The Mysteries of Paris. Эжен Сю
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them.' 'Yes, commandant, I can,' answers my flatterer of an Alfred. 'And what shall you charge?' 'Twenty francs a month, commandant.' 'Twenty francs!' exclaimed the commandant. 'Why, porter, you are jesting, surely!' And hereupon he began bating Alfred down in the most shabby manner, trying to squeeze poor people like us out of two or three miserable francs, when he had been squandering thousands in fitting up his grand apartments, which, after all, he did not mean to live in! However, after a deal of battling, we got twelve francs a month out of him—a paltry, pitiful, two-farthing captain! What a difference, now, between you and him!" added the porteress, addressing Rodolph with an admiring glance. "You don't call yourself fine names and titles—you only look like a plain body—you must be poor, or you would not perch yourself on the fourth floor; and yet you agreed with me for six francs, without attempting to bate me down!"
"And when did the commandant pay you his next visit?"
"I'll tell you—and good fun it is, too. My gentleman must have been nicely choused by somebody. Three times did he write (same as to-day), ordering us to light a fire and have everything ready for the reception of a lady he expected would come. Come! Yes, I daresay he may expect a long time first, I rather think."
"Nobody came then?"
"Listen. The first time the commandant arrived, strutting and swelling like a turkey-cock, humming and singing, after his manner, all the gay tunes of the day, walking up and down his fine room with his hands stuck in his pockets, and occasionally stopping to arrange his hair before the glass—we were watching him all the time. Well, this went on for two or three hours, when, I suppose, he knew it was no use waiting any longer; so he came down-stairs very softly, and with quite a different manner to the pride and consequence he had marched up with. By way of teasing him, Pipelet and I went out to him and said, 'Commandant, there has been no lady whatever to inquire for you,' 'Very well! Very well!' exclaimed he, half mad and half ashamed of being laughed at, and, buttoning up his coat, he walked off as fast as he could. The next time, before he came himself, a small note was brought here by a man, directed to M. Charles; I strongly suspected he was done again, and Pipelet and me were enjoying a hearty good laugh over it when the commandant arrived. 'Captain,' says I, putting the back of my hand up to my wig, by way of military salute, 'here is a letter for you, but I am afraid it contains news of a second countermarch against you.' He looked at me sour as a crab, snatched the letter from my hand, read it, turned scarlet as a boiled lobster, then walked off, pretending to whistle; but he was finely vexed—ready to hang himself, I could see he was—and it was rare nuts to me. 'Go, and swallow that pill, my two-farthing captain,' says I to myself; 'that serves you right for only giving twelve francs a month for minding your apartments.'"
"And the third time?"
"Ah, the third time I really thought it was all right. The commandant arrived more stuck up with pride than ever; his eyes staring with self-satisfied admiration at himself and the certainty of not being disappointed this time. Let me tell the truth about him; he really is a good-looking man, and dresses well, though he stinks of musk like a civet cat. Well, there was my gentleman arrayed in all his finery, and scarcely condescending to look at us poor folks; he seemed as though he conferred a favour on the earth by deigning to walk on it, and went, sticking his nose into the air, as if he meant to touch the clouds with it. He took the key, and said to us, as he passed up-stairs, in a jeering, self-complacent tone, as though to revenge himself for having been laughed at twice before, 'You will direct the lady to my apartments when she comes.' Well, Pipelet and I were so anxious to see the lady he expected, though we did not much reckon upon her keeping her appointment, even if she ever made one, that we went and hid ourselves behind the little door that belongs to the alley; and, behold! in a short time a blue hackney-coach, with its blinds drawn down, stopped at the entrance to the house. 'There she is!' says I to Alfred. 'There is his madame; let's keep back a bit for fear we frighten her away.' The coachman got off his box and opened the door. Then we saw a female, closely covered with a black veil, and carrying a muff; she had apparently been crying, for she kept her handkerchief to her face; for when the steps were let down, instead of alighting, she said some few words to the driver, who, much surprised, shut the door up again."
"Then the lady did not get out?"
"No! she threw herself back in the coach and pressed her handkerchief tightly to her eyes. I rushed out, and before the coachman had time to get on his seat again, I called out, 'Hallo, there, coachy! are you going back again?' 'Yes,' says he. 'Where?' says I. 'Where I came from,' answers he. 'And where did you come from?' asks I again. 'From the Rue St. Dominique, corner of the Rue Belle Chasse.'"
Rodolph started at these words. His dearest friend, the Marquis d'Harville, who, as elsewhere stated, had been for some time labouring under a deep melancholy none could penetrate, lived in the very place just mentioned by Madame Pipelet. Could this mysterious female in the blue fiacre be the Marquise d'Harville? And was it from the lightness and frivolity of her conduct that the mind of her excellent husband was bowed down by doubts and misgivings? These painful suggestions crowded on Rodolph's mind, but, although well acquainted with all the various guests received by the marquise, he could recollect no one answering the description of the commandant; added to which, any female might have taken a hackney-coach from that spot without necessarily living in the street. There was really nothing to identify the unknown of the blue fiacre with Madame d'Harville, and yet a thousand vague fears and painful suspicions crossed his mind; his uneasy manner and deep abstraction did not escape the porteress.
"What are you thinking of, sir?" asked she at length.
"I was wondering what could have induced the lady, after coming to the very door, to change her mind so suddenly."
"There is no saying; some sudden thought—dread or fear—for we poor women are but weak, cowardly things," said the porteress, assuming a timid, frightened manner. "Well, I think if it had been myself now, coming secretly to visit Alfred, I should have had to try back a great many times before I could have screwed up my courage to venture in. But then, as for visiting your great dons in this kind of way, I never could have done such a thing. No, never! I am sure there is nobody under the face of heaven can say I ever give them the least freedom—I should think not, indeed, while my poor dear old darling of a husband is left."
"No doubt—no doubt, Madame Pipelet; but about the young person you were describing in the blue fiacre?"
"Oh! mind, I don't know whether she was young or old; I could not even catch a glimpse of the tip of her nose; all I can say is she went as she came, and that is all about it. As for Alfred and me, we were better pleased than if we had found ten francs."
"Why so?"
"By enjoying the rage and confusion of the commandant when he found himself a third time disappointed; but, instead of going and telling him at once that his 'madame' had been and gone, we allowed him to fume and fret for a whole hour. Then I went softly up-stairs with only my list slippers on. I reached his door, which I found half shut; as I pushed against it, it creaked; the staircase is as black as night, and the entrance to the apartment quite as obscure. Scarcely had I crept into the room, when the commandant caught me in his arms, saying, in a languishing voice, 'My dearest angel! what makes you so late?'"
Spite of the serious nature of the thoughts crowding upon his mind, Rodolph could not restrain a smile as he surveyed the grotesque periwig and hideously wrinkled, carbuncled visage of the heroine of this comic scene.
Madame Pipelet, however, resumed her narration with a mirthful chuckle that increased her ugliness:
"That was a go, wasn't it? But stop a bit. Well, I did not make the least reply, but, almost keeping in my breath, I waited to see what would be the end of this strange reception. For a minute or two the commandant kept hugging me up, then, all of a sudden, the brute pushed me away, exclaiming with as much disgust as though he had touched a toad, 'Who the devil are you?' 'Me, commandant—the porteress—Madame Pipelet; and, as such, I will thank you to keep your hands off my waist, and not to call me your angel, and scold me for being late. Suppose Alfred had heard you, a pretty business we should have made of it!' 'What the deuce brings you here?' cried he. 'Merely to let you know the lady in the hackney-coach has just arrived!' 'Well, then, you stupid old fool, show her up directly. Did I