She dressed hurriedly, slipped on her mask and cloak, and stole into the street. The strange antiphony of the hawkers rang through the morning, and there echoed after her as she ran the well-known cry: Vous désirez quelque ch-o-o-se? This cry in the morning, and in the evening that of the Oublieux.—La joie! la joie! Voilà des oublies! ... Did one answer the other in some strange way, these morning and evening cries? It could be turned into a dialogue between Fate and a mortal, thus:—
Fate: Vous désirez quelque cho-o-o-se?
Mortal: La joie! la joie!
Fate: Voilà—l’oubli.
On she ran, careless of the surprise of the passers-by, over the Pont-Neuf, already busy, and driving its motley trade, then along the Quais on the other side, past the Louvre, and up the Rue de Richelieu, where the Chevalier lived. She had naturally never been to his rooms, but she knew where they were. She slipped in at the main doorway and up the long stairs, her heart beating somewhere up in her throat. She knew he lived on the second landing. She knocked many times before the door was opened by a lackey in a night-cap. He gaped when he first saw her, and then grinned broadly.
‘Mademoiselle must see Monsieur? Monsieur is abed, but Mademoiselle doubtless will not mind that!’
‘Tell Monsieur that Mademoiselle Troqueville must see him on urgent business,’ Madeleine said severely.
The lackey grinned again, and led her through a great bare room, surrounded by carved wooden chests, in which, doubtless, the Chevalier kept his innumerable suits of clothes. They served also as beds, chairs, and tables to the Chevalier’s army of lackeys and pages, for some were lying full length on them snoring lustily, and others, more matinal, were sitting on them cross-legged, and, wrapped in rugs, were playing at that solace of the vulgar—Lasquinet. Madeleine felt a sudden longing to be one of them, happy, lewd, soulless creatures!
She was shown into an elegant little waiting-room, full of small inlaid tables and exquisite porcelain. The walls were hung with crayon sketches, and large canvasses of well-known ladies by Mignard and Beaubrun. Some of them were in allegorical postures—there was the celebrated Précieuse, Madame de Buisson, holding a lyre and standing before a table covered with books and astronomical instruments ... she was probably meant to represent a Muse ... she was leering horribly ... was it the Comic Muse?