She was closing the door! Terse as you like. I was helpless. “Madame est assez bien, je crois!” Dear Heaven, but didn’t one know those assez biens! Isn’t there a company in Heaven wholly recruited from those who have been assez bien, and daily augmented by those who are assez bien!
I lifted up my voice.
“Pardon, monsieur.”
I lifted up my voice in vain. So I was active. She stared at me, panting. I withdrew my first impression as to her being a nun. She was no nun. She had a crucifix and a coif, but she was no nun. She was a woman scorned. She said many things and used many words which I did not understand. But I didn’t care. I somehow thought, you know, of Iris dying.
“I am here,” I said in effect, “and here I stay until I can speak to a doctor or a matron. I am sorry, but you have made me anxious as to the lady’s health.”
“Mais je vous l’ai déjà dit, jeune homme! Madame est assez bien!”
The ordinary dingy concierge’s lodge: a black stove, a table covered with frayed red cloth, a chair, a stool, an indescribable odour, a plate of food on the table—bœuf bouilli, which is French for the salvaging of grey matter from liquid dungeons of onions, carrots and potatoes. I sat on the stool. It was unbelievable that her coif had ever been white. Somehow my eyes were transfixed by the small wooden crucifix which, like a dinghy on a choppy sea, rolled on her bosom as she ate. I wondered how long I would have to wait. I wondered if I could smoke. I wondered if this was one of those convent-nursing-homes. I wondered if one called a nun madame or mademoiselle. They were maidens presumably, so I supposed mademoiselle.
“On peut fumer, mademoiselle?”
I was wrong. She looked at me with contempt. “C’est défendu, monsieur.”
“Merci, madame.”