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 the trick! idiot that you are!”
“Oh, Lord! idiot that I am!” cried old Durand, and, quaking from head to foot before the Olympian wrath of his betters, he was dragged down the staircase.
Arrived in the courtyard, Durand was hailed at once by the young fellow in the white hat.
“Look here, concierge,” cried he, “am I going to be put in possession of my room? Is to-day the 8th of April? Did I engage the lodgings here and pay you the luck-penny, or did I not?”
“I beg your pardon, sir, I am at your service,” broke in the landlord. “Durand, I shall speak to this gentleman myself. Go upstairs. That scoundrel Schaunard is there packing up his things, no doubt. Lock him in, if you can catch him, and then go out for the police.”
Old Durand disappeared up the staircase. The landlord and the new-comer were left together.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” M. Bernard began, “but to whom have I the pleasure of speaking?”
“I am your new tenant, sir. I engaged a room here on the sixth floor, and I am beginning to grow impatient because I can’t move in.”
“You find me in despair,” exclaimed M. Bernard. “A difficulty has arisen between me and one of my tenants; in fact, the tenant whom you are about to replace.”
A voice sounded from above; it came from a window on the top story.
“M. Bernard, sir!” shouted old Durand. “M. Schaunard isn’t here! But his room is here! (Idiot that I am!) I mean to say he hasn’t taken anything away—not a single hair, M. Bernard, sir!”
“That is right. Come down,” called M. Bernard. Then, addressing the young man, “Dear me! have a little patience, I beg. My man shall stow all the insolvent lodger’s furniture in the cellar, and you shall move in in half an hour. Besides, your own furniture isn’t here yet.”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” the new-comer returned placidly. M. Bernard took a look about him, but he saw nothing save the huge screens that had previously made his concierge uneasy.
“Eh, what? I beg your pardon. Eh? I don’t see any,” he murmured.
“Look,” returned the other, and he opened out the leaves of the screen, displaying to the landlord’s gaze a palatial interior full of jasper pillars and bas-reliefs and pictures by great masters.
“But—your furniture?”
“Here it is,” and, with a wave of the hand, he indicated the sumptuous splendours of the painted palace, part of a set of decorations for the amateur stage, a recent purchase at the Hotel Bullion.
“I am pleased to believe, sir, that you have something more solid in the way of furniture than that.”
“What, genuine Boule!”
“I must have some guarantee for my rent, you understand.”
“The deuce! Isn’t a palace good enough to cover the rent of a garret?”
“No, sir. I must have furniture—genuine mahogany furniture.”
“Alas! yet neither gold nor mahogany can make us happy, to quote the ancients. And, speaking for myself, I cannot endure it. Mahogany is a stupid sort of wood; everybody has mahogany!”
“But after all, sir, you have some furniture of some kind, I suppose?”
“No. It fills up the space till there is no room for anything else. As soon as you bring chairs into a place you do not know where to sit.”
“Still, you have a bedstead? How do you lie down at night?”
“I lie down trusting in Providence, sir.”
“I beg your pardon, one more question. What is your profession, if you please?”
At that very moment in walked the commissionaire