Across the street, one window showed a pair of emerald velvet curtains, tied neatly back at their waists with golden cords. Beyond was a spacious room, in which warm light shone over a gleaming piano. Two pale-blue armchairs sat on either side, as if awaiting the piano’s song, and the walls were lined with bookshelves full of clothbound books. Even the ceiling was ornamented with plaster flowers, and the piano had its own lovely rug to stand upon. Most strange of all was that no one was in the room. All that beauty sat unattended. The piano alone received the wasteful flood of electric light,
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