"Our rooms were much better than I had expected to find them, but even this caused in me a feeling of doubt. They had a hypocritical air, a grasping after appearances that I believe always accompanies deceit and imposition--a sleek shabbiness that I detest. I knew by instinct that if I examined I should find the carpets worn out under the mats, and the chairs faded beneath their smart chintz covers. There was not a candid-looking piece of furniture in the apartment: the table was an impostor with one short leg; the drawers of the bureau would not open; the glasses were all askew, and twisted your face to such a degree that it frightened you to catch a glimpse of yourself in passing. But this was not the worst: from the moment I entered the rooms I felt that they _had been waiting for us_. "I did not venture to mention my suspicions to Annie, and tried to keep up a cheery sort of conversation while we undressed, but I could see that she too began to be uneasy. We carefully inspected our doors, and found the locks were good, then looked to see that there was no one lurking under the beds. It would be difficult to tell you exactly what I feared, but somehow everything impressed me as mysterious--the quiet of the streets through which we had come, and the quiet of the house. It was such a lonely, eerie kind of place: our feet echoed on the stairways as if human feet seldom ascended them; the shadows appeared especially dark; our candles' small light made little impression on the gloom; the very air seemed harder to breathe than ordinary; and on recalling the face of the impertinent servant I thought that it had a sinister look. "I tried to recall whether we were in a good or bad faubourg, but could not; and then I remembered that Paris was now divided into arrondissements, which had a much less ill-omened sound. I went to the window to reconnoitre the locality, but, though the rain had ceased, darkness covered all so thickly that I could see nothing. As I stood there the clock on the station struck, first the quarters, and then _one_, in a doleful, muffled tone. It told me one thing I was glad to know--namely, that we could not have wandered very far during our walk; but there was little comfort in that, after all, since the walk had terminated here.