A fine rain was falling. Then, he made up his mind not to go out all day. He would accept an invitation to dine with the Pichons, which he had been refusing for some time past, dreading another meeting with the Vuillaumes; it would please Marie, he would find opportunities of kissing her behind the doors; and, as she was always asking for books, he even thought of giving her the surprise of a quantity which he had, stowed away in one of his boxes in the loft. When he was dressed, he went down to Monsieur Gourd to get the key of this common loft, where all the tenants got rid of whatever things were in their way, or which they had no present use for.
Down below, on that damp morning, it was quite stifling in the heated staircase, the imitation marble, the tall looking-glasses, and the mahogany doors of which were covered with steam. Under the porch, a poorly clad woman, mother Pérou, to whom the Gourds paid four sons an hour for doing the heavy work of the house, was washing the pavement with plenty of water, in face of the icy-cold blast blowing from the courtyard.
“Eh! I say old ’un, just rub that a bit better, that I may not find a spot on it!” called out Monsieur Gourd, warmly covered up, standing on the threshold of his apartment.
And, Octave arriving, he talked to him of mother Pérou with the brutal domineering spirit, the mad mania for revenge, of former servants who were being served in their turn.
“A lazy creature that I can do nothing with! I should like to have seen her at the duke’s! Ah well! they stood no nonsense there! I’ll send her to the right about, if she doesn’t give me my money’s worth! That’s all I care about. But, excuse me, what is it you require, Monsieur Mouret?”
Octave asked for the key. Then the doorkeeper, without hurrying himself, continued to explain to him that, if they had chosen, Madame Gourd and he, they might have lived respectably in their own house, at Mort-la-Ville; only, Madame Gourd adored Paris, in spite of her swollen legs which prevented her getting as far as the pavement; and they were waiting until they had made their income into a round sum, their hearts almost breaking moreover and drawing back, each time that they felt a desire to go and live at last upon the little fortune which they had got together sou by sou.
“No one had better bother me,” concluded he, drawing himself up to the full height of his handsome figure. “I’m no longer working for a living. The key of the loft you said, did you not, Monsieur Mouret? Wherever have we put the key of the loft, my dear?”
Madame Gourd, tenderly seated before a wood fire, the flames of which enlivened the big light room, was drinking her coffee and milk out of a silver cup. She had no idea; perhaps in one of the drawers. And, whilst soaking her toast, she did not take her eyes off the door of the servants’ staircase, at the other end of the courtyard, looking barer and severer than ever in the rain.
“Look out! here she is!” said she suddenly, as a woman appeared in the doorway.
Monsieur Gourd at once went and placed himself before his room, so as to prevent the woman from passing, whilst she slackened her footsteps with an air of anxiety.