The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter. Henri Murger

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      “Is my room at liberty?” inquired this person as the concierge came out to meet him.

      “Not yet, sir, but it will be ready directly. The last tenant has gone out to find a cart to fetch his things. And in the meantime you can put your furniture down in the courtyard.”

      “I am afraid it will rain,” returned the new tenant, placidly chewing the stalks of a bunch of violets that he held between his teeth, “and then my furniture would be damaged.” He turned to the man behind him who certainly carried a load of objects of some kind, though the concierge would have been puzzled to tell exactly what they were. “Put them down here in the entrance,” continued the man in the white hat, “and go back to my old lodgings for the rest of my valuable furniture and works of art.”

      The commissionaire accordingly proceeded to stack a series of canvas-covered frames against the wall. Each separate leaf was some six or seven feet high, and apparently, if they were put end to end, they might spread out to any required extent. Their owner tilted one of them forward and looked inside.

      “Look here!” he cried, pointing to a notch torn in the canvas. “Here is a misfortune! You have cracked my great Venetian mirror! Next time try to mind what you are about, and be particularly careful of my book-case.”

      “What does he mean with his Venetian mirror?” muttered the concierge, peering suspiciously at the stack of frames. “There is no looking-glass there. It is a joke, of course; the thing looks like a screen to me. At any rate, we shall soon see what he brings next.”

      “Your lodger is going to let me have the room directly, is he not? It is half-past twelve, I should be glad to move in,” remarked the new tenant.

      “I don’t think he will be long now,” said the concierge. “Besides, there’s no harm done yet, seeing that your furniture is still to come,” he added, laying some stress on the last few words. The young man was just about to reply when an orderly in dragoon’s uniform entered the yard.

      “M. Bernard?” inquired the dragoon, drawing a letter from a big leather pouch that flapped against him at every movement.

      “This is where he lives.”

      “Then here is a letter for him. Give me a receipt for it,” and he held out a printed form for signature.

      “Excuse me,” said the concierge as he retired into the house, addressing the owner of the frames, now tramping impatiently up and down the yard, “this is a letter from the Government, and I must go up to M. Bernard with it. He is my employer.”

      M. Bernard was in the act of shaving when his concierge appeared.

      “What do you want, Durand?”

      “An orderly has just come and brought this for you, sir,” said Durand, removing his cap. “It is from the Government.” As he spoke he held out an envelope stamped with the seal of the War Office.

      M. Bernard grew so excited that he all but cut himself with his razor. “Good Lord!” cried he. “The War Office! I am sure it is my nomination as Chevalier of the Legion of Honour that I’ve been asking for this long while. My extreme respectability is meeting with recognition at last! Here, Durand,” he added, fumbling in his waistcoat pocket, “here are five francs for you. Go and drink my health. Stop a bit, though, I haven’t my purse about me; you shall have it in a moment. Wait.”

      The concierge’s experience of his employer left him quite unprepared for such an overwhelming outburst of generosity. He was so moved by it that he forgot himself and put his cap on again.

      At any other moment M. Bernard would have dealt severely with this breach of the laws of the social hierarchy; but now it seemed to pass unperceived. He put on his spectacles, broke the seal with the respectful emotion of a vizier receiving a letter from the sultan, and began to read the document. At the very first line a ghastly grimace deepened little crimson wrinkles in the fat of his monk’s jowl; his little eyes darted forth angry sparks that all but set the bristling tufts of his wig on fire, and by the time he had done, so chop-fallen was he, that an earthquake might have shaken every feature of his countenance.

      These are the contents of the missive for which M. Durand had duly given the Government a receipt. This is the despatch indited upon War Office stationery, and brought at hot speed by a dragoon:—

      “SIR AND LANDLORD,—Policy, which, according to mythology, is the grandmother of good manners, compels me to inform you that a painful necessity forbids me to conform to the established usage of paying rent, more especially when rent is due. Until this morning I had cherished the hope that it might be in my power to celebrate this glorious day by discharging three quarters’ arrears. Fond dream! chimerical illusion! Even as I slumbered on the pillow of security, ill-luck (in Greek ανανκὴ)—ill-luck dispersed my hopes. The receipts on which I counted failed to make an appearance (heavens! how bad trade is just now!)—they failed to appear, I say, for out of very considerable sums owing to me I have so far received but three francs—and they were borrowed. I do not propose to offer them to you. Better days are in store, do not doubt it, sir, both for our fair France and for me. So soon as they shall dawn I will try to inform you of the fact, and to withdraw from your premises the valuables that I now leave in your keeping. To you, sir, I entrust them, and to the protection of the enactment which forbids you to dispose of them within a twelvemonth, should you feel tempted to try that method of recovering the sums for which you stand credited on the ledger page of my scrupulous integrity. My pianoforte I recommend particularly to your care, as also the large picture-frame containing sixty specimen locks of hair of every shade of capillary hue, each one shorn from the brows of the Graces by the scalpel of Eros.

      “So, sir, my landlord, you are free to dispose of the roof that erewhile sheltered me. I hereby grant permission to that effect. Witness my hand and seal.

      “ALEXANDRE SCHAUNARD.”

      Schaunard had gone to a friend, a clerk in the War Department, and written the epistle in his office.

      When M. Bernard had read this missive to the end he crumpled it up indignantly. Then, as his eyes fell on old Durand, who stood waiting for the promised five francs, he asked him roughly what he was doing there.

      “Waiting, sir.”

      “For what?”

      “Why, sir, you were so generous; er—er—the good news, sir!” stammered out the concierge.

      “Get out! What, you rascal, do you stand and speak to me with your head covered?”

      “But, sir——”

      “Don’t answer me. There. No, wait a bit though. We will go up to that scoundrelly artist’s room. He has gone off without paying his rent.”

      “What!” cried Durand. “M. Schaunard?”

      “Yes,” said the landlord, his fury rising like Nicollet in a crescendo. “Yes. And if he has taken a single thing with him, out you go. Do you understand? Out you go-o-o!”

      “It can’t be,” the poor concierge muttered. “M. Schaunard has not moved out. He went out for change to pay you, sir, and to order a cart round to fetch his things.”

      “Fetch his things!” screamed M. Bernard. “Quick! he is up there after it now, I’ll be bound. He set the trap to get you out of the way, and did СКАЧАТЬ