“She takes me for someone else,” thought he, and hurried on, turning his eyes away so as not to embarrass her by noticing the scantiness of her attire.
He arrived panting on the third floor, where he found Baptistin; he was talking Italian to a woman of uncertain age, who reminded him extraordinarily—though she was not so fat—of the Blafaphas’ cook.
“Your portmanteau is in No. sixteen—the third door. Take care as you pass of the pail which is in the passage.”
“I put it outside because it was leaking,” explained the woman in French.
The door of No. sixteen was open; outside No. fifteen a tin slop-pail was standing in the middle of a shiny repugnant-looking puddle, which Fleurissoire stepped across. An acrid odour emanated from it. The portmanteau was placed in full view on a chair. As soon as he got inside the stuffy room, Amédée felt his head swim, and flinging his umbrella, his shawl and his hat on to the bed, he sank into an arm-chair. His forehead was streaming; he thought he was going to faint.
“This is Madame Carola, the lady who talks French,” said Baptistin.
They had both come into the room.
“Open the window a little,” sighed Fleurissoire, who was incapable of movement.
“Goodness! how hot he is!” said Madame Carola, sponging his pallid and perspiring countenance with a little scented handkerchief, which she took out of her bodice.
“Let’s push him nearer the window.”