I knew him only by his family name; I did not know that his name was Ernest. When we met on the stairs, he smiled and we bowed. I did not try to stop him, he always went up so rapidly. I understood that he was more anxious to be up there with her than to talk with me.
It was a long time since I had met Marguerite and her young lover. On returning from Giraud’s party, I noticed much commotion in my concierge’s lodge; the husband and wife were both up, although it was after midnight, and one of them was ordinarily in bed by eleven o’clock. An old cook who lived in the house was also in their lodge; they were talking earnestly and I overheard these words:
“She is very ill; the midwife shook her head, and that’s a very bad sign.”
“Who is very ill?” I asked, as I took my candle.
“Why, monsieur, it’s little Marguerite; she has had a miscarriage.”
“What! was that poor child enceinte?”
“You don’t mean to say that you haven’t noticed it, monsieur? She was four and a half months gone.”
“Is not Monsieur Ernest with her?”
“Oh! he is like a madman. He has just gone home; it’s only a few steps away. He took our little nephew with him, so as to bring something back with him probably; for there ain’t anything at all upstairs.”
At that moment there was a loud knocking at the gate. Someone opened it and Ernest came into the courtyard with a mattress on his head; the young man had not hesitated to endanger his fine clothes by doing the work of a porter; when it is a question of helping the woman one loves, such things are not considered. Moreover, at midnight, the streets are not crowded.