The floor was covered with a thick Babylonian carpet, soft as moss under the foot.

The walls were faced with a mosaic of ivory, tortoise-shell, gold, silver, malachite, lapis-lazuli, ebony and amber.
The seats and couches were of gold covered with lions' skins, and a table of silver stood by the side of the blind queen.

Kassandane was seated in a costly arm-chair.

She wore a robe of violet-blue, embroidered with silver, and over her snow-white hair lay a long veil of delicate lace, woven in Egypt, the ends of which were wound round her neck and tied in a large bow beneath her chin.

She was between sixty and seventy years old; her face, framed, as it were, into a picture by the lace veil, was exquisitely symmetrical in its form, intellectual, kind and benevolent in its expression.
The blind eyes were closed, but those who gazed on her felt that, if open, they would shine with the gentle light of stars.