I arrived at Thornton’s chambers in the Rue St. Dominique. “Monsieur, est-il chez lui?” said I to the ancient porteress, who was reading one of Crebillon’s novels.
“Oui, Monsieur, au quatrieme,” was the answer. I turned to the dark and unclean staircase, and, after incredible exertion and fatigue, arrived, at last, at the elevated abode of Mr. Thornton.
“Entrez,” cried a voice, in answer to my rap. I obeyed the signal, and found myself in a room of tolerable dimensions and multiplied utilities. A decayed silk curtain of a dingy blue, drawn across a recess, separated the chambre a coucher from the salon. It was at present only half drawn, and did not, therefore, conceal the mysteries of the den within; the bed was still unmade, and apparently of no very inviting cleanliness; a red handkerchief, that served as a nightcap, hung pendant from the foot of the bed; at a little distance from it, more towards the pillow, were a shawl, a parasol, and an old slipper. On a table, which stood between the two dull, filmy windows, were placed a cracked bowl, still reeking with the lees of gin-punch, two bottles half full, a mouldy cheese, and a salad dish; on the ground beneath it lay two huge books, and a woman’s bonnet.
Thornton himself sat by a small consumptive fire, in an easy chair; another table, still spread with the appliances of breakfast, viz. a coffee-pot, a milk-jug, two cups, a broken loaf, and an empty dish, mingled with a pack of cards, one dice, and an open book de mauvais gout, stood immediately before him.
Every thing around bore some testimony of the spirit of low debauchery; and the man himself, with his flushed and sensual countenance, his unwashed hands, and the slovenly rakishness of his whole appearance, made no unfitting representation of the Genius Loci.
All that I have described, together with a flitting shadow of feminine appearance, escaping through another door, my quick eye discovered in the same instant that I made my salutation.
Thornton rose, with an air half careless and half abashed, and expressed, in more appropriate terms than his appearance warranted, his pleasurable surprise at seeing me at last. There was, however, a singularity in his conversation, which gave it an air both of shrewdness and vulgarity. This was, as may before have been noted, a profuse intermixture of proverbs, some stale, some new, some sensible enough, and all savouring of a vocabulary carefully eschewed by every man of ordinary refinement in conversation.
“I have but a small tenement,” said he, smiling; “but, thank Heaven, at Paris a man is not made by his lodgings. Small house, small care. Few garcons have indeed a more sumptuous apartment than myself.”
“True,” said I; “and if I may judge by the bottles on the opposite table, and the bonnet beneath it, you find that no abode is too humble or too exalted for the solace of the senses.”
“‘Fore Gad, you are in the right, Mr. Pelham,” replied Thornton, with a loud, coarse, chuckling laugh, which, more than a year’s conversation could have done, let me into the secrets of his character. “I care not a rush for the decorations of the table, so that the cheer be good; nor for the gew-gaws of the head-dress, as long as the face is pretty—‘the taste of the kitchen is better than the smell.’ Do you go much to Madame B—‘s in the Rue Gretry—eh, Mr. Pelham?—ah, I’ll be bound you do.”