Paul and His Dog Volume I Part 23

"Then she's back from the country?"

"She's there!"

"In the country, or here?"

"She's there, she's there!"

"Sapristi! tell me what you mean, concierge: is Mademoiselle Cremailly still in the country, or has she come back to Paris?"

"She's there, she's there!"

"Very well, then I'll go up. Still on the fourth?"

"She's there!"

"Heavens! what a donkey that concierge is! one would say he was a parrot--repeating the same thing over and over again."

"I'm beginning to get infernally tired of this!" said Chamoureau to himself; "altogether too many people come to this house. The deuce! now it's raining great guns! and my cab doesn't come! Can it be that there wasn't one on the square? that's usually the way when it rains hard. O Freluchon! you shall pay me for this! The rascal probably went home with his Pompadour!"

Soon a lady's maid appeared at the window.

"Madame's paper, please, Monsieur Mignon," she said. "I am a little late--not that madame's hair is dressed yet, but I must have time to read the paper before she does, as usual; especially as there's a most intensely exciting _feuilleton_ just now. It's too splendid for anything, I tell you: four killed already, and one that they're getting ready to poison! and a woman who always has a dagger hidden in her belt!

and a chateau where there are subterranean vaults with instruments of torture, and the author describes the way of using them! There's an interesting executioner and there's corpses and tortured people on every page! Oh! such a lovely novel! Now that's what I call literature, and I know what I'm talking about; I don't read all this mawkish stuff, not me! I want a crime, a murder, in every chapter; then I say: 'there's an author who has a wonderful talent and who has studied murders to some purpose.'--But look here! I believe you're not listening to me! And where's my paper? G.o.d bless my soul! he's still asleep! Well, I'll come in and get it myself."

The young servant entered the room, looked over several papers that lay on the table, and took her own, saying:

"You must have been kept up late last night, old Mignon? I'll bet it was because Madame Duponceau went to the ball. There's a woman who's up to snuff; she tells her old beau that she has a sick headache or one of her nervous attacks, and means to go to bed at nine o'clock; so she dismisses him with an: 'I'm going to dream of you, my loulou!' and he's no sooner out of sight than she skips off to the ball with another man.

But still it's the custom, it's done everywhere, as the song says:

"Trompe-moi, trompons-nous, C'est un plaisir a.s.sez doux!"

Bless my soul! he's really asleep.--Au revoir, Pere Mignon. Take this, to wake you up, as you haven't anything to say to me."

And the girl brought her fist down hard on the old cap that Chamoureau had put on his head; then she ran laughing from the room, while the unlucky widower, who dared not stir and had taken the blow without a word, with difficulty extricated himself from the cap which was jammed down on his nose.

"That servant is very familiar with the concierge," he muttered; "if I were Madame Mignon, I would keep an eye on her.--And that cab doesn't come! It seems as if everything was against me!--But what's all this noise in the house? One would think there was a row on every floor. Gad!

I wish I were a long way from here!"

There was, in fact, a great shouting on the second floor, a quarrel on the third, and a lively exchange of insulting epithets on the fourth.

One would have thought that the house was given over to pillage; all the tenants were in the halls, the uproar increased momentarily and seemed to approach the concierge's lodge. Soon the voices became distinct; everybody seemed to be coming downstairs. Some persons went out; but the tenants collected in front of the concierge's window and began to abuse him.

"So this is the way you carry out my orders, is it, you blockhead of a concierge?" cried a young man wrapped in a handsome dressing-gown. "It seems to me that I pay you well enough for you to give some attention to what I say to you. I told you last night that if anyone should ask for me this morning, I was not at home, not at home to anybody! it was impossible to misunderstand me. I added simply: 'You will not let anything come up but my breakfast, my chocolate, which they make for me in the restaurant close by.'--A child always brings it, so that you couldn't make any mistake about that. But lo and behold! someone rings; I say to myself: 'there's my chocolate.' I open the door, and what do I see? my tailor! A creature whom I left because he dressed me wretchedly, and now he insists on my paying him a regular apothecary's bill--a bill in which he charges sixty francs for a waistcoat! And that fellow shrieks and threatens me! I was tempted to pitch him over the stair-rail.--And it's you, you idiot, who are responsible for this scene! Pay a tailor! In G.o.d's name, what do you take me for?"

Next came a lady's maid in a frenzy.

"Why did you let anybody go up to Madame Duponceau's? You know very well that madame is never visible before one o'clock at the earliest. You have been told enough times! I had gone out to buy some rolls; the bell rang; madame thought I had forgotten my key and opened the door, and there was a strange gentleman who's paying court to madame and has never seen her except by candle-light. You can judge of my mistress's despair, for her face wasn't made up; every morning she puts on white and pink and red and black--paints herself all colors--to say nothing of the false hair and artificial teeth and subst.i.tutes of all sorts.--And to show herself to monsieur in that state! she was furious; she slammed the door in his face, saying: 'I'm not in!' But the trick was turned all the same; the stranger stood like a statue on the landing, and when I came back my mistress paid me and discharged me; I've lost my place--and all because this old goose of a concierge said that Madame Duponceau was visible at this time of the morning! But this ain't the last of it; I must have another place or else I'll complain to the landlord and have you sent about your business."

"I," said a man, "asked him ten times if Mademoiselle Cremailly had come back from the country; he finally said yes, so I went up to the fourth floor--and when one's lame, it isn't pleasant to go up four flights of stairs--and I found n.o.body but the cook, breakfasting with a soldier.

Very pretty, on my word! I'll let Mademoiselle Cremailly know about it."

"I was breakfasting with my cousin, monsieur; that ain't a crime. He was on duty last night at the Opera, and he looked in this morning to say good-day; where's the harm? I asked him to breakfast with me--just a boiled egg--there's no need of making a long story out of that. You can tell Mademoiselle Cremailly if you want to. I'm not afraid of her discharging me for such a little thing as that. This concierge hasn't got two sous' worth of common sense, to tell you mademoiselle had come back from the country, when she's going to be there at least two weeks longer! He must have had too much white wine this morning."

A lady enveloped in a simple _peignoir_ cried even louder than the others:

"You are a miserable villain, concierge! You will be the cause of a duel. Moncornu found Hippolyte in my room. To be sure, Hippolyte was doing nothing wrong there; he had taken off his overcoat, it is true, but only so that he could light my fire better. Every day a man takes off his overcoat to kindle a lady's fire. That's the way the most harmless actions are twisted into crimes in a jealous rival's eyes.

Moncornu rushed upon Hippolyte, using language which I will not repeat.

Hippolyte is not the man to allow himself to be insulted without replying. I tried in vain to pacify them. From words they came to threats, and finally they went out to fight. O G.o.d! if Hippolyte is killed, I shall not survive him! If Moncornu is the one, I shall never be consoled; still I would rather it should be Moncornu than Hippolyte.--You horrid brute of a concierge, you are the cause of all this! Your orders were to say: 'Madame is at the bath,' as usual, and you said: 'She's there, she's there!' You're a blockhead, a donkey! you never were fit to keep a door!"

All these clamors and upbraidings a.s.sailed Chamoureau's ears without inducing him to turn his head; on the contrary, he slunk down still deeper into his chair and tried to show nothing but his cap. But the obstinate silence of the person whom they all supposed to be the concierge simply intensified the general indignation. They shouted at him:

"What have you to say to all this?"

"Come, speak!"

"Tell us why you did it."

"You see, he won't say a word!"

"Monsieur doesn't even condescend to answer us."

"Don't you hear us, concierge? have you suddenly gone deaf?"

"Can it be that he's still asleep?"

"That isn't possible; we've made noise enough to wake the dead."

"This silence isn't natural!"

"He doesn't move; can he have had a stroke of apoplexy?"

"We must find out what the matter is. The poor fellow! here we are abusing him, and perhaps he is dead!"

Meanwhile someone had opened the door, and several persons rushed in at the same moment. They ran to the easy-chair and began by turning it round so that they could see the person seated in it; whereupon there were exclamations of surprise on every side.

"It isn't Pere Mignon!"

"It isn't the concierge!"

"It's a false concierge!"

"Just look at the costume; it's a Spaniard of the time of Louis XIII."

"It's a masker."

"He isn't masked."

"It's a masker, all the same; that's what they call people disguised."

"It's a thief who broke into the lodge while the concierge was away."