He said no more, but walked quickly from the room. And I breathed more freely when he was no longer there.
XVI
MADAME LANDERNOY
I felt the need of some distraction to enable me to forget the visit I had just received.
"Ah!" I thought; "I will go and hunt up the poor girl from Sceaux."
I had finished dressing. Pomponne, seeing that I was preparing to go out, planted himself in front of me, like a soldier awaiting the countersign, and said:
"Is monsieur going out?"
"As you see."
"Monsieur has no orders for me?"
"None."
"Will monsieur return to dinner?"
"Come, come, Pomponne! are you going crazy altogether?"
"I don"t think so, monsieur."
"Then why do you ask me that question? You know perfectly well that I usually dine at a table d"hote, and never at home."
"True, monsieur; but you do sometimes dine at home, when you have company, you know.--Ha! ha!"
Monsieur Pomponne felt called upon to laugh slyly and a.s.sume a mischievous look; for you must know that I dine at home only when I am entertaining a lady who fears to compromise her reputation by going to a restaurant. There are ladies who decline to go to restaurants, but are perfectly willing to go to a gentleman"s apartment. I am far from blaming them; everyone is free to act as she pleases. But it was a long time since I had entertained in my own quarters, my recent acquaintances having had no dislike for restaurants. So I simply informed Pomponne that he was a zany, and left the house.
From Rue Bleue, where I lived, to Rue Menilmontant is a long distance, but the fresh air and the exercise did me good. I thought of my charming partner, the seductive Armantine"s image was constantly before my eyes; and when I spied a woman of her stature and figure, I quickened my pace, in order to overtake her and find out if it were she. I always had my trouble for my pains, which did not deter me from doing the same thing again a few moments later. I have noticed that love always gives as much occupation to the legs as to the mind.
My amorous thoughts cooled a little as I drew near Rue Menilmontant, a street, by the way, which might well pa.s.s for a faubourg. In that quarter I met no more women who reminded me of Armantine. I called her "Armantine" to myself, although that was perhaps a slightly familiar way of speaking of a woman I had known less than twenty-four hours, and who had given me no right to claim that privilege. But when a lover is speaking to himself, is he not at liberty to apply the fondest names to the object of his adoration, and to address her by the most familiar terms, in the ecstasy of his illusions? That injures n.o.body and affords him so much pleasure! It has often been said, and justly, that: "Men are overgrown children, who must always have some plaything to fondle. With some it is ambition, honors; with others, wealth; with others, peace and repose; but with the vast majority, love."--To these last, the image of the loved one is the persistent idea that guides all their actions.
The number mentioned by Fouvenard was a long way up the street. I was not very far from the barrier, and it was easy to imagine one"s self in the country. I presumed that lodgings thereabout were not very dear. At last I found the number I sought. It was a house of great height. As I entered, I began to wonder what I should say to that young woman, whom I had never seen, and what pretext I should allege for my visit. The first step was to find if she really lived there. I found a concierge, almost entirely hidden by two cats and a dog that had established themselves upon her person and covered her face so that only the end of her nose was visible. I asked for Mademoiselle Mignonne.
The concierge managed to push her way through the cats, and responded:
"Mademoiselle Mignonne? Don"t know her."
"You don"t know her?"
"Faith, no! What does she do?"
"What does she do? Why, she works; sews or embroiders, I believe."
"No such person in the house, monsieur."
So Fouvenard had deceived us; his Mignonne was a creation of his fancy.
I was sure of it! I much preferred to find out that he had lied to us, rather than that that poor girl really existed. I had already left the house; but a few steps away, I stopped; I remembered that the girl had a family name also; perhaps she had hired a lodging in Paris under that name. So I retraced my steps to where the concierge sat amid her animals, and said:
"The person I am looking for is named Landernoy; Mignonne is her Christian name."
"Oh! Landernoy--that"s a different matter; if you had asked for that name first, you wouldn"t have had the trouble of coming back."
"You know her, then?"
"_Pardi!_ to be sure I do, as she lives in the house. Mamzelle Landernoy--Madame, I mean, for we call her _madame_ now, you see; it"s properer, considering her condition. I don"t know whether you know what I mean?"
"Yes, yes, perfectly; of course, I ought to have said _madame_."
"Oh! as to that, we know well enough that the only marriage she ever had was at the mayor"s office of the thirteenth arrondiss.e.m.e.nt! But then, what can you expect? she"s one more poor girl that"s made a misstep; but that"s no reason for heaving stones at her. The good Lord said we mustn"t heave stones at anybody--especially at poor women who"ve been weak; eh, monsieur?"
The concierge"s words led me to forgive her her cats, and I would gladly have shaken hands with her if I had not been afraid of being clawed.
"Madame," I said, "your sentiments do you honor."
"_Dame!_ I say what I think, that"s all. And then, the poor thing seems so unhappy! It ain"t that she complains the least bit--oh, no! she"s proud enough in her poverty! But, in the first place, she can"t be happy, because her seducer"s gone back on her altogether; that is, I suppose he has; for n.o.body ever comes to see her now, not even a cat--except mine; they sometimes go and bid her good-day. And then, when she came here, she had a modest little room on the fifth; and now she"s left that and taken another one right up under the eaves, with a little round window and no fireplace. In fact, you can hardly call it a room; it"s only a closet at best. But, dame! it only costs seventy francs a year, and the other room was almost twice that; and when you haven"t got anything but your work to live on--and a woman earns so little--and on the point of being a mother, too!--Still, it don"t make any difference; as I was just saying, she don"t complain. She"s making clothes for the baby; and when I go in to say good-day to her, she always shows me a little cap or a little shirt, and says:
""Look--this is for him!"--And then she smiles. Poor soul! she never smiles, only when she speaks of her child."
"But what does the poor girl live on, in heaven"s name?"
"Oh! she works, she makes linen garments; she sews mighty well; and then, she"s got a pretty taste for tr.i.m.m.i.n.g caps and headdresses; I"m sure she could have kept her first room, if she"d wanted to; but I suppose that she said to herself that, as she was going to be a mother, she must be saving and put a little something aside against the time when the child comes. And, as I tell you, she"s making him a pretty little outfit; I"m sure that there"s a dozen little caps already."
I was deeply moved by what I had heard. The concierge pointed out the staircase leading to Mignonne"s lodging, but, as she did so, she said to me:
"Have you come to give the poor woman an order for some work?"
"Yes, that is my purpose."
"This is what I was going to say, monsieur: since her--lover stopped coming to see her--a fellow with a big beard that I didn"t call very good-looking--Madame Landernoy--we call her _madame_, you know--has got to be sort of wild like; you would say she was afraid. She says to me: "If any gentlemen come to speak to me, please to say always that I ain"t in, that I"ve gone out; don"t let "em come up."--As there hasn"t been one come for a long while, I ain"t had to say anything, but I just this minute thought of her orders. However, if you mean to give her work, that can"t disturb her."
"Never fear, madame; my only desire is to try to be useful to your interesting tenant, not to distress her in any way."
"All right, then; go up--way up to the top, as long as you find stairs; then the door facing you. There"s n.o.body but Madame Landernoy up there in the daytime, anyway; the other two rooms belong to servants, who never go up till bed time."
I understood why the poor girl did not wish to receive visits from men.
After the plot of which she had been the victim, she must naturally have retained a feeling of aversion for them and must look upon them all with suspicion. In that case, I should not be warmly received, and what was I to say? I had no idea; but, no matter! I was determined to see Mignonne, and even to face her wrath.
I ascended the stairs, the first flights being broad and roomy, but the upper ones very narrow. On the fifth floor I paused to take breath; in front of me was a sort of ladder, the only means of access to the lofts which many landlords have the a.s.surance to call rooms. I know that Beranger said:
"How happy one is in a garret at twenty!"