Chapter VIII: A False Concierge

Chamoureau concealed himself in the farthest corner of the concierge's room, in an old armchair that might have served the purpose of a couch. He placed himself with his back to the window through which visitors addressed the functionary whom he represented, and, in order that he might be observed less easily, he removed his plumed cap and replaced it with an old cap that he found on a table.

So long as people simply passed and repassed the lodge, the false concierge did not put himself out; he did not turn his head, but contented himself with cursing Freluchon, who had put him in that embarrassing position.

But soon someone opened the window, a man's head appeared, and a loud voice inquired:

"Is Monsieur Delaroche in?"

Chamoureau did not stir and did not say a word. The voice repeated, louder than before:

"Is Monsieur Delaroche in?"

The same immobility and the same silence on Chamoureau's part. Whereupon the voice assumed a formidable intonation, capable of breaking all the panes of the window.

"Sacrebleu! are you deaf? are you still asleep? This is the third time I've asked if Monsieur Delaroche was in, and you don't answer! What kind of a damned concierge is this!--Wait a bit, till I come into your lodge; I'll shake you and teach you to sleep at this time of day!"

Chamoureau, who was not at all anxious that that gentleman should enter the lodge and shake him, decided to answer without turning:

"He's in! yes, yes, he's in!"

"Why didn't you say so then, you old fool?"

"He's in! he's in!"

The loud-voiced individual went upstairs, and our widower hurled himself in his chair once more, muttering:

"After all, I was a great fool not to answer. Probably no one has gone out so early as this, and I don't risk anything by saying they're in; and then, even if they should be out, what do I care?"

Soon various other persons appeared at the window.

"Is Madame Duponceau visible?"

"Yes, yes, she's there."

"Is Monsieur Bretonneau in?"

"He's there, he's there."

"Is there anybody at Mademoiselle Crémailly's?"

"She's there, she's there."

"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 Crémailly 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 château 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? God 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 assez doux!"

Bless my soul! he's really asleep.--Au revoir, Père 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 God'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 substitutes 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 Crémailly 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 nobody but the cook, breakfasting with a soldier. Very pretty, on my word! I'll let Mademoiselle Crémailly know about it."

"I was breakfasting with my cousin, monsieur; that ain't a crime. He was on duty last night at the Opéra, 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 Crémailly 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 God! 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 assailed 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 Père 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."

"He's taken his cap already."

"Answer; what are you doing here, merry-andrew?"

Chamoureau decided to rise; he tossed the concierge's cap aside, resumed his own cap with the plumes, and replied, affecting a dignified air:

"In the first place, messieurs and mesdames, I am not a thief and you will soon have proof that I am not. I am waiting for the concierge to return; he has gone to get me a cab, for you will understand that I could not go home on foot in this disguise."

"But you don't belong in the house. Why did you come here?"

"I came here, intending to go to the apartment of my intimate friend Freluchon, on the fourth floor, opposite Mademoiselle Crémailly, because my clothes are there and I expected to put them on. But Freluchon did not come home, which was very wrong on his part, as he has my clothes."

"Oh! it very often happens that he doesn't come home at night," murmured the young servant who came for the newspaper, smiling as she said it.

"You understand now, messieurs and mesdames, why I let everybody go up; Père Mignon did not tell me his orders, he didn't have time; besides, even if he had, I should probably have made mistakes, for I am beginning to realize that the trade of concierge demands strict attention as well as memory."

Chamoureau's explanation seemed plausible, but no one was willing to go away until the concierge came. His wife arrived first, however, and when she saw the gentleman in fancy costume in her room, she exclaimed:

"Mon Dieu! my husband has been changed! Who in the world is this Spaniard? What's happened to Mignon? I want my husband! He's never been to Spain!"

They strove to pacify the concierge's wife by repeating what Chamoureau had just told them, but she refused to credit the Spaniard's story and continued to cry:

"That ain't true, I say. Mignon wouldn't have left his post for this disguised man that nobody knows. He took Mignon's place; what's he done with him? If my husband don't return soon, I'll have this carnivalizer arrested!"

But the concierge's return put an end to his wife's shrieks and to the tenants' suspicions.

"Faith, monsieur," he said, going up to Chamoureau, "I had lots of trouble finding a cab for you; I went to at least four stands, and not a cab to be seen! I met an empty one at last, on Rue de Provence a minute ago, and brought it here. But if I'd known I should be away so long, I certainly wouldn't have done your errand for you!"

"Especially as your substitute does such nice things!" cried Madame Duponceau's maid.

"Let me hear no more of all that nonsense!" said Chamoureau, leaving the room.--"Your husband isn't lost, you see, Madame Mignon.--Messieurs and mesdames, you must be convinced now that I am not a thief. I have the honor to salute you."

With that, Chamoureau hurried to the sidewalk and was stupefied to find there an open _milord_.

"Why, concierge," he cried, in dire distress, "I asked you to get a closed cab, so that I couldn't be seen."

"Go and get one for yourself and leave us in peace!" exclaimed Madame Mignon, who was still in a bad humor.

Chamoureau made the best of it, jumped into the _milord_, gave the driver his address, and throughout the journey held his cap in front of his face, like a fan.