 | I. Seven stories, with basement and attic |  |
1. I.
MY old friend the Abbé G—, who on my earliest
visit to Paris, not only taught me French, but
put me in the way of a great deal of familiar talk-practice
with his pleasant bourgeois friends, lived in a
certain dark corner of a hotel in the Rue de Seine, or
in the Rue de la Harpe; which of the two it was I
really forget. At any rate, the hotel was very old, and
the street out of which I used to step into its ill-paved
triangular court was very narrow, and very dirty.
At the end of the court, farthest from the entranceway,
was the box of the concierge, who was a brisk
little shoe-maker, forever bethwacking his lap-stone.
If I remember rightly, the hammer of this little cordonnier
made the only sound that broke the stillness within;
for though the hotel was full of lodgers, I think I
never saw two of them together; and it is quite certain,
be heard talking across the court.
At this distance of time, I do not think it would be
possible for me to describe accurately all the windings
of the corridor which led to the Abbé's door. I remember
that the first part was damp and low—that after it,
came a sweaty old stairway of stone; and once arrived
at the top of this, I used to traverse an open-sided gallery
which looked down upon a quiet interior court;
then came a little wooden wicket, dank with long handling—which
when it opened tinkled a bell. Sometimes
the Abbé would hear the bell, and open his door, down
at the end of some farther passage; and sometimes a
lodger, occupying a room that looked upon the last
mentioned court, would draw slyly a corner of his curtain,
and peep out to see who might be passing. Occasionally
I would amuse myself by giving to the little
warning bell an unnecessary tinkle, in order that I might
study some of the faces which should peer out from the
lodgments upon the court; yet I saw very little to
gratify me; and upon the damp flagging which covered
the area of the court, I rarely saw any one moving; at
most, only a decrepit old woman shuffling along with
broom in hand; or a boy, in paper cap, from some
neighboring shop, whistling an air he may have caught
from the orchestra at the Odeon, and disappearing
through a dilapidated door way—the only one to be
seen.
It appeared to me a quarter, that with its quaint,
old fashioned windows, piling story above story, and its
oppressive quietude, ought to show some face or figure
that should pique curiosity, and so relieve the dulness
of my lessons with the good Abbé. But all the faces
that met my eye were the most matter of fact in the
world.
From time to time, as we passed out through the
open-sided corridor, I would draw the Abbé's attention
to the silent court, and ask—who lived in the little
room at the top?
“Ah, mon cher, I do not know.”
Or, “who lives in the corner, with the narrow loop-hole,
and the striped curtain?”
“I can not tell you, mon cher.”
“And whose is the little window with so many
broken panes, and an old placard pinned against the
sash?”
“Ah, who knows? perhaps a rag-picker, or a shop-man
or perhaps”—and the Abbé lifted his finger,
shaking his head expressively—“It is a strange world
we live in, mon ami.”
What could the Abbé mean? I looked up at the
window again: it was small, and the glass was set in
rough metal casing: it must have been upon the fourth
or the fifth floor; but there was nothing to be seen
within, save the dirty yellow placard.
“Is it in the same hotel with you?” said I.
“Ma foi, I do not know.”
The Abbé had unconsciously given a little foot-hold,
by aid of which my imagination might climb into a
good romance. The chamber must be small; indeed,
there were few, even upon the first floor, in that neighborhood,
which were large. Comfortless, too, no doubt;
the yellow placard told me how that must be.
I cannot undertake to describe all that fancy painted
to me, in connection with that window of the dreary,
silent hotel. Did some miserly old scoundrel live in the
chamber, who counted his hoardings night after night?
Was it some apprentice boy from the provinces who had
pinned up the yellow placard—more to shut out the intruding
air, than the light? I even lingered very late
at the Abbé's rooms, to see if I could detect by the glow
of any lamp within the chamber, the figure of its occupant.
But either the light was too feeble or the occupants
were too quiet. Week after week, as I threaded
every day the corridor, I looked out at the brooding,
gloomy windows, and upon the mouldy pavement of the
court, hoping for a change of aspect, that would stimulate
curiosity, or give some hint of the character of the
lodgers. But no such change appeared: day after day,
there remained the same provoking quietude; nor could
I with all my art seduce the good-natured Abbé into
any appetizing conjectures in regard to the character of
his neighbors.
My observation at last grew very careless, and I
suspect would have been abandoned altogether, if I had
not one day in my casual glances about the dim court,
noticed a fragment of lace hanging within the little
window where we had seen the yellow placard. Rich
lace it was too. My occasional study of the shop windows
enabled me to give competent judgment on this
score. It may have been a bridal veil;—but whose?
I could hardly have believed that a bit of dainty feminine
attire should on a sudden have lent such new interest
to the court of this dingy old lodging house of
Paris. And yet it was as if a little wood-bird straying
in, had filled the whole court with a blithe song.
There are some of us who never get over listening
to those songs.
I wanted to share my enthusiasm with the good
Abbé,—so told him what I had seen.
“And you think there is a bride quartered there,
mon ami?” And he shook his head: “It is more
likely a broidery girl who is drudging at a bit of
finery for some magasin de luxe, which will pay the
poor girl only half the value of her work.”
I could not gainsay this: “And have you seen
her?” said I.
“Mon ami, (very seriously) I do not know if there
is any such; and—tenez—mon enfant—gardez vous bien
d'en savoir plus que moi!”
A few weeks later—it was on a winter's morning,
after a light snow had fallen—I chanced to glance over
into the court, upon which the window that had so
piqued my curiosity looked down, and saw there the
print of a lady's slipper. It was scarce larger than my
hand—too delicately formed to have been left by a
child's foot—least of all by the foot of such children as
I saw from time to time in the neighboring hotels. I
could not but associate it with the lace veil I had seen
above. I felt sure that no broidery girl could leave
such delicate foot-print on the snow. Even the shop-girls
of the Rue de la Paix, or the tidiest Lorettes,
would be crazed with envy, at sight of so dainty a
slipper.
Through all the morning lesson—I was then reading
La Grammaire des Grammaires—I could think of
nothing but the pretty foot-track in the snow.
After lesson, the Abbé took his usual stroll with
me; and as we traversed the corridor, I threw my eye
over carelessly—as if it had been my first observation
—saying, “My dear Abbé, the snow tells tales this
morning.”
The Abbé looked curiously down, ran his eye rapidly
over the adjoining windows, shook his head expressively,
and said, as he glanced down again, “C'était un
fort joli petit soulier, mon ami.”
“Whose was it?” said I.
“Ah, mon enfant, I do not know.”
“Can any broidery girl boast such a foot?”
“Mon enfant,” (with a despairing manner) “how
could I know?”
Such little, unimportant circumstances as I have
noted, would never have occasioned remark in a court
of the Rue de Rivoli: but in this mouldy quarter,
which by common consent was given over to lodging-house
keepers, grisettes, shop-men, sub-officials, medical
students, and occasional priests, any evidences of feminine
delicacy or refinement—and as such I could not
forbear counting both foot-print, and veil—were harshly
out of place. Great misfortune, or great crime could
alone drift them into so dreary a corner of the old city.
I hinted as much to the Abbé.
“Possibly,” said he; “ah, mon enfant—if the world
were only better! Great misfortunes and great crime
are all around us.”
I seized a sly occasion to consult the concierge;
—were there any female lodgers in the house? The
little shoe-maker—with his hammer suspended, and a
merry twinkle in his eye—says, “Oui, monsieur—the
aunt of the tobacconist at the corner—belle femme!”
“No others?”
“Personne.”
And do the little windows looking upon the inner
court belong to the hotel? he doubts it; if monsieur
and comes upon the corridor—“no; he knows nothing
of them; the entrance must be two, perhaps three
doors below.”
From morning to morning, before my lessons begin,
I loiter about the entrance to the adjoining courts;
but I saw nothing to quicken my curiosity or to throw
any light upon the little waifs of story which I had
seen in the veil and the foot-prints. Stolid, commonplace
people only, plodded in and out of the entrance
gates, to which my observation was now extended; haggard
old women clattering over the pavement in sabots,
or possibly a tidily dressed shop-girl, whose figure alone
would forbid any association with the delicate foot-print
in the snow. I remarked indeed an elderly man in a
faded military cloak muffled closely about him, passing
out on one or two occasions from the third court below
the hotel of the Abbé: his figure and gait were certainly
totally unlike the habitués of the quarter; but his
presence there, even though connected with the little
window of the dreary court, would only add to the
mystery of the foot-print and of the lace.
It happened upon a certain morning, not long after,
as I paced through the open corridor, and threw a
glance up at the loop-hole upon which I had chosen
to fasten my freak of observation that I saw a slight
change: a muslin handkerchief was stretched across
embroidered border,) and while I stood regarding it, a
delicate pair of hands (the taper fingers I saw plainly)
removed the fastenings, and presently this other token
of feminine presence was gone.
I told the Abbé of my observation.
He closed his book “La Grammaire des Grammaires”—(keeping
his thumb at the place of our lesson)
and gave me, I dare say, an admirable little lecture,—
which certainly was not in the grammar. I know the
French was good; I believe the sentiment was good;
but all the while of its delivery, my imagination was
busy in conjuring into form some charming neighbor
of whom I had only seen the delicate, frail fingers, and
the wonderful foot-print on the snow.
When he had finished the lecture, we accomplished
the lesson.
My next adventure in way of discovery was with
the little concierge, who presided over the court where I
had seen the tall gentleman of the military cloak, pass
in. He was quietly dipping his roll in a bowl of coffee,
when I commenced my inquiries.
“Were there any rooms in the hotel to be let?”
Not that I desired a change from my comfortable quarters
over the river; but it seemed to me the happiest
method of conciliating a communicative temper.
“Oui, monsieur,” responds the brisk concierge, as
bowl, and with a cheering, heavy bite—takes down a
key here, and a key there, until he is provided for all
the rooms at his disposition. We mount together damp
stone stair-ways and enter upon apartments with glazed
tile floors; we mount higher to waxed, oaken parqueterie;
but I like the full glow of the sun; we must go
higher. Upon the fourth floor, there is a vacant room;
its solitary window has a striped red curtain, and it
looks out—as I suspected—upon the court of the open
corridor, where I had so long carried on my furtive observations.
The window which had particularly arrested
my attention, must be just above.
“Was there no room still higher?”
“Parbleu, il y en a une; monsieur ne se fâche pas
de monter, donc?”
No, I love the air and the sunshine. But the little
room into which he shows me looks into a strange
court I do not know; I bustle out, and toward the opposite
door.
“Pardon, monsieur; it is occupied.”
And even as he speaks, the door opens; an old
white haired gentleman, the very one I have seen in the
military cloak looks out, disturbed; and (I think it is
not a fancy) there is the whisk of a silk dress moving
within.
The conclerge makes his apologies, and we go below.
“Will the chamber occupied by the old gentleman
be vacant soon?”
“It is possible,” but he cannot truly say.
Farther down the stairs we encounter the wife of
the concierge, at her work. He appeals to her: “Does
Monsieur Verier leave soon?”
She cannot say. The marriage is off; and he may
stay.
It gives me a hint for further inquiry.
“Est-ce que ce vieux va se marier, donc?”
“Pardon, monsieur; but he has a daughter. Ah,
qu'elle est gentille! (and the concierge looks upward
reverently.) There was a marriage arranged, and the
old gentleman was to live with the daughter. But as
my wife says—it's off now: the old man has his
humors.”
So at last the bridal veil was explained.
“But does the daughter lodge here with the father?”
said I.
“Ah, no, monsieur; impossible: a chamber at fifty
francs too! It's very droll; and the daughter drives
in a grand coach to the door; but it's not often; and
my wife who showed her the chamber tells me that
their first meeting—and it was after the old gentleman
had been here a month or more—was as if they had
not met in years. She comes mostly of an evening or
early morning, when few are stirring, as if she were
shawl too—cependant elle est gentille. Tenez,” said he,
pointing to a charming little lithographic head of St.
Agnes, in his conciergerie (which we had now reached)
“voici sa tête!”
“And has she no attendant upon her visits?”
“Ma foi, I cannot tell you: once or twice a gentleman
has descended from the carriage into the court, as
if to watch for her—but who it may have been I know
no more than you. To tell you the truth, monsieur, I
have my doubts of the old gentleman's story about the
coming marriage: he has a feeble head, and talks
wildly of his daughter. I can make nothing of it. I
can make nothing of her either,—except that she has
the face of an angel.”
“Not a fallen one, I hope.” And I said it more for
the sake of giving a turn to a French phrase, than with
any seriousness. (In this light way we banter with
character!)
“Parbleu!” says the concierge indignantly, “on
ne peut pas s'y tromper: she is as pure as the snow.”
I had now a full budget of information to lay before
the Abbé, and trusted to his good nature to give me
some interpretation of this bit of history which was
evolving under his very wing. Yet the Abbé was lost;
as much lost as I. But I was glad to perceive that I
had succeeded in kindling in him a little interest in regard
strolled through the corridor, I think he looked up at
the window, where the yellow placard was hanging,
with as much curiosity as ever I had done.
A few days after, I was compelled to leave suddenly
for the South; but I counselled the good Abbé to be
constant at my old watch, and to have a story to tell
me on my return.
| I. Seven stories, with basement and attic | |