even the wainscotting was splashed. The bed-curtains had been drawn, probably in order to conceal the untidiness of the bed. And amidst this hazy gloom, there rose a powerful scent as though all the bottles and flasks in the dressing-room had remained uncorked. Clorinde obstinately refused to have any of the windows open, even in warm weather. 'What a nice scent you've got here,' said Madame Correur, complimentarily. 'Oh, it's I who smell so nice,' the young woman naïvely replied. Then she began to talk of the essences which she obtained direct from the perfumer to the Sultanas, and even held her arm under Madame Correur's nose. Her black velvet blouse had got a little disarranged, and her feet, in their little red slippers, showed below it. Pozzo, languid and intoxicated by the strong perfumes which she exhaled, was tapping his instrument gently with his thumb. However, after a few minutes, the conversation turned of necessity on Rougon, as was invariably the case every Thursday and Sunday. The band seemed to come together for the sole purpose of discussing this one everlasting subject. Its members felt an ever-growing rancour against the great man, a craving to relieve themselves by ceaseless recrimination. Clorinde no longer had any trouble to set them going. They always arrived with a fresh burden of grievances, ever discontented and jealous, actually embittered by what Rougon had done for them, and burning with a violent fever of ingratitude. 'Have you seen the fat man to-day?' the colonel asked. Rougon was no longer 'the great man.' 'No,' said Clorinde; 'but we may see him here this evening. My husband persists in bringing him to see me.' 'I was in a café this afternoon, where they were criticising him very severely,' the colonel continued, after a pause. 'They say that his position is very shaky, and that he won't last another two months.' M. Kahn made a gesture of contempt. 'Well, for my part,' he said, 'I don't give him three weeks. Rougon, you see, is not cut out for governing He is too fond of power, and gets intoxicated with it; and then he strikes out right and left and treats people with revolting harshness. During these last five months he has been guilty of some most monstrous acts.'